A thought about Federation size.

[Omeganian]

I don't know if this has been brought up before but... I saw this Star Trek map:

http://img545.imageshack.us/img545/3267 ... rchart.jpg

Now, not certain how canon it is, but it seems to be canon based. Scaling from the distances to known stars, I get that the Federation is maybe 300 light years across (with some odd bits a bit further). This gives an average distance of 50-60 light years between the member planets, assuming even or near so 3D distribution. Perhaps the 8,000 years figure given in First Contact means the length of the shortest route going through them all?

[Prometheus Unbound]

I don't know if this has been brought up before but... I saw this Star Trek map:

http://img545.imageshack.us/img545/3267 ... rchart.jpg

Now, not certain how canon it is

It isn't, at all.

but it seems to be canon based. Scaling from the distances to known stars, I get that the Federation is maybe 300 light years across (with some odd bits a bit further). This gives an average distance of 50-60 light years between the member planets, assuming even or near so 3D distribution. Perhaps the 8,000 years figure given in First Contact means the length of the shortest route going through them all?

No that's retarded. No one ever means that when they say how big something is. You could say the USA is 4,500km across (excluding Alaska and Hawaii). But then you could say it's "spread over 6.5 million km" if you use the road network.

No, that interpretation is silly. And also that map is not in the least bit canon.

Picard very obviously meant from one end to the other (or if it was a badly written script, he could have meant cubic lightyears) at the longest points.

[Baffalo]

I don't know if this has been brought up before but... I saw this Star Trek map:

http://img545.imageshack.us/img545/3267 ... rchart.jpg

Now, not certain how canon it is, but it seems to be canon based. Scaling from the distances to known stars, I get that the Federation is maybe 300 light years across (with some odd bits a bit further). This gives an average distance of 50-60 light years between the member planets, assuming even or near so 3D distribution. Perhaps the 8,000 years figure given in First Contact means the length of the shortest route going through them all?

That map is semi-canon in that it formed the basis of the Star Trek Online map, but is in no way, shape, form, or fashion relevant to how the Federation is laid out. If it were true, it would pose a problem because the Federation would have encountered the Cardassian Union at approximately the same time that they encountered the Klingons, since the two's borders are roughly the same distance apart. We know that the Klingons weren't far from Earth based on Broken Bow, and even if both powers expanded outwards, the long cold war between the Federation and Klingons would have meant they would expand perpendicular to the direct line between the two capitals.

No, do not take this map as canon, and simply assume that the Federation is a spheroid shape expanding in all directions from Earth, limited only by rival powers and the top and bottom of the disc that forms our galaxy.

[Panashe]

the Federation would have encountered the Cardassian Union at approximately the same time that they encountered the Klingons, since the two's borders are roughly the same distance apart

This presupposes that the Federation's expansion was in the form of a uniform sphere of ever increasing size. As opposed to a "lumpy" expansion in different directions, directions of greatest interest, political possibilities, resources, opportunities for allies and new Members. Directions determined by military victories and defeats.

In one direction the edge of the Federation might be four thousand LY's away from Earth, in another only four hundred LY's.

Personally I think the Federation (and Klingons, Romulans, Cardassian, etc) is "encased" within the Orion–Cygnus Arm, generally 35 hundred LY's wide, and 1 thousand thick. The Federation would be less a sphere, and more a sausage in shape.

.

[Simon_Jester]

I don't know if this has been brought up before but... I saw this Star Trek map:

http://img545.imageshack.us/img545/3267 ... rchart.jpg

Now, not certain how canon it is, but it seems to be canon based. Scaling from the distances to known stars, I get that the Federation is maybe 300 light years across (with some odd bits a bit further). This gives an average distance of 50-60 light years between the member planets, assuming even or near so 3D distribution. Perhaps the 8,000 years figure given in First Contact means the length of the shortest route going through them all?

Attempts to use the known distances to real stars in Star Trek canon are hopelessly doomed, because the writers don't know where those stars are and don't feel bound by realism. The map might reasonably represent the general spatial relations of the major galactic powers (i.e. the Klingons and Romulans border both each other and the Federation, but the Cardassians are way over on the other side of Federation space).

But the actual width of the Federation could be anything from a few hundred to a few thousand light years across. Though if the latter figure obtains you need a good explanation for how ships can traverse that distance in less than a few years given Voyager's long range cruising speed. My theory would be that Voyager was calculating on the basis of needing numerous, consistent refueling stops, which would consume a lot of time. Ships crossing the heart of Federation space can top off their tanks in a hurry without having to fool around with Bussard collectors or antimatter synthesis.

[Elheru Aran]

From what I vaguely recall, there was a little research done in TNG to place some events-- Wolf 359, for example. I was surprised to find out that that's a real place (well, star), and more so that it's actually fairly close to Earth (in stellar terms).

However, most of it is complete bollocks, yeah, and trying to deduce stuff from dialogue in the show is basically doomed to failure. Like I've said before, sometimes it would almost be better to just completely ignore the dialogue and simply go directly off VFX...

[Baffalo]

A theory that might hand-wave away some of this would be the idea that some of the stars have changed names. Given that we saw the Court of Atomic Horrors in Encounter at Farpoint, I'd almost wager that some information was lost, and attempts to reconstruct it have been a bit ad-hoc in nature.

The theory has a lot of problems (such as how they had such good records of events during the supposedly crazy 1990's), but then again there were times that the official sources didn't work, so they had to use round-about means to procure information. The only example that really springs to mind is Up the Long Ladder, when they used old records to try and find a ship, and the official records came up short. But hey, the guy who loaded the ship had them, and that's good enough for us!

[Borgholio]

I doubt THAT much information was lost during WW3. I mean a star map with the local neighborhood and most important stars is found in pretty much every astronomy textbook. Forgetting the location of Wolf-359 would be like forgetting that Alpha Centauri is the closest solar system to our own.

[Tribble]

I think the most logical explanation is that while within friendly territory where maintenance and refueling isn't an issue Fed ships can afford to travel a lot faster when needed. Voyager was stranded over 70,000 light years away from Federation space, and simply couldn't afford to travel at high warp all the time. If I remember correctly, it's average cruising speed was somewhere around warp 6.

[Lone Browncoat]

Deleted by user....

Felt it was pointless getting into any debates.

[Prometheus Unbound]

I think the most logical explanation is that while within friendly territory where maintenance and refueling isn't an issue Fed ships can afford to travel a lot faster when needed. Voyager was stranded over 70,000 light years away from Federation space, and simply couldn't afford to travel at high warp all the time. If I remember correctly, it's average cruising speed was somewhere around warp 6.

Janeway's quote was "Even at maximum speeds, it would take seventy five years to reach the Federation"

Still don't know if that's 9.975 for 70k LY or the stop / start / stop / start of refueling and warp 6.

[Tribble]

I think the most logical explanation is that while within friendly territory where maintenance and refueling isn't an issue Fed ships can afford to travel a lot faster when needed. Voyager was stranded over 70,000 light years away from Federation space, and simply couldn't afford to travel at high warp all the time. If I remember correctly, it's average cruising speed was somewhere around warp 6.

Janeway's quote was "Even at maximum speeds, it would take seventy five years to reach the Federation"

Still don't know if that's 9.975 for 70k LY or the stop / start / stop / start of refueling and warp 6.

In Q-Who Data mentioned that J-25 was approximately 7,000 ly from the nearest starbase, and it would take the E-D around two years and seven months to get there. That translates to around 2,700c or so. We don't know the exact warp speed they would have used, but presumably it would have been the maximum sustainable speed that they could manage for the entire trip. Presumably the E-D had enough fuel for the trip as no one mentioned that they were stranded. If Voyager were able to maintain that speed for their entire trip they would have been able to make it back in around 26 years instead of 75.

In BOBW after Picard was assimilated the Borg Cube and the E-D took six days to travel to Earth. We don't know the exact distance involved, although the E-D's initial encounter with the Cube was somewhere in the Federation frontier. And that's including stop overs like the deflector dish attack and Wolf 359. In this case, we do know that the entire trip was in excess of warp 9, and we know that the E-D required an engine overall afterwards (although that's also due to battle damage and the deflector dish attack). Similar events happen in STFC, where the Borg Cube and the Federation fleet meet somewhere in the frontier and have a running battle to Earth over a span of several days while traveling in excess of Warp 9.

Voyager was 70,000 ly away at the start of it's trip, and according to Janeway it would take them 75 years. That would mean on average Voyager was traveling at ~933.3c. If Warp 9+ were that rate of speed, the Cube from BOBW couldn't have been more than ~15.4 ly from Earth when it assimilated Picard, and the Cube from STFC couldn't have been much further than that. Now we don't know the exact size and shape of federation territory, but having the frontier just 15.4 ly away from Earth does seem a bit off.

IMO the most likely explanation was that Janeway was referring to the maximum sustainable warp Voyager given its situation rather than maximum theoretical warp.

[Prometheus Unbound]

I think the most logical explanation is that while within friendly territory where maintenance and refueling isn't an issue Fed ships can afford to travel a lot faster when needed. Voyager was stranded over 70,000 light years away from Federation space, and simply couldn't afford to travel at high warp all the time. If I remember correctly, it's average cruising speed was somewhere around warp 6.

Janeway's quote was "Even at maximum speeds, it would take seventy five years to reach the Federation"

Still don't know if that's 9.975 for 70k LY or the stop / start / stop / start of refueling and warp 6.

In Q-Who Data mentioned that J-25 was approximately 7,000 ly from the nearest starbase, and it would take the E-D around two years and seven months to get there. That translates to around 2,700c or so. We don't know the exact warp speed they would have used, but presumably it would have been the maximum sustainable speed that they could manage for the entire trip. Presumably the E-D had enough fuel for the trip as no one mentioned that they were stranded. If Voyager were able to maintain that speed for their entire trip they would have been able to make it back in around 26 years instead of 75.

In BOBW after Picard was assimilated the Borg Cube and the E-D took six days to travel to Earth. We don't know the exact distance involved, although the E-D's initial encounter with the Cube was somewhere in the Federation frontier. And that's including stop overs like the deflector dish attack and Wolf 359. In this case, we do know that the entire trip was in excess of warp 9, and we know that the E-D required an engine overall afterwards (although that's also due to battle damage and the deflector dish attack). Similar events happen in STFC, where the Borg Cube and the Federation fleet meet somewhere in the frontier and have a running battle to Earth over a span of several days while traveling in excess of Warp 9.

Voyager was 70,000 ly away at the start of it's trip, and according to Janeway it would take them 75 years. That would mean on average Voyager was traveling at ~933.3c. If Warp 9+ were that rate of speed, the Cube from BOBW couldn't have been more than ~15.4 ly from Earth when it assimilated Picard, and the Cube from STFC couldn't have been much further than that. Now we don't know the exact size and shape of federation territory, but having the frontier just 15.4 ly away from Earth does seem a bit off.

IMO the most likely explanation was that Janeway was referring to the maximum sustainable warp Voyager given its situation rather than maximum theoretical warp.

Well STFC started off in the "typhon sector" - since this isn't Sector 001, and they;re 20ly by 20 by 20, it was at least 10 light years away. That's all we can deduce.

Non-canon Star Trek Star Charts puts the Paulson Nebula (TBOBW) in the Betw Quadrant.

[Simon_Jester]

In Q-Who Data mentioned that J-25 was approximately 7,000 ly from the nearest starbase, and it would take the E-D around two years and seven months to get there. That translates to around 2,700c or so. We don't know the exact warp speed they would have used, but presumably it would have been the maximum sustainable speed that they could manage for the entire trip. Presumably the E-D had enough fuel for the trip as no one mentioned that they were stranded. If Voyager were able to maintain that speed for their entire trip they would have been able to make it back in around 26 years instead of 75.

Speculation:

The Enterprise was operating closer to their home space and might be able to travel safely at higher speeds due to having more knowledge of local conditions.

Or Voyager might well have reactors that run out of fuel more than two and a half years into the trip... but far less than 25 years. In which case they might have to accept a considerably lower speed to conserve fuel, or make allowances for stopping to replenish fuel, that the Enterprise-D did not.