Voyager going to Gamma Quadrant to find Bajoran wormhole...

[DostoyevskyClone]

I'm at work and bored so I decided to see what response this would get (I've only seen the first two seasons of Voyager): is it in any way conceivable that Voyager could have flown toward the Gamma Quadrant in search of the Bajoran wormhole? I'm thinking it would have taken them 150 years (assuming they were in the middle of the Delta Quadrant and had to fly to the middle of the Gamma Quadrant [2x75 years]).

Was it ever stated where exactly in the Delta Quadrant they were? For example, could they have actually been closer to the Gamma Quadrant than the Alpha Quadrant?

 

[exodus]

I believe 75 thousand light years puts them at the far end of the Delta Quaderant. I also believe if I remember my map of each Quad. correctly, if they traveled toward the wormhole they be going father away from Earth to get to it. The Delta Q. borders the Alpha Q., while the Gamma Q. boarders the Beta Q.......I think.

 

[Anwar]

Re: Voyager going to Gamma Quadrant to find Bajoran wormhole

No, the Beta Quadrant borders the Delta Quadrant, the Alpha and Gamma quadrants are the ones with the border.

 

[Timo]

Re: Voyager going to Gamma Quadrant to find Bajoran wormhole

FWIW, this (www.stdimension.org/Cartography/Source/map_voyroute.jpg, can't hotlink, sorry) is how the art department saw the issue towards the end of the show. This map graphic, seen onscreen during season 7, seems to be a pretty reasonable match for the events of the series. It also suggests that if the route to Earth would have taken 75 years, the route to the Bajoran wormhole would have taken about 65 years.

Of course, if (and when) that wormhole were found to be unusable, the total travel time would have been something like 65+90 years. Not really a risk worth taking, I think.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Guy Gardener]

Re: Voyager going to Gamma Quadrant to find Bajoran wormhole

HA! But it only took them 7 years to get home... So, quid pro quo it obviously it would have only taken 6 years to get home to the Bajoran Wormhole! ...How real is that map? I know they showed a map on screen but that one looks like it's a composite of the seen map with additional information. Also I seem to be the only person in the universe which recalls that Berman was using a different map.

Not that there's really any evidence, but Equinox should have taken the same route as Voyager. There's only one way to get home fastest and efficiently if they both had basically the same information and started from home from the Caretakers Array. Since the two Star Ships weren't tripping over each others heals, isn't it possible that Ransom steered his ship towards the Bajoran Wormhole? Especially since his ship was lost 6 months earlier which might have been before the destruction of the Odyssey and New Bajor.

He just really got off course after finding that wormhole he did talk about with Janeway.

 

[Timo]

Re: Voyager going to Gamma Quadrant to find Bajoran wormhole

Actually, if you look at that map (an onscreen appearance in Renaissance Man looks as if it was used unmodified), you see that Janeway for some reason steered about 30 degrees away from Earth initially. Ransom most probably did not.

Why Janeway would have chosen this course, we can only guess. During the first two and a half seasons, which this initial off-by-30-degrees stretch would represent, the ship was never said to be heading for a specific non-Earth target (except for sidesteps that took place within the timeframe of a single episode). But she probably did begin to try and avoid Kazon territory at some point, by "Maneuvers" at the very latest. And there's every chance that Neelix would have been able to convince Janeway to take a Kazon-avoiding route at the end of "Caretaker" already, considering that the 30-degree swerve would not have meant much of a difference in total travel time.

By trying to avoid the Kazon, Janeway would also have avoided this Krowtonan Guard that walloped Ransom. And Neelix would never have heard of the Guard, or wouldn't have been concerned enough about it to inform Janeway, if it lay in what Neelix considered Kazon-infested space to begin with.

Then again, "Jetrel" establishes that the ship eventually flew right past Neelix' homeworld. That was probably deliberate - Janeway would have readily agreed to steer for the one known star system in the quadrant that she might consider friendly. And Ransom wouldn't have known the location of Talaxia.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Bill Morris]

Re: Voyager going to Gamma Quadrant to find Bajoran wormhole

Maybe this will help. The references in the script were usually wrong, "thanks" to input from the network. The Beta Quadrant lies between the AQ and DQ, and Earth is just inside the Alpha Quadrant near the border of the Beta Quadrant.

Notice also that the quadrants are not in Greek alphabetical order, either clockwise or counterclockwise.

 

[Timo]

Re: Voyager going to Gamma Quadrant to find Bajoran wormhole

That's the supposed general layout, yes... Although it should be noted that the scale of that map doesn't quite match the verbal references, or the onscreen map. Indeed, the scale bar doesn't quite match the distances quoted on the map itself.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Guy Gardener]

Re: Voyager going to Gamma Quadrant to find Bajoran wormhole

I believed that the trip to Tallax was a huge backtrack and I think I recall Neelix apologizing and thanking Janeway for being put out, though that was hardly the multiple months wasted during Resolutions.

Janeway didn't fear the Kazon. She thought she could reason with them. It wasn't till season two that it became all out war and then only in the Kazon and Seska's minds as the amount of time Janeway spent worrying about these people is on par with "Harmony has minions?" ...Though later I did find it interesting that Janeway said she ran and hid from the Borg a few times (off camera.) and that it had added months to their journey.

 

[Timo]

Re: Voyager going to Gamma Quadrant to find Bajoran wormhole

The Talaxian system was indeed a "significant detour" (not nececssarily backtrack) by Chakotay's words, but it didn't seem to take too many days. Probably wouldn't register on that map. Voyager sailing that close to the system to begin with can't have been a coincidence.

Okay, apparently Chakotay did not have Talax in mind as a possible port of call, but Neelix still might have. Or at least he might have been interested in sailing through space familiar to Talaxians, rather than Kazon territory. And the point is, he was Janeway's local guide, whereas Ransom had none. If Neelix feared the Kazon, I'm sure he could have come up with a dozen good-sounding reasons to take a course that would "incidentally" steer clear of the territory of the Sects. And for all we know, his somewhat meandering (or at least off-target) path did save the ship from serious trouble and delay.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Guy Gardener]

Re: Voyager going to Gamma Quadrant to find Bajoran wormhole

Neelix is savvy... But if you consider Caretaker, it was Neelix who thought he could out smart the Kazon and Janeway manipulating both of them to his own ends before he finally shot the hell out of their camping ground well after the kids from Starfleet were sitting on the ground with their hands behind their heads like spent gimps. With just his wits, he went head on against that entire sect, but later with Janeways resources at hand that wily native was going to be a little resolute about being able to kick the )(*& out of anyone trying to get the end over on him.

They talk about how impressive Voyagers tech was, but truly consider the disparity involved that given the time to plan a trap, out witting Voyager, so that it's 10 of those city ships each ten times the size of Voyager(if I believe my encyclopedia.), it's still a fair fight.

Sure they might have gone around some bad guys, but I'd put my money on the Vidiians or someone we didn't see before I would consider anything short of a fleet of 20 Kazon ships would have been a threat to Voyager worth plotting a course around...

And besides, Janeway was supposed to respect peoples boarders. If some aliens merely asked her to go around and not violate their territory, then she was honor bound to comply. In theory, but we saw how well that worked out unless it was to hang Icheb out to dry.

 

[exodus]

Re: Voyager going to Gamma Quadrant to find Bajoran wormhole

Voyager wouldn't have made it home if they headed toward the Gamma Q. They would have been over run by Jem'Hadar and killed.

Voyager got by the Borg because Borg ships are huge and have no manuverability. It's equal to a gnat(Voyager) up against an Ox(Borg Cube). That is why the Voyager can get around the Borg(not to mention Voyager is like 12 years more advanced than Enterprise-D). The Jem'Hadar ships are smaller than Voyager, now making Voyager the Ox and them the gnats. Voyager would have been ripped apart by the Dominion.

Janeway was smart because she was having them head toward space they knew rather than heading toward more space they didn't.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Re: Voyager going to Gamma Quadrant to find Bajoran wormhole

You all realize that these arguments about the Dominion and Jem'Hadar are off? Unless Odo like died, or the Federation started the war up again for some reason, there was a standing peace between the Federation and the Dominion which went into effect decades before Janeway should have found the other edge of Dominion space. She would have met allies not enemies.

And exodus, most of the space battles occurred between a distance of 10's of thousands of kilometers to right up in each others faces. If you can hit what you're aiming for when it's moving at 1/4 the the speed of light from a distance of 20 thousand kilometer, then the relative sizes of these vessels being 3 hundred feet longer or short than the other is quite negligible.

Although a bigger ship should have better power generation capabilities which means stronger weapons and and stronger shields, even though it's "more of a target". Unless of course as I mentioned that the Kazon tech is so backward that those ships 10 times the size of Voyager are still only a 10th as powerful as Voyager.

 

[exodus]

Re: Voyager going to Gamma Quadrant to find Bajoran wormhole

Guy Gardener said:
You all realize that these arguments about the Dominion and Jem'Hadar are off? Unless Odo like died, or the Federation started the war up again for some reason, there was a standing peace between the Federation and the Dominion which went into effect decades before Janeway should have found the other edge of Dominion space. She would have met allies not enemies.

And exodus, most of the space battles occurred between a distance of 10's of thousands of kilometers to right up in each others faces. If you can hit what you're aiming for when it's moving at 1/4 the the speed of light from a distance of 20 thousand kilometer, then the relative sizes of these vessels being 3 hundred feet longer or short than the other is quite negligible.

Although a bigger ship should have better power generation capabilities which means stronger weapons and and stronger shields, even though it's "more of a target". Unless of course as I mentioned that the Kazon tech is so backward that those ships 10 times the size of Voyager are still only a 10th as powerful as Voyager.

Signing a peace treaty doesn't make us allies, it just means many times "You don't bother us, we don't bother you." Odo is one Changling out of a sea of many, his influence would be minimal. One Changling has a bigger influence over him than he does over them. The war was fought to bring Odo home. The first thing we ever learned about the Dominion was: "If the Dominion want something, they just come and take it and they don't stop until they get it."

The treaty was signed because the Changlings were dying and Odo agreed to return home to save them and stay.

Voyager was also faster at impulse than a Borg ship. Every Starfleet ship built after Worf 359 is designed to withstand the Borg.

 

[mvkemp]

Re: Voyager going to Gamma Quadrant to find Bajoran wormhole

Timo said:
It also suggests that if the route to Earth would have taken 75 years, the route to the Bajoran wormhole would have taken about 65 years.

Of course, if (and when) that wormhole were found to be unusable, the total travel time would have been something like 65+90 years. Not really a risk worth taking, I think.

Timo Saloniemi

Yeah, it probably would have taken roughly the same amount of time to get back to the federation by taking the direct route, or by going for the wormhole, +- a few years.

When Voyager was lost, the wormhole had only been discovered a year earlier, if that? Who knows just how stable it really was. And totally unbeknownst to Voyager, it was nearly destroyed, blockaded etc.

 

[Jaro Stun]

Re: Voyager going to Gamma Quadrant to find Bajoran wormhole

Now that you write about the blockade, I can imagine a great episode, where Voyager finally makes it to the wormhole opening in GQ, only to find the sector surrounded by large Dominion fleet. VOY didn't have contact with Starfleet and they don't know what is the fleet up to. They know Dominion only from some brief record from time before they left DS9...

Now it's up to VOY's crew to find out a way around the fleet...not knowing, that on the other side, a minefield awaits them

Will they make it?
Will Prophets save their ship and send it somewhere else?
Will Voyager be destroyed?

Could have been a nice ep IMO, let's go to some alternate universe, where they are airing it right now

 

[Guartho]

Re: Voyager going to Gamma Quadrant to find Bajoran wormhole

Hmmm... *holds ruler up to screen... measures Earth to Klingon Empire.* If Voyager was half as fast as Archer's Enterprise she should have been home in a handful of months.

 

[Timo]

Re: Voyager going to Gamma Quadrant to find Bajoran wormhole

Hmm... Seems to me that the intent of that map was to have all the three things labeled on the lower right side to be within the one and same orange dot (even if only the UFP HQ/Sol label gets connected to the dot by an explicit red line). At least there isn't any separate dot for the Klingon Empire...

In any case, that map doesn't seem to match the onscreen ones too well. And they use a much cooler galaxy image for the onscreen route map!

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Bill Morris]

Re: Voyager going to Gamma Quadrant to find Bajoran wormhole

I didn't make that map. If I make one, I'll use my own LCARS fonts, at least. And the reference in ENT about how quickly the NX-01 could be expected to make it to Qo'noS was just a mistake.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Re: Voyager going to Gamma Quadrant to find Bajoran wormhole

But what about when Tucker said that Vulcan was 4 days or 16 light years away? Or Picard making it from the Romulan neutral zone in a couple hours. Or Spock claiming that Vulcan was a million light years away?

It's easier to deny nothing and just ignore everything which doesn't fit.