Communicators

[Timo]

Also, Trek is full of these planets that have Earthlike conditions save for one anomaly (global deserts, say, or presence or absence of a key chemical). Landing parties might well find themselves on planets with "leaky" ionospheres, unable to support radio communications beyond the horizon. Or with really staticky ionospheres that drown out EM and SS signals alike - just think how often our heroes find planets where transporting is hampered by such conditions.

If these starships can deploy thousands upon thousands of small satellites in the style of "Operation: Annihilate!", the deployment of communications and weather satellites might be standard procedure. Indeed, it might be done in every episode, without explicit comment.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Wingsley]

Now, the only question I have is this: what would such a buoy look like/be comprised of? I'm wondering how such a contraption would look/fit into the TREK universe.

 

[Timo]

I'd like to think that it looks mcuh like those ultraviolet satellites, just with a slightly different payload. There'd be a standardized orbiter bus, prefabricated in some quantity, to which these business ends could be attached as required. The bus might also serve as a warning buoy, spysat, mine etc.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Deks]

The combadges do have a rather large range for communications.

When the away team contacts a ship that is still days away from them at warp, and if this is located in the A/B quadrants, then the relay stations are probably nearby which the combadges use in order to reach the ship still days away.

With Voyager, there were no subspace replays or communication buoys left, apart from the Type 4 shuttle, which the badges could have used for larger range, however, keep in mind the shuttle would be powered down and used only when needed to leave the planet altogether or for switching locations from one continent to another on the said planet

 

[Ronald Held]

If it were really were necessary there could a constellation of satellites to relay the communications.

 

[Deks]

Well ... the Hirogen had a communications/sensor network that spanned tens of thousands of lightyears.

Starfleet is probably doing something similar when doing deep space exploration ... deploying subspace comm/sensor buoys (which are already present throughout Federation space).
Also their range is equal/if not better when compared to their starship counterparts.
But for the sake of argument, let's say that you need 1 comm/sensor station per 50 ly's ... that would mean 20 smaller stations (each 50 ly's apart) to cover 1000 Ly's.

That means 160 stations to cover Federation space of 8000 Ly's, and 1120 stations in total to cover 56 000 Ly's.

Hm ... it would certainly be doable by SF if they focus on smaller relay stations like the ones we saw in TNG.

This is also not taking into account the MIDAS array of course or the possibility of using slipstream velocities for means of communication.

How many MIDAS arrays would SF need to cover real time communications in the entire galaxy ?
Voyager managed to establish two way communications with Earth through the MIDAS some 30 000 LY's away.

Hm ... 8 MIDAS arrays would probably be enough to cover 2 galatic axis if set up in a cross pattern, then adding 2 arrays per quadrant (1 in the center, the other another 30 000 ly's away towards the edge of the galaxy) of each quadrant, totaling to only 16 MIDAS arrays.

SF would be able to survey and entire galaxy and maintain communications with any starship anywhere (unless of course someone destroys a MIDAS array or 2)

 

[Timo]

But for the sake of argument, let's say that you need 1 comm/sensor station per 50 ly's ... that would mean 20 smaller stations (each 50 ly's apart) to cover 1000 Ly's.

Actually, a deep space vessel would need to sow thrice that number, at triple density, so that no failure of two consecutive relays would break the chain (we're talking about a single linear chain through uncharted space here, so it has to provide its own redundancy). And if the relays have less range than the 22 ly Galaxy class systems, we could well be speaking about more than one a relay per every ten lightyears.

But that is probably perfectly reasonable. Kirk's ship had no problem whipping up hundreds of satellites for irradiating Deneva in "Operation: Annihilate!". Relays of similar size might be stocked aboard deep space exploration vessels in the thousands. If a relay is the size of a torpedo casing, a Galaxy could easily carry enough for a 70,000 ly trip, and plausibly manufacture more as needed.

Different types of ship probably carry somewhat different relays, some significantly less potent than others, so a runabout might easily "outfly" her relay chain and be cut off from DS9 or the Gamma comm node, as we see happening in a couple of eps.

I wonder if the MIDAS modification can maintain contact with more than one vessel at a time...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Deks]

I remember a Voyager episode in which the ship was able to scan within a radius of 40 Ly's (which probably took some lag).
Granted that only sensors were able to go that far, but I would imagine subspace communications would be able to do the same if not better because they were able to communicate with vessels far in excess of their sensor range on multiple occasions.

Of course, online evidence varied from episode to episode for the sake of a plot (in ANY Trek series)...

As for the MIDAS ... well, it IS an advanced form of communication/sensor platform that uses hyper-subspace transmissions.
It's ability lies in extending communications and can probably handle multiple amount at the same time just like any other comm station would.

For future two way communications throughout the entire Milky Way galaxy, as I said, SF would have to deploy 1 MIDAS array per 30 000 LY's.
Starfleet sure has been busy in Voyagers absence.
Too bad the writers never thought of utilizing new technologies in a more creative way and to the full of their potential ... of course, that would require of them to write a compelling drama that would fit into it (and they always had a flare for dumbing down tech abilities for the sake of 'drama').

 

[Timo]

Random comments:

It's ability lies in extending communications and can probably handle multiple amount at the same time just like any other comm station would.

Our deep space communication systems today can't handle more than a single spacecraft at a time, due to the use of highly directional antennas. We've never seen MIDAS being used in the enhanced mode for more than one channel of communications; the modifications might result in a highly directional setup, or a message pathway that merely connects A to B and does not allow for any contact with C.

And 40 ly scanning could indeed be done with "some delay", without implying the ability to communicate across 40 ly. Today, we can "scan" for things that are 13 billion ly distant, with a delay of 13 billion years. Our VOY heroes might have suffered a 20-year delay - not a big problem if you look for, say, habitable planets, as those would probably remain habitable for the next 20 years, too.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Deks]

Voyager scanned an area of 40 Ly's searching for Borg in that one episode.
It may have taken several hours, perhaps a day even ... but days or years, unlikely.
Astrometric sensors alone were able to scan through 2000 LY's minimum.
Also in regards to comm ... well we saw repeatedly how ships were able to communicate with others who were out of sensor range (but that doesn't definitely sets anything in stone).

As for the MIDAS ... you are forgetting that we are talking about technology 370 years into the future.
What is limited today in a singular direction, in almost 4 centuries it will be tens (if not hundreds) of times better and capable of just about any function you can (or cannot) think of.

In Voyagers case, SF specifically used the MIDAS to talk to them as they were the farthest ship away from the Federation, but it would have been rather useless for SF to construct a station that can communicate with others across 30 000 Ly's and that only 1 transmission is able to go through when they have hundreds of other ships in the fleet that can go on deep space assignments.

Besides, most of the two way talking is done when a mission of high profile is in order ... other regular orders usually arrive in a textual capacity or video clip recording.

 

[Timo]

Voyager scanned an area of 40 Ly's searching for Borg in that one episode.

This could be argued to be more a function of the Borg than of the sensors. The Borg cubes (and other starships) would actively radiate subspace energies in whichever direction at FTL speeds, unlike a dull planet that would (AFAWK) only radiate EM energies at lightspeed.

Astrometric sensors alone were able to scan through 2000 LY's minimum.

That in turn could be argued to involve centuries-long delays...

it would have been rather useless for SF to construct a station that can communicate with others across 30 000 Ly's and that only 1 transmission is able to go through when they have hundreds of other ships in the fleet that can go on deep space assignments.

But Starfleet built nothing of the sort. Rather, the preexisting MIDAS array was extensively modified to serve as a means of communication with Voyager. And the modifications very much sound as if the system can only talk with a single target of known coordinates. I mean, the commlink only works because the array works in conjunction with a pulsar to create a wormhole between itself and the ship - probably not the intention of the designers!

We have no clear indication that the basic MIDAS would have been a communications device at all. Barclay partially expands the acronym as "Mutara Interdimensional Deep space transponder Array", a fairly nonsensical name with the explanation for the S missing. Harkins later tells Admiral Paris that the Array is a joint project with Vulcans, with one application being a possible ability to send hypersubspace signals to a single target, say, Voyager. Whether this is the main application remains untold.

Timo Saloniemi