Galactic Scale SW vs ST

Jon · Post by **Jon** » 2004-03-05 10:30am

I'm a no0b

I searched, but the sheer volume of results yeilded led me to this new post.

How big is the galaxy Star Wars is based in? I was watching Attack of the Clones a week or so ago and I noticed someone managed to cross half of it in about a day (was it obi wan going to see those tall thin alien things?) (I say half, because in some little holo display it showed his route...)

I'd imagine a galaxy with life as diverse as that in Star Wars would have to be pretty damn big, bigger than the Milky Way anyway- and we know that, at top speed, a starship would take hundreds of years to cross it's whole diameter.

So what's happening? Are Star Wars vessels superior to Trek ships in the speeds they are able to reach, or is the galaxy much smaller?

Post by **Ghost Rider** » 2004-03-05 10:32am

Honestly read the website.

The author of said site goes into vast detail of the speeds involved with both ships.

Jon · Post by **Jon** » 2004-03-05 10:36am

Ah, thanks, I found a link to this place in another forum, sent me straight here, wasn't aware there was content elsewhere than in here

Good Stuff

HRogge · Post by **HRogge** » 2004-03-05 10:37am

Jon wrote:How big is the galaxy Star Wars is based in? I was watching Attack of the Clones a week or so ago and I noticed someone managed to cross half of it in about a day (was it obi wan going to see those tall thin alien things?) (I say half, because in some little holo display it showed his route...)

Exactly... a standard SW ship can cover 60000 to 100000 lightyears within days.

I'd imagine a galaxy with life as diverse as that in Star Wars would have to be pretty damn big, bigger than the Milky Way anyway- and we know that, at top speed, a starship would take hundreds of years to cross it's whole diameter.

ST ships need decades to fly through their galaxy... SW ships would need hours/days.

So what's happening? Are Star Wars vessels superior to Trek ships in the speeds they are able to reach, or is the galaxy much smaller?

SW galaxy: 120000 lightyears diameter
ST galaxy: 90000 lightyears diameter

Result:
SW ships are insane fast compared to ST ships, they might be even faster than ST long range communication !

Jon · Post by **Jon** » 2004-03-05 10:43am

Yeah, just reading up on it now, quite comprehensive stuff.

I'd always believed Star Trek's 'Warp' to be something humanly achieveable one day, if we can attain the technological needs required to warp space to the angles needed for FTL speeds. What I mean, is that Star Trek warp, is 'technologically' plausible at least, even if it is so exotic we might never have the energy requirements needed to attain it.

Is Star Wars propulsion technology plausible? This crossing the galaxy in days with hyperdrive?

I am reading up on it now so maybe I'll have abetter idea at least of how it all works.

Isolder74 · Post by **Isolder74** » 2004-03-05 11:31am

Niether Method is truely technically feasable from our point of veiw.

Hyperdrive jumps you into a parallel dimention that serve as a shortcut. The faster you can travel inside that dimension the faster you get to where you are going.

Warp Drive uses "Warps" Space towards the ship and then lets is "Snaped" back gettting you to your destination. This method sort of hops you to where you are going. The Thuth is Warp Drive can not get you to the same distance as quickly as the time-space shortcut the is hyperspace.

Rogue 9 · Post by **Rogue 9** » 2004-03-05 11:37am

HRogge wrote:Result:
SW ships are insane fast compared to ST ships, they might be even faster than ST long range communication !

ST long range communication is in real time in all the times I've seen it used. No lag at all. Of course, I never watched Voyager much so I don't know if they even could call home, much less whether there would be lag from the Delta Quadrant or not.

General Zod · Post by **General Zod** » 2004-03-05 11:45am

Voyager didn't have the range on its subspace radio to make the call home. the only way they were eventually able to reach earth via contact was through a micro wormhole/solar pulsar they could bounce their signal off of in order to get it there more quickly. according to their estimates, iirc, the subspace radio would have taken decades to reach earth.

Embracer Of Darkness · Post by **Embracer Of Darkness** » 2004-03-05 11:53am

Regarding ST long-range communications...

Didn't Sisko have to wait days for a baseball game to come through from a colony Cassedy Yates' brother or something lived on? I don't remember the name of the colony.

Embracer Of Darkness · Post by **Embracer Of Darkness** » 2004-03-05 11:54am

Dammit, hit submit too early. I meant to say "I don't remember the name of the colony, but I'm damn sure it was a Federation colony, and would be in Federation space."

General Zod · Post by **General Zod** » 2004-03-05 11:54am

i believe he did. compared to SW communications ST stuff is like snail mail vs. email.

Rogue 9 · Post by **Rogue 9** » 2004-03-05 11:58am

And yet every time an admiral calls up Picard they talk in real time no matter where the Enterprise is. I'd imagine that the Neutral Zone is pretty far from Earth (likely one of the farthest points without leaving Federation space) and they can receive real time orders even out there.

Jon · Post by **Jon** » 2004-03-05 12:06pm

Eeek I have to go now, but i'll be back to hopefully discuss and justify my saying that warp is plausible and acheivable (im quite well read in this field of real science etc, and into the feasibiltiy of the trek method of warp- though its massively exotic, and probably unachieveable in the next millenia anyway, its not close to impossible.

i cant say the same for hyperdrive, but then i dont know enough at all about how it is supposed to work

SirNitram · Post by **SirNitram** » 2004-03-05 12:24pm

Hyperdrive and Warp are bother plausible in that the math works.

Warp pulls you along space by creating, well, a spatial warp. It's like a conveyor belt, though recent observations on the speed of gravity severely restrict the possibility of FTL transit.

Hyperdrive converts the 'real mass' of the starship to a negative number, while retaining it's 'complex mass'. It's very complicated stuff; look up Hyperons(And the amusingly appropriate hypermatter, which is lots of Hyperon particles together) if you want your brain to implode from it all.

As to actually acheiving either? Yea right.

neoolong · Post by **neoolong** » 2004-03-05 12:32pm

Embracer Of Darkness wrote:Regarding ST long-range communications...

Didn't Sisko have to wait days for a baseball game to come through from a colony Cassedy Yates' brother or something lived on? I don't remember the name of the colony.

Since that isn't exactly important in Starfleet's opinion, it may not be allowed using the fast communications types that Starfleet uses for orders and such.

Howedar · Post by **Howedar** » 2004-03-05 12:49pm

Rogue 9 wrote:And yet every time an admiral calls up Picard they talk in real time no matter where the Enterprise is. I'd imagine that the Neutral Zone is pretty far from Earth (likely one of the farthest points without leaving Federation space) and they can receive real time orders even out there.

No farther than three days' travel from Earth, as shown by ST:FC.

The Kernel · Post by **The Kernel** » 2004-03-05 01:44pm

Howedar wrote:No farther than three days' travel from Earth, as shown by ST:FC.

How did ST:FC show that? The Defiant being there isn't proof; it has been to Earth a number of times and might very well have simply been in or near the Sol system for a routine assignment.

I've always thought that Starfleet has some kind of real-time communication that involves booster stations, but only within their territory proper (meaning that when you get outside the "bubble" you would need to resort to old-fashioned, slow communications.

Howedar · Post by **Howedar** » 2004-03-05 04:06pm

The Enterprise started in the Neutral Zone. Did you even watch the movie?

Trogdor · Post by **Trogdor** » 2004-03-05 05:21pm

Haven't there been lots of times in TNG where Picard just got comminques instead of a real time conversation? I remember one time where they found some human boy on a Tellarian vessel, and later discovered who his family was. Some admiral who was his grandmother just sent a recorded message to the E-D, instead of having a real time conversation.

The Kernel · Post by **The Kernel** » 2004-03-05 05:27pm

Howedar wrote:The Enterprise started in the Neutral Zone. Did you even watch the movie?

Sorry, I misread the previous person's post and thought he was talking about Sisko talking in realtime from Bajor and thus Bajor being three days from Earth.

RedImperator · Post by **RedImperator** » 2004-03-05 07:02pm

Rogue 9 wrote:And yet every time an admiral calls up Picard they talk in real time no matter where the Enterprise is. I'd imagine that the Neutral Zone is pretty far from Earth (likely one of the farthest points without leaving Federation space) and they can receive real time orders even out there.

Earth is not in the center of the Federation--the Klingon and Romulan Empires are very close to it and effectively blocked human expansion into the Beta Quadrant (Earth is on the border between the Alpha and Beta quadrants). The Federation expanded entirely in one direction, into the alpha quadrant, and kept going until it ran into the the Ferengi and the Cardassians (which would explain how two major powers were totally unseen in TOS).

And there were a number of incidents in TOS where Kirk didn't have real-time voice communication with Starfleet. Subspace radio is fast, but not infinitely fast.

The Kernel · Post by **The Kernel** » 2004-03-05 07:31pm

RedImperator wrote:
Rogue 9 wrote:And yet every time an admiral calls up Picard they talk in real time no matter where the Enterprise is. I'd imagine that the Neutral Zone is pretty far from Earth (likely one of the farthest points without leaving Federation space) and they can receive real time orders even out there.
Earth is not in the center of the Federation--the Klingon and Romulan Empires are very close to it and effectively blocked human expansion into the Beta Quadrant (Earth is on the border between the Alpha and Beta quadrants). The Federation expanded entirely in one direction, into the alpha quadrant, and kept going until it ran into the the Ferengi and the Cardassians (which would explain how two major powers were totally unseen in TOS).

And there were a number of incidents in TOS where Kirk didn't have real-time voice communication with Starfleet. Subspace radio is fast, but not infinitely fast.

It still doesn't make sense because Sisko has done instant communication with Earth (his father) on several occassions in DS9. Unless you are suggesting that the Cardassian border is ALSO effectively in Earth's backyard.

RedImperator · Post by **RedImperator** » 2004-03-05 08:52pm

The Kernel wrote:
RedImperator wrote:
Rogue 9 wrote:And yet every time an admiral calls up Picard they talk in real time no matter where the Enterprise is. I'd imagine that the Neutral Zone is pretty far from Earth (likely one of the farthest points without leaving Federation space) and they can receive real time orders even out there.
Earth is not in the center of the Federation--the Klingon and Romulan Empires are very close to it and effectively blocked human expansion into the Beta Quadrant (Earth is on the border between the Alpha and Beta quadrants). The Federation expanded entirely in one direction, into the alpha quadrant, and kept going until it ran into the the Ferengi and the Cardassians (which would explain how two major powers were totally unseen in TOS).

And there were a number of incidents in TOS where Kirk didn't have real-time voice communication with Starfleet. Subspace radio is fast, but not infinitely fast.
It still doesn't make sense because Sisko has done instant communication with Earth (his father) on several occassions in DS9. Unless you are suggesting that the Cardassian border is ALSO effectively in Earth's backyard.

Given the number of times they've traveled from DS9 to Earth in a short time, we have to accept that Bajor at least is close to Earth. That doesn't mean the entire border is close to Earth. To take a real world analogy, the Canadian border is very close to Buffalo, but much of it is also thousands of miles away.

The Kernel · Post by **The Kernel** » 2004-03-06 12:46am

RedImperator wrote: Given the number of times they've traveled from DS9 to Earth in a short time, we have to accept that Bajor at least is close to Earth. That doesn't mean the entire border is close to Earth. To take a real world analogy, the Canadian border is very close to Buffalo, but much of it is also thousands of miles away.

Why do we need to accept something so ridiculous as to assume that the border between three of the surrounding empires is so close to Earth as to allow instantaneous contact when other areas require weeks for the message to travel? What's wrong with the far more reasonable theory of a subspace booster network that allows realtime communication, but only within a certain area of space?

RedImperator · Post by **RedImperator** » 2004-03-06 01:15am

The Kernel wrote:
RedImperator wrote: Given the number of times they've traveled from DS9 to Earth in a short time, we have to accept that Bajor at least is close to Earth. That doesn't mean the entire border is close to Earth. To take a real world analogy, the Canadian border is very close to Buffalo, but much of it is also thousands of miles away.
Why do we need to accept something so ridiculous as to assume that the border between three of the surrounding empires is so close to Earth as to allow instantaneous contact when other areas require weeks for the message to travel? What's wrong with the far more reasonable theory of a subspace booster network that allows realtime communication, but only within a certain area of space?

That would be perfectly acceptable, except there's also the travel times to take into account. The E-E makes it from the neutral zone to Earth in three days. Defiant gets from Bajor to Earth in a matter of days. The Breen got to Earth before any Starfleet units were able to intercept (though not, admittedly, so fast that Starfleet couldn't get into position to hit them on the way out). V'Ger made the trip from Klingon space to Earth within a matter of days. And this isn't including Enterprise, which put Quo'nos somewhere near the outer edge of Sol's Oort cloud.

Obviously, the homeworlds of the major warp civilizations are clustered in a relatively small area, and the empires have spread out away from each other. It's concievable that one or two warp civilizations (I'd imagine the Vulcans were one) arose and the technology spread deliberately or accidentily to the others. That would go a long way towards explaining the uniform tech level among the major players in the AQ, too.

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Galactic Scale SW vs ST

Galactic Scale SW vs ST

Re: Galactic Scale SW vs ST

Re: Galactic Scale SW vs ST