Star Trek Scale (WARNING: contains math)

[happydalek]

So, I've started writing a Star Trek fic.  In it, my main protagonist has just arrived on Vulcan from Earth, and after a short stay there, is going back to Earth.  Although my protagonist is a member of Starfleet, he is not stationed aboard a starship and did not go to Vulcan on official business, so I decided he must have taken a standard transport vessel, travelling at the normal cruising speed of a starship, which is Warp 6.  Sounds pretty reasonable, right? 

Except that Vulcan orbits 40 Eridani A, which is 16 lightyears from Earth.  That's a distance of 1.513684544 x 10^14 kilometers.  Warp factor 6, calculated according to the TNG formula is 421 billion kilometers per hour.  That means, traveling at normal cruising speed, it would take a starship about 15 days to make the trip.  Conversely, at Warp 6, a ship would travel through the entire Sol system in 2 minutes.  Think about that.  Basically, Warp 6 is only good for short hops.  Not really what I'd consider a "cruising" speed. 

Since I can't have my main protagonist wasting 30 days on this trip (he's got a young family at home), I guess his standard transport vessel is going to have to move a bit faster than "normal cruising speed."  Like, Warp 8, which would get him from Earth to Vulcan in a far more reasonable 5.7 days.  At Warp Factor 8.  (Warp Factor 9.2 is the normal maximum speed of most starships.)  Space is pretty freakin' big.  

Here's Memory Alpha's article on Warp Factor, and the math formulas used to calculate it. 

I just thought it was an interesting thing to consider. 

Comments

[eponymous-rose.livejournal.com]

Ooh! That's definitely interesting - I've been meaning to play around with the Warp Factor numbers. It really shows how spectacularly huge these distances are! And makes you think about the whole limited-to-Warp-five thing.

[happydalek.livejournal.com]

Absolutely! Considering the astronomical distances out there, limiting everybody to Warp 5 would make about as much sense as posting all the highways at 35 mph. Traveling less than one lightyear per day. Crazy. No wonder that rule didn't last very long.

[naushika.livejournal.com]

There's also the bit where as hard as they tried, the reality of warp speeds don't really line up with the distances/time they portrayed in the shows. Like they'd take a leisurely speed of warp 4 from two locations like 200 lightyears away or something, and it would take only a couple days, darrr whut. They fudged it quite a lot on the show for the sake of convenience and storytelling. Which I don't terribly mind, really.

Kudos to you for trying to be accurate though. :)

[happydalek.livejournal.com]

Lol, so much fudging! What I love is how the various wikis try to reconcile it, using phrases like, "Warp 8.4 would appear to be much faster than warp 9.9 or even warp 11," and "the actual speed values of a warp factor are dependent upon interstellar conditions."

[stoplookingup.livejournal.com]

I think you can get there faster if you lay in a course at warp factor "poetic license."

(I love the fact that suddenly everyone on my flist is talking Trek.)

[happydalek.livejournal.com]

Obligatory Spaceballs quote: "They've gone plaid!"

Yeah, considering the grand tradition of writers completely ignoring the science, perhaps I ought to just go along with it, though it does break my little geeky heart.

(Ain't it great?) XD