Warp Drive in Star Trek XI

[Mike DiCenso]

Okay, time for another technological assessment! We've been discussing the apparently unusually fast transit time for the E-Alt from Earth to Vulcan as on the way back once Kirk takes command of the ship.

Since this is not a total reboot, and exists in part in the original continuity up to when the Narada attacks the Kelvin in the 2230's, this means that what was established in ST:FC and ST:ENT still by and large is applicable, including stated distances. In ST:ENT's "Home" and "Daedalus", it is established in dialog that Vulcan is a little over 16 light years from Earth. The only suitable system that far from Sol is 40 Eridani, which is 16.45 light years.

Given these parameters it is possible to estimate the speed of the E-Alt by plugging that in with the stated 3 minute arrival time once the ship reaches maximum warp, and the prior several minutes, which has a continuous series of events from the time Kirk is smuggled on board the E-Alt by McCoy to when makes his way to the bridge to warn Captain Pike of the trap. A top time of 10 minutes total can be safely assumed, then.

With that, let's take a look at the numbers; 16.5 light years is 6,004 light days. That is the absolute lower limit for the E-Alt's speed given that the events of Kirk getting to the bridge did not require an entire day for him to get there from sick bay. So 6,004 x 24 = 144,102 light hours. If it took an hour, then 144,102c is the ship's speed, but the events occur largely unbroken and with little indication that anything else went on that required Kirk and McCoy to take even that long to get to the bridge. So 60 x 144,102 = 8,646,120 light minutes. So 3 divided into that gives us 2,882,040c on the upper end, while dividing it by 10 minutes gives us 864, 612c on the lower end.

Thus 864,612c is quite reasonable and it fits in well with the Prime-E's "That Which Survives" and "Obsession" speeds of 788,000c.
-Mike

[GStone]

While not a math figure, what were the streaks originally said (at least the last time said) cherankov radiation or mater in space that gets irradiated, caught in the warp field and shot backwards. Before, it was descrete bits that flew past, even if some of them turned into stars. Now, things are like kelidescopish lights flying by with what seems like a ball of light effect ahead of the ship.

Back in ENT, we saw the bits fly past the ship in both pure white and rainbow colors. It's almost as if warp/subspace is being shown as a darkened tunnel you pass through and the streaks that go by are from the lights at the front of the ship, like the ship's headlights.

Was the original Connie built in space or within atmo? I know that this should not have a baring on warp effects, I'm just wondering.

What the visuals inside the warp field remind me of are the versions of warp in the canon that are more tunnel like in structure: the borg's transwarp conduits, the xindi warp drive, arcturus'/voyager's quantum slipstream technology, an imbalanced m/am reactor's consituents.

It would suggest that the Monsterprise is using a form of warp that is more tunnel based than lobes. Hoever, this wouldn't necessarily be out of the question. All the way back to TMP, we see tunnel/wormhole effects are capable with a warp drive. The tunnel effects can be an indication that power is pushed higher than what the drive system would typically handle on its own. This would be done until the rest of the system is able to more precisely control the warping of space with the fields themselves.

This 'transition stage' would use either the deflector or change how the shields and/or nacelles operate. However, Paris did seem like using the deflector was a strange thing. But, they heard that the Dauntless could make the rest of the trip in 3 months and might have been trying to figure out in his head how using the deflector would increase their speed that much.

But, it seems more likely that for him, the idea that using the deflector to do this might have been an odd thing to do. Much like Q jr using the deflector to open a spatial flexure to anywhere.

[Mike DiCenso]

I got back from seeing Trek XI for the second time, and I noticed that the warp drive was not the reason for the sensor issues, it was some kind of unspecified intereferance from the drilling platform that blocked at least partially sensors as well as the transporters and communications.
-Mike

[Mr. Oragahn]

Okay, time for another technological assessment! We've been discussing the apparently unusually fast transit time for the E-Alt from Earth to Vulcan as on the way back once Kirk takes command of the ship.

Since this is not a total reboot, and exists in part in the original continuity up to when the Narada attacks the Kelvin in the 2230's, this means that what was established in ST:FC and ST:ENT still by and large is applicable, including stated distances. In ST:ENT's "Home" and "Daedalus", it is established in dialog that Vulcan is a little over 16 light years from Earth. The only suitable system that far from Sol is 40 Eridani, which is 16.45 light years.

Given these parameters it is possible to estimate the speed of the E-Alt by plugging that in with the stated 3 minute arrival time once the ship reaches maximum warp, and the prior several minutes, which has a continuous series of events from the time Kirk is smuggled on board the E-Alt by McCoy to when makes his way to the bridge to warn Captain Pike of the trap. A top time of 10 minutes total can be safely assumed, then.

With that, let's take a look at the numbers; 16.5 light years is 6,004 light days. That is the absolute lower limit for the E-Alt's speed given that the events of Kirk getting to the bridge did not require an entire day for him to get there from sick bay. So 6,004 x 24 = 144,102 light hours. If it took an hour, then 144,102c is the ship's speed, but the events occur largely unbroken and with little indication that anything else went on that required Kirk and McCoy to take even that long to get to the bridge. So 60 x 144,102 = 8,646,120 light minutes. So 3 divided into that gives us 2,882,040c on the upper end, while dividing it by 10 minutes gives us 864, 612c on the lower end.

Thus 864,612c is quite reasonable and it fits in well with the Prime-E's "That Which Survives" and "Obsession" speeds of 788,000c.
-Mike

So would this be an argument that TNG was a continuation of TOS, but not strictly accurate, and already an alternate universe or something?
Or were the vast bulk of warp speeds in TNG+ in that range?

[Praeothmin]

and I noticed that the warp drive was not the reason for the sensor issues, it was some kind of unspecified intereferance from the drilling platform that blocked at least partially sensors as well as the transporters and communications.

You are right, I had forgotten about this part, and yet it was specifically mentioned at least three times in the movie that Nero's ship could jam long range sensors (they could still sense the weapons locking on the ship), communications and transporters, and none of it was compensated through Technobabble, which was pretty nice...

[Mike DiCenso]

So would this be an argument that TNG was a continuation of TOS, but not strictly accurate, and already an alternate universe or something?
Or were the vast bulk of warp speeds in TNG+ in that range?

It's hard to say. There are three specific examples of warp speed travel in TOS that can be measured in the hundreds of thousands of c, and several more examples that indicate thousands of c. Two examples are already mentioned with the third being the E-Prime's travelling to and from the edge of the galaxy in a matter of months at most in "Where No Man Has Gone Before". We may even include "The Squire of Gothos" since Spock states that the Enterprise has travelled hundreds of light years beyond any previous Federation starship's efforts However in "By Any Other Name" [TOS, season 2], Kirk tells Kelvin leader Rojan that the Enterprise would take "thousands of years" to reach the Andromeda galaxy some 2.5 million light years distant from the Milky Way. This implies that the ship cannot do much more than 1,000c.

TNG, as well as DS9 on the other hand, has many examples of starships that can reach speeds in excess of 35,000c and even as much higher than that: in excess of 1 million c as per epsides such as "Valiant" [DS9, season 6] and "The Chase" [TNG, season 6].
-Mike

[PunkMaister]

So would this be an argument that TNG was a continuation of TOS, but not strictly accurate, and already an alternate universe or something?
Or were the vast bulk of warp speeds in TNG+ in that range?

It's hard to say. There are three specific examples of warp speed travel in TOS that can be measured in the hundreds of thousands of c, and several more examples that indicate thousands of c. Two examples are already mentioned with the third being the E-Prime's travelling to and from the edge of the galaxy in a matter of months at most in "Where No Man Has Gone Before". We may even include "The Squire of Gothos" since Spock states that the Enterprise has travelled hundreds of light years beyond any previous Federation starship's efforts However in "By Any Other Name" [TOS, season 2], Kirk tells Kelvin leader Rojan that the Enterprise would take "thousands of years" to reach the Andromeda galaxy some 2.5 million light years distant from the Milky Way. This implies that the ship cannot do much more than 1,000c.

TNG, as well as DS9 on the other hand, has many examples of starships that can reach speeds in excess of 35,000c and even as much higher than that: in excess of 1 million c as per epsides such as "Valiant" [DS9, season 6] and "The Chase" [TNG, season 6].
-Mike

It's weird at times ST FTL seems at par with SW or other franchises FTL when it comes to speed and sometimes it just comes awfully short!

[Mike DiCenso]

It's called the speed of plot, not necessarily consistancy.
-Mike