Speed of the plot

[Go-Captain]

The annoying thing about the second use of quantum slipstream is the Delta Flyer used the conduit to get back to the Federation while only Voyager knocked itself out of the conduit. That's despite Voyager being the one to generate the conduit in the first place and supposedly needing to constantly create corrections. Worse, the ships is only supposed to get knocked out if the field collapses, but it obviously didn't collapse. When Kim purposefully collapses the field Voyager safely drops from slipstream.

What this shows us is an easy work around would be to have a launcher ship generate a conduit for a lead ship. The launcher drops from slipstream once the conduit is established and that's that. Even more convoluted would be to have a deflector on a cable, drag it behind the ship, and real it in after the conduit is established.

Except, Kim might say at one point the Flyer is able to lead Voyager because the Flyer is smaller.

Over all, I think the best solution for quantum slipstream is to declare the need for constant phase variance monitoring and correction to be a flaw only when using deflectors not built for quantum slipstream use. The instability is just an issue easily avoided completely when the correct systems are used for generating the phenomena.

 

[Tim Walker]

Voyager's use of slipstream was an improvision.

The first experimental vehicle built for slipstream would be used to answer this question-could a "super hop" be used twice during the same mission?

 

[Go-Captain]

Here's another speed figure. VOY: "Friendship One" 132 light years, maximum warp about 1 month. What was the real sustainable max figure, warp 9.8, in "Threshold?"

That's only 1,584 c, and that's slower than the last figure for a lower warp factor.

 

[Mytran]

"maximum warp" is one of those terms that can vary enormously though, even on the same show. Got to allow for all that "space turbulence!"

 

[MantaBase]

There's another aspect, going just by the episodes and movies, there are no fixed speeds for given warp factors. Speeds are all over the place, and as such I ascribe to the warp highway theory. It's simply the idea that different volumes of space result in different speeds at warp.

I really wonder why WF has to be tied directly to velocity.

In RL "Warp drive theory" (forgive me for bringing that into a fiction talk)(example link):

http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/20110015936.pdf

"Warp Factor" is not a direct measure of effective velocity. It is a measure of the degree of warp achieved - or the degree of negative mass achieved by the warp bubble . The ship itself never travels faster than LS and in very simple terms the effective velocity would calculated something like:

WF*DF*V

WF = Warp factor which is a factor of negative mass - possibly compared to the ship's mass. DF = dimensional factor (in a 3+1 system like the little paper discusses it is likely between 1.3 and 1.7 - in higher systems is goes up. By 3+3 it could be 2.5-2.6), and V is the velocity of the ship (maybe something like 50,000 Km/s). There is also likely a local space factor (0-1).

There is (to my knowledge) no formal warp factor yet (there may never be since these types of engines are theoretical). But in the above example if ship 1 is at:

9*2.5*50000km/s = 1125000 Km/s = 3.75 FTL

Ship 2 using engines of a lower dimensional system (say 3+1) and even a higher WF:

9.5*1.3*50000 = 617500 km/s = ~2.1 FTL

OK - point being that the relationship of WF to effective velocity is potentially not fixed.

Anyways, in the OP it talks about speeds like 21000 FTL in ST. I think the galaxy is only 100000 light years across? You traverse it in 5 years? That doesn't sound right.

 

[T'Girl]

Anyways, in the OP it talks about speeds like 21000 FTL in ST. I think the galaxy is only 100000 light years across? You traverse it in 5 years? That doesn't sound right.

And a Federation that's six thousand light years along it's maximum dimension, end to end in three and a half months?

 

[Mytran]

Anyways, in the OP it talks about speeds like 21000 FTL in ST. I think the galaxy is only 100000 light years across? You traverse it in 5 years? That doesn't sound right.

Yeah but you'd have to maintain top speed for that entire duration. Most engines would probably conk out before you'd gone a fraction of that distance

 

[MantaBase]

Anyways, in the OP it talks about speeds like 21000 FTL in ST. I think the galaxy is only 100000 light years across? You traverse it in 5 years? That doesn't sound right.

Yeah but you'd have to maintain top speed for that entire duration. Most engines would probably conk out before you'd gone a fraction of that distance

I still think a 0 needs to be knocked off that.

Knowing the writers were likely a little sloppy, if the original estimate for VOY back to Alpha space was 75 years, and it was ~75000 ly to Earth, then it is likely closer to 1000 FTL at whatever the max cruise was.

 

[Tim Walker]

early slipstream

In the novels slipstream appears to be a mature technology aboard the Aventine, or at least well advanced. Even though its use aboard Voyager was an improvision.

I think that the first operational slipstream craft would be akin to the I-250 (a.k.a. MiG 13) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikoyan-Gurevich_I-250

 

[Mytran]

Anyways, in the OP it talks about speeds like 21000 FTL in ST. I think the galaxy is only 100000 light years across? You traverse it in 5 years? That doesn't sound right.

Yeah but you'd have to maintain top speed for that entire duration. Most engines would probably conk out before you'd gone a fraction of that distance

I still think a 0 needs to be knocked off that.

Knowing the writers were likely a little sloppy, if the original estimate for VOY back to Alpha space was 75 years, and it was ~75000 ly to Earth, then it is likely closer to 1000 FTL at whatever the max cruise was.

Actually it's worse than that: If we discount the various leaps and shortcuts that Voyager made use of during her journey, then they averaged only 400 LYpY throughout the series. Too much exploring, maybe?