The Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Technical Manual, a seemingly authoritative guide for fans, states definitively that Bajor is a mere 52 light years from Earth. This detail, however, clashes dramatically with information presented within the Deep Space Nine series itself, creating a significant inconsistency regarding interstellar distances in the Star Trek universe and our understanding of how far “Travel Earth” truly is in this fictional cosmos.
In the episode “Fascination,” Jake Sisko mentions that Regulus Three, home to a Science Academy, is a staggering 300 light years away from Bajor. This statement alone raises eyebrows when juxtaposed with the Technical Manual’s claim. To further complicate matters, the star Regulus, in our real-world astronomy, is approximately 79.3 light years from Earth. Even accounting for slight inaccuracies in older stellar distance measurements that the DS9 creators might have consulted, Regulus would hardly be considered closer than 65 or further than 100 light years from Earth.
Considering these distances, a simple calculation reveals a major discrepancy. If Regulus is roughly 80 light years from Earth and Bajor is 300 light years from Regulus, Bajor cannot possibly be a mere 52 light years from Earth. Depending on the relative positions of Earth, Regulus, and Bajor, the distance between Earth and Bajor should realistically fall somewhere between 120 and 480 light years, even using today’s most accurate stellar measurements. If we were to use less precise, older measurements for Regulus, Bajor could potentially be anywhere from 100 to 500 light years from Earth.
This glaring inconsistency suggests a lack of attention to detail in maintaining consistent distances within the Star Trek narrative. Had the writers of “Fascination” in 1994 aimed for Bajor to be relatively close to Earth, they could have easily adjusted the distance between Bajor and Regulus III to around 100 light years. This alteration would have placed Bajor within a more plausible range of 20 to 180 light years from Earth. Alternatively, they could have chosen a star system 300 light years from Earth instead of Regulus if maintaining the 300 light-year Bajor-Regulus distance was crucial to the plot.
By 1998, when Rick Sternbach, Harold Zimmerman, and Doug Drexler penned the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Technical Manual, this distance problem should have been apparent. A robust system for tracking distances – perhaps a “galactic database” of real and fictional star systems with their relative positions – would have been invaluable. Such a database could flag inconsistencies like this Bajor-Regulus-Earth triangle, ensuring greater narrative coherence in the vastness of space explored by Star Trek.
Further complicating the issue of interstellar travel in DS9 is the apparent speed of starships. In “The Search, Part I,” Sisko and Jake return to Deep Space Nine, discussing when the station began to feel like home. Jake recalls it happening “last Thursday,” when Sisko unpacked artifacts brought from Earth.
SISKO: Phew. I wonder when that happened?
JAKE: What?
SISKO: When did I start thinking of this Cardassian monstrosity as home?
JAKE: I think it happened last Thursday, around seventeen hundred hours. When you took all this stuff out of storage back on Earth.
SISKO: Careful. That’s a two thousand year old Yoruba mask and that stuff is one of the finest collections of ancient—
BOTH: African art you’ll ever see.
“Last Thursday” can reasonably be interpreted as being within the past week, or at most, the Thursday of the week prior. This timeframe suggests a journey from Earth to Deep Space Nine in a matter of days, perhaps two to fourteen days at the most generous interpretation. Given the distance discrepancies already discussed, if Bajor is indeed significantly further than 52 light years from Earth, the Defiant‘s travel speed becomes astronomically high. Traveling hundreds of light years in a week implies speeds far exceeding established Star Trek warp speed calculations, potentially 14 to 250 light years per day, dwarfing even the Transwarp speeds hinted at in other Star Trek series.
These inconsistencies between established distances, travel times, and stated locations raise questions about the internal consistency of the Star Trek universe, particularly in Deep Space Nine. Several fan theories attempt to reconcile these discrepancies, offering in-universe explanations:
Possible Explanations:
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Variable Week Length: Perhaps the “week” in the 24th century is not the same as our Earth week. If the week on Deep Space Nine or in Starfleet standard time is significantly longer than seven Earth days, the travel time could be stretched out, reducing the apparent speed of the Defiant.
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Space Warps and Instantaneous Travel: Another theory posits the existence of undiscovered “space warps” or transit systems that allow for near-instantaneous travel across vast distances. Starships might be utilizing a network of these warps, hopping from point to point without explicitly mentioning it in dialogue.
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Multiple Earths: A more outlandish, yet theoretically possible, explanation involves the concept of multiple “Earths” existing in different galaxies, potentially created for strategic purposes. In this scenario, the “Earth” referenced in DS9 might be a duplicate Earth in a galaxy where stellar positions are slightly different. This duplicate Regulus could be much further from the duplicate Earth, allowing for the stated distances to align more closely within the fictional context of Star Trek.
While these theories offer imaginative ways to rationalize the inconsistencies, they also highlight a fundamental issue: the need for greater consistency in world-building, even in science fiction. For the creators of Star Trek, a more rigorous approach to maintaining a coherent spatial framework would prevent the need for such elaborate, and sometimes convoluted, fan explanations. Ultimately, addressing these inconsistencies would enhance the immersive experience and strengthen the believability of the Star Trek universe for its dedicated audience, especially when considering the vastness and possibilities of “travel earth”—both in fiction and reality.
