Routes Home- Equinox and Voyager

[ray gower]

As this has become quite a bone of contention, especially in connection with Equinox

Was Voyager's course the best one to follow and how did they catch Equinox?

There is an interesting article in Daystrom Institute Technical Library[color] concerning Voyager's route home under maps. That attempts to explain why Voyager chose the course she did. And a map to see it on under Politics.

I'm not going to suggest the author is right. But you have to admire somebody that has spent this much time examining the Star Trek Galaxy.
The points make sense (in the way when one flies London/New York one can spit on Iceland as one passes).

I am still of the opinion that Voyager and Equinox meeting at all is amongst the most unlikely events in the Universe, either due to time, distance or any other feature that is intelligent. But will happily modify my opinion.

 

[jwells]

The Evidence

If you recall, in the episode "Year Of Hell", when we first see the Astrometrics Lab, Seven plots a new course home which she says should knock a few years off their journey. As for the rest of the shortcuts, they've used:

a Borg Transwarp Coil
a Slipstream Drive (twice!)
Kes threw Voyager out of Borg Space
the Vaadwaar Subspace Corridors

and various other shortcuts. So it's certainly possible for them to catch up with the Equinox.

 

[janeways7]

I think just the fact that the Equinox only had a top cruising speed of Warp-6 for the majority of it's time in the DQ, means that it was more likely that Voyager would have passed the Equinox a lot sooner..in Season One or Two.

 

[Dave]

I agree that Equinox was much slower, so it depends on

a) how much earlier it arrived, and

b) what direction it went.

Neither of which we can agree on, because there is so much conflicting evidence.

But, IMHO both Kazon and Borg space are so vast, that any ship travelling from the position of the array near the Ocampa homeworld, in the direction of the Alpha Quadrant, would certainly have to pass through both.

Have you considered the fact that Captain Ransom was lying to them about the route that he took?

 

[Dave]

This new book would probably clear up our questions: 'Star Trek Star Charts' by Geoffrey Mandel, RRP £12.99 (PB 0 7434 3770 5).

There is a detailed section on the USS Voyager's journey through the Delta Quadrant.

It is an updated version of the original maps, (and one of the few Star Trek books that I don't have!) I realise that it isn't canon, it began life in 1980, as a set of huge posters that charted the five year mission of the original series, by a fan. But Geoffrey Mandel has since worked as a scenic artist on 'Enterprise', 'ST:Voyager' and 'ST:Insurrection', getting the job because Michael Okuda used the maps, and had hired Mandel's friend Doug Drexler, so I guess they have become canon over the years.

Anyone getting it for Christmas?