Voyager and warp speed: Consistent?

[Mike DiCenso]

but Voyager is still hard to reconcile with most of the warp speed references found in DS9, TOS, and ENT, and about half of the major TNG ones.

Hard, perhaps. But not impossible since the series did bring up several times in episodes like "Year of Hell, Part I" and "Hope and Fear" that the gaining of navigational data can dramatically cut several years off the journey, and no usual FTL tech, such as slipstream or transwarp are required. As in the "Malevolence Hyperspace Speed and Limitations" thread concerning the Malevolence's having to go around the Kaliida Nebula, and losing time getting the Republic medical station, as well as examples from the EU, this is a trait that both ST and SW ships share alike as a limitation to their FTL drives.
-Mike

[Jedi Master Spock]

Hard, perhaps. But not impossible since the series did bring up several times in episodes like "Year of Hell, Part I" and "Hope and Fear" that the gaining of navigational data can dramatically cut several years off the journey, and no usual FTL tech, such as slipstream or transwarp are required. As in the "Malevolence Hyperspace Speed and Limitations" thread concerning the Malevolence's having to go around the Kaliida Nebula, and losing time getting the Republic medical station, as well as examples from the EU, this is a trait that both ST and SW ships share alike as a limitation to their FTL drives.
-Mike

I hope you don't mind terribly, but I think there's a lot to talk about here, so I'm going to split this int a new thread.

Now, I'm not going to dispute that SW has inconsistencies as well, but there are serious problems with the consistency of warp drive. Voyager is actually fairly close to internally consistent on the long range scale (you can chart Voyager's progress episode by episode), and there are hints (such as "Equinox" and "Course: Oblivion," which show ships using the same kind of warp drive, but without fuel problems or damage, making much swifter progress) that Voyager's slow projected speed is due to a combination of fuel supplies and damage.

Navigational data also plays a role; however, this is an orders-of-magnitude problem, and "The Year of Hell" gives us 2 light years of mileage for every 1 light year of progress towards Earth (65,000 light years from Earth, 10,000 light years traveled to date).

It's possible to explain away a lot of apparent inconsistency of Voyager's grand travel with the faster series, but we have to lean very heavily on the fuel economy problem.

And the fuel economy problem is not such a great idea when the Galaxy class starship carries ramscoops ("Samaritan Snare"). There's also the question of why, once they made contact with Starfleet, why Starfleet didn't send a ship out with enlarged fuel tanks to go pick them up.

The fastest we see a ship travel via conventional warp drive is in "Equinox," we see that a Federation ship without fuel supply concerns (magic ghost-fuel) is flying at about 260,000 c, but TOS-era ships are supposed to be no more than half as fast as Voyager and her contemporaries ("Flashbacks") meaning that even the fastest Voyager references (slipstream drive in "One" is only ~200,000 c, incidentally) have consistency issues with almost all the quantifiable "sprint" TOS references - namely "Bread and Circuses," "Obsession," and "That Which Survives."

If we pay attention to "By Any Other Name," it places "Where No Man Has Gone Before" at the rim of the galaxy, rather than the nearest exit point... which would make the distance covered during season 1 of TOS greater than that covered in Voyager from "Caretaker" (season 1) to "Inside Man" (season 7). Necessarily, almost all of this distance would be outside of Federation territory, meaning that the Enterprise wouldn't have had the chance to refuel at a Federation fuel depot.

And then we have the "warp five vessel" problem of DS9 and ENT. Implicitly, the NX-01 and the runabouts can't go past warp five according to dialog in DS9 and ENT, but both exceed Voyager's typical cruising speeds...

... and that's ignoring the "slow" Voyager reference, like "Hunters," where Voyager goes 700c while traveling at "high warp." In order to have a chance of making Voyager close to consistent with the rest, we have to outright exclude Voyager's slower references (quite a few), outright exclude the fast and long range incidents (such as STV and also a number of less extreme ones, such as "The Chase), creatively reinterpret a lot of material (such as "the rim" in TOS referring, in fact, to the near "top" and "bottoms" of the galactic disc rather than the actual rim) in addition to leaning heavily on fuel economy and navigational problems.

Even then, it's not a really great fit. We have to pretty much throw most of the warp factor data out the window. Granted, warp factor data has serious consistency issues all the time, but combining Voyager with other series (especially ENT and DS9) makes the stated warp factor next to meaningless. The NX-01 in "Singularity" matches Voyager's warp nine in "The 37s."

Now, I'll admit, Voyager makes a very strong argument for limited long-range warp capabilities on Federation vessels. However, I still want to basically throw out the low speeds seen in "Dreadnought," "Lifesigns," "Counterpoint," "One," and then, to be consistent with our explanation for Voyager's relatively low speeds, the high speeds Voyager apparently travels at in "Emanations," "Favourite Sun," and "Time and Again," which are completely inconsistent with the premise of Voyager moving slowly due to engine damage and lack of fuel. Even "The 37s" is problematic in that light, since there's no particular reason for Voyager to be hurrying and burning up lots of extra fuel at that point in time.

[Mike DiCenso]

Now, I'm not going to dispute that SW has inconsistencies as well, but there are serious problems with the consistency of warp drive. Voyager is actually fairly close to internally consistent on the long range scale (you can chart Voyager's progress episode by episode), and there are hints (such as "Equinox" and "Course: Oblivion," which show ships using the same kind of warp drive, but without fuel problems or damage, making much swifter progress) that Voyager's slow projected speed is due to a combination of fuel supplies and damage.

There I must disagree; "Course: Oblivion" the pseudo-Voyager made purported use of a new and improved warp drive in order to cut the journey back home to a few years. In "Equinox", the USS Equinox's crew murdered and harvested the bodies of the extra-dimensional lifeforms to turn into a super-fuel for their warp drive. They were attempting to harvest more of the life forms, but Voyager intervened.

Navigational data also plays a role; however, this is an orders-of-magnitude problem, and "The Year of Hell" gives us 2 light years of mileage for every 1 light year of progress towards Earth (65,000 light years from Earth, 10,000 light years traveled to date).

There I have to disagree again. In "Year of Hell" (YoH), the improved astrometrics lab shaved off 5 years from their journey home. In "Hope and Fear" later on in the same season, Starfeet in the real message sent all it's available data in an effort to shave "a few years" from Voyager's journey, even though they would have been aware of the 5 years shaved off in YoH. Several years later in "Q2"and only 29,000 ly from the Alpha Quadrant, Q gives a data pad with navigational data to Janeway that helps shave yet "a few years" more off.

All total, between 9 and 15 years was taken off. Hardly trivial, all done without any super-FTL drives, super-being magic, or spatial anomalies.

It's possible to explain away a lot of apparent inconsistency of Voyager's grand travel with the faster series, but we have to lean very heavily on the fuel economy problem.

And the fuel economy problem is not such a great idea when the Galaxy class starship carries ramscoops ("Samaritan Snare"). There's also the question of why, once they made contact with Starfleet, why Starfleet didn't send a ship out with enlarged fuel tanks to go pick them up.

The fuel tank explanation works no better simply because of the navigational data issue; going out to Voyager runs into the same issue as Voyager does trying to get back. The rescue ship might be able to get there faster, because the side of the Delta Quadrant that borders the Alpha and Beta Quadrants is probably better known, but once past that, then the journey turns into decades instead of a few years when hit the navigation data barrier.

The fastest we see a ship travel via conventional warp drive is in "Equinox," we see that a Federation ship without fuel supply concerns (magic ghost-fuel) is flying at about 260,000 c, but TOS-era ships are supposed to be no more than half as fast as Voyager and her contemporaries ("Flashbacks") meaning that even the fastest Voyager references (slipstream drive in "One" is only ~200,000 c, incidentally) have consistency issues with almost all the quantifiable "sprint" TOS references - namely "Bread and Circuses," "Obsession," and "That Which Survives."

If we pay attention to "By Any Other Name," it places "Where No Man Has Gone Before" at the rim of the galaxy, rather than the nearest exit point... which would make the distance covered during season 1 of TOS greater than that covered in Voyager from "Caretaker" (season 1) to "Inside Man" (season 7). Necessarily, almost all of this distance would be outside of Federation territory, meaning that the Enterprise wouldn't have had the chance to refuel at a Federation fuel depot.

And then we have the "warp five vessel" problem of DS9 and ENT. Implicitly, the NX-01 and the runabouts can't go past warp five according to dialog in DS9 and ENT, but both exceed Voyager's typical cruising speeds...

Yes, and most of those shows take place in reasonably well-charted space. Even in TOS the Enterprise rarely was travelling "where no man has gone before". The E-D's super-speed in "The Chase" again took place in well-charted areas, and much of DS9 occurred in the well-charted space of the Alpha Quadrant. The NX-01 had the added advantage of making use of the Vulcan star charts and Sub-commander T'Pol's experience in guiding them along so it's no surprise that at only warp 4.5 they could manage more than twice the speed of Voyager in some circumstances.

... and that's ignoring the "slow" Voyager reference, like "Hunters," where Voyager goes 700c while traveling at "high warp." In order to have a chance of making Voyager close to consistent with the rest, we have to outright exclude Voyager's slower references (quite a few), outright exclude the fast and long range incidents (such as STV and also a number of less extreme ones, such as "The Chase), creatively reinterpret a lot of material (such as "the rim" in TOS referring, in fact, to the near "top" and "bottoms" of the galactic disc rather than the actual rim) in addition to leaning heavily on fuel economy and navigational problems.

What it really boils down to in explaining VOY, is a synthesis of all the known factors, and not trying to fit any one of them into the Voyager equation.
-Mike

[AFT]

You guys have trouble with this issue because you have the annoying habit of overanalyzing things instead of keeping them simple enough at least on the grand scheme of things, plus your longing of every reference to fit perfectly with each other is plain anal, and don’t take it wrong (or personal) I like how you can see all this details and whatnot but at times this can be also a flaw, just like in this case.

After watching quite a lot of episodes from all the series (except TAS) and reading also quite a lot of opinions on this issue I can say that is not that hard to figure it out: Warp drive + navigational data + enough fuel = high speeds, Warp drive + uncharted/unknown territories + fuel shortage = low speeds, which works just fine to explain Voyager “slowness” and those “dash sprints” on Federation or well known territories, but only if the issue is seen on the general scale and not trying to fit every single damn reference perfectly.

Finally you seem to put a lot of credit on Janeway’s little speech at the end of Caretaker where she says that at maximum warp blah, blah, but Voyager is then shown traveling at warp (and many times even at impulse) and time and again a distress call is heard and whoever is in charge at the time always orders to go to Maximum Warp, also when Voyager speed is stated many times is around warp 6 or something near that factor and perhaps those times a figure of distance is not available (and therefore one of those calculations you seem so fond of cannot be done) but the general gist is that Voyager is not traveling anywhere near her maximum warp factor, and this is even supported by the show itself, on one of those Barclay episodes (I forgot which one exactly but I can look it up if you want) they where trying to determine Voyager position and they where using an average speed of warp 6.35 to do so. So bottom line Janeway was going for the hyperbole on her speech or she expected everybody listening to be quite familiar with the limitations of warp drive on unknown/uncharted territory with fuel uncertainty, specially on such a long travel. Anyway that’s just my opinion, I couldn’t resist to do so.

[Jedi Master Spock]

There I must disagree; "Course: Oblivion" the pseudo-Voyager made purported use of a new and improved warp drive in order to cut the journey back home to a few years.

Captain's log, stardate 52586.3. We've had a lot to celebrate lately - Tom and B'Elanna's wedding, Ensign Harper's new baby, and the continued health of our warp core drive which has taken us within striking distance of home.

"Most important - the enhanced warp drive. With the dilithium matrix running hot all the time now you have to watch it like a hawk."

The warp drive is listed as "enhanced" and emits some subspace radiation, yes. However, what's actually changed? "Running hot all the time." This isn't a completely new drive system; it's just a regular warp drive rigged to run full all the time.

As I said, it's a hint rather than a definite. "Equinox" is, in my opinion, the stronger suggestion:

In "Equinox", the USS Equinox's crew murdered and harvested the bodies of the extra-dimensional lifeforms to turn into a super-fuel for their warp drive. They were attempting to harvest more of the life forms, but Voyager intervened.

Right. They're using a new fuel, not a new drive system. An effectively unlimited fuel should allow them to reach top speeds. The only reason why they should be any slower than a TOS ship would be long-term strain on the warp coils.

Navigational data also plays a role; however, this is an orders-of-magnitude problem, and "The Year of Hell" gives us 2 light years of mileage for every 1 light year of progress towards Earth (65,000 light years from Earth, 10,000 light years traveled to date).

There I have to disagree again. In "Year of Hell" (YoH), the improved astrometrics lab shaved off 5 years from their journey home. In "Hope and Fear" later on in the same season, Starfeet in the real message sent all it's available data in an effort to shave "a few years" from Voyager's journey, even though they would have been aware of the 5 years shaved off in YoH. Several years later in "Q2"and only 29,000 ly from the Alpha Quadrant, Q gives a data pad with navigational data to Janeway that helps shave yet "a few years" more off.

All total, between 9 and 15 years was taken off. Hardly trivial, all done without any super-FTL drives, super-being magic, or spatial anomalies.

Read carefully, please. You're talking about 9-15 out of seventy years, i.e., 12-21%. I'm talking about a factor of two between distance and path length, which if anything suggests a greater influence of navigational data on speed.

The fuel tank explanation works no better simply because of the navigational data issue; going out to Voyager runs into the same issue as Voyager does trying to get back.

Not if you carry a lot more fuel than usual.

The rescue ship might be able to get there faster, because the side of the Delta Quadrant that borders the Alpha and Beta Quadrants is probably better known, but once past that, then the journey turns into decades instead of a few years when hit the navigation data barrier.

See, even if navigational data accounted for a full half order of magnitude, which Voyager really doesn't provide evidence for, it wouldn't account for turning years into decades. You need to lean heavily on fuel economy and navigational data, and even then, you need to scrap some stuff.

Granted, I think either the writers just didn't think of the idea of a rescue ship, didn't like what it would do to the plot, or decided that to Starfleet, it would sound like throwing good money after bad, as the hazards to Voyager were not just navigational. The ship was often in peril from hostile factions, after all, and who knows how many others lay between the Federation and Voyager.

Yes, and most of those shows take place in reasonably well-charted space. Even in TOS the Enterprise rarely was travelling "where no man has gone before".

The episodes in question are the "edge of the galaxy" bit. As I said, "By any other name" places "Where no man has gone before" at the rim of the galaxy, and that's one piece of data we have to discard to shoehorn the Voyager family in.

The E-D's super-speed in "The Chase" again took place in well-charted areas,

Well-charted areas, yes, albeit not actually in the Federation. But then we also need to have the E-D either carrying a lot more fuel relative to its size or stopping to refill a few times.

and much of DS9 occurred in the well-charted space of the Alpha Quadrant.

Much of DS9 occurred in the poorly charted space of the Delta Quadrant. Including most of our runabout speed references; a lot involve exploring a new system in the Delta Quadrant.

The NX-01 had the added advantage of making use of the Vulcan star charts and Sub-commander T'Pol's experience in guiding them along so it's no surprise that at only warp 4.5 they could manage more than twice the speed of Voyager in some circumstances.

Actually, about ten times the cruising speed of Voyager in some circumstances, and very close to the top speed we've seen Voyager make. In "The Augments," a 22nd century Klingon ship exceeds Voyager's top observed speed by a factor of nearly four; Klingon ships of a century later than that are supposed to be half as fast as Voyager.

What it really boils down to in explaining VOY, is a synthesis of all the known factors, and not trying to fit any one of them into the Voyager equation.
-Mike

It has to be a synthesis, yes, but you're still going to have to throw out lots of the less consistent references. E.g., "Dreadnought" and STV.

this is even supported by the show itself, on one of those Barclay episodes (I forgot which one exactly but I can look it up if you want) they where trying to determine Voyager position and they where using an average speed of warp 6.35 to do so.

A very good point, but we still have the warp 5 problem if Voyager is averaging warp 6.35.... then, we always have the warp factor X problem, since warp factors and speeds never correspond well from episode to episode.

[Praeothmin]

I have to agree with Aft, the Voyager "incident" can easily be explained by Fuel economy, wear and tear without knowing when they can repair the ship and Warp drive, and the absence of navigationnal data.

Throughout the show we've had indications of one or the other issue, or sometimes more then one.

Besides, if we follow Voyager's course throughout the series, we can see that they travelled more then half the distance in 7 years, even though the initial estimate was for 75 years...
But this can also be explained.
In her initial estimate, Janeway didn't know if they could repair the ship easily, if they could refuel easily, and they didn't have much navigational data that they would need to acquire.
Add to that all the hostile territories that would need to be flown around (the Borg, for example), and you have a Captain who needs to, as Aft explained, be very conservative in her estimates.

[Jedi Master Spock]

I have to agree with Aft, the Voyager "incident" can easily be explained by Fuel economy, wear and tear without knowing when they can repair the ship and Warp drive, and the absence of navigationnal data.

Throughout the show we've had indications of one or the other issue, or sometimes more then one.

The series, and grand plot arcs, yes. The details of some episodes with the details of other episodes in other series ... no.

AFT is probably quite right to look at the big picture and take the conclusion he does, but there's still a lot of retconning/ignoring/throwing out that needs to be done.

[Praeothmin]

AFT is probably quite right to look at the big picture and take the conclusion he does, but there's still a lot of retconning/ignoring/throwing out that needs to be done.

Well, of course there is, but since I'm not the kind of person who likes to over-analyze (I'm lazy that way), so I'll stick to Aft's method, and just continue reading you guys' analyses... :)

[Mike DiCenso]

I have to agree with Aft, the Voyager "incident" can easily be explained by Fuel economy, wear and tear without knowing when they can repair the ship and Warp drive, and the absence of navigationnal data.

Throughout the show we've had indications of one or the other issue, or sometimes more then one.

Besides, if we follow Voyager's course throughout the series, we can see that they travelled more then half the distance in 7 years, even though the initial estimate was for 75 years...
But this can also be explained.
In her initial estimate, Janeway didn't know if they could repair the ship easily, if they could refuel easily, and they didn't have much navigational data that they would need to acquire.
Add to that all the hostile territories that would need to be flown around (the Borg, for example), and you have a Captain who needs to, as Aft explained, be very conservative in her estimates.

Estimates in VOY's first season kept on changing. Initally Ensign Kim states the following just after the Caretaker has brought them to the Delta Quadrant:

"I'm trying. Captain, if these sensors are working, we're over seventy thousand light years from where we were. We're on the other side of the galaxy. I'm not reading any life signs on the Maquis ship."

How much over 70k light years? Never made clear, though the non-canon DS9 TM gives the Caretaker array's position at 75k ly.

Janeway later in a slightly heated conversation with the Caretaker rounds this down, and that seems to set the precident for later distance references:

"You've taken us seventy thousand light years from our home. We have no way back unless you send us, and we won't leave without the others."

Later in the same episode, as you point out, Janeway states:

"Even at maximum speeds, it would take seventy five years to reach the Federation"

So unfortunately the tendency was to round down to 70k ly. But the averaging of the ship's speed before "The Gift" and Kes' throwing the ship 10k ly, the ship averaged about 1k ly, so that would actually place them 75k ly away, not 70k? But before the events of "The Gift", the time to get home was reduced to 70 years. So yes, your explanations and mine coincide in regards to the explanation. I think the navigational issue holds up strongest as to why they had to take so long, though, and why we see fairly substantial time shaved off at definitely two and possibly three points along the entire journey home. Also as you say, fuel, repairs and other unknowns help to fill in the rest.
-Mike

[Mike DiCenso]

The warp drive is listed as "enhanced" and emits some subspace radiation, yes. However, what's actually changed? "Running hot all the time." This isn't a completely new drive system; it's just a regular warp drive rigged to run full all the time.

The key there in the statement is that the "Running hot" is "most important" to watch out for, not that it is the only factor. So without further information, we're just speculating.

Right. They're using a new fuel, not a new drive system. An effectively unlimited fuel should allow them to reach top speeds. The only reason why they should be any slower than a TOS ship would be long-term strain on the warp coils.

Yes, and the point is now that fuel does, in fact, play a role. But there was more to it as this quote from Torres shows:

"Commander. I can't make heads or tails of this injector manifold, and it looks like the dilithium matrix has been completely redesigned"

So the super-fuel wasn't the only component here, they had to rebuild things at least in order to use the aliens

Read carefully, please. You're talking about 9-15 out of seventy years, i.e., 12-21%. I'm talking about a factor of two between distance and path length, which if anything suggests a greater influence of navigational data on speed.

All right, then. But it is rather interesting that at two different points in Voyager's journey back home past YoH that obtaining navigational data still had an influence on reducing the trip back home. This simply was not a "straightening of the trajectory" as some pro-Wars types like to make it out. In fact, the astrometrics graphic in YOH seems to indicate a rather localized change in the flightpath.

The fuel tank explanation works no better simply because of the navigational data issue; going out to Voyager runs into the same issue as Voyager does trying to get back.

Not if you carry a lot more fuel than usual.

See, even if navigational data accounted for a full half order of magnitude, which Voyager really doesn't provide evidence for, it wouldn't account for turning years into decades. You need to lean heavily on fuel economy and navigational data, and even then, you need to scrap some stuff.

I think it does, as I've pointed out, there were three opportunities for improved navigational data, and at least two panned out. At bare minium, Voyager shaved 7 years off their trip back home... almost as much as they did via slipstream and Kes' gift. At the upper end of the estimate they did nearly as well with the navigational improvements they did with the 20k ly jump in "Dark Frontier" using the Borg transwarp.

Granted, I think either the writers just didn't think of the idea of a rescue ship, didn't like what it would do to the plot, or decided that to Starfleet, it would sound like throwing good money after bad, as the hazards to Voyager were not just navigational. The ship was often in peril from hostile factions, after all, and who knows how many others lay between the Federation and Voyager.

No, just as they did realize the importance of establishing that Voyager could get home a lot faster with improved navigational data. Effectively all Voyager's crew would ever really do is trade for good starcharts, and continuously shave a few months or years off the trip here and there. But the flying fuel tank idea still has it's problems since the navigational issues will slow it down regardless, never mind the hostile factions problem or anything else. Then there are the problems with running the ship's engines beyond spec, and so on. The E-D in "The Chase" following Professor Galen's course stressed her engines quite a bit as the final log entry by Picard attests to:

"Captain's log, stardate 46735.2. b]Our frequent use of high warp[/b] over the last few days has overextended the propulsion systems. We are finishing minor repair before returning to Federation territory. "

The episodes in question are the "edge of the galaxy" bit. As I said, "By any other name" places "Where no man has gone before" at the rim of the galaxy, and that's one piece of data we have to discard to shoehorn the Voyager family in.

Not quite, not until the Enterpise reached where the old S.S. Valiant had been swept to, and the Galactic barrier beyond that. However, not long after limping out of the barrier did the Enterprise set a course on impulse power for the lithium cracking station on Delta Vega which is stated by Spock to be "a few light days from here". The Kelvins with their more advanced technology probably just simply charted a course back to the barrier the way they came.

The E-D's super-speed in "The Chase" again took place in well-charted areas,

Well-charted areas, yes, albeit not actually in the Federation. But then we also need to have the E-D either carrying a lot more fuel relative to its size or stopping to refill a few times.

But look at the chart, the course Galen outlines all looks fairly well understood and mapped out. Obviously much more than the Delta Quadrant.

and much of DS9 occurred in the well-charted space of the Alpha Quadrant.

Much of DS9 occurred in the poorly charted space of the Delta Quadrant. Including most of our runabout speed references; a lot involve exploring a new system in the Delta Quadrant.

I think you mean they were exploring in the Gamma Quadrant. But we rarely have any speed or distances given. However most of the high speed incidents from DS9 you quote are from those inside the Alpha Quadrant and often specifically involving travel within the Federation.

The NX-01 had the added advantage of making use of the Vulcan star charts and Sub-commander T'Pol's experience in guiding them along so it's no surprise that at only warp 4.5 they could manage more than twice the speed of Voyager in some circumstances.

Actually, about ten times the cruising speed of Voyager in some circumstances, and very close to the top speed we've seen Voyager make. In "The Augments," a 22nd century Klingon ship exceeds Voyager's top observed speed by a factor of nearly four; Klingon ships of a century later than that are supposed to be half as fast as Voyager.

And some even slower. Also where did you get the speed estimate for the hijacked BoP from?

It has to be a synthesis, yes, but you're still going to have to throw out lots of the less consistent references. E.g., "Dreadnought" and STV.

So? They're statistical outliers, are they not?
-Mike

[Jedi Master Spock]

Yes, and the point is now that fuel does, in fact, play a role. But there was more to it as this quote from Torres shows:

"Commander. I can't make heads or tails of this injector manifold, and it looks like the dilithium matrix has been completely redesigned"

So the super-fuel wasn't the only component here, they had to rebuild things at least in order to use the aliens

Interesting. I would presume it's mostly fuel adaptations, but I concede there's a possibility of redesign.

However, with absolutely no fuel/drive wear issues (that's quite possibly another thing they were sidestepping), 260,000 c is still unimpressive, even with limited navigational data, when compared with TOS sprints.

All right, then. But it is rather interesting that at two different points in Voyager's journey back home past YoH that obtaining navigational data still had an influence on reducing the trip back home. This simply was not a "straightening of the trajectory" as some pro-Wars types like to make it out. In fact, the astrometrics graphic in YOH seems to indicate a rather localized change in the flightpath.

Very much so. IMO, it's probably all about the structure of the local g field and the density of interstellar dust.

The E-D in "The Chase" following Professor Galen's course stressed her engines quite a bit as the final log entry by Picard attests to:

"Captain's log, stardate 46735.2. b]Our frequent use of high warp[/b] over the last few days has overextended the propulsion systems. We are finishing minor repair before returning to Federation territory. "

True. We also see engines having been stressed in most TOS sprints, but they're considerably shorter duration than "The Chase."

I think you mean they were exploring in the Gamma Quadrant.

Yes.

But we rarely have any speed or distances given. However most of the high speed incidents from DS9 you quote are from those inside the Alpha Quadrant and often specifically involving travel within the Federation.

Actually, there's a whole family of incidents based on the wormhole. See, we know the minimum distance to any other system in the wormhole, right from the start.

And some even slower. Also where did you get the speed estimate for the hijacked BoP from?

I don't recall whether it was hijacked or not. In "The Augments," at some point, a Klingon ship was 0.3 light years away with a stated intercept time of two minutes; I took that off of the CC log, it's been a long time since I've seen it.

So? They're statistical outliers, are they not?
-Mike

There are a good number of them...

[AFT]

There you go my enthusiastic and somewhat clueless forum-mates, you keep on overanalyzing things like you always do, Mike, I read your stuff about the estimates in VOY's first season and you know what I see? Not a damn problem with it, pretty much the distance falls between 70-75k ly, nothing more, nothing less, anything higher and Kim might have said “nearly 80k ly”, and so it even fits with the DS9 TM and its 75k ly figure. And the 3 quotes you provide not only are from the same episode (where everything was on chaos and they have bigger problems than to keep those figures straight down to the decimal point) and they don’t contradict in the slightest, the first is over 70k ly and so it fits with the seventy five years on the third one, and the second one, with all the problems Janeway had at the moment you expect her to give or even look out the actual distance down to the last number instead of sticking with the part she probably remembered best of the rough estimate she was given earlier, after all at that point if she moved quickly enough they might still have a chance to get it back to the AQ, and don’t forget that she had to deal with the warp core just after she was told the first distance estimate, so she probably just glanced at the sensors readings if she ever had the chance afterwards and stick to 70k ly for the time being, at the end of the episode she obviously was free to check the matter better and came out with the 75 years once the distance was pinpointed on 75k ly or so.

And JMS, you said yourself, they overextended the propulsion systems on those TOS and TNG references, a luxury Voyager cannot afford to take by any chance. But you guys seems dead set to further complicate the matter, and since you obviously won’t be satisfied with anything else, why don’t you divide all the episodes with even the slightest speed reference among all of you and try to generate a chart or something and see once and for all if all the outliers are really that many and irreconcilable with each other, I even offer to take part of the work to do so, even though I really don’t care anymore for this kind of details and analysis.

And please guys, if you don’t agree among yourselves on such basic stuff how do you expect to win the versus debate? And don’t tell me that you aren’t into it, because that would be a flat out lie and you known it.

[Mike DiCenso]

And the 3 quotes you provide not only are from the same episode (where everything was on chaos and they have bigger problems than to keep those figures straight down to the decimal point) and they don’t contradict in the slightest, the first is over 70k ly and so it fits with .

You missed the point overly critical one; "Caretaker" was quoted from as an illustration of the problems with the characters' quotes about how far they were from home and how long they have to travel to get home.

The 75 year figure is repeated again in the second episode "Parallax" by Chakotay at the begining of the episode:

"Rest of the trip, seventy five years"."

The 70k ly number is repeated in "Eye of the Needle" with Janeway rounding down again... unless they very quickly passed through the extra distance in just three episodes time:

JANEWAY: I assure you I am telling you the truth. We are in the Delta quadrant, seventy thousand light years from you.

It's not until "Prime Factors" in the first season that the 75 year travel time starts to take a hit:

TORRES: Forty thousand light years. Even if that’s as far as we could go, it would still knock about four decades off our trip.

So for the first few episodes it was 75 years over 70k ly, and now it is 1k per year over a distance of 70k. Hello... Then we suddenly in "Dreadnaught" get back up to 75k ly:

DREADNOUGHT: The probability of being in the Delta quadrant, seventy five thousand light years from last confirmed location is negligible. The target is located in the Alpha quadrant. Target lock has been established. There will be no further warnings. Terminating communications link.

Are they 70k or 75k ly? Does it take 75 or 70 years? Which is it, and especially after about a year and a half of travelling.

Then in "Message in a Bottle" in season 3 after Kes' gift we're back to 75k ly when the Doctor tells the EMH Mark-II the following:

"If you disengage your vocal subroutines for one second, I'd explain. I was transmitted onto this ship by a Starfleet vessel over sixty thousand light-years from here."

This is after the 5 years shaved off in YOH, which is just after Kes' boost in "The Gift". So we're back to 75k ly for Voyager's starting distance.
And on and on it goes...

And please guys, if you don’t agree among yourselves on such basic stuff how do you expect to win the versus debate? And don’t tell me that you aren’t into it, because that would be a flat out lie and you known it.

Win what? I'am just using this as a fun exercise and a way to sift through the data to see if anything is missed.
-Mike

[AFT]

You missed the point overly critical one; "Caretaker" was quoted from as an illustration of the problems with the characters' quotes about how far they were from home and how long they have to travel to get home.

The 75 year figure is repeated again in the second episode "Parallax" by Chakotay at the begining of the episode:

"Rest of the trip, seventy five years"."

The 70k ly number is repeated in "Eye of the Needle" with Janeway rounding down again... unless they very quickly passed through the extra distance in just three episodes time:

JANEWAY: I assure you I am telling you the truth. We are in the Delta quadrant, seventy thousand light years from you.

It's not until "Prime Factors" in the first season that the 75 year travel time starts to take a hit:

TORRES: Forty thousand light years. Even if that’s as far as we could go, it would still knock about four decades off our trip.

So for the first few episodes it was 75 years over 70k ly, and now it is 1k per year over a distance of 70k. Hello... Then we suddenly in "Dreadnaught" get back up to 75k ly:

DREADNOUGHT: The probability of being in the Delta quadrant, seventy five thousand light years from last confirmed location is negligible. The target is located in the Alpha quadrant. Target lock has been established. There will be no further warnings. Terminating communications link.

Are they 70k or 75k ly? Does it take 75 or 70 years? Which is it, and especially after about a year and a half of travelling.

Then in "Message in a Bottle" in season 3 after Kes' gift we're back to 75k ly when the Doctor tells the EMH Mark-II the following:

"If you disengage your vocal subroutines for one second, I'd explain. I was transmitted onto this ship by a Starfleet vessel over sixty thousand light-years from here."

This is after the 5 years shaved off in YOH, which is just after Kes' boost in "The Gift". So we're back to 75k ly for Voyager's starting distance.
And on and on it goes...

And you also missed the point my dear Mike, it doesn’t matter if they shift back and forth between those figures if they stay in the general area of 70-75k ly and 70-75 yr, after all on the first year they didn’t make that much of a progress and all those statements will remain essentially correct, besides, and this is really the point, people have the tendency to use less than perfect figures of time and distance for the sake of convenience (and also because we’re lazy or don’t like to annoy people with too much perfect figures for everything), many times I would say something like a decade ago even though the actual period of time is 8, 9, 11 or 12 years, or say that I have to drive 25 km to work (even though the actual distance is 21.57869874258 km) if I want to stress the distance, or the exact opposite if I want to assure someone that I will make it in time to a meeting or something like that, and use a 20 km figure, and more often than not I’ll simply use 22 km as the distance to my work. You may not like it and probably think that is beneath Starfleet personal but that’s the way it is. I would accept that there is a problem with those quotes if they where saying 60k ly on some episode and then go back to 75k ly on the next, but most of the time I’ll be OK if those quotes can be used only as ballpark references and nothing more. If they kept the 70+ years and 70,000+ ly figures more or less consistent during the first year or so then there is no problem on my book, but of course your mileage may be different (and I’m sure it is). Anyway I’m done with the topic, but all of you feel free to keep going to your heart content, I’ll just sit and watch (or read, whatever), maybe.

Win what? I'am just using this as a fun exercise and a way to sift through the data to see if anything is missed.
-Mike

Okay, if you say so Mike.

[Mike DiCenso]

And you also missed the point my dear Mike, it doesn’t matter if they shift back and forth between those figures if they stay in the general area of 70-75k ly and 70-75 yr, after all on the first year they didn’t make that much of a progress and all those statements will remain essentially correct, besides, and this is really the point, people have the tendency to use less than perfect figures

I would point out that it matters most especially to the Voyager crew who would be very interesting in knowing if their trip home will be longer or shorter. This is not some commute to work, but a potentially life and death matter to these people.

Win what? I'am just using this as a fun exercise and a way to sift through the data to see if anything is missed.
-Mike

Okay, if you say so Mike.

It's quite so.
-Mike