Speed & Range of Subspace Transmissions?

[glock27]

Lieutenant 'A' on Earth wants to say "whaddup" to Ensign 'B', who is on a ship at an equidistant point measuring 20 light years (one full sector) away.

So how long does it take for Lt. A's transmission to reach Ens. B?

The warp scale says it takes a ship going Warp 9.9999 fifty-three minutes to travel that distance. Is the transmission traveling faster than a boat doing five-nines? Are we talking the 'holy grail' speed of Warp 10?

Is there an effective range limit for the transmission? If so what it is it? If a subspace transmission travels at Warp Factor 'God', shouldn't it be everywhere at once, and thus, transmit in real time, with no lag?

 

[Mage]

The reason why subspace communication works relativly fast is because of relays. In ENT there was an episode in which we saw Enterprise deploying one of these relays. They make subspace communication a lot faster, faster then max warp. But not always fast enough. In DS9, it was once stated that it took a while for a subspace message from Cestus 3 (where Kassidy's brother lives) to reach her. Not sure how long, but it was days I believe.

 

[C.E. Evans]

Even subspace transmissions don't travel at Warp 10--at least according to the various Tech Manuals and the Star Trek Encyclopedia--so there is a limit to how fast subspace signals can go. They go significantly faster than starships, but not at infinite velocity.

 

[The Inquisitor]

Maybe the mass of the transmission in comparison to the mass of a starship could indicate why it travels faster. Just a thought.

 

[sojourner]

See my answer in your previous thread.

 

[Timo]

One would think that the signal goes faster and travels farther if it's pushed into subspace by a more powerful transmitter. We have currently no reason to think that subspace signals would behave according to the frankly rather exotic rules that govern electromagnetic radiation and restrict it to exactly one speed in vacuum (the speed of light).

Thus, a runabout could easily fly outside its communications range, while a big starship would have to fly much faster or longer to exceed its communications range. Which we do see happening when we compare DS9 and TNG communications problems...

Also, if the signal drops from subspace to normal space after running out of oomph, and perhaps gradually slows down before this dropping, then it would be possible to have a message travel across 2,000 ly in one second (if there's a relay buoy every 10 ly with the ability to re-push the signal to high speed for the next 10 ly) or in one century (if there are fewer or weaker relay buoys). It's quite unlike radio, and more like moving a message baton physically between two locations.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[SWHouston]

The Borg didn't seem to have much trouble keeping in touch.
But, I'm not sure that was Subspace, I remember Data mentioning the Borg Interlink Freqs were "sorta" related to a type of Transporter Signal.

 

[Deks]

The Borg were indeed mentioned to use subspace signals for communication (at least that was the case in BoBW).

They probably kept using that kind of method... albeit via TW signals.

It's all subspace based anyway, because as it was already established, Trek is primarily centered around subspace manipulation and one has to use it in order to achieve faster than light or warp speeds.

As for communications for SF... they are amplified by subspace transceivers.
When the Enterprise-D sent a message during it's exploratory assignments, it would have taken it 2 days to get a response from SF.
It is likely the ship was immediately outside of range of the Federation subspace network, or was in an area of space where no nearby transmitters were present.

 

[Timo]

OTOH, it's possible to get a signal across millions of lightyears without the benefit of relays in a matter of centuries, at least in "Where No One Has Gone Before". That would sort of suggest that even if a starship were two annoying lightdays beyond the reach of the UFP booster net and therefore theoretically would suffer a delay of days in standard communications, the comm officer could simply flip the switch for this intergalactic transmitter and connect to Earth in milliseconds...

...Unless there's something special about intergalactic space that makes signals go automatically faster or decay more slowly there. Perhaps signals travel slowly in dense (thin) subspace, and subspace is denser (thinner) inside galaxies?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Crazy Eddie]

Canon is going to screw with your head on this one because "instantaneous" subspace communications come and go through the series and have never been consistent in Trek history. I for one ALWAYS build a time delay into Trek stories as a regular plot device; Kirk and crew have to use their own discretion in Situation A because it'll take way too long to wait for a response from Starfleet, or have to stall for time in Situation B because a message will take several days to reach the nearest starbase and then it'll take a week or two for help to arrive, etc.

If you want some consistency, try plotting subspace signals traveling at, say, Warp 10 based on the calculation of warp 1-9. At least that way the reason you can't reach or exceed warp ten is because that's the speed that subspace signals propagate and crossing that velocity has similar problems as crossing the sound barrier.

 

[Timo]

...And since warp 10 is infinite speed, we get those instantaneous communications we so often witness.

Also, Kirk should by all rights be out of comm range in situations where Picard is not, because Kirk surveyed the wilderness while Picard flew through civilized space.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[PrimeDirective]

So subpace communication can only happen when a starship, or one of its smaller versions(i.e. runabouts, shuttlecraft) is in warp? Isn't subspace the bubble of normal space that the ship is in, when at warp?

 

[JarodRussell]

I don't think they ever clearly defined what subspace is. Subspace is some fictional concept, on another level than normal space. Distances are shorter there, subatomic particles exist there naturally, life forms exist there, too, another form of communication is possible (faster than light and not degrading with distance). In Insurrection they used subspace weapons that created a rift into nothingness, and in one TNG episode Dr. Crusher was caught in a subspace bubble (or was it a warp bubble in that episode?).

Sensors need to work with subspace somehow, too. Otherwise they wouldn't see where they are going, and couldn't instantly see things that are lightyears away.

 

[Timo]

So subpace communication can only happen when a starship, or one of its smaller versions(i.e. runabouts, shuttlecraft) is in warp?

This has never been stated, and in most shows it has been debunked by having our heroes contact others (sometimes with a delay, but never with a lightspeed delay) while their ship is at a standstill or freefall.

In early ENT, there was some speculation that this might be true (at least for this early and primitive era) - that insta-comms would only be possible at warp, unless one deployed a booster relay. We need that caveat because when Echo 1 was deployed, communications with Earth improved immediately, before the ship got going again. That'd make very little sense if a booster merely received a weakened message and sent it forward again amplified, because the ship was sitting right next to the relay and her message wouldn't have been weakened by distance yet! So the booster had to serve some other function, and perhaps facilitating "warp calls" for a ship that wasn't a warp was that function?

But later ENT had comms take place when the ship wasn't at warp and didn't sit next to a booster relay...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Aahz]

It has been correctly stated here that "canon" has screwed up subspace communications. More correctly, anything Trek produced after Gene Roddenberry died (i.e. Berman/Bragga) screwed up most everything Trek as far as "canon" is concerned the way GR meant for it to be. But regardless...

In the pre-TMP days (that is, mid- to late-70s), there was a fanzine called "Trek" in which a writer named Mark Andrew Golding came up with extremely plausible explanations of Treknology based on watching the episodes with an eye for extreme detail. One of the things he explained was subspace communications.

He had explained warp drive and pre-warp FTL travel in previous articles, and subspace communication built upon that. Without going into all of that detail, suffice it to say that there are a number of permanent naturally-occurring warps between certain star systems. Ships do not really travel FTL, but really travel at a small fraction of lightspeed and either take advantage of the natural warps or use warp drive to generate an artificial warp.

A subspace signal cannot generate its own warp, obviously. However, it does have the advantage of traveling at the speed of light. By placing communications relays at the ends of the naturally-occurring warps, the subspace signal can be directed through the warp and travel at an effective speed of about warp 60 (according to "The Making of Star Trek" which gives the speed but not the explanation).

There is an extensive network of subspace relays throughout explored space. If a ship is near one of the relays, communication with a ship, station, or something else near another relay can seem almost instantaneous. But if you're some distance from the nearest relay, the signal travels at "only" the speed of light until it reaches the relay, then travels at full subspace speed through the network.

For example, in "The Trouble with Tribbles" Kirk has a real-time communication with Admiral Fitzpatrick even though they're near the Klingon border, presumably because there is a relay either near Station K7 or actually part of the station. OTOH, in "The Enterprise Incident", Subcommander Tal says a message to Starfleet would take 3 weeks from their present location (some point actually in Romulan space past the Neutral Zone, where Starfleet would not have had the chance to place relays).

In "Star Trek IV", in the very brief scene on the Enterprise-A at the end of the movie, take a look at one of the overhead displays at Uhura's station. It is a portion of a map of the subspace relay network. A better view of this map is printed in "Mr. Scott's Guide to the Enterprise" and can probably also be found on-line somewhere.

So even though Mark Andrew Golding's explanation was written based solely on TOS episodes, it appears to remain valid with the later movies and TV series.

 

[scotpens]

Canon is going to screw with your head on this one because "instantaneous" subspace communications come and go through the series and have never been consistent in Trek history. I for one ALWAYS build a time delay into Trek stories as a regular plot device; Kirk and crew have to use their own discretion in Situation A because it'll take way too long to wait for a response from Starfleet, or have to stall for time in Situation B because a message will take several days to reach the nearest starbase and then it'll take a week or two for help to arrive, etc.

In other words, subspace communications, like starships and turbo-elevators, travel at the speed of plot.

 

[giftindex]

The Best Data to the Question "How Fast and How Far Subspace Transmission can travel?" is answered in the Star Trek Next Generation Season 1 Episode 5 entitled "Where No One has Gone Before".

Shortly after coming to a complete Stop, the crew determines that they have traveled 2,700,000 Light Years in mere moments.
The indicate that it would take them 300 Years to travel that distance at Maximum Warp indicating That to be 9000 Times the Speed of Light.
Data is cut short before he can give his complete answer regarding how long a subspace transmission would travel.

But He states that the subspace message they just sent would take 51 Years 10 months 9 weeks 16 days To get there. (Actually 52.04977169 Years)

A quick calculation would indicate that a subspace message would have to travel at 51873.4 Times the Speed of Light after adustments for leap years.

 

[CuttingEdge100]

Well as a hypothetical, I've always thought a good arbitrary rule of thumb for the maximum theoretical velocity of either a subspace transmission or a warp-drive would be the speed of light squared.

It would come out to around 3,600 light years an hour at that speed, you would take about 30 hours to cross the galaxy.

 

[T'Girl]

But He states that the subspace message they just sent would take 51 Years 10 months 9 weeks 16 days To get there. (Actually 52.04977169 Years)

A quick calculation would indicate that a subspace message would have to travel at 51873.4 Times the Speed of Light after adustments for leap years.

But that doesn't necessarily indicate a constant rate of speed or propagation on the part of the subspace signal.

What the Enterprise emitted might be traveling considerably faster than 50k sol initially, Data's time figure would have took into account the predictable degradation in velocity until the signal reached the edge of Federation space and the first subspace relay. Then the rate between relays until the signal arrived at it intended destination.

 

[Timo]

...Not to mention that "51 years, 10 months, 9 weeks, 16 days" cannot be the same thing as "51 years + 10 months + 9 weeks + 16 days", because 9 weeks is more than a month, and 16 days is more than a week. Nobody would express a single period of time with those words, then. (Instead, one would say "52 years, 3 weeks, 2 days", assuming that a month is defined as being 30 days long even though no such definition is agreed upon).

But one could well express three or four periods of time with those words. Say, the message could travel for 51 years or 10 months or 9 weeks or 16 days, depending on parameters that Data is not allowed to dwell on because Picard shuts him up in mid-sentence.

Which means we know next to nothing about the relationship between the distance of 2.7 million lightyears and the comm delay imposed by it. For all we know, Data's parameters would not be met in any practical conditions, and the message that they did send home would actually arrive in 2.69 million years!

Timo Saloniemi