A trillion is a lot 19 trillion is a formula for bankruptcy.

It does sound more logical to stay out of the double digits. Still, that wise old bird could transport himself any distance instantly.

Agreed.

So does a trillion mile hike. Heh!

Yea. I never did care for Deep Space Nine. Loved the rest.

Seven seasons

As they were slipping out of the Roddenberry originality, to the Corporate "make money" model. ST has now slid all the way into it, and is crap.

"Voyager got tossed to the Delta quadrant and would only need something like 80 years to get back. "
Yes. That series disappointed me. The premise sounds wonderful. The re-imagined BSG shows part of what it could have been: a single ship, conflict among crews who circumstance forces to work on the same ship, no allies, a trip home that make take a lifetime. The producers gave Voyager the same feel as TNG, and even referred to it in some docs as season 8, as if it were a continuation of TNG. But the premise was supposed to be completely different.

"I like to think the top speed of warp 10 was derived from an old book that was around before Star Trek."
In TOS people consider the warp scale to be [warp factor]^3 to be how many time faster than light you're going. This puts the ship in the 100s of times faster than light, which sounds really fast. I imagine after that series the writers realized that even thoughts speed would require months just to reach nearby stars. They wanted to make the new ships faster, but wanted to avoid warp factors high into the double digits. So they reworked the scale with 10 being the absolute max.

This is consistent with your point about large supernovas or events in other galaxies. I think people don't realize how fast the galaxy and the Local Group of galaxies are.

It might help some people to see it in different terms. Some people just cannot fathom the distance light actually travels in a year. Say we can travel 56,000 KPH. By our standards of getting around this planet, that is extremely fast. At this speed we could expect to make it to Proxima Centauri in about 80,000 years. Yes, that's 80 thousand. That should give almost anyone an idea of the distance light traveled in 4 light years. Man, do we ever have our work cut out for us.

I like to think the top speed of warp 10 was derived from an old book that was around before Star Trek. "Johnathon Livingston Seagull," was about a seagull that wanted to go faster. He was obsessed with going faster than any other bird ever had or will. A wise old seagull explained the concept of "being there" and showed him it was possible. That would be the only way we could be in another galaxy. If we could, wouldn't we be awful close to the "death-stars" scientists found near the turn of the century. If we can see the result of an exploding star from these great distances, imagine what it would be like to be in the same galaxy when one goes. it must be a spectacular sight. Of course, since it would wipe out the galaxy, it would be the last thing we'd ever see.

Hey CG, remember Voyager got tossed to the Delta quadrant and would only need something like 80 years to get back. Luckily for them, at the end of season 8 or whatever, they managed to rip off the Borg for a free trip, as well as do some genocide on them, all in one episode.

" If we could leave our galaxy it would take even longer to get to the next galaxy. "
Yes. Star Trek usually gets this one right. It takes many decades for their ships to get from one end of the galaxy to the other, 100,000 light-years. The nearest galaxies are in the millions of light-years, which would take thousands of years to reach, so they never even think of going there without some super-fast alien technology beyond their understanding.

When I started watching the show in the 80s, we didn't know if planets existed outside our solar system. So it seemed a stretch that there would be so many planets just in our spiral arm of the Milky Way. Maybe they were right about that.

I agree with nickursis' coments below saying that even a trip to the nearest start, 4.3 light-years away, is impractical, which means travelling to other galaxies is pure dreaming.

Hi Dob, I am a pretty heavy Sci-Fi fan, I listen to audio books drviing to/from work (90 mins each way), and I have found that a lot of writers now use a wide variety of measures for speed. Some refer to "c" as in ".01c (speed of light)", some use gravities (as in Honor Harrington and some other series) where the gravities is the force of 1 gravity measured as velocity (so you will see an acceleration of "300 gravities" which of course means you need an "inertial sump" or "Inertial compensator" (which is always some magical device, usually with some science thrown in, but always needing some magic). You also hear "KPS squared" kilometers per second squared. Needless to say, while still using chemical reactions to generate thrust, we will remian on the losing end of the deal. Someday, the inertialess drive will appear, and we can all go find a Gulch of our own....Great thing about Sci Fi, the limit is the imagination, the quality is the science.

Hi Nickursis . Some references to the distance. 1 light year is over 5.85 trillion miles . Astronomers also use astronomical units for distance. 1 AU is the distance from the earth to the sun or 93,000,000 miles. So 63240 AU's in 1 light year.
In a rocket flying at 25,000 mph it will take 155 days to travel 1 AU. Over 26,500 years to travel 1 light year at 25,000 mph. We have some work ahead to get up to speeds that can eat up the vast distances. A thousand mile hike begins with one step. Good evening!

Uh, yeah. Just imaging the number of light years a distance is (i.e. 4.5 or so to Alpha Centauri) and multiply by whatever factor you think the speed would be (25% light = x4=20 years or so). Without a viable method of rapid travel interstellar flight will either be generation ships, or cold sleep. Neither is feasible at this time.

A thought occurred to me (that doesn't happen often, ask any of my friends), it's not just the years it takes to get from one quadrant to another. If we could leave our galaxy it would take even longer to get to the next galaxy. At least, that's my understanding.

Thank you. I was not aware. Interesting, though. I am going to look into it.

ProfChuck thanks for the link. Last night after hunting around I was able to see video shot by Neil Armstrong during Apollo 11. 1 1/2 hours of lunar footage ,just fascinating.

BSG ranks up as one of the top, if not top, Sci Fi series ever for story, art and quality.

Axanar ia a Star Trek Fan film that was being made at professional production level, about 20K people ponied up almost 1 million to make it. CBS and Paramount filed a lawsuit right before production started (Dec2015). Go to YouTube and look up "Prelude to Axanar" which was their initial proof of concept, it is gorgeous. It ended up with a Draconian set of "New Rules of Acquisition" for fan films that basically neutered all of them and made it impossible. The "new series" is also apparently stealing all of Axanars primary subject material, which will make for a very interesting case.

Ah, yes. Haven't seen BSG in quite awhile. I think it's time to revisit the series. Have Netflix, will watch. Are we worthy? Once the unworthy are gone, we'll all come back from the Gulch and do it right. One can only hope that, then, we will be worthy.

Hello Steven-Wells,
Yes. Excellent book and an excellent ruse. Loved the entire series.
Regards,
O.A.

They have to obtain the material to build the ship. That may be a choke point if the states want to loot (or try to bankrupt) the builder. The graft needed may be daunting.

I have had read summary and comment about corporations and the treaty, so long the Corp. Is launching from a none signatory country the rules are nebulous.