It’s so mind numbingly large that light, which would encircle the equator 7 times in a second, takes 8 fucking minutes to get to us from the sun. And 4 years to get to us from the nearest star.
If we shrunk down the universe so that the sun was about the size of a grain of sand, the nearest star would be 10,000 miles away and there would be nothing but emptiness between us. A few scattered atoms floating about, so rare and distant that hitting one would be less likely than winning the lottery twice in a row while being struck by lightning.
This was the thought experiment of why ships aren’t constantly crossing paths in Star Trek. It’s not like you and 3 people running around in a Walmart parking lot. It’s you and 3 people driving around in the entire country.
Yes, BUT a Federation starship can travel at the equivalent of many, many times the speed of light, such that it could cross our solar system from the Sun to Pluto’s orbit in half a minute without breaking a sweat.
Sure, at that speed it still takes a few days to reach the next nearest star system, but most of these incidents take place in or near the Sol system, where you would think Starfleet would have a number of ships stationed at any given moment. Even if they’re hobbled, they should be able to respond to a threat to the solar system within a couple of hours at most.
It’s so mind numbingly large that light, which would encircle the equator 7 times in a second, takes 8 fucking minutes to get to us from the sun. And 4 years to get to us from the nearest star.
If we shrunk down the universe so that the sun was about the size of a grain of sand, the nearest star would be 10,000 miles away and there would be nothing but emptiness between us. A few scattered atoms floating about, so rare and distant that hitting one would be less likely than winning the lottery twice in a row while being struck by lightning.
This was the thought experiment of why ships aren’t constantly crossing paths in Star Trek. It’s not like you and 3 people running around in a Walmart parking lot. It’s you and 3 people driving around in the entire country.
Yes, BUT a Federation starship can travel at the equivalent of many, many times the speed of light, such that it could cross our solar system from the Sun to Pluto’s orbit in half a minute without breaking a sweat.
Sure, at that speed it still takes a few days to reach the next nearest star system, but most of these incidents take place in or near the Sol system, where you would think Starfleet would have a number of ships stationed at any given moment. Even if they’re hobbled, they should be able to respond to a threat to the solar system within a couple of hours at most.