Space The Final frontier? huh?

[RobertScorpio]

Okay...let me get this straight...

We didn't get warp speed until Zeppy did it in First Contact. Then we went into space, and the Federation formed..I get all that.

But the Klingons/Romulans/Vulcans/Cardassians? How long did they have Warp Drive. Thousands of years? And yet most of the Galaxy that Kirk/Archer explored, and even Picard later, was as of yet, unexplored? Does that mean unexplored by us (humans) or does that mean unexplored. Because when I look at the map of the galaxy, I find it hard that none of the others didn't already explore our part of the Galaxy, I find it increasingly hard to believe that the Cardassians, who had warp drive LONG ago, were'nt bumping into Kirk long ago...What gives my learned Trekonian brothers and sisters?

Rob
Scorpio

 

[FordSVT]

Okay...let me get this straight...

We didn't get warp speed until Zeppy did it in First Contact. Then we went into space, and the Federation formed..I get all that.

But the Klingons/Romulans/Vulcans/Cardassians? How long did they have Warp Drive. Thousands of years? And yet most of the Galaxy that Kirk/Archer explored, and even Picard later, was as of yet, unexplored? Does that mean unexplored by us (humans) or does that mean unexplored. Because when I look at the map of the galaxy, I find it hard that none of the others didn't already explore our part of the Galaxy, I find it increasingly hard to believe that the Cardassians, who had warp drive LONG ago, were'nt bumping into Kirk long ago...What gives my learned Trekonian brothers and sisters?

Rob
Scorpio

You underestimate the size of the galaxy compared to the size of the territory covered by the Federation and the Klingon and Romulan Empires, et al.

All of Trek basically takes place in a rough sphere a few thousand light years in diameter, centred around one or two arms of the galaxy. This area contains millions of star and planets, most of which would be uninhabited. The Milky Way is 100,000 LY across, up to 12,000 LY thick in places and contains over a hundred billions stars.

The TNG Tech manual says that the Federation has charted (not fully explored) 11% of the Galaxy by the time of TNG. That would mean they described the stars, the major planets that surround those stars, and their orbits. They would have actually visited and put boots down on only a fraction of that.

Even moving at many times the speed of light, it would take thousands of ships thousands of years to explore all of the stars just in their own neighbourhood, and most civilizations do not spend those kind of resources on pure exploration. The Ferengi may have sent a hundred ships in the direction of Earth over the past thousand years, but they'd have to be pretty damn lucky just to spot us. The Klingons, for instance, probably only expand and explore far enough to find the next race to conquer and enslave, then stall while they reinforce their new territory and fight a constant stream of small skirmishes. They are not usually explorers for the sake of exploration like humans are.

 

[RobertScorpio]

Okay...let me get this straight...

We didn't get warp speed until Zeppy did it in First Contact. Then we went into space, and the Federation formed..I get all that.

But the Klingons/Romulans/Vulcans/Cardassians? How long did they have Warp Drive. Thousands of years? And yet most of the Galaxy that Kirk/Archer explored, and even Picard later, was as of yet, unexplored? Does that mean unexplored by us (humans) or does that mean unexplored. Because when I look at the map of the galaxy, I find it hard that none of the others didn't already explore our part of the Galaxy, I find it increasingly hard to believe that the Cardassians, who had warp drive LONG ago, were'nt bumping into Kirk long ago...What gives my learned Trekonian brothers and sisters?

Rob
Scorpio

You underestimate the size of the galaxy compared to the size of the territory covered by the Federation and the Klingon and Romulan Empires, et al.

All of Trek basically takes place in a rough sphere a few thousand light years in diameter, centred around one or two arms of the galaxy. This area contains millions of star and planets, most of which would be uninhabited. The Milky Way is 100,000 LY across, up to 12,000 LY thick in places and contains over a hundred billions stars.

The TNG Tech manual says that the Federation has charted (not fully explored) 11% of the Galaxy by the time of TNG. That would mean they described the stars, the major planets that surround those stars, and their orbits. They would have actually visited and put boots down on only a fraction of that.

Even moving at many times the speed of light, it would take thousands of ships thousands of years to explore all of the stars just in their own neighbourhood, and most civilizations do not spend those kind of resources on pure exploration. The Ferengi may have sent a hundred ships in the direction of Earth over the past thousand years, but they'd have to be pretty damn lucky just to spot us. The Klingons, for instance, probably only expand and explore far enough to find the next race to conquer and enslave, then stall while they reinforce their new territory and fight a constant stream of small skirmishes. They are not usually explorers for the sake of exploration like humans are.

True. But the Vulcans are explorers. And we are led to believe they lost 'contact' with the Vulcans who would become Romulans thousands of years ago. But The Vulcan and Romulus are not that far apart, especially when we are talking thousands of years of Warp Drive for both.

It would take the Voyager 80 years, I think, to get from the Delta Quadrant to Federation space (why she avoided the Wormhole in Gamma, I don't know). Well, what if Janeway and her crew were imortal and could live 5000 years and the ship held together. I think they could have traveled from Gamma to Alpha something like 62 times in that amount of time. And they are just one ship.

And remember, I'm not talking about it from where we sit. I am talking about it from where they sit. Cardassians have had warp drive for a long long time, as have the Vulcans and klingons. When I look where we are situated on that map, we should have been 'exploring space' they covered LONG ago because we are heading towards where their home planets are, not away from them.

Rob
Scorpio

 

[EliyahuQeoni]

"Frontier" is a relative term. American's used to talk about the "Western Frontier," despite that fact that it had been explored an inhabited by Native Americans for centuries.

 

[captcalhoun]

ENT seems to have us believe that although the Vulcans had warp for at least 2 centuries prior to 2151, they didn't actually explore much. it may well be the same for others like the Andorians, Tellarites, etc...

 

[Anwar]

Vulcans had FTL for 3000 years before ENT, but they lost it after the final war with the exiles who became the Romulans and rediscovered it like 1000 years before ENT.

 

[Deks]

Vulcans had FTL for 3000 years before ENT, but they lost it after the final war with the exiles who became the Romulans and rediscovered it like 1000 years before ENT.

Actually, it was more along the lines of 2000 years prior to ENT events that Vulcans rediscovered Warp drive.

But Vulcans didn't explore too much ... oh sure, they would cover plenty of territory in the span on 2000 years, however, you also have to consider their own scientific breakthroughs in Warp drive and all.
It took the Vulcans a century to break the Warp 2 barrier ... or was it more?
In any case, Humans achieved warp 5 in the same time frame, which also indicates that they would explore more by the time of TNG in comparison to other powers in the quadrant because of their exploratory nature.

 

[-Brett-]

Cardassians have had warp drive for a long long time...

You keep saying this. What makes you think so? I don't recall anything in TNG or DS9 to suggest that the Cardies spacefaring civilization was any older than the Federation.

 

[Skywalker]

The Cardassians were a spacefaring race by at least the 2150s (in "Observer Effect," the Organians mention a Cardassian ship that had failed the same experiment Enterprise was going through).

 

[Trekwatcher]

ENT seems to have us believe that although the Vulcans had warp for at least 2 centuries prior to 2151, they didn't actually explore much. it may well be the same for others like the Andorians, Tellarites, etc...

I dunno...in ENT they are frequently referencing the Vulcan Database, which, although far from complete, is implied to be quite extensive.

 

[Tulin]

The Cardassians were a spacefaring race by at least the 2150s (in "Observer Effect," the Organians mention a Cardassian ship that had failed the same experiment Enterprise was going through).

WTF?!?!

Sorry but is that a book or(yuck)an episode of ENT?

If it is an ep, I find it AMAZING the Organians would be in it.

 

[Therin of Andor]

If it is an ep, I find it AMAZING the Organians would be in it.

It is, and it's a fun ENT episode! A prequel to "Errand of Mercy", in a way.

 

[captcalhoun]

ENT seems to have us believe that although the Vulcans had warp for at least 2 centuries prior to 2151, they didn't actually explore much. it may well be the same for others like the Andorians, Tellarites, etc...

I dunno...in ENT they are frequently referencing the Vulcan Database, which, although far from complete, is implied to be quite extensive.

not necessarily so. we know a shitload about the galaxy and we've never even left the system after all...

 

[-Brett-]

The Cardassians were a spacefaring race by at least the 2150s (in "Observer Effect," the Organians mention a Cardassian ship that had failed the same experiment Enterprise was going through).

Must be an Enterprise thing.

Even if Enterprise counted (it doesn't), then that still doesn't show that the Cardassians were around significantly longer than the Federation.

 

[STIntergalactic]

That's kind of an old joke.

They always talk about going "Where no man has gone before" But whenever they get to a planet, THERE'S ALWAYS SOMEONE THERE!

 

[Skywalker]

The Cardassians were a spacefaring race by at least the 2150s (in "Observer Effect," the Organians mention a Cardassian ship that had failed the same experiment Enterprise was going through).

Must be an Enterprise thing.

Even if Enterprise counted (it doesn't), then that still doesn't show that the Cardassians were around significantly longer than the Federation.

Just because you say it doesn't count, that doesn't make it true.

And you didn't say anything about the significance of the amount of time, you only said that there was no evidence that the Cardassians had been in space since before the Federation. It's likely that the Cardassians were in space at least as long as humanity had been by that point. Probably longer, in fact, since there was such a big to-do about humans progressing so much more quickly than other species.

 

[Alidar Jarok]

The Cardassians were a spacefaring race by at least the 2150s (in "Observer Effect," the Organians mention a Cardassian ship that had failed the same experiment Enterprise was going through).

Must be an Enterprise thing.

Even if Enterprise counted (it doesn't), then that still doesn't show that the Cardassians were around significantly longer than the Federation.

There was a Cardassian poet in exile on Vulcan, so they had warp drive

 

[-Brett-]

The Cardassians were a spacefaring race by at least the 2150s (in "Observer Effect," the Organians mention a Cardassian ship that had failed the same experiment Enterprise was going through).

Must be an Enterprise thing.

Even if Enterprise counted (it doesn't), then that still doesn't show that the Cardassians were around significantly longer than the Federation.

Just because you say it doesn't count, that doesn't make it true.

So you think that the TNG cast resolved their moral dilemmas by going to the holodeck and consulting with Captain Archer about something not even remotely related?

No, Enterprise doesn't count.

 

[Timo]

It's not as if we'd ever really hear in Star Trek that a specific location has never been visited by folks other than our heroes. And it's in fact extremely seldom that our heroes would be surprised to see one of their "competitors" pop up. When Klingons turn up in TOS, it's not an issue of "WTF are they doing out here?" but of "Damn, I was hoping these guys would have something else to do today than pester us".

Really, the only example of "They shouldn't really be here" that pops into my mind is TNG "Heart of Glory" where the Talarian freighter is supposedly far away from the usual territory when adrift on the (Romulan?) Neutral Zone. Apart from that, if an adversary has warp drive, odds are he will show up wherever our heroes go.

As for when everybody became starfaring, we naturally have very little solid data because Trek mainly deals with the "now" and only makes random references to the "then". We don't know when Klingons got stardrives - Kahless may already have had those, even though his legend tells he also forged the first sword. We don't know when Vulcans got practical stardrives, but we know they founded a temple across interstellar distances 3,000 years before the shows, and Romulans departed Vulcan about 2,000 years before the shows. And we don't know when the Cardassians went to the stars, or whether the old Hebitian civilization was interstellar, interplanetary, industrial, or just very good at making clay pots.

Perhaps the only civilizations we know something meaningful about are humans (Cochrane's indigenous warp was apparently our first interstellar drive) and the Ferengi (Quark thinks selling the secrets of warp to his 1947 kinsmen would be good business, although he might also be pondering further time travel to more distant past to make that sale). Oh, and the Malcorians of "First Contact".

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Anwar]

Must be an Enterprise thing.

Even if Enterprise counted (it doesn't), then that still doesn't show that the Cardassians were around significantly longer than the Federation.

Just because you say it doesn't count, that doesn't make it true.

So you think that the TNG cast resolved their moral dilemmas by going to the holodeck and consulting with Captain Archer about something not even remotely related?

No, Enterprise doesn't count.

You can't disregard an entire series due to one episode.