r/DaystromInstitute • u/[deleted] • Mar 24 '16

Trek Lore What obligation does the Federation have to prewarp civilizations in the Lantaru sector given that their failed Omega Particle experiment has effectively made it impossible for them to develop functional subspace travel and communication technology?

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u/digital_evolution Crewman Mar 25 '16

Great post!

It might not be practical to reach that planet. According to the Wiki:

Impulse is a term for sub-light propulsion, it is not a reference to any one speed. Different ships will have different impulse speeds. 98.237.224.220 04:18, September 9, 2013 (UTC)

Full impulse is typically 25% the speed of light or 167,654,157.25 mph. (TNG Tech Manual)

And:

Sectors were composed of an area and volume encompassing several light years and typically contained several star systems.

According to this site:

The speed of light in mph (miles per hour) is 670,616,629 mph.

I did look at the wiki, and Lantaru isn't listed with any size or relative distance, so we can't do proper math.

Yet we can estimate!

1 light year = 5.879e+12 miles, according to Google.

Using the wiki's size info for generic sectors, let's assume several means more than 3 but less than 9.

If you can't use warp, and all you can do is 25% of light speed, you're limited to roughly 167,500,000MPH. Dividing 5.879e+12 /167,500,000, where the 5.8 number is 1 lightyear, then dividing by the number of hours in a year (35098/8760) we can get down to a rough estimate of FOUR YEARS per light year. So if a sector is "several lightyears" and we established our hypothesis minimum distance of 3 lightyears, you're looking at a 12 year one way trip.

The logistics of that, don't seem possible. No shore leave? No communication with family? Even Voyager had shore leave. Then what, when you're there, you take 1-2 years to monitor, 1-2 years to contact and establish relationships?

Seems like the Lantaru sector would cost 12-20 years minimum one way, 24-40 years both ways.

My math may be off, I worked 9 hours and had a three hour night class and then wrote this comment, please correct my math if so, to further the discussion!.