The UED's ships are really frickin' fast

[GRUNT]

It only just occurred to me that the Terrans took almost 30 years travelling at warp speed to reach the Koprulu Sector.

The UED, upon discovering the existence of the Protoss and Zerg, spent a few months researching them and then just arrived there.

What makes this even more astounding is the fact that the UED only dispatched its fleet after learning of the existence of the New Overmind.

Does this mean that their fleet got to the Koprulu Sector in just a matter of weeks? At most, it'd be only a couple of months (assuming they knew of the New Overmind's existence before Zeratul found out). Who needs Cold Sleep?

[Alex06]

Nah, I believe the cinematic talking about the Overmind being under control was Propaganda.

[phazonjunkie]

It only just occurred to me that the Terrans took almost 30 years travelling at warp speed to reach the Koprulu Sector.

The UED, upon discovering the existence of the Protoss and Zerg, spent a few months researching them and then just arrived there.

What makes this even more astounding is the fact that the UED only dispatched its fleet after learning of the existence of the New Overmind.

Does this mean that their fleet got to the Koprulu Sector in just a matter of weeks? At most, it'd be only a couple of months (assuming they knew of the New Overmind's existence before Zeratul found out). Who needs Cold Sleep?

Well you have to figure that when the 4 supercarriers first arrived at the Koprulu sector, Terran warp drive technology was still rather new. Since then, humans would have had over 2 centuries to refine and improve it.
So yeah, it would seem perfectly reasonable that the UED expeditionary fleet would have been able to arrive within a matter of mere weeks or months.

[Gradius]

It's true that the UED reached the K-sector in what looks like mere weeks, but keep in mind that they had to be defrozen from a long sleep:

I trust that the effects from your long cold sleep have worn off by now. If not, the Med Officer can provide you with additional CryoStim supplements.

Maybe they're placed in suspended animation and it takes them just as long as anybody else to travel, but takes only a few weeks in real time - kind of like the opposite effect of time dilation.

[The_Blade]

If you travel at lightspeed, time and distance are irrelevant. You can get to any point in the universe within an instant if you can travel at the speed of light.

Anyways, Einstein said nothing can travel at light speed for the exception of light and that nothing can travel faster than light. So if the Koprulu Sector colonies traveled 60k lightyears in 30 years, that means they traveled at 0.9999999 the speed of light. Else to arrive "faster" the UED had to travel 0.999999999999999999 in order to reach the korpulus sector within months.

Now said that, the time interval is only relevant for the people in the ship, but for people in Earth or in any planet, this ships would still have traveled in space for 60,000 years...

So yea, In reality you travel in time to the future; but you can't associate two trips that have at least 60k years of difference.

Now I feel like quoting Gradius with my own words :P "StarCraft is full of plotholes and incongruenties that we canot explain as StarCraft and it's whole universe are far from being realistic"

Edit: look its Gradius ^

Edit 2: If you want to travel 60k light years in some Earth days, you need to kill distance (AK wormholes[bending universe, other dimensions, bla bla bla])

[Kimera757]

I bet they took several months.

Also, it's possible they did not know about the new Overmind, mistaking the new one for the old. If they jumped at the end of Episode I, the Overmind was still on Char. They go to Char... hey, there's an Overmind.

[newcomplex]

If you travel at lightspeed, time and distance are irrelevant. You can get to any point in the universe within an instant if you can travel at the speed of light.

Anyways, Einstein said nothing can travel at light speed for the exception of light and that nothing can travel faster than light. So if the Koprulu Sector colonies traveled 60k lightyears in 30 years, that means they traveled at 0.9999999 the speed of light. Else to arrive "faster" the UED had to travel 0.999999999999999999 in order to reach the korpulus sector within months.

Now said that, the time interval is only relevant for the people in the ship, but for people in Earth or in any planet, this ships would still have traveled in space for 60,000 years...

So yea, In reality you travel in time to the future; but you can't associate two trips that have at least 60k years of difference.

Now I feel like quoting Gradius with my own words :P "StarCraft is full of plotholes and incongruenties that we canot explain as StarCraft and it's whole universe are far from being realistic"

Edit: look its Gradius ^

Edit 2: If you want to travel 60k light years in some Earth days, you need to kill distance (AK wormholes[bending universe, other dimensions, bla bla bla])

Warp drive. As in warping space. Theoretically allows transit from point a to point b without weird relativistic effects like arriving before you left.

(we just don't know how to make one)

[Gradius]

I bet they took several months.

Also, it's possible they did not know about the new Overmind, mistaking the new one for the old. If they jumped at the end of Episode I, the Overmind was still on Char. They go to Char... hey, there's an Overmind.

Not true:

Learning that a new Zerg Overmind has manifested itself upon the planet Char, the UED has sent its greatest Admiral, Gerard DuGalle, to capture the creature. As Captain of the UED fleet under DuGalle, your objective will be to storm the Terran Dominion and depose of its dictator, Emperor Mengsk I.

It looks like mere weeks to me.

[l33telboi]

That's something I hadn't noticed earlier. I always figured the UED decided to intervene when they first noticed there were alien species rummaging around

So the entire war, from Starcraft vanilla to Broodwars, took a total of about one year. In the time between the two, the UED did the following: Assessed the threat and decided to act on it. Created an expeditionary force to send to the Koprulu sector. And then of course travel that distance.

If you travel at lightspeed, time and distance are irrelevant. You can get to any point in the universe within an instant if you can travel at the speed of light.

Anyways, Einstein said nothing can travel at light speed for the exception of light and that nothing can travel faster than light. So if the Koprulu Sector colonies traveled 60k lightyears in 30 years, that means they traveled at 0.9999999 the speed of light. Else to arrive "faster" the UED had to travel 0.999999999999999999 in order to reach the korpulus sector within months.

Now said that, the time interval is only relevant for the people in the ship, but for people in Earth or in any planet, this ships would still have traveled in space for 60,000 years...

So yea, In reality you travel in time to the future; but you can't associate two trips that have at least 60k years of difference.

Now I feel like quoting Gradius with my own words :P "StarCraft is full of plotholes and incongruenties that we canot explain as StarCraft and it's whole universe are far from being realistic"

Edit: look its Gradius ^

Edit 2: If you want to travel 60k light years in some Earth days, you need to kill distance (AK wormholes[bending universe, other dimensions, bla bla bla])

I think it's fairly obvious that warp drive, just like all the various hyperspace drives and subspace drives you see in other fiction, is a faster-then-light capable engine. Probably the most common piece of Science Fiction technology in settings like this. I don't think calling it a 'plothole' is all that fair.

[Norfindel]

Well, that means that the UED ships are at least 30 years newer technology than the others. If you discover hyper-velocity, you're going to make advancements in 30 years.
It's really more than that, because the Terrans had a lot of stuff and colonized a lot of planets, you don't do that in a few years, so the UED had plenty of time to advance.