The One Where Spock's Brain is Taken Out
The One Where they say Women can't Be Captains
The One Kirk and Uhura Kiss.
The One with the Nazis.
"The Voyage in Amok Time"
- Thread starter MAGolding
- Start date
The One Where they say Women can't Be Captains
The One Kirk and Uhura Kiss.
The One with the Nazis.
A Taste of Armageddon
Errand of Mercy
Operation -- Annihilate!
Journey to Babel
Assignment: Earth
The Enterprise Incident
Day of the Dove
Requiem for Methuselah
The Terratin Incident
The Counter-Clock Incident
Encounter at Farpoint
Data's Day
Identity Crisis
The Next Phase
Hard Time
The Assignment
The Thaw
Worst Case Scenario
Day of Honor
Year of Hell
The Omega Directive
Thirty Days
Course: Oblivion
The Voyager Conspiracy
The Andorian Incident
Two Days and Two Nights
A Night in Sickbay
Vanishing Point
First Flight
Zero Hour
Observer Effect
Project Daedalus
I commend (or maybe condemn) your analysis. I assume that the Enterprise is warping in from its patrol sector, perhaps 100-1000 lightyears out. The episode starts with them already headed for Altair Six, so, we don't know (or care) how long they they are en route, only that they are at some unknown distance from Altair Six. I'm in the camp that the cubed-root, warp factor scale is baloney, and that we should use Roddenberry's original max. speed of v=0.73 lys/hour or 6400 c. At this max. warp speed (probably Warp 8), it would take the Enterprise 27.4 hours to travel 20 lightyears. We probably need to pad the time up a little for inter solar system maneuvering speeds, but this would be a few hours at most; but the duration and timing of the ceremonies could delay departure by another day, or so. As to how far they are out from
AltairVulcan, a few days can be 3 days at the least and 5 days at most (at least that's my definition of "few"). At the given speed of Warp 8 (v=0.73 lys/hour), if 3 days out, then the Enterprise is 52.5 lys out. If 5 days out, then the Enterprise is 87.6 lys out. Sound plausible and logical.
The problem with warp drive is that it has to as fast as it is in some episode and also as slow as it is in other episodes.
A light year is the distance that light travels in a Julian calendar year of 365.25 days, so it contains 365.25 light days, and 8,766 light hours. 0.73 light years equals 6,399.18 light hours, so 0.73 light years per hour is 6.399.18 c. That is 12.49 times the official TOS warp 8 at 512 c, 18.65 times warp 7, 29.62 times warp 6, 51.19 times warp 5, 99.98 times warp 4, 237 times warp 3, 799.89 times warp 2, and 6,399.18 times warp 1.
The Enterprise is at Mira or Omicron Ceti in "This Side of Paradise" . Beaming down to the colony, Kirk looks around and says:
Later is is said the the colonists were on Omicron Ceti for three years and that they left Earth four years earlier.
So the voyage took approximately one year. Assume that the voyage took between 0.5 and 2.0 Earth years. How far is Omicron Ceti from Earth?
Assuming that Omicron Ceti is between 200 and 340 light years from Earth, the average speed of the voyage from Earth to Omicron Ceti would be between 100 c - which is less than warp 5, 1.56 times warp 4, 3.7 times warp 3, 12.5 times warp 2, and 100 times warp 1 - and 680 c, which is 1.32 times warp 8, 1.82 times warp 7, 3.14 times warp 6, 5.44 times warp 5, 10.62 times warp 4, 25.18 times warp 3, 85 times warp 2, and 680 times warp 1.
In "By Any Other name" Kelvins capture the Enterprise for a voyage to the Andromeda Galaxy.
I deduce from Kirk's words that it would take the Enterprise somewhere between 1,000 years and 10,000 years to make the voyage to Andromeda at maximum warp. The Andromeda Galaxy is about 2,540,000 light years from Earth, so maximum warp speed should be between 254 c - which is 1.17 times warp 5, 0.74 times warp 7, and 0.49 times warp 8 - and 2,540 C - which is 11.75 times warp 6, 7.40 times warp 7, and 4.96 times warp 8.
The Kelvins plan to make the trip in less than 300 years, so probably between 250 and 300 years., giving an average speed of 8,466.66 c and 10,160 c.
Those two episodes indicate that warp factors shouldn't be more than a few times as fast as the official TOS warp scale.
Rojan may plan to increase the warp factor even more once past the barrier. If so, warp 11 might be 1,331 c as per the TOS warp scale. At that speed the barrier should be less than 1,331 light hours, or 55.45 light days, or 0.15 light years, from the planet.
If Rojan plans to make the entire trip to the Andromeda galaxy at warp factor 11, warp factor 11 would equal 8,466.66 c to 10,160 c, 6.36 to 7.633 times warp factor 11 on the TOS scale. In that case the barrier would be less than 8,466.66 to 10,160 light hours, 352.77 to 423.33 light days, or 0.96 to 1.159 light years, from the planet, which still seems too close.
Retcon canon has chosen 40 Eridani for Vulcan, so be it. 40 Eridani is a triple star system where 40 Eridani A is a main-sequence dwarf of spectral type K1 (about 0.84 solar mass and 0.457 solar luminosity), 40 Eridani B is a 9th magnitude white dwarf of spectral type DA4, and 40 Eridani C is an 11th magnitude red dwarf flare star of spectral type M4.5e which orbit each other and both orbit 40 Eridani A at about 400 AU distance every 8000 years. The habitable zone of 40 Eridani A, where a planet could exist with liquid water, is near 0.68 AU from A (probably a little closer since Vulcan is on the hot side). At this distance Vulcan would complete a revolution in 223 Earth days (according to the third of Kepler's laws) and 40 Eridani A would appear nearly 20% wider than the Sun does on Earth. Since Vulcan has no moon, the celestial bodies seen in the movies are probably close passing planet(s) a little further out from the sun. (One of which the ice planet we see Spock and Kirk marooned in the JJ film.) I guess on these close approaches, Vulcan undergoes high gravitational stresses causing periodic high volcanic activity.
Is 40 Eridani absolutely canon?
Is one or both of those set decoration" items clearly visible and readable in the episode?
https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Vulcan_system
And if "Vulcan 40 Eridani A" or words to that effect can be read on any chart in any episode of Star Trek: Discovery that would be canon proof that 40 Eridani is the Vulcan system.
Tim Thomason says there is also a scene in an Enterprise episode with a visual identification of 40 Eridani as Vulcan's system. If that can be read clearly in that episode it would be canon proof that Vulcan is a planet of 40 Eridani.
So that seems to be a better distance from Vulcan to Altair than my estimate of at least 20 light years.
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Maybe it took less time to get to Vulcan because they took a different hyperspace route, I mean warp corridor.
If 0.73 light years an hour is the Enterprise's maximum cruising speed and she is at the forefront of Federation technology then it stands to reason that cheaper, civilian vessels would be much slower. This seems to be borne out by episodes like Friday's Child where Sulu states that a manned freighter probably wouldn't travel much faster than Warp 2. If Warp 2 is viable speed for freighters then that's probably in the ballpark for impoverished colonists too and knowing what we know about Warp Factors following a geometric formula, it's quite conceivable that Warp 2 or 3 is significantly slower than 6,400c
I do like the idea that Rojan planned to increase speed once underway, since he was hardly in a position to reveal all his plans to Kirk.
However, the most obvious wild card here is that the journey is taking place in between galaxies. Bouncing around between gravitational wells and subspace eddies inside the milky way, 6,400c is quite within Enterprise's abilities. Robbed of all that the engines must rely solely on their own performance, which is a much slower speed (hence Kirk and Rojan's statements)
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Additional source: The Internet Stellar Database has some nice features at the bottom of a star entry that allows for both nearest x stars (list default max is 100) and nearest stars between x and y distances.
Using the latter feature for 40 Eridani with values 28 and 32, Altair is right there in the middle at 29.6991 ly. The variance probably depends on the underlying catalogue(s) used for each. So somewhere in the 29.57 ly area (avg of the two).
I don't know anything about warp highways or corridors or stargates or whatever we're calling them, but it's fun to imagine that maybe they're constructed by continuous use of warp, making areas where warp gets faster and faster over generations. This could be an explanation for specific trade routes being taken, because using the routes is faster and will get faster over time.
The route between Vulcan and Earth has been in use since at least 1957, and probably continuously since 2063, and may have been well-carved by Kirk's era and even quicker by Picard's time.
Voyager's trip is so long, despite distances not meshing with TOS or TNG, because they don't know of any corridors created by the Delta Quadrant civilizations. Subspace might snap back after a period of nonuse.
The time between earth and OC might not have been continuiously in warp flight. There might have been stop overs on various planets and stations arranging the next leg of their journey. And the ships they traveled in could have a route that involve multiple stops, and less than a straight to OC course.
The one with the hippies.
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I can't read all of that because words, but those were the good old days when Warp Speed was just "going really fast!"
Speakng of phrases you're not sure what they mean, Balance of Terror always had an exchange I can't seem to grasp. And I'm smrat.
CENTURION: If we are the strong, isn't this the signal for war?
COMMANDER: Must it always be so? How many comrades have we lost in this way?
CENTURION: Our portion, Commander, is obedience.
Listening to it, it sounds like "we lost our portion of comrades" but the "is obedience" always confuses me. What is the definition of "portion" in this context?
Speakng of phrases you're not sure what they mean, Balance of Terror always had an exchange I can't seem to grasp. And I'm smrat.
CENTURION: If we are the strong, isn't this the signal for war?
COMMANDER: Must it always be so? How many comrades have we lost in this way?
CENTURION: Our portion, Commander, is obedience.
Listening to it, it sounds like "we lost our portion of comrades" but the "is obedience" always confuses me. What is the definition of "portion" in this context?
Portion can mean part or share but it also can mean lot or fate. The Centurion is basically saying "Our lot, what's been doled out to us in our society is to obey and not to question."
Yup. It's very Shakespearean.
The Brainless Time
Salty Time
The Computer-Destroyin' Time, Parts 1 - 11
Salty Time
The Computer-Destroyin' Time, Parts 1 - 11
The Ship Was Invaded Time, Parts 1-23
I also discuss the voyage in "Amok Time" in post number 131 on page 7 of the thread TOS Chronology.
https://www.trekbbs.com/threads/tos-chronology.304218/page-7
https://www.trekbbs.com/threads/tos-chronology.304218/page-7
The Cross-Referencing Time
I never understood why the Kelvans came to our galaxy for a looksie and then went or tried to go straight back? Surely they had to leave Andromeda before the rising radiation levels make their existence impossible anyway? Plus if both galaxies are going to collide one day perhaps won't that radiation be here then as well? Plus it's Kelvans, not Kelvins, that's the JJ Abrams ship not the many tentacled giants from a Cuthuluu style existence in Andromeda! 
JB
JB
