Warp Drive Withering?

[Defiler-Of-Redshirts]

To me it just sounds like gibberish. A slipstream is a wake of rapidly moving fluid pulled along behind a fast-moving object in a fluid. Slipstreaming as a form of travel refers to following in the wake of such an object to take advantage of that speed boost and reduce the work you need to do to travel. So what is a ship in quantum slipstream drive following behind? And what does the "quantum" part mean? There's a tendency in fiction to stick "quantum" onto everything to make it sound mysterious and advanced, but it's a term that has a specific meaning that usually applies on a microscopic scale rather than a macroscopic one. Okay, maybe it's based in quantum gravity, the elusive unification of relativity and quantum physics, but I doubt the showrunners thought it through that carefully.

(And Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda's use of the term "slipstream drive" doesn't make any more sense, since that was based on riding cosmic-string connections between massive particle ensembles.)

Because it also happens to be one of those technobabble terms that's simply fun to say. I think you're taking the term a little too seriously.

 

[Defiler-Of-Redshirts]

P.S. Also no matter what term you call it, that doesn't negate the visual magnificence of the effect itself. I loved the way Voyager and what's-his-name's ship were hurtling down this tunnel of stormy, billowing warp drive effects. While watching, I really felt like I was moving along like a bat out of hell. Again, that's why the episode should have been named "A Game of Velocity," not the bland "Hope and Fear" it was called.

 

[publiusr]

I don't care for the visual effect in those, but I agree, the boom of the ship jumping to warp in the '09 movie was quite powerful, at least through the sound system of the large theater I first saw it in. It was never quite so potent in later viewings.

I'd love to combine the effects. TNG's stretching with TMP/TWOK streaks--hyperspace star field on the viewscreen, etc.

 

[Christopher]

I'd love to combine the effects. TNG's stretching with TMP/TWOK streaks--hyperspace star field on the viewscreen, etc.

Those were both created using the slit-scan technique, where a moving image is exposed onto each single frame to stretch out the image, except that TMP just did it with the lighting effects while TNG did it with the whole ship. It was a very complex and time-consuming effect, which is why TNG only ever used the same three warp-entry shots that ILM filmed for the pilot. The only other warp-stretch shot they ever did was in "Where No One Has Gone Before," in a full-profile shot of the ship so it was easier to just stretch the 2D image horizontally.

 

[Galileo7]

My favourite is the ST'09/ID effect, in cinema. The deep, thundering boom as a ship vanished or appeared, and a blue hyperspace effect while at warp making a clear difference between it and sublight. Disco is doing a TV version (obviously not as spectacular, but they're trying) so I'm happy.

Any version of warp speed which features stars fluttering past the ship like dust motes causes me physical pain.

Agree.

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