What is your personal head canon?
- Thread starter AmandaSmith
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In DS9, there’s a line about Cestus III (i.e., the planet in TOS’ “Arena” where the Gorn attack the Federation colony there and claim it as an intrusion on their space) that gives a vague estimate on how long it takes to move across the breadth of the Federation.
Sisko says Cestus III is “on the other side of the Federation” from Bajor, and Kassidy Yates responds by saying it takes “2 weeks” just to send a subspace message to her brother who’s a colonist there.
Since max warp is going to be slower than the speed subspace messages travel, that would imply it probably takes 1-2 months to move forces from one side of the Federation to the other during the late 24th century.
Sisko says Cestus III is “on the other side of the Federation” from Bajor, and Kassidy Yates responds by saying it takes “2 weeks” just to send a subspace message to her brother who’s a colonist there.
Since max warp is going to be slower than the speed subspace messages travel, that would imply it probably takes 1-2 months to move forces from one side of the Federation to the other during the late 24th century.
That would sound as a reasonably defensible size for the Federation.
Still can't reconcile that to the 8000 LY across figure and VOY's projected roughly 1000 LY/year, though.
You should see the mighty Talaxian empire, it spans almost the entire Delta Quadrant! (If you count that asteroid colony Neelix settled on.)
Could it be possible the Federation claims space it doesn't necessarily occupy or fully explored?
Maybe through treaties and agreements with the Klingons, Romulans, etc., the Federation has claim to space that extends at least 8,000 LYs that includes frontier that's "potentially" under their domain.
And that is what we see Starfleet exploring to see if there's either places to colonize, species interested in becoming friends and part of the Federation, or just to realize there's already people there who claim the space as their own.
^Too bad Picard didn't find the opportunity to induct an alien species into the UFP while he was in M33, in Where no one has gone before. He could've boasted the Federation was 'three million light years across' in that case 
Don't think of it as a Sphere, it's more of a Brownie / Cookie Batter sheet that is not even.
There's some Z-Depth in the UFP, but it's largely a thick uneven volume.
The nature of the Thin Disk Section of the Galaxy wouldn't allow it to be "Spherical in Nature" and have the same Star System Density in that local area while being "Spherical".
You'd have to be inside the Bulge around the Galactic center for your Volume to be Spherical, and our Sol System doesn't live ANYWHERE close to that region.
For Better or Worse, we live out in the Galactic Suburbs of the Milky Way.
The Thick Disk section can metaphorically be considered the equivalent to the Galactic Exurb or 'Outskirts around the Suburbs' due to it's even lower Star System Density.
The Galactic Halo section would be the equivalent of the Galactic Rural Area's since there's even lower Star System density then the Thick Disk section.
Imagine what a game changer that either (Spore Drive, QSS (Quantum Slip Stream) Drive, or any other form of Transwarp Drive) would do; it would allow ships far away to get to the far away battlefield / hot spots in a reasonable amount of time and have a real effect on any situation.
Once everybody upgrades to Hyper-Subspace communications, we can have Real Time Video Conferencing across the Quadrant on a regular basis.
You know the latency and transmission speed of Hyper-Subspace Radio signals must be RIDICULOUSLY fast for it cross the distance of a Quadrant and be good enough for Real Time Video Conferencing.
Imagine all of StarFleet showing up and surrounding a battle field and bombarding a local hot spot until the enemy goes away.
But given how strong we saw StarBase 1 around Earth in ST:PIC S3, imagine if every StarSystem had several dozen of StarBase 1 level of defense parked at all major Lagrange Points in every Star System that falls under the UFP domain and have a small fleet of Small StarShips, Fighters, & Drones to help defend the area.
Think of what a few hundred "Texas Class" level Small StarShips with Upgrades to it's AI to not go crazy; imagine what it could do to protect a local StarSystem.
It took the entire Fleet of California Class ships to stop 1x Texas Class Small AI Drone StarShip.
Imagine what Hundreds to Thousands of those + Manned Fighters + Unmanned AI Drones + AI controlled Attack Bits/Funnels could do for you.
Also, any Planet with a significant population (7-Digits or Higher) should automatically entitle them to a Planetary Shield Network Satellite Grid to protect them in times of emergency.
The largest issue with "Frontier Living" Pre-Voyager's Return & Project PathFinder is that there wasn't Hyper-Subspace Communication capabilities.A sizeable security garrison and a small fleet might do it. If these distant outposts need so much defending, it explains why there never seems to be another ship in range when an emergency happens.
Normal Subspace Radio is too slow, Hyper-Subspace allows Real-Time Video Conferencing across the quadrant.
That means Help Signals can reach out to any other StarFleet Relay Station across the Quadrants in Real Time, heck a simple "Communications Trip Wire" can be enough to detect any form of jamming and summon a defense fleet to rush to a systems aid.
Then you need some form of TransWarp drive to propel your StarFleet Ships to get there to help, we have that now in the form of Quantum Slip Stream or Spore Drive depending on which Franchise you want.
But for me, I want ALL of the Advanced FTL Systems integrated, variety is the spice of life. Each Advanced FTL Systems like QSS (Quantum Slip Stream), TWCG (TransWarp Corridor Generator), TWD (TransWarp Drive), CAWD (Co-Axial Warp Drives AKA Space Folding Drives), DASH Drive (Displacement Activated Spore Hub Drive AKA Spore Drives), SubSpace Vortex Generators, Spatial Flexure Generators, Graviton Catapults etc are all desire-able to have.
Each Advanced FTL System has their PRO(s) / CON(s).
Heck having those would be a game changer for Rapid Response.
That's very much believable pre Hyper-Subspace Communications, but thanks to the PathFinder Project & the return of the USS Voyager, that would get solved very soon by the late 24th century / early 25th century.
It's the equivalent of dealing with old Telegram / Phone lines pre modern Internet System that allows global Real Time Video Conferencing.
If it takes "2 Weeks" for the "Help Signal" to reach a Major Federation Communications Relay to summon Help, that's a MAJOR issue.
Regular SubSpace Radio Signals simply aren't "Fast Enough". They're good for in-system communications and nearby systems communications.
When you need a SubSpace Radio Signals with REAL Speed to cross Quadrants, you need Hyper-SubSpace Radio Communication Systems.
There is simply no equivalent to having a Real Time Video Conferencing with your Friends/Family in the other Quadrant.
Imagine yourself being in a Life/Death situation with a enemy fleet above your sky, and needing "2 Weeks" for the message to reach a Rapid Responder.
Let's say your fleet is stuck at traveling at Warp Factor 9.9 due to various reasons of keeping the Fleet together over the long journey.
WF 9.9 according to my Warp Factor Scale 3.0 which is the TNG era Warp Factor scale with the Hand Drawn curve to infinity past Warp 9 removed.
I just let the TNG era Warp Factor formula run until infinity.
WF 9.9 ≈ 21,473 c ≈ WF 20 on my scale.
You can cover 59.4533632655968 ly in 1 Gregorian Day.
If you had to traverse the long ends of the Federations Territory according to my map from North to South, that would take ~136.29 days @ Warp Factor 9.9
If you had to traverse the long ends of the Federations Territory according to my map from East_ to West, that would take ~_96.46 days @ Warp Factor 9.9
That's not exactly a "Rapid Response" no matter how you slice it given how vast the territory is and how fast your Fleet can move together with enough resources to not strain the Warp Drives of the slower vessels in your fleet. That's close to 3-4 months to move a Fleet.
He only spent a few minutes there before he buggered off and went home.^Too bad Picard didn't find the opportunity to induct an alien species into the UFP while he was in M33, in Where no one has gone before. He could've boasted the Federation was 'three million light years across' in that case
Only good enough to take a few pictures, then say "See Ya!" and decided to go home.
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It's fun to play around with maps of the galaxy and how long it would take to travel to a certain place on some speed but fortunately all that information is not absolutely necessary to make a good story.
Sums time!
According to the TNG Technical Manual the maximum speed of a relay-boosted subspace transmission in the 2360s is 199,516c, or warp 9.9999. Assuming Cestus III has a good network connection, two weeks at that speed would put it around 7,674 lightyears from Deep Space 9. That does jive with Picard's "8,000 lightyears" comment.
Then again, in SNW: "All Those Who Wander" Spock explicitly states that subspace transmissions travel at "approximately 52,000 times the speed of light" – which jibes with Data's estimation of how long a subspace radio signal would take to travel 2.7 million lightyears in TNG: "Where No One Has Gone Before". We might assume that this is the regular unboosted speed of subspace transmissions, and therefore the sort of subspace transmissions that would be available to Federation civilians out on the frontier. At this speed Cestus III would be an even 2,000 lightyears from Deep Space 9.
Isn't that why advanced FTL drives were created, to negate the slow-ness of Warp Drive and to allow Plot to move as fast as you want?
The Spore Drive effectively made the insides of the Milky Way Galaxy a Free-For-All instant travel Plot Driven FTL drive with some limitations.
So in the original timeline the Delphic expanse still exists or the Guardians never turned up pretending to be gods to the Xindi?
Bingo; the Delphic Expanse doesn't exist in the original TOS timeline. It is a construction of time travelers.
I was thinking the Delphic Expanse would have been dealt with in some other fashion than depicted, but I also like this idea the Expanse was part of the time travel shenanigans.Bingo; the Delphic Expanse doesn't exist in the original TOS timeline. It is a construction of time travelers.
"Space is big. You just won’t believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it’s long way down the road to the chemist’s, but that’s just peanuts to space.' - Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
Well, in my head canon space is small
"The simple truth is that interstellar distances will not fit into the human imagination. Even light, which travels so fast that it takes most races thousands of years to realise that it travels at all, takes time to journey between the stars."
Logically speaking, in a universe where the Temporal Cold War exists, how can there be any such thing as an "original timeline"?
Hell, for all we know, TOS itself is the result of multiple incursions in the TCW. You can't prove it isn't, anyway.
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In TNG, Guinan definitely has a perception of time where she can “feel” when it’s not “right.” That would imply, for someone like her or the Guardian of Forever, there’s a baseline norm to the flow of time within the Prime Universe that’s considered the “natural” order of events.
Also, in ENT, Daniels literally shows Archer a visual of the timeline “repairing itself” in the concluding episode of the Temporal Cold War. It would seem to indicate that, at least to Daniels (and if you take his actions as only trying to preserve the natural flow of time from the other factions), there’s a history which is considered the “right” one which was always meant to exist beyond the Temporal Cold War.
There’s also the question of whether a timeline is affected by time travel, or the time traveler is just shifting themselves and anyone “entangled” with their actions into another timeline where the events happened that way.
The Temporal Cold War would imply that all of everything can be affected by time travel.
Star Trek (2009) depicts time travel as creating a separate timeline/universe while the original continues on. I guess you could make the argument the Red Matter opened a hole not just through time but to a separate parallel universe similar to the Mirror Universe. But the destruction of the Kelvin and the appearance of the Narada are supposed to be the point of divergence that spirals the Kelvin Timeline off into a tangent.
And I think in almost every instance where time travel has been depicted, you can possibly make the case the resulting timeline may be a predestination paradox (i.e., what was supposed to happen all along) or only affects the people involved who are forced to correct it to get themselves and the people caught up in it home.
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