Cartography

A page covering stellar cartography in Project Daybreak.

Overview
In general, Daybreak's UNSC stellar cartography is based on the Galactic Coordinate System, supplemented by various custom systems.


 * Galactic longitude marks stars and other objects' position "horizontally" on the galactic plane, also known as the galactic equator in the context of the coordinate system. Longitude is measured in degrees, with 0° being the direction of the galactic center relative to Earth, 90° being roughly spinward, 180° directly toward the galactic rim, and 270° being pointed roughly at the trailing or antispinward direction.


 * Galactic latitude marks objects' relative position north or south of the galactic equator, as viewed from Earth; it is measured in degrees, though the most useful concepts in most cases are the galactic north and galactic south. The galactic north pole is located 90° "above" the galactic plane, while the south pole is located 90° "below" it. The corresponding Covenant concepts are "zenith" and "nadir", respectively.

The terms Coreward/Rimward and Spinward/Antispinward (or Trailing) are also frequently used to indicate directions relative to the galactic disk.

The Milky Way
The home galaxy of humanity, the Covenant species and the various peripheral civilizations they came into contact with, as well as the long-vanished Forerunners.

The Orion Arm
Also known as the Orion Spur or Local Arm, and called the Raan-Uchaal Bridge by the Covenant; the minor spiral arm housing both humanity and most of the Covenant's fixed territories. The Orion Arm was also the home arm of the Forerunners, whose core worlds were evidently located within and around a vast star-forming region and molecular cloud aggregation now known as the Orion Complex, located just over 1,000 lightyears from Earth.

The Covenant Sphere
The Covenant encompasses a large region of the Orion Arm, mainly located galactic antispinward of humanity's territories; their oldest worlds are located around 3,000 lightyears from Earth.

The Human Sphere
Humanity's sphere of influence. As of 2565, it is still largely concentrated on a 200-light year radius within an interstellar void known as the Local Bubble.

The Siakar Expanse
The Siakar Expanse is a former Covenant administrative territory known as a domain. It is located some 1,000 light-years from Earth close to the Orion Complex, and is thus one of the closest Covenant territories to humanity. It is also notable as the termination point of the Pleiades Corridor, the most stable and trafficked slipspace route between the human and Covenant spheres in the post-war era.