I never watched the show regularly, so I have a few questions. Would someone answer them for me?
Why did the nacelles on Voyager move? What was that for?
Could Voyager separate like the Enterprise on STNG?
Voyager was able to land, but the landing gear was only on the secondary hull or drive section. What supported the saucer section?
Apparantly, on Intrepid class starships (the kind Voyager was,) the folding nacells had something to do with the ability to go maximum warp and NOT damage subspace at all. So all Intrepid class ships can ignore that federation speed limit of warp 6 and not worry about anything bad happening.
Although I guess it could, it never did, so I’m gonna say no. If they wanted it to, they would have done it sometime during the run of the show.
Well, if you’ll notice, Voyager’s neck isn’t like most other ships, it is very thick and the saucer part just kind of melds into the secondary hull. So the ship is capable of supporting the saucer part by itself.
Warp 6 speed limit? I don’t recal seeing anything about that on TNG or anything… and the Enterprise would go Warp 9 on occasion. Where did that originate from?
There was a TNG ep where Geordi discovered that all this high-warp cruising was “damaging subspace” - kind of a new-age environmental whacko thang. After that, the Federation imposed the “speed limit” on the entire fleet. It was rarely ever mentioned again, except when extraordinarily dire circumstances warranted exceptions to the rule.
At least, that’s how my alcohol-damaged memory recalls it. Any corrections?
bernse…
The warp 5 speed limit came from the 7th season TNG episode “Force of Nature.” They could go faster with special permission. But the idea was so dumb that, after a few references, they decided to ignore it.
Still, the “emission control” explanation for Voyager’s moving nacelles doesn’t hold up. To wit, why not keep the nacelles in the “up” position all the time? Why tilt them down??
The answer to #3 must be the Structural Integrity Field. According to the TNG Tech Manual, this is a force field conducted thru the ship’s structural members, holding them together against the stresses of spaceflight, or planetary gravity. (It is related to, but different from, the Inertial Damping Field.) This does not explain how Voyager could use its SIF in landed configuration when the ship was out of power, as in “Demon.” Another good reason to pretend “Demon” never happened.
This seems ridiculous, personally. Where was this stated? The ability of the nacelles to move up and down shouldn’t affect its influence on subspace… since, when they’re at warp, the nacelles would act just like any other warp drive.
My opinion? B&B (Berman and Braga) just thought it’d look cool, and didn’t spend a single iota of thought on the matter. For instance… just think how much internal ship space you’re going to need for the motors that move those things. And just think about the insane amount of bracing - or the massive waste of energy reserves for the structural integrity fields - that would be needed to make sure the nacelles wouldn’t just fall off.
Nope. The saucer separation was an interesting idea, but from a design point of view it was insanely stupid (especially since they used it all of, what, three times? Four?). When you have a massive ship that can separate like that, you create an inherent structural weakness at the point of joining. Of course, it’s not like Federation ships are designed to be structurally sound, anyway…
Poor writing, the dominant force in the Star Trek universe. See, a lot of Star Trek writers think of these massive capital ships simply as Really Big Fighters… hence they maneuver like fighters (atmospheric fighters, no less), and land like 'em, too.
Besides, the laws of physics went out the window with the original series, and hasn’t been back since.
Because it looked cool the first 20 or 30 times. Then it just got silly.
Probably not, because whenever Janeway wanted to solve a problem by self-destructing, she didn’t even mention seperating the ship.
Good intentions.