# How could a Bajorian Light Ship get all the way to Cardiassia **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 14, 2008, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-could-a-bajorian-light-ship-get-all-the-way-to-cardiassia/441398 "2008-03-14T20:29:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![ChrisBooth12](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e95f7d/32.png) [@ChrisBooth12](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ChrisBooth12)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2008, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-could-a-bajorian-light-ship-get-all-the-way-to-cardiassia/441398/1 "2008-03-14T20:29:13Z")
I dont get how they could have used solar sails and get all the way there. Wouldnt it take lifetimes being lightyears away? ---
**Author:** ![Zebra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/c0e974/32.png) [@Zebra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zebra)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2008, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-could-a-bajorian-light-ship-get-all-the-way-to-cardiassia/441398/2 "2008-03-14T20:30:09Z")
Wasn’t there an episode where Sisko and son showed how they did it ala the Kon Tiki? ---
**Author:** ![ChrisBooth12](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e95f7d/32.png) [@ChrisBooth12](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ChrisBooth12)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2008, 8:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-could-a-bajorian-light-ship-get-all-the-way-to-cardiassia/441398/3 "2008-03-14T20:32:09Z")
Yes but it was a solar sail ship… Those things are not that fast right? ---
**Author:** ![The\_Hamster\_King](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8edcca/32.png) [@The\_Hamster\_King](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Hamster_King)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2008, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-could-a-bajorian-light-ship-get-all-the-way-to-cardiassia/441398/4 "2008-03-14T20:35:00Z")
Wooooooorrrrrmmmmmhhhhhoooolllllleeeeee … ! ---
**Author:** ![DrFidelius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drfidelius/32/3447_2.png) [@DrFidelius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrFidelius)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2008, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-could-a-bajorian-light-ship-get-all-the-way-to-cardiassia/441398/5 "2008-03-14T20:40:33Z")
[QUOTE=ChrisBooth12] I dont get how they could have used solar sails and get all the way there. Wouldnt it take lifetimes being lightyears away? [/QUOTE] Stars are not evenly distributed, and some can be very close indeed. ---
**Author:** ![chrisk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@chrisk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chrisk)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2008, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-could-a-bajorian-light-ship-get-all-the-way-to-cardiassia/441398/6 "2008-03-14T20:42:04Z")
According to memory alpha, it was a tachyon eddy - not the same term as a wormhole, but something close - a faster-than-light subspace phenomenon that ‘blew’ the ship off course at warp speeds. It could probably have happened about as easily to a chunk of rock, though the fact that a lightship was so spread out just might have helped it ‘catch and ride the eddy’ But it was nothing to do with real solar sail technology. ---
**Author:** ![matt\_mcl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ab992/32.png) [@matt\_mcl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/matt_mcl)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2008, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-could-a-bajorian-light-ship-get-all-the-way-to-cardiassia/441398/7 "2008-03-14T20:44:25Z")
Leading to the question, “How is it that they were accelerated to light speed in a matter of seconds and didn’t end up as chunky salsa on the aft bulkhead?” Maybe Sisko installed an inertial damping field along with the artificial gravity as a precaution? ---
**Author:** ![KneadToKnow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kneadtoknow/32/3999_2.png) [@KneadToKnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KneadToKnow)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2008, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-could-a-bajorian-light-ship-get-all-the-way-to-cardiassia/441398/8 "2008-03-14T20:50:20Z")
Man, Okuda really should have trademarked that chunky salsa line. I see it _everywhere_. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![chrisk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@chrisk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chrisk)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2008, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-could-a-bajorian-light-ship-get-all-the-way-to-cardiassia/441398/9 "2008-03-14T20:51:11Z")
[QUOTE=matt\_mcl] Leading to the question, “How is it that they were accelerated to light speed in a matter of seconds and didn’t end up as chunky salsa on the aft bulkhead?” Maybe Sisko installed an inertial damping field along with the artificial gravity as a precaution? [/QUOTE] I think that if warp is anything to go by, subspace phenomena generally don’t involve a sensation of acceleration. Sort of the ‘we stand still and the rest of the universe worries about moving the other way’ principle 😃 (Yes, that’s at least half a fanwank.) ---
**Author:** ![Finagle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/b19c9b/32.png) [@Finagle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Finagle)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2008, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-could-a-bajorian-light-ship-get-all-the-way-to-cardiassia/441398/10 "2008-03-14T20:57:49Z")
A wizard did it. Without some Star Trek techno-babble, you’re correct. A solar sail-powered craft accelerates rather slowly. However, you \* can \* get it up to a respectable fraction of light speed by aiming a monstrous laser at it. Of course, you have to pump a respectable fraction of a sun’s annual output into that laser to get enough energy to do so. So, assuming you have your spaceship traveling at some large fraction of C, you could cover interstellar distances in considerably less than a lifetime. But without an equivalently monstrous laser to decelerate you, you better not have much interest in playing tourist in any solar system you happen to pass through. ---
**Author:** ![JThunder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e95f7d/32.png) [@JThunder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JThunder)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2008, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-could-a-bajorian-light-ship-get-all-the-way-to-cardiassia/441398/11 "2008-03-14T20:59:19Z")
Did they have a deflector shield on board? Maybe they routed something through it. ---
**Author:** ![Flander](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8c91f0/32.png) [@Flander](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Flander)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2008, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-could-a-bajorian-light-ship-get-all-the-way-to-cardiassia/441398/12 "2008-03-14T21:05:24Z")
[QUOTE=JThunder] Did they have a deflector shield on board? Maybe they routed something through it. [/QUOTE] Like air coming out of a balloon! ---
**Author:** ![Chimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2008, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-could-a-bajorian-light-ship-get-all-the-way-to-cardiassia/441398/13 "2008-03-14T21:20:31Z")
Bottom line is that it couldn’t, but _Star Trek_, like a lot of other scifi, plays fast and loose with interstellar distances. Like the old Romulan sublight ships. Or the fact that Bajor to Earth was something like a 3 month trip at the beginning of DS9, but a regular occurance by the end of the show. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2008, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-could-a-bajorian-light-ship-get-all-the-way-to-cardiassia/441398/14 "2008-03-14T21:21:31Z")
[QUOTE=JThunder] Did they have a deflector shield on board? Maybe they routed something through it. [/QUOTE] As I recall, the entire premise was so silly I neither paid attention or made up my usual Trek Excuses. 🙂🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2008, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-could-a-bajorian-light-ship-get-all-the-way-to-cardiassia/441398/15 "2008-03-14T21:30:14Z")
They took a shortcut through Jeffrey’s tube! ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2008, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-could-a-bajorian-light-ship-get-all-the-way-to-cardiassia/441398/16 "2008-03-14T21:53:36Z")
[QUOTE=KneadToKnow] Man, Okuda really should have trademarked that chunky salsa line. I see it _everywhere_. 🙂 [/QUOTE] Bad line anyway. If you didn’t have some way of counteracting innertia, “chunky salsa” is really a poor description of what you’d end up as if you accelerated to the kind of speeds they’re talking about. There’d be no way to distinguish between what used to be your molecules and the matter that made up whatever part of the ship was behind you. ---
**Author:** ![JThunder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e95f7d/32.png) [@JThunder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JThunder)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2008, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-could-a-bajorian-light-ship-get-all-the-way-to-cardiassia/441398/17 "2008-03-14T22:50:38Z")
So more like homogenized milk, then? ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [March 14, 2008, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-could-a-bajorian-light-ship-get-all-the-way-to-cardiassia/441398/18 "2008-03-14T23:24:49Z")
[QUOTE=JThunder] So more like homogenized milk, then? [/QUOTE] Still overchunked. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2008, 12:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-could-a-bajorian-light-ship-get-all-the-way-to-cardiassia/441398/19 "2008-03-15T00:41:16Z")
Superheated plasma. ---
**Author:** ![Terrifel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c68b51/32.png) [@Terrifel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terrifel)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2008, 1:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-could-a-bajorian-light-ship-get-all-the-way-to-cardiassia/441398/20 "2008-03-15T01:06:09Z")
Bajoran light ships were equipped with a spare polarity that could be reversed in case of emergency. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-could-a-bajorian-light-ship-get-all-the-way-to-cardiassia/441398.md?page=2)