Warp speed and travel times

[WaveMan]

A star Trek example of 'speed of plot' was this

In late-2373, the Valiant began a three month training cruise mission to circumnavigate the entire Federation before returning home. The plan was for the cadets to run the ship while the officers aboard observed and critiqued their performance.

A Defiant class vessel is capable of sustaining warp 9.2 and the trip would take 6 YEARS (circumnavigate the Federation)

Yeah I had forgotten about Han and the whole parsec quote, poor writing and displays a level of ignorance that is infuriating.
a parsec is a unit of measure and is equal to about 3.26ly. BTW the word parsec is named from an abbreviation of the parallax of one arcsecond

As I mentioned in previous posts the whole hyperdrive reliability issue was really over the top, they were always broken.


The best way I can explain the difference between SW vs ST is Star Trek is science fiction, Star Wars is science fantasy.

[Cpt. Lundgren]

A Defiant class vessel is capable of sustaining warp 9.2 and the trip would take 6 YEARS (circumnavigate the Federation)

Except the interpolation of Voyager needing 80 years to get back, what is the source of it taking 6 years? Has there ever been anything on-screen matching that number?

As I mentioned in previous posts the whole hyperdrive reliability issue was really over the top, they were always broken.

Well, it is just the Falcon we have seen with that problem, and it is referred to a "piece of junk" even if someone claims to have "made some special modifications" himself Not sure Solo and Chewie are as good mechanics as they pretend or think themselves.

In a way, they might be more like the guys that puts a too big engine into a car, without understanding what will happen to the transmission.

The best way I can explain the difference between SW vs ST is Star Trek is science fiction, Star Wars is science fantasy.

Well, Star Trek is quite soft science fiction. But considering some of the actors mentioned that George Lucas had two instructions as a director, which he kept repeating, "faster" and "more intense", Star Wars probably is a lot more science fiction than it could have been.

[WaveMan]

Except the interpolation of Voyager needing 80 years to get back, what is the source of it taking 6 years? Has there ever been anything on-screen matching that number?

Defiant class stats taken from Space Dock Federation recognition manual. (I didn't take into account the Defiant's class problem with exceeding warp 9 either)
page 213 DS9 RPG source book warp speed chart

here it is

[WaveMan]

I think in regards to Voyager getting home, they rounded it out to sustaining warp 8 (10 years to travel 10000ly) but that still isn't possible no vessel carry's enough consumables to be able to travel continuously for years at a time (as per space dock the most consumables supplied to any ship is 3 years). If they had done what would be a realistic sustainable speed (warp 6) it would have taken 25 years to travel 10000ly....Also as far I can find Voyager was 700000ly (mentioned in the Caretaker episode) distant from Earth and they quoted a 75 year journey. (but this is being pedantic)



there has been a lot of discussion concerning Voyager, and the fact that they should have headed for the Bajorian wormhole and gone home that way.

[Cpt. Lundgren]

That table is in the LUG TNG RPG as well. I have had issues with that table since I bought the book. In my opinion, someone probably wasn't thinking when creating that table, and I'm curious if it was someone at Paramount or Last Unicorn Games. Just the point of holding the Federation together if it took that long time. A few months perhaps, but years?

Unfortunately, there is no indication for example of how long it took to get to Deneb IV (Encounter at Farpoint). If Debeb is the same one as in the Hipparcos catalog, it is about 1500ly away from earth. While I got a "it is a bit outside normal Federation space", I never took it as "it takes a year to get there."

[WaveMan]

travel times are a big contention, in the films (as we all know) Federation star ships seem to zip around the galaxy in no time, even the communications was out of whack (the only time they actally showcased this was when the Enterprise-D was communicating with the Sheliak), time delay makes communications very difficult, yet on the show many of the comms conversations were shown to be near instantaneous.

I found it interesting in Enterprise Archer wanted to travel to Qo'noS (about 90 ly away from Sol) and it only took 4.5 days yet by the chart it would have taken around 8 months (at warp 4.5)

http://en.memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Qo'noS

I personally think they should have made the ship's capable of achieving and sustaining very high warp speeds (warp 9.99 gets you where you need to be fast), or just say bugger it and introduce transwarp earlier (they did mention transwarp on the Enterprise-B but it proved to no work)

http://en.memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Excelsior_class

[Cpt. Lundgren]

In my opinion, someone probably wasn't thinking when creating that table, and I'm curious if it was someone at Paramount or Last Unicorn Games.

To answer my own question... The Star Trek Encyclopedia, page 556, Warp Factor Chart. It is the same one.

[WaveMan]

it didn't help either that they continuously changed the warp rating system, they should have defined it and then stuck with it.

[Cpt. Lundgren]

I found it interesting in Enterprise Archer wanted to travel to Qo'noS (about 90 ly away from Sol) and it only took 4.5 days yet by the chart it would have taken around 8 months (at warp 4.5)

Then, don't forget that Archer also probably used the TOS warp scale, and not the TNG one. So 4.5 would probably mean just under warp 4 on the TNG scale.

But doing it in 4.5 days would probably make that Enterprise about as fast as the Defiant. Wasn't there a DS9 episode where Defiant went from DS9 to Qo'nos and back in two weeks?

[WaveMan]

I just found this, concerning Deneb IV

Alpha Cygni IV also known as Deneb IV was the planet seen in "Encounter at Farpoint". The planet was located 3,320 light years from the Sol system. As the homeworld of the humanoid Bandi, the planet was united under a single government, Bandi, which had its seat in Farpoint. In 2364, this world signed a treaty with Starfleet. Under the terms of this treaty, Starfleet would administer Farpoint Station. Between 2364 and 2378, this world had been admitted to the Federation. In the census of 2370, there were counted an estimated 450 million Bandi living on the planet. Points of interest were Farpoint Station and Old City. (Pgs. 12-13, 34, 41, "United Federation of Planets I")

http://en.memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Deneb_IV

The Enterprise would not have undertaken such a journey as it's first mission, a 3320ly journey would have taken around 3 years of travelling continuously.

this link is also very interesting

http://www.stdimension.org/int/Carto...stanceList.htm

[Cpt. Lundgren]

The Enterprise would not have undertaken such a journey as it's first mission, a 3320ly journey would have taken around 3 years of travelling continuously.

Even if they had, both Beverly Crusher and Riker (and Geordi) meets up with the ship at Farpoint. Geordi was "just a helmsman" at the time, but the second in command and the chief medical officer... Picard must be very picky if he would decide to have those positions vacant for a year or three.

[WaveMan]

Borg travel times seem to be muddled up as well, transwarp conduits allow vessels to travel at 20x maximum Federation warp speeds (assuming that maximum is warp 9.9, the usual Galaxy class maximum) around 61060 TSL (hence it would take 55.75 days to travel across the Federation utilizing a Transwarp conduit), while blindingly fast many scenes depicted it as a worm hole like travel, almost instantaneous across vast distances.

But this isn't just happening in Trek, Wars was just as bad. Wars did seem to make their Hyperdrive's far faster and smaller then the equivalent Trek Warp drive.

In one wookieepedia post it stated "the hyperdrive allowed travelers to traverse a galaxy spanning over 120,000 light years in only a few hours or days, the exact travel time depending on a number of factors including destination, point of origin, route, and class of hyperdrive." I doubt even the Voth could achieve 120000ly in a few hours. (that's like 667ly/min for 3 hours), even doing that kind of distance in a few days is a miraculous achievement.

The only realistic way to maintain a vast Federation (spanning 8000-10000ly)is to go the way of Star Gate, seed every habitable world with a Star Gate (Iconian Gateway's would work a treat). Problems also occur when one starts to contemplate inter-galactic travel, even at high transwarp, travelling between galaxies is a massive undertaking.

[The Tatterdemalion King]

The only realistic way to maintain a vast Federation (spanning 8000-10000ly)

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[WaveMan]

should I have said practical instead of realistic? (practical is a synonym of realistic)

[Cpt. Lundgren]

The only realistic way to maintain a vast Federation (spanning 8000-10000ly)is to go the way of Star Gate, seed every habitable world with a Star Gate (Iconian Gateway's would work a treat). Problems also occur when one starts to contemplate inter-galactic travel, even at high transwarp, travelling between galaxies is a massive undertaking.

In the age of sails, empires were kept together even if it took month to get back an forth. The Federation isn't subjugated and controlled colonies, and they have ways to communicate that is faster than the ships. So I don't think Star Gates or Iconian Gateways would be necessary (but they sure would be helpful).

I don't think it should be more than a few months from edge to edge. But a cadet cruise around it in three month might be a bit to fast.

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Play nice