# Utterly Pointless Sci-Fi Debate
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/utterly-pointless-sci-fi-debate/84990
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [October 2, 2001, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/utterly-pointless-sci-fi-debate/84990 "2001-10-02T16:24:59Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@armedmonkey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/armedmonkey)
#### Post date: [October 2, 2001, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/utterly-pointless-sci-fi-debate/84990/1 "2001-10-02T16:24:59Z")
I’ve decided to put aside my work on cold fusion and a cure for cancer for a moment and try to answer a question that is of true importance to humanity: Which Sci-Fi universe has the fastest ships? Here are the choices:
1.)Hyperdrive, _Star Wars_
2.)Warp Factor Nine, _Star Trek_
3.)Hyperspace, _Babylon 5_
4.)Starburst, _Farscape_
The conclusion I have reached is that the order, from fastest to slowest, is:
1.)Starburst - seems instantaneous, you don’t get faster than instantaneous.
2.)Hyperspace - by jumping into another dimension you can avoid that pesky Einstein guy.
3.)Hyperdrive - don’t know why, I just like to think that Han’s muscle car could whup the interstellar Winnebagos that the Federation manufactures.
4.)Warp Factor Nine
opinions?
- **Beeblebrox**
* * *
The ships hung in the sky in much the same way that bricks don’t.
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### Author:  [@Enore\_Tsotset](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enore_Tsotset)
#### Post date: [October 2, 2001, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/utterly-pointless-sci-fi-debate/84990/2 "2001-10-02T16:31:52Z")
I dunno… I think the Spice induced travel in “Dune” beats them all. Folding space is cool, although “Event Horizon” sucked
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### Author:  [@WortMeWorry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WortMeWorry)
#### Post date: [October 2, 2001, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/utterly-pointless-sci-fi-debate/84990/3 "2001-10-02T16:58:26Z")
I know of 2 other forms of transportation.
Flux Drive- You enter another dimension, where the natural energy is so fast that Light is a solid. It comes from the " Soul Rider " books.
Teleportation Drive- You can teleport an entire star ship anywhere you want to go. This is courtesy of the comic book " Dreadstar ".
i hope I got these right, it has been many years since I read either story.
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### Author:  [@armedmonkey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/armedmonkey)
#### Post date: [October 2, 2001, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/utterly-pointless-sci-fi-debate/84990/4 "2001-10-02T17:31:07Z")
**Wort** , I was hoping to keep it narrowed to TV and movies. If we open the door to literary works we would have to aknowledge that the Improbability Drive is the fastest thing out there, as long as you can handle it when an infinite number of monkeys appear on your bridge talking about a script for _Romeo and Juliet_ that they’ve worked out.
**Enore** , forgot about _Dune_. My coworker has informed me that I also forgot about possibly the fastest cinematic interstellar mode of travel…_ **LUDICROUS SPEED!** _
\*\*[sub]my schwartz is bigger than yours
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### Author:  [@Schadenfreude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Schadenfreude)
#### Post date: [October 2, 2001, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/utterly-pointless-sci-fi-debate/84990/5 "2001-10-02T18:25:47Z")
The infinite improbability drive is rather speedy, as well. Since you hit every point in the universe simultaneously, it meets ar beats any other form of travel.
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### Author:  [@Schadenfreude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Schadenfreude)
#### Post date: [October 2, 2001, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/utterly-pointless-sci-fi-debate/84990/6 "2001-10-02T18:27:53Z")
Oops! Missed the previous comment regarding the IID. Although, to be fair, it has made its appearance on TV, so it should count for the purposes of this discussion.
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### Author:  [@Fiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fiver)
#### Post date: [October 2, 2001, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/utterly-pointless-sci-fi-debate/84990/7 "2001-10-02T18:37:39Z")
If we’re limiting it to TV and movies then we still need to include the Slipstream Drive from the TV show _Andromeda_. I don’t know how fast it is, but it ties together an intergalactic society two of whose galaxies are the Milky Way and the Andromeda galaxy. We know there is no speed in Star Trek equal to that. Even Q’s manipulations of the _Enterprise_ were always intra-galactic.
Any other contenders?
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### Author:  [@broccoli](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/broccoli)
#### Post date: [October 2, 2001, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/utterly-pointless-sci-fi-debate/84990/8 "2001-10-02T18:59:54Z")
They’ve gone PLAID!
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### Author:  [@Cliffy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cliffy)
#### Post date: [October 2, 2001, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/utterly-pointless-sci-fi-debate/84990/9 "2001-10-02T19:14:08Z")
Back when I read newsgroups with any regularity this was the only topic of conversation on alt.tv.star-trek. Well, more specifically, which would win in a fight, the Falcon or the Enterprise-D? The answer would depend strictly on whether the poster was more of a Star Trek or Star Wars fan. It seems to me a pretty pointless topic, especially given that everybody knows the Enterprise could kick the Falcon’s ass in a New York minute.
–Cliffy
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### Author:  [@SPOOFE](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SPOOFE)
#### Post date: [October 2, 2001, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/utterly-pointless-sci-fi-debate/84990/10 "2001-10-02T20:20:02Z")
Warp Travel (Star Trek) is painfully slow. One year to travel a mere 1,000 lightyears? A century to traverse the galaxy? No thanks.
Star Wars, I think, has its speed set to be relatively fast, but slow enough to keep it locked in one galaxy. A month or two (depending on the ship) to cross the galaxy is nice, even though it would be about a year or more of continuous travel to reach a different galaxy (assuming that the SW local cluster is similar to ours). However, hyperdrive isn’t as fast as some others.
I’m not familiar enough with the others to make a judgment. I just know that ST is slow as hell.
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### Author:  [@SPOOFE](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SPOOFE)
#### Post date: [October 2, 2001, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/utterly-pointless-sci-fi-debate/84990/11 "2001-10-02T20:22:40Z")
Cliffy…
> [@](#):
>
> which would win in a fight, the Falcon or the Enterprise-D?
Anybody knows that the Enterprise would win that battle. The Falcon is just too overmatched. However, when you pit a Star Destroyer against the Enterprise, then you get a fair(er) fight.
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### Author:  [@Katisha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Katisha)
#### Post date: [October 2, 2001, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/utterly-pointless-sci-fi-debate/84990/12 "2001-10-02T21:36:46Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by Schadenfreude \*
> \*\*Oops! Missed the previous comment regarding the IID. Although, to be fair, it has made its appearance on TV, so it should count for the purposes of this discussion. \*\*
In any case, if the IID is out, then spice-induced space travel should be too.
**Fiver,** good call on Slipstream – I can’t think of any other SF with intergalactic travel. (Incidentally, the Commonwealth spanned _three_ galaxies, not two.)
Incidentally, Star Trek’s Warp 10 seems to be near-instantaneous, too – but it also turns you into a newt. (Paris: “I got better!”)
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### Author:  [@Smeghead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smeghead)
#### Post date: [October 2, 2001, 11:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/utterly-pointless-sci-fi-debate/84990/13 "2001-10-02T23:54:34Z")
You guys are all forgetting E.E. “Doc” Smith’s inertialess drive.
It worked like this: turn on a field that temporarily does away with inertia. Your original inertia returns when you turn off the field, so the laws of physics are only bent, not broken. Apply thrust. Since you now have no tendency to remain at your current velocity, you are instantaneously traveling at the speed at which friction from the medium equals your driving force. Since you’re traveling in a hard vacuum, that speed is pretty damn fast. And you’ve got to love his way around the whole light-speed issue: “It was just a theory.” Heh heh heh.
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### Author:  [@SpaceGhostofArrakis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SpaceGhostofArrakis)
#### Post date: [October 3, 2001, 12:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/utterly-pointless-sci-fi-debate/84990/14 "2001-10-03T00:09:23Z")
And _no one_ has cited the Borg’s Transwarp drive?
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### Author:  [@SPOOFE](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SPOOFE)
#### Post date: [October 3, 2001, 12:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/utterly-pointless-sci-fi-debate/84990/15 "2001-10-03T00:19:42Z")
> [@](#):
>
> And no one has cited the Borg’s Transwarp drive?
Another thing screwed up by Voyager. It used to be considered “really fast”… now it’s just an order of magnitude (or so) faster than warp.
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### Author:  [@SpaceGhostofArrakis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SpaceGhostofArrakis)
#### Post date: [October 3, 2001, 12:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/utterly-pointless-sci-fi-debate/84990/16 "2001-10-03T00:26:36Z")
Not to mention that Transwarp intially only needed a engine in the ship.
In fact, we saw Voyager at one point raid a damaged Borg Vessel for a “Transwarp coil”.
But then, mysteriously, we found out that transwarp requires a “node”, or gates, a la B5’s hyperspace.
Geez, the Enterprise-D didn’t need to go through no stinking nodes to chase that Borg vessel.
I hate Bermen and Braga.
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### Author:  [@Laughing\_Lagomorph](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Laughing_Lagomorph)
#### Post date: [October 3, 2001, 12:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/utterly-pointless-sci-fi-debate/84990/17 "2001-10-03T00:39:13Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by Beeblebrox \*
> If we open the door to literary works we would have to aknowledge that the Improbability Drive is the fastest thing out there, as long as you can handle it when an infinite number of monkeys appear on your bridge talking about a script for _Romeo and Juliet_ that they’ve worked out.
>
> \*\*
Beeblebrox, you of all people should remember that the Starship Bistromath was even faster than the Heart of Gold!
End Hijack.
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### Author:  [@DPWhite](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPWhite)
#### Post date: [October 3, 2001, 12:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/utterly-pointless-sci-fi-debate/84990/18 "2001-10-03T00:51:04Z")
“WE’VE GONE PLAID!”
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### Author:  [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)
#### Post date: [October 3, 2001, 1:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/utterly-pointless-sci-fi-debate/84990/19 "2001-10-03T01:43:07Z")
Well, I don’t think anyone has ever developed a drive that works on this principle, but everyone knows that the speed of light is only a fraction of the speed of dark. Because wherever light goes somewhere, dark is always there first.
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### Author:  [@Mahaloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahaloth)
#### Post date: [October 3, 2001, 1:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/utterly-pointless-sci-fi-debate/84990/20 "2001-10-03T01:51:40Z")
Starburst is fastest. You do just get there, it’s a trip through hyperspace.
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