Star Trek Maps (1980)

[Mytran]

I don't know how you got 2000LY is it mentioned in the episode? Have to check that.

The 2,000ly distance is spoken in the episode First Contact, when Troi & Picard introduce themselves to the Malcorian astronomer Mirasta:

TROI: We come from a federation of planets. Captain Picard is from a planet called Earth, which is over two thousand light years from here. I'm from another planet called Betazed.

The episode takes place about half a season on from Family, which is on Earth and the Enterprise has certainly not been travelling full speed away from their homeworld all that time. Perhaps 6,000c is appropriate?

Remember, we can't make warp speeds for TNG onwards too fast as according to the episode Q Who it would take the Enterprise D almost 3 years to cross 7000LY.

That's not exactly what happened: The Enterprise is flung 7,000ly from their previous position, at which point Data states that the distance to nearest starbase at maximum warp is two years, seven months, three days, eighteen hours - let's call that 948 days in total.

However, we have no way of knowing exactly how far away the E-D was in relation to Starbase 185. The Enterprise may well be on deep space exploration duties - as indeed seems to be case in Pen Pals, the episode just prior to Q-Who.
Regarding travel times:
7,000ly in 948 days = 2,697c
8,000ly in 948 days = 3,082c
9,000ly in 948 days = 3,468c
10,000ly in 948 days = 3,853c

I don't think it is out of the question that the Enterprise could be a few thousand light years away from SB185. According to Tom Paris in The 37s, Warp 9.9 is 4billion MPS (21,473c), whereas Kim in Manoeuvres gave one of Voyager's speeds as 2billion KMS (6,671). Laforge in Booby Trap compares Leah Bram’s working model to the real E-D, which he says has “tens of thousands of light years on it”. The E-D was launched approx 2½ years previously – if she has just 25,000ly on the clock this means she travelled an average of 10,000ly a year.
So, even if the Enterprise kept up high speed for some time, once in the Selcundi Drema sector they spend 6 weeks in Pen Pals on a research mission, time enough for the Warp Engines to recover.

An interesting fact about that 7,000ly figure - it is also the distance from Jouret-4 (one of the Federation's outermost colonies and the one which opens BOBW). So, is Jouret-4 also the (former) location of SB185, or is it just a curious coincidence?

 

[Novak Senkovic]

As I said earlier I think that the 2697c is the maximum speed that the Enterprise can acheive and maintain over the long distance of 7000LY. And the 2000LY is in explored space because the Federation knew about the Malcorians, though I don't know how the Federation expects to maintain a stable relationship wioth Malcor if the size of the Federation is as small as Star Charts. Also the tens of thousands of light years would seem to contradict both Pari's and Kim's statements if speed is what Geaordi was talking about.

 

[Mytran]

Which is my point, really; whatever the Star Charts depict, evidence from the episodes themselves indicate that starships in the 24th century had a far wider range than the "official" TNG speeds would suggest.

The speeds in VOY are not incompatible, since from the moment they are dragged across the galaxy it is a broken ship! If this were not the case, their trip would be done within 26 years, not 75.

 

[BK613]

"The Last Goodbye" and "Darmok" showed us a glimpse of the prep work that goes into meeting a new species. Since they were talking to the Malkorian "president" , wouldn't they have used a Malkorian light-year in their introductory greeting?

 

[Timo]

I'd argue that average speeds keep going down as the distance to be spanned (and the time spent spanning it) increases. If a 7,000 ly trip slows you down from those five-digit dashes to 2,600 cee, a 70,000 ly trip brings you further down to the about 800 cee quoted by Barclay. It's just a matter of accumulating pit stops, which themselves grow longer and more demanding with time, unless one can "zero-hour" the ship with a "proper" teardown at a Starfleet-qualified MRO depot.

What is the longest distance across which a ship can maintain her factory-specs cruising speed, free of the accumulating-pit-stops curse? If it's between a thousand and five thousand lightyears, then the overall continuity is preserved nicely enough. But if the E-D keeps hugging the upper end of that, then she eventually runs into the problems explicated in "Phantasms" et al. and requires more extensive MRO than her sister ships.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[BK613]

^^ True. Reminds me of the old 80s Lamborghini joke:
This car will pass everything on the highway except one thing.
What's that?

A gas station...

 

[Mytran]

"The Last Goodbye" and "Darmok" showed us a glimpse of the prep work that goes into meeting a new species. Since they were talking to the Malkorian "president" , wouldn't they have used a Malkorian light-year in their introductory greeting?

Nah, that's what the universal translator is for

I'd argue that average speeds keep going down as the distance to be spanned (and the time spent spanning it) increases. If a 7,000 ly trip slows you down from those five-digit dashes to 2,600 cee, a 70,000 ly trip brings you further down to the about 800 cee quoted by Barclay. It's just a matter of accumulating pit stops, which themselves grow longer and more demanding with time, unless one can "zero-hour" the ship with a "proper" teardown at a Starfleet-qualified MRO depot.

What is the longest distance across which a ship can maintain her factory-specs cruising speed, free of the accumulating-pit-stops curse? If it's between a thousand and five thousand lightyears, then the overall continuity is preserved nicely enough. But if the E-D keeps hugging the upper end of that, then she eventually runs into the problems explicated in "Phantasms" et al. and requires more extensive MRO than her sister ships.

This makes a lot of sense - until we consider that in WNOHGB that the E-D can cover 2,700,000 in around 300 years (9,000c). Then again, this is Season One LaForge who made the statement - his happy-go-lucky estimate may not consider things like engine cooldown and Starbase-grade refits.
Also, 9,000c seems as a maximum speed (short term) seems a pretty good fit for TOS and TNG speeds (and possibly also DS9). And the more I think about it, didn't a lot of TNG episodes end with the ship heading for Starbase x?

 

[Novak Senkovic]

I find it hard to believe that STarfleet top of the line ships can cover 5000LY in a very short space of time as indicated by the episodes, yet travel the rest of the 2000LY in almost 3 years to get the 7000LY.

 

[Novak Senkovic]

Nah, that's what the universal translator is for


This makes a lot of sense - until we consider that in WNOHGB that the E-D can cover 2,700,000 in around 300 years (9,000c). Then again, this is Season One LaForge who made the statement - his happy-go-lucky estimate may not consider things like engine cooldown and Starbase-grade refits.
Also, 9,000c seems as a maximum speed (short term) seems a pretty good fit for TOS and TNG speeds (and possibly also DS9). And the more I think about it, didn't a lot of TNG episodes end with the ship heading for Starbase x?

There aren't many epsidoes where they ended with a heading towards a starbase.

 

[Mytran]

Luckily, we can do a script search on this issue:
http://scriptsearch.dxdy.name/
The following episodes had the E-D recently leaving from or heading to a Starbase:

Hide and Q (SB G6)
11001001 (SB 74)
Home Soil (nearest starbase)
Coming Of Age (starbase on Relva-7)
Heart Of Glory (SB 84)
The Arsenal Of Freedom (SB 103)
The Schizoid Man (nearest starbase)
A Matter of Honour (SB 179)
The Measure Of A Man (SB 173)
Time Squared (SB 73)
The Icarus Factor (SB Montgomery)
Q Who? (SB 173)
Samaritan Snare (SB 515)
Up The Long Ladder (SB 73)
The Survivors (SB 133)
Booby Trap (nearest SB)
The Vengeance Factor (SB 343)
The Hunted (SB Lya-3)
The Offspring (SB Otar-2)
Captain's Holiday (SB 12) - refilling deuterium tanks for a week
Tin Man (SB 152)
Hollow Pursuits (SB 121)
Brothers (SB 416)
Remember Me (SB 133)
Reunion (SB 73)
The Wounded (SB 211)
Galaxy's Child (SB 313)
Night Terrors (SB 220)
The Mind's Eye (SB 36)
In Theory (SB 260)
Redemption Part 2 (SB 234)
Disaster (SB 67)
The Game (SB 82)
Unification Part 1 (SB 234)
A Matter of Time (SB 214)
Violations (SB 440)
Conundrum (SB 301)
Time's Arrow part 2 (nearest SB)
Relics (SB 55)
True-Q (SB 112)
A Fistful of Datas SB (118)
Aquiel (SB 12)
Lessons (SB 218)
Descent part 2 (SB 295)
Interface (SB 495)
Gambit part 2 (SB 277)
Phantasms (SB 84) - new warp core
Phantasms (SB 219)
Parallels (SB 129)
The Pegasus (SB 247)
Homeward (SB 87)
Sub Rosa (SB 621)
Eye Of The Beholder (SB 328)
Journey's End (SB 310)

That's 54 out of 178 episodes!
They spend 30% of their time at Starbases!

 

[Novak Senkovic]

Luckily, we can do a script search on this issue:
http://scriptsearch.dxdy.name/
The following episodes had the E-D recently leaving from or heading to a Starbase:

Hide and Q (SB G6)
11001001 (SB 74)
Home Soil (nearest starbase)
Coming Of Age (starbase on Relva-7)
Heart Of Glory (SB 84)
The Arsenal Of Freedom (SB 103)
The Schizoid Man (nearest starbase)
A Matter of Honour (SB 179)
The Measure Of A Man (SB 173)
Time Squared (SB 73)
The Icarus Factor (SB Montgomery)
Q Who? (SB 173)
Samaritan Snare (SB 515)
Up The Long Ladder (SB 73)
The Survivors (SB 133)
Booby Trap (nearest SB)
The Vengeance Factor (SB 343)
The Hunted (SB Lya-3)
The Offspring (SB Otar-2)
Captain's Holiday (SB 12) - refilling deuterium tanks for a week
Tin Man (SB 152)
Hollow Pursuits (SB 121)
Brothers (SB 416)
Remember Me (SB 133)
Reunion (SB 73)
The Wounded (SB 211)
Galaxy's Child (SB 313)
Night Terrors (SB 220)
The Mind's Eye (SB 36)
In Theory (SB 260)
Redemption Part 2 (SB 234)
Disaster (SB 67)
The Game (SB 82)
Unification Part 1 (SB 234)
A Matter of Time (SB 214)
Violations (SB 440)
Conundrum (SB 301)
Time's Arrow part 2 (nearest SB)
Relics (SB 55)
True-Q (SB 112)
A Fistful of Datas SB (118)
Aquiel (SB 12)
Lessons (SB 218)
Descent part 2 (SB 295)
Interface (SB 495)
Gambit part 2 (SB 277)
Phantasms (SB 84) - new warp core
Phantasms (SB 219)
Parallels (SB 129)
The Pegasus (SB 247)
Homeward (SB 87)
Sub Rosa (SB 621)
Eye Of The Beholder (SB 328)
Journey's End (SB 310)

That's 54 out of 178 episodes!
They spend 30% of their time at Starbases!

That's alot but the Enterprise may not have made it to all those starbases

 

[Timo]

I find it hard to believe that STarfleet top of the line ships can cover 5000LY in a very short space of time as indicated by the episodes, yet travel the rest of the 2000LY in almost 3 years to get the 7000LY.

The point would be that the ship can in theory cover 70,000 ly or 700,000 ly at that high speed, too - but with increasing risk of blowing up. And that risk won't be reduced by shortening travel time with an even higher speed, quite to the contrary. So in order to make it safely home across more than 5,000 ly, skippers take it easy on the first leg of the trip already.

Also, a trip of up to 5,000 ly will not take the ship to completely unknown space, so the skipper can afford a bit of uncertainty. If the engines blow at 4,900 ly, there's likely to still be a qualified spares vendor around, or at least a means of getting back home without a working ship. If they blow at 50,000 ly, then that's it. And if 5,000 ly of high speed travel degrades the engines, they can be restored to full health at the other end; with 50,000 ly, they stay degraded, and the next thousand lightyears will be much more of a challenge than those 5,000 were.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Lakenheath 72]

Going by the Treaty of Armens ("The Ensigns of Command"),

"Third party assistance may be requested from a Federation Starfleet vessel or a Sheliak Corporate spacecraft if the distance from the vessel to the respective homeworld is greater than five thousand lightyears. UFP Standards Measurement Bureau Units. Assistance may be assisted if the vessel is less than 1000 lightyears from a standard UFP subspace relay booster station."

So, Tau Cygna V was located at a point in the galaxy more than 5000 lightyears from Earth, or less than 1000 lightyears from a subspace relay booster station.

So, Federation starships were in 2255 traveling more than 5000 lightyears from Earth on a regular occurrence.

 

[Novak Senkovic]

Accordint to memory alpha Tau cygna V is only 500LY years from Earth.

 

[Mytran]

Yeah, but that's a fan edited website, with no source listed as to where they got the "500" figure
The Beta site does not mention 500ly, merely what is stated in the episode http://memory-beta.wikia.com/wiki/Tau_Cygna_V

 

[Novak Senkovic]

Yeah, but that's a fan edited website, with no source listed as to where they got the "500" figure
The Beta site does not mention 500ly, merely what is stated in the episode http://memory-beta.wikia.com/wiki/Tau_Cygna_V

I think you will find the same distance (500LY) on Star Trek Charts

 

[Novak Senkovic]

The star Sheliak is about 1000LY from Earth but if Tau Cugna V is beyond five thousand LY then the Sheliak Corporate extends to thousands of light years in one direction

 

[Novak Senkovic]

All in all the UFP is small but explored territory is big

 

[Novak Senkovic]

and to make travel pracical would make warp speeds very fast

 

[Novak Senkovic]

Which is my point, really; whatever the Star Charts depict, evidence from the episodes themselves indicate that starships in the 24th century had a far wider range than the "official" TNG speeds would suggest.

The speeds in VOY are not incompatible, since from the moment they are dragged across the galaxy it is a broken ship! If this were not the case, their trip would be done within 26 years, not 75.

But it wouldn't stay broken for long as other VOY episodes indicate it is broken in one episode and ok the next so they can fix it quickly.