Moving Slow at Warp Speed

[Henoch]

If the thickest part of the star map above is a total of 2000 lys, and can be a little thinner. Our sun is very near the center line of the galactic disk in the Orion arm. If you go 900 lys in any direction normal to the axis of the arm, you are at the edge of the galaxy or in the gap between arms. The void must be one the gaps to the next arm either Perseus going away from the galaxy center or Carina going into the galaxy center. Either void looks like ~1000 lys wide. I think who wrote the story did a little technical research with real distances; a good job.

 

[Discofan]

My take on this is that warp 1 is the speed of light, warp 10 is infinity, therefore in between, we have a curve with 10 as a vertical asymptote.

 

[Mytran]

Infinity is not a number

 

[Discofan]

Infinity is not a number

You obviously don't know what a vertical asymptote is.

 

[Mytran]

How would a vertical asymptote be at all useful or practical for navigation purposes though?

 

[Discofan]

How would a vertical asymptote be at all useful or practical for navigation purposes though?

It's a mathematical concept. Maths are not only useful, but they are also indispensable to determine pretty much everything and that includes navigation.

 

[BK613]

There is a misconception about the "gaps" between arms being stated here. Infrared images of other spiral galaxies have shown that stellar population "between arms" is only slightly less dense than in the arms, with the difference being the bright, massive, short-lived stars which form and die in the arms. So we see the arm structure because the arms are brighter, not because they are more dense. (Crude analogy: There are more porch lights than street lights but from the air you will see the street layout because street lights are brighter. ) Here's a link describing the arms in better detail.

 

[Henoch]

There is a misconception about the "gaps" between arms being stated here. Infrared images of other spiral galaxies have shown that stellar population "between arms" is only slightly less dense than in the arms, with the difference being the bright, massive, short-lived stars which form and die in the arms. So we see the arm structure because the arms are brighter, not because they are more dense. (Crude analogy: There are more porch lights than street lights but from the air you will see the street layout because street lights are brighter. ) Here's a link describing the arms in better detail.

I'm not buying. There's massively less stars in the voids between arms.

 

[Timo]

It's interesting that Kirk correlates "Warp 3" as being in a "hurry". Perhaps because this area of space provides vast levels of acceleration and Warp 3 is sufficient to meet the deadline? Or are the local space conditions dangerous for some reason and Warp 3 is the top SAFE speed they can do right now?

I'd actually vote for the latter, as Kirk waits for Spock's analysis of the path ahead before daring to issue the order to proceed at all...

Presumably Spock is expected to keep on sitting in the crow's nest and calling the rocks and shoals until they are through this strange and threatening void, and then Sulu can resume normal speed, whatever that is. Spock does keep on giving reports, carefully stating when they move to the next quadrant of utter emptiness, at which point Kirk again voices his concern for whatever might lie there. This despite there apparently being Starfleet records of this area, that is, those records that oddly fail to mention Planet Gothos.

Lucky that our heroes can notify the Discovery and arrange for backup in this extremely dangerous situation. Unlucky for them that she's apparently otherwise engaged.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Henoch]

Lucky that our heroes can notify the Discovery and arrange for backup in this extremely dangerous situation. Unlucky for them that she's apparently otherwise engaged.

Ya, what is the Discovery up to at this time period being only ten years in the future?

 

[Ithekro]

Maybe she's lost (as one of the shorts seems to suggest). Maybe she's in for a refit and no longer has the Spore Drive (thus making her less available for jump rescues). Maybe the ship we saw briefly in Star Trek III in Spacedock was USS Discovery after a refit of some kind.

 

[Discofan]

In Asimov's novels, it would take hours to determine where the ship was (after a jump of several light years through hyperspace) by selecting stars at random and trying to determine which they were by comparing their spectrum with a listing of known stars. With billions of stars to choose from it's even amazing that they managed to do that in less than a lifetime!

 

[Discofan]

Ya, what is the Discovery up to at this time period being only ten years in the future?

Maybe she's been decommissioned. Look at what happened to Archer's Enterprise after the same amount of time.

 

[Ithekro]

If the Spore Drive becomes unusable, she's be decommissioned, or converted to have a more practical saucer and better warp drives.

 

[BK613]

I'm not buying. There's massively less stars in the voids between arms.

Nope, only 5 percent more stars in the arms versus the disk.
Source 1. (First paragraph of the section labeled 4)
Source 2.
Source 3. (Section titled spiral arms)
M-83 comparison

 

[Henoch]

If the Spore Drive becomes unusable, she's be decommissioned, or converted to have a more practical saucer and better warp drives.

What? No more flippy whippy do's? Nah, you can't remove that special effect. It's what makes Discovery ... well, special.

 

[Henoch]

Nope, only 5 percent more stars in the arms versus the disk.
Source 1. (First paragraph of the section labeled 4)
Source 2.
Source 3. (Section titled spiral arms)
M-83 comparison

I started reading the research, and I have a lot more to go. I stand corrected. Truly, thank you for the research references, BK. SF writers (and me) in the 60's probably thought like I did since most of the Milky Way observations are done with satellites after the 60's.
Back to Star Trek. Some of the research says inside the spiral arms is more dangerous with active, younger and bigger stars with more dust and rocky matter. In between the arms with less dust density and few percent less stars, you'd still think you can go faster. (Less matter, bigger spacing between stars, more zero point energy, thinner subspace resistance, more favorable Cochrane factor, more warp field technobabble...)
More babble: The stars in between the arms may be older, with older civilizations if they survive and more advanced super aliens like Trelane's race, Charlie X's adoptive parents and Sargon's planet. These encounters I'd put near the edge of the "arm" and/or near the galactic edge. The "void" in Squire was maybe just a void.

 

[BK613]

I started reading the research, and I have a lot more to go. I stand corrected. Truly, thank you for the research references, BK. SF writers (and me) in the 60's probably thought like I did since most of the Milky Way observations are done with satellites after the 60's.

I agree, in the 1960s, people were just beginning to challenge the thought that the spiral arms were all there was. And believe me, i am sympathetic to upended ideas. Bradbury's rains of Venus gave way to a real sulfuric hell, the rocky moons of the gas giants became icy worlds, and a single spiral arm between Trantor and Terminus is not where a Galactic Empire wants to be.

 

[uniderth]

Lucky that our heroes can notify the Discovery and arrange for backup in this extremely dangerous situation. Unlucky for them that she's apparently otherwise engaged.

Well, yes, they can put their discovery on subspace radio, but who knows which ship would respond.

 

[Discofan]

What's funny in the ST Universe is that everything goes at warp speed!!! I mean when a star explodes like in Generations, it should take minutes before you could see the explosion from a habitable planet... NOT SECONDS. For example, If someone sends a faster than light rocket toward the sun and instantaneously extinguishes it. It would still take more than 8 minutes to see the extinction on Earth. Same thing about gravity, assuming the extinction of a star changes radically its mass (which is weird, to say the least) that change of mass would take years to propagate toward a ribbon passing by light years away, not IMMEDIATELY!!!