Thanks to the most recent Star Trek movie, I decide to rent a few DVDs of the series. I don’t like the look of the TNG (partly because of Star Trek: Nemesis, I guess), so I started with Voyager.
I have some questions about Trekdom - others feel free to ask too! - and have decided to engage the Teeming Millions for help
Is it possible to collide into something at Warp Speed or is it like instant teleportation?
Is it possible to fire weapons while at warp speed?
With so many people being flung about in battle, is there an official reason why officers are standing and not seated and strapped down?
Why on earth does it take so long for the Voyager to get back to the Alpha Quadrant if Captain Sulu can do a tour of the Gamma (or is it Beta?) in seven years?
Why on earth would the Commander and the Captain be sent for an Away mission at the same time? Isn’t that too risky?
1 - Yes, it’s possible, but somewhat strange. You’re not teleporting at warp, or if you are it’s like teleporting for fairly short distances at least hundreds of times a second. It’s also described as being somewhat out of phase with ordinary space. Collisions with small objects are fairly unlikely, I think, even if deflectors aren’t on, but if your warp course takes you into a planet, you’re in trouble.
2 - Depends on the weapon, basically you need to have a warp-enabled delivery system, instead of ordinary projectiles or energy weapons. This was supposedly one of the reasons the federation developed photon torpedoes - phasers are a great weapon at impulse power, but useless at warp.
3 - Not that I know of, dramatic tension.
4 - I’m not sure, where is that mentioned about Sulu? Possibly he was using experimental transwarp technology that was deemed too risky to continue using afterwards.
5 - Generally yes, but most captains chafe for the glamour of away team action it seems. Given that Janeway’s fifty thousand light years away from starfleet command, she figures she can make her own rules.
TNG was a pretty good series by itself, I wouldn’t judge it based on Nemesis. If you want a good TNG movie - I’d recommend First Contact.
Warp is not like teleportation. As I understand it the warp drive bends space around the ship, which allows it to ignore pesky things like the laws of physics. I suppose a ship traveling at warp speed could collide, which would probably result in instant annihilation due to the kinetic forces involved. IIRC, there are rules limiting warp dive use in interstellar space only.
I suppose you could, but I’m not sure what good that would do, since the weapon would be firing outside regular space.
That’s why they added seatbelts for the original movies, but they seem to a have been lost again.
No clue. Sorry.
Yes. TNG tried to address this. On the first episode, Riker told Picard that he would not allow his Captain to jeopardize himself by going on away missions. So Picard remained on the Bridge, except when it was inconvenient to the plot
Is it possible to collide into something at Warp Speed or is it like instant teleportation?
When you warp, you slip into subspace, where the laws of physics are different. Imagine it like being a submarine and diving to a faster current, and just like with subs, things can collide.
Is it possible to fire weapons while at warp speed?
Yes. Photon torpedoes are warp capable missiles. I think phasers are also able to be used based on on-screen evidence, but I don’t know how or why because they should only travel at the speed of light.
With so many people being flung about in battle, is there an official reason why officers are standing and not seated and strapped down?
Not in-universe, no. It’s just for dramatic effect.
Why on earth does it take so long for the Voyager to get back to the Alpha Quadrant if Captain Sulu can do a tour of the Gamma (or is it Beta?) in seven years?
Sulu was in the Beta Quadrant, which on a 2D map, would be the southeast quarter. The Federation is mostly in the Alpha (southwest) Quadrant, but also spills into the Beta. Earth itself is in both, as are the Romulans and Klingons.
Voyager is in the Delta Quadrant, which is the northeast quarter. It would be like trying to get from Kamchatka Peninusla in Russia to South Africa
Why on earth would the Commander and the Captain be sent for an Away mission at the same time? Isn’t that too risky?
There’s no good reason in-universe, and it’s actually against regulations. The real reason, of course, is the captain and XO are the stars of the show.
Randomness often leads people astray. Try some TNG stuff. Season 1 is horrible and easily skipped, and so is a lot of Season 2. Seasons 3-6 are where it hits its stride and there are a ton of great episodes. Season 7 is more hit-or-miss. (The finale kicks ass though.)
The best series, by far, including TOS which is the most overrated thing to ever be created, is Deep Space Nine. You have to watch it in order, though, and the first season starts off pretty iffy. But it’s worth it.
The answers to questions like #1 and #2 is that no one really knows since those things did not occur in any episodes. of course, fans can conjecture. As to the other questions, the answer is the same – for dramatic effect.
As an example, in Balance of Terror, Kirk ordered phasers as they were fleeing the Romulan weapon in emergency reverse warp (whatever that means.) They couldn’t because of damage, but it was clear that this was possible.
How that weapon could travel in warp when it was clearly an energy burst, fired from a ship without warp capability I will leave as an exercise for the reader.
Full Astern! Emergency Warp Speed! (Balance of Terror)
In “The Ultimate Computer” the Enterprise was always accelerating to multiple warp factors and using phasers. Some writer at TNG somehow felt this was not a good idea and changed this ability. Lets burn Sternbach and Okuda.
Yes, else they wouldn’t be firing weapons at each other at such speeds (see below).
Sure, as noted, anything goes in TOS, torpedoes were flung about without pause from TNG onwards. I think there was a note on the matter in the Star Trek technical manual.
I’m pretty sure I remember that Kirk had those folding flaps in his old Captain’s chair, it looked like a painful way to restrain oneself.
Again I don’t have the cite to hand, but there was a note in one of the Star Trek reference books (the encyclopedia I think) that the Federation is mostly in the Alpha quadrant with some spilling into the Beta or vice versa. So Sulu wasn’t too far from home. Janeway and crew are on the other side of the galaxy.
When they fancy, the ship can just about run itself it seems, M5 be damned. Dr Crusher and a handful of lower ranks took out a Borg ship whilst hiding in a sun, Picard never really did much to top that before the TNG finale.
Is it possible to collide into something at Warp Speed or is it like instant teleportation?
It is possible to collide. This almost happened in the first Star Trek movie. The warp engines are out of balance and create a wormhole, which an asteroid gets sucked into. They’re going to collide if they don’t destroy the asteroid. This gives a nice segue to question 2:
Is it possible to fire weapons while at warp speed?
Kirk orders to destroy the asteroid with the phasers. Decker countermands the order, not because phasers don’t work at warp, but because their power source was offline. They end up using photon torpedoes on the asteroid, blowing it up good.
Yes, the warp engines were offline during this sequence. However, the Enterprise was still travelling at warp speed. They were coasting down, but wouldn’t reach sub-light speeds until after the asteroid collision.
With so many people being flung about in battle, is there an official reason why officers are standing and not seated and strapped down?
There’s no official in-universe explanation for it. There are a few examples of restraints, such as the harness/armrest thingies on the Excelsior in Star Trek 3. Those were mainly used to convey the impression of “holy crap, transwarp drive must be SUPER FAST” and not meant to be a legitimate means of ensuring the safety of the crew.
4) Why on earth does it take so long for the Voyager to get back to the Alpha Quadrant if Captain Sulu can do a tour of the Gamma (or is it Beta?) in seven years?
It’s due to the position within each quadrant. The federation is pretty close to the border between Alpha/Beta, and Voyager got sent to the far corner of the galaxy.
Why on earth would the Commander and the Captain be sent for an Away mission at the same time? Isn’t that too risky?
In real life it would be way too risky. They give a few winks to this here and there. There was the Riker example quoted earlier. In Star Trek 2 Kirk, who’s an Admiral now, wants to personally lead an away mission that is obviously dangerous. Saavik quotes a Starfleet regulation saying that flag officers can’t do that without an armed escort.
re question #1 – if warp speed collisions are possible, why hadn’t some marginal dissident group tried piloting ships at warp into planets, or planetary cities? I’d think there would be a fairly devastating impact.
