Warp speeds and Star Trek V

[Tyralak 12,068]

One of the most glaring examples of inconsistencies in Trek happens in Star Trek 5. The Enterprise managed to get to the center of the galaxy in a very short time, yet we know that in the entirety of previous and later Trek canon, Warp speed isn't anywhere near that fast. Case in point, Voyager needing 70 years to reach the Alpha Quadrant from the Delta Quadrant. How can this be reconciled? Especially since there was no special circumstances mentioned in the film, and nobody seemed to think it was out of the ordinary. Ideas?

[Khas 12,158]

Ummm, a giant subspace Slip-N-Slide?

[Afishymeadow 534]

Production wise:

Shatner & the writers didn't examine & think through what they were doing. And they really should have.

 

If STV:TFF's accurate, then traveling to the Magellanic Clouds & the Andromeda Galaxy shouldn't be too bad of a trip. But then that doesn't jive with the Andromedan Kelvans taking 300 years to travel from Andromeda to the Milky Way, & vice-versa (& at maximum warp).

 

In universe explanation:

It's hard to reconcile with pre & post STV:TFF canonuity. I was lurking on TrekBBS one day & the issue of the 1701-A traveling to the center of the Galaxy in STV:TFF was being discussed, & somebody suggested perhaps the 'center of the galaxy' was just a name for an area of space, NOT the Milky Way's center, the area of space beyond The Barrier where 'God' lay in wait. Somehow this spatial region got that nickname.

 

[scvn2812 504]

I think Fishy probably has the best fan theory. Its an area core ward but not the true center of the galaxy any more than the North Pole is the same as the North magnetic pole. On the other hand, we do have some very far flung star systems that would be very difficult to reach from Earth being part of the Federation such as Sirius which is something like 2k light years away if I remember correctly. There's a site I've seen that did a great job of cataloging and proposing theories for possible geographies for the Alpha and Beta quadrants. So maybe there is reason to believe that there are corridors that allow greater absolute speed per warp factor. Under this scheme, warp factor wouldn't be an absolute velocity, it would be engine output and your mileage would vary depending on the region of space you were traveling through. So the Federation could span 7,000 light years but it would be laid out more like a tangled string of christmas lights with the strings being corridors that allow higher velocities and the bulbs being zones of space around member worlds.

 

I think that given the geographic issues like the Klingons invading the Cardassians and having been in at least a hundred year cold war with them previously, in spite of the fact that they'd either have had to go around or through Federation space, maybe we should look more at the age of colonialism as our model for Star Trek geography. Each major power has a heart land as the European powers did and these heart lands are relatively close to each other but they also have far flung colonial possessions where a lot of intrigue takes place away from the watchful eyes of each other's patrols and large diameter sensor arrays and plausible deniability rather than treaties holds sway, explaining and justifying how the Cardassians, Tholians and others can get away with massacring colonies and it taking 3 days for help to arrive so often. This is contradicted by in universe maps which show homogenous blobs of contiguous territory more like the settled borders of modern nation states than the imperial era but I think the colonial model fits the facts better as well as the original Horatio Hornblower / Wagon Train to the Stars / USA and USSR intriguing throughout the 3rd world model of Star Trek.

[Afishymeadow 534]

I think that TrekBBSer had the right idea. NOT literally the center. Astrographically the true center is WAY WAY beyond UFP space & not to mention, a HUGE GIGANTIC BLACK HOLE!

[Khas 12,158]

On the other hand, we do have some very far flung star systems that would be very difficult to reach from Earth being part of the Federation such as Sirius which is something like 2k light years away if I remember correctly.

 

I'm pretty sure you're thinking of Deneb. Sirius is only 8 light-years away.

[scvn2812 504]

I'm pretty sure you're thinking of Deneb. Sirius is only 8 light-years away.

 

Except for Alpha Centauri and Wolf 359, my astronomy is a bit weak. I recalled reading about how there were a handful of stars that were very far out in comparison to the warp speeds implied by the series and most of the other stars mentioned.

 

This is the site I found: http://www.stdimension.org/int/Cartography/cartography.htm

[Khas 12,158]

Astronomy's been a bit of a passion of mine since I was 2. It was born when I first saw Saturn on the intro of ST: TNG back in '93 (it was a repeat, as only the first two seasons had the planets of our solar system in their intros).

 

Here are the distances of some stars from Earth:

Alpha Centauri: 4.3 light-years

 

Barnard's star: 5.9 light-years

 

Wolf 359: 7.8 light-years

 

Lalande 21185: 8.3 light-years

 

Sirius: 8.6 light-years

 

Epsilon Eridani: 10.5 light-years

 

61 Cygni: 11.4 light-years

 

Procyon: 11.4 light-years

 

Epsilon Indi: 11.8 light-years

 

Tau Ceti: 11.9 light-years

 

Gliese 876: 15.2 light-years

 

40 Eridani (Vulcan): 16.2 light-years

 

Altair: 16.7 light-years

 

Sigma Draconis: 18.8 light-years

 

Delta Pavonis (Caladan): 19.9 light-years

 

Vega: 25 light-years

 

Fomalhaut: 25.1 light-years

 

Chi Draconis (Minbar): 26.2 light-years

 

Arcturus: 36.7 light-years

 

Mu Arae: 50 light-years

 

Aldebaran: 68 light-years

 

Spica: 260 light-years

 

Antares: 550 light-years

 

Betelgeuse: 643 light-years

 

Deneb: 806 light-years

 

Rigel: 860 light-years

 

Zeta Puppis: 1,090 light-years

 

VY Canis Majoris: 3,900 light-years

 

The Pistol Star: 25,000 light-years

 

S Doradus: 169,000 light-years (for the record, this star is actually outside of the galaxy, located in the Large Magellanic Cloud)

[Tyralak 12,068]

That site shows the galactic core at 25,800 light years away from Earth. It's interesting that this site goes into a lot of detail about other inconsistencies in distances and rationalizes them, but there is no mention of Star Trek 5.

[scvn2812 504]

Good catch, that seems to be a glaring oversight. Perhaps they intended to come up with a theory about it but it never came to fruition like a lot of the content on there that has been in progress for the better part of a decade.

[Brian Young 11,994]

I don't suppose Sybok(?) being a madman has anything to do with it...

[scvn2812 504]

I don't suppose Sybok(?) being a madman has anything to do with it...

 

Hard to say, its been a while since I saw the movie but I don't think his personal charisma / Vulcan mind powers on steroids would fully explain how everyone thought they were going to some place called the center of the galaxy. It could be a colloquial name or it could be evidence of the theorized warp highways that would allow rapid travel across great distances but along very narrow corridors, explaining oddball stars that seem to be impractical to be part of what we consider to be Federation space. Although given that the E-nil was capable of "5 year missions" hypothetically, there is nothing barring the colonization of stars that are impractical for trade or defense by expeditions or sentient species met at those distances from becoming members of the Federation, even though it would be impractical to maintain close ties with systems that would require a year or more of travel time.

[Tyralak 12,068]

I don't suppose Sybok(?) being a madman has anything to do with it...

 

Probably not. I'm fond of the "Warp Highway" theory. It would make sense that there were certain corridors where warp speed was increased. In Star Trek V, it was stated that no ship or probe had returned from the galactic core. Implying that there had been other attempts, and travel there was possible.

[scvn2812 504]

Inevitably the issue of Voyager would probably come up with regards to warp highways. Given that travel to the Delta and Gamma quadrants is considered extremely arduous, there are likely no charted warp highways leading out there. They may be exceedingly rare and may fluctuate in reliability. Obviously in her time exploring the Delta Quadrant, Voyager's path might as well have been a piece of thread in a Hobby Lobby for all the more territory she was able to cover in relation to the scale of space.

 

I'm not sure if I'm fully sold on the idea but I don't reject the notion of warp highways out of hand.

[Afishymeadow 534]

Shatner should've done his homework:( &/or the writer(s) he hired.

[scvn2812 504]

Shatner should've done his homework:( &/or the writer(s) he hired.

 

They went to the edge of the galaxy in TOS, you can't really fault him for thinking there's nothing wrong with going to the center of the galaxy. Obviously no one thought to tell him or his writers that warp speed was being tamed. This might even have been before the retcon limiting warp speeds and the area of the series to the tiniest of portions of the Milky Way.

[Tyralak 12,068]

They went to the edge of the galaxy in TOS, you can't really fault him for thinking there's nothing wrong with going to the center of the galaxy. Obviously no one thought to tell him or his writers that warp speed was being tamed. This might even have been before the retcon limiting warp speeds and the area of the series to the tiniest of portions of the Milky Way.

 

After re-watching TOS, I'm convinced this is the answer. In TOS and throughout all the TOS films, there was no indication that Warp speed was all that limited. In TOS, they routinely go much greater distances than they do in TNG era series and movies. It's only in TNG that we start seeing severely handicapped Warp speeds. Not a change I'm very happy with, BTW.

[Afishymeadow 534]

After re-watching TOS, I'm convinced this is the answer. In TOS and throughout all the TOS films, there was no indication that Warp speed was all that limited. In TOS, they routinely go much greater distances than they do in TNG era series and movies. It's only in TNG that we start seeing severely handicapped Warp speeds. Not a change I'm very happy with, BTW.

 

"Force of Nature"! WHY did they make that episode? WHY curtail FUN & ADVENTURE? ST is for our fun, enjoyment, to explore ideas, Entc Ent al, so naturally B&B let an episode ship out & on the air RESTRICTING WARP DRIVE!

 

WHY?!?!

 

They forgot it's science FICTION! They can take "Force of Nature" and jab it in their ears like a rusty screwdriver.

[scvn2812 504]

After re-watching TOS, I'm convinced this is the answer. In TOS and throughout all the TOS films, there was no indication that Warp speed was all that limited. In TOS, they routinely go much greater distances than they do in TNG era series and movies. It's only in TNG that we start seeing severely handicapped Warp speeds. Not a change I'm very happy with, BTW.

 

Why? What's the difference? Its a show about exploration. Everything taking place in a 10,000 light year bubble is still a ridiculously huge playground for the powers that be to run around in. At the rate we're discovering extra solar planets there could be literally billions of planets and perhaps millions of Earth like worlds in that bubble. The Vulcans could have colonized a new planet every year for the 2,000 years or so they've had deep space flight capability and still not claimed much of the real estate available in that region. What does having access to the entire galaxy add to the series?

[Afishymeadow 534]

The Milky Way's Center thing is one of the big gripes &/or annoyances STV:TFF's critics have about & with it. At the very least, that element should've been thought out better.

[Khas 12,158]

That was one of my smaller gripes.

 

My biggest gripe was the fan dance.

[scvn2812 504]

Cue the squinty eyed Fry meme:

 

Not sure if fan dance demeans Uhura or is liberating. O.o