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Quad (Star Trek)
A '''quad''' is a measurement of data size on the [[science fiction]] show ''[[Star Trek]]'', including "kiloquads," "gigaquads," and "teraquads."

The exact size of these measurements has never been divulged in the show, but are presumed to be extremely large. A line from [[Data (Star Trek)|Data]] in the Italian dialogues in "[[The Measure of a Man (TNG episode)|The Measure of a Man]]" translates this unit as [[1000000000000000 (number)||quadrillions]] of [[Bit|Bits]].

Although it originated on the show ''[[Star Trek: The Next Generation]]'' and in the [[Star Trek: The Next Generation Technical Manual|technical manual]] by the same name, the term is more often used in the series ''[[Star Trek: Voyager]]''. Several examples include:
* In "[[Lifesigns (Voyager episode)|Lifesigns]]", [[The Doctor (Star Trek)|The Doctor]] states that his program consists of more than 50 million gigaquads of memory.
* In "[[Twisted (Voyager episode)|Twisted]]", Lt. [[B'Elanna Torres]] states that 20 million gigaquads of new information has been input into the ship's computer.
* In "[[Threshold (Voyager episode)|Threshold]]", Lt. [[B'Elanna Torres]] states that 5 billion gigaquads of new information has been input into the ship's computer after downloading it from the shuttle that reached warp 10 with [[Tom Paris]].
* In "[[Someone to Watch Over Me (Voyager episode)|Someone to Watch Over Me]]", [[Seven of Nine]] collected 30,000 gigaquads of information on the subject of romance.

Given the aforementioned, it is reasonable to assume that a "quad" is 10<sup>15</sup> units, but that being unspecified it may be like the term "[[Word (computer science)|word]]" in present-day computing wherein the exact size is determined by the machine architecture. If this is the case, a "quad" using a "word-size" of one bit would be more-or-less equal to a present-day "[[petabit]]" or 10<sup>15</sup> bits.

==Trivia==

The '''Quad''' is used as a unit of hard disc and memory space in the computer game [[Uplink (computer game)|Uplink]].

==External links==
{{memoryalpha|Quad|Quad}}

[[Category:Star Trek terminology]]