Mysteries surrounding the Sikarian spatial trajector

[at Quark's]

So, the Voyager crew meets the Sikarians, who turn out to have this nifty spatial trajector, which is capable of sending objects up to 40.000 lightyears away.

In the run of the episode, we learn that the planet itself is used in the amplification of the field forming around the object or person to be transported, so that the trajector can only be used near the Sikarian home planet. Ok, I can buy that.

But, the device is also capable to retrieve persons from those distances. Which already becomes harder to believe, but ordinary Federation transporters can do the same thing, so I can (grudgingly) suspend disbelief on that one.

However, how did they signal the device from that 40.000 LY distance they want to return in the first place? Wouldn't that level of communication technology alone be worth a lot to the voyager crew, even if they couldn't get the trajector to work?

Or would such communication along that 'trajectory'be possible only because they were transported over it in the first place, and in that case, would that mean that the spatial trajector maintains a link with the transported object or transporter at all times?

 

[MacLeod]

Well to put things in perspective a message send by Voyager upon it's arrival in the DQ, should take around 17 months to reach the Federation.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Voyager had a habit of not exploiting their "almost, but not quite" shortcuts home (see: "Threshold" not keeping just below warp 10 and getting home in a week). I try not to overthink it.

 

[publiusr]

I seem to remember the Vedala had something like this--or transwarp beaming--in a TAS episode.

 

[Sophie74656]

Voyager had a habit of not exploiting their "almost, but not quite" shortcuts home (see: "Threshold" not keeping just below warp 10 and getting home in a week). I try not to overthink it.

Just below warp 10 wouldn't work. They did that constantly. Voyager's top cruising speed is 9.975...just under 10

 

[Idran]

Just below warp 10 wouldn't work. They did that constantly. Voyager's top cruising speed is 9.975...just under 10

Warp speed is asymptotic, so that's still infinitely below; "just below" gets weird when a scale's not linear. I'm pretty sure King Daniel Beyond means traveling at something like Warp 9.9999999 or something, some speed that's literally billions, trillions, quadrillions, <other big number> of times faster.

 

[Sophie74656]

Warp speed is asymptotic, so that's still infinitely below; "just below" gets weird when a scale's not linear. I'm pretty sure King Daniel Beyond means traveling at something like Warp 9.9999999 or something, some speed that's literally billions, trillions, quadrillions, <other big number> of times faster.

Right. We know their top CRUISING speed was 9.975 but if they pushed it could they go even faster for a short period of time? Wasn't really said

 

[Voth commando1]

The Sikarians forbid access to their projector and part of the drama was that Tuvok with B'lanna and a few others went behind the captain's back to try to take it(IIRC).

The episode gave a me a lotus eaters feel from the Odyssey