another form of space travel would be to use a dimensional drive system. sort of side stepping the distance by jumping into another universe and returning to the home universe at the desired location. the only hang up would be that the location would have to be scouted prior to the "dimensional hop" happening to prevent the ship from returning inside a foreign object. so normal warp drive would still be required to expand on known space. the trade routes would be shorter. another hang up may be that a stronger power source may be needed to perform the "jump"
Only hangup? I can think of a few. Most of them involve accidentally getting stuck in a universe where bad things happen.
true and the same could be said with all sci-fi tech, real included. either way it's another option and can present interesting story ideas.
The federation is supposed to something like 8000 light years across, right? If that's true, then at warp 7 (new scale), it would take 8000ly / 656 times light speed = 12.195 years to travel one end of the federation to the other. To put it another way, you could walk around Earth at the equator with stops and scuba gear for the water part in less time. What would be the point in maintaining a unitary government that is so vast that it takes 1/8th of a human lifetime to cross? Warp speed must be faster.
OR that's just the "baseline" speed for warp drive in completley normal open space, and variations in gravity, subspace, and so-forth have a significant impact on speed. This may explain why some planets become more prominent than others, despite similar tech levels - they're better located for fast, convenient travel to and fro. It also explains how borders in space are actually feasible - to go around the long way, you have to go around the loooong way. Could also explain how the Enterprise in TNG could be "on a mission of exploration" while close to home. She was checking out areas of "slow space" inside the Federation.
It may have already been mentioned, but in the TrekLit Universe, the Federation was able to adapt the Quantum Slipstream Technology for use on both new and older ships. They've got limitations on duration of Voyage, effectively creating a system of "Leaps" but the Technology is finally practical across the board. There's even been talk about TransSlipstream, but that's only theoretical and well beyond Federation science as they're just getting they're heads wrapped about QSS Drive technologies.
That might be a little premature...we'll know more after the Voyager "Children Of The Storm" comes out at month's end, but it would appear at present that quantum slipstream tech isn't necessarily adaptable across the wide range of ship types and shapes. IIRC, a Star Trek magazine article interviewing the Vesta-class designer discussed QS as a more narrow travel corridor that needs a slimmer and more streamlined shape than something as wide as, say, a Galaxy or Nebula. Other than the two Vestas with the Full Circle fleet and Voyager herself (which has undergone substantial modifications), we don't know the ship classes involved so we can't know if QS is for ALL ships without heavily modifiying them. CotS is supposed to have an appendix in the back that lists the ships and their classes.
There's nothing thus far in the Voyager books to suggest this theory, but my pet theory is that the two Vestas with the Full Circle fleet are required in order to be able to allow the fleet to travel at slipstream velocities; one Vesta taking point and opening the slipstream corridor, and the other one riding tail to help keep the corridor open for the ships in between as well as being able to circle back if someone has a problem and falls out of slipstream. If the individual ships were able to slipstream independently, then the Vestas wouldn't be required...and with only nine Vestas in the entire Starfleet, certainly they have more important things to do in the Alpha and Beta Quadrants than to be mucking about in the Delta Quadrant on what is, essentially, a clean-up mission to tie up loose ends.
Any sillier than transwarp? To be honest, I don't think that's what they would call it, it's just the closest thing they could think of to call what they thought they might be looking at. And I'm only halfway done with Indistinguishable from Magic so... might not of been TransSlipstream at all in the end.
Becuase the term "transwarp" would still apply to any engine that's faster than slipstream, because it is capable of performing beyond the typical warp drive. Ergo, "transwarp". Hell, if its just a faster version of slipstream, they can save themselves from looking like they're trying to sell it to someone with a commercialized name by just continuing to refer to it as slipstream.
Just as FTL applies to all Faster than Light drive methods, but I guess in Star Trek they like to be a bit more specific when it comes to each method of FTL. So Slipstream 2.0? And why are you talking about selling it... to who? for what purpose? Believability? Please explain.
Nah... Slisptream 1.0 was the one from Arturi's Dauntless (60 000 Ly's in 3 months). Voyager could only sustain the quantum stresses in that thing for an hour. Slipstream 2.0 is the one from Timeless (heavily modified, with Borg technology and Benemyte crystals - approximately 10 000 Ly's in 1 minute - concluded via the premise that if the slipstream variance reared it's ugly head after 17 seconds of flight per on-screen reference, it's not too far fetched to reach a conclusion that future Harry force-shut down the drive with his calculations after a full minute of flight - resulting in 10 000 ly's traversed). Slipstream 3.0 might be the 'transslipstream' as mentioned in the book, and yet we still don't know how long will SF take to reach those velocities, so v3.0 might be something better than 2.0, but still slower than transslip.
I would use the Transwarp drive. Why? Because the Federation now has Seven of Nine...If anybody can make it work, she can...but why stop there...why not do both...?
Actually, Voyager brought back a functioning QS drive (v2.0 I mentioned - 10 000 Ly's in 1 minute), and they merely needed to solve the phase variance issue that plagued the Intrepid class in 'Timeless' episode, along with having a good supply of Benemite crystals. As for TW... well technically speaking, if we are talking about the 'Threshold' episode version, then it would require modifications in order to avoid rapid evolution (because other than that it works fine and would bring you wherever you want in the universe at a push of a button). The Borg version on the other hand is closer to QS and requires TW coils, so it's quite possibly a matter of reverse-engineering and replication (provided the Federation has the necessary technology to do it).
If I'm not mistaken, there's a section of the Federation "southeast" of the Klingon Empire, where there's just a small part of it and connected to the rest of the UFP by a skinny corridor, almost as if a ship had been catapulted there at some point, explored it on the way back, and claimed it for the Federation. There might be a few more sections like that as well, accounting for the "spread across 8,000 LY" comment by Picard to Lily in "First Contact", but the bulk of the Federation is fairly well-centered around Earth. I'd have to look at Star Charts to be sure, but that's how I recall it at present.
You also have to take into account that the full breadth of the Federation's borders which are in 3-D space. There's a Z-Axis measurement that people tend to forget about when discussing planetary & star system borders across light-years. The 8,000 LY measurement figure could be the approximate diagonal from the "lowest" 'corner' of Federation space to the "highest" point 'furthest' away. *(Kind of like using the diagonal measurement of a TV screen when describing it's overall "size")
Voyager seems to have been really slow compared to ships actually inside the Federation. Just look at the maps we see in several episodes of TNG where known space fills a pretty large slice of the galaxy, especially in "The Chase" where the professor expect the Ent-D to travel several thousand light-years in a matter of weeks.
Because then you have two extra engines on your ship, and drive systems eat up space and power. Also, "A" transwarp drive, not "the" transwarp drive. There isn't just one way to go supersonic, there isn't just one way to go hypersonic.