the trip in the delta quadrant.

Voyager
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AlexMcpherson79
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the trip in the delta quadrant.

Post by AlexMcpherson79 »

Was looking this up for an idea.
http://www.stdimension.org/int/

realised something.

using the Warp 6.2 yearly average speed for voyager (because they may cruise at say, warp 8, but spend an aweful lot of time hanging around looking at things)... as per pathfinder, I believe, this presents a yearly distance coverage of 438. (and going from season 1's stardates, about 300 to cover in season 1): this means that in seven years, minus all their shortcuts, Voyager only covered... 2,928 light years at warp.

To note... a trip at 438ly average, would take Voyager 171 years, 109 days, 7 hours and 49 minutes - using this sites' calculator of course.
The "75 years" value comes from averaging 1,000 light years per year... just over double their average speed...

now, aside from the last jump in endgame (and I dont recall any others in season 7), these are the shortcuts they had:
Season 4
1. Kes in the Gift, approximately 9,500 light years.
2. Quantum Slipstream test run/rescue from the Dauntless in 'Hope and Fear', at least 300 light years covered - I like to think they meant the net gain, not the gross distance travelled because part of their trip was 'in the wrong direction', so the gross distance travelled for voyager in hope and fear would be more than that... a lot more. I liken to think that Arturis took then a few thousand light years off, and it was only luck that let them get a net gain of 300 rather than a net loss.

Season 5
3. Vortex through the 'Void' in Night, Approximately 2,500.
4. Quantum Slipstream attempt in 'Timeless', approximately 10,000 light years.
5. Transwarp travel 'dark frontier', 20,000 light years, but apparently a negative value of 876 light years due to avoiding the borg in season 4+5?)

Season 6
6. Subspace Corridor,in 'Dragons Teeth', 200 light years.
7. Space Catapult in 'Voyager Conspiracy', 600 light years.

Now to mention those larger values: I dont recall if it was distance or time mention, I liken to think that 1. and 3 are distances because they're not rounded to the thousand. But 4 and 5, those two look like the value we'd get if the dialogue was "ten years/twenty years closer to home", where-in they are still using the 1,000 light year coverage per year estimate of 75,000 = 75 years.

On that site I linked above, it says the mentioned distance in Equinox is 35,000 ly and a 'calculated distance' is 32,169. Previous to that, Gravity is 50,000 / 51,678 respectively. now, if the Dark Frontier's jump is dialogue mentioned as ly, then fine, but if it's mentioned by years only, then there's a little problem, because either the characters are presuming they'd get about 500-600 light years each year in shortcuts, or forgetting that their average speed is warp 6.2, roughly. because 20 years at 6.2 is 8756, rounded down.... so lets say they're not so much forgetting, as just being optimistic... and in the early years, they weren't quite sure what they'd get... and Starfleet calculated warp 6.2 based on what they knew about their shortcuts, where the doc told them voyager was taken to, where it was when he was transmitted... you see the point.

Now, the point of my post.

What do you get, if you times their yearly average by 74+300?, using the warp factor 6.2 to get 437.8c unrounded.
produces: 32,699 light years in 75 years.
Now lets add those shortcuts, in order.
+ the gift's 9500: 42,199
+ hope and fear's 300: 42,499
+ night's 2,500: 44,999
+ Timeless' 10,000: 54,999
+ Dark Frontier's 20,000 and minus the 876 they lost by avoiding borg: 74,123
+ Dragon's Teeth Subspace corridor 200: 74,323
+ Voyager Conspiracy's Subspace Catapult 600: 74,923

and since the +300 comes from a partial year... there's about 77 light years left to go, and guess what: 64 days to cover that distance...
So, including all their shortcuts, but exclude the endgame shortcut, and presume no more possible shortcuts, strictly from their calculated predicted average speed working out as actual you get a trip that really would have taken them 75 years.

that's a level of planning that they probably didn't plan out. better yet... if those shortcuts all amounted to a little more than the sum of their approximations (possible, afterall we'd round '10,080' down to 10,000, and do that just twice you get more than the 137.8 left, then they'd have gotten back just before the end of 2445, otherwise March 2446 is the year they'd have gotten back.
Endgame says they got there in 2394. so lets work it out shall we?

by end of season 7, without shortcuts, 2927 ly covered, with shortcuts (excl. endgames' shortcut): 45,151.
They have 29,849ly to go. presuming it's end of the year 2394, then 17 years have since passed. beginning, it's 16. I'll settle for a 'mid-late year' return, so 16.75.
so firstly: warp travel in that time: 7,005ly in 16 years, plus 328... no lets say 300 (bookend! like the first year, just 300 of normal warp travel!) so that's 7,305ly in this "Season 8-25". so how much do they need in shortcuts?
22,544 light years, across 17 years means, if they averaged one shortcut a year, they'd need said shortcuts to be average of 1,326 light years. an FYI for canon shortcut averages (excluding that 8th finale one ofcourse) is 6,157, or 6,032, depending on if you count the evading borg as a negative against the borg transwarp.

I find it interesting that if you average their speed while including those shortcuts, then, accounting for the years 2371 and 2394 they're not using the entire years to travel (and using that 300ly each, placing 249 days in each 'stranded', for whatever value of stranded is when they're just 300ly or less from home in the last year) then, that means 23 years and 133 days to get home.
The average warp speed they'd need to do that entire trip in a single hit? Warp 9.9096. ... the ship can go 9.975.
Going up to 74 years and 249 days (new years eve arrival!) becomes warp 7.95
but then, take the actual time (6 years and 240 days), they'd have needed warp 9.9957.

If they had stuck with 1,000 = one year travel, and calculated what distance from home to mention using that plus all those shortcuts, then at the end of season 6, they'd be at:
5682 ly at warp, and with shortcuts added in...47,906 ly travelled, 27,094 to go. They would have been in the Beta quadrant by then, but the producers in season 6 changed the averages I'm sure because of the "beta quadrant taboo". *rolls eyes*

I like looking this kind of thing up and playing with the numbers. you guys?
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McAvoy
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Re: the trip in the delta quadrant.

Post by McAvoy »

Math is a cold hearted bitch. That is all I have to say about it.
"Don't underestimate the power of technobabble: the Federation can win anything with the sheer force of bullshit"
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