Warp 1 vs Warp 9?? and more Star Trek Qs

[Shayne]

While watching Curtis's collection of Star Trek - The Next Generation I am confused by the what would appear to be random issuing of Warp speed.

In one episode they have an urgent mission to some planet so Picard says Warp 6.  Another episode he says Warp 5, and yet another its Warp 2.  So the question is why not just cruise around at Warp 9?  Sure the energy cost might be high to get up to the speed (or would it?) but cruising around in the vacuum of space with no resistance should make any speed other then 9 just a waste of time.

Am I missing something?

Also, why do they hold their flashlights funny?  Why do they use the turbolift instead of the transporter?  Why do they have a transporter room when they can transport people from any place to any place?  How can the holodeck be so big inside when the simulation is running but be so small when turned off?

[Ustauk]

While watching Curtis's collection of Star Trek - The Next Generation I am confused by the what would appear to be random issuing of Warp speed.

In one episode they have an urgent mission to some planet so Picard says Warp 6.  Another episode he says Warp 5, and yet another its Warp 2.  So the question is why not just cruise around at Warp 9?  Sure the energy cost might be high to get up to the speed (or would it?) but cruising around in the vacuum of space with no resistance should make any speed other then 9 just a waste of time.

Am I missing something?

Dusting off my Star Trek trivia...disclaimer: the below is a combination of my knowledge from the show, Star Trek novels, and tech manuals, and some of my own conjecture.

TNG uses a different warp scale then the Original Series, and presumably Enterprise.  The upper limit of the TNG scale is warp ten.  Like with our current light speed limit, as you approach warp ten using conventional warp drive, and more and more energy is required, increasing exponentially.  Maintaining high warp is both extremely wearing on the engines and requires more and more reactor mass.  Most of the time in TNG the limiting factor was overloading the warp reactors.  Voyager was noted as having a maximum cruising speed of 9.975, so its engines were more efficient the the earlier Enteprise D.  It seldom went this speed in the series, so I suspect the limiting factor was engine wear, and maybe  fuel consumption in areas of the delta quadrant with fewer star systems.  Species with superior energy production methods, like the Borg, can maintain high warp for protracted periods of time, and so can chase down Federation starships, should the plot demand it.  The borg also use a technology called transwarp, which bypassed the warp ten barrier.

Also, why do they hold their flashlights funny?

I have no idea.  My best guess is the prop designers wanted something that looked different from a conventional flashlight.  They're almost always called "palm beacons" in the show, and are held in the palm.

Why do they use the turbolift instead of the transporter?

The hardware associated with the transporter seems hard to maintain and prone to failure.  Presumably the maintenance on  the devices, plus the energy consumption, prevent them from being used to move a crew of a thousand around the ship on a day to day basis.  In an emergency, they can be used to move great numbers of people, but they presumably require extensive maintenance after that.  The real life explanation probably had to do with the price of using the transporter special effect constantly.  Stargate: Atlantis gets around this by having doors on their teleporter booths.

  Why do they have a transporter room when they can transport people from any place to any place?

How can the holodeck be so big inside when the simulation is running but be so small when turned off?

The TNG tech manual expands on the explanation given by data in Encounter at Farpoint.  The walls of the holodeck project a three dimensional image  of the simulation beyond the physical dimensions of the holodeck.  As you attempt to move towards the wall, the holodeck uses a combination of gravity mainpulation and minuature tractor field projectors to produce a treadmill like effect.  In effect the simulation moves around you, rather then you moving in the simulation, but from your point of reference, you're the one moving.  It also presumably has the ability to craft different projections from different perspectives, so you can see you the person you're with running towards you from a distance, when in reality they're only a few metres away from you.

[Mr. Analog]

One thing that always kind of bothered me about 'Trek was how violent EVERY friggin' race in the Galaxy is. I mean even if you look at the Vulcans from ToS you get crazy ass stuff like Amok Time sure sure, there are a few enigmatic or benevolent "races" but ToS thru Enterprise is all about martial conflict as a universal concept (that and green babliens).

Can't we all just get along?

[Shayne]

How can it be taxing on the engines, once you get up to the speed you want you can simply coast

[Ustauk]

How can it be taxing on the engines, once you get up to the speed you want you can simply coast

Warp drive does not run on ordinary Newtonian physics.  From the Memory Alpha Star Trek Wiki article on Warp Drive

Warp drive is a technology that allows space travel at faster-than-light speeds. It does this by generating warp fields to form a subspace bubble that envelops the starship, distorting the local spacetime continuum and moving the starship at velocities that exceed the speed of light. These velocities are referred to as warp factors.
Contents

Technology
Warp drive works by distorting the fabric of space to propel the vessel. Simply put, the drive warps space, both in front of and behind a starship, allowing it travel faster than the speed of light. Specifically, spacetime is contracted in front of the ship and expanded behind it. The starship itself rests in a warp bubble between the two spacetime distortions. This warped space, together with the region inside it, accelerates off at "warp speed" and the vessel then "surfs" the wave in spacetime created by this distortion.

Constant power needs to be applied in order maintain the warped space around a vessel traveling at warp speeds.  Greater and greater power is needed to increase the degree of warping, or warp factor, and once you reach a high warp factor you have to keep producing incredible amounts of energy to maintain the continuum distortion.  Without its own warp drive, a saucer section separated at warp speed will contain its own residual distortion for a short time, but will very shortly drop back into normal space.  Devices like probes and torpedoes can be given a static warp field that can be maintained by an on board warp sustainer engine, but they cannot accelerate any further past their launch velocities, and will drop out of warp once their fuel runs out.  This is why torpedoes are generally the only weapon seen in warp speed combat.  Ships have to move really close together at warp in order to exchange directed energy weapon fire, in essence matching and merging their warp fields to encompass the weapons fire.  An example of this can be found when the first Cardassian war ship scene in TNG fires on the Enterprise at warp velocities.

[Adams]

Also certain areas of space have speed limits... I remember an episode from  TNG that dealt with such aspects.

[Thorin]

How can it be taxing on the engines, once you get up to the speed you want you can simply coast

Even if we were to apply regula rphysics to this - how can it be taxing on an F1 car's engine to maintain 300km/h for hours?  Simple.  The engine is running at high speed to get there, and then still running at high speed to stay there.  It's not like you turn the engine off when you reach the speed limit.

Most importantly to note, though: Star Trek is a finctional TV show, and all fictional TV shows do things purely for plots' sake when deemed expedient.  That Star Trek even *tried* to stay consistent from episode to episode is amazing.

Still, they do seem to use all that 23rd/24th century tech in very 20th/21st century ways...

[Ustauk]

Even if we were to apply regula rphysics to this - how can it be taxing on an F1 car's engine to maintain 300km/h for hours?  Simple.  The engine is running at high speed to get there, and then still running at high speed to stay there.  It's not like you turn the engine off when you reach the speed limit.

The reason the car has to keep applying power to maintain speed comes down to friction with the ground and the air.  In space, there's is no air to have friction with, so nothing once acceleration is applied, and object will keep going at a constant speed once the acceleration stops.  That's what Shayne meant.  Warp drive works differently then this in that power is required to maintain the warp field to keep speed constant, like power needs to be applied to a cars wheels constantly in order to overcome friction in maintaining speed.

[Shayne]

Well, that warp bubble thing makes sense, but then the graphics of the ship flying through space are rather @%&#ed up as it looks like its just going really fast.

[Mr. Analog]

I remember reading an old copy of Analog at the library one time that said the "stars" we see in the various 'Treks are actually a distortion of the warp field.

[Lazybones]

Also certain areas of space have speed limits... I remember an episode from  TNG that dealt with such aspects.

Yes, in that episode they discovered that repeatedly exposing the same areas of space to intense warp fields could result in rifts forming.. They found that slower warp speeds with smaller warp fields where less likely to cause this.. Frequency was also an issue.. This is why they go so slow when picking up ambassadors and moving around in hevily used federation space.  They can still use the faster speeds but only when needed.


As for why they use the transporter room, it is because it is safer.. When they beam from one ship to another with a compatible system they sync the systems up and have more fail safes in place.. When doing a site to site transport they the risk of an accident is greater, so they always use the safest method.

Stargate: Atlantis gets around this by having doors on their teleporter booths.

This is even a safer and probably less power intense system, because the energy is transported completely inside the city's closed system wireing instead of over the air like in StarTrek.. However the Asgar do have site to site transporters in the Stargate universe, however if I recall again, power is an issue.

[Darren Dirt]

Most importantly to note, though: Star Trek is a finctional TV show, and all fictional TV shows do things purely for plots' sake when deemed expedient.  That Star Trek even *tried* to stay consistent from episode to episode is amazing.

Still, they do seem to use all that 23rd/24th century tech in very 20th/21st century ways...

Apparently (I heard this on AICN) there's a saying around NASA:

"Never use a StarTrek solution when a Babylon5 solution is required." *

(I am presuming the reverse might something they say behind management's back -- "Don't waste your time seeking a Bablylon5 solution when a StarTrek solution will do" )


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* UPDATE: my paraphrase was pretty close...
"Babylon 5 wanted to be star trek so bad."

by Poopflingerzaius   July 25th, 2006
04:06:48 PM CST
I've seen a lot of ignorant @%&# on the internet. I've posted my fair share of it. However, the quoted statement above is just dumbass. People at NASA actually have a saying that goes: "Don't use a Star Trek solution for a Babylon 5 problem."

The reason is that Babylon 5 was intricate and detailed in its conflicts, whereas Star Trek is science fiction pablum for the masses. Its "solutions" usually involve tachyons, "warp fields" or other invented technobabble to save the day. Then the "reset" button is hit for the next episode. Babylon 5 is much more compelling to those who demand solid storytelling without contrivances to solve their plots.

[Thorin]

Nice find, Darren.  I, too, thought Babylon 5 was an excellent show.  The only problem was I didn't watch it regularly because I was working hard at the time, and coming back six months into a season made it difficult to follow the story.  Whereas Star Trek pablum I could eat anytime

[Darren Dirt]

I remember seeing some of the first 2 seasons of B5, but I also couldn't be consistent in my viewing at the time.

Now DVDs make it possible to "catch up", in a single weekend if sleep is optional ... I'm planning on renting the DVDs for season 1 and 2 at least, if only to watch from the beginning the build-up to the unique episode "And Now A Word" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/And_Now_For_a_Word ... also see potential spoilers here). ...and of course, a certain theme piques my interest


I'm surprised B5 only went on 5 seasons (with the ubiquituous "20 years after the events" final episode ala Voyager, Enterprise...)


It seems that ongoing Story Arcs are the reason why shows like B5, and Buffy/Angel to a lesser degree, are either "love it" or "hate it" for most of their target audience... I personally tend to be of the "love it" camp, since I have matured and enjoy seeing realistic folks actually change over time (which is why seasons 3+4 of Enterprise were pleasant surprises).

But I'm also now afraid to watch acclaimed shows (e.g. Alias, Lost) for fear of getting too attached to the characters/stories

Oh, and a few laughs might be found here: Babylon Park (B5+Southpark parody!) -- linked from Voltayre's Encyclopedia Xenobiologica :-\


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Sorry for the non-ST hijack, folks ...although technically I wasn't the first