So not, strictly speaking, canon?
Warp 13 from "All Good Things"
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So not, strictly speaking, canon?
Just FYI, from the Trek Tech forum FAQ.
2] What source materials will be used in this forum? Because Trek Tech, as a genre, exists as much in the minds of fandom as anything explicated strictly on-screen, a wide variety of sources will be considered worthy of consideration. Since there is a diversity of viewpoints and ideas in play, source citations should be included wherever possible, to allow for an objective analysis of the content of a discussion.
Note, however, that screaming "non-canon!" by itself shouldn't carry extra weight, unless a canonical source contradicts a non-canonical one. The vast majority of what we "know", Treknology-wise, is non-canon, so we merely need to accept that reality. While licensed materials may be given some "preference", it should be noted that none of the licensed materials are free from error, and all have been on-screen contradicted from time to time, so take them for what they are: one way of looking at the Trek Universe. (In short, read Mike and Rick's disclaimers, and take them to heart!)
Point #1 just above that, discusses the two warp scales. It's like FAQ #1 itself!
The FAQ thread: https://www.trekbbs.com/threads/trek-tech-faq.27593/
Just FYI, from the Trek Tech forum FAQ.
Point #1 just above that, discusses the two warp scales. It's like FAQ #1 itself!
The FAQ thread: https://www.trekbbs.com/threads/trek-tech-faq.27593/
Interesting. I have to admit, it hadn't occurred to me to read the FAQ, or that it might allow other considerations other than what it "canon" elsewhere.
So, as to citing sources and canon, if someone pulls out from a dozen tech manuals that impulse drive is sublight, but someone else has the audacity to cite TNG 1x25, Riker: 'Increase to warp 6.' La Forge: 'Aye sir, full impulse,' what is stated onscreen automatically wins? Or no?
Automatic and unconditional victory to what was seen and heard, yeah.
Although if that doesn't please us, we can always plead fallible characters. I mean, what we see ought to be true, within limits: Trek is a visual medium and in the Trek universe we're supposed to be seeing real things, except when those are explicitly an illusion. But what we hear said may be a lie, a joke or a misunderstanding.
(In this case, I prefer to plead the centermost. LaForge is infamous for his bad jokes throughout TNG. The dialogue in this specific case involves jovial banter to begin with. Riker's orders to accelerate stem solely from his desire to escape LaForge's bad jokes and Data's attempts at explaining those to himself. The orders themselves ought to be considered a joke, then - and LaForge's correct response would be to say "Aye, Sir, I will slam the brakes since you told me to get to Pacificia faster because you can't stand my jokes" in a suitably humorous way, with only relatively low odds of him then having to go "Oh, you did mean accelerate? Sorry, Sir, I couldn't have been expected to figure that out, now could I?"
Balance this against TOS "Obsession" where dialogue establishes that impulse engines are completely unnecessary when one wishes to go to high warp. Nothing really explicit there, but trying to fudge that one into giving "full impulse" a role in high warp flight is a bigger chore than deciding that LaForge tells two bad jokes in "Conspiracy", rather than just one.)
Timo Saloniemi
Although if that doesn't please us, we can always plead fallible characters. I mean, what we see ought to be true, within limits: Trek is a visual medium and in the Trek universe we're supposed to be seeing real things, except when those are explicitly an illusion. But what we hear said may be a lie, a joke or a misunderstanding.
(In this case, I prefer to plead the centermost. LaForge is infamous for his bad jokes throughout TNG. The dialogue in this specific case involves jovial banter to begin with. Riker's orders to accelerate stem solely from his desire to escape LaForge's bad jokes and Data's attempts at explaining those to himself. The orders themselves ought to be considered a joke, then - and LaForge's correct response would be to say "Aye, Sir, I will slam the brakes since you told me to get to Pacificia faster because you can't stand my jokes" in a suitably humorous way, with only relatively low odds of him then having to go "Oh, you did mean accelerate? Sorry, Sir, I couldn't have been expected to figure that out, now could I?"
Balance this against TOS "Obsession" where dialogue establishes that impulse engines are completely unnecessary when one wishes to go to high warp. Nothing really explicit there, but trying to fudge that one into giving "full impulse" a role in high warp flight is a bigger chore than deciding that LaForge tells two bad jokes in "Conspiracy", rather than just one.)
Timo Saloniemi
From "The Child."
PICARD: How long will we be on impulse power?
LAFORGE: A couple of hours.
RIKER: Take us out of orbit, Mister Crusher. Set course for 'audet Nine.
WESLEY: Aye, sir. Course for 'audet Nine has been input.
RIKER: Maximum impulse velocity.
The thing here is they are traveling between two star systems, if impulse isn't basically a slower version of FTL, why not just wait the approximately two hours and then go to warp?
Why crawl a short distance at sublight speed for two hours, then zip away at warp?
PICARD: How long will we be on impulse power?
LAFORGE: A couple of hours.
RIKER: Take us out of orbit, Mister Crusher. Set course for 'audet Nine.
WESLEY: Aye, sir. Course for 'audet Nine has been input.
RIKER: Maximum impulse velocity.
The thing here is they are traveling between two star systems, if impulse isn't basically a slower version of FTL, why not just wait the approximately two hours and then go to warp?
Why crawl a short distance at sublight speed for two hours, then zip away at warp?
Saying that impulse is FTL solves nothing there, though - the question then merely becomes "Why did Picard choose slow FTL instead of fast FTL?".
And the storytelling fact is that he did choose slow, for whatever reason. So it ceases to matter how slow, and becomes an issue of "Why slow?".
And there we'd do well to embrace the idea that slow is good, because especially in TNG we see shuttlecraft ferry people to and from planets at what is either stated or shown to be sublight speed, without starstreaks. Why would this be? Because apparently something establishes a speed limit within these star systems, and there's no point in forcing the starship to get stuck there when she can have all sorts of high speed missions while sending a shuttle to cope with the hours of boredom.
Warping within star systems is not categorically wrong. Indeed, it happens more often than not. But when it does not happen, this is a huge deal: say, Riker slows down to impulse in "BoBW II" even though the future of Earth and the Federation is at stake and there's a countdown of minutes ticking off. We never get told why Sol would have been a no-warp zone that fateful day when it never is otherwise. But it was.
I plead weather. Subspace is nasty around Bajor at times, being a plot point in "Invasive Procedures" and "Things Past". At other times, it is not. The same may be true of Earth's neighborhood as well. And of the neighborhood of that unnamed rendezvous spot in "The Child" (an episode directly following "Conspiracy" where Picard took one of those mysterious shuttle rides instead of telling his starship to pick him up, mind you).
Timo Saloniemi
And the storytelling fact is that he did choose slow, for whatever reason. So it ceases to matter how slow, and becomes an issue of "Why slow?".
And there we'd do well to embrace the idea that slow is good, because especially in TNG we see shuttlecraft ferry people to and from planets at what is either stated or shown to be sublight speed, without starstreaks. Why would this be? Because apparently something establishes a speed limit within these star systems, and there's no point in forcing the starship to get stuck there when she can have all sorts of high speed missions while sending a shuttle to cope with the hours of boredom.
Warping within star systems is not categorically wrong. Indeed, it happens more often than not. But when it does not happen, this is a huge deal: say, Riker slows down to impulse in "BoBW II" even though the future of Earth and the Federation is at stake and there's a countdown of minutes ticking off. We never get told why Sol would have been a no-warp zone that fateful day when it never is otherwise. But it was.
I plead weather. Subspace is nasty around Bajor at times, being a plot point in "Invasive Procedures" and "Things Past". At other times, it is not. The same may be true of Earth's neighborhood as well. And of the neighborhood of that unnamed rendezvous spot in "The Child" (an episode directly following "Conspiracy" where Picard took one of those mysterious shuttle rides instead of telling his starship to pick him up, mind you).
Timo Saloniemi
To be fair, Geordi's response makes no sense whatsoever in the context of the show. There are many other episodes that make it clear that warp and impulse are two different things. Laforge is also the guy who once said, "We've got a bogey on a five-o'clock tangent." What the hell does that even mean?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clock_position
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tangent
If the enemy is on your 5 O'Clock area and moving tangentially relative to you, not directly at or away from you.
So the enemy is keeping a distance but moving along that tangential plane at the angle from you assuming your horizontal plane.
It makes sense if you have a good grasp of Dog Fighting in Aerial Combat / Space Combat and Geometry.
Thanks for the info, but my point was more that no one in Star Trek has ever used such nomenclature to describe another ship coming toward you. That’s usually described by bearings (i.e. “243 mark 159,” and such.) And don’t even get me started on “bogey”
The (### mark ###) is good for describing objects going towards or away from you.Thanks for the info, but my point was more that no one in Star Trek has ever used such nomenclature to describe another ship coming toward you. That’s usually described by bearings (i.e. “243 mark 159,” and such.) And don’t even get me started on “bogey”
But if the object is moving around you while maintaining distance, then the O'Clock + Tangential makes more sense in that scenario.
Starfleet officers would be trained to understand "unidentified object at ### mark ### heading ### mark ### warp ###."
They would also be trained to understand Fighter-Pilot lingo since that is very old school.
That's a possibility, but it doesn't "make more sense" as you put it.
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