How vast is the UFP? And what is travel like?

[FaxModem1]

Okay, in TOS and early TNG, the size and scope of what exactly travel was in the galaxy was....undetermined. Kirk was able to go to the edge of the galaxy and back in no time at all, etc. By about season 3 of TNG, we got an idea that most of Star Trek was limited to the Alpha Quadrant, and seeing the other side of the galaxy was a big frigging deal.

We also get some hard numbers for the UFP, Picard mentions offhandedly to Lily in First Contact that the UFP stretches across 8000 lightyears with 150 members(not including the numerous colonies and space stations they have)

Another thing we get is the idea is that the Federation is expanding. There are new member worlds, Picard and company are exploring, and there are of course patrols.

We also get a sense of the limits of tourism. Sisko and company can travel from DS9 to Earth over the course of a week, and travel to Risa in about the same time.

However, there's this telling line from "Way of the Warrior"

KASIDY: It's not silk, but I think you'll like it.
(A baseball cap.)
KASIDY: It's from my brother's team.
SISKO: The Pike City Pioneers.
KASIDY: My brother says if you're ever on Cestus Three, he'll get you seats in the dugout.
SISKO: How far is Cestus Three?
KASIDY: Eight weeks at maximum warp.
SISKO: To see a real baseball game, it might be worth the trip.

Now, Sisko here would have to take 16 weeks off to make it there, witness the game, and make it back to DS9. Obviously he can't really do that due to his commitment to Starfleet, so there is a limit on what a person could do regarding travel.

So, just how vast is the UFP, considering the limits of warp travel? What are the implications of this? What does this mean for everyday life of a UFP citizen or freighter captain?

[Prometheus Unbound]

Picard says in First Contact that it's 8,000 light years across. I presume on at least one axis.

There's no canon maps, at least nothing on screen. There's STO and novels and stuff but none of that is canon.

We know it has a trillion + life forms in it - estimated casualties from the Federation were 900 billion in some DS9 episode (should the war continue for years).

They have tens of thousands of starships (maybe 10,000, 20,000).

They have 150 member worlds and probably thousands of colonies. Some colonies are only 20 people, some are just outposts, some have several thousand or millions.

Travel times are ... 10 days from Bajor to Earth at "maximum warp" for the Defiant (9.5 but say Warp 8 or warp 9 really).

A Day or two (maximum) from the Romulan Neutral Zone to Earth (STFC). Which makes sense - they ran in to the Romulans really early on.


The Neutral Zones are (the Romulan one anyway) 1 light year across.

There's some shit in Enterprise that puts the Klingon homeworld like 1 light year away or something but fuck that.


It would take a Federation ship many many months or years to go one end of the Federation to the other.

[Lord Revan]

we know that Startfleet has explored (roughly) 10%-20% of the Milkyway so the UFP cannot really be bigger then 1/5 (or 20%) of the galaxy since the region explored probably includes the Romulan Star Empire, the Klingon Empire (or at least signifigant portions of both) and various lesser powers encountered during the series that aren't federation members (like the Cardassians, the Breen, the Tholians and so forth). I suspect Picard's line was intentionally vague (in-universe) as to not break the temporal prime directive more then then it was unavaible

As for using warp speed, they're more then a little bit of variance on those so using them to judge size or travel speeds outside the specific region the ship is at during the dialogue isn't very relible.

[FaxModem1]

Which episode did they say they have explored about 20 percent of the galaxy? I'm honestly curious.

[Lord Revan]

Which episode did they say they have explored about 20 percent of the galaxy? I'm honestly curious.

I think it was citing a DS9 or Voyager episode from Memory Alpha and it was actually 19% that said I could remember wrong and honest used as upper limit anyway not an exact amount.

[Prometheus Unbound]

Which episode did they say they have explored about 20 percent of the galaxy? I'm honestly curious.

I think it was citing a DS9 or Voyager episode from Memory Alpha and it was actually 19% that said I could remember wrong and honest used as upper limit anyway not an exact amount.

It's two early TNG episodes. In one they say either 11 or 14% and in another they say either 17 or 19% of the galaxy had been explored. I think Coming of Age... or .. it's one of the Earth ones. Conspiracy perhaps?


Essentially within the space of a year they went up like 5% or something v0v

[Lord Revan]

The lower one was from the episode where Wesley tried to hit of the shapeshifter (no not a founder but another shapeshifting species) for the second I got out of the wiki so I can't say for sure where it came from.

[Batman]

s1's 'Where No Man Has Gone Before' has Kosinski claim 11 percent while s2's 'The Dauphin' has Wes saying 19.

[Lord Revan]

Thanks for the correction it's been a while since I've watched those episodes. That does put the higher value to question somewhat as a horny teen boy trying to get into the pants of female he likes isn't exactly relible source but regardless it does give us an upperlimit.

[Batman]

'First Contact', as already mentioned, has Picard claiming '8000 lightyears'. Even assuming the most generous ' cube 8000 ly a side' interpretation of that hardly gives the Feds the territory Kosisnski/Wes claim.
EDIT: Disregard. Wes and Kosinski were talking about how much of the galaxy they had explored, not actual Federation territory.

[Prometheus Unbound]

s1's 'Where No Man Has Gone Before' has Kosinski claim 11 percent while s2's 'The Dauphin' has Wes saying 19.

That's it! Thanks Batman

[Broomstick]

As for using warp speed, they're more then a little bit of variance on those so using them to judge size or travel speeds outside the specific region the ship is at during the dialogue isn't very relible.

Different ships travel at different speeds, and presumably the Federation has access to the fastest ships. Civilian travel is probably slower. Consider the difference between auto and plane travel: California is either 4-5 days by car for me, for 3 hours by airplane. That probably accounts for some of the disparities in travel time.

[Lord Revan]

As for using warp speed, they're more then a little bit of variance on those so using them to judge size or travel speeds outside the specific region the ship is at during the dialogue isn't very relible.

Different ships travel at different speeds, and presumably the Federation has access to the fastest ships. Civilian travel is probably slower. Consider the difference between auto and plane travel: California is either 4-5 days by car for me, for 3 hours by airplane. That probably accounts for some of the disparities in travel time.

true but there's differences in known speeds as well for example when E-D is said to be travelling at "max warp" it can mean several different speeds. Then we got cases like E-A travelling at speeds that would make Voyager impossible (the series that is not the ship) as USS Voyager would make it home in hours or days at most not the 75 years that was the orginal travel time.

[The Romulan Republic]

'First Contact', as already mentioned, has Picard claiming '8000 lightyears'. Even assuming the most generous ' cube 8000 ly a side' interpretation of that hardly gives the Feds the territory Kosisnski/Wes claim.
EDIT: Disregard. Wes and Kosinski were talking about how much of the galaxy they had explored, not actual Federation territory.

Yeah, for all we know, "explored" just means they had a probe do a fly-by through that sector and take some scans, or made contact with whoever lived their and bought some maps off them.

[Lord Revan]

if you ask me I'd say that they'd have at least basic charts for explored regions, but as I said before, that should include areas like the Romulan Star Empire or the Cardassian Union where you probably have charts that only have the basic data like locations and type of stars and planets but any details like if the planets have colonies or not would not be there (at least before the Dominion war for the Cardassian Union).

[Captain Seafort]

true but there's differences in known speeds as well for example when E-D is said to be travelling at "max warp" it can mean several different speeds. Then we got cases like E-A travelling at speeds that would make Voyager impossible (the series that is not the ship) as USS Voyager would make it home in hours or days at most not the 75 years that was the orginal travel time.

TOS frequently gave speeds that would make Voyager impossible - That Which Survives had the E-nil covering the best part of 1000 ly in what was probably less than a day, Arena had the ship covering at least 70 ly in less than 0.6 stardate units and Kirk ordering a trip of over 1500 ly at warp one.

[Tribble]

Then you have instances such as the E-A travelling to the centre of the Galaxy to meet "God" in a matter of days. IMO TOS travel was a lot faster than TNG travel, on average.

From TNG BOBW and DS9 Emissary it was established that Picard was assimilated for 6 days, so that's roughly how long it would take to get from Earth to the Federation frontier, at least from the direction the BOBW Cube was attacking from. And that's probably a high-end estimate given that it included stop-overs like the deflector dish attack and Wolf 359 (where the Borg Cube loitered around long enough for the E-D to catch up).

[Prometheus Unbound]

Then you have instances such as the E-A travelling to the centre of the Galaxy to meet "God" in a matter of days. IMO TOS travel was a lot faster than TNG travel, on average.

From TNG BOBW and DS9 Emissary it was established that Picard was assimilated for 6 days, so that's roughly how long it would take to get from Earth to the Federation frontier, at least from the direction the BOBW Cube was attacking from. And that's probably a high-end estimate given that it included stop-overs like the deflector dish attack and Wolf 359 (where the Borg Cube loitered around long enough for the E-D to catch up).

We don't know it was the frontier - there were several outposts in the area, it wasn't the literal edge of Federation space.

[NecronLord]

Some later examples (That Which Survives, ST5) can be handwaved with the idea that the Kelvan modifications to the Ent-nil made it permanantly faster. But obviously it's just that they'd not implemented continuity checking for distances.

[LaCroix]

Or he blew the whole tank on this one travel leg, hoping god would send them back for free...

Same for the Voyager - she could be home a lot faster at higher warp, but lacks fuel to do so. Being stranded with no gas station on the way back makes fuel economy a pressing issue.

Military vessels can afford blowing fuel on high warp settings if they can return an refuel or get resupplied by a slower vessel arriving late - civilian travel can be just as fast, but I guess nobody can afford it, especially with the Fed economy. It might be possible that civillians are unable to get warp fuel, at all. After all, we almost never see civilian ships, only booked flights on federation transporters.

[Crazedwraith]

I think the 70 years figure for Voyager was specified to be 'at max warp' though?

[NecronLord]

Actually ST5 can't be explained by that as the BOP follows them.

[Eternal_Freedom]

And ST5 had the E-A not the E-Nil.

[Khaat]

One of the artifacts from the original Star Trek Star Fleet Technical Manual was the descriptor "United Federation Treaty Exploration Territory." It would go a long way towards explaining why the Federation is exploring but not in someone else's claimed territory, since everyone is shoulder-to-shoulder, otherwise...

[NecronLord]

That is a classy map, though I wouldn't put the Romulans on the opposite side from the Klingons given what we know from TNG.