Voyager's Route Home

[USS Triumphant]

I know this has probably been asked here before, so I'm hoping someone either remembers the outcome of those or is better at deciphering Star Trek maps than I am: Would Voyager have been able to get home more quickly (assuming straight line, full warp in both cases - which obviously didn't happen, but still...) if they had made for the Gamma Quadrant terminus of the DS9 wormhole instead of for the Alpha Quadrant?

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

Who wants to go there though? It's a dump.

 

[Finn]

^What if the Pah Wraiths had succeed in taking over the wormhole. Or they found a shortcut and found themselves entering the wormhole when the mine field was still active?

 

[MacLeod]

Well one of the issues with using the Bajoran wormhole is that as witnessed in "Emissary" it could be closed. So even if that route was shorter there was no gaurantee that it would still be there.

 

[HIjol]

I know this has probably been asked here before, so I'm hoping someone either remembers the outcome of those or is better at deciphering Star Trek maps than I am: Would Voyager have been able to get home more quickly (assuming straight line, full warp in both cases - which obviously didn't happen, but still...) if they had made for the Gamma Quadrant terminus of the DS9 wormhole instead of for the Alpha Quadrant?

If I have this right, after pouring over a 3D Quadrant map, Voyager would have had to go "over" to the end of the wormhole (in the Gamma Quadrant) and then "Down" to get to the Alpha, as opposed to just going "down"...picture a 2D isosceles triangle with its point on Earth (C)..where the base meets the angle to the right (A) is Voyager, and the wormhole terminus" is (B)

Voyager would have had to go from A to B To C, rather than just go from A to C...if I have all that correct...dizzy now...meeting Triumphant in 10 Forward...Fucking Wesley better not be there...Star Fleet Hotshot...whatever...who's the man?...HIjol's the Man!...god , I hope I am correct...

 

[Guy Gardener]

They didn't know if it would be there when they got to the celestial temple in 40 to 70 years, and then out in the boondocks it will take them 70 years to get home from were the Wormhole used to be.

In a fit, being asked this question for the thousandth time yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeears ago, Berman screams at the Nerds patronizing his Q and A that the distance between the AQ wormwhole and Caretaker, and the distance between the DQ wormhole and Caretaker were equidistant.... Which coincidentally is the same distance between the DQ wormwhole and the AQ Wormhole.

That's a 70 k ly equilateral triangle.

Last time I drew triangles with 7 cm sides inside a circle with a 5 cm radius to work this out, I didn't know where Earth was. I was moving Earth so that this would or would not make sense, but I know now. Wikipedia says that earth is 35 k ly from the galactic centre, and my Star trek Encyclopaedia says that it is hugging the AQ/BQ border.

That hardly makes sense.

Then you take into account that by season 7 that Voyager had travel over 40 thousand light years as the crow flies towards earth and was still no where near the Beta Quadrant Boarder (But it mentioned as being way off in the distance in Renaissance Man.).

 

[Timo]

The (occasional) existence of the Bajoran wormhole, a tiny detail in the rich texture of the Star Trek universe, was IMHO rightly ignored both by the writers and by the characters of VOY. Consider the following:

- In the best case, a trip to the wormhole would have taken about six decades, vs. the seven decades of taking a course straight to home. The difference would have been insignificant: the only person with meaningful life left would have been Tuvok.

- The best case was extremely unlikely. If it failed to materialize, the trip home would be 60+70 years, that is, 130 years. Tuvok, too, would probably be dead or geriatric by then, and the odds of survival for the kids of the original crew would plummet as well.

- The heroes knew for sure how unlikely success was. They had just witnessed the heroes of DS9 establish that a malevolent, extremely powerful enemy guarded the wormhole. They had also learned of said heroes actually having destroyed the wormhole already! Admittedly, in a simulation only, but they would obviously do it all over again in reality.

- Atop that, conventional wisdom was that wormholes couldn't be trusted. Why defy conventional wisdom?

Basically, you've just been kicked out of a party in the middle of an unknown neighborhood of ill repute. You know there's a bus stop six miles away, jealously guarded by a rape gang, and you know home is seven miles away; you don't have a map, and you've never been there before. The bus service last went on strike two days ago, and is operating buses that generally break down daily and frequently get lost. Which direction do you choose?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[MacLeod]

^By that reckoning the BQ would still have been around 5000ly away. Given that the Milky Way is approx 100 000ly across

 

[Timo]

...FWIW, here's one link to the route map we saw on the monitors of the ship during the final season (as reproduced in the Star Trek Star Charts booklet):

http://nerdovore.blogspot.fi/2013_01_01_archive.html

The more or less equilateral triangle can be seen there, from two directions; when you scroll down, you'll first see the reproduction, from the direction of Earth, and then the real deal, from the direction of the Delta/Gamma half of the galaxy. (Incidentally, Earth was believed to be 25,000 ly from the galactic axis back then, not 35,000. We can trust estimates to fluctuate in the future, too.)

The rest of the data on Voyager adventures in that booklet is riddled with errors, but this bit here is onscreen fact we have to live with. Even if it doesn't explain "Prophet Motive" and a few other oddities.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[MacLeod]

True, I remember reading that 25 000ly figure, which would place Voyager at or in the BQ by Season 7. It was one of those things that they hoped the audiance would ignore.

 

[Guy Gardener]

^By that reckoning the BQ would still have been around 5000ly away. Given that the Milky Way is approx 100 000ly across

50 kly radius.

Earth is 35 k from the centre

35 is half of 70.

40 is more than half of 70.

But their route is on a 30 degree tilt off the aq/bq border which could add 5 or 10 k ly to the distance form the badlands to the Bq/dq boarder by adhering to that bearing.

45 k ly to the bq border.

Which means that Voyager only penetrated the DQ by about 25 k ly.

It's funny that the numbers don't add up.

 

[Guy Gardener]

True, I remember reading that 25 000ly figure, which would place Voyager at or in the BQ by Season 7. It was one of those things that they hoped the audiance would ignore.

There's some on screen canon LCARS graphics in Voyager that show the AQ and BQ inverted from what our Encyclopaedias say.

Berman spent years with no idea he had to take Voyager through the Beta Quadrant.

When I first got here, the rule of thumb was that Voyager was right, and that the Encyclopaedia was wrong, which angered me a little.

 

[Smellincoffee]

^What if the Pah Wraiths had succeed in taking over the wormhole. Or they found a shortcut and found themselves entering the wormhole when the mine field was still active?

That would make for a fun crossover. Imagine, poor Voyager evades fleets of Jem'Hedar ships, makes it into the wormhole with battered shields, empty phaser banks, and a core a stern look away from going critical, and....oh! Their escape route is blocked off, with home in view. Voyager emerging at DS9 would have made for great poetic symmetry, though, considering the first episode...

 

[MacLeod]

True, I remember reading that 25 000ly figure, which would place Voyager at or in the BQ by Season 7. It was one of those things that they hoped the audiance would ignore.

There's some on screen canon LCARS graphics in Voyager that show the AQ and BQ inverted from what our Encyclopaedias say.

Berman spent years with no idea he had to take Voyager through the Beta Quadrant.

When I first got here, the rule of thumb was that Voyager was right, and that the Encyclopaedia was wrong, which angered me a little.

Though didn't they mention the BQ in 5th season episode "Timeless". So it would seem by at least that point they were aware that they would have to traverse the BQ but got stuck in the mentality that VOY is set in the DQ and we don't want to confuse our audiance.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Timeless.

Starfleet Intelligence found it in the wreckage of a Borg cube in the Beta Quadrant

Which was about (future) history, not about where they were going.

Before and after

the Yattho of the Beta quadrant

Unimatrix Zero

Axum's vessel is in a remote sector of the Beta quadrant.

And that's every single time that the word Beta Quadrant was used in Star Trek Voyager.



I'm curious if they had got to the Beta Quadrant if, they built another super shuttle if the redesign would have been called a Beta Flyer?

More so if they had both and kept both, would the crew race their fliers, Beta vs. Delta.

Thinking about Greenwich (yeah, that's time, but go figure.) and how maps centre on the bastards drawing the... Earth inherited it's maps from Vulcan, which means that they inherited their cartography techniques off the Vulcans which means that the hypothetical line between the Alpha Quadrant and the Beta Quadrant slices through the core of Vulcan.

Oh?

Does the borders move as Vulcan moves elliptically around it's sun and Vulcans sun more elliptically around the galactic core?

The galactic borders if that were the case, would almost be twitchy.