One thing about TOS that has often bothered me a little bit, especially when put up with the later shows, is how the USS Enterprise was able to travel as far as the edge of the galaxy and back in episodes such as Where No Man Has Gone Before, Is There No Truth in Beauty?, and By Any Other Name, whereas later series establish that it would take decades at least to undertake such a journey with warp drive? By all acounts, known space simply isn't anywhere near the galactic edge, otherwise the USS Voyager would've had a LOT longer than seventy years to get back home from the Delta Quadrant. Heck, the speeds Enterprise must have travelled in TOS, Voyager should have been able to get back within a week!! I just wondered if anyone has given some serious thought to this problem, and how to reconcile it?
Travelling to the galaxy's edge?
- Thread starter EJA
- Start date
All Seeing Eye
Admiral
Well personally I just ignore those TOS episodes where they did it.
If however I had to explain it i'd say that perhaps there were some special areas of space that produce "subspace fast lanes" where subspace is much closer to the surface which when traversed made ships travel at much greater speed.
If however I had to explain it i'd say that perhaps there were some special areas of space that produce "subspace fast lanes" where subspace is much closer to the surface which when traversed made ships travel at much greater speed.
Well, I've heard TOS Season 1 generally has really bad continuity with the rest of Trek.
In The Final Frontier, it's easyly explainable: everything between Kirk Spock and McCoy going to sleep at the begionning during their camping trip and the bit at the end were we see him camping again is just a silly dream Kirk has.
In The Final Frontier, it's easyly explainable: everything between Kirk Spock and McCoy going to sleep at the begionning during their camping trip and the bit at the end were we see him camping again is just a silly dream Kirk has.
Blame the other shows for not accepting the parameters TOS established! Travelling to the edge of the galaxy is easy, damn it! And there's a barrier there about 100 metres high.
Of course, people tend to forget that space is three-dimensional and that the warp factors were never clearly defined in any Trek series...
All Seeing Eye
Admiral
No but we do know how far Voyager was away, we do know how long it was going to take for them to get home and the episode where Starfleet contacts Voyager via the MIDAS array we learn that Voyager would be travelling home at a stable and sustainable warp velocity of warp 6.4 (or at least 6 point something).
If we are to take that on board and assume that the time to travel 75000 lightyears would have been calculated by Tuvok to be at warp 6.4ish then could a starship at higher warp (such as warp 9 or even 9 point something) get to the galactic edge from Federation space in a much quicker time? knowing that they could make such a trip and be back before any permanent damage was done to the ship and knowing they could have repairs and resources when they get back.
We could assume Voyager was travelling at 6.4 to sustain deuterium supplies and keep the ship warp nacelles in pristine condition. If they pushed the ship at full warp for the entire journey it probably would not have survived the trip and they would have blown the nacelles and had nowhere to replace them.
Voyager was on it's own, had limited supplies and nowhere to get the ship fixed if anything really serious went wrong.
A trip to the Galactic edge might be possible at full warp speeds with it being nowhere near as far as the Delta Quadrant.
Let's keep in mind although Earth is about 26,000 lightyears from the galactic edge does not means thats the distance to travel. The edge of Federation space could be much much much closer to the galactic edge and starbases would be there capable of resupplying ships and fixing ships allowing for ships to travel to the Galactic edge and back at higher warp speeds without fear of running out of supplies or damaging major ship components..
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The galaxy is a spiral disk. If you travel parallel to the plane of the galaxy, the closest edge is about 30,000 LY away. It's only about 1000 LY thick in our region though so it would be well within range of the original ship if traveling perpendicular to the plane.
So are you saying that in TOS when they went to the "galactic edge" it was along the Z-axis?
I could accept that as simple and somewhat doable as the Milky Way is "flat," with the bugle in the middle around the center of the galaxy. We, Earth and thusly the Fed are in one of the "flat" arms of the MW. So getting to the either "edge" of the galaxy along the Z-axis would be a much much shorter distance than to the ones along the X and Y axises.
In TrekV, uh yeah, a bizarre dream, sure. It was weird.
I know that it's a typo, but something about the idea of a bugle at the center of the galaxy made me
-- I guess it's just early.
Hahahaha yeah me too. Man I was just typing too quickly.I know that it's a typo, but something about the idea of a bugle at the center of the galaxy made me
One might of course be tempted to argue that the upper or lower surface of a disk-shaped galaxy wouldn't have a nice horizontal purple barrier a thousand meters high...
...But then again, the very idea of a 1km barrier is rather absurd to begin with, since our heroes should be able to go above or below it to reach the other side. So perhaps the imagery from "Where No Man Has Gone Before" should be interpreted differently - probably as a "lens flare" type phenomenon that would look horizontal on the viewscreen no matter how much Kirk's ship twisted and turned, and would always be in front of the ship even if she moved a thousand lightyears up, down, left or right.
Timo Saloniemi
...But then again, the very idea of a 1km barrier is rather absurd to begin with, since our heroes should be able to go above or below it to reach the other side. So perhaps the imagery from "Where No Man Has Gone Before" should be interpreted differently - probably as a "lens flare" type phenomenon that would look horizontal on the viewscreen no matter how much Kirk's ship twisted and turned, and would always be in front of the ship even if she moved a thousand lightyears up, down, left or right.
Timo Saloniemi
What I would say is more likely for "Where No Man Has Gone Before," is perhaps that particular "barrier" they came to was native to only that region of space along the z-axis galactic edge, but it being the first time anyone had been there, and lived, then perhaps they just didn't know how big it could have been elsewhere or even there at all in another portion of 'fringe' space? 
That makes a lot more sense. The spiral arms are 'only' about 1000 light years thick, so if the Enterprise went up or down, relatively speaking, it would be no more than 500 ly. Slightly less, if you went to the nearest edge, as our solar system is not precisely midway between top and bottom (I know such concepts are invalid in space, but they are useful), but rather displaced by about 5 parsecs.
Let's remember that there are comparable barrierlike phenomena inside the Trek galaxy as well. There's the Great Barrier towards the center of the galaxy, and the Nekrit Expanse marking a transition of some sort in the Delta Quadrant, etc. Perhaps each spiral arm of the Trek galaxy is delineated by energy barriers, and the two barriers rim- and coreward of Earth were first penetrated in TOS and ST5 respectively?
Timo Saloniemi
Timo Saloniemi
...which really doesn't help us here if the Enterprise was traveling mostly along the Z-axis and was already close to that edge of the Galaxy to begin with. Most astronomers place Earth roughly two-thirds out from the Core, where the depth of the Galaxy is considerably thinner (if you discount the various globular clusters and what have not floating around), and it may not take that long at all to leave the Galaxy proper at maximum warp. Additionally, we don't know how long the Enterprise had been away from Earth at the start of "Where No Man Has Gone Before" either (Star Trek XI aside, Kirk may have assumed command of the ship from Pike while she was hundreds or thousands of light-years from home as far as we know).
That's the way I've looked at it.The Badger said:That makes a lot more sense. The spiral arms are 'only' about 1000 light years thick, so if the Enterprise went up or down, relatively speaking, it would be no more than 500 ly. Slightly less, if you went to the nearest edge, as our solar system is not precisely midway between top and bottom (I know such concepts are invalid in space, but they are useful), but rather displaced by about 5 parsecs.Originally Posted by NIUPonyBoy
So are you saying that in TOS when they went to the "galactic edge" it was along the Z-axis?
My name is C.E. Evans and I approve this message.Timo said:
All Seeing Eye
Admiral
...Although it should be remembered that the "We don't know how long Kirk had been working his way towards the Edge" argument doesn't work for the other two cases in TOS where the energy barrier was reached. In "By Any Other Name", the ship was in the middle of regular adventures, only weeks or months away from the previous adventure which had taken place within "civilized space", not all that far away from Earth. And while the ship's propulsion system there admittedly got a boost from aliens in order to reach the barrier, the ship repeated the feat in "Is There In Truth No Beauty?" without alien modifications.
Apparently, Kirk was able to reach the barrier at the edge of the galaxy as part of his regular adventures, without dedicating years upon years to the trip. We must look for explanations that involve fast ships or short distances, not ones involving long travel times, if we want to make TOS compatible with the rest in this respect.
Timo Saloniemi
Apparently, Kirk was able to reach the barrier at the edge of the galaxy as part of his regular adventures, without dedicating years upon years to the trip. We must look for explanations that involve fast ships or short distances, not ones involving long travel times, if we want to make TOS compatible with the rest in this respect.
Timo Saloniemi
