Excellent ideas.
I still maintain the UFP would have been able to find a way to make Benamite crystals at a faster pace over the years and to either drastically slow down or stop their decay entirely, and even regenerate them - but these developments I presume could be done in stages... after say a few years (around the time the Protostar was launched) UFP was able to grow new crystals and stabilize them to slow their decay which would enhance their longevity to say a few years (enough until a new batch can be grown.
After 20 years or so (around Picard series time), I'd expect the UFP to be able to improve the speed of benamite crystal growth by a double at least - you'd start seeing more intra-galactic and some extra galactic surveys of dwarf galaxies and possibly Andromeda (the fact it suffered from radiation issues is a PRIME reason for SF to dispatch a ship or several and see if they can help stop it).
That's fine if that's what you want in your Head Canon.
In my Head Canon, I have it balanced out so that the growth of SBCs (Synthetic Benamite Crystals) is already a established industry and the desired useable "Operational Time" of 2^24 ms ~= "4 hrs, 39 mins, 37 sec(s), & 215 ms" was artificially created to balance mass production and useable life-time of each SBC. Each SBC allows ~ 2,793,602 ly of travel distance via Enhanced QSS drive. That's more than enough to cross over to another Galaxy and back. It offers nearly every ship in StarFleet a "Go Home" drive in case they ever get stuck in the middle of Bum Fuck no-where and wants to go home.
In my Head Canon, the SBC degrades because of a completely different reason and logic from Dilithium Crystals, so they can't be "Re-Crystalized" like Dilithium. But it doesn't really matter since you can just grow more in bulk at large manufacturing facilities and distribute them amongst StarShip Captains as a special use tool.
Exactly.
A lot better potential for story telling if they gave us something like that instead. Also, UFP should have had Dyson Swarms and Sphere across the Milky Way (or at least in areas it controls) and those dwarf galaxies they colonized by that time - effectively could have also been using Hyper-subspace which they used to establish real time communications with Voyager across the galaxy with MIDAS to create a sort of a Hyper-subspace network between the Swarms and Spheres (sort of like UFP version of TransWarp hubs and highways if you will - individual ships would be capable of Hyper-subspace Warp speeds independently of course, but would only use this method in areas Hyper-subspace network isn't established) to conserve their own resources (similar to how Borg ships used the TW hub to travel across the galaxy, but individual ships would still be capable of generating their TW speeds in case the network doesn't run in that area - which can be huge of course).
Hyper-Subspace is already in common use in my 26th Century UFP and everybody can have real time Video Conferencing across the quadrant with their loved ones if they wanted. It won't be perfect (Like modern day Video Conferencing), but given the vast distances, it's pretty damn good.
Depending on Comm-link bandwidth and distance to the last comm relay node before you hop on the Hyper SubSpace Relay Networks, you can get Basic Star Wars style Holographic Comms or if you're closer, get "Real Defintion" Holographic Calls where the person looks like they're physically there in person.
As far as Dyson Swarms and Dyson Sphere's, those take an inordinate amount of time to manufacture (we're talking Eons just for the Neutronium shell with massive automation on a ridiculous scale), more than many people's life times to boot by several orders of magnitude, (Even with Genetically Engineered extended Human Life-spans). So UFP is more focused on refurbishing the existing Dyson Sphere that they found, stabilizing the local Star inside, and colonizing the Inside & Outside.
That's already a on-going Mega Project by the UFP where we've established new colonization and claimed dominion over the existing Dyson Sphere. We've also learned the secret to manufacturing and/or extracting Neutronium in it's raw form and how incredibly difficult and resource intensive it is. So use of Neutronium Alloys is limited to mission critical items like the casing for a "Warp Core" or the Shell of a Blast Poof Main Computer Rooms, or the encasement of the Bridge & CIC room.
Neutronium isn't used for everything, just critical components on a StarShip to protect the crew and enhance survivability due to it's resource intensive nature to mass produce even a small amount of Neutronium.
As far as the UFP's collosal Mega Project, I have them working on a version of the Bank's Orbital that is more reasonable in size for the UFP to manufacture with their current resources. Also the UFP doesn't want to put too many eggs in one basket.
Some basic Physical Dimensions for my version of a Banks Orbital are:
- Outter Radius: 8,000 km
- Inner Radius: 7,970 km
- Ring Depth: 1,000 km
- Ring Thickness: 30 km
My Banks Orbital uses traditional Spin Gravity + Artificial Gravity to allow real fine tuned control of gravity for various species with each major zone inside having a certain Gravity level tuned for a specific range of species.
There's the baseline Gravity and extra Artificial Gravity Generators on top to fine tune for certain species natural preferred Gravity values. So each of the 51 Zones have varying Gravity within a reasonable range and this allows the various UFP members to all co-exist and visit each other on my Large Ring Habitat Vessel.
Each of the 51 Zones has enough Land-Mass to be equivalent to the Land Area the size of the UK.
The vessel can support 3,621,000,000 UFP citizens comfortably spread about 51 zones.
My Bank's Orbital is a Ring Ship that is literally shaped like a Ring, but uses Vulcan style Coleopteric Ring Drives for FTL & traditional Hyper-Impulse Drives.
When your vessel is that massive, you need the most efficient Warp Drive and Vulcan's have it with their Coleopteric Ring Shaped Warp Drives.
As far as Hyper-SubSpace as a form of FTL drive, I do use it as one, but in a completely different way to make it more believable. But that's a different story for another topic.
I do have TransWarp Corridor Freeways for Civilians and their Astro-Mobiles.
So the average citizen can fly their AstroMobiles between Planets easily without needing to own a FTL drive.
My Civilian TransWarp Corridor Freeways are designed for vessels that fit within a Circular Diameter of 100 meters only. I don't want them to be abused my any Military Forces, so the Network was designed to have a relatively small aperture and Corridor size, unlike the Borg version which is MASSIVE.
My StarFleet and UFP doesn't need a large Fixed Transwarp Corridor Network, the only use for something the size that the Borg uses are for "Invasion" IMO. If we need to make Transwarp Corridors, we make it on a "As Needed" basis. But otherwise my StarFleet has plenty of TransWarp level FTL drives beyond TransWarp Corridor Generators.
I prefer the TransWarp Corridor Freeway Network because it enables civilians to travel amongst the stars via their personal AstroMobiles.
The 32nd century equivalent of the Burn could have still happened, but predominantly targeting the Spheres/Swarms that form the Hyper-Subspace hubs/networks for example.
In my Head Canon, Michael Burnham came back in time and prevented "The Burn" and saved millions of lives. She also prevented the Outlawing of Time Travel and Time Travel becomes very highly regulated. She eventually retires with Booker and have kids together.
In my perception, this would have occurred in smaller amounts by the early/mid 25th century already... though I suppose that era could have been used to fully/better explore the Milky Way itself with the improved drive.
Alas..
Eh... not sure, though that DOES remain a possibility.
The Voth TW and the TW the Voyager crew developed (the one that evolved Paris and Janeway) has been acknowledged as part of canon and both used same SFX at the time - although the main difference was in speeds. VOY's TW was 'infinite velocity' (and ergo instant transport to a desired location)... whereas the Voth's TW topped out at about 60 Ly's per second (at least for Gegan's expedition ship).
Though yes, the effect bears some similarities to that TW, but I can also see similarities between this new effect and Quantum Slipstream.
All in all, we've seen Warp undergoing SFX changes in Discovery season 3... so... it wouldn't be surprising if that was just regular... or even 'enhanced Warp' (remember the Voyager made by the Silver Blood? - maybe UFP found a way to enhance the Warp drive in a similar way and then decided the Protostar could be used to test it out - but obviously, since Protostar is real, the Warp core radiation wouldn't have an effect on the ship or crew - just because the copy VOY didn't survive doesn't mean the crew or UFP at large couldn't have thought up to enhance Warp in the same way... but who knows).
I'm of the mind that exploration takes time, we don't need to rush, we rather take our time and go in depth on an area and spread knowledge about.
There are Billions of Stars in our Milkyway, and to get a Detailed understanding of each StarSystem and setup local Colonies or Space Stations will take time.
