Spoilers What prevents that people on a ship during a slingshot maneuver become Salamanders?

I don't think anything in the Warp 9 and above area was infinitely sustainable, it could be sustainable for long periods of time, but the faster you go, the lower the amount of time you can sustain that speed due to any number of variables.
- Thermal Management of the Warp Engines
- SIF Integrity capacity might go down at varying speeds once you get past a certain threshold of speed with the faster you go past that threshold, the less time you have to operate at said speeds.
- Fuel Consumption relative to total fuel available for your entire journey.

I don't think Voyager was fully fueled up once she left for the Badlands. The original mission was only scheduled for a few weeks.

Deuterium is tradeable, but even the Enterprise-D can manfacture their own Anti-Matter supplies, it just costs them a significant chunk of their deuterium supplies due to the energy intensive nature of making Anti-Matter. That's why StarFleet probably has their own Industrial Scale Anti-Matter manufacturing facilities spread across the UFP to allow a efficient logistics train to refuel Anti-Matter for every Orbital Platform, StarShip, Shuttle, Photon Torpedoes, etc. without forcing their own vessels to manufacture the bulk of it.

Deuterium is used for Fusion Reactors & M/A-M reactors, so you generally need more Deuterium than you need Anti-Matter.
Speed does matter, because it affects your range given how much time you're willing to take to traverse that stated distance along with how fast you want to consume your fuel supply.

You only need to look at Modern Airliners, they generally fly around a Cruise Speed of Mach 0.65-0.75, but the airframe can fly much faster than that with top speeds near Mach 0.85-0.95 generally for top end Airliners. The reason for those speeds is because the maximum efficiency for Fuel burn is around the Mach 0.65-0.75 range for the engines.

So you want to minimize energy consumption, you probably want to target what is reasonable given the amount of time you have for the mission.

Ergo, for that 1000 ly's, how much energy do you want to consume and how long do you want to take to cross that vast distance. There's always a price to pay for that, be it time, or energy consumption that affects fuel reserves.

But you got to remember that Voyager was severely injured when the CareTaker launched them 75,000 ly away from their original point in the Badlands. I'm pretty sure some permanent damage was done to the core structure of Voyager when that happened, so when the Engineers re-evaluated the ship's core structural strength and what it could handle, it probably had to de-rate the top speed due to the strength of the base physical structure of the vessel after being violently tossed across the galaxy.

It's great that the USS Prometheus had improved (Propulsion, Shields, Phasers, Computers, Automation).

Their internal Physical and Computer Security still seems to suck given that the Romulans managed to steal the USS Prometheus in the first place.

 

Indeed. I chalked up its initial supply of 36 photon torpedoes (and geneal lack of other supplies to its original two week mission to find a measly Maqui ship.

SF ships should be able to operate pretty much independently given what technology they have... and as such make repairs, maintenance and upgrades in the field.
In VOY case, I do think we could have been shown more of the ship being in uninhabited star systems and using solar power to augment power reserves so they can manufacture spare parts, supplies and maybe other things.

Agreed, but Warp 6 seems like an exceptionally low speed for a 24th century state of the art ship for peak efficiency of fuel and energy consumption.
I think a more realistic estimate for peak fuel efficiency would have been Warp 8.

Problem is, we don't know at which Warp speed should the ship maintain to cross 1000 Ly's. But generally, if you run the engines at Warp 8 and cross 1000 Ly's in 1 year, then you'd have to refuel.
Meanwhile, at Warp 9, you can run the engines and cross the said distance in less time... but as we saw, ships rarely stay at Warp 100% of the time... so given how many 'stops' VOY had, I think that cruising at Warp 8 or even 8.5 would have been 'realistic' for 1000 ly's.

Plus this happened much later in the series (near the end of s6), and by that point, the ship was modified with power conservation methods and even received enhancements by One, and SF upgrades from the AQ via the MIDAS ARRAY (plus, SF was already well aware of VOY being in the DQ for a few years, so its possible they sent them schematics to modify their warp engines for greater efficiency which would reduce power and fuel consumption at greater speeds - or at least it would have been nice to see that).

Oh I remember that. In fact, I originally posited that this was the reason VOY's top cruising got degraded from 9.975 to below 9.75... but then when you factor into account that no other SF ships were travelling under their own power in excess of Warp 9.9 before VOY aired, and what kind of speeds 9.975 would effectively allow (around 10 000 Ly's per day) especially when contrasted to Paris statement of how fast 9.9 is... it stands to reason that given what we heard in dialogue under 'practical circumstances', that 9.975 was more likely a major guff on the writers behalf.

Yeah. Well, the UFP IS comprised of over 150 member worlds, so its likely the LCARS UI is extremely friendly and easy for anyone to use and figure out... or at least, its DESIGNED to be that way intentionally.
But as you said, this has less to do with UI being friendly... and more with internal physical and computer security measures.
From what we know, SF ships DO have the ability to automatically erect forcefields around intruders... and force fields can be erected in every section of the corridors - but as we saw, this hadn't really been used for some inexplicable reason.
In fact, when the VOY encountered the Equinox, they had to invent a new internal security grid to do what was showcased can be done before.
Forcefields were frequently projected in all areas of the ship around stations, etc. in early seasons... so we know that for 'drama' reasons, things progressively got degraded even on VOY.

As for computer security... eh... well, I'd imagine SF has more or less ok computer security... the issue is the Romulans who stole the Prometheus were likely well trained in bypassing safety lockouts (they were in fact tasked with stealing a top secret prototype after all - which also begs the question, HOW were they able to get so deep into UFP space and do that in the first place - but that could be answered more or less because the Dominion War was on - although you'd think security would have been enhanced by then).

 

Yup, there's no logical reason to fully stock the USS Voyager, when they're supposed to be on a simple Search & Recovery mission in the Badlands for 2 weeks. Ergo they had to manufacture more Photon Torpedoes later on once they got enough Deuterium / Anti-Deuterium.

They can, they have. We only need to see Voyager as a living example of doing so.
Apparently, the writers didn't find that part to be interesting to show, I personally wouldn't mind it.

Show Voyager doing Repair Work / Refueling work while shuttles go off on small adventures on a local planet somewhere.

You got to remember how large the USS Enterprise-D is relative to USS Voyager.

And Enterprise-D / Galaxy Class got up-rated to Wf 7 as their Cruise Speed.

Voyager / Intrepid Class was a improvement with Wf 8 as their Cruise Speed.

Based on my original calculations, Wf 8 would have to be the Indefinite Sustainable Cruise Speed if given infinite fuel.

But since they didn't have "Infinite Fuel" & Supplies, they gotta stop ALOT and hunt down for Fuel / Supplies.

Don't forget that Food, Matter stores along with Matter/Anti-Matter were also needed.

And the ethos of StarFleet requires them to "Explore", ergo everything interesting will get investigated.

Basically, LOTS of side quests on the journey home.

They got some upgrades, but it's probably not enough to make the supplies run indefinitely given what they had on board.

Physical Space is at a premium on a StarShip and they can only carry X amount of Fuel, Raw Food Matter, Raw Stock Matter, and basic supplies.

I think the writers realized how fast they would get home if they could do 9.975 indefinitely, even in short bursts.

Ergo they needed to damage the ship to some degree to handicap Voyager.

Computer UX (User eXperience) and ease of use is a seperate matter entirely from Physical and Computer Security.

Those practices generally don't intersect.

Lack of Quality Security Automation on board a StarShip.

WAY TOO lax security doctrine / policy.

Or their basic security principles SUCK and they don't Auto-Erect force fields when strangers transport in or strange phenomena occuring doesn't trigger the Security System.

I think "Commodore Oh" being the head of StarFleet Security Departments explains PLENTY of things.

She was a long term "Romulan/Vulcan" hybrid Tal Shiar Double-Agent / Deep Under Cover Agent.

Remember, for her to make it to become a "Flag Officer" like an Admiral, she must've been in StarFleet for nearly as long as Jean Luc-Picard. Who knows what number of missions have been compromised due to her and her lackeys like Narissa.

 

VOY did have quite a lot of stops in between adventures/stops, so the ship probably could have easily cruised at Warp 8 for the majority of the time (as opposed to Warp 6).

I meant, something along the lines of improving fuel and energy efficiency by 30 to 50%.
They managed to acquire technology which tripled their replicator efficiency in Season 7, so, its possible that whatever breakthroughs SF made when developing the Prometheus, they may have sent improved SIF tech to VOY, and upgrades to their power and fuel grids (I mean, in all the time VOY was gone, other Intrepid class ships would have received substantial upgrades in 6 years - aka, by the time SF sent VOY upgrades via the MIDAS array).

That's why I posited that if 9.975 was in fact something VOY could sustain for as long as they have the fuel and energy to run it (with occasional stops for refueling, etc.) it would have been better to throw the ship over 200 million Ly's away from UFP and actually SEE the ship using 9.975 as a sustainable cruise velocity (after serious amount of repairs in the pilot and subsequent salvage of what may have remained of the Caretaker array and the scrap yard that Neelix was found in - its at least filled with raw material which could have been broken down into base matter and reconstituted into something else).

Trouble with the analogy (inside the Milky Way at least) is that if 9.975 is a thing for Intrepid class ships... why hadn't we seen any cruising across the Galaxy with those speeds?
Warp remains incredibly slow across SF (because otherwise, another Intrepid class ship could have been sent to intercept VOY with all the needed supplies and repair equipment to allow it to re-achieve 9.975 and get back to UFP space in a week) immediately after SF received a message through the Hirogen sensor network in Season 4).

Plus, other ships in the fleet were left with slow warp. Only the Prometheus was able to achieve and sustain 9.9 without issues that we know of (and this was implied to be 'fastest in the fleet' by the EMH Mark II).

So, I don't think 9.975 was ever supposed to be a thing for Intrepid class ships... but rather 9.75 was supposed to be a sustinable cruise velocity, which then got degraded due to the ship's violent pull to the DQ (so, 9.75 could be sustained for 12 hrs only, whereas 9.9 was the purpoted maximum which would tear the ship apart in about one minute).

I never understood why this wasn't automated.
It was only automated for specific situations... and then returned to manual input (or otherwise was left for manual input).
A lot of the stuff on a starship shouldn't be left on manual and would increasingly get automated over time.
Security officers would mainly act as supervisors to the system in question (to monitor occasionally if everything works as intended) and improve upon the security measures (or at least you'd think so).

We know automated targeting is a thing... manual targeting only usually occurs if the automated system is damaged.

One of the things VOY writers probably should have emphasized is the self-repair capabilities of SF ships in 24th century.
We know they have them... but on VOY, the writers progressively made it seem like nothing could be done without the crew as time went on. This is one of the things both TNG and DS9 suffered from. Tech got a bit dumber and dumber over time.

Heck, remember when the crew was originally transported to the array in the Pilot? The ship was in a state of rather serious disrepair, and while the Warp core microfracture was sealed manually, other systems continued to malfunction. But, after the crew returned from the Array 3 days later, we saw the ship filtered out the smoke, and no lights were flickering anymore - so, while the self-repair system wasn't mentioned, we have indirect evidence that it was there.

Remember that Tarses was thought to originally have Vulcan ancestry, when in fact it was Romulan, and he got away with it by simply lying about it.
At the time, it was probably excusable because maybe scanners weren't perfected to find minute distinctions in DNA that would allow SF to determine such subtle differences. In fact, its possible in Tarses, it would have been more difficult due to him being only one third Romulan.

In the case of Commander Oh, I'd imagine she inserted herself into Starfleet even before then...so she could have evaded detection similarly like Tarses had and pass off as a Vulcan... because initially, scanning tech couldn't reliably distinguish between Vulcans and Romulans... or they could but with limited success rate.

By the time of ST: Picard, she would have ascended in rank, etc. and probably programmed the systems later on to register her as Vulcan in the first place.

It would be interesting to see whether SF wisened up to this and improved their security measures to prevent such breaches (and what they did to do so).[/QUOTE]

 

Romulans did it with a Vulcan ambassador. How hard can it be?

 

But it didn't have enough fuel and likes to explore, ergo all the side quests.

But that was only for Replicator Efficiency specifically.

Or the improvements would've required Voyager to be in a StarFleet Dry Dock and require a complete tear down of the ship down to it's skeletal structure and require StarFleet to retrofit the Wave Guide Conduits for next generation SIF in the skeletal structure of the vessel. Something like that isn't practical when stranded out in the Delta Quadrant and you need your ship in working order. Otherwise, they would've been able to pass on that benefit to all StarFleet StarShips already deployed. But it's probably a more fundamental design change on a deeper structural level to be able to travel that fast. Otherwise, we'd see Nebula Class & Galaxy Class be easily retro-fitted and able to go that fast. The USS Prometheus was probably the first of a new generation of StarShip design that had all these improvements cobbled together in one package. Something that will become standard later on in the 24th century with ships like the USS ProtoStar from "Star Trek: Prodigy".

When I say 9.975 as sustainable, I mean for minutes on end, not hrs or days.

Traditional "Cruise Speeds" are seperate from "Maximum Speeds" attainable.

9.975 was never meant to be a "Indefinitely Sustainable".
9.975 is a "Top Speed" for a brief moment in time.

You're thinking of the term Cruise Speed. Here's the Memory Alpha definition:

Warp remains slow because at that point in time, technology was in a transition phase.

Don't forget that in "Star Trek: Prodigy", we effectively see the ProtoStar Containment Unit function like a Nitrous Oxide Boost for a Internal Combustion Engine. Able to propel Warp Drives to "Ridiculous Speeds" for a brief moment in time.

- What happens in the late 24th Century -
2377 - USS Voyager returns to Earth
2379 - Star Trek: Nemesis - AKA Shinzon's Coup d'état against the Romulan Senate & High Council
2380 - Star Trek: Lower Decks S1 - Show Starts
2383 - Star Trek: Prodigy S1 - Show Starts
2385 - Star Trek: Picard S1 - Synth Attack on Mars
2387 - Star Trek (2009) - Romulus is destroyed by the Hobus/Romulan star going SuperNova.
2399 - Star Trek: Picard S1 - Show Starts

StarFleet was on the cusp of breaking new Warp Speed records and about to put it into production.
USS Prometheus might be the literal first StarShip capable of going at those new top Warp Speeds

Prometheus Class Maximum Speeds:

The StarShip Spotter makes the most sense in terms of raw speed updates.

Security Officers should be in a seperate room, not on the bridge, monitoring a bank of displays that monitor the ship.

The Security Officer on the Bridge should be a liason officer to the Head of Security in his own room.

And it shold be a seperate job from Tactical Officer given how many times we see StarShips face boarding actions.

That's why every corridor and room should have automated Phaser Turrets in each corner along with multiple built in Multi-Spectral Optical & Holographic Sensors along with Tricorders paired with the Turrets.

Automatic Containment Force Fields should get auto-erected to uninvited Guests:


Phaser Turrets should be able to fire upon the intruders that are contained

That didn't seem to be common until the time of Star Trek: Prodigy.
By then, they seem to have made mass produced ExoComps that aren't "Sentient Beings" and have them as part of the Ships Tool Set. Remember when the Murder Planet's vines wrapped around the USS ProtoStar, Hologram Janeway used the ExoComps to clean off the vines with Photonix Scrubbers AKA Send in the ExoComps to phaser away the Vines.

I don't think the Mass Produced ExoComps that weren't sentient beings were really a thing until ST:Prodigy era, ergo there was less automation and more manual input. Moving foreward from that time, you have more Robotic Helpers.

Or they could've had crew members repairing the ship, we didn't see every single crew member, and a giant chunk of the crew was rescued early on. They could've been tasked with repairing Voyager while the main cast went spelunking on the CareTaker array.

But it became a problem when they found out about the lie and turned it into a witch hunt.

The Witch Hunt was misguided because Commodore Oh lay in the background in the StarFleet Security Division, slowly ranking up to Captain, & eventually Flag Officer.

I doubt Commodore Oh lied about her Vulcan/Romulan ancestry, but her loyalties were not questioned, & she wasn't monitored for signs of betrayal until she did betray StarFleet explicitly.

Either way, it's best not to judge an officer by their Genetic Ancestry alone.

The difference between Simon Tarses & Commodore Oh is proof that a StarFleet Officers loyalty should be questioned based on their actions, not on their genetic species ancestry.

Or she was honest about her ½ Vulcan & ½ Romulan lineage and led a VERY LONG life as a double agent / deep spy.

Literally only betraying StarFleet at key moments, and not at every single incident that came across her desk.

I doubt it, I think she was honest with her Ancestry, because eventually the lie would be figured out and the UFP / StarFleet aren't racists. So they wouldn't deny her admission into StarFleet based on her genetic ancestry if she was up front about it and led a life of a model exemplery officer that was hard to question on the surface.

I hope so, post Commodore Oh. That's the biggest scandal of the 24th century IMO.

It does help that Romulans & Vulcans are very similar physically & genetically.

 

If only they had some sort of mind reading power...but that's probably just wishful thinking.

 

You can't just expect random Mind Melds to read into Deep Thoughts / Memories without reasonable suspicion / justification.

Remember, Commodore Oh is the head of StarFleet Security, she covered up her tracks really well when she caused the Synth Rebellion.

StarFleet didn't learn about her actions until many years later during the events of ST: Picard Season 1.

 

So? Top ranking officials are just trusted blindly?

 

Apparently, otherwise there would be more scans to root out potential traitors / moles.

 

Well, then what is Starfleet to learn?

 

::Shrugs::

I'd be more willing to scan StarFleet Officers, but a contingent on this board wouldn't be happy that there would be telepathic scanning of individual minds. So I'm left trying to figure out when can we use Telepathic Scanning, and when we can't legally.

 

Let the lawyers sort it out.

We work within the system we have.

 

Perhaps this could be done only for higher ranking individuals in SF and UFP on a semi-periodic basis.
After all, given what kind of society the UFP is, and the fact individuals are relied upon to exercise responsibility and restraint to prevent abuse of the power they have (which we saw is more than doable), having occasional Telepathic scanning as a security measure (especially when the Synth attack occurred, or even passing a ban on synths) would have been prudent.
The UFP needs to make sure that passing bans would actually be a beneficial thing for societies at large... and as we know, sentient synths were harmed by this ban (and were in subsequent danger) - so they'd have to make sure these big decisions aren't a product of outside intereference.

If you're a high ranking individual, large amounts of trust is extended to such individuals and emphasis is made on self-restraint... and while we know the majority of UFP citizens would (and usually do) behave in such a capacity, others can be influenced by species that want to manipulate the UFP and take advantage of that kind of system.

So for occasional decision making, telepathic screening might be a good idea. Or lie detectors?

 

"A slingshot manoeuvre turned me into a salamander!"
"A salamander?"
"... I got better."

 

>As others noted, Warp 10 on the TOS scale is much lower vs TNG scale.

Uh...no. Kirk's E was far faster in every case where time/distance figures were cited. Back in 2003, wrote a 2-hour-time slot Trek fan film script explaining how the change took place, and why no one ever noticed its having happened..."Prufrock's Answer" opened with the following:

Do I dare
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

 

>That's why every corridor and room should have automated Phaser Turrets in each corner along with multiple built in Multi-Spectral Optical & Holographic Sensors along with Tricorders paired with the Turrets.

In my ST series bible, I mentioned the Yamato's (originally the Endeavour's; named changed due respect for the Seeker novels) "Bridge Intruder Defense System," an allusion to the overhead phaser array of TAS "Beyond the Farthest Star." Imagine, however, the pre-installation decision process:

Starship anti-intruder sales guy: Once the BIDS has been proven in action, we propose retrofitting such arrays to every deck of every Starship.

Captain (one): Suppose a Captain goes...a little funny in the head. Just a little...funny.

Captain (two): Like Decker.

Captain (three): Or Tracy.

Captain (one): Or someone who's tech-savvy hijacks the anti-intruder system.

Captain (four): Like Marvik.

Captain (two): Or Khan.

Captain (three): Or Spock, whenever he thought it "logical."

Sales guy: Gentleman! You mention the rarest of events!

Captain (two): Ever hear of Sybok?

Captain (four): Or Norman?

Captain (six): Or Ben Finney?

 

I don't think people become salamanders, simply because of the breaking of the warp ten barrier. I do think that you randomly mutate into something, thanks to your genetic structure becoming "unstable", before settling down.

As for why this doesn't happen when traveling through time: my theory is that you may go "fast", but you are not existing in all places. You are simply focused on time, not time AND space. Even then, you are not obtaining "infinite" speed. You are simply obtaining enough speed to the point where time, from your perspective, is going backwards.

Personally, the entire "salamander" thing should have been handled better. Tom Paris should have ended up in the Q Continuum, if the whole random mutation was not going to be used. That would have been a reason why Q would show up on VOY.

 

I think there's a portion of space, somewhere out there, that messes with your DNA because you entered it.

Plot induced special radiation.

When you're everywhere simultaneously, it's hard to avoid traversing that part of space.

You don't see the Salamander effect happening with every other FTL system Star Trek has shown.

And Lower Decks has shown that happening to another StarFleet officer. I wouldn't be surprised if they recreated Tom Paris' experiment to go Warp 10.

 

I think the Voth put a bug out there...