Spoilers ST Strange New Worlds - StarShips & Technology Season 1 Discussion

[David cgc]

Are you able to explain how the E-D's subspace message will travel at an average speed of 52,000c across 2.7 million LY without the need for subspace relays?

"Average," I think, is the key word. The way I see it, subspace radio waves decelerate after they're transmitted. Perhaps as they attenuate, they transition to slower layers of subspace that are closer to normal space, until eventually the signals precipitate back out into our dimension and are limited to the speed of light, becoming slower rather than weaker, the way a normal radio wave would (or maybe they stay in subspace, approaching light-speed asymptotically). Starting speed could be proportional to transmission power.

The Federation subspace relay network would then be a web of high-power retransmitters, all close enough together that they can daisy-chain a real-time connection across the Federation, not unlike the internet. The time lag for getting a message wouldn't be from source to destination, but from source (or destination) to the closest relay. Once the message is in the network, it could get anywhere in the Federation instantly, it just needs to arrive to the first link in the chain, which could take a while if the sending ship is much further from the closest relay than the ideal distance between two relays.

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

Still not sure how this plays into the real-time or lag-free subspace comms that are present in the episodes given the distances involved and the 52,000c speed given... other than there is some other mechanism that is facilitating the much faster communication.

Do you understand how Latency works IRL?

You seem to understand that Radio Wave Signal Strength loses intensity as it travels farther out due to Inverse-Square Law.

Here's a simple scale of how low in wattage our modern day Cellular Phone Towers can send signals down in. We can decipher Radio Signals down in the femto-watt range, that's how low we can currently go with SmartPhone Cellular Radio Signals right now.

Imagine how much lower in energy the UFP could go into the future. How little amounts of energy they would need to transmit Subspace Radio signals, much less regular Radio signals.
If you thought femto was a small Metric Prefix, I bet you they'll get even smaller moving foreward with advancing tech. Using even less energy, and sending more data with less energy.

 

[blssdwlf]

Do you understand how Latency works IRL?

You seem to understand that Radio Wave Signal Strength loses intensity as it travels farther out due to Inverse-Square Law.

I understand that IRL communication latency is barely noticeable due to how short of a distance the signal has to travel around the Earth. Do you understand how Latency would be a problem at 1 LY with a 52,000c signal? That's a 10 minute travel time for the signal to go 1 LY and another 10 minutes to have a return reply.

So for real-time comms the subspace relay network must be part of some mechanism that increases the signal speed. Heck for even close-by ship-to-ship the subspace comm signal speed must be faster than 52,000c. And that isn't even getting into using subspace sensors for navigation/collision avoidance and/or targeting.

Spock's line about 52,000c thankfully is specific enough to "long-range subspace communications" there is room for subspace signals to travel at different speeds for different purposes and scenarios.

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

I understand that IRL communication latency is barely noticeable due to how short of a distance the signal has to travel around the Earth. Do you understand how Latency would be a problem at 1 LY with a 52,000c signal? That's a 10 minute travel time for the signal to go 1 LY and another 10 minutes to have a return reply.

Yes, I'm very aware / cognizant of that.

That's why I speculated that there has to be some Subspace Band that is between regular Subspace Radio and Hyper Subspace.

For UFP / StarFleet to jump from regular Subspace in the "Heigh" Warp Factors to "Hyper Subspace" as the only jump seems implausible to me. They must've had at least a (Trans & Super) Warp Factor Subspace layer where Subspace Radio signals were traveling that fast.

So for real-time comms the subspace relay network must be part of some mechanism that increases the signal speed. Heck for even close-by ship-to-ship the subspace comm signal speed must be faster than 52,000c. And that isn't even getting into using subspace sensors for navigation/collision avoidance and/or targeting.

Yes, that's why I believe the Subspace Relay Network must be operating on Trans / Super Warp Speed levels of Radio Travel by the time of TNG.

Spock's line about 52,000c thankfully is specific enough to "long-range subspace communications" there is room for subspace signals to travel at different speeds for different purposes and scenarios.

Agreed, but I see it as using a different layer of Subspace that is faster for Radio Transmission.
That's what Reginald Barclay's Hyper Subspace turned out to be.

 

[Ronald Held]

How do we know subspace radio follows inverse square law, or disperses link an EM laser?

 

[C.E. Evans]

I once worked out that in order to have instantaneous or realtime communications, a subspace signal needed to travel at well over 71,400,000 c--but that it was only good for about one light-year. Beyond that range, time lag starts to factor in. Just by a few seconds at first, but even so, that's enough to make realtime (no time lag at all) conversations as we see in Trek impossible unless a ship is within a light-year of another vessel, starbase, or planet. And I'm not even talking about signal degradation. So 52,000c is way too slow for interstellar communications. A subspace relay network kind of needs to start at 71,400,000c and go upwards from there, IMO...

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

I once worked out that in order to have instantaneous or realtime communications, a subspace signal needed to travel at well over 71,400,000 c--but that it was only good for about one light-year. Beyond that range, time lag starts to factor in. Just by a few seconds at first, but even so, that's enough to make realtime (no time lag at all) conversations as we see in Trek impossible unless a ship is within a light-year of another vessel, starbase, or planet. And I'm not even talking about signal degradation. So 52,000c is way too slow for interstellar communications. A subspace relay network kind of needs to start at 71,400,000c and go upwards from there, IMO...

You'll be glad to know that when I calculated Hyper-Subspace to be at Wf ~11,214 on my Wf 3.0 scale which translates to 31,564,712,587,166.7c for real time Communications across from Sol System to where ever Voyager was when they first established communications using Hyper-Subspace.

 

[publiusr]

The Vulcans invested alot more into Ankeshtan K'Til's subspace broadband connectivity than Star Fleet does for their network and it shows

I blame Starlink

 

[DEWLine]

From Justin Craig's desk to our desks:

https://twitter.com/just1ndes1gn/status/1541182330332762113/photo/1

 

[blssdwlf]

It looks like SNW's Enterprise needs to form a "static warp bubble" to go to warp and fall back to "impulse thrusters" in "The Elysian Kingdom".

edit: I thought "static warp bubbles" were not used for propulsion but apparently in SNW it is?

 

[NCC-73515]

Ships can be built with the same parts as one class, and yet be a different class

 

[C.E. Evans]

It looks like SNW's Enterprise needs to form a "static warp bubble" to go to warp and fall back to "impulse thrusters" in "The Elysian Kingdom".

edit: I thought "static warp bubbles" were not used for propulsion but apparently in SNW it is?

A static warp bubble may be the equivalent of putting a car in idle. The car isn't going anywhere, but at least the engine's running...

 

[blssdwlf]

A static warp bubble may be the equivalent of putting a car in idle. The car isn't going anywhere, but at least the engine's running...

Ah that's a good point!

 

[David cgc]

Ships can be built with the same parts as one class, and yet be a different class

I blame everyone who ever suggested that the sub-1700 Constitutions like the Constellation were actually a different class that merely looks and acts exactly like the Constitution, inside and out. Well, now it's canon and we're stuck with it forever. I hope you're happy.

 

[137th Gebirg]

IIRC, it was postulated a long time ago that such ships, like the Constellation and other sub-1700's, were refits from a prior class that got upgraded to look like the Connies we know, as a proof-of-concept test-bed platform, much like the E-nill became the test-bed refit for the new "Enterprise Class" (cue cursing and gnashing of teeth ), of which the Yorktown and E-A were later native members. I think @aridas sofia came up with this version many years ago based off a Matt Jefferies concept sketch:

That shows what the line looked like pre-refit to the TOS Connie. This could be the conjectural pre-refit Somba class.

 

[Mark_Nguyen]

We also have the Soyuz and Miranda classes, for a more visual example of different classes of ship otherwise looking very similar...

Mark

 

[Markonian]

Other than the nacelle pylons, was there a visible difference between the Sombra class and the Constitution class (Eaves refit)?

Also, looking up the word sombra at Wiktionary, it could come from an Earth Romance language and mean "shadow", or potentially be an alien word from another Federation member state. I like it - the saucer looks a bit like a sombrero.

 

[blssdwlf]

The only obvious difference to me was the bridge. The port nacelle pylon was bent pretty badly but overall the two classes are very similar but with some minor differences from just a first glance.

 

[Markonian]

The only obvious difference to me was the bridge. The port nacelle pylon was bent pretty badly but overall the two classes are very similar but with some minor differences from just a first glance.

Y'know, that bent nacelle pylon reminds of all the real-life starship models I have with wonky nacelles.

 

[fireproof78]

We also have the Soyuz and Miranda classes, for a more visual example of different classes of ship otherwise looking very similar...

Mark

Yeah, this isn't a new problem. The Soyuz and the Miranda are different for...reasons.

Same with Franz Joseph's tech manual.

I won't weep over this because I did that 30 years ago.