The answer that allows me to sleep at night is that the warp factor-to-light-years-travelled conversion scale is really about as comprehendible as the TOS stardate system or Saavik's ability to mysteriously shape-shift between Star Trek II and III.
Yes, the Federation is 8000 years across. And yes, you can fly from one side to the other in a year. Yes, Deep Space Nine is on its "edge," but yes, it's a 13 day trip or less on the Defiant if you travel from Earth to Ferenginar to there.
Timo Saloniemi
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Although personally, I also prefer to go with the idea that Okuda was smoking crack when he was calculating the warp speed scale, and all ships are about 10 times as fast as he says.
...and within seven seasons Voyager would have reached the Alpha Quadrant with nominal speed?
Warp speeds are a plot device! They've always been a plot device! Warp is a way to explain why ships can pass enormous spans of distance in the course of one episode. It's not supposed to become the seat of a scientific debate, it's meant to escape one by not using relativistic speeds.
This is one of those 'suspension of disbelief' issues.
[ October 22, 2001: Message edited by: The Mighty Monkey of Mim ]
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Originally posted by Bernd:
...and within seven seasons Voyager would have reached the Alpha Quadrant with nominal speed?
For what it's worth, logistics could explain the expansion of a 7 year trip into a 70 year trip. The ship can't continuously operate warp drive for 7 years; it's got to refuel, restrock, repair, and so on. We've never seen long-term warp drive before. Maybe travelling at 10000 c works for a month or so, but any more and you blow out your warp coils... so Voyager had to maintain a slower average speed if she wanted to keep moving.
Not that I actually believe any of that. The old warp-variable idea works best for me, especially with the corrolary that they're only useful after you've mapped them. Federation ships can follow well-known routes and cross 8000 light-years in a few weeks, while Voyager just plows ahead and takes a year.
The TNG TM warp scale specifically states that the values are approximate for average conditions. If you're in a really good area for subspace travel, Warp 2 might actually be 15c instead of 10c [Warp 2 being the point at which in an average area you are outputing energy which gets you to the speed of 10c, but at this point in space that energy level gets 15c]. In other areas, Warp 2 might be 5c--- meaning just the opposite of the above the standard power output gets you 5c instead of 10c.
At the same time, what about wormholes? Isn't the Federation big enough to have some wormholes in it, if not like the Bajoran Wormhole, then temporary ones that allow some ships to cross great distances.
There are other phenomena as well... but the way I see it, there isn't much to bend in this area. What drives me crazy is Voyager's path home. The Bajoran Wormhole was MUCH MUCH MUCH MUCH closer, maybe only 1/3 the distance they traveled in the entire series [let's not talk about the distance to destination]. Plain stupidity. After that, what happened to the Cytherians? The Federation has/had diplomatic relations with them before... why did Voyager ignore them completely and plot a course straight for Earth?
No wonder I had such a big problem with Voyager, the entire plot of the show was wrong. They brought their prediciment upon themselves. They would have spent 15, maybe only 10 years traveling to the Bajoran Wormhole [and for those that are worried about the Dominion, Voyager would not have been within that area until after the war ended].
Later, J
But the 'Voyager should have gone to the Gamma Quadrant theory'? Bullshit.
The Bajoran wormhole collapsed a bunch of times during DS9.. it was threatened by collapse a bunch more times. The crew of Voyager knew this. Voyager left Deep Space Nine shortly after 'The Search' so they knew that there was a powerful Dominion on the other side, and that it was possible to collapse the wormhole as a failsafe to full scale war, as they tried to do in 'By Inferno's Light.' They knew the Odyssey had been destroyed, they knew that Sisko had gone ahead and destroyed the wormhole in the Vorta mind-simulation, and they knew that the Prophets had closed the wormhole in a fit of pique when it was first discovered. Heading for such an unstable place would have been such a silly idea. Add to that the fact that if things had only gone slightly differently after the wormhole was closed for quite a while at the beginning of the war, and Voyager would have been stuck in the middle of the Dominion with no wormhole, or later, a wormhole with a huge self-replicating minefield on the other side.
And you say the war would have been over by the time they got there? How were they supposed to know that? Order DS9 eps on videocassette from Sci-Fi Bookclub?
*runs from the room screaming*
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But the 'Voyager should have gone to the Gamma Quadrant theory'?
Bullshit.
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Heading for such an unstable place would have been such a silly idea.
And heading straight for Borg space isn't? So far as Janeway & co. knew, the only ship that managed to defeat a Borg ship was the E-D, and even she didn't out-muscle it. Realistically speaking, to expect a single, less powerful ship to sail clean through the heart of Borg territory unscratched is hogwash.
You could at least talk to the Dominion; if it hadn't been for Species 8472, the Borg would have had no reason not to assimilate Voyager's crew. So, at least in my book, the choice between the Gamma and Delta quadrants should have been a no-brainer.
Does anyone else know what I am talking about? The site has beautiful, detailed maps, and the guy obviously put a lot of effort into his work.
I don't know about the Voyager not being able to make it through Borg space without Species 1-800-something. I think that the dedication, ingeniuity, passion, faith, lack of character and unlimited supply of plot devices of the crew of USS Voyager would have defeated anything that gets in their way.
"Remodulate the shield frequency! Captain, time for a new hair-doo!"
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Originally posted by TSN:
Argh! Will everyone stop it w/ the Romulan impulse drive thing?! That's not what Scotty said! "Power", not "drive"! How often must this foolishness be disputed?! AAAAAHHHH!!!*runs from the room screaming*
All Scotty says about their power is "simple impulse". Now, in physics the definition of impulse (Oxford Consise Science Dictionary) s "The product of a force F and the time t for which it acts...The impulse of a force acting for a given time interval is equal to the change in momentum produced over that interval." That's motion, not power.
Theoretically, I suppose that if impulse engines were fusion powered, impulse could become a synonym for fusion...but I suspect that's not what the author's intended.
My take on it was always that the ship could only move at impulse power while cloaked. But this leads to other problems (like how far back do you hgave to cloak in order to sneak up on a sensor laden outpost?)
I'd love to see the memo trail for this episode and if that line was the product of one!
runs away screaming, tripping over a dead horse branded Romulan Warp Drive Debate on the way
. . . Just wondering?
Janeway's decision not to go for the Gamma wormhole has been supported by three main lines of argument so far:
1) The trip would not be markedly shorter.
2) The wormhole might not be there when they arrive.
3) There are known dangers en route.
Now, the first semi-official map about Voyager's distress was in the DS9 Tech Manual, and it indeed supported the idea that the trip would not have been shortened much. And definitely it would have been lengthened considerably if the wormhole had been unavailable. The canonical chart seen in the final VOY episodes (this one) further reinforces the view - Ocampa City, Earth and the wormhole form an almost equilateral triangle.
The second point has already been addressed - Janeway knew that the wormhole was prissy as a princess. Nothing further on that.
The third point bears closer examination. At that point, Janeway knew where the Dominion was - swarming around the wormhole mouth (although later events would prove that they weren't that big a presence in the region, Janeway would not know THAT). Did she know where the Borg were? The only episode to suggest that they could be in Delta was "Descent", and even there it was a minor reference in one of the graphics, not a verbal mention or a plot point. And the wormhole is small, but Delta is big - the chances of missing the Borg would be pretty good, while the chances of missing the wormhole and thus the Dominion would be zero if the goal was to *reach* the said wormhole.
Perhaps it would have been a good idea to mention the impossibility of the Gamma Gambit in a side remark in some early Voyager episode. That would have made the audience realize that the writers recognized the existence of the other Trek show at least. But the soundness of Janeway's decision doesn't depend on us hearing her spell it out for us.
Timo Saloniemi