The Alpha Cygni (Deneb) System

[BrotherBenny]

According to Star Charts, Alpha Cygni is 3,200 ly from Earth. If that's right, wouldn't it have taken the Enterprise-D three years at maximum warp to reach Farpoint station from its launching point at Earth Station McKinley? (I'm going at this from the 1000 ly = 1yr travel time established in VOY).

And on the same note, how far from Earth is Starbase 52 where the Enterprise stopped en route?

 

[DEWLine]

"Subspace anomalies".

 

[Therin of Andor]

According to Star Charts, Alpha Cygni is 3,200 ly from Earth. If that's right, wouldn't it have taken the Enterprise-D three years at maximum warp to reach Farpoint station from its launching point at Earth Station McKinley? (I'm going at this from the 1000 ly = 1yr travel time established in VOY).

"Broken Bow" (ENT) inferred the importance of Vulcan star charts to enable them to get to Klingon space faster. Presumably they'd mapped lots of weird shortcuts. Janeway was traveling through (for her) uncharted territory so only the standard time was quoted.

(Note that "Star Charts" has an error on page 34, where Mandel accidentally used Alpha Leonis IV for Farpoint's Deneb IV, when he meant Alpha Cygni IV. And, of course, the other Deneb is Deneb Kaitos on p 33.)

 

[BrotherBenny]

According to Star Charts, Alpha Cygni is 3,200 ly from Earth. If that's right, wouldn't it have taken the Enterprise-D three years at maximum warp to reach Farpoint station from its launching point at Earth Station McKinley? (I'm going at this from the 1000 ly = 1yr travel time established in VOY).

"Broken Bow" (ENT) inferred the importance of Vulcan star charts to enable them to get to Klingon space faster. Presumably they'd mapped lots of weird shortcuts. Janeway was traveling through (for her) uncharted territory so only the standard time was quoted.

(Note that "Star Charts" has an error on page 34, where Mandel accidentally used Alpha Leonis IV for Farpoint's Deneb IV, when he meant Alpha Cygni IV. And, of course, the other Deneb is Deneb Kaitos on p 33.)

Unfortunately, I've never been able to get hold of a copy. I was looking at Memory Beta for a fanfic project and I saw the distance from Sol.

How long would it take to get to Alpha Cygni from Earth at warp six, say? I'm interested because I'd also like to know if any other vessel other than the Hood and Enterprise have ever been out to that region, or out that far? Is that the furthest system out from Earth in 2364?

 

[Christopher]

According to Star Charts, Alpha Cygni is 3,200 ly from Earth. If that's right, wouldn't it have taken the Enterprise-D three years at maximum warp to reach Farpoint station from its launching point at Earth Station McKinley? (I'm going at this from the 1000 ly = 1yr travel time established in VOY).

There's no way to make sense of travel times in Trek without assuming that the relationship of warp factor to actual speed varies depending on local space conditions. This has been a common idea in fandom since at least 1980, and was stated explicitly in the Sternbach-Okuda TNG-era technical material, although for some reason Trek-tech fans tend to overlook it. The general interpretation -- which is alluded to in Star Charts -- is that there are "space lanes" where the travel time for a given distance is considerably lower than elsewhere. Travel times in Federation space may be faster than in the Delta Quadrant (and indeed they must be, given some episodes, movies, and books where starships have crossed the Federation in remarkably short amounts of time) because the space lanes are mapped in the UFP and unknown in the DQ, so Voyager didn't know the best routes to take.

As for Deneb, our knowledge of its distance is very uncertain to this day. It was once believed to be only about 1800 light-years away. 3200 ly is our current best guess, but there's enough uncertainty in the measurement that it could be anywhere from 2100 to 7400 ly. (The estimate is based on parallax, which gets more and more unreliable with greater distance, because closer objects show a greater parallax shift than farther ones.)

Part of the reason Trek cartography is so screwy is because the writers over the decades just made use of familiar star names like Rigel and Deneb and Antares without really considering their distance, and sometimes our estimates of their distances have changed. Hence the "outliers" like Deneb in Star Charts.

 

[Therin of Andor]

I'd also like to know if any other vessel other than the Hood and Enterprise have ever been out to that region, or out that far? Is that the furthest system out from Earth in 2364?

Well, Q set up that Glomesh fence as a symbol to Picard that he wasn't letting them go further than "where no one (human) has gone before", but certainly "Encounter at Farpoint" gave the impression the Enterprise wasn't coming back into main UFP space for some time. (This was a changed premise, of course, because Enterprise-D came back to Earth several times during TNG).

The whole point of the Bandi's new space station was as an essential outpost to support Federation exploration into the unknown. I'm sure many vessels did just that (after helping the Bandi build a new Farpoint?), since Q didn't leave the fence up.

 

[Christopher]

Well, Q set up that Glomesh fence as a symbol to Picard that he wasn't letting them go further than "where no one (human) has gone before", but certainly "Encounter at Farpoint" gave the impression the Enterprise wasn't coming back into main UFP space for some time. (This was a changed premise, of course, because Enterprise-D came back to Earth several times during TNG).

The whole point of the Bandi's new space station was as an essential outpost to support Federation exploration into the unknown. I'm sure many vessels did just that (after helping the Bandi build a new Farpoint?), since Q didn't leave the fence up.

In Orion's Hounds, I mentioned that the absence of a viable Farpoint Station to support long-range exploration (due to the Bandi's inability to build one for real) was a major reason why the E-D's mission profile changed from way-out-there to something closer to home.

 

[BrotherBenny]

In the deleted scene from Nemesis, Picard tells Madden that they're going to the Deneb (Denab?) system, an interesting place, a place where...no one has gone before.

Was that supposed to bring TNG full circle? They start out intending to explore the Cygnus Reach and then finally, fifteen years later, try again?

Like the Lunas, I can't really see the necessity of having a starbase within easy reach because the Sovvies should be able to do anything but major repairs on the fly. So would a mission to the Cygnus Reach be plausible for the E-E at this time?

 

[Therin of Andor]

I can't really see the necessity of having a starbase within easy reach because the Sovvies should be able to do anything but major repairs on the fly.

Sure, but you need somewhere to pick up and drop off passengers, replacement crew and supplies.

 

[Christopher]

Like the Lunas, I can't really see the necessity of having a starbase within easy reach because the Sovvies should be able to do anything but major repairs on the fly. So would a mission to the Cygnus Reach be plausible for the E-E at this time?

It's not about the base being in easy reach of the individual ships. It's about the civilization having an outpost far enough in that direction to serve as a staging area for organizing the exploration of the region beyond. Assume there's a practical time limit to how long ships can spend away civilization before having to come back for repairs, resupply, and crew rotation. That limits how far out they can get, how much they can explore. So if you establish an outpost of civilization that's way out on the edges of explored territory, that can be built up into an anchor for further exploration, then you effectively double the maximum range of your starships.

 

[BrotherBenny]

Like the Lunas, I can't really see the necessity of having a starbase within easy reach because the Sovvies should be able to do anything but major repairs on the fly. So would a mission to the Cygnus Reach be plausible for the E-E at this time?

It's not about the base being in easy reach of the individual ships. It's about the civilization having an outpost far enough in that direction to serve as a staging area for organizing the exploration of the region beyond. Assume there's a practical time limit to how long ships can spend away civilization before having to come back for repairs, resupply, and crew rotation. That limits how far out they can get, how much they can explore. So if you establish an outpost of civilization that's way out on the edges of explored territory, that can be built up into an anchor for further exploration, then you effectively double the maximum range of your starships.

Ok, I get that, but why does Starfleet need the Bandi? They were capable of building starbases in 2-4 years in the twenty-third century (Watchtower-class) so why not in the twenty-fourth? Fifteen years is a long time, and yet you speculate that the Bandi could not have actually put together a real Farpoint station in that time. They could have learned their lesson and traded with local worlds for the raw materials. I would say that the only issue might be the lack of engineers and an orbital facility for major repairs, or would Starfleet supply that?

 

[Therin of Andor]

They could have learned their lesson and traded with local worlds for the raw materials.

Maybe there aren't any local worlds with expertise or materials? Starfleet seemed astounded how the Bandi had managed the original Farpoint.

 

[BrotherBenny]

They could have learned their lesson and traded with local worlds for the raw materials.

Maybe there aren't any local worlds with expertise or materials? Starfleet seemed astounded how the Bandi had managed the original Farpoint.

IIRC,they were amazed at the speed at which Farpoint had been constructed, not that it couldn't be done. Besides, I think it would be nice to see a starbase that is just like an Olympic village rather than some big grand edifice.

 

[Christopher]

Ok, I get that, but why does Starfleet need the Bandi? They were capable of building starbases in 2-4 years in the twenty-third century (Watchtower-class) so why not in the twenty-fourth? Fifteen years is a long time, and yet you speculate that the Bandi could not have actually put together a real Farpoint station in that time. They could have learned their lesson and traded with local worlds for the raw materials. I would say that the only issue might be the lack of engineers and an orbital facility for major repairs, or would Starfleet supply that?

The Bandi were maybe not so much a need as a windfall. Suddenly this distant world comes along and offers to build a state-of-the-art starbase on the UFP frontier in record time, without the UFP itself having to expend any resources. Even in the UFP's moneyless, replicator-based economy, there are still bound to be some limits on resource availability, so that made it more practical to justify going ahead with a deep-space exploration program way out beyond Deneb (even though there's still no doubt plenty of space between the UFP and Deneb that hasn't been fully charted yet). So the whole idea of an exploration push into trans-Denebian space (or the Cygnus Reach, as I called it in OH and TBA, following the precedent of the Taurus Reach from Vanguard) was triggered by the Farpoint offer in the first place.

True, it's possible that the UFP could've then gotten around to building their own base and carrying through with the plan. But remember, those "fifteen years" you mention were not a period when the UFP was totally free to direct all its resources to exploration on a distant frontier. Just a year after Farpoint, the Romulans started making threatening noises again. Two years after that, the Borg invaded and wiped out a big chunk of the fleet. So just three years after the Farpoint incident, Starfleet was forced to shift its priorities from far-ranging exploration to building a stronger defensive fleet at home. That was the real death knell for the Cygnus Reach exploration program.

 

[BrotherBenny]

Ok, I get that, but why does Starfleet need the Bandi? They were capable of building starbases in 2-4 years in the twenty-third century (Watchtower-class) so why not in the twenty-fourth? Fifteen years is a long time, and yet you speculate that the Bandi could not have actually put together a real Farpoint station in that time. They could have learned their lesson and traded with local worlds for the raw materials. I would say that the only issue might be the lack of engineers and an orbital facility for major repairs, or would Starfleet supply that?

The Bandi were maybe not so much a need as a windfall. Suddenly this distant world comes along and offers to build a state-of-the-art starbase on the UFP frontier in record time, without the UFP itself having to expend any resources. Even in the UFP's moneyless, replicator-based economy, there are still bound to be some limits on resource availability, so that made it more practical to justify going ahead with a deep-space exploration program way out beyond Deneb (even though there's still no doubt plenty of space between the UFP and Deneb that hasn't been fully charted yet). So the whole idea of an exploration push into trans-Denebian space (or the Cygnus Reach, as I called it in OH and TBA, following the precedent of the Taurus Reach from Vanguard) was triggered by the Farpoint offer in the first place.

True, it's possible that the UFP could've then gotten around to building their own base and carrying through with the plan. But remember, those "fifteen years" you mention were not a period when the UFP was totally free to direct all its resources to exploration on a distant frontier. Just a year after Farpoint, the Romulans started making threatening noises again. Two years after that, the Borg invaded and wiped out a big chunk of the fleet. So just three years after the Farpoint incident, Starfleet was forced to shift its priorities from far-ranging exploration to building a stronger defensive fleet at home. That was the real death knell for the Cygnus Reach exploration program.

Is it conceivable that with the launch of the Luna fleet in the 2380s that a new mission to the Cygnus Reach is possible - with or without a Starbase since the Luna missions are supposed to be open-ended into previously uncharted territory?

Although this is being asked for a fanfic project, I would like to ask if there are any plans for any of the book lines to visit the Cygnus Reach?

 

[foravalon]

If you do some fun stretching of conceivability you can make the travel time to Alpha Cyg plausible. First you have to assume the minimum distance estimate for Deneb, which I've seen as low as 1500lys. Then you have to assume that the newly commissioned Enterprise-D has been running a really hot shakedown cruise at high warp with no stops until meeting Q. Using some of the janky warp speed charts I've seen over the years you can get the travel time down to about 4 months. Which is, coincidentally, about the same amount of time between the commission date of the 1701-D in the ST:TNG Tech Manual and Picard & Riker's first log entry stardates in "Encounter at Farpoint".

This is of course totally in disregard of things like the novelization of EaFp, or the bogus stardate given in "All Good Things", bogus I say since the date given in picard's speech in the shuttlebay is only a couple days before the date of arrival at Farpoint way out on "the edge of explored space".

But this is nothing new, in fact it's a tradition for ST series pilots. They're always set way out on the edge of known space and then progress beyond, traveling absurd distances in likewise absurd amounts of time. This has happened in "Where No Man has Gone Before", "Encounter at Farpoint", "Emissary", "Caretaker", and "Broken Bow"; at least DS9 and Voyager had a Wormhole and an Extragalactic alien array to justify their travel times. Ironically the one pilot that doesn't fulfill silly criterion is the original TOS pilot "The Cage", you remember, the one that never aired because it was too "cerebral". Damn that intelligent writing! It will never fly!

 

[captcalhoun]

actally, in The Cage they were way out. they were heading back from Rigel and Pike tells the Talosians he's "from the other end of the galaxy"...

 

[foravalon]

Yeah, but sf captains are always saying junk like that, plus apparently the Enterprise was on its way home-ish after the awful mission to Rigel.

 

[Christopher]

Then you have to assume that the newly commissioned Enterprise-D has been running a really hot shakedown cruise at high warp with no stops until meeting Q. Using some of the janky warp speed charts I've seen over the years you can get the travel time down to about 4 months.

The warp speed charts have never been compatible with what we're actually shown onscreen, with their values almost always being way too low. Remember "That Which Survives?" Spock said they could get 990.7 light-years in 11.33 hours at warp 8.4. That would make warp 8.4 equal to about 766,500 times the speed of light, whereas by the "official" warp-factor-cubed formula it would be only 593 times lightspeed.

As I said, even the TNG Tech Manual and Encyclopedia have explicitly acknowledged that actual warp speeds vary based on local conditions, with the velocity tables being only average figures. (Also, the writers' assumptions about the speed and range of starships in the TOS era were much greater than modern assumptions, with trips to the edge of the galaxy being relatively common.)

This is of course totally in disregard of things like the novelization of EaFp, or the bogus stardate given in "All Good Things", bogus I say since the date given in picard's speech in the shuttlebay is only a couple days before the date of arrival at Farpoint way out on "the edge of explored space".

Stardates aside, I looked into this carefully in researching The Buried Age, and although "All Good Things" does give the impression that the "Farpoint" flashbacks take only a couple of days, there's actually nothing to preclude a gap of several weeks between the initial group of flashbacks on the day Picard takes command and the later scene where he expects the Q encounter to occur.

 

[Stevil2001]

In "Trust Yourself When All Men Doubt You", I called the area beyond Deneb IV the "Denebian galactic mass" (based on Picard's line referring to the "great unexplored mass of the galaxy"), forgetting Orion's Hounds coinage of "Cygnus Reach". I also suggest the Enterprise didn't stay out there because it was called back for the events of "Code of Honor". Which is not necessarily incompatible with what Christopher established.