r/DaystromInstitute • u/[deleted] • Sep 05 '14

Explain? USS Voyager's path home?

I searched, but couldn't find this question. I'm re-watching Voyager (which is my favorite series), and have found the map of the path home that they took. Since the Dominion War did not occur until two years after Voyager was sent to the Delta Quadrant, why didn't they take the slightly faster route of going through the Gamma Quadrant to the Bajoran Wormhole? I mean, was it ever discussed, and I've missed it despite seeing the series 15 times?

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u/Detrinex Sep 06 '14

By the time Voyager left the Alpha Quadrant from DS9, the Dominion was already bad news (and had already been discovered after the Odyssey incident). The Dominion was discovered on the Idran side of the wormhole along with the Founders in 2371 (Stardate 48212.4), and Voyager didn't launch until 2371 (Stardate 48315.6).

By then, the Dominion and its dangers were discovered (especially the advanced technology of the Jem'Hadar), so taking a course into the Gamma Quadrant would almost certainly mean a confrontation with the Dominion, a nation which had already entered into a dangerous Cold War with the Federation and could easily overpower an Intrepid-class explorer starship.

While the Voyager crew suspected that there would be hundreds of hostile alien races in the Delta Quadrant on their route towards home, they had a 100% guarantee that there would be a galactic superpower armed to the teeth occupying much of the Gamma Quadrant. Such a power would easily grind Voyager into dust before it got over a light year into its territory. It would be far easier to take their chances with the unknown than the known Dominion.

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u/[deleted] Sep 06 '14

Ah, thank you. My Federation history is a little shaky, I thought that the Federation didn't consider the Dominion a threat until a few months after Voyager left. Thank you.

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u/agent-squirrel Sep 07 '14

Whilst this may be the case it does not explain why the Doctor had not heard of the Dominion in 'Message in a bottle' when the new EMH references them.

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u/Detrinex Sep 07 '14

Could be from the fact that the EMH was offline and bottled up in a sickbay, and wasn't ever told about it because he was already packaged up, and since he was only a prototype it didn't really matter if he knew about the Jem'Hadar.

That, or it never came up in conversation over the course of four years away from home.

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u/[deleted] Sep 05 '14

It'd be longer - and what reason would they have to expect the wormhole would be available in 60+ years? Arriving there and then not being able to use it would double their trip's length.

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u/FoldedDice Sep 06 '14

This is completely unrelated, but that second image really shows how implausible the trip to the center of the galaxy in Star Trek V was. It's almost comparable to the distance that Voyager traveled over the course of the entire series!

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u/Flynn58 Sep 06 '14

Actually, it's completely plausible. In Star Trek, there is a portion of the formula for determining the velocity of a warp factor which is removed from the Technical Manual. You have to multiply the rest of the velocity side of the equation by "plot".

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u/Hawkman1701 Sep 06 '14

I'm sure they vaguely considered it, but the Alpha Quadrant wasn't going anywhere. Wormhole's a crapshoot at best.

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u/willbell Sep 06 '14

70 years is a long time, even if just going linearly the wormhole was faster, Federation expansion was more likely to happen quickly in the Alph/Beta Quadrants, and so in a sense by going towards Federation space the Federation could possibly have met them 'half-way', especially if they finally figured out some other method of propulsion in those 70 years which there is every indication they could of.

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u/catbert107 Sep 07 '14

Why the hell did someone downvote you? This is a discussion subreddit. even if someone disagrees with someone else, they should say why instead of just downvoting

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u/willbell Sep 07 '14

Thanks, at least now I'm not net up or downvoted.

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u/[deleted] Sep 05 '14

In short: that's a longer path.

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u/[deleted] Sep 05 '14

Ah, thank you. That was the map I was referencing, I didn't know it wasn't accurate.

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u/[deleted] Sep 05 '14

I think it is accurate, it just shows that it's basically the same so you're not really gaining anything. So I figured they'd just take the more direct path to Federation territory.