In my headcanon, the Excelsior was the turning point. Its "transwarp drive" was basically the first of the kind of warp drives using the new warp scale. Rather than a failure, as suggested by the licensed reference books, it was successful and became standard for Starfleet.
Warp Speed Scale Change
- Thread starter garak1
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In my headcanon, the Excelsior was the turning point. Its "transwarp drive" was basically the first of the kind of warp drives using the new warp scale. Rather than a failure, as suggested by the licensed reference books, it was successful and became standard for Starfleet.
I would think Excelsior didn't work as expected, but still worked. It wasn't faster than what USS Enterprise had achieved in TOS, but is became more efficient and the warp power curve was redefined by the Excelsior's engine design. It could sustain the high dangerous speeds achieved by USS Enterprise, but not really surpass them. The old Warp Factor 14.1 record achieved by Enterprise becoming a very high Warp 9.9
Just before Christmas Break I managed to complete the (infuriatingly long!) pilgrimage to Sagitarius-A in "Elite Dangerous." Assuming that Sag-A is the "center of the galaxy" in the sense that the supermassive black hole there is close to if not exactly AT the barrycenter of the milky way, the fact is the galaxy is a very BIG place, and "the center of the galaxy" could simply refer to the galaxy's inner core. That' would describe a region almost 5,000 light years in diameter, which contains literally MILLIONS of stars.
In ED, those stars are packed so closely together that Sag-A has like fifteen different stars all within 3 light years distance. Outside of the supermassive black hole and the immense event horizon, the system ITSELF is enormous and full of scary shit.
tl;dr: space is BIG. "The Center of the Galaxy" is also a very BIG place. And "the great barrier at the center of the galaxy" could simply describe one incredibly weird feature in the center that nobody (even Enterprise) has ever been able to penetrate. It's probably very similar to the great barrier at the EDGE of the galaxy, considering what was waiting for them on the other side of it.
This thread:
http://www.trekbbs.com/threads/time-and-space-in-the-motion-picture.285569/#post-11869989
discusses a possible warp scale change by The Motion Picture.
Are you Briitsh? The central core of the galaxy does contain "literally MILLIONS of stars". Considering that the entire galaxy contains hundreds of billions of stars i would guess that the central core of the galaxy does contain "literally [thousands or tens of thousands of] MILLIONS of stars". So It it seems you use typical British understatement.
IMHO "the center of the galaxy" in "Magicks of Megas-Tu" and Star Trek V:The Final Frontier could refer to the central plane of the galaxy. The galactic disc has a diameter of 100,000 light years or so. And of course there is a mathematical central plane of the galactic disc even though it is just empty space with no physical objects there - except for stars, clusters, nebulae, etc. passing through it all the time.
And possibly "the center of the galaxy" in "Magicks of Megas-Tu" and Star Trek V:The Final Frontier could refer to to places in the central plane of the galactic disc fairly close to Earth. In one place long range scans indicate strange activity as in "Magicks of Megas-Tu" and in another place there is a force field, "the Great Barrier", surrounding one or more solar systems in Star Trek V:The Final Frontier.
A second possibility:
Maybe the future English of Kirk's era has a word for a region of the galaxy. And sometimes when people use that word in future English it is translated into 20th century English as "galaxy" by mistake because 20th century English doesn't have a word for it.
So Megas-Tu and The Great Barrier" could be close to each other in the center of the local galactic region and fairly close to Earth. And they might have been described as being at the center of the "galreg", a future word coined from the phrase "galactic region", for example, and "galreg" might have been wrongly translated into contemporary English as galaxy.
A third possibility:
The Script for Star Trek V: The Final Frontier begins with:
So this claims "the center of the galaxy" actually is the center of the galaxy.
http://www.st-minutiae.com/resources/scripts/tff.txt
And this does seem like the center of the galaxy.
So maybe in the triple neutral zone near Nimbus III there was a stable wormhole that went to the central region of the galaxy. And ships sometimes went through it to explore the region. But none of the ships dared to enter the Great barrier and none of their probes sent into the Great Barrier ever came back.
And after Star Trek V:The Final Frontier someone may have decided to destroy the mouth of the wormhole near Nimbus III to prevent anyone else from trying to free the evil entity. Or maybe the evil entity may have moved that mouth of the wormhole thousands of light years away from Nimbus III in the hope that people in that region of space had not been warned about him.
And by the time of TNG wormhole experts may have dismissed the idea that there was ever a stable wormhole between Nimbus III and the center of the Galaxy, considering it just another exaggerated legend about Kirk.
http://www.trekbbs.com/threads/time-and-space-in-the-motion-picture.285569/#post-11869989
discusses a possible warp scale change by The Motion Picture.
Are you Briitsh? The central core of the galaxy does contain "literally MILLIONS of stars". Considering that the entire galaxy contains hundreds of billions of stars i would guess that the central core of the galaxy does contain "literally [thousands or tens of thousands of] MILLIONS of stars". So It it seems you use typical British understatement.
IMHO "the center of the galaxy" in "Magicks of Megas-Tu" and Star Trek V:The Final Frontier could refer to the central plane of the galaxy. The galactic disc has a diameter of 100,000 light years or so. And of course there is a mathematical central plane of the galactic disc even though it is just empty space with no physical objects there - except for stars, clusters, nebulae, etc. passing through it all the time.
And possibly "the center of the galaxy" in "Magicks of Megas-Tu" and Star Trek V:The Final Frontier could refer to to places in the central plane of the galactic disc fairly close to Earth. In one place long range scans indicate strange activity as in "Magicks of Megas-Tu" and in another place there is a force field, "the Great Barrier", surrounding one or more solar systems in Star Trek V:The Final Frontier.
A second possibility:
Maybe the future English of Kirk's era has a word for a region of the galaxy. And sometimes when people use that word in future English it is translated into 20th century English as "galaxy" by mistake because 20th century English doesn't have a word for it.
So Megas-Tu and The Great Barrier" could be close to each other in the center of the local galactic region and fairly close to Earth. And they might have been described as being at the center of the "galreg", a future word coined from the phrase "galactic region", for example, and "galreg" might have been wrongly translated into contemporary English as galaxy.
A third possibility:
The Script for Star Trek V: The Final Frontier begins with:
So this claims "the center of the galaxy" actually is the center of the galaxy.
http://www.st-minutiae.com/resources/scripts/tff.txt
And this does seem like the center of the galaxy.
So maybe in the triple neutral zone near Nimbus III there was a stable wormhole that went to the central region of the galaxy. And ships sometimes went through it to explore the region. But none of the ships dared to enter the Great barrier and none of their probes sent into the Great Barrier ever came back.
And after Star Trek V:The Final Frontier someone may have decided to destroy the mouth of the wormhole near Nimbus III to prevent anyone else from trying to free the evil entity. Or maybe the evil entity may have moved that mouth of the wormhole thousands of light years away from Nimbus III in the hope that people in that region of space had not been warned about him.
And by the time of TNG wormhole experts may have dismissed the idea that there was ever a stable wormhole between Nimbus III and the center of the Galaxy, considering it just another exaggerated legend about Kirk.
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Why do people keep asking me that lately?
Oh THAT'S why
Or maybe starships in the TOS era are just a lot faster than they are in TNG for some reason?
Aside from VOY Threshold (which ought to be banned from the canon for at least a half dozen reasons not involving the warp scale), where else is it stated that Warp 10 = infinity?
Remove that one episode, and you could probably eliminate the whole idea of a rescale in the first place.
Remove that one episode, and you could probably eliminate the whole idea of a rescale in the first place.
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Why do people keep asking me that lately?
Oh THAT'S why
Or maybe starships in the TOS era are just a lot faster than they are in TNG for some reason?
Possibly, but there is this statement from "Flashback":
So Janeway believes that TNG and VOY era ships are twice as fast as ships of the TOS era or the TOS movie era.
And any theory that TOS ships were faster TNG ships has to explain her statement as well as the official warp scales in the two eras and the times when swips traveled as fast as those warp scales and also the times they traveled many times faster than their warp scales.
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The thing is in Voyager's case, Warp 9.975 is roughly twice as fast as Warp 9.8 on the TNG scale and also about twice as fast as Warp Factor 14 on the old TOS scale. The old Constitution-class USS Enterprise's record was likely moving at around 3,000 times the speed of light if one uses the old scales. (which is roughly Warp 9.9 on the newer TNG scale)
The Galaxy-class USS Enterprise can go at a sustained Warp 9.6 for half a day, which on the scales is around 2,000 times the speed of light.
The Galaxy-class USS Enterprise can go at a sustained Warp 9.6 for half a day, which on the scales is around 2,000 times the speed of light.
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That, plus Voyager has NEVER been able to sustain that maximum velocity for any length of time in all the years Voyager was on the air. lf Janeway's "twice as fast" is based on that, then she's wrong either way.
There is no "official" warp scale other than "speed of plot."
Aside from application of the subspace layer (Cochrane) factor, I think the key to the inconsistencies is Warp Field sustainability. Sure, a starship can maintain a high warp speed for several hours if needed, but the risk of burning out its warp coils or other engine damage increases significantly. It will also need significant downtime afterwards, usually at a starship or mobile maintenance vessel (and we know these existed, otherwise Kirk would still be stuck in the same solar system forever, following the events of The Paradise Syndrome).
For Kirk, Picard or pretty much anyone in Starfleet this is not a major problem, since the support network is there and if they can't make it to a Starbase then someone will rescue them eventually.
For Janeway (or any of the other captains where long distance travel is concerned) then the average speed is dramatically reduced compared to that of "mission speed" parameters. This actually bears out in the majority of examples where greater distances are concerned.
For Kirk, Picard or pretty much anyone in Starfleet this is not a major problem, since the support network is there and if they can't make it to a Starbase then someone will rescue them eventually.
For Janeway (or any of the other captains where long distance travel is concerned) then the average speed is dramatically reduced compared to that of "mission speed" parameters. This actually bears out in the majority of examples where greater distances are concerned.
You're talking about the difference between cruising velocity and maximum velocity there, which is fair, but Warp 9.975 was the Intrepid class's cruising velocity, not maximum; it was explicitly meant to be the speed they could sustain indefinitely without risking damage to the engines.
Granted, later episodes did contradict that, which might be chalked up to engine damage from other sources besides prolonged warp if you wanted to explain it in-universe. But at least from the start, the Intrepid class was meant to be able to maintain those speeds indefinitely.
Only problem is, this is quoted as "maximum sustainable cruise velocity." Which means it's not even the fastest the ship can go, it's just the fastest it can go for any length of time. Even if it couldn't sustain warp 9.975 for all of the six years it would need to to fly back to Earth, it would still be able to make it home inside of 20 years just by dialing that back a bit to warp 9.9.
But the 70 year trip sees Voyager cruising at just a hair faster than warp 8. That's already less than half the velocity for its "maximum sustainable cruise."
Unless, of course, this is simply the earliest example of word-salad technobabble on Voyager and what Stadi MEANS to say is "maximum possible warp velocity before the engines explode."
That's the way I've always viewed it. Warp 9.975 is the fastest speed the Voyager can sustain for an unspecified period of time before the engines go critical. It's for short emergency trips, IMO.
Isn't this also assuming a consistency to the warp factor formulas that was never actually there? Really, it's because the equations are bunk that the writers didn't feel any sort of requirement to abide by, and for good reason, since stuff like that shouldn't get in the way of story. Even on a well-written series that sort of stuff should be suggestions at best, let alone on Voyager where they'd rather make stuff up than even try to stick to a consistent framework or listen to advisors.
Not that I have any problem with re-interpreting like that, but if you're going to do that, why not just say that she said "sustainable cruise velocity of warp 8"? Changing a single value rather than 3 words is more efficient overall anyway, and they're both equally valid choices the way I see it; the writers put about the same amount of thought into either part of the line.
It's worth remembering that both instances of the fabled "Warp Factor 9.975" being quoted were before Voyager set off for the badlands. However, we never saw Voyager fly anywhere near this speed (the closest was in Threshold at Warp 9.9, for mere seconds)
Maybe she had on board a newfangled experimental drive system that was supposed to offer this fantastic cruising speed but never quite worked as expected? Then again, this is the same Starfleet who launched a "Warp 5 starship" which had never actually flown that speed!
Actually, I think that's nearer the mark than you suggest, based on the the fact that Voyager didn't achieve anywhere near the speeds she would need to in order to make it home in 75 years. If we discount the various leaps and shortcuts that Voyager made use of during her journey and focus only on terrain she managed to cross under normal power, then they averaged only 400 light years on an annual basis.
A crucial damaged-beyond-repair component (like the one I mentioned earlier!) would help explain why Voyager was making such abysmal progress
9.975 could be the " fresh out of drydock" trial speed that (operationally) they will never hit. Ships in the real world are specced similarly. Enterprise CVN-65 might have been able to hit 33 knots out of the yard, but was normally limited to about 30kts due to hull fouling and other considerations. All of the apocryphal material stated the 1701-D had a max speed of 9.8, but the top cited speed in the series (barring outside influence) was 9.6 and that was considered redlining it. Normal max was roughly 9.
Also, as has been shown several times, high warp comes with commensurate downtime. Voyager might cruise at 9.9+, but once you factor in stoppages and maintenance cycles the Average speed plummets. Indeed, over a long enough distance it may simply make more sense to cruise at a lower speed because you'd need less downtime as a % of travel time.
Alternatively, you can dismiss the line as the script writers using "sustained speed" inappropriately. Pick whichever option clarifies your head canon.
But again, "Maximum sustainable cruise velocity" is a different thing from "maximum possible velocity." It's like when you say an F-22 can supercruise at Mach 1.3; that doesn't mean "can hit Mach 1.3 in a dive." Doesn't mean "Can MAYBE reach Mach 1.3 fresh off the assembly line." That doesn't even mean "Can theoretically reach mach 1.3 on full afterburner." That literally means "Can sustain mach 1.3 in level flight with no afterburner."
Maybe she MEANT that that was Voyager's theoretical maximum velocity, under ideal conditions, with the engine in perfect working order, for short bursts in emergencies or with regular maintenance between attempts. But that's not what she SAID.
Which is what is meant by "cruising velocity." It's a level of output that a ship's engines can produce without unduly stressing their components in the process. Most ships can travel much faster than that, but doing so taxes the engines.
So to say that is your "maximums sustainable cruising velocity" means it's the highest velocity you ca reach that DOESN'T come with commensurate downtime.
That's the only workable solution. Stadi is thinking of two completely different stats and conflating them in her head. From experience we see that Voyager's maximum SUSTAINABLE velocity is in the neighborhood of warp 8, which explains the "70 year trip" they are constantly whining about. 9.975 must be the highest velocity they can reach in a short burst (say, 3 to 5 minutes) without blowing themselves up.
Nope. "Max sustainable speed" isn't even a thing in aviation. If you're talking about level speeds, the F-22 actually has 5 of those. Mach 1.7 is the max speed it can (usually) maintain without afterburners. Its not a "sustained" speed, because the aircraft will speed up as the fuel burns so long as the throttle is pushed forward to the detent.
However, Mach 1.5 is the fastest speed it maintains operationally because the fuel burn is so much higher at 1.7 than 1.5 that it isn't worth it. There's also range maximizing speed (M0.9) and endurance maximizing speed (M0.7).
There's also structural / thermal limits, which are dependent on altitude, and speeds associated with them as well. The max speed in afterburner would be governed by these limits, as the F-22 has excess wet thrust at all altitudes, aside from (maybe) above 60K.
Pilots are more concerned about keeping approach speeds and holding the range maximizing speed (Vc) than Vmin (stall speed) or VMax.
There *is* a max sustained climb rate and a sustained turn rate. I couldn't tell you what this is on the F-22, as it's still classified.
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It is for starships, which is what we are discussing here. "Supercruise" is a similar concept for aircraft and is related to the concept of "cruise" which is ALSO a thing in aviation.
"Supercruise" is concept that relates to the F-22's ability to maintain supersonic velocity in level flight without the use of an afterburner; the fact that it is able to do this for almost its entire flight range is implied in the definition of the term, but is not necessarily a factor (although I can't think of a scenario where it wouldn't be). So when someone tells you "the F-22 can supercruise at up to Mach 1.7" then that means the F-22 can travel at Mach 1.7 without an afterburner. If, on the other hand, an F-22 pilot comes back from a seven year deployment and tells you "Even on full afterburner the thing can barely hit Mach 1" then you know the first person was probably full of it.
In Voyager's case, "maximum sustainable cruising velocity" is one of those terms that has a specific definition, but it doesn't appear to be the one Stadi is alluding to.
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