If memory serves, impulse is limited to about 1/4 the speed of light, so somewhere around 16 years if you say a 4ly gap. (which is roughly Sol to Proxima Centauri... can't remember exact distances without looking it up).
The Nitpickers thread - where complaints go to Gre'thor
- Thread starter Charles Phipps
- Start date
If memory serves, impulse is limited to about 1/4 the speed of light, so somewhere around 16 years if you say a 4ly gap. (which is roughly Sol to Proxima Centauri... can't remember exact distances without looking it up).
The Menagerie being the main one, although that showed they had limited range due to fuel concerns.
I get the impression that limitation is a safety protocol due to time dilation rather than any "maximum speed". However almost all shuttles can travel at warp speed - one notable exception being NX01's shuttlepods.
The limitation is only ever suggested in the TNG Tech Manual, to be sure.
So, what's with "sentient doors"? That bit never made sense to me. I mean, the gripe about them being smart. Why shouldn't they be?
Today, we have doors that open when the user is proximal. We've had those for fifty or sixty years now. It's stupid technology, and we could have done much, much better in the 1970s already; done much better on the cheap in the 1980s; and done much better right off the shelf in the 1990s. But there's apparently no user demand for doors that open when the user shows intent to go through. Chiefly because automatic doors are only ever installed in locations serving a great many people, and the individual experience doesn't count.
All it would take is an imaging system and a routine that determines if the observed motion indicates a desire to pass through. No more "opening when you loiter near a door" or "opening when you walk past a door". That's 1970s tech, only it's trivial now.
What Trek can add at its leisure is listening on top of imaging, to fine-tune the routine that decides whether the door should open. Humans are pretty easy to read, and computing power is basically free, even today.
Timo Saloniemi
So, what's with "sentient doors"? That bit never made sense to me. I mean, the gripe about them being smart. Why shouldn't they be?
Today, we have doors that open when the user is proximal. We've had those for fifty or sixty years now. It's stupid technology, and we could have done much, much better in the 1970s already; done much better on the cheap in the 1980s; and done much better right off the shelf in the 1990s. But there's apparently no user demand for doors that open when the user shows intent to go through. Chiefly because automatic doors are only ever installed in locations serving a great many people, and the individual experience doesn't count.
All it would take is an imaging system and a routine that determines if the observed motion indicates a desire to pass through. No more "opening when you loiter near a door" or "opening when you walk past a door". That's 1970s tech, only it's trivial now.
What Trek can add at its leisure is listening on top of imaging, to fine-tune the routine that decides whether the door should open. Humans are pretty easy to read, and computing power is basically free, even today.
Timo Saloniemi
Yup, in Destiny book 1, the damaged Columbia boosts it up to about 0.98c making a 6 month impulse journey take 12 years to everyone else. I don't know if that ration is correct, I assume someone did the maths.
There are so many more uses than just that.
Drip something painful into their eyes. Force them to watch something highly disturbing. Or simply prevent them from blinking for a long time so their eyes don't get enough moisture, etc., etc. Just use your imagination.
Kor
There's actually a mission propasal to NASA that has to take relativistic speed into account so we actually have a benchmark on something like a impulse trip to another star.
Prof Heidi Fearn's NIAC propoal is for a Mach Effect Thruster to Proxima Centauri. Factoring dilation and accleration/deceleration it should take 25 years:
reference: http://ssi.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/SSI_NIAC2017_Slides.pdf
Prof Heidi Fearn's NIAC propoal is for a Mach Effect Thruster to Proxima Centauri. Factoring dilation and accleration/deceleration it should take 25 years:
reference: http://ssi.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/SSI_NIAC2017_Slides.pdf
It wasn't a gripe, but a joke.
Are you a sentient doors SYMPATHIZER?!
Seriously though, sentient doors is a scary thought.
.98C would make 6 months be about 30 months, or 2.5 years. For 12 years, or a x24 time factor, you'd need a little over 99.9%c
time factor = 1/√(1-(0.999^2))
time factor = 1/√(1-0.998)
time factor = 1/√0.002
time factor = 1/0.04472
time factor = 22.36
elapsed time = 134 months (11.1 years)
The book gave the time elapsed accurately but not the eingineering involved (for probably obvious reasons), other than it being around 0.9 something c close to light. But then they could have upped the speed after the engines proved they would hold.
I know they also suffered radiation issues and other physical problems from prolonged exposure from not having the warp field to protect them.
I know they also suffered radiation issues and other physical problems from prolonged exposure from not having the warp field to protect them.
We're supposedly seeing high relativistic travel in "Best of Both Worlds" and ST:TMP both.
The former has the heroes and the Borg travel from Jupiter to Earth in about half an hour without the benefit of warp drive (or at least we see the Borg at impulse even in scenes of quiet transit, and we really shouldn't think Riker's ship slowed down to impulse for no apparent reason and then again went to insystem warp and then again dropped down to impulse whenever the camera looked his way).
The latter has Kirk do the opposite run in 1.8 hours before "risking" the first-ever use of the ship's warp engines.
The elapsed time is directly from dialogue in both cases. The beeline distance from Earth to Jupiter comes from reality and varies between 35 and 51 lightminutes (although when Earth and Jupiter are on the opposite sides of the Sun, we might also have to add a bit of a detour for safety). So, glossing over the actual planetary positions at the supposed days involved (we don't really even know the year for ST:TMP), Riker is doing almost lightspeed or then better, either in objective terms or in terms of making his subjective trip seem lightning-fast. Kirk is doing about half lightspeed, too.
Timo Saloniemi
The former has the heroes and the Borg travel from Jupiter to Earth in about half an hour without the benefit of warp drive (or at least we see the Borg at impulse even in scenes of quiet transit, and we really shouldn't think Riker's ship slowed down to impulse for no apparent reason and then again went to insystem warp and then again dropped down to impulse whenever the camera looked his way).
The latter has Kirk do the opposite run in 1.8 hours before "risking" the first-ever use of the ship's warp engines.
The elapsed time is directly from dialogue in both cases. The beeline distance from Earth to Jupiter comes from reality and varies between 35 and 51 lightminutes (although when Earth and Jupiter are on the opposite sides of the Sun, we might also have to add a bit of a detour for safety). So, glossing over the actual planetary positions at the supposed days involved (we don't really even know the year for ST:TMP), Riker is doing almost lightspeed or then better, either in objective terms or in terms of making his subjective trip seem lightning-fast. Kirk is doing about half lightspeed, too.
Timo Saloniemi
Swearing in Trek.
con
The Borg ship went past Saturn, mars and earth on the way from wolf 359. That kind of direct alignment seems unlikely. I suspect that there are actually "subspace lanes" that allow safe warp traffic between relatively large bodies, but you have to drop to space-normal when you get too close.
In Trek 4 of course you can go to warp in earths atmosphere, in 5 and 7 you can warp away from a planets orbit, in TNG episode with Ira faces you can warp in and out of a planets orbit in a few seconds.
The Borg ship went past Saturn, mars and earth on the way from wolf 359. That kind of direct alignment seems unlikely. I suspect that there are actually "subspace lanes" that allow safe warp traffic between relatively large bodies, but you have to drop to space-normal when you get too close.
In Trek 4 of course you can go to warp in earths atmosphere, in 5 and 7 you can warp away from a planets orbit, in TNG episode with Ira faces you can warp in and out of a planets orbit in a few seconds.
That's not how acceleration in space works.
Oh, the Borg had an excuse all right - they stopped to pick a fight at every planet! That is, we explicitly know they did this at Jupiter and Mars, and the Saturn flyby at impulse might imply they did it there, too.
(I think it was Picard's doing: by convincing the Borg that attacking any and all Starfleet assets and automated comet-cleaning buoys and whatnot before proceeding to Earth was good tactics, he bought time for salvation.)
It's just that Riker, too, explicitly goes to impulse, and then proceeds to Earth at what must be relativistic pace, in time quite possibly foreshortened by Einstein. He's not stopping for the sights, and he's not taking detours to Mars as far as we can tell.
Indeed, Star Trek does not feature the concept that it would be difficult to go to warp, jump, phase or otherwise do FTL near astronomical objects. The Discovery effortlessly goes to warp right above a big O-type star, too.
Timo Saloniemi
If you want to do that, that's fine. Some of us like to attempt to rationalise things, both internally and externally. The "consistency doesn't matter" mantra is tiring. Trek isn't hard sci-fi, but it isn't fantasy. It has rules, and has internal technology that allows it to break physical laws (Heisenberg compensator, warp drive, etc).
With standard rocket propulsion, yes. Star Trek's impulse engines don't seem to follow Newtonian physics.
Thrusters might, but Impulse engines seem to be another handwavium type propulsion separate to (or related to, in some way) Warp Drive.
Last edited:
