In TNG, the large shuttlecraft were explicitly warp-capable. Only the smaller shuttlepods were impulse-only.
Can shuttlecrafts go to warp?
- Thread starter The Rock
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In TNG, the large shuttlecraft were explicitly warp-capable. Only the smaller shuttlepods were impulse-only.
Well, nothing explicit about anything there. All sorts of shuttles were said to have traveled to other star systems, but none were ever seen at warp, regardless of type. And only one was ever said to be at warp - the unique shuttle from "Skin of Evil", representing no known type and not even making a very convincing attempt at being one of the known ones. Everything else is implicit at best.
Timo Saloniemi
Timo Saloniemi
I think the dialogue in TNG's Genesis makes it essential that the shuttlecraft come equipped with warp drive:
Without FTL it would take Picard and Data between 2 and 8 years to reach the Enterprise - no wonder it's in such bad shape when they arrive!
Yup, implicit - but that shuttle never generated any warp streaks, nor did any warping happen when the camera was present but pointed away from the windshield. Heck, Picard didn't even get to the "Engage!" part in the dialogue.
Still, it wouldn't be credible to claim that Type 7 or Type 6 would be incapable of warp during TNG... Although the writers occasionally tried, such as in "Q Who?".
Timo Saloniemi
Still, it wouldn't be credible to claim that Type 7 or Type 6 would be incapable of warp during TNG... Although the writers occasionally tried, such as in "Q Who?".
Timo Saloniemi
The one thing that interests me, outside the technological question of whether shuttle can go to warp is, from a story telling perspective should they be able to warp? I can see arguments both ways: shuttles not having warp is a good storytelling limitation from which conflict can be derived when trying to come up with an story idea, and having some kind of limitation helps stave off the question of "why send a ship when you can send a shuttle". On the other hand, having warp makes sense in a way, because otherwise practically speaking journeys would take too long and the shuttle might not be as useful a auxiliary craft (for instance you couldn't use it like Voyager does in The Raven to sneak into hostile territory), which would constrain story telling and if the journey is significant enough also hurt suspension of disbelief. Thoughts, everyone?
Small craft like shuttles not having warp drive could make sense in principle, at least in the TOS era (or before -- Enterprise shuttlepods were impulse-only), but it would've created major storytelling limitations because you couldn't have done episodes like "The Galileo Seven," "The Menagerie," "Metamorphosis," or "...Last Battlefield" that required small craft capable of interstellar journeys.
What would've made it viable was if TOS had been able to build more starship miniatures -- say, if "Charlie X" had had the budget (or the indulgence of Wah Chang to do it for free) to build a miniature for the Antares that could've been recycled later as other Starfleet support vessels, the kind of midsize craft that would be smaller than a capital ship but still capable of FTL travel -- presaging DS9 runabouts, basically.
What would've made it viable was if TOS had been able to build more starship miniatures -- say, if "Charlie X" had had the budget (or the indulgence of Wah Chang to do it for free) to build a miniature for the Antares that could've been recycled later as other Starfleet support vessels, the kind of midsize craft that would be smaller than a capital ship but still capable of FTL travel -- presaging DS9 runabouts, basically.
If it was really an issue, they could have multiple shuttle types: sublight ones for planetary landings, and warp 4 capable ones for transit. They look the same, it's just one has a highly expensive* warp core on it and the other just has extra storage space or something.
*Or "resource-consuming", if you really believe the Federation doesn't use money in some fashion.
*Or "resource-consuming", if you really believe the Federation doesn't use money in some fashion.
I wonder how long it did take them to get there. At Warp 2 = 8x light speed, it'd still take three months, and Warp 3 = 64x light speed still takes 11-12 days. Heck, even Warp 6 = 216x light speed is 3 to 3-1/2 days. Allowing for the TNG warp-speed chart, Warp 6 = 392x light speed, so it would still take at least 36 hours to go two light years.
All true. Plus, this was after Picard and Data had already spent THREE DAYS searching for the missing torpedo.
That shuttle interior must have been rather...fragrant by the time they finally landed
All true. Plus, this was after Picard and Data had already spent THREE DAYS searching for the missing torpedo.
That shuttle interior must have been rather...fragrant by the time they finally landed
Doubtful. I think the shuttles have some sophisticated air purifiers.
And as you move past the 24th century, every generation of shuttles will get more "Capable".
Heck I can see "Escape Pods" having Mini-Warp Drives operating on super efficient batteries giving limited Warp Drive and distances covered.
Imagine your "Escape Pod" having a 90 ly warp range on battery before running out of power.
Heck I can see "Escape Pods" having Mini-Warp Drives operating on super efficient batteries giving limited Warp Drive and distances covered.
Imagine your "Escape Pod" having a 90 ly warp range on battery before running out of power.
Considering that even at Warp 1 it would take almost an hour to get from Earth to Jupiter as I write this assuming the unlikely scenario of a straight shot, shuttlecraft (as opposed to shuttlepods which are basically ship-to-ship or ship-to-ground) wouldn’t even make very good in-system craft if they didn’t have at least basic warp capability.
Not really. Let's assume for convenience that most everything in the populated Sol system is within Neptune's orbit, for a diameter of about 60 AU. At maximum recommended impulse speed of 0.25c, then, the longest intrasystem journeys would take about 32 hours, while an Earth-Mars hop would average a bit under an hour. That compares favorably to the travel time for jet aircraft; a local commute can be less than an hour while the longest international flights are in the range of 16-18 hours (not counting the wait at the airport, the taxi rides to and from, etc.). So that's actually highly reasonable for intrasystem travel.
Similarly, when I drive from Cincinnati to Baltimore for the Shore Leave Convention (in non-pandemic years), it's on the order of a 16-hour drive including rest stops, meals, and such. And a lot of people take even longer cross-country drives lasting several days.
That's great if you happen to use your Escape Pod with the Star System.
But what if you're out in the void between any Star Systems and your vessel goes down for whatever reason.
Having a mini Warp Drive would sure be nice =D.
Being able to get to a safe & habitable planet would do wonders for survival.
Imagine a future (Post 24th century) "Escape Pod" with the capability to cover up to 80 ly @ Warp 9 on it's own super dense battery of sorts.
Warp 9 being it's top speed, the "Escape Pod" can cover 80 ly in about ~ 19.27 Earth Days.
That opens up a range of options for survival instead of sitting there in space, stuck at STL, waiting to be picked up by Allies/Enemies.
Imagine your vessel going down and hundreds of "Escape Pods" fly out and head in 100's of different directions to survive and escape the battle space.
The enemy is less likely to waste precious resources chasing down 100's of straglers going in 100's of different directions.
It wouldn't be worth their effort.
I wasn't talking about escape pods. I was only addressing the single specific point of whether a travel time of "almost an hour" was so excessive as to make a transportation system impractical. That is manifestly untrue, as millions of people take much longer journeys than that every single day.
As for the larger issue, if you've kept track of the conversation, you should know that I think it's undeniable that 23rd-century shuttlecraft do have warp drive. So I'm not disputing that fact as part of the Trek universe. I'm only saying that, in general terms, a hypothetical scenario where interplanetary journeys take a matter of hours instead of weeks or years would actually be pretty darn excellent. In my Troubleshooter fiction set in the early 22nd century, travel times in the Main Belt and Inner System tend to be on the order of days or weeks, and that's actually pretty darn fast from a realistic standpoint. Earth to Jupiter in less than an hour would be amazingly fast by that standard.
Good point. Escape pods don't really make a lot of sense for interstellar ships. I've long felt that what would make the most sense would be for FTL ships to travel in groups of two or more, so there's always a way back to civilization if one ship's drive breaks down irreparably.
I concur, traveling time in terms of weeks or years is pretty darn excellant.
We only need to look at humanity's past and see how long it took them to cross oceans.
We're spoiled in our modern era where we can cross the world in < 24 hrs.
Imagine how spoiled people in the future will be when they have local Transporter Archs like in ST:PIC where they can criss cross the world in seconds.
They'd think traveling the world in hours as "Primitive" and "Slow".
=D
Which is the point of interest here. Would anybody build warp-incapable shuttles if they were merely "pretty darn excellent" if it were equally possible to build warp-capable shuttles that were vastly superior? I mean, what would be the reason not to build those?
Today, some people (like, say, 99.9% of them) don't travel by jet aircraft because it's expensive. But if you are going to go to Neptune at all, what would be your Star Trek reason for not taking a warp-capable craft? In case of shuttles, where does the niche for "equally cramped but significantly slower" come from?
Timo Saloniemi
Today, some people (like, say, 99.9% of them) don't travel by jet aircraft because it's expensive. But if you are going to go to Neptune at all, what would be your Star Trek reason for not taking a warp-capable craft? In case of shuttles, where does the niche for "equally cramped but significantly slower" come from?
Timo Saloniemi
You can see that in modern Trek productions that routinely depict interstellar journeys as if they took mere moments (Kelvin) or at most hours (Discovery), whereas in TOS they were usually implied to be a matter of weeks (with some exceptions like "Amok Time"). Indeed, one of the explicitly written ground rules in the TOS and TNG writers' bibles was not to treat deep space as a local neighborhood, not to depict interstellar travel as a quick, casual commute and gloss over the vast distances involved. Writers and audiences today are just too accustomed to routine, (relatively) quick travel to anywhere in the world.
Similarly, post-TOS Trek (Voyager aside) never did the TOS thing where it would take three weeks to get a reply back from Starfleet Command; you could always just dial up Earth and talk to an admiral in seconds, no matter where you were in the quadrant. The idea of not having routine interconnection to anywhere in known civilization just doesn't occur to people anymore.
Every world in the Alpha/Betas quadrants was only a scene break away in DS9.
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