Number of “jumps” or short cuts Voyager made

[Voth commando1]

So given Voyager was traveling 70,000 light years back to earth, they took several short cuts and jumps along the way. Where they got further than they would have than traveling normally. And I wanted to list them.

The ones I can think of

The Gift-Kes sends them out of Borg Space 10,000 light years.
Hope and Fear-I think 300 light years?
The Voyager Conspiracy-took three years off their trip

And those are the three I can remember.

What about the others, and how many years total were shaved off the 75 year trip by these short cuts?

 

[AresB]

From a list I found in Reddit:

• Vortex gets them through the void and shaves off two years (Night)
• Quantum Slipstream Drive cuts ten years off (Timeless)
• Vaadwaur Subspace Corridors (Dragon's Teeth)
• Q shaves a few years off their trip (Q2)
• Stolen transwarp core takes them 20 000 ly (Dark Frontier)
  
• Borg Transwarp Hub/Borg Sphere (Endgame)
  

 

[David cgc]

There's also the graviton catapult from "The Voyager Conspiracy" that launched the ship over 30 seconds, knocking three years off the trip.

 

[at Quark's]

.. and how many years total were shaved off the 75 year trip by these short cuts?

This question seems simple, at first at least. They spent 7 years in the Delta Quadrant, whereas their trip was supposed to take about 75 years according to Janeway's estimate in Caretaker. So that would mean, 75-7 = 68 years cut off.

Still might be a bit less, though. In Year of Hell 7 plots a more efficient course that would make their trip about 5 years shorter, and I suppose that doesn't qualify as a shortcut. We don't know how much "benefit" they got from that shorter route before they made the final jump. And perhaps there have been other such occasions I don't remember right now.

 

[Voth commando1]

Well I wasn’t counting Endgame’s time travel short cut. I was more interested in the boosts and jumps they got along the way.

Also in the pre endgame timeline-I recall it took 23 years or something? So probably they got many more jumps and short cuts.

 

[Farscape One]

In the original timeline, it took Voyager 16 more years after "ENDGAME" for a total of a 23 year journey.

Shortcuts, if you don't count course corrections like the 5 year one mentioned in "YEAR OF HELL" when they got Astrometrics online or the route Q gives them to shave a few years off in "Q2"...

"THE GIFT" - 9,500 light years
"HOPE AND FEAR" - 300 light years
"NIGHT" - 2,500 light years, based on Seven saying that was how far they could see having no systems or planets. Likely about 3 years shaved off.
"TIMELESS" - 10 years closer, no distance said... probably about 9-10,000 light years.
"DARK FRONTIER" - 20,000 light years, Janeway says about 15 years closer.
"DRAGON'S TEETH" - over 200 light years
"THE VOYAGER CONSPIRACY" - 30 sectors, 3 years.

That's what I can remember. If I'm forgetting any, please add.

 

[Timo]

To complicate the issue, not all of those jumps were in a direction our heroes or their benefactors could have chosen.

Most of the gains made are commented on in such terms that we probably hear the actual progress towards home - but for example the catapult in "The Voyager Conspiracy" possibly wasn't for our heroes to aim, and the 30 sectors (20 ly per sector, presumably, so half a thousand lightyears) might have amounted to three years closer to home even if the distance through space was greater.

The same goes for the wormhole in "Night", and especially for the corridors in "Dragon's Teeth" - in the worst case, the latter added to the distance our heroes had to travel, by taking them back to where they came from. The former at least was commented on in generally positive terms.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Farscape One]

We should also remember all the backward movements in the first couple seasons...

"EYE OF THE NEEDLE" - A significant detour was stated. We don't know exactly what that means, but it's implied it's adding time to the journey.

"CATHEXIS" - This bit is more deductive reasoning than anything else, and I could be wrong. Chakotay and Tuvok head back from a trade mission to the Iladarians... the same people Neelix said could be helpful to rescuing the 'trapped ship' in "PARALLAX". That implies they went backwards, or in a circle. Plus, they did head back to the nebula where the shuttle got attacked, which implied going backward a slight bit.

"JETREL" - Going all the way back to Talax, which proved a waste of time.

"RESOLUTIONS" - After over a month heading home, Tuvok brings Voyager back to the planet with the cure for Janeway and Chakotay. Not to mention how long The Doctor stayed online trying to find a cure... I think they were in stasis for 17 dats and Kes said The Doctor was online for a month straight trying to cure them.

"BASICS", both parts - It seems clear they headed backward toward Nistrim space. Also, we don't know exactly how long the Kazon had possession of Voyager... likely just a week or so, but we have no idea for sure.


Interestingly, I think the events of "RESOLUTIONS", basically losing 2 months of journeying home, are what causes the Nistrim to be able to spring that trap for Voyager in the very next episode. Back then, I did wonder if the writers knew they needed some way to rationalize how the Nistrim got them when they should have been past their space. Maybe I'm giving them a bit more credit than I should, given the episodic nature of how UPN wanted them to be, but it's something I always wondered.

 

[Timo]

I'm not sure about "Jetrel": why would Talax be behind the heroes? Sure, it's a "significant detour", but the very reason our heroes run into the scientist is likely to be because they are actually approaching Talax, rather than distancing themselves from it. The detour would then be sideways instead.

We have little reason to assume that Talax would be close to Ocampa, really. Neelix simply travels a lot, as do many Talaxians.

The Nistrim could travel, too: they are being goaded by Seska, who keeps whispering in Culluth's ear and convincing him that taking the Voyager is absolutely necessary if he is to save face. Certainly Culluth takes the ship back towards his home turf, adding to the travels our heroes have to conduct to get to Earth, but the actual hijacking hijinks could have taken place far, far away from that home turf.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Farscape One]

Fair points about both, but "RESOLUTIONS" certainly is them going backwards, and "CATHEXIS" is implied.

At the very least, every example added time to the journey.

 

[at Quark's]

Well, the stardate at the end of Jetrel is 48840.5 . A stardate is mentioned in the scene directly after the decision to go to Talax which is 48832.1 , but of course we don't know if that really was immediately after the decision, so we can't conclude it was only about 8 "stardates". Then the Chakoteya script states the stardate at the beginning of the episode as 48823.1 but I don't know how that was sourced. The last stardate I can find in the scripts before that is 48784.2, mentioned in Faces.

So the detour to Talax might have taken as few as , or even fewer than 8 "stardates" (assuming that Jetrel's dying is a few days after his failed attempt), but possibly up to 56 of them. Using the convention that there are about 1000 stardates in a year, that would work out to somewhere between 3 and 20.5 of our calendar days.

Hence, Talax can't have been that far from the position they were when the episode started.

 

[Timo]

The idea of a "significant detour" always was at odds with ol' Jetrel being out there in a mere shuttle, with but days to spare before death would claim him.

On the other hand, it would be odd for there to be no mention of Talax being next door if that were the case; why does the episode open with a nondescript pool scene, devoid of Neelix lines of "Isn't this exciting, being almost there?" or Paris lines of "Now, why have you been avoiding mentioning Talax at all now that we're just 12 ly away, when previously you couldn't hold it for twenty minutes straight?".

We never learn how Jetrel got to know that Neelix was aboard the hero ship, now do we? Sure, Neelix might have phoned home at some point, and become famous and all. And Janeway may have broadcast her planned course well in advance, as a gesture of goodwill. But if the idea was to help Talaxians in general, then hunting for this single expatriate would be counterproductive when Jetrel ought to be treating locals and gaining data from them. And if there's no hunting to be done, if Janeway is actually heading for Talax, then the "detour" bit and the "no mention" bit are extra annoying with fries.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Finn]

From a list I found in Reddit:

• Q shaves a few years off their trip (Q2)
  

I'm not sure I'd count this, as it appears Q just gave her information that shortened their route by a few years...somehow. Not a jump where they used technology, was whisked away like the D in Q Who, etc.

 

[Annorax849]

To complicate the issue, not all of those jumps were in a direction our heroes or their benefactors could have chosen.

Timo Saloniemi

Yeah, I was thinking that might be a good explanation why the Dark Frontier jump moved them 20,000 Light-Years but only cut 15 years off the trip

 

[Delta Vega]

For every short cut they took, they were offset by seven seasons of detours, to take in Class M planets, to explore, to race the Delta Flyer etc
In the real world Janeway's crew would have locked her up and decided "Fuck this exploring lark, let's get to fuck home asap"

 

[Timo]

Except not - after all, Janeway had stated at the very start that getting home by sailing straight was impossible. "Even at maximum speed" can mean either "even if we somehow could sustain maximum speed, and of course we can't", or then "even if we do sustain maximum speed and pray that we don't blow up", but this is then followed by "we will all be dead or senile before we arrive".

Detours were their only hope of making it home before the reaper came, even after seven years of shortcuts. All of which were due to detours and weird acts of altruism!

Timo Saloniemi

 

[at Quark's]

Except not - after all, Janeway had stated at the very start that getting home by sailing straight was impossible. "Even at maximum speed" can mean either "even if we somehow could sustain maximum speed, and of course we can't", or then "even if we do sustain maximum speed and pray that we don't blow up", but this is then followed by "we will all be dead or senile before we arrive".

Detours were their only hope of making it home before the reaper came, even after seven years of shortcuts. All of which were due to detours and weird acts of altruism!

Timo Saloniemi

Add to that you'll always have to do some exploration, otherwise you might cruise through territory of species prepared to blast you out of existence for trespassing, you'll need to have at least a global idea of which territories to avoid, and this might be impossible if you're at high warp all the time (you might have to interact with some locals to get more information than your sensors can provide you with). Also, you'lll have to take in provisions or do some maintenance every now and then, for which the help of friendly species might be essential, etc.

 

[Lance]

How much closer would they have been in their 75 year journey, theoretically, before the final shortcut landed them home in one jump in "Endgame"? Without further theoretical shortcuts, where were they relative to where they had started 7 years before?

In "Q Who", when the Enterprise is sent hurtling into the Delta Quadrant, Data estimates if they head back now, it would only have been two years or so, and of course Guinan's people had been here before (and were close enough to be picked up by the Enterprise-B in Generations). So, if they had high-speed floored it back to the Alpha Quadrant and had a good run, they'd have gotten back around the timeframe of TNG season 5.

Where do we think Voyager was relative to that, mild two year journey home?

 

[Timo]

How much closer would they have been in their 75 year journey, theoretically, before the final shortcut landed them home in one jump in "Endgame"? Without further theoretical shortcuts, where were they relative to where they had started 7 years before?

Basically halfway home. Maps glimpsed onscreen would place them at the Delta/Beta Quadrant border, and the sum total of jumps doesn't exceed that traveled distance, while regular travel nicely fills the remainder.

So, thirty years or so still to go, barring shortcuts.

In "Q Who", when the Enterprise is sent hurtling into the Delta Quadrant, Data estimates if they head back now, it would only have been two years or so

No, System J-25 is not in the Delta Quadrant. We get an explicit reference to the distance: 7,000 ly is not yet sufficient for moving from Alpha to anywhere but the neighboring Beta.

OTOH, covering 7,000 ly in 2 years and 7 months is only doable theoretically, "at maximum warp". We know starships can't maintain maximum warp for long.

Similarly, in "Where No One", 2.7 million lightyears could be covered in mere 300 years "at maximum warp", but the ship simply can't do maximum warp. Not for more than a couple of days at the most extreme.

and of course Guinan's people had been here before (and were close enough to be picked up by the Enterprise-B in Generations).

Yes, Guinan used to live at J-25. But no, she wasn't there when the Borg came - this is why she survives. Nobody knows who picked her up and where, and how long it took for her to reach the immediate vicinity of Earth where the E-B finally took her aboard, and what sorts of legs that journey involved.

So, if they had high-speed floored it back to the Alpha Quadrant and had a good run, they'd have gotten back around the timeframe of TNG season 5.

Except they can't move that fast. The longer the distance, the slower the speed, apparently: they have to factor in an increasing number of pit stops, cool-off periods and the like.

From what we actually hear in the show, a hundred lightyears in a day is a breeze; a thousand lightyears in a week is an ordeal (save for one TOS outlier); and ten thousand lightyears takes more than a decade. It then apparently evens out, so that crossing the 100,000 ly galaxy takes about a century - but a million lightyears doesn't take all that much longer, perhaps because ships travel faster between galaxies than within them.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[at Quark's]

OTOH, covering 7,000 ly in 2 years and 7 months is only doable theoretically, "at maximum warp". We know starships can't maintain maximum warp for long.

Could be significantly less than 7000 light years, even. They were moved 7000 years from their starting location (presumably near Starbase 173, since Ensign Gomez was picked up there), and Data gives the time to the nearest Starbase (Starbase 185), which could of course be located in a different region of Federation territory.

Then again, given the other references you mention the entire point may be moot