Been puzzling over this a bit, and I think I may have an idea, but I'd like other people's opinions. When the starship fleet takes off and warps to Vulcan in response to the distress call, could they have used some kind of wormhole to get there so quickly? I'm thinking there could be a kind of natural transwarp passageway with openings in the Sol system and in the Vulcan system that enables starships to travel from point A to point B in a very quick period of time, providing the ships are at warp. This would go some way to reconciling their abnormally fast journey with what we know of warp principles in the Trek universe. We still have the problem of how the rest of the fleet reached Vulcan a few minutes ahead of the Enterprise, as the Enterprise should have been able to catch up easy enough once they were at warp (and in the passageway?) and emerged along with the rest of them.
Earth to Vulcan in 30 minutes - a possible solution?
- Thread starter EJA
- Start date
Possible, but the fleet probably went 2 maximum warp soon as they jumped and vulcan is not far at warp nine ?
I don't remember ever been given a clear indication in the movie of how long it took to reach Vulcan.
We see McCoy in cadet uniform dealing with Kirk and then sometime later we cut to McCoy having changed to his ship uniform and Kirk regaining consciousness.
Who can tell exactly how long it took to reach Vulcan ? Hours could have passed.
We see McCoy in cadet uniform dealing with Kirk and then sometime later we cut to McCoy having changed to his ship uniform and Kirk regaining consciousness.
Who can tell exactly how long it took to reach Vulcan ? Hours could have passed.
This whole thing has been discussed before; I'm just presenting a new idea to solve the problem. According to Ex Astris Scientia, a 30 minute trip from Earth to Vulcan at maximum warp would be something like warp 65!!! Hence my transwarp wormhole theory. I also think that while the Enterprise did enter the hypothetical wormhole, a glitch in the engines caused the ship to drop out of warp into sublight before it could reach the Vulcan aperture with the other ships. The Enterprise was probably close enough to Vulcan by then to travel the last few light years at normal warp, which explains why it was late. I know it's a bit wobbly, but it's the best I can come up with right now.
And where exactly is this 30 minute number coming from ?
Indeed, is there a transcript of the movie available somewhere by now?
Since Kirk was heavily sedated, he could well have slept for several days. In ST:TMP, it is suggested that the newest and presumably best 2270s-vintage engines can propel a starship from Earth to Vulcan in four days. If we speculate that Scotty was still worried about his raw and untested engines and didn't want to go flat out, we could say that average 2270s engines could do the trip in a couple of days - so four would still be good going, and Scotty wouldn't be out of the line in suggesting that Spock travel aboard the refitted Enterprise rather than purchase a ticket on another, faster ship.
We could then go on to say that engines didn't develop all that much between the 2250s and the 2270s, so it would already have taken only a day or two to span the distance in STXI. Kirk sleeping through an entire day doesn't sound implausible; and we never learn that anything else of importance would have happened during the voyage. Perhaps Pike was in contact with the fleet for most of the trip, and lost contact only when the fleet entered the region of space that Nero was jamming, just before they would have had something of note to report about the situation on Vulcan.
Now, as for the other travel time problems in STXI... How long exactly is it from Vulcan to Delta Vega, for example?
Timo Saloniemi
Since Kirk was heavily sedated, he could well have slept for several days. In ST:TMP, it is suggested that the newest and presumably best 2270s-vintage engines can propel a starship from Earth to Vulcan in four days. If we speculate that Scotty was still worried about his raw and untested engines and didn't want to go flat out, we could say that average 2270s engines could do the trip in a couple of days - so four would still be good going, and Scotty wouldn't be out of the line in suggesting that Spock travel aboard the refitted Enterprise rather than purchase a ticket on another, faster ship.
We could then go on to say that engines didn't develop all that much between the 2250s and the 2270s, so it would already have taken only a day or two to span the distance in STXI. Kirk sleeping through an entire day doesn't sound implausible; and we never learn that anything else of importance would have happened during the voyage. Perhaps Pike was in contact with the fleet for most of the trip, and lost contact only when the fleet entered the region of space that Nero was jamming, just before they would have had something of note to report about the situation on Vulcan.
Now, as for the other travel time problems in STXI... How long exactly is it from Vulcan to Delta Vega, for example?
Timo Saloniemi
Didn't Enterprise (show not ship) use "subspace corridor" shortcuts to get from Earth to Qo'nos in four days? Moreover, didn't they get them from the Vulcan star charts?
There is a scene after Kirk is sedated, that starts with Sulu stating the engines have reached maximum warp. In that same scene, Chekov announces the mission to the crew, saying that they will be arriving at Vulcan within 3 minutes.
This hints that the trip is very short, perhaps 15-30 minutes. Why would it take days for the engines to reach maximum warp, and why would Chekov be asked to relay the mission briefing at the last second to the crew?
On screen evidence points to a very short amount of time passing. Although enough for McCoy to change. 30 minutes is plausible, less even more so.
In my mind, the scene where Sulu says they've reached maximum warp would occur after they've dropped out of the wormhole/transwarp passage/whatever and are proceeding under their own power.
Now you've got me wondering just how long it takes to get Mc Coy into- and out of- that uniform.
I've often wondered about the proximity of different Federation and non-Federation planets. I get the idea that Klingons, Romulans, Vulcans, and humans are all pretty close together, but no one official has ever made a map, so it's impossible to be sure. One aspect of this question that fascinates me is the three-dimensional nature of everyone's location with respect to everyone else. One way the show made something seem far away was to situate events in the gamma quadrant or the delta quadrant, but there are places in the alpha quadrant that are immensely distant as well. I suspect that much of the alpha quadrant remains a mystery. Since star density and radiation increases as you approach the galactic center, the probability of life going inwards decreases. Indeed, most life must be concentrated in worlds whose stars have circular orbits around the galactic center and are in the outer fringe of the galaxy.
I would be thrilled to see a definitive spatial arrangement of the major places in Star Trek in some sort of three dimensional map, but I think that in every series and episode, spatial arrangements are modified to conform to the needs of the story. Time and speed are left vague on purpose to make the story more plausible and so as not to inhibit future stories.
Thus, thirty minutes or three days, no one can be sure. Your guess is as good as mine, and I think there's neither a right nor a wrong answer.
I would be thrilled to see a definitive spatial arrangement of the major places in Star Trek in some sort of three dimensional map, but I think that in every series and episode, spatial arrangements are modified to conform to the needs of the story. Time and speed are left vague on purpose to make the story more plausible and so as not to inhibit future stories.
Thus, thirty minutes or three days, no one can be sure. Your guess is as good as mine, and I think there's neither a right nor a wrong answer.
Now you've got me wondering just how long it takes to get Mc Coy into- and out of- that uniform.
CD you kill me! 
Actually Checkov says with "3 minutes" they would arrive at Vulcan. There is one brief cut that could be a transition of an unidentified amount of time prior to that
Well, I believe it has been stated that Vulcan is about 16 light-years away from Earth, so even if they were going at Warp 9 the entire time (which seems improbable, given what we've been told about travelling at warp speed), it still should've taken them at least three days to get there.
I guess we just have to conclude that in this timeline, Starfleet found a way to make Transwarp drive viable by the mid-23rd century (or something like that). Now, who wants to explain how the Enterprise-A got to the centre of the galaxy in such a short time in The Final Frontier?
I guess we just have to conclude that in this timeline, Starfleet found a way to make Transwarp drive viable by the mid-23rd century (or something like that). Now, who wants to explain how the Enterprise-A got to the centre of the galaxy in such a short time in The Final Frontier?
The Trip was short. 15 min or less
I do know somehow that Vulcan is 16 ly away. Why would it take so long t5o get there at Warp 9?
Because we don't want warp 9 to be TOO fast. In TOS, it took the ship several days to get from star to star even when she was in a hurry; in VOY, it took the ship a century to span a hundred thousand lightyears, roughly speaking.
This was never made explicit. For all we know, they only got the location of Qo'noS and Rigel from the Vulcan maps, and there was no benefit from "fast lanes" or anything like that.
To say that Vulcan and Qo'nos are roughly equidistant from Earth (and that NX-01 and NCC-1701-refit were roughly equal in cruise speed) is not that objectionable a claim. Klingons probably are rather close to Earth, for them to be such menacing enemies. Ditto for Romulans. All the more worrisome, then, if Earth to Vulcan is just 30 minutes in the new universe - Earth to the heart of the evil Klingon empire must be just a few minutes as well, then...
Timo Saloniemi
This was never made explicit. For all we know, they only got the location of Qo'noS and Rigel from the Vulcan maps, and there was no benefit from "fast lanes" or anything like that.
To say that Vulcan and Qo'nos are roughly equidistant from Earth (and that NX-01 and NCC-1701-refit were roughly equal in cruise speed) is not that objectionable a claim. Klingons probably are rather close to Earth, for them to be such menacing enemies. Ditto for Romulans. All the more worrisome, then, if Earth to Vulcan is just 30 minutes in the new universe - Earth to the heart of the evil Klingon empire must be just a few minutes as well, then...
Timo Saloniemi
And you know this with such accuracy from ... ?
Now you've got me wondering just how long it takes to get Mc Coy into- and out of- that uniform.
Kirk holds the record for THAT.
Last edited:
Similar threads
