Seems there not going the book route.. And that eben in 32nd century benemite was rare.. I would have hoped they'd find another example of technology. Or use the slower method used by voyager to chase arcturas that didn't need benemite.
I know.
The v1 of Slipstream never needed Benemite crystals to work. The Benemite was introduced in v2 of QS technology which VOY crew developed thanks to their encounter with the fake Dauntless.
V2 indeed required use of Benemite crystals, but this version also had a Quantum Matrix and Borg technology (none of which were mentioned the first time around) and it was much faster (10 000 Ly's per minute).
V1 of Slipstream topped out at 300 Ly's per hour (this would have been maximum speed for shorter durations), whereas the slower 'sustainable' speed (which was expected to be run continuously for 3 months on the Dauntless to cross 60 000 Ly's) would have topped out at around 666,6666 Ly's per day (or about 10.8 times slower than the 'maximum v1 QS speed').
The benefit of V1 Slipstream was that it was still fairly superior to regular Warp speeds as presented in TNG and onward without needing Benemite crystals (and it could be powered through a power source that DIDN'T require Antimatter or Dilithium), so the only thing that needed to be resolved with v1 was the matter of Quantum Stresses which pounded VOY's hull while in transit... but I'd suspect that this could fairly easily be solved with analyzing how the Quantum Stresses impact the ship's hull and then reinforce the SIF with a variant of a quantum field (or a similar gimmick) which would effectively solve the problem... or at least, allow VOY to remain in transit for longer periods of time before having to shut down the drive and repair the hull before doing it again.
After all, if it takes VOY 2 days to cross 15 Ly's at 'high warp' (like it did in 'Hope and Fear' episode).. its highly likely the crew can make needed repairs to the hull in 2 or 4 days at maximum and remain stationary during that time.
4 days would result in VOY crossing about 30 Ly's at 'high Warp'... whereas just 1 hour at highest v1 QS = 300 Ly's (or 10x more).
So, every 4 days, the ship could have made 300 Ly jumps, and crossed 2250 Ly's in about 30 days... or 27 375 Ly's in 1 year.
After 2.2 years, they'd cross over 60 224 Ly's and be back home (even if by some 'miracle' the crew couldn't find a way to eliminate the quantum stress problem in all that time... and I sincerely doubt that).
But, Prodigy writers basically said the real SF Dauntless is capable of Quantum Slipstream, but it wuld be used sparingly due to Benemite crystals which are difficult to synthesize.
So, Prodigy writers might be making the same mistake Discovery did... ignoring that v1 of QS technology never needed Benemite, and are now almost treating Benemite as a necessary component to Quantum Slipstream (which is accurate for v2, but v1 never needed that).
