From: "Sally M" smanton@hotmail.com Subject: [B7L] Speed freaks?

I have a feeling there isn't an answer, so am inviting speculation and ideas and pure guesses ...

how fast *is* 'standard' speed? Not as set-in-concrete terms, but, say, as a believable general idea one could use to build a story around, were one building it around a journey between planets. I mean, the time it takes them to go from one place to the other (including trips supposedly half-way across the galaxy!) varies all over the place on-screen. Are there any particular episodes you'd give more weight to as evidence than others?

Any takers?

I worked something out for the Blakes 7 roleplaying game (which I have yet to use successfully).

TD1 = 1000 spacials per round - 1 round = 5 seconds Standard by 2 = TD4 = 4000 spacials per round.

The Spacial Asteroid PK118 has a diameter of 0.102 spacials. Assume diameter of 150km (seemed reasonable at the time)

1 Spacial x 0.102 = 150km 1 Spacial = 150 / 0.102 1 Spacial = 1470.588 km

for simplification, 1 spacial = 1500 km.

TD1 = 1000 spacials per round. 1 round = 5 seconds. 1 spacial = 1500 km.

TD1 = 1500 x 1000 = 1,500,000 km per round

1 round = 5 seconds therefore 12 rounds per minute, 720 rounds per hour

TD1 = 1500000 x 720 = 1,080,000,000 km per hour

At Time Distort 1, one Space Hour = 1,080,000,000 km

Earth to sun = 150 million km Light speed = 1,125,000,000 km per hour Time Distort One = 0.96 x speed of light.

Simplified for gaming matters, TD1 = 1c (speed of light), TD9 = 9c, TD10 = 10c. But TD11 = 20c - I'm using a logarithmic scale here.

Time Distort Standard by x light speed 1 0.5 1 2 1 2 3 1.5 3 4 2 4 5 2.5 5 6 3 6 7 3.5 7 8 4 8 9 4.5 9 10 5 10 11 5.5 20 12 6 30 13 6.5 40 14 7 50 15 7.5 60 16 8 80 17 8.5 90 18 9 100 19 9.5 110 20 10 120 21 10.5 130 22 11 140 23 11.5 150 24 12 160

So to get to Earth’s nearest star (4.3 light years away) at Time Distort One would take 4.3 years.

Far better to go at Standard by Ten (TD20) which would, as Zen would say take "approximately thirteen days one hour and 54 minutes"

At Standard by twelve, the journey would take nine days, nineteen hours, twenty five minutes and thirty five seconds.

This still seems slow to me.

However, in "Project Avalon, once in the same planetary system, Liberator was estimated to take fifty hours to get to the rendezvous point.

Also "Breakdown" had an absolutely urgent (get there in time or Gan dies) journey taking a minimum of 150 hours - and I expect they'd have been travelling at standard by twelve!

In "Hostage", (during the second, BIG attack on Liberator, Blake increases the ship's speed to Standard by Ten - which was later quoted as Time Distort Twenty.

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Anyway, this was the "system" I worked out for the game. Does it make sense to anyone else?

Also, please let me know if the formatting makes it unreadable. If so, I'll have another go.

Wildean

I think I may have posted this before, but here is my compilation of times and distances given in the series. Translating this into anything sensible is beyond me, although it might be interesting to apply Wildean's rules and see how they look.

Anywhere, here is:

***

AnnaS's Guide to Time and Distance in Blake's 7, or: Where the hell are we and how long did it take us to get here?

1. Familiar Measurements

Range to the asteroid in Stardrive seems to be in yards - they are the only unit mentioned, and the other numbers seem to match the 'fifty yards' Avon mentions. Yards also get a mention in Pressure Point, Gambit, Traitor and Warlord, always as a *ground* based measurement.

Miles are used almost exclusively as a ground measurement through all four series, but 'surface spacials' get one mention (Harvest of Kairos). Kilometers are never used.

Metrication doesn't seem to have been a widespread hit in the Federation. Orac places the main computer at 'seven meters due west of the entrance' in Moloch, and uses meters again in Headhunter. In Traitor, the Federation have suddenly metricated when planning air strikes and Avandir and Hunda use meters and years interchangeably--no wonder their rebellion is in trouble.

Speaking of metrication, weights seem to be more metric than distances, although there are only a handful of references. The asteroid in Stardrive weighs 2 billion tons. Forbus measures his nitro-glycerine in kilos. And, of course, we *all* know how much Vila weighs...

2. Spacials

10 million - a range Tarrant asks Cally to look for signals from other ships in DotG, BUT at the time he is looking for a tractor beam.

8 million - distance Zen can detect interceptors in Harvest of Kairos.

3 million - distance at which Ultraworld: might be a false echo on the medium range detectors; is in visual range.

1-3 million seem to be long range. One million seventy three thousand - range they see the pod in Time Squad, but it's been on screen for a couple of minutes. One million two hundred thousand - range at which Zen detects the dust cloud in DotG. Two million spacials - a distance at which Federation sensors can detect Liberator (The Web, Project Avalon); range at which Liberator picks up Federation ships (Moloch, Project Avalon)

500000 - ships in eclipsed orbit in HoK - obviously close enough to be able to press an attack.

200000 - range at which pursuit ships are detected at the end of Stardrive. NB/ There are no units given here.

50000 is the range at which they see the hostiles in Redemption

1500 - range Travis launches an attack from in Duel (actually, his meaning is a little unclear because he refers to a 1500 spacials 'trajectory').

1-2 thousand is orbit for Liberator and Federation ships (Redemption, Ultraworld, various others)

900 spacials is out of scanner range (with the detector shield working?) in Hostage.

A few hundred is close range - teleportable between ships is 200 (Sarcophagus) or 100 (MtD). Close range combats and 'close misses' happen at 150-500 (500 when the freighter is detected in Horizon and they pass at 150, Hostage - combat is all at <500 spacials, 400 spacials closing at TD 6 is 'within attack range' in Horizon.

0.0102 spacials - diameter of a mineable asteroid (VftP)

Moloch is the last programme in which spacials gets a mention. This might be because there are few toe-to-toe fights in series four.

3. Times

Flight times in B7 are a horrible mess, because of the lack of explanation about how the Time Distort scale works. However, in many cases a time is the only indications of distance between two points that we have.

Note: *Assuming that*, in Hostage, the Liberator maintains her speed after Blake gives the order of 'standard by ten', then standard by ten = time distort 20.

Starting from an unknown level of charge Liberator can sustain maximum power (standard drive plus auxiliaries) for 90-100 hours ('The Web) and every neutron blast reduces that by 3 hours.

It takes 7 hours for the Liberator to exceed interceptor tracking range in SLD, but there is no indication of ship or missile speed.

It takes 48 hours to recharge four of the Liberator's energy banks. This limits the ship's speed to standard by 2. Not very long afterwards there are three full energy banks, (5, 6 & 7) giving a maximum speed and range of standard by 4 for 8 million spacials. Three direct plasma bolt hits to the force wall (no manoeuvring by Liberator) takes 60% power from one energy bank. There is a slightly odd calculation just after this where Zen says that it will take 2.3 hours to drain the remaining banks at the current level of discharge.

The voyage to Cygnas Alpha from Earth takes 8 months. This is by far the longest flight in the series - the London must work on pedal power. They find Liberator four months into the journey and she completes the rest of the journey to Cyngus Alpha in an unspecified but very short length of time at 'standard speed'. Gaping plot hole aside, this only tells us that the Liberator is massively faster than the 'London'.

In 'The Web', Liberator takes 12 minutes to accelerate from standard by 3 to 'off the scale', with automatic repair circuits fixing the problem in 11.302 minutes. It reaches standard by 10 with 1.25 minutes until the circuits are repaired.

MtD - At the beginning of the episode it will take 16.14 minutes to reach the circling ship at standard by 4. Since Jenna picked the ship up just before she called Blake, that *probably* puts it at something like a few million spacials. Assuming Avon's estimate for how long the repairs will take is accurate, then adjusting for a bit of excitement over the new corpse, the straight line flight to Destiny is 85 hours +/- a hour or two (anyway, close to Blake's estimate of 'four days'). And we even have a speed - standard by six. *And* we have an estimate of the 'sub light speed' to make the same journey: 5 months.

In Project Avalon, the Liberator enters the system and 'rendezvous is expected within 50 hours'. It is unspecified how much of this is travel time and how much hanging around. Mark Four Federation interceptors, making standard by two can close from two million spacials to attack range in 'minutes'. It takes 37 minutes for Liberator to return to station after having got out of scanning range of the interceptors.

'Breakdown' has a lot of times. The following are journey times to inhabited worlds from their unspecified starting location (I don't know if it would be indicated on the map in any meaningful fashion, since the map is a 2D rendering of 3D space), given during the attempt to find medical help: Kainnessos: 600 hours (and an independent Earth colony) Overon: 350 hours (and '3rd level tech' which means no brain surgery) Cassiona: No time given (Federation stronghold) Epinal: 200 hours Xk-72: 150 hours And, hooray!, we get a speed - standard by six. There are also pursuit ships within 3 hours of Xk-72, but we have no idea of their origin.

Deliverance - six days for a series 5 Spacemaster ('maximum thrust of four by six') to travel from Cephlon to Aristo. Liberator is 'ten times faster', but at maximum speed she doesn't get to Aristo in 4 hours.

Redemption - from an unspecified starting level, Liberator can run on maximum power (including auxiliaries) for 2 hours.

Weapon - flight time to the maximum security space zone is 15 hours. No speed, no point of origin. It takes three minutes to make a 'partial orbit' from a stationary orbit.

Horizon - The freighter is travelling at Standard by 2. Unfortunately no distances are given, other than it will take 4 hours to enter zone 9, or just possibly 4 hours to reach Horizon *in* zone 9. This does seem to imply that they are not in the Horizon solar system and therefore that standard by 2 is a respectable interstellar speed.

Pressure Point - the distance to teleport range on earth is 3 hours 4 minutes, which flight time presumable begins outside the solar system. They leave at the end at standard by 10.

Trial - flight time to Space Command is six hours hour minutes at Standard by 8. The speed is increased to standard by 10 but <sigh> no revised time is given. Later, with the detector shield operating, there is a margin of 5 seconds between the Liberator registering on enemy (visual) scanners and when Liberator can open fire. There is *also* the time of 14 minutes given as 'time to target' - possible the difference between when Liberator can fire and when she reaches the actual position of SCHQ.

Hostage - the large-scale attack on the Liberator (12 plasma bolt hits) uses up half her energy reserves. Servalan can get from SCHQ to Exbar in only a little less time than it takes Liberator to get there from sector 4 (and since there are Federation patrols in sector 4, that's probably in Federation territory). When Liberator is in orbit around Exbar it will take 15 minutes for Servalan's ship to land from when they first pick it up, and 12 minutes until Servalan's ship can pick them up.

Countdown - the escape pod has a range of '100 space hours' and it is '500 space hours to reach the nearest habitable planet to Albian. WTF is a 'space hour'?

The Keeper - after spotting a Federation ship leaving the planet, the time to attack is four minutes ten seconds at Standard by Four.

Star One - unfortunately dodgy numbers in Star One. Star One is on the very edge of galaxy in sector 11 - 'a long way from the edge of the galaxy' according to Jenna. The Liberator enters sector 9 and a course for sector 11 is laid in at standard by 6, then almost immediately increased to standard by 12 when they appear to cross the *edge* of the galaxy. Good luck making sense of this.

Later, various Federation ships report various rendezvous times: 'Flagship Galileo reports galactic eighth fleet under way. Estimate achieve co-ordinates in four hours.' 'Cruiser Beagle now estimating rendezvous in three hours and seventeen minutes.' 'Flotillas fourteen and sixteen confirm four hours and eight minutes.' 'Flotilla seventeen estimates two hours and six minutes.' 'Battle cruiser Newton reports co-ordinates achievable in one hour and seven minutes.' Are all these people just hanging around on the edge of the galaxy looking for trouble, or did the galaxy just shrink? Or do they have Really Big Engines they're only allowed to turn on for intergalactic invasions?

Aftermath - It will take Liberator 8 hours to reach Avon on Sarran, after repairs will be completed in 2 hours 34 minutes.

Powerplay - After an unspecified about of time on the ship, Zen tells Avon that it will take 3 hours 8.5 minutes to reach Vila. Assuming there is only one course change, this would seem to make Chenga a total of ~4 hours from Sarran.

HoK - 22 hours for Liberator to reach Kairos from...somewhere.

CoA - forty hours from somewhere near Auron to Kaarn, no speed.

Moloch - they follow Servalan for 27 days at standard by 3 to reach Sardos. This takes them to the Outer Darkness from (presumably) somewhere in the Federation.

Terminal - the transit time from the message point to a habitable planet (Disentastra) 96 hours, seventeen minutes at Standard by eight. There is then an unspecified further amount of travel (which can't be *very* long, since Avon has already been awake for 30 hours) they reach Delta seven one four, on the edge of Sector Six.

Rescue - no flight time from Terminal to Xenon is given, but it's can't be very long - hours rather than days, since Dorian fakes unconsciousness for the whole trip.

Stardrive - pursuit ships are detected at '200000' somethings (no units) and will take 50 minutes to close to attack range. This is presumably without the drive running, although it's a little hard to tell. 'Less than an hour' is given as the estimate *before* Plaxton suggests fitting the drive and '45 minutes' afterwards, so either the non-Stardrive bit of the drive can function while they run, or the Scorpio drive system is so crappy that running will only add 15 minutes to the intercept time.

Gold - The Space Princess take 12 standard days to get from Zerok to Earth.

Warlord - Ships travelling at an unspecified speed register on the Xenon detectors 17 minutes away from the base. It is 30 hours from Xenon to Betafarl. This seems to be pretty much maximum speed because, assuming that Tarrant's good at guessing air supplies, they can't improve that time by very much on the way back.

And that's it. Helpful? Probably not, but it's all they gave us.