# Warp Drive question (Star Trek) **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 17, 2020, 6:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/warp-drive-question-star-trek/849633 "2020-03-17T06:31:22Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Horatio\_Hellpop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Horatio\_Hellpop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatio_Hellpop)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2020, 6:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/warp-drive-question-star-trek/849633/1 "2020-03-17T06:31:22Z")
In the _Star Trek_ universe, does Warp drive follow an arithmetic curve (Warp 6 is six times as fast as Warp 1) or a geometric one (Warp 6 is ten times as fast as Warp 5)? It seems to vary with the needs of the episode, which is fine, I just wonder if this is codified anywhere. ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_R.Mortiss](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tim_r.mortiss/32/142_2.png) [@Tim\_R.Mortiss](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_R.Mortiss)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2020, 6:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/warp-drive-question-star-trek/849633/2 "2020-03-17T06:35:28Z")
I always thought it was exponential. As in, warp _n_ is speed of light to the _n_th power. So warp 1 would just be speed of light. But that’s just me; I don’t have any documentation to back it up. Much like “star dates,” I think TOS just sort of made things up as they went along, and then TNG tried to retcon actual rules into the techno-babble. ---
**Author:** ![Horatio\_Hellpop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Horatio\_Hellpop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatio_Hellpop)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2020, 6:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/warp-drive-question-star-trek/849633/3 "2020-03-17T06:57:27Z")
That makes sense, although it makes me wonder why the trip to the Delta Quadrant is so arduous. Yeah, the Milky Way is quite large and they have to avoid the supermassive black hole in the middle of it, but “Warp 10 turns you into lizards” sounded pretty lazy to me. ---
**Author:** ![Jonathan\_Chance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jonathan_chance/32/701_2.png) [@Jonathan\_Chance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jonathan_Chance)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2020, 7:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/warp-drive-question-star-trek/849633/4 "2020-03-17T07:22:57Z")
In the original Star Trek Technical Manual - I have one around here somewhere - it’s listed as being the cube of the number. So Warp 1 is c. Warp 1: c Warp 2: 8c Warp 3: 27c … Warp 9: 729c It was recalibrated for NextGen because, simply put, 729 times the speed of light isn’t really fast enough to get around like they need to do to make the show happen. ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2020, 8:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/warp-drive-question-star-trek/849633/5 "2020-03-17T08:43:42Z")
Some of their episodes could have been a LOT more interesting if they had used an Infinite Improbability Drive instead. ---
**Author:** ![Horatio\_Hellpop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Horatio\_Hellpop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatio_Hellpop)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2020, 8:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/warp-drive-question-star-trek/849633/6 "2020-03-17T08:58:10Z")
Also: What is impulse power? I always thought it was sub-light speed, but in some episodes it seems faster. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2020, 9:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/warp-drive-question-star-trek/849633/7 "2020-03-17T09:41:02Z")
> [@Horatio\_Hellpop](#): > > Also: What is impulse power? I always thought it was sub-light speed, but in some episodes it seems faster. It is supposed to be sub-light, but it still does things it shouldn’t if it’s some sort of basic action-reaction drive. Like keep up with the warp drive when the saucer separates from the rest of the ship. Why you would use impulse engines to power a lifeboat of that type in deep, deep space is beyond me. You coudn’t outrun your enemies if you’re trying to get away, and your rescue by friendlies is in no way guaranteed. Neither are you likely to find a habitable planet before your supplies run out and you’re reduced to cannibalism and drinking your own urine. On _ **TNG** _, there was a tank of deuterium (IIRC) just aft of where the access pylon joined the secondary hull, with some sort of feed line running up to the impulse engines at the back of the saucer. This was apparently what fueled the things. What they’d use for fuel after saucer separation, I don’t know. ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2020, 11:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/warp-drive-question-star-trek/849633/8 "2020-03-17T11:09:19Z")
> [@terentii](#): > > On _ **TNG** _, there was a tank of deuterium (IIRC) just aft of where the access pylon joined the secondary hull, with some sort of feed line running up to the impulse engines at the back of the saucer. This was apparently what fueled the things. What they’d use for fuel after saucer separation, I don’t know. They hook up a plot device. ---
**Author:** ![Kamino\_Neko](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kamino_neko/32/34_2.png) [@Kamino\_Neko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kamino_Neko)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2020, 11:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/warp-drive-question-star-trek/849633/9 "2020-03-17T11:41:38Z")
> [@Horatio\_Hellpop](#): > > In the _Star Trek_ universe, does Warp drive follow an arithmetic curve (Warp 6 is six times as fast as Warp 1) or a geometric one (Warp 6 is ten times as fast as Warp 5)? It seems to vary with the needs of the episode, which is fine, I just wonder if this is codified anywhere. [It’s codified, of course.](https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Warp_factor) But not in TOS, and not in canon (ie, shown or described on screen in a TV episode or movie) for a good while. (The TNG-era recalculation, on the other hand, was mentioned on screen at least a few times in TNG and Voy, if only the part about Warp 10 being the physical limit. We do not talk about the episode that claimed to show them breaking that limit, and the consequences thereof.) ---
**Author:** ![Grave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/71c47a/32.png) [@Grave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grave)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2020, 1:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/warp-drive-question-star-trek/849633/10 "2020-03-17T13:03:58Z")
I just read this old link from Slate - [Enterprise vs Millennium Falcon](http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/map_of_the_week/2013/05/star_trek_enterprise_vs_star_wars_millennium_falcon_which_ship_is_fastest.html) which goes into detail about warp speeds. Perhaps you will find it interesting! ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2020, 1:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/warp-drive-question-star-trek/849633/11 "2020-03-17T13:12:11Z")
Straczynski had the right idea in Babylon 5, when he said that the ships travel at the speed of plot. Either you create a consistent set of rules that your world’s physics must follow, and insist that all writers must follow those rules and adjust their plots as needed to fit (rare enough in literature, and impossible in a TV show with 15 writers), or you don’t give any detail at all and just assume that the details somehow match the story you’re trying to tell. Assuming rigid rules, but then not rigidly enforcing them, like Star Trek did, is the worst of both worlds. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2020, 1:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/warp-drive-question-star-trek/849633/12 "2020-03-17T13:12:27Z")
Straczynski had the right idea in Babylon 5, when he said that the ships travel at the speed of plot. Either you create a consistent set of rules that your world’s physics must follow, and insist that all writers must follow those rules and adjust their plots as needed to fit (rare enough in literature, and impossible in a TV show with 15 writers), or you don’t give any detail at all and just assume that the details somehow match the story you’re trying to tell. Assuming rigid rules, but then not rigidly enforcing them, like Star Trek did, is the worst of both worlds. ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba9def/32.png) [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2020, 1:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/warp-drive-question-star-trek/849633/13 "2020-03-17T13:13:47Z")
> [@Jonathan\_Chance](#): > > In the original Star Trek Technical Manual - I have one around here somewhere - it’s listed as being the cube of the number. > > So Warp 1 is c. > > Warp 1: c > Warp 2: 8c > Warp 3: 27c > … > Warp 9: 729c > > It was recalibrated for NextGen because, simply put, 729 times the speed of light isn’t really fast enough to get around like they need to do to make the show happen. I’m glad the original producers gave it at least some thought, but they just never realized how YUGE space really is. With the cubed power warp factor, at warp 1, it would take 16 years just to get to Vulcan (16 light years away). Even at warp 6 it would take 27 days! In That Which Survives, to go a thousand light years (990.7, to be precise) would take 361.6 days (to be precise). Kirk, Sulu and McCoy, not to mention poor D’Amato, would be long, long dead. And yet they had dialog that Romulans fought the Feds the first time without warp drive! Sometimes you really do have to “correct” the dialog in your head. Does this contradict my posts in the Rod Serling thread? I would say not. My rule is, if you can correct an error with only a simple change (like just not saying how fast warp speeds are, and just leaving it an abstract number) then the episode isn’t unredeemingly stupid. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2020, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/warp-drive-question-star-trek/849633/14 "2020-03-17T17:51:36Z")
> [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](#): > > …And yet they had dialog that Romulans fought the Feds the first time without warp drive! Sometimes you really do have to “correct” the dialog in your head… I always fanwanked it that they used some other FTL drive, obsolete by Kirk’s time, but not warp drive, as such. ---
**Author:** ![leahcim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/b4bc9f/32.png) [@leahcim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/leahcim)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2020, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/warp-drive-question-star-trek/849633/15 "2020-03-17T18:12:23Z")
In my head cannon, warp factors are a property of the engine (like gears in a manual transmission) rather than speeds, so we can gloss over any inconsistencies on speed or anything else. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2020, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/warp-drive-question-star-trek/849633/16 "2020-03-17T18:15:42Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > I always fanwanked it that they used some other FTL drive, obsolete by Kirk’s time, but not warp drive, as such. There is other evidence for this. The Botany Bay is a lot further from Earth than it would be with sublight drive only. There are tons of other examples. The space amoeba in _The Immunity Syndrome_ must have had some kind of faster than light capability, otherwise it wasn’t about to do anyone any harm even if it reproduced. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2020, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/warp-drive-question-star-trek/849633/17 "2020-03-17T18:21:10Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > I always fanwanked it that they used some other FTL drive, obsolete by Kirk’s time, but not warp drive, as such. … Which Scotty classified as “simple impulse” that the \*Enterprise \*could easily outrun. Neither the Romulan warbirds nor the Federation shuttlecraft (which had ion propulsion that could be fueled by draining phasers) should have been capable of deep-space missions. If the impulse and ion engines could be powered by batteries, they must have been one helluva a lot bigger than D-size. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2020, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/warp-drive-question-star-trek/849633/18 "2020-03-17T19:14:28Z")
The other thing is that they’d have real-time videoconferences with someone back at Star Fleet Headquarters, or at some star base someplace. Did they ever try to explain the technology needed for that? ---
**Author:** ![jackdavinci](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackdavinci/32/3259_2.png) [@jackdavinci](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jackdavinci)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2020, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/warp-drive-question-star-trek/849633/19 "2020-03-17T19:15:13Z")
It was originally supposed to be like Mach, but for light speed. But it was tweaked at times, I think first with trans warp. But yeah they reformatted it for TNG so that 0 is 0, I think warp 1 is still light speed, and 10 is infinite. I kind of wanted to ask, if there are any math people, what you would call that kind of scale, with two origins, one at 0 and one at infinity. Or more generally, any scale that uses something besides zero as origin, uses infinity or other special numbers, or more than one origin. ---
**Author:** ![friedo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/8edcca/32.png) [@friedo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/friedo)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2020, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/warp-drive-question-star-trek/849633/20 "2020-03-17T19:28:29Z")
> [@Dewey\_Finn](#): > > The other thing is that they’d have real-time videoconferences with someone back at Star Fleet Headquarters, or at some star base someplace. Did they ever try to explain the technology needed for that? They use subspace radio, which is faster than light. (And often faster than even the fastest warp drive.) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/warp-drive-question-star-trek/849633.md?page=2)