Safely? Also, how long would it take the Enterprise to reach the center of the Milky Way from Earth?
Taking ONLY TOS and TNG into account, what is the fastest the original Enterprise could go?
- Thread starter Commander Kielbasa
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They go there in TNG when Barclay becomes a supergenius and does something to the ship.
I can't think of the name, but they might mention travel time estimates there.
I think the center of the Milky Way(at least in Trek) is supposed to be about 25,000 light years from Earth.
I can't think of the name, but they might mention travel time estimates there.
I think the center of the Milky Way(at least in Trek) is supposed to be about 25,000 light years from Earth.
In TOS: "That Which Survives" the old Enterprise covers 1,000 light years in 12 hours at warp 8.4.
The Enterprise's top speed is whatever it takes to go very, very far away and screw around for a bit and then return safely to Federation space. All in no more than 45 minutes. Including leaving the galaxy a few times.
It's pretty fucking fast, dude.
The amount of time from the end of last week's episode to the opening teaser of this week's. So, 167 hours, give or take.
But that wasn't exactly safe.
The fastest they ever went on purpose in TOS was when Kirk ordered warp 9 to get away from the Romulans at the end of The Enterprise Incident. That was probably flank speed for just long enough to get out of the neutral zone, then back off and let the ship pant for a while. Going by the sometimes-accepted warp-number-cubed formula, warp 9 is 729 times the speed of light.
At 729C, it would take 34.29 years to go 25,000 light years to the center of the galaxy.
The TNG scale is different and the D is a much faster ship. The D's top safe speed, IIRC, is warp 9.6, which is 1,909C. At that speed she'd cover 25,000 light years in only 13.09 years.
If Geordi could crank it up to 9.9 (3,053C), it would take them only 8 years or so.
The fastest they ever went on purpose in TOS was when Kirk ordered warp 9 to get away from the Romulans at the end of The Enterprise Incident. That was probably flank speed for just long enough to get out of the neutral zone, then back off and let the ship pant for a while. Going by the sometimes-accepted warp-number-cubed formula, warp 9 is 729 times the speed of light.
At 729C, it would take 34.29 years to go 25,000 light years to the center of the galaxy.
The TNG scale is different and the D is a much faster ship. The D's top safe speed, IIRC, is warp 9.6, which is 1,909C. At that speed she'd cover 25,000 light years in only 13.09 years.
If Geordi could crank it up to 9.9 (3,053C), it would take them only 8 years or so.
Why do you think Voyager decided to significantly decrease Federation ship speeds?
The plot of Voyager (and Deep Space Nine, with it's wormhole) would have been moot if Federation ships could cross the galaxy in a month or less. So they pretended those movies and episodes never happened.
I wonder, if warp speeds are faster if you have accurate subspace charts of a region of space. This in theory would mean you could got faster away from Federation space because you would have charts on the way out and could chart more at high speeds since you have at least some idea what it ahead of you already. Returning could be done at even higher speeds as you have a charted course to used. Where as if you exit a random wormhole or get tossed across the galaxy, you don't have any charts, thus you have to basically chart local subspace as you go, so you can't keep your speed up to the levels you could if coming directly from known space. This would be if subspace has specific patterns that allow one so advance at either higher warp speeds, or if certain patterns allow for higher speeds above light speed for a given warp factor if you have a plotted course to use the proper "currents" (for lack of a better term) in subspace for better results.
USS Voyager wouldn't have proper subspace charts of most of the regions they were in . After getting data from Seven of Nine, they were able to plot a better course that cut several years off their trip, but it still take them a decade or two to reach Earth. USS Defiant or USS Rio Grande would have to navigate space that is largely unknown from the Gamma Quadrant to Bajor if the wormhole was unstable or collapsed while they were still out there. So a lot of star charting and subspace charting to go with it.
Meanwhile old USS Enterprise charts a course to the galactic core, more than once, and returns to Federation space easily. In theory goes from one side of the Federation to the other within a few years at the most since we didn't see the entire five year mission. This Enterprise is sometimes seen doing star charting missions. The USS Enterprise-D goes from the Sol system to Farpoint Station rather quickly if that station is suppose to be on the edge of Federation Space before a largely unexplored region. The ship regularly goes from one side of the Federation to the other, stopping at Earth every once in a while. All within a seven year time period.
USS Voyager wouldn't have proper subspace charts of most of the regions they were in . After getting data from Seven of Nine, they were able to plot a better course that cut several years off their trip, but it still take them a decade or two to reach Earth. USS Defiant or USS Rio Grande would have to navigate space that is largely unknown from the Gamma Quadrant to Bajor if the wormhole was unstable or collapsed while they were still out there. So a lot of star charting and subspace charting to go with it.
Meanwhile old USS Enterprise charts a course to the galactic core, more than once, and returns to Federation space easily. In theory goes from one side of the Federation to the other within a few years at the most since we didn't see the entire five year mission. This Enterprise is sometimes seen doing star charting missions. The USS Enterprise-D goes from the Sol system to Farpoint Station rather quickly if that station is suppose to be on the edge of Federation Space before a largely unexplored region. The ship regularly goes from one side of the Federation to the other, stopping at Earth every once in a while. All within a seven year time period.
If the far end of these subspace highways were only a month from Earth, they'd have highways all across the milky way charted by Voyager's time.
Also, a good chunk of Voyager would have been them finding maps to said highways, and taking decades off their journey for each one they found.
Assuming Starfleet was actively charting out that far. There are likely plenty of roadblocks, be they stellar or imperial in nature. There is plenty of local space to explore around Earth and the increasing number of Federation worlds without heading across to the other side of the galaxy. Wormhole like one at Bajor are rare and thus present an opportunity to explore someplace far away instead of spending the effort to chart out the route to get there from Federation Space. That might take months, years, decades, or centuries, depending on what is between Bajor and the other end of that wormhole. "Living Witness" suggests that the Federation isn't out to that part of the Delta Quadrant yet after hundred of years. Or that little part of the quadrant wasn't interesting enough to send a ship back centuries later. Or their are several empires between Federation space and that region preventing Starfleet from returning normally.
Because they invoked the trope the Audiance are idiots, after all it is far easier for the audiance to understand that a jounrey of ~70 000 or so lght years takes 70 years.
If we discount the outlying ones for speed such as WNOHGB, "By Any Other Name" and "That Which Survives". Even at TMP speeds it would take ~50 years.
Now to me the TMP speeds don't sound overly fast or slow.
Ah but which edge of Federation of space was Farpoint station at? It could have been at an edge that is 3000ly from Earth or only 300ly from Earth given the three dimensional nature of space.
The speeds and projected time of Voyager's journey come directly from TNG, Season 3, "The Price."
In TNG, they also travel to the center of the galaxy, and it's far enough that they couldn't get there by warp.
In WNMHGB, they only say the edge of the galaxy. I don't believe they mention which edge. Likewise for By Any Other Name.
In TNG, they also travel to the center of the galaxy, and it's far enough that they couldn't get there by warp.
In WNMHGB, they only say the edge of the galaxy. I don't believe they mention which edge. Likewise for By Any Other Name.
Fastest a ship has gone was the D in where no one had gone before - 3 million ly in a few seconds.
Next would be the D again in The Nth Degree, 30kly in an ad break.
After that the A went 30kly in a few hours in Trek V, on par with speeds seen the The Annimated Series.
There is strong evidence to show that speeds are not consistent, whether this is warp highways or what have you - see how slow it was to get Neptune and back (6 minutes for nx01), compared with Vulcan or Quonos. This is probably related to why sometimes you can warp pretty much into orbit, yet other times you have to gravity assist your way into a gravity well (both Borg and the D were sublight in BOBW2, passing Saturn, Jupiter and Mars before getting to earth, which is very unlikely for a straight line approach.
Next would be the D again in The Nth Degree, 30kly in an ad break.
After that the A went 30kly in a few hours in Trek V, on par with speeds seen the The Annimated Series.
There is strong evidence to show that speeds are not consistent, whether this is warp highways or what have you - see how slow it was to get Neptune and back (6 minutes for nx01), compared with Vulcan or Quonos. This is probably related to why sometimes you can warp pretty much into orbit, yet other times you have to gravity assist your way into a gravity well (both Borg and the D were sublight in BOBW2, passing Saturn, Jupiter and Mars before getting to earth, which is very unlikely for a straight line approach.
Not really sure what TNG did establish or actually could establish about the top speed of the original Enterprise? The warp scale was changed between TOS and TNG, anyway...
We can assume the D was faster than the 1701 (which in turn was faster than NX01).
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