So I did some calculations based on numbers provided by Kirsten Beyer... at slipstream velocity, it would only take Voyager two months to reach the Andromeda Galaxy. I wonder how long it'll take for us to see a Voyager novel set in another galaxy.
In Kirsten Beyer's new Star Trek: Voyager novels, slipstream DOES work. ("Full Circle," "Unworthy," & "Children of the Storm")
Now we're talking some serious exploration 'To seek out new life and new civilizations' indeed. If we get a Voyager novel in the future set in another galaxy I will be thrilled!
Wrong forum. What happens in the novels is interesting but hypothetical and more imaginary than what has happened in the less imaginary television adventures.
In the novelization of Star Trek III, Captain Flynn is already in the Andromeda galaxy, surveying a supernova. How the hell she got there aboard a Miranda-class ship is left totally unexplained. I always thought, "there's some awesome story there", but it was never told Anywho, I can't really see Voyager going extra-galactic on her current Borg/Caeliar hunt. Unless they find some evidence they might have a presence in other galaxies - which I guess is quite plausible. One has been around for centuries, the other has a limitless power source.
It's been a very long time since I read that novelization, but considering Vonda McIntyre wrote it, would that be Mandala Flynn, who was first introduced in The Entropy Effect? If so, she's not a canon character. She's McIntyre's invention, and a somewhat "Mary Sue" sort who can do just about anything.
It wasn't all that inconceivable back then, IMO. Vonda McIntyre did a lot of extrapolating from onscreen material rather than from reference books that implied much slower warp speeds than what was shown during TOS. I think she deduced that Starfleet had nearly fifteen years to study and substantially improve upon the Kelvans' engine modifications to the Enterprise in "By Any Other Name," making intergalactic travel now feasible in a relatively short length of time.
Was she writing in the gap? Thinking that star trek on TV was dead and gone? Novels were the king of the castle. Vonda was a god and the entire Star Trek universe was hers. Picards arrival must have shattered her. Gods, looking at the dates, the first movie might have blindsided Vonda when she was brainstorming for her novel.
Plus the novels back then were kind of setting up a little bit of inter connection so she could have probably used Diane Duane's The Wounded Sky's ending where Scotty seemed confident that he could duplicate the drive system that allowed for inter galactic travel without damaging the space time continuum which is why the previous version had to be scraped.
Since we're talking about her novelization for the THIRD movie, I'm sure the FIRST movie didn't bother her all that much... Can I have one too, please?
If I may assist : Was she was writing after TOS but before the ST-TMP - if so, there was nothing to contradict novel continuity. She could do pretty much anything she liked. ST-TMP and then TNG would have caught her by surprise and contradicted her novels...