Did Janeway take the wrong path?

[Captain Obvious]

I have been thinking about this and arguing with other super nerds for some time.

Did janeway take the wrong path?

the Star trek universe version of the milky way, as I understand it, is set up as such-

Spoiler:

Now, as best I can figure, they should have crossed into the beta quadrant somewhere around season 5. I thought for sure they were going to announce it once they mentioned the hirogen network reached into the beta quadrant. Hell, star fleet re-assigned some ships to meet them and it was only going to take 5 years for their deep space vessels to get there.

Another thought- KNOWING that there is a wormhole from the gamma quadrant to DS9, and that's pretty close to any home you could have... Why would you not just cut through the gamma quadrant? You already have access to previous exploration info (and star charts!), have tons of races that are friendly, and the dominion isn't 100% hostile yet (not even a factor if I remember).

Also, since the center of the Galaxy has been explored (one of the TOS movies) they have a pretty good idea what they are facing there. Why not cut through ( or close to) the middle?

Am I insane? so I need to get ultra-nerdy and start measuring light years? because seriously, I can't be alone in these trains of thought!

[Alan Wake]

I like this picture better, shows the path they took.

Spoiler:

It looks like they might have been better off if they went the way of the gamma quadrant. I worm hole location looks close.

But as you can see, they have the worm hole location marked already, so they knew about. There as to be a reason they didn't go that way.

Edit-

Here's another picture of the flight path.

Spoiler:

[DigiFluid]

Another thought- KNOWING that there is a wormhole from the gamma quadrant to DS9, and that's pretty close to any home you could have... Why would you not just cut through the gamma quadrant? You already have access to previous exploration info (and star charts!), have tons of races that are friendly, and the dominion isn't 100% hostile yet (not even a factor if I remember).

Am I insane? so I need to get ultra-nerdy and start measuring light years? because seriously, I can't be alone in these trains of thought!

Well feel free to ignore that one VOY premiered about midway through DS9 season 3. By that point, the Dominion had already "introduced" itself to the Federation by abducting one of its Commanders, shown its ships to be more or less impervious to Starfleet weapons, shown their weapons to cut right through Starfleet shields, destroyed a Galaxy-class starship, as well as numerous exploration vessels (many of them presumably civilian), destroyed a Bajoran colony, and kicked the snot out of the most powerful warship Starfleet had produced (the Defiant, 'The Search').

War hadn't come yet, but it was looming. And the Dominion had already presented itself as a threat to be reckoned with. They obviously had no moral qualms about destroying both fleet ships and civilians for violating their territory, so I doubt that cutting through their territory would've been the greatest decision

[P-90_177]

Keep in mind space is in 3 dimensions. So chances are that although the bajoran wormhole looks closer on a 2 dimensional representation, there's a chance that it was in fact more or less the same distance on a 3d view. Granted I know the Galaxy is reletively flat but still.......

[jelgate]

I like this picture better, shows the path they took.

Spoiler:

It looks like they might have been better off if they went the way of the gamma quadrant. I worm hole location looks close.

But as you can see, they have the worm hole location marked already, so they knew about. There as to be a reason they didn't go that way.

Edit-

Here's another picture of the flight path.

Spoiler:

Where did you get those pictures?

[DigiFluid]

To the best of my knowledge, there haven't been any official maps made up concerning the territory of various Star Trek powers.

The closest we got was the box sectors map behind Cmdr. Remmick in 'Conspiracy'. Providing I haven't forgotten anything, that is

But I mean we can make guesses from dialogue, even if they seem to conflict with the accepted idea that Sol straddles the line between Alpha and Beta (can someone remind me what the origin was on that? I honestly can't remember). Earth and other major powers are in the Alpha Quadrant, the GQ end of the wormhole is either inside Dominion space or else very close to it, etc.

[Alan Wake]

Where did you get those pictures?

I got them here.

I'm sure if I searched for a little bit longer, I could probably find some other maps too. I just used google for a quick one though.

Here

Here

And Here

Here's another good picture too.

Spoiler:

[jelgate]

I have a hard time accpeating these pics as they seem to contradict one another and they have no canon backing

[Alan Wake]

I have a hard time accpeating these pics as they seem to contradict one another and they have no canon backing

Well, do with them what you want.

We have hardly anything to go off of, and these pictures give you a general idea of the path they took. And I'd say they're better then anything I've seen.

They may not be 100% accurate, but i wouldn't say they're fully wrong either.

I don't see how they contradict each other though...

[P-90_177]

I have a hard time accpeating these pics as they seem to contradict one another and they have no canon backing

How's that? They seem pretty consistant to eachother for the most part.

The last one also comes from the official series star charts which are as far as I know, considered canon.

[Captain Obvious]

I have a hard time accpeating these pics as they seem to contradict one another and they have no canon backing

well my map on the first post is from memory alpha and was taken from a wall in one of the star trek movies

[DigiFluid]

the official series star charts which are as far as I know, considered canon.

Reference guides are a bit of a sticky issue.... Many of the writers do use them, but everybody (and I do mean everyone, with the exception of some clueless Viacom higher-ups) has stopped short of calling them canon.

[nx01a]

Let's assume that Earth and the Bajoran wormhole's GQ mouth are both the same distance from Earth/Federation space. I'd rather head home under my own ship's power than travelling the same distance to use a phenomenon that, despite being 'stable', might not be there once I arrive. The chances of Earth/the Federation not being there are slim compared to a wormhole [no matter how 'stable'] collapsing. If they got to the GQ and the wormhole wasn't there, they'd travelled 70,000 lys and were still 70,000 lys from home.
Even if Earth/the Federation were farther than the Bajoran wormhole, I'd still head home under ship's power. Never trust anomalies! Never!

[Alan Wake]

Let's assume that Earth and the Bajoran wormhole's GQ mouth are both the same distance from Earth/Federation space. I'd rather head home under my own ship's power than travelling the same distance to use a phenomenon that, despite being 'stable', might not be there once I arrive. The chances of Earth/the Federation not being there are slim compared to a wormhole [no matter how 'stable'] collapsing. If they got to the GQ and the wormhole wasn't there, they'd travelled 70,000 lys and were still 70,000 lys from home.
Even if Earth/the Federation were farther than the Bajoran wormhole, I'd still head home under ship's power. Never trust anomalies! Never!

I kept thinking this too well reading this thread. I'm sure the crew would be pretty pissed off if they found the wormhole wasn't there when they arrived.

[Saquist]

If we're talking whether Janeway went down the darkside when threaten to space ensign loyalty from Ransoms crew out the airlock...yeah that was too far....
What happened to Federation values?!

But if she took the wrong direction...well.
On another thread they proved that the time dates from the stardates showed the Dominion attack on Odyssey happened before Voyager left. But that doesn't preclude this being a secret incident. Or privlege information. It may have been a matter of days and Voyager wasn't charted to enter the Wormhole.