Speed of the plot

[Deks]

Ok... we have various references to how fast Warp drive is in Trek.
But, Warp drive as presented on DS9 and Voyager seems exceptionally SLOW, and utterly unrealistic for the Federation (especially when SF was experimenting with Transwarp 75 years before TNG).

We did get a few interesting instances however that might correct some of the errors.

Namely, in TNG Season 1 'where no one has gone before', Data stated it would take the Enterprise to cross 2.7 million light years in just over 300 years.
This would place Enterprise-D sustainable Warp 9.2 (if Data referred to this speed and not the maximum of 9.6 at the time) at around 42 lightyears per day (if their day has 26 hours).

That would place Warp 9.2 (or 9.6) at a ratio of 15330 times the speed of light.

In Voyager 'the 37's' episode, Tom Paris stated that Voyager was capable of going Warp 9.9, and that it was 4 billion miles per second.
This is 21473 times the speed of light.

Now personally, I do think that 9.6 seems a bit more logical to be set at 15330 times the speed of light, seeing how the difference to 9.9 of 21473 times the speed of light is more reasonable than a slow progression from 9.2 to 9.9

It was also explained that past 9.9, ever incremental increase (0.01) results in exponential (doubling) increase in speed.
So, 9.91 would effectively be double of 21473 times LS... and so on.

Warp 9.975 would in that case be 11452.2 Ly’s per day, or 4 180 053 times LS - which is actually faster than Slipstream V1 (which allowed speeds of 300 ly's per hour).

9.975 was explained on-screen to be Voyager's top cruising speed.
A top cruising speed means an engine can sustain a given velocity indefinitely without problems.

However, on-screen, Voyager couldn't go past 9.9 without shaking itself apart.

This might indicate that the ship's initial pull into the DQ from the Caretaker's array (which resulted in massive damage to the overall ship) could have damaged both the Warp engines and the hull on a level the crew couldn't repair on their own - resulting in radically reduced Warp speeds, and problems that arose with energy consumption (which forced the use of replicator rationing).

Granted, this was not stated on-screen, but there were many things that are easily explainable that were never mentioned in the background.

My point is that placing Warp 9.9 as 21473 times LS seems sensible and readily more explains just how fast various SF ships seemed to have been able to traverse several distances that seemed incompatible otherwise.

Plus, these people can transform energy into matter, survive supernova explosions, and have massive energy outputs, and we are expected to think that the best Warp 9.975 can do is measly 3000 times LS?
I don't think so.

It just doesn't make sense that given the Federation's overall technical progression and prowess, Warp drive development was so slow to non-existent.

Well, we do know that the writers knew little to nothing about technical matters, hence picking up a calculator for a few mins to make things more consistent seemed like a chore (evidently).

It would have been interesting to place Voyager's initially damaged status on the forefront and then as each year passed, the crew could have made repairs that would increase their speed and get them back home in just 7 years on their own power.

Of course, this doesn't also take into account that SF could have in that case sent some ships to intercept Voyager... but this WAS stated by admiral Hayes in the episode 'Life Line' and that they redirected 2 deep-space vessels towards them which would rendezvous with Voyager (if all went well) in 5 to 6 years.

So, either SF had vessels so far out that they were close to Voyager (which means they would beat the Enterprise-D which was usually skimming along the Federation border), or their Warp speeds were likely greater.

Well, in the case of Voyager, it would make sense that those 2 ships were already far away... and they were deep space vessels.

Is it possible SF has different vessels for deep space that we don't know about which might also have superior engines that are otherwise not usually used on most other ships in the fleet?

Thoughts and ideas?

 

[Go-Captain]

There's one issue I have. I find many people want to shoe horn speed figures into the made up warp factor algorithms, and it leads to strange results, or the ignoring of canon figures. I think the best thing to do is leave out warp factors unless specifically stated. Otherwise, people have used it as an excuse to dismiss Tom Paris' figure from "The 37's."

There's another aspect, going just by the episodes and movies, there are no fixed speeds for given warp factors. Speeds are all over the place, and as such I ascribe to the warp highway theory. It's simply the idea that different volumes of space result in different speeds at warp.

This fits in an interesting way where in "Where No Man Has Gone Before" I believe they want to send a subspace message between galaxies, and the figure results in a speed which would mean real time communication anywhere inside a galaxy should work without relays. For instance, going with that figure Voyager would not have needed the array to talk to home. The simplest solution is all the matter in a galaxy gets in they way.

If galactic matters gets in the way of subspace communications, then it stands to reason it can mess with a ship too. That would mean the Enterprise-D in "Where No Man..." does not have an extremely high cruise speed normally, but that they're normal indefinite cruise is just faster in intergalactic space, due to the presence of less matter.

Also, it's worth throwing in TNG: "The Chase" since that gives us a figure for sustaining high warp factors, of I think warp 9, over the course of, what is it, 36 hours? Not even a continuous set of hours, but long bursts. After that period, at the very end of the episode, it is stated the ship will go to a base for engine repairs.

Lastly, although it is outside canon, the reason warp speed in TNG and beyond is slower than previously is because Gene Roddenberry believed the galaxy to be too small with the ability to reach the center of the galaxy in a day. The new Star Trek movies are, speed wise, truer to the pre-TNG movies.

 

[Deks]

In regards to the 'chase' episode... we don't know whether high warp speeds the Enterprise-D used were its sustainable ones or not (most likely not).
When you usually push the engines PAST what is rated to be their top cruising speed, then maintenance would be needed.

This is why it never made sense why Voyager couldn't maintain anything above 9.5 in Threshold episode without shaking itself apart when their 'maximum sustainable warp velocity of 9.975' was mentioned on-screen several times - leading me to think that the engines and hull might have suffered damage on a subatomic level from their initial pull into the DQ that the crew was unable to repair on their own (what with the ship being brand new and all).

I do think that Warp 9.9 being 21473 times LS seems reasonable for Starfleet capabilities in the 24th century.

As for subspace communications allowing real time communications throughout the galaxy without subspace relay stations... well, not entirely.

In 'where no one has gone before', Data mentioned that from 2.7 million light years away, the subspace message would need fifty-one years, ten months nine weeks, sixteen days - placing it at about 5.9/6 times faster than the speed the Enterprise-D was stated to need to get back to the Milky Way.

So that would mean that subspace communications in TNG Season 1 would be travelling at roughly 252 light years per day if my math is right (incidentally, this would send Voyager's subspace message back to the Federation in just over 297 days [over a distance of 75 000 Ly's] - ergo, no need to wait 4 and a half years to reach the Hirogen relay network and inform SF of your status).

That's not exactly enough to allow real time communications across the galaxy.

It stands to reason that dedicated subspace relays probably have the hardware to push subspace messages into deeper layers of subspace where they'd be crossing huge distances (such as across the entire Federation space of 8000 ly's) far faster.

Kassidy Yates stated in DS9 (though that show messed up a lot of the stuff by itself as well) that it takes 2 weeks for a subspace message to reach her brother who lives on the other side of the Federation.
If that means he was 8000 Ly's away from DS9, then the subspace message would travel through 571.42 ly's per day (so that's a 127% increase than what the Enterprise-D was able to do in Season 1 - which doesn't seem that fast really, but Kassidy might have not been using the subspace relays [which in itself doesn't make sense, since it stands to reason they would be there for everyone inside the Federation to use, considering the type of society it is]).

The hypersubspace technology (MIDAS array) as developed by SF seemed to have allowed real-time communications between SF HQ and Voyager across 16 000 LY's.
Now THAT is proper progress you would come to expect from SF.

At any rate, dismissing Paris's claim of Warp 9.9 being 4 billion miles per second seems premature.
If Voyager was able to repair their engines and hull to a certain extent so they can hold 9.975 for a short amount of time without shaking themselves apart, then at least it would have allowed them to respond to some distress calls much faster.

But yes, warp speeds do seem to be all over the place.
Paris's statements at least makes some sense and is more consistent with TNG Season 1.

Plus, while the novels aren't canon, they seem to put the Enterprise-E Warp capability at about 24 light years per day at Warp 9.6 (or was it 9.8?) if I'm not mistaken, and it wouldn't be too much of a stretch to think that jumping from 9.6, or even 9.8 to 9.9 could yield about 2.4 times increase, and subsequent incremental increases past 9.9 double the speeds).

It's a shame this wasn't explored properly and allowed SF full reign across the galaxy with just warp drive, because it would still take a very long time to explore the Milky Way properly (which is now estimated to be 50% larger than before).


I was just thinking about this since I am writing my own Trek novel set in the late 24th century, and don't want to necessarily resort to Slipstream, but rather showcase the evolution of existing technology.

 

[T'Girl]

when their 'maximum sustainable warp velocity of 9.975' was mentioned on-screen several times

That might be Voyager's best possible speed under ideal conditions.

Ideal conditions which would include main engineering being managed by a seasoned chief engineer with the latest certifications, and not a academy drop out with a few years experience on a medium sized raider

 

[Go-Captain]

Oh, "Threshold." That episode is a real oddball, to say the least. I believe the shuttle's hull was being ripped from the nacelles; not the other way around. The simulated shuttle got a fraction in a pylon at warp 9.7 and gets to 9.95 before he eventually falls apart.

It is implied Voyager actually hits warp 9.97, because just going by Chakotay's order to match velocity, and how the 45 seconds to collapse warning happens only once the shuttle hits 9.97, with only a general failure warning at 9.9. So that 9.975 "cruise" is - cruise must just mean a speed the ship can go, and not actually sustain. It's not like "max cruise" ever really made sense, let alone it being that high. It's just max speed. The real max cruise is 9.5, and that likely can be sustained.

We can guess that Voyager sustained warp 9.5 for three days, which is the time given for how long it took to find the shuttle. However, we don't know for sure they stayed at that speed the entire time. But, for story writing it's not off the wall, it's a really nice increase over the Enterprise-D's performance.

For the relays, I figure they're just amplifying and re-sending signals to get around an even slower possible comm speed. That fits better with Voyager, although they're so far away it might not have been a speed issue, but a matter of impossibility. A signal, even a subspace one, might simply become too dispersed and scattered over such a huge range. Yet, that was not an issue in "Where no Man" so the only different element is the material of the Milky Way getting in the way.

Otherwise, the slightly lower "Where no Man" figure would be suitable, for communication, and relays would be pointless. Then again, everyone wants a slightly faster communication method.

The MIDAS array uses hypersubspace? I don't remember that, just the use of a microscopic wormhole to send a normal subspace signal to Voyager's general area. And, yeah, it is a great advancement. Every planet could have it's own MIDAS arrays, and the subspace relay network could be scrapped. It's faster, more secure, and has superior range.

Indeed, even with an instant warp drive, like the coaxial warp drive, it would take thousands of years to explore every star, let alone every planet in the Milky Way.

I was just thinking about this since I am writing my own Trek novel set in the late 24th century, and don't want to necessarily resort to Slipstream, but rather showcase the evolution of existing technology.

I think I understand. Star Trek has a particular lack of revolutionary, status quo upsetting technological shifts. If you go with Quantum Slipstream, then it's like a cheat. The Federation didn't break the status themselves, it was, in a way, handed to them.

That being said, I would actually just go with the Quantum Slipstream. It may be obvious, but for good reason, it's the only faster-than-warp method which worked for Voyager. The garbage with it shaking the ship apart is just that, garbage. They could have run the engine in bursts and made it home just fine. But, I had an idea that a purposefully built ship could withstand the hull stresses even if the right computers and sensors could not be made. A nice brute force solution to an elegant problem.

One alternative is the coaxial warp drive. That one can be come about honestly because, as weird as it is, Tom Paris was able to repair an alien coaxial warp drive with ease. He had studied some theory, and said Starfleet had worked on one, I think, but didn't get it working. So, have it so he returns home, and builds his own functioning coax-warp drive. It is enormous game changer. Even combat would have to be radically altered with an engine like that, not just because of the ships, but imagine torpedoes armed with the drive just appearing inside anything desired. Also, I vaguely remember the drive being capable of destroying the universe, but you could hand wave that away as flawed theory.

Option three, B'Elanna and 7 of 9 get Borg Transwarp working. Voyager stole several Borg transwarp coils, although they burned out with each use, they traveled the transwarp network once too. Also, in "Threshold" Tom Paris' version of transwarp drive worked, after a fashion. All together there should be enough smarts and knowledge to make a working three mode Borg style transwarp drive. They have three modes because first in TNG it was possible to open a Borg conduit with an encoded signal from the deflector. Second, Voyager and the Detal Flyer could fly where ever they liked while in possession of a transwarp coil. Third, the transparent network in "End Game." Okay, maybe that's really two parts, but you get it.

Taken together the idea ships can dig conduits with the transwarp coil, sustain them through use, or open them with a code and not bother using the coil again. Lastly, an important conduit can be sustained with a series of internal gates and an external gate. It allows for the bigger set of changes, except for coaxial warp.

when their 'maximum sustainable warp velocity of 9.975' was mentioned on-screen several times

That might be Voyager's best possible speed under ideal conditions.

Ideal conditions which would include main engineering being managed by a seasoned chief engineer with the latest certifications, and not a academy drop out with a few years experience on a medium sized raider

Somehow B'Elanna got the position of chief engineer over the guy actually next in line for the position. She must be good, but I don't remember.

It was only season 2, but even by that point maybe the ship had too much engine wear to sustain proper maximum settings?

 

[Deks]

It was mentioned in one of the episodes that the engines sustained a lot of damage from combat situations the crew found themselves in (hence why they were looking for pure poliferanide).
And even by the end of the episode in question, they only got a smaller supply of the stuff, so they couldn't repair their engines in full.

The MIDAS array was mentioned to be based on hyper-subspace technology.
A micro-singularity was used to bounce the signal and contact Voyager in real time (over a distance of about 30 000 LY's for a limited duration in 'Author Author').
Prior to that, SF used a cyclic pulsar to amplify signals from the MIDAS array, but the cycle only peaked every thirty two days (hence them getting status messages and reports, tactical updates, etc. once a month).

By season 7, Voyager was able to communicate with SF effortlessly (no limitations) over a distance of 16 000 light years - which isn't bad at all (considering that this would likely encompass a spherical radius).


As for warp... I came up with the baseline of using Warp 9.9 as being 21473 times LS, and past that point, every incremental increase doubles the speed.

Since my story is taking place in the late 2380-ies... it is not a stretch to think that most SF ships would be able to maintain 9.9 as a new standard in speed by then, and anything past that with some difficulty/limitations.

 

[Go-Captain]

Keep in mind, the Prometheus class is able to cruise at warp 9.9 without issue. At that speed it is stated nothing else can catch it, which implies the Intrepid class cannot cruise at that speed, just like in "Threshold." It is also stated to be the fastest ship in the fleet, which means it has to be at least faster than Voyager's maximum warp speed of Warp 9.975, which is why we usually see the non-canon warp 9.99 applied.

Star Trek: Ships of the Line has given the Sovereign class a top warp factor of 9.995. If one were to go with that factor, it could be assumed Prometheus upgrades were applied to the Sovereign, and other ships, and they made the Sovereign faster than the Prometheus; or, upgrades were applied, but the Prometheus still ended up faster thanks to a naturally faster hull form, as in the warp 9.99 figure is lower than what the Prometheus can sustain for just a day, or just a few seconds.

So, yeah, over all warp 9.9 as a standard cruise speed is not out of the question especially since the Enterprise-D can hold warp 8.2 indefinitely.

 

[Deks]

Yes, I am aware of that.
Since Voyager got back to the Federation in 2378, it stands to reason that 5 to 10 years later would be more than enough time for most SF ships to cruise at Warp 9.9 or slightly above (say 9.91 or 9.92).

The Prometheus rolled out roughly 3 and a half years after Voyager was launched, so it stands to reason that most ships around that time frame might be compatible in terms of upgrades... though, as we've seen, starship hull design could play a vital role in achieving high warp speeds, but its only 1 factor - there's warp field geometry at play, as are the Structural Integrity Fields, etc. (plus, even the initial problem of Slipstream V1 that damaged Voyager's hull was solved when the much faster V2 was made in Timeless - at which point, only the phase variance was an issue - still, the V2 seemed to allow speeds of 10 000 Ly's per minute - which, incidentally seems to be just a hair slower than my scale of Warp 9.999 (if every incremental increase past 9.9 doubles the speed, and 9.9 = 21473 times LS).

At any rate, setting Warp 9.9 at that rate in the 2380-ies seems reasonable.

 

[Ithekro]

All these 9.99+ factors might warrant a redress of the warp scale with higher numbers than 10. In thing else to make it easier to give commands for specific speeds.

Thus a warp 13 being a speed by the mid-2390s.

 

[Deks]

Could be... but we've only seen the numbers past Warp 10 being used in an alternate timeline that never happened.
Actually, we have a lot of reason to think that the timeline in question was made up entirely by Q, and as such, we have no particular reason to think that SF would necessarily resort to reclassify the Warp scale yet again (they supposedly reclassified it to set Warp 10 as the transwarp threshold in Kirk's time as a result of the Excelsior class tinkering with the technology in question).

I'm ok with them using 9.99 for instance... even 9.999 seems ok for dialogue purpose... or instead of reclassifying the Warp scale with bigger numbers like in TOS, they simply make up a different term to use for allowing higher speeds without using higher numbers that invalidate Warp 10 as the Transwarp threshold (infinite speed) - such as "take us 2 increments past 9.9".
But to be honest, how could SF captains calculate the necessary speeds with different Warp values so quickly?
They aren't computers... and even if they know the Warp scale by heart, calculating how much time it takes to get to a location in an appreciable amount of time would still take time - at which point it would be easier to consult the computers (which is possible the captains do).

Also, I see no reason as to why 'Threshold' was kicked out of canon. If Paris was occupying all points in the universe simultaneously, he could have found himself interacting with parts of the universe (or multiple parts at the same time) that could have turned him into a salamander (and not travelling at infinite speed by itself) - which doesn't sound as strange, considering that SF ships encountered anomalies that affected the crews both physically and mentally.

This would be like getting a hefty exposure from literally trillions upon trillions of different unidentifiable things in the universe at the same time.

 

[MacLeod]

Whilst we don't know the warp factor used in TMP we are told the ENT could have Mr. Spock back on Vulcan in four days. As vulcan is ~16ly from Earth these gives us a travel time of 4ly per day or 1460ly/year.

 

[Deks]

Indeed, which begs the question why would late 24th century Warp drive be so frigging slow, except to keep Voyager in the Delta Quadrant longer?

By the late 24th century, the Federation would realistically be cruising at Warp 9.975 (my scale) and top out at 9.999 (10 000 Ly's per minute) - considering massive advances via computerized research and development, and how machines are far superior to Humanoids at doing anything (I never sat well with the idea that biological organism is capable of acting as a universal translator - aka Arturis - while computers that operate at faster than light and use highly adaptive software are millions of times less efficient? - seriously, the writers knew nothing on how to approach technology properly).

Too much emphasis on manual labour as opposed to automation in Trek - the Federation was initially portrayed as very open to these things, and besides, space is dangerous.
Why leave the work to organics when a proverbial verbal interface of a computer that runs at FTL can easily outclass anything and do research real time?

If they were to automate their R&D, with the database at their disposal... the computer would be making quantum leaps every day.

 

[Go-Captain]

I think Ithekro is right, a redress of the warp scale does make sense. In "All Good Things..." we hear about the Romulans getting gutted by a supernova, and in Star Trek we then hear about the Hobus superdupernova which guts the Romulans. So, things are playing out in similar fashion, showing us it was a true future, even if not thee future. Things can be taken from that reality without being wrong, but because it's not the absolute course it also leaves room to do what ever you like.

A change in the warp scale makes perfect sense in order to avoid the ridiculousness of infinite nines, and has canon backing it. If you want to use the idea.

As for machines being better than humans, that's true in specific tasks. The most likely outcome is for humans and machines to work seamlessly, and aid each other in the ways which they are most capable. There is some writing on the matter, I might be able to find it if I can find the terms.

 

[Deks]

I think Ithekro is right, a redress of the warp scale does make sense. In "All Good Things..." we hear about the Romulans getting gutted by a supernova, and in Star Trek we then hear about the Hobus superdupernova which guts the Romulans. So, things are playing out in similar fashion, showing us it was a true future, even if not thee future. Things can be taken from that reality without being wrong, but because it's not the absolute course it also leaves room to do what ever you like.

Actually, there doesn't appear to be a single mention of a supernova gutting the Romulans in 'All Good Things'.
In that reality, the Klingons have taken over the Romulan empire.
So, not the same thing.

A change in the warp scale makes perfect sense in order to avoid the ridiculousness of infinite nines, and has canon backing it. If you want to use the idea.

For simplicity sake perhaps, but not when you take into consideration that the older scale from TMP that went past Warp 10 was used in a similar fashion that mainly described faster Warp factors and nothing else.
I'm using this as a guideline because it seems like SF decided to put a definitive threshold on what constitutes Warp travel.
Slipstream for instance has its own designations as does Borg Transwarp it would seem - they both use Subspace like Warp, but likely tap into layers of subspace where energy efficiency is greater than with Warp.
Obviously though, if you continue to improve Warp itself, you will likely end up creating more powerful energy sources, etc.
And since SF likes versatility in practical application, it stands to reason that Warp would continue to be used and improved upon alongside the newly brought back Slisptream.

As for machines being better than humans, that's true in specific tasks. The most likely outcome is for humans and machines to work seamlessly, and aid each other in the ways which they are most capable. There is some writing on the matter, I might be able to find it if I can find the terms.

There are increasing examples of how technology is destroying more jobs than what it creates.
Mind you, back in the 1970-ies, we already had the ability to lower the work week to 10 hours, but we never did due to the outdated notion that you have to put in 40 hours, and of course that the current socio-economic system uses technology not to liberate humans, but to further serve the profit/cost efficiency motive.
Namely, more and more work is delegated to the few people who are left in jobs (resulting in longer working hours and same pay), while everyone else are laid off and left to fend for themselves.

In the Federation, money doesn't exist, and people pursue higher interests of their own volition free of artificial constrictions of 'money'.
We can also do this in real life, but most of the populace is still too entrenched in the monetary system to even initiate a transition into a resource based economy.

That said, there's an increasing buzz about universal basic income (which is being used in several Dutch cities) - which could serve as a 'transition' into RBE.

Anyway... I'm getting side-tracked a bit.

Point is that in the novel, it would be indeed more akin to humans/humanoids working together with technology, but most of the grunt work is delegated to machinery/automation (though humanoids would still retain training in all tasks for emergency situations - because, it would be sensible to encourage this kind of training via say gamification that would make it seem that much easier to learn/retain).

I kinda like the idea of using Warp 10 as the 'infinite speed' - meaning that the Warp scale past 9.9 is used for Warp only and incremental increase is retained.

While other propulsion technologies like slipstream and space folding (the second one being more than viable considering it was just 'dropped' out of canon and never spoken about again after that 1 episode) would likely have their own designations.

 

[Timo]

I don't quite see why it should be considered undesirable that starships at times go really fast and at other times go really slow. That's a feature of Star Trek, not a bug.

Today, a naval vessel would be able to do speed X in a cinch, but would have to slow down to perhaps 50% of X when wanting to travel long distances. But that's not how Star Trek is supposed to work. High speed is not just twice the best sustainable cruising speed: it's supposedly thousands if not millions of times faster than the safe velocities.

That's a science fiction concept, which doesn't mean it should be an objectionable one. Linear phenomena are no more "natural" than exponential ones in nature or engineering. And it's great for drama: every speed is possible, and it's just up to the heroic captain to choose the risk level of his or her preference. We follow those few captains who live to tell about choosing high risk, but there might just as well be fifteen TOS starship COs who never returned to port after commanding the helmsman to exceed warp 8.

In this environment, with these givens, it only follows that a journey of 75 years would necessarily be much, much shorter than 75 journeys of 1 year length. Or, iconversely, covering 1000 ly might and ought to take a year in a ship that can cover 50 ly in an hour.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Deks]

I don't quite see why it should be considered undesirable that starships at times go really fast and at other times go really slow. That's a feature of Star Trek, not a bug.

With due respect Timo, that seems more like the writers didn't want to bother most of the time with whipping out the calculator for a few minutes and write the plot around it. At any rate, it introduces a viable consistency for Warp 9.9 to be 21473 times LS.

And, while I agree there are regions of space where Warp travel is not possible due to damage to subspace or other phenomena that keep the ship still while the Warp drive was seemingly engaged, those regions of space have definitive anomalies, and do not appear as a constant throughout majority of space.

Today, a naval vessel would be able to do speed X in a cinch, but would have to slow down to perhaps 50% of X when wanting to travel long distances. But that's not how Star Trek is supposed to work. High speed is not just twice the best sustainable cruising speed: it's supposedly thousands if not millions of times faster than the safe velocities.

Naval ships aren't star-ships... the analogy simply doesn't compare. Even Picard was looking at Vaughn (the 20th century capitalist) who compared the Enterprise to a naval ship very dismissively - as in 'did he just actually tried to do that'?
Point is, the technologies aren't the same, ergo they don't really operate the same. There might be a few dis-paring similarities, but that's mainly because Humans latch onto what seems to be 'familiar' or closest to what they know (doesn't mean it would be anywhere near as accurate though).

Besides, do we have a reference to this from on-screen sources?
Namely, we've usually seen doubling (exponential) rise in speeds the closer you get to Warp 9.9 for example (say from 9.5 to 9.7 or 9.8)... and it was at least theoretically explained that past that point, every increment results in doubling of speed.

Plus, 'the best sustainable cruising speed' often seems to be mentioned, but varies a lot from ship to ship.
This is not surprising, but if Voyager was stated repeatedly to be able to sustain a maximum cruising speed of Warp 9.975, then it stands to reason that this would mean the ship would be able to sustain these velocities indefinitely (or for as long as they have the anti-matter to run it).
Given all that we do know about their technology, it is excusable for Voyager to be unable to repair all the damage to the engines and hull from being pulled into the DQ by the Caretaker, and subsequent attacks from the Kazon and other races.
Past that point however, it doesn't make sense for the ship to be unable to sustain 9.975 as a cruising speed unless energy generation was a problem (and we know there are ways around that issue that the crew already knew how to handle themselves).

That's a science fiction concept, which doesn't mean it should be an objectionable one. Linear phenomena are no more "natural" than exponential ones in nature or engineering. And it's great for drama: every speed is possible, and it's just up to the heroic captain to choose the risk level of his or her preference. We follow those few captains who live to tell about choosing high risk, but there might just as well be fifteen TOS starship COs who never returned to port after commanding the helmsman to exceed warp 8.

Perhaps, but most SF ships that went missing (at least on-screen) was due to the external force, not an internal technological experiment - though granted, we know very little of just how 'wild' numerous SF captains go when it comes to experimentation.

In this environment, with these givens, it only follows that a journey of 75 years would necessarily be much, much shorter than 75 journeys of 1 year length. Or, iconversely, covering 1000 ly might and ought to take a year in a ship that can cover 50 ly in an hour.

Timo Saloniemi

But the recovery times on SF engines doesn't seem to be long, and it could be easily mitigated with say automated maintenance systems that could also be employed on the go.

That said, I would imagine that covering 50 ly's in an hour and then having to 'rest' for say 2 hours would be more than viable.

It's akin to Voyager encountering Slipstream V1 which allowed 300 ly's to be crossed in 1 hour.
So, keep it on for 30 or 45 mins, cross a significant distance, repair damage to the hull and make significant leaps in hopping.

Same thing could have been done with Slipstream V2 which seemingly allowed 10 000 Ly's to be crossed in 1 minute.
The phase variance problems didn't start until 17 seconds into the flight... meaning that you could fly for 10 seconds and cross 1666.66 light years in that time frame.

V2 slipstream did no discernible damage to the hull (unlike V1), so switching the drive on and off for 10 seconds at a time (and 10 seconds break) would allow you to cross 5000 ly's in 1 minute.

Repeat the process 7 times and you've crossed 35 000 ly's in 7 minutes.

 

[Timo]

With due respect Timo, that seems more like the writers didn't want to bother most of the time with whipping out the calculator for a few minutes and write the plot around it.

Which is why they formulated a premise that doesn't require them to do any of that stuff. And it's a valid premise as such.

if Voyager was stated repeatedly to be able to sustain a maximum cruising speed of Warp 9.975, then it stands to reason that this would mean the ship would be able to sustain these velocities indefinitely

Yes, that's a gigantic goof that I could have let slip if it were limited to "Caretaker". Say, perhaps Stadi stuttered a bit when telepathically sensing what Tom Paris was really thinking - perhaps she meant the ship could sustain warp 9.75 (not contradicted by other eps, and sort of confirmed for the TNG ship already) rather than warp 9.975?

That the writers (or, rather, their tech proofreaders) opted to perpetuate this "sustainable cruise" or "top cruise" nonsense in "Relativity" is just beyond silly, though.

That said, I would imagine that covering 50 ly's in an hour and then having to 'rest' for say 2 hours would be more than viable.

But that should be only for the first five 50 ly hops. After that, there's the extra downtime of 10 hours for repairing the upper port frammistat. And after you have done your first five times five 50 ly legs, you have to add the time to scrub the metaplasmonic conduits, at least two days. And after you do five sets of those, you have to realign the coils.

So it not only mounts up, but grows exponentially. Just like warp speeds...

It's akin to Voyager encountering Slipstream V1

..A tech they couldn't make heads or tails out of. So they wouldn't just need downtime X after first sortie. They'd need to learn from their mistakes, then attempt the next sortie - then do downtime Y for the thing they got wrong that time around, and then attempt the next sortie. Assuming nobody died yet and the engines weren't destroyed for good.

It's bad enough with regular warp drive. But all the "superhop" technologies they encountered were carefully established to be of the one-off type: something would go badly wrong with them, and risking another attempt just wouldn't be worth it.

That is, save for "Threshold" transwarp, which did not involve any known risks other than the fully reversible effects on the crew. But we could argue transwarp was no good to begin with, as apparently not even Tom Paris could steer. They'd get across 75k lightyears in a jiffy, sure. But they'd just end up stranded a further 75k ly from home, in a random direction!

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Go-Captain]

I found a warp figure in VOY: "Dreadnought." Early in the episode they mention being 10 lightyears from the missile's target. They eventually stop the missile and when it restarts and goes to warp 9 they say it will take 51 hours to hit the target planet.

I have to add, we don't know how much closer they were when they finally shut the missile down. However, the warning to the target planet took very little time, as did the shutdown procedure, only about 6 minutes combined. Assuming they were still 10 light years away is pretty safe. Their warp speed before the shutdown was not mentioned, but I do not think it was warp 9, so they would have covered much less space in that leg of the episode, too.

10 ly / 51 hours works out to 1,718.79 c, if I got the math right.

More impressive is them reading life signs 10 ly away, and in "Workforce" they do a similar feat, scanning all the planets in a 8 ly radius for human life signs, and other life signs of Voyager's crew.

 

[Tim Walker]

I was just thinking about this since I am writing my own Trek novel set in the late 24th century, and don't want to necessarily resort to Slipstream, but rather showcase the evolution of existing technology.

I think I understand. Star Trek has a particular lack of revolutionary, status quo upsetting technological shifts.

That being said, I would actually just go with the Quantum Slipstream. It may be obvious, but for good reason, it's the only faster-than-warp method which worked for Voyager. The garbage with it shaking the ship apart is just that, garbage. They could have run the engine in bursts and made it home just fine.[/QUOTE]The sameness of Trek tech was discussed http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SpaceAgeStasis

 

[Tim Walker]

I think Voyager's slipstream flight was an intriguing example of a "super hop". It seems to be the only type-just barely-within Star Fleet' grasp.

Using Voyager's experience as canon, slipstream would work differently from conventional warp drive. I imagine a slipstream flight as sprint-pause-sprint-pause-sprint-pause.... Another difference, I believe, is that slipstream flight would enable a ship to reach destinations far, far from Federation space.

Conventional warp drive is good for cruising, and useful/reliable for travel in Federation space.