‘The Way of the Warrior’: How Did Worf Get To Deep Space Nine So Quickly?

That’s an awfully long shore leave for the Klingons…

To the (improbable) journey!

*Contains spoilers for Deep Space Nine’s ‘The Way of the Warrior’, The Next Generation’s ‘Rightful Heir’, and Discovery’s ‘Through The Valley of Shadows.*

Who doesn’t love Star Trek: Deep Space Nine’s game-altering ‘The Way of the Warrior’? Bringing the show back with a quadrant-sized bang, season four’s feature-length episode turned the universe on its head, ending the important alliance between the Federation and the Klingon Empire. The meddling of the Dominion, and the obliteration of the Cardassian’s Obsidian Order the season before bought significant consequences a Star Trek show had rarely seen before.

But it wasn’t long before the beleaguered station found themselves with a powerful new ally in the form of the Enterprise’s formidable former head of security, Lieutenant Commander Worf. Worf’s involvement proved crucial as Sisko and crew successfully fended off a blistering assault on Cardassian space, as well as the station in a brief, but brutal struggle.

Without Worf’s interference, and knowledge of his people’s ways it’s highly likely the outcome could’ve had dire consequences not only for the Federation, the Empire and the Cardassians, but for the entire quadrant.

Who doesn’t love ‘The Way of the Warrior’? Credit: CBS Television

But how did Worf find his way onto the promenade so quickly? In his first interaction with Captain Sisko the Klingon revealed that he had been spending time on the monasteries of Boreth before coming to DS9.

For the casual viewer this sounds fine. A nice callback to established Trek lore.

Except Boreth is located on the edge of Klingon territory in the Beta Quadrant. Quite a distance from Bajor and Deep Space Nine.

What Is Boreth?

Boreth has played host to two significant events previously. In 2369 while on a spiritual quest, Wolf summoned what he believed to be the reincarnation of Kahless whilst performing the ‘ torva luq do Sel ‘. A mythical warrior, considered the first and greatest among his people, Kahless’s return proved controversial, particularly when the Enterprise and Chancellor Gowron discovered that Kahless was merely a clone; a pawn in the Boreth monks’ plans to undermine Gowron’s fragile rule.

Over a century earlier Christopher Pike and the Discovery travelled to Boreth to acquire one of Boreth’s time crystals. Doing so Pike was forced to confront his own path, coming face to face with a horrifying future destined to come true no matter what.

“Time is never time at all” Credit: CBS Television

Where is Boreth?

An M-Class planet, located near the Klingon homeworld of Qo’noS, Boreth, according to Shakkar’s Alpha/Beta map v3.3, lies roughly 4,500 lightyears from Deep Space Nine’s location next to the Gamma Quadrant wormhole.

Taking what we know about warp propulsion (thanks Ex Astris Scientia!) it would take the Enterprise D 4.5 hours to travel 1,000 lightyears at its maximum warp of 9.6.

A long way away, that’s where.

Now, if we maintain Worf travelled to DS9 direct from Boreth, as was implied in the episode, it would take a ship, constantly moving at warp 9.6, 20,250 hours to travel the distance. That’s just under two and a half years.

There’s absolutely no way Quark was putting up with the decibel count being so high for that long.

So…how did Worf get to DS9 so quick?

An in-universe explanation could be that Worf spent a time at Boreth and had left some time before arriving at DS9. Even with that in mind the timeline between the Enterprise’s destruction at Veridian III just doesn’t really add up.

He didn’t break the warp 10 barrier either, because he didn’t look like a salamander.

A head canon explanation is Worf could’ve travelled through some sort of subspace corridors, the kind of writer’s excuses we saw all too often in Discovery’s third season. Or he just had the specs for that ship’s spore drive maybe, I dunno.

I guess we’ll never know. Credit: CBS Television

The real explanation is simple. The writers needed Worf there, so there he was. It’s a television show after all, and it’s not unlike television shows to bend the rules of their respective universes to make narrative ends meet. I don’t think two and a half seasons of a constant Klingon presence at DS9 would bother me, but that’s just me.

Deep Space Nine didn’t need Worf to be a better show, but I’m glad he came in any case.

Even if the duration of his journey will confuse me, and other picky fans for the rest of time.