posted
I kind of dought that even ships full of fuel could substain a speed of warp 9.9 or warp 9.99 for 5 years. Sure the Prometheus was "crusing," but from DS9 we know that the distance from the federation core to the romulan empire if not very far....
And the ships rescuing Voyager don't need to already be out 20,000 lys....If we take the value of the federation MEMBER WORLDS being spread across 8,000 lys, then ships alunched from a more ditant member world would be only 16,000 lys from Voyager. Now if the federation has colonies up to 5,000 lys from earth in either direction (from the value of the UFP being 10,000 lys across) this distance is reduced to 15,000 lys.
However, this is still a 30 year trip out to 20,000 lys from earth and back to the UFP. I think is is plausible that in the UFP's expansion, they've made freinds with powers much further out. Let's say another 5,000 lys out, or 10,000 lys from earth. At this point it would be only 10,000 lys to reach a distance 20,000 lys from earth, or 10,000 lys from Voyager. A vessel on a 20-year deep space mission could have reached its turn around point 10,000 lys from its base, or 20,000 lys from earth, when it was reassigned through that midas array com system to rescue Voyager. Or perhaps the vessel was only on a ten year mission. here's how: a wormhole opens up near that base 10,000 lys from earth. The wormhole extends to a point 10,000 lys further out. An expedition might be sent through, traversing 10,000 lys in seconds. The expedition would then spend 10 years getting back to base, reducing the mission time to 10 years. From Janeyway's comment that voyager could use wormhole shorcuts on its way home, perhaps wormholes are more commong then we might have thought, just that voyager hasn;t been lucky enough to find any that would take time off of its trip.
well, that was kinda long, i hope it makes sense.....
posted
What Starfleet really needs are Stargates! Actually I'm surprised that they haven't considered trying to build an artifical wormhole that works kind of like a stargate. But if they had something on a large scale a starship could enter at one end, say Bajor, and exit out the other end at Earth in only minutes.
------------------ "If at first you don't succeed, skydiving isn't for you." Federation Starship Datalink - On that annoying Tripod server.
posted
Of course, did Admiral Hayes ever say that the rescue ships were going to be from the Federation? They might be Romulan or Klingon ships. Wouldn't that be interesting!
------------------ "How's your 13th chromosome? Missing a couple of base pairs in gene 178?"
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posted
That would mean though that either the romulans or the klingons had outposts and ships pretty far out from their homeworlds. How would having ships out that far help in protecting their empires? And neither the klingons nor the romulans i think would be interested in exploring that far out...they have so many other places to explore and conquer closer to home. I think its more likely that they will be federation vessels, out there for pure exploration reasons. Besides, I think that if the ship[s weren't starfleet, hayes woulda mentioned that they weren't. imagine what voyager would do if they came upon two romulan warbirds "claiming" to be a rescue mission.
posted
Hayes did say that "with any luck" the ships would be there in a few years. This could mean w/ the same luck that Voyager has been having all along. This would mean that Voyager is about a decade away at the pace they've been going. Does this sound right?
------------------ "The search and the arrest provided several hours of entertainment in the neighborhood." -"Worm Suspect Arrested", Wired News
posted
This makes sense, even if the numbers don't match exactly.
So far, Voyager has traveled to within 30,000 ly of her goal in six years, from a starting point that appears to have been 75,000 ly away from the goal. So the ship has traveled AT LEAST 45,000 ly in six years. At that rate, she should be back home in five years or less - so the said deep-space explorers could actually be deployed to meet her in Earth orbit!
However, I'm sure the admiral would be making a slightly more conservative estimate. Some of the boosts the Voyager has gotten have been flukes that are unlikely to be repeated during the remainder of the journey (hitchhiking with the Borg, getting boost from Kes). Others can very well be repeated (another transwarp experiment, various small jumps from wormholes and minor boosts from random alien cultures). it would suffice for Voyager to move at *half* her current speed to be at the 20,000 ly milestone in five years. The deep-space explorers could be anywhere between 5,000 and 20,000 ly from home, assuming they move at 1000 ly per year and are supposed to perform their mission using just one generation of human crew...
posted
By this point we've all made the argument so complicated, it sway either way, with the recue ships being prmethues class or ambassador, 5,000 lys from earth or 20,000lys. I'm just gonna take the ambassador or cheyenne or some other older class rescue ships at a distance of 20,000 lys cause I like the view of the UFP it gives. Others can taker their own viewpoints. To find out for sure, we'll just have to keep watching Voyager I guess.
posted
I always thought it might be cool for starfleet to have deep-space missions. No not Olympia 4 years out and 4 years back missions, but a good 20+ year round trip. A mission like this may not really be feasible for humans, but for a Vulcan or El Aurian (or any other long lived Fed species) it is more logical.
[This message has been edited by Obi Juan (edited May 24, 2000).]
posted
Deep Space Missions are possible. Capt Picard was assigned to a 22 yr mission for the stargazer although the ships 20 years out will probably be one of the older ships.
------------------ "We set sail on this new sea because their is new knowledge to be gained and new rights to be won" John F Kennedy
posted
Er, a 20-year mission is not a 20-year deep space mission if you keep returning to Earth every weekend, as Picard seemed to do. What I'd like to see would be a ship dedicated to exploration of faraway space, which requires the vessel to stubbornly plow her way outwards for ten years without stopping, then explore around for a year or so, and then return, preferably along a different route.
I take back what I argued earlier: standard Starfleet ships should be sufficient for these deep-space assignments, with minor modifications. I guess Starfleet sends a certain percentage of all the big ship classes to such missions, while leaving the majority to perform nearspace missions in the style of the various Enterprises. There could still be a couple of Ambassadors in deep space returning from a mission begun in 2339 or so...
posted
That could explain where the ambassadors were furing the dominion war. they were still out in deep space. the galaxies were only so close because the romulans came out of isolation and the borg were discovereed in their early years of operation, so they were kept close to the UFP core to protect it.
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