posted
We know that TNG had a permanent lack of starships while DS9 featured hundreds or even thousands of them at a time. I was looking for a possible explanation. Let me suggest this calculation:
The Federation is roughly 200ly across in my latest theories, Chris makes the area even smaller. Let's assume the territory is 50ly thick, for most of the stars are roughly in the same galactic plane (I would have to check the thickness more exactly, though). I wouldn't believe the territory is thicker than it is wide, since the main direction for expansion would be the galactic plane. This gives a volume of pi*100^2*50ly^3 = 1.57 million cubic lightyears. With a fleet strength of 7000 (my favorite number recently) there would be an average of 224 cubic lightyears per starship. Assuming a uniform distribution we get one starship every 6ly which is a credible figure. Assuming that the core of the Federation and critical areas like the Cardassian border or the Romulan Neutral Zone will have a denser starship distribution, it is reasonable that there was usually no starship in a one-day range in the outer regions where the E-D operated. On the other hand, there are supposed to be regions that have a hostile environment (nebulae, badlands and such) and other regions without anything interesting yielding a higher density in the other regions, but the order of size remains.
Summarizing, a fleet strength of up to 10000 or even more is absolutely credible and even complies with TNG.
Now try to scale up the Federation to the official size of 8000ly across and a thickness of 500ly, spanning most of the thickness of the galaxy. The according density for 7000 starships would be 1 ship every 153ly! This means, one ship would be all alone in a volume that is as large as the whole recently proposed small Federation. It is absolutely impossible to achieve anything (exploration, diplomacy, defense) in this vast territory with so few ships. There should be millions of ships in Starfleet in this case to hold the Federation together.
------------------ "Naomi Wildman, sub-unit of Ensign Samantha Wildman, state your intentions." (VOY: "Infinite Regress") Ex Astris Scientia
The First One
A lovely little thinker, but a bugger when he's pissed
Member # 35
posted
It's not chess, you know. They don't have to have a starship in every cubic lightyear to be able to say "this space belongs to the Federation."
Registered: Mar 1999
| IP: Logged
posted
No, it's not necessary to have a starship in each solar system, and it's often enough mentioned that there is no starship in a whole sector of supposedly (20ly)^3. The point is that, aside from the years required to cross the Federation even for the fastest ships, aliens could easily take over one of the remote planets (e.g. Rigel), and Starfleet would need weeks to get at least a few ships to help. The military use of Starfleet would be zero, and the armament useless, except for self-defense.
------------------ "Naomi Wildman, sub-unit of Ensign Samantha Wildman, state your intentions." (VOY: "Infinite Regress") Ex Astris Scientia
posted
This is of course assuming that the Federation expands the full height of the galaxy. I doubt this, personally. I also tend to think that Starfleet has more than 7000 ships. Lets not also forget about starbases. When DS9 first started, all they had were runabouts. I tend to think alot of the outer colonies and starbases are supported quite like that. With Starships coming by every now and then. You calculations are very logical though. One thing that you should try to take into account is that federation space isn't shaped like a box
Jim Phelps
watches Voyager AFTER 51030
Member # 102
posted
And then there are all the...ahem...warp highways. Warp speed varies, there is no question about it. Perhaps not over longer distances, such as Voyager's 70,000 light-years, but certainly within a couple hundred to a couple of thousand lightyears. We've seen numerous examples of that, from TOS' 990.7 light-years in 12 hours, to Generations' 3-lightyear trip in maybe ten minutes (everybody who thinks the Ent-B took 16 hours to reach the Lakul please raise hands).
Boris
------------------ "Wrong again. Although we want to be scientifically accurate, we've found that selection of [Photon Energy Plasma Scientifically Inaccurate as a major Star Trek format error] usually indicates a preoccupation with science and gadgetry over people and story."
---a Writers' Test from the Original Series Writer's Guide
posted
I've been rewatching some 1st season TNG stuff, and the Starfleet painted there looks thinly spread indeed. Rendezvousing with other ships seems as rare and special an occasion as it was in TOS. In "Conspiracy", the E-D is said to have been out in the sticks and so out of touch with Starfleet that the little buggers managed to take over most of it. In "The Neutral Zone", this ship is the only one in the admittedly quite Romulan Neutral Zone (in a region of it from where a trip to Earth could take months, according to dialogue).
One might well say that starship density comes in three grades: core worlds/war zones, where there are enough ships to really respond to a military crisis; outer holdings some 500 ly off, where single starships can respond to various crises and patrol a region perhaps ten ly across each; and the exploration zones thousands of ly off, where a single ship "patrols" regions of space 100 ly across or more, or 100 days or more of travel time.
Add to this not just one core, but perhaps three: one around Earth, one around Rigel and one around Deneb. Between these would be wide regions of space where the Federation does not mount a credible defence, but any enemy contemplating an invasion would have to realize that any of the three cores can send a retaliatory fleet to take the occupied system back at their leisure - and the system is beyond replenishment range from the viewpoint of the invader, too.
So the Federation could really be 8,000 ly across, from the most rotationward member system in the fringes of the Deneb garrisons to the most rimward holding within retaliation reach of the Rigel garrisons. Ships within the core regions would travel fast, either along warp highways or simply by straining their engines since the RAC-or ADAC-equivalent is never far away if the engines give. Ships between the regions suffer from the 1000 ly/y limit, and travel times between cores are measured in years except for the biggest Starfleet explorer ships. Most of the 1st season TNG would take place near Deneb, then, with the time between "We'll Always have Paris" and "Conspiracy" preferably spent on a three-month journey towards Earth...
posted
Since I don't believe in warp highways and the distance to Deneb or Rigel is already a problem, I don't want to complicate it by saying that even a lot of space beyond it belongs to the Federation. The Federation can hardly claim a space where maybe 1 out of 100,000 star systems has an outpost or a starship drops by every few decades.
The worst problem is that *all* episodes and movies suggest that Earth, Bajor, Cardassia, Ferenginar, Romulus and maybe also Kronos are very close to each other. I doubt warp highways would be used in all directions. They should play a very big role. Especially keeping in mind that Star Trek opponents keep on bashing the show because each and everything is explained ("See this isolytic metadisruptor. It works on a techobabbion discharge basis, and BTW, I will kill you with it.") I wonder how one can assume the existence of warp highways that are *never* mentioned.
Striker: You mean shaped like a cylinder . Actually, I would have used an ellipsoid, but I was too lazy to get the geometry book.
About the lateral extension vs. thickness of Federation space: The galaxy is about 1000ly thick. Make that 500ly for the interesting region with a considerable star densitity. If the Federation and its starships behaved like statistical particles, Federation space would be more or less a bullet. The lateral movement is somewhat more interesting, but why not explore and incorporate territories that are closer, but in vertical direction?
If the Federation is 8000ly across, it would most likely occupy the whole thickness of 500ly. If it's only 200ly, I reckon the depth wouldn't be so much smaller than these 200ly. I was generous to assume only 50ly.
Another approach: I have taken the values from Christian's famous list of known stars and calculated the averages and standard deviations from both the plane distances and the "heights" of the stars above the galactic plane. http://www.stdimension.de/int/Cartography/RealStars.htm
1) a very very rough estimation for the diameter would be 400ly, taking the average distance as radius, and the height would be 180ly. This doesn't take into account that single stars are much farther away and it doesn't account for the many member planets whose positions are unknown. Anyway, this works much better than Picard's (pretentious) "8000ly across". Hey, he also made the E-E 15m longer! Definitely a "man-explains-technical-things-to-a-woman-effect". ;-)
2) irrespective of the absolute size this suggests that the diameter/height ratio of the Federation ellipsoid should be around 2.5.
The high standard deviations are because most of the mentioned stars are very close (only a few lightyears), while other stars are very far away, and the latter contribute a lot to it.
Cartman
just made by the Presbyterian Church
Member # 256
posted
It is indeed more likely that the Federation is "only" a few hundred lightyears in diameter but let's not forget about all the member worlds: the Feds have about 150 members which are all spread out across the AQ (they would be packed together very tight otherwise) I am not sure, but I do not believe that the stellar density (per 100 cubic lightyears) in this part of the galaxy can conform with all these canon facts and the logical assumptions that follow out of them (since the numbers and positions of M-class planets also need to be in check with this)
On the other hand, it didn't take the E-D that long to travel to sector 001 from Wolf 359 (which is a real star, 7.8 lightyears away) so they either pushed the engines very hard in The Best of Both Worlds, or the entire warpscale is inaccurate and starships are actually much faster than what has been assumed so far (though this is inconsistent too, for it would mean that Voyager should be able to cover the 70.000 lightyear trip a lot quicker)
My guess is that when SF's vessels have access to outposts/starbases (in the AQ) they will travel at, say, warp 9.6 for longer periods of time since they can easily undergo maintainance every so often.
------------------ "Cry havoc and let's slip the dogs of Evil"
posted
Well don't forget that the NCC ships are probably just the 'fleet' ships - I reckon there are thousands and thousands of smaller support ships - transports/science vessels/cargo vessels etc. etc. that I reckon on a good day shipping lanes in solar systems of core worlds and between major areas like the Rigel system are swarming with ships like Courouscant in Star Wars.
------------------ "Its a CLOCK!" - Sisko, "Dramatis Personae" DS9.
posted
About the Neutral Zone...Don't forget that there is that security field to prevent Cloaked ships from passing into federation space. I would assume that they have would keep a lesser force on standby there.
Also, during the TNG era I believe the reason for a lack of starships in the area is due to the fact that the Romulans hadn't been heard from for about 30 years. I'll bet Starfleet felt there wasn't much need to keep a large number of ships in the area.
Whatever the number of ships are in the TNG era, it's a fact that starfleet must of been pumping out ships like crazy during the war.
------------------ -Striker kob.diabloii.net
[This message has been edited by Striker (edited December 01, 1999).]
------------------ Elim Garak: "Oh, it's just Garak. Plain, simple Garak. Now, good day to you, Doctor. I'm so glad to have made such an... interesting new friend today." (DS9: "Past Prologue")
. Actually, I would have used an ellipsoid, but I was too lazy to get the geometry book.
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