Starbase 11 and Talos IV

[Falconer]

Indulge me…

Talos is “only six days away at maximum warp,” Spock tells Pike at Starbase 11.

If following the warp scale from the TOS Writer’s Guide, presuming maximum warp = Warp Factor 8 = 1.4 light years/day, the distance is approximately 8 LY.

Star Trek Maps (1980) places them about 189 LY (58 parsecs) apart:





That’s much further than 8 LY. It would take 135 days to traverse according to the official WF scale. But according to STM’s own travel speeds (in the accompanying booklet), WF8 is more like 1,800 LY/day, which really is so insanely fast that it’s effectively a time warp—for all intents and purposes, you can be anywhere at any time. (My own personal warp factor scale works perfectly here: WF8 = 36 LY/day.)

Now, what about the FASAverse?



FASA kept STM’s overall shape but shrunk distances by a factor of 3:8 and ignored the third dimension. They also moved things around. For some reason, they relocated Starbase 11 from the frontier to the core, while correctly leaving Talos in the general vicinity of Rigel. Now the distance is 262 LY (80 parsecs), a distance which takes 188 days to traverse according to the TOS WF scale (which FASA uses).

But since SB11 is an artificial designation, it’s possible this was an in-universe change. So what happens if we put SB11 back in its STM equivalent position?



This is still a 114 LY (35 parsecs) distance, an 82 days’ journey. Still no good. The only planets that FASA (in its The Orions supplement) has placed near Talos are Ing (7 LY away) and B’Morgia (11 LY away), but no-one as far as I know has heretofore proposed that either one was ever the site of a Starbase.

[ThrorII]

Unfortunately, I think trying to rectify screen dialogue with either the ST Map or FASA Map is going to end in frustration.

Also, it seems to me that "maximum warp" is different than "emergency warp" (which is so-called in some episodes). I think "maximum warp" is 'maximum safe warp', or 'cruise speed' as the SFTM calls it - Warp 6. At 0.6 LY per day, that would put Talos IV only 3.6 light years away, essentially the next door system to Starbase 11.

It is another case of on-screen distances not matching up to writer's guide speed formulas (where speed = wf^3*c).

For my upcoming Far Trek rpg, I am sticking with the writer's guide speed equation and just limiting the Federation exploration zone to 50 LY in radius. The Federation core is centered on Earth (Sol), with 20LY to a side sectors. I put SB11 and Talos 2 sectors south of Earth (about 25 LY or so).

[Falconer]

Whatever’s fun for you! I really love engaging the maps and figuring out what works for me—tweaking the scale, figuring out the positions of the planets, figuring out a warp scale that fits. I’m kind of in love with both the STM and FASA maps, and I love engaging with them and being part of this tradition and this fandom which has used them for so long. I take something from one and I take something from the other, and it becomes “canon” for my campaign. At one point I thought about mapping the whole shebang at the scale I have been using, but for now I am content to do little chunks as needed. I recently made 20-some maps based on FASA’s The Triangle, and I will likely do The Orions as well pretty soon.

[ThrorII]

Out of curiosity, what warp scale would you use for a map the size of ST Maps or FASA Trek? Since ST Maps has the exploration zone at 480 parsecs across, and FASA has it at 180 parsecs across, the standard warp = wf^3*c doesn't work.

I think the ST Maps Cochrane factor (chi) of x1200 is much too high (warp 6 is a parsec every 22 minutes!).

[Falconer]

My Warp Factor Scale
My STM-FASA Conversion Formula
My sector hex maps

Having figured all that out, I basically have been mapping the Federation Core according to STM and the Orion/Triangle Frontier according to FASA stretched out by a factor of 4:3 (this is compressed by a factor of 1:2 relative to STM). Travel from the Core to the Frontier is about 2 months at WF6 by my WF scale and per the STM distances. That’s where I’m at, but it’s basically an ongoing process of discernment and eyeballing it.

[Falconer]

Ooh, interesting! “The Menagerie” places Talos IV in the “third quadrant of vernal galaxy.” I puzzled this out for a while before realizing they must have meant “ventral.” Sure enough, Star Trek Maps places it in Quadrant 3 South (south being negative or down with respect to the Z-axis), as you can see in my OP:

[ThrorII]

FYI, Using the Star Trek Maps scale distances and warp speeds (Wf^3*1293), a vessel going from Star Base 11 to Talos IV (189 ly as you stated) in 6 days is doing warp 2 (10,341c) (actually 6.75 days). Not that it helps, but just interesting.

[Jack Photon]

For my house rules, I used STM's notions of spatial/hydrogen density as modifiers to the basic warp-cubed formula that Helm and Nav then roll against to decrease/increase base travel time.

My interest in the distance is the Talosians who can apparently affect minds as far away as SB 11 with an imaginary Mendez who gets on the shuttle with Kirk. If so, they could be influencing anyone on SB11 all the time -unless it takes most of the Talosian populace to extend their reach that far for that long with that much sway.

Not only are warp physics in this topic, but Psionica Mechanica is at play as well.