I was watching Star Trek the original series last night where a probe made the enterprise go warp 10 which made me think about going warp 10 on Voyager, and was wondering what changes between the two shows to allow 2 different things at warp 10.
Original series warp 10 Vs Voyager warp 10
- Thread starter Kevin_treker351
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Various sources such as the writer's guide and The Making of Star Trek say that the warp scale used in the era of TOS made the speed at a warp factor equal the speed of light mutliplied by tthe warp factor cubed. Thus warp factor 10 would be 1,000 times the speed of light.
Various sources give a different warp scale used in the era of TNG series like Voyager. I think that all of the warp factors were faster than the TOS warp factors with the same number. And between warp factor 9 and warp factor 10 in the new scale, the speed increased many times over for even the slightest fractional change in the warp factor. And warp factor 10 was said to be impossible to reach since it was infinitely fast.
I note that those warp scales were not exactly canon, even though they were included in the official writers guides for the benefit of writers.
Do you rmember doing times, speed and distance problems in high school math classes? Either most Star Trek writers forgot about them, or remembered hating them, because very few seem to have bothered to make such calculations. So most of the speeds, distances, and times meniioned in various Star Trek productions don't agree with either of the warp scales.
Various sources give a different warp scale used in the era of TNG series like Voyager. I think that all of the warp factors were faster than the TOS warp factors with the same number. And between warp factor 9 and warp factor 10 in the new scale, the speed increased many times over for even the slightest fractional change in the warp factor. And warp factor 10 was said to be impossible to reach since it was infinitely fast.
I note that those warp scales were not exactly canon, even though they were included in the official writers guides for the benefit of writers.
Do you rmember doing times, speed and distance problems in high school math classes? Either most Star Trek writers forgot about them, or remembered hating them, because very few seem to have bothered to make such calculations. So most of the speeds, distances, and times meniioned in various Star Trek productions don't agree with either of the warp scales.
That not really a problem. After all, who is to say that a clock reading aboard a starship at warp has to correspond with a clock reading on a planetary surface (or space station, etc)?
The warp scale was recalibrated for TNG (The Next Generation).
...The first inkling we get of this is in the pilot already, when Picard's ship struggles to make the high nines while a ship from "the previous generation" could do warp 14+. But TNG goes more explicit in the second season, with "Time Squared", where Riker (apparently half in jest) says that going past warp ten should equal time travel. Infinite speed means you arrive when you leave. Going faster obviously means you arrive before you leave!
As for the technobabble side, this might not be the right sub-forum for it, but I refer to the Okuda/Sternbach idea that integer warp factors are used so much in Trek because the power consumption curve is a fancy sawtooth pattern: every now and then, it becomes "cheaper" to achieve high warp speed, and those points are marked by integer warp factors, it being much better to sail at warp 6 than at warp 5.95. The opposite would be true today, 6 knots always being a tad more expensive than 5.95 knots.
The sawtooth pattern seems to feature nine notches in TNG, and then goes smooth till infinite speed. Not an intuitively obvious pattern at all. Back in TOS, starships would have been sailing at speeds up to the sixth notch at some regularity, and would have observed the nice drops in power costs there, deducing the pattern and extrapolating. Since their ships would be rattling apart at any speed past warp 8, though, they would not be observing any savings at that part of the curve, and would mistakenly believe the sawteeth extended infinitely high.
Better engines in TNG would reveal the actual spacing of the high notches, and the fact that there is no Notch Ten where one would expect to find it (and that name thus is allocated to infinite speed, by the same sort of guys who think Dark Matter, WIMP, MACHO and Big Bang are great terms for physical sciences). And even better engines in "All Good Things..." would reveal that the tenth notch is to be found even higher up, after an unintuitive gap, and that the notches go all the way up to thirteen at least!
Tom Paris would of course be accelerating way too fast to count any notches on his way past Warp 47 and Warp 923 and unto infinite speed.
Timo Saloniemi
As for the technobabble side, this might not be the right sub-forum for it, but I refer to the Okuda/Sternbach idea that integer warp factors are used so much in Trek because the power consumption curve is a fancy sawtooth pattern: every now and then, it becomes "cheaper" to achieve high warp speed, and those points are marked by integer warp factors, it being much better to sail at warp 6 than at warp 5.95. The opposite would be true today, 6 knots always being a tad more expensive than 5.95 knots.
The sawtooth pattern seems to feature nine notches in TNG, and then goes smooth till infinite speed. Not an intuitively obvious pattern at all. Back in TOS, starships would have been sailing at speeds up to the sixth notch at some regularity, and would have observed the nice drops in power costs there, deducing the pattern and extrapolating. Since their ships would be rattling apart at any speed past warp 8, though, they would not be observing any savings at that part of the curve, and would mistakenly believe the sawteeth extended infinitely high.
Better engines in TNG would reveal the actual spacing of the high notches, and the fact that there is no Notch Ten where one would expect to find it (and that name thus is allocated to infinite speed, by the same sort of guys who think Dark Matter, WIMP, MACHO and Big Bang are great terms for physical sciences). And even better engines in "All Good Things..." would reveal that the tenth notch is to be found even higher up, after an unintuitive gap, and that the notches go all the way up to thirteen at least!
Tom Paris would of course be accelerating way too fast to count any notches on his way past Warp 47 and Warp 923 and unto infinite speed.
Timo Saloniemi
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In "That Which Survives" the classic Enterprise explicitly covers 1,000 light years at warp 8.4. That would have done Voyager's "75 years at warp 9.975" journey in a month
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Thank you for sharing this. I never thought about the Notch Theory, but it makes a lot of sense in those terms.
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The “Warp 10 as infinity” scale was in the TNG technical manual.
Up until 9 it scaled approximately N^3.33 so warp 8 was more around 1000 times speed of light. 9.975 was stated as Voyager’s max speed, not max cruising speed.
Up until 9 it scaled approximately N^3.33 so warp 8 was more around 1000 times speed of light. 9.975 was stated as Voyager’s max speed, not max cruising speed.
I remember hating them.
I remember reading that early on TNG people decided that warp 10 was infinite speed and could not be reached, it would mean being in every point in the galaxy at the same time. Too bad some episodes break that rule, after that it's no longer a rule.
Although not on screen... There, all warp speeds tend to be rather significantly faster than those found in the tech manuals.
Alas, no. It was twice established as the cruising speed specifically - first as "sustainable" in the pilot, then as "top" cruising speed in "Relativity".
Amusingly enough, the ship never reaches that speed on screen, already maxing out at around warp 9.9 in "Threshold". If the computer at that speed meekly suggests that structural failure will occur in 45 seconds, it's pretty unlikely that cruise speed, let alone sustainable cruise, could be higher than this...
Timo Saloniemi
You’re right, maybe 9.975 was sustainable but inadvisable when you don’t have guaranteed power sources.
Too bad there weren't any salamanders in TNG even if they did pass warp 10.
It would have taken away from the awesomeness that was Picard.
We know "Threshold" wasn't an isolated incident, as per Lower Decks. And that Paris is known for his salamander transformation
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As mentioned above, in tng and beyond they use a different warp scale (with the possible exception of “When no One Has gone before”: I seem to remember they go past warp 10 there), in the new scale warp 10 equals infinite speed and is therefore unattainable, warp 1 is the speed of light, the other factors are incrementally higher than their TOS versions (so TNG warp 9 is much faster than TOS warp 9 than TNG warp 2 is compared to TOS Warp 2).
there is no canon information on when the switch happened or why, but there is enough evidence to be sure they use a new scale.
how saying warp 9.999 is better than warp 21 is beyond me, though.
there is no canon information on when the switch happened or why, but there is enough evidence to be sure they use a new scale.
how saying warp 9.999 is better than warp 21 is beyond me, though.
the smart money is on the Excelsior Transwarp project actually being successful, and leading to the Warp Scale recalibration
That's probably why Warp 13 is a thing in All Good Things, Saying Warp 9.99975 is annoying. There may not be any associated energy savings like in Warp 1-9.
i like to think this as well, but it’s not canon as of now.
makes sense. And nice of you to mention that fan theory that warp 1 to 9 correspond to more efficient uses of the engines for some reason: at least the new scale is somewhat justified until it’s made obsolete by more powerful power generators decades later.
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