But there are examples of the Enterprise and other spaceships making voyages at speeds that seem to be much more consistent with the official TOS warp scale than other examples.
We made the Cestus III run in 500 Parsecs
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But there are examples of the Enterprise and other spaceships making voyages at speeds that seem to be much more consistent with the official TOS warp scale than other examples.
I must admit I wasn't aware of any that fit the formula!
Could you share any examples?
In this case, your analysis is pretty much exactly what I thought: The "known facts" are cross-referenced, and in a computer somewhere else, where most won't see them. We don't see the whole file. The Commodore does say that "even this file" does not explain why ships are ordered not to visit the Talos Star Group...
...and maybe "star group" is the word that would describe an an are bigger than a solar system but smaller than a galaxy.
I've said elsewhere that Super Mario Galaxy and Power Rangers: Lost Galaxy apparently do this, although others contested my thought that it might have been a translation problem. Not that many people are looking for those to be as correct as Star Trek.
Lost in Space made the biggest blunders by saying that they could pass through an entire galaxy overnight!!!
JB
I was going to bring up that very point. I found this (bold added):
https://lostinspace.fandom.com/wiki/Kidnapped_in_Space
Even in Irwin Allen land, I wonder how you make a mistake like that. How do you say galaxy when you mean solar system? If you grade on a curve, Star Trek was pretty good at this stuff.
I recall reading somewhere that at one time some thought objects like the Andromeda galaxy were actually within our own galaxy and thus a lot closer than they actually were. Later, of course, the true nature and distance of such objects was understood. But that kind of common misconception could persist for some time with the less aware. Hell, look at all the crazy things more than a few still believe today in the face of demonstrably proven facts.
Now not to excuse LIS, but many years ago I read Poul Andersen’s Tau Zero which explored the idea of a ship accelerating ever closer to the speed of light. In the story the dilation effect became so extreme that the crew travelled far, far into the future and passed through galaxies in what (to the crew) was a rather short period of time. So it’s possible sloppy television writers could get the wrong idea about time dilation and use it as a way of saying their spaceships could cross vast distances in short periods of time without understanding how the science really works.
Now not to excuse LIS, but many years ago I read Poul Andersen’s Tau Zero which explored the idea of a ship accelerating ever closer to the speed of light. In the story the dilation effect became so extreme that the crew travelled far, far into the future and passed through galaxies in what (to the crew) was a rather short period of time. So it’s possible sloppy television writers could get the wrong idea about time dilation and use it as a way of saying their spaceships could cross vast distances in short periods of time without understanding how the science really works.
I must admit I wasn't aware of any that fit the formula!
Could you share any examples?
In my post # 55 at: https://www.trekbbs.com/threads/tim...lems-in-star-trek.301617/page-3#post-13196805
And I can add that "And the Children Shall Lead" was set on Triacus, a planet of Epsilon Indi, a star about 11.87 light years from Earth. If the Enterprise has reason to visit a star that star should be in the zone where the Federation is exploring space at the time. And it would be consistent with warp drive being as slow as the official TOS warp speeds for a star only 11.87 light years from Earth to still be in the zone of exploration. It would take between 11.87 years at warp one and 0.023 years (8.439 days) at warp eight to reach Epsilon Indi from Earth.
Any place where the Enterprise patrols the Romulan Neutral Zone is likely to be within the current zone of exploration. In "Whom Gods Destroy" Spock tries to determine which Kirk is the real one and asks:
So if the Enterprise was active near Tau Ceti, Tau Ceti should be within the current zone of exploration. Tau Ceti is 11.905 light years from Earth. According to the official TOS warp scale it would take about 11.905 years to reach Tau Ceti from Earth at Warp one, and about 0.023 years (8.492 days) at warp eight.
In "Spock's Brain" Mr. Spock's brain is stolen and taken to a planet in the nearby star system of Sigma Draconis. If the Enterprise is near a star that star should be in the current zone of exploration. Sigma Draconis is about 18.77 light years from Earth. According to the official TOS warp scale it would take about 18.77 years at warp one and about 0.036 years (13.39 days) at warp eight to reach Sigma Draconis from Earth.
So those three episodes indicate that the Federation's current zone of exploration is only about 10 to 20 light years from Earth.
But there are also episodes which indicated that stars tens of light years from Earth have already been explored.
In "Conscience of the King" Kirk comments on the exotic costuming of a play:
Arcturus is about 36.7 light years from Earth.
"Friday's Child" is set on a planet of Capella or Alpha Aurigae, which thus should be within the Federation's current zone of exploration:
Capella is about 42.9 light years from Earth.
In "Where No Man Has Gone Before" Dr. Piper introduces Dr. Dehner:
Aldebaran or Alpha Taurii is about 65.3 light years from Earth.
In "The Trouble With Tribbles" the star Regulus or Alpha Leonis and its life forms are known to the Federation and to Klingons:
Regulus is about 79.3 light years from Earth.
Other episodes indicate the zone of exploration should be at least hundreds of light years from Earth.
"The Apple" is at Gamma Trianguli:
Gamma Trianguli is about 112.3 light years from Earth, and Gamma Trianguli Australis is about 184 light years from Earth.
"The Deadly Years" begins near Gamma Hydra, which should be Gamma Hydrae:
Gamma Hydrae is about 133.8 light years from Earth.
In "This Side of Paradise" Omicron Ceti III is visited:
Omicron Ceti should be about 200 to 300 light years from Earth.
In "the Trouble With Tribbles" planets of the star Spica or Alpha Virginis have been explored:
Spica is about 250 light years from Earth.
Antares or Alpha Scorpii has been visited:
Antares is about 550 light years from Earth.
Rigel XII is visited in "Mudd's Women":
Rigel or Beta Orionis is about 880 light years from Earth.
And some episodes even indicate that stars thousands of light years from Earth have been reached:
Deneb or Alpha Cygni is mentioned in "The Trouble with Tribbles":
And in "I, Mudd":
Deneb is about 2,600 light years from Earth. According to the official TOS warp scale, it would take about 2,600 years to reach Deneb from earth at warp one, and about 5.078 years at warp eight.
At the kind of speed which would enable Harry Mudd to get from Rigel to Deneb in about a year or less many of the closer stars to Earth that have been mentioned above would no longer be within the zone of exploration because it would take only a few days to reach them from Earth.
Thus TOS warp speeds deduced from various episodes range from those that fit the official TOS warp speeds fairly well to those that seem tens and hundreds of times as fast.
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Prior to Hubble's publication in 1929 there was the notion that what we now recognize as galaxies were "spiral nebulae" within our Milky Way. I suppose it's possible that once those were relabeled as galaxies that some people didn't quite make the mental leap that went with the nomenclature change and still assumed these "galaxies" were nebula-like structures within the Milky Way.
Thanks
I was in the middle of drafting a response to your original 2 examples before I noticed you had substantially revised your post! That is a really helpful tally of the real stars used in the Trek universe and I'm sure will be very handy. I'll have a proper look at it later, but here are my original initial thoughts:
Pollux being a remote system might be the result of unpopular geography rather than distance - remember that Kahn's sublight vessel was picked up fairly close to Earth (being limited to sublight distances) yet was a sector of space that had received no regular flights for years.
This Side Of Paradise - a ship travelling at Warp 6 or 7 for a full year (on the cubic scale) doesn't gel all that well with a TOS universe when the best speed a freighter might travel is Warp 2 (according to Sulu in Friday's Child). Enterprise is supposed to be a top of the line vessel and yet we've only seen her reach such velocities for very short periods of time (Arena for example). Would a civilian vessel really be able to sustain that speed for a full year?
Actual known stars could be used to lend the series a degree credibility without really considering the distance of those systems from Earth or their distance from each other. If the Enterprise were assigned to a given sector or area then all the locales referenced should be in that general direction rather than all over the place.
If a US naval vessel is assigned to a given area such as the Pacific ocean it won’t be going into the Atlantic ocean or any other and then back again arbitrarily. The US Navy will have other vessels assigned to the Atlantic and those other areas.
The use of real stars is a nice touch of reality, but it wasn’t really thought through in regard to supposed speed capabilities of the ship and actual travel times involved. I doubt anyone was referencing maps of the galaxy with the relative positions of the stars mentioned to keep things somewhat more believable.
If a US naval vessel is assigned to a given area such as the Pacific ocean it won’t be going into the Atlantic ocean or any other and then back again arbitrarily. The US Navy will have other vessels assigned to the Atlantic and those other areas.
The use of real stars is a nice touch of reality, but it wasn’t really thought through in regard to supposed speed capabilities of the ship and actual travel times involved. I doubt anyone was referencing maps of the galaxy with the relative positions of the stars mentioned to keep things somewhat more believable.
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Agreed.And yet, there are more instances for warp speeds well in excess of the cubed formula, so, by definition, the cubed formula is doo-doo. Live with it.
