Warp 1 =/= The Speed of Light, So How Fast Are They Going? (Also Stellar Cartography)

[Kirk-to-Enterprise]

Alpha Centauri, the closest star to Earth, is 4.35 lightyears away. So if Warp 1 = the speed of light, then even travelling at warp 9, it would take over 6 months just to get there.

So yeah, that can't actually be how the warp system works. So how fast are they going? They seem to be able to get wherever they need to in a matter of hours, days at most.

I'd also like to see a map of the alpha quadrant, with all the big major worlds highlighted. But that doesn't exist...right?

 

[Verteron]

Welcome to the board.

It's pretty well established that the Warp scale isn't linear. Warp 9 isn't 9x the speed of Warp 1.

In Kirk's era, it seems that the warp scale is probably the warp factor raised to the third power. So Warp 1 would indeed be 1c, but Warp 8 is 512c, so at max safe speed, Enterprise NCC-1701 could reach Alpha Centauri in 3-4 days, which is still quite a long trip, but not unbelievable given we don't see every minute of every day on screen.

By the time of Picard's era, the Warp scale has changed, and a more complex (and unknown) equation is in play, based on the power required to get to each speed. On this scale, Warp 1 is still 1c, but Warp 10 is infinite speed.

Warp 8 is around 1000c, Warp 9 is around 1500c, Warp 9.6 (Galaxy class original top speed) is approx 1900c, Warp 9.975 (Intrepid class top speed) is around 3000c, so for USS Voyager, a trip to Alpha Centaur would take only 12 hours.

 

[Christopher]

By the time of Picard's era, the Warp scale has changed, and a more complex (and unknown) equation is in play, based on the power required to get to each speed. On this scale, Warp 1 is still 1c, but Warp 10 is infinite speed.

As I recall, from warp 1 to warp 9 it's simply the warp factor to the 10/3 (3.3333...) power, but from warp 9 to 10 it goes up exponentially by an unspecified equation. The tech manual explanation is that integer warp factors represent stable configurations of the interacting warp fields that require less power to maintain than the unstable configurations in between, with power usage curving up between warp factors and then dropping down again, but there are only 9 stable configurations so the curve goes up to infinity after that, hence it being called "warp 10." (The real-life reason, I believe, is that Roddenberry initially wanted a finite limit of warp 10 -- see the mention of passing warp 10 in "Where No One Has Gone Before" -- but it was later retconned as infinite speed, so they invented that convoluted handwave for the terminology.)

Although the stated warp velocities in the tech references are always much slower than the speeds depicted onscreen. The handwave that's mentioned in the tech manuals and such is that the actual warp speed of a given factor varies depending on local spacetime conditions.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

Warp 1 is the speed of light but it doesn't scale linearly. There's a chart in the old TNG technical manual to refer to, but basically warp 8 is a little over 1000c.

 

[Paul Weaver]

Warp speed alone isn’t consistent. Warp 3 in enterprise explicitly did 4 light years in 3 days in “Damage” (let alone the time to get to the Klingon homeworld). In TNG 23 hours at warp 3 would get you 1/10th of a light year.

the problem is stars in reality are too far apart to have a slow warp speed be suitable for the plot, but if you increase the speed then the galaxy becomes too small.

https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Warp_factor

has a list of the different warp speeds vs distance explicitly mentioned, that doesn’t take into account things like travel time from DS9 to Earth etc which are also problematic.

aside from the tedious “speed of plot” explanations, one hypothesis is the idea of “space lanes”, or “local subspace conditions”, where travel distance in some volumes of space is far faster or slower at a given speed than others. There is very little evidence for this on screen though.

 

[Christopher]

the problem is stars in reality are too far apart to have a slow warp speed be suitable for the plot, but if you increase the speed then the galaxy becomes too small.

The thing is, in the original series, interstellar travel was meant to be treated as something that took a fair amount of time, like international travel in the Age of Sail. The TNG Writers' Guide even explicitly warned writers against "treating deep space as a local neighborhood" and telling stories about bouncing easily from system to system. The whole reason it's called Star Trek is because a journey between the stars should be a trek, a major undertaking, not just a casual commute. If you look at TOS/TAS, they only infrequently had episodes where the ship visited two or more different star systems within the same story. Interstellar travel was portrayed as something that took a fair amount of time.

Unfortunately, the modern shows have forgotten that and depict even long interstellar journeys as a matter of hours, days at most. I think modern writers are too accustomed to the jet age when anywhere on Earth is less than a day away.

 

[somebuddyX]

The technical manual used to say something about TNG Warp 9 taking about a day to go 5 lightyears and I always remembered that because in "Scorpion 2" or "The Gift" they say it'll take them 5 days to go 40 light years implying Voyager could do about 8 light years a day.
And then "Broken Bow" came along and it's 3 days to Qon'os at Warp 5. I know warp speeds were already broken between TOS and TNG but come on.
I like this quote from the early TNG notes:
The Warp Drive. This is a faster-than-light drive for our spaceship. Warp speed is measured in warp factors. Warp ten is
the highest warp factor possible. Beyond that time-space continuity is disoperative. Warp factor two is the speed of
light multiplied by the speed of light; it’s the speed of light squared. Warp factor ten is the speed of light multiplied by the
speed of light ten times. The difference between warp 9.4 and warp 9.5 is vastly greater than the difference between warp 1 and warp 2.
Even though they don't really depict that at all, like when the Bird-of-Prey is flying around the sun or when they're trying to outrun the Borg.

 

[publiusr]

I think some here toyed with warp 1 being a bit over light speed.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Speed of plot.

But TOS ships consider blowing up at warp 8.

TNG ships start overheating at warp 9.3

Voyager turns into a salamander at Warp 10.

 

[Paul Weaver]

The technical manual used to say something about TNG Warp 9 taking about a day to go 5 lightyears and I always remembered that because in "Scorpion 2" or "The Gift" they say it'll take them 5 days to go 40 light years implying Voyager could do about 8 light years a day.

Presumably at warp 9.975. That approximate speed actually holds up a few times throughout Voyager (15ly in 2 days in Hope and Fear for example).

Of course Emmenation's and it's half a light year in a few seconds was far more problematic, at that speed you'd be back to Earth in 3 months.

 

[at Quark's]

Then, of course there are those that invoke the 'Cochrane factor' to account for inconsistencies between episodes and series. (E.g. to explain why Qo'nos is only 4 days away from Earth in Broken Bow, with an engine that could reach around warp 4.5 at the time).

The thing is, in the original series, interstellar travel was meant to be treated as something that took a fair amount of time, like international travel in the Age of Sail. The TNG Writers' Guide even explicitly warned writers against "treating deep space as a local neighborhood" and telling stories about bouncing easily from system to system. The whole reason it's called Star Trek is because a journey between the stars should be a trek, a major undertaking, not just a casual commute. If you look at TOS/TAS, they only infrequently had episodes where the ship visited two or more different star systems within the same story. Interstellar travel was portrayed as something that took a fair amount of time.

Unfortunately, the modern shows have forgotten that and depict even long interstellar journeys as a matter of hours, days at most. I think modern writers are too accustomed to the jet age when anywhere on Earth is less than a day away.

I agree. I would expect the following settings:
Pre-Enterprise: Travel to another other star system is a huge deal, an undertaking of years.
Enterprise: Revolutionary warp engine, shortening average interstellar travel time to the order of weeks, making an interstellar 'Starfleet' as we understand it a practical preposition for the first time. But in this era, the engine would still be too slow to visit another star system every other week, except perhaps in areas with an unusually high star density.
TOS era: one adventure per week in another star system seems just about possible.
TNG era: with ships that 'only' have become twice as fast since TOS, about the same setting as in TOS, but with a bit more wriggle room.
Casual starhopping (making the trip in a matter of hours or less) would be something best left to future centuries (and I'm not talking early 25th century but more like 27th century and later), unless of course a revolutionary new technology is developed.

 

[somebuddyX]

The S.S. Yorktown in the original notes had a "maximum velocity .73 of one light year per hour." We saw the TOS Enterprise cross long distances. It gets shoved 500 parsecs in "Arena" and it's no biggie. The film Enterprise continued that, going to the centre of the galaxy and other star systems rapidly. If anything TNG slowed them down.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Deuterium is fuel.

Deuterium is Star farts.

Bussard collectors are star fart vacuums.

Collecting farts in a solar system is most convenient.

But how long does it take a ship to burn through their reserves?

Weeks to days depending on how you abuse the engine.

You can't plot a course to where ever in a straight line.

You got to leap from star to star and huff their farts, or you're dead in space, eventually.

 

[Qonundrum]

The thing is, in the original series, interstellar travel was meant to be treated as something that took a fair amount of time, like international travel in the Age of Sail. The TNG Writers' Guide even explicitly warned writers against "treating deep space as a local neighborhood" and telling stories about bouncing easily from system to system. The whole reason it's called Star Trek is because a journey between the stars should be a trek, a major undertaking, not just a casual commute. If you look at TOS/TAS, they only infrequently had episodes where the ship visited two or more different star systems within the same story. Interstellar travel was portrayed as something that took a fair amount of time.

Unfortunately, the modern shows have forgotten that and depict even long interstellar journeys as a matter of hours, days at most. I think modern writers are too accustomed to the jet age when anywhere on Earth is less than a day away.

^^this

That said, Star Trek V did play "galaxy hopping", literally, in getting from the milky way to the galactic center in a matter of hours. So did 1969's "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield". But those were the exceptions; I still adore the scene in "Where No Man Has Gone Before" discussing that issue regarding the damage to the ship's engine...:

The ship's space warp ability gone. Earth bases which were only days away are now years in the distance. Our overriding question now is what destroyed the Valiant? They lived through the barrier, just as we have. What happened to them after that?

...among other bits of dialogue. TOS had its moments of greatness, the reminder of the dependency of the drive unit is a great one. If not 90 to 95% of the episode.

 

[Christopher]

That said, Star Trek V did play "galaxy hopping", literally, in getting from the milky way to the galactic center in a matter of hours.

Which has always been one of its most annoying aspects. Granted, "The Magicks of Megas-tu" also featured a trip to the galactic center, something that would take decades by TNG-era assumptions, but at least it portrayed it as a long journey that no Starfleet vessel had ever made before, not just a quick hop of 20-odd minutes like in the movie. (Sulu claimed it would take 6.7 hours, but from that scene to their arrival some 20 minutes of screen time later is a continuous narrative with no room for any extended gaps.)

Of course, "Magicks" was also based on the obsolete continuous-creation theory of cosmology, a rival theory of the Big Bang that had already been pretty much debunked when the episode came out and is even more thoroughly debunked today. Plus, of course, Trek has made many subsequent references to the Big Bang. It's the astrophysical equivalent of a story about jungles on Venus or a solid surface on Jupiter. So I consider that entire episode apocryphal.

 

[Guy Gardener]

You're assuming the galactic nucleus surrounded by the great barrier is a tiny nut.

What if barrier has a radius of 20 thousand light years?

 

[Orphalesion]

You're assuming the galactic nucleus surrounded by the great barrier is a tiny nut.

What if barrier has a radius of 20 thousand light years?

It's been a while since I saw that movie, but I think the implication was that they were travelling to a 1980s understanding of the galaxy's core. Same as with the two episodes of TOS where they literally travel to the galactic edge. People like to rationalize by saying that they travelled to the "upper" or "lower" edge of the galaxy, but here to I think the episode implies the lateral edge.

 

[at Quark's]

Warp factors as it relates to plot:

Warp 1: We've just discovered warp propulsion, and testing our prototype!
Warp2: We just need to outrun an explosion/probe, but don't actually want to go anywhere.
Warp 3: Extremely bulky cargo, man.
Warp 4: Shuttlepod speed
Warp 5; Environmentally friendly or mid-22nd century or going to the Admiral's banquet where you don't want to arrive early at any prize
Warp 6: relaxed cruising speed for your average mission
Warp 7: Let's chase the baddie, but not too urgently, after all, there's still 23 minutes of episode left
Warp 8: Things are getting kind of urgent
Warp 9 and higher: Now it's an emergency for real!

 

[C.E. Evans]

All warp factors, including Warp 1, may depend on local stellar and subspace conditions, so they could vary considerably depending on where you are in the Galaxy and what navigational course you set, IMO. You can have two ships set both out from Earth to Qo'noS at Warp 4.5. One ship can get there in several weeks, while the other ship that knows the location of a previously charted "subspace shortcut" can get there in only a few days.

 

[Guy Gardener]

All warp factors, including Warp 1, may depend on local stellar and subspace conditions, so they could vary considerably depending on where you are in the Galaxy and what navigational course you set, IMO. You can have two ships set both out from Earth to Qo'noS at Warp 4.5. One ship can get there in several weeks, while the other ship that knows the location of a previously charted "subspace shortcut" can get there in only a few days.

If that was true then all pf Spock/Data's estimations on travel time were rubbish.


As far as the centre of the Galaxy was concerned, it may have been the centre of mapped space in the Galaxy, where the Klingon, Romulan and Human Maps overlap like a venn diagram, where there's an impenetrable core they all get to, and say "fuck it?".