# 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:** 3
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2020, 3:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/warp-drive-question-star-trek/849633/41 "2020-03-18T03:41:43Z")
> [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > As for the warp drive and speeds, I’ll just note that some episode of _ST:TNG_ introduced the concept that operating the warp drive at speeds above a certain threshold was causing serious, irreparable damage to the fabric of spacetime, which was subsequently forgotten faster than Murphy Brown’s infant child once it posed some issue with plotting. Hey, that was just one more example of good old Star Trek “message plot” where a point about some issue of social relevance to our time is analogized in the Trek universe and delivered by the Enterprise crew with their usual exquisite subtlety. ---
**Author:** ![beowulff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beowulff/32/542_2.png) [@beowulff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beowulff)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2020, 3:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/warp-drive-question-star-trek/849633/42 "2020-03-18T03:48:01Z")
> [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > The _Star Trek_ universe as re-imagined by Iain Banks. I’m hoping to see Vulcans retooled as blood-thirsty cannibals and Tribbles as the dominant intellectual life form of the Federation. That’ll probably be in the next season of _Discovery_, actually. > > There is really no point in looking for continuity or even basic logic in _Star Trek_. This is, after all, a series in which the characters routinely submit to being energetically decomposed to component atoms and replaced by a simulacrum at the other end, often being projected onto the surface of a planet whose atmospheric composition, radiation environment, and other essential aspects of environmental safety have not been quantitatively assessed. And it is clear that “Computer” is capable of running the entire ship and performing all major exploratory and analysis functions essentially independent of the crew who appear to be on the ship simply to give “Computer” some drama for entertainment. > > As for the warp drive and speeds, I’ll just note that some episode of _ST:TNG_ introduced the concept that operating the warp drive at speeds above a certain threshold was causing serious, irreparable damage to the fabric of spacetime, which was subsequently forgotten faster than Murphy Brown’s infant child once it posed some issue with plotting. > > Douglas Adams at least based his novels on consistent physics, even if it was absurdist made-up physics about Infinite Improbability Drives and the strange mathematics of bistro waiters. None of this mucking about with warp drives and subspace. > > Stranger Actually, it was _not_ forgotten… The rotating nacelles on Voyager-class ships eliminate (or reduce) the problem. ---
**Author:** ![AncientHumanoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ancienthumanoid/32/278_2.png) [@AncientHumanoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AncientHumanoid)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2020, 4:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/warp-drive-question-star-trek/849633/43 "2020-03-18T04:14:06Z")
> [@carnivorousplant](#): > > Riker was always a loose cannon who didn’t obey Star Fleet regulations. > > The DS9 solar sail I had managed not to think about. Thanks a lot! Star Fleet regulations?! Mark my words: there can be no peace While Kirk lives! ---
**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 18, 2020, 6:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/warp-drive-question-star-trek/849633/44 "2020-03-18T06:49:27Z")
> [@GMANCANADA](#): > > [As a side note: I’ve never understood why in some episodes the ships phasers fire like a laser beam, but in others they are like photon torpedoes? Was there ever a ret-conn explanation for that?] That was in “Balance of Terror,” a very early episode (the 13th one aired, but it was filmed long before that). Apparently they hadn’t tied the phasers down yet, but since it was a destroyer-vs-submarine duel, the idea was to simulate dropping depth charges or laying a mine field. Hence the scattered shots. I guess at that point they hadn’t decided to add photon torpedoes, which can have time or proximity fuses, to the arsenal. ---
**Author:** ![RioRico](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f04885/32.png) [@RioRico](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RioRico)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2020, 8:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/warp-drive-question-star-trek/849633/45 "2020-03-18T08:09:27Z")
Trek plotholes and missteps didn’t bother me for a long time. Local TV ran ST from 8:30 to 9:30 PM during the TOS first season but juvenile hall cut the sets at 9:00 so I didn’t see complete shows until they were in reruns years later. My cellmates and I speculated on outcomes, usually involving psycho-sexual-criminal twists. We should have been writers. ---
**Author:** ![GMANCANADA](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gmancanada/32/2837_2.png) [@GMANCANADA](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GMANCANADA)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2020, 9:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/warp-drive-question-star-trek/849633/46 "2020-03-18T09:48:40Z")
**@ terentii** > [@](#): > > That was in “Balance of Terror,” a very early episode (the 13th one aired, but it was filmed long before that). Apparently they hadn’t tied the phasers down yet, but since it was a destroyer-vs-submarine duel, the idea was to simulate dropping depth charges or laying a mine field. Hence the scattered shots. > > I guess at that point they hadn’t decided to add photon torpedoes, which can have time or proximity fuses, to the arsenal. Thanks, that makes sense. It worked perfectly in the episode, but it was just compared the later ones it made no sense. ---
**Author:** ![kanicbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/5f8ce5/32.png) [@kanicbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kanicbird)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2020, 11:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/warp-drive-question-star-trek/849633/47 "2020-03-18T11:31:54Z")
> [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > … > > As for the warp drive and speeds, I’ll just note that some episode of _ST:TNG_ introduced the concept that operating the warp drive at speeds above a certain threshold was causing serious, irreparable damage to the fabric of spacetime, which was subsequently forgotten faster than Murphy Brown’s infant child once it posed some issue with plotting. … I believe it was addresses in the design of Voyager and why they had the nacells rotate, this cite below seems to indicate that Defiant has a ‘environmentally friendly’ warp drive too. Which if true is amazing that a purpose built war ship would take that into account, war is usually done as screw the environment mode. [Variable geometry pylon | Memory Alpha | Fandom](https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Variable_geometry_pylon) ---
**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 18, 2020, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/warp-drive-question-star-trek/849633/48 "2020-03-18T15:00:38Z")
> [@GMANCANADA](#): > > Thanks, that makes sense. It worked perfectly in the episode, but it was just compared the later ones it made no sense. Like asking why didn’t the Enterprise just send down a shuttlecraft with heaters and rice wine to the stranded officers in “The Enemy Within”. Because they either didn’t know yet that starships had shuttles, or they hadn’t budgeted for the model. Or, more accurately, it would have ruined the tension. Which goes back to the discussion of the “I Shot an Arrow…” Twilight Zone episode: if your story has to be stupid to work, you should tell a different story. ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2020, 3:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/warp-drive-question-star-trek/849633/49 "2020-03-19T03:48:58Z")
> [@friedo](#): > > They use subspace radio, which is faster than light. (And often faster than even the fastest warp drive.) > [@carnivorousplant](#): > > There is one TOS episode where Kirk is far enough away from Star Fleet that he must act before he receives permission. Are we sure that was due to some sort of subspace delay? Maybe it was a three-day weekend back on Earth and they knew no one would get back to them until Tuesday. ---
**Author:** ![cochrane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cochrane/32/10441_2.png) [@cochrane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cochrane)\ **Post date:** [March 19, 2020, 4:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/warp-drive-question-star-trek/849633/50 "2020-03-19T04:48:59Z")
> [@Robot\_Arm](#): > > Are we sure that was due to some sort of subspace delay? Maybe it was a three-day weekend back on Earth and they knew no one would get back to them until Tuesday. I see what you did there. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Steven\_Maven](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steven_maven/32/3272_2.png) [@Steven\_Maven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steven_Maven)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2020, 11:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/warp-drive-question-star-trek/849633/51 "2020-03-21T23:26:36Z")
> [@Tim\_R.Mortiss](#): > > Much like “star dates,” I think TOS just sort of made things up as they went along… I agree. > [@Horatio\_Hellpop](#): > > “Warp 10 turns you into lizards” sounded pretty lazy to me. I always thought that the maximum speed of Warp 9 in TOS was just a limitation of technology at that time, and they fully expected to achieve Warp 10 and higher at some future date? Did I just make that up? Subsequent posts mention that TNG was inconsistent on this issue. > [@Jonathan\_Chance](#): > > Warp 1: c > Warp 2: 8c > Warp 3: 27c > … > Warp 9: 729c Thanks for finding a Primary Source. I remembered seeing that chart years ago but had forgotten the specifics. The flaw is Warp 1. Even if you accept the concept of Warp Drive, an object traveling at exactly c would have infinite mass. Once you exceed c, your mass becomes an imaginary number (multiple of the square root of -1), so there is **something** to work with. ---
**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 21, 2020, 11:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/warp-drive-question-star-trek/849633/52 "2020-03-21T23:50:20Z")
> [@Steven\_Maven](#): > > I always thought that the maximum speed of Warp 9 in TOS was just a limitation of technology at that time, and they fully expected to achieve Warp 10 and higher at some future date? Did I just make that up? Sort of. They didn’t exceed Warp 14 in at least one episodes. Nomad altered the engines so they could go faster, but I got the impression the hull was not improved to match. and they went however fast you have to go to do 2 million light years in a century. But it was a limit of the ship, not the theory. The Enterprise would get structural damage, to the point of destruction, the longer they went above Warp 6. How long was room long was dependent on plot. But on TNG the reconfigured warp scale made Warp 10 an absolute maximum. Theoretically impossible to exceed. Like dividing by zero. Until the plot demanded it. We do not speak of lizard babies. ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2020, 1:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/warp-drive-question-star-trek/849633/53 "2020-03-22T01:37:12Z")
If there is one thing this thread has made clear, it is that while a few people evidently came up with “theories” and official guidelines and impressive-looking graphs and technical manuals, face it, the writers of the following week’s episode already felt free to completely ignore them, the same way they always ignore most of the implications of, as well as explicitly stated facts about, the bizarre future tech described. Now, in last week’s episode, the crew of the _Sirena_ remarked that, wow, they just came 25 light years in 15 minutes [using a Borg hyperspace bypass], while the pursuing Romulan fleet (presumably using conventional warp drive) would take a couple of days to catch up- the writers wisely did not bother trying to shoehorn in any warp factor calculations. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2020, 1:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/warp-drive-question-star-trek/849633/54 "2020-03-22T01:55:04Z")
> [@Steven\_Maven](#): > > The flaw is Warp 1. Even if you accept the concept of Warp Drive, an object traveling at exactly c would have infinite mass. Once you exceed c, your mass becomes an imaginary number (multiple of the square root of -1), so there is **something** to work with. So warp 1 is 1.1 x C. Get over it. ---
**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 22, 2020, 3:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/warp-drive-question-star-trek/849633/55 "2020-03-22T03:26:13Z")
The whole point of a warp drive is that it bypasses relativistic dilation factors. ---
**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 22, 2020, 11:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/warp-drive-question-star-trek/849633/56 "2020-03-22T11:52:27Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > The whole point of a warp drive is that it bypasses relativistic dilation factors. Not to mention inertia. ---
**Author:** ![AncientHumanoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ancienthumanoid/32/278_2.png) [@AncientHumanoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AncientHumanoid)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2020, 11:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/warp-drive-question-star-trek/849633/57 "2020-03-22T11:56:52Z")
> **[Inertial damping system](https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Inertial_damping_system)** > > Inertial damping system, inertial dampers, or inertial dampeners, were a system used on almost all starships to counter the effects of rapid acceleration and deceleration by sustaining and absorbing the natural inertia of a vessel as it moved through... ---
**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 22, 2020, 12:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/warp-drive-question-star-trek/849633/58 "2020-03-22T12:00:59Z")
> [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](#): > > Sort of. They didn’t exceed Warp 14 in at least one episodes. Nomad altered the engines so they could go faster, but I got the impression the hull was not improved to match. and they went however fast you have to go to do 2 million light years in a century. > > But it was a limit of the ship, not the theory. The Enterprise would get structural damage, to the point of destruction, the longer they went above Warp 6. How long was room long was dependent on plot. The Kelvans rigged it so they could travel to Andromeda (2.537 ly) in around 300 years. That’d be approximately 8,457 times the speed of light. What’s the cube root of that? :dubious: 😕 **REPLY:** 20.374. So WF 20, plus a bit more. ---
**Author:** ![AncientHumanoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ancienthumanoid/32/278_2.png) [@AncientHumanoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AncientHumanoid)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2020, 12:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/warp-drive-question-star-trek/849633/59 "2020-03-22T12:06:06Z")
> **[Inertial damping system](https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Inertial_damping_system)** > > Inertial damping system, inertial dampers, or inertial dampeners, were a system used on almost all starships to counter the effects of rapid acceleration and deceleration by sustaining and absorbing the natural inertia of a vessel as it moved through... > **[Inertial dampener](https://memory-beta.fandom.com/wiki/Inertial_dampener)** > > An inertial dampener (or inertial damper) was a technology which altered the inertia of matter. Inertial dampeners were vital components of warp vessels, allowing them to quickly change relativistic speeds without endangering crew or internal... ---
**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 22, 2020, 12:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/warp-drive-question-star-trek/849633/60 "2020-03-22T12:11:34Z")
By its nature, a warp field would have to negate the effects of inertia all on its own. The ship and all of its contents remain in their own frame of reference and thus are not subject to them. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/warp-drive-question-star-trek/849633.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/warp-drive-question-star-trek/849633.md?page=4)