Depending on who wrote the history and who is repeating it.
Romulan power
- Thread starter mike hill
- Start date
And at that point in the series you have to remember, they hadn't really nailed down just what capabilities impulse had.
For example: In "Where No Man Has Gone Before", as they're talking about what happened to the S.S. Valiant when it encountered the barrier; Spock states it was thrown a half light year out of the Galaxy, and re-entered the Galaxy here...
And Kirk's response was: "The old Impulse engines weren't strong enough."
^^^
It would take a long time to retrace half a light year at sublight speeds, thus the implication is that impulse engines were capable of driving starships at FTL speeds. Yes it was a more primitive form of propulsion, but it still allowed FTL Star travel.
But warp speed I thought, was the only power to traverse the barrier! The Impulse being faster than light but not much else I would agree with though!
JB
JB
Well,
1) The Valiant did make it back through the Barrier somehow, and was able to deploy the disaster recorder. Possibly by using her warp engines?
2) After all, what the "old" impulse engines were surmised to have been incapable of was freeing the ship from the clutches of the apparent magnetic storm - this had nothing to do with the Barrier as such.
3) Our heroes seem to know what "magnetic storms" are like; they could well be in the belief that warp doesn't help with those, so the strength of one's impulse engines is decisive. (Warp works fine inside "ion storms", but those would be different things, hence the different name!)
4) Our heroes also learn a bit about the Barrier the first time around - and in "Is There In Truth" they seem to think that their return is absolutely predicated on the use of warp drive. All the more reason to think the Valiant also possessed that, then - even if we can then debate whether their "old impulse" was their warp drive by some older name.
5) Yet we now know that warp drives (indeed by that very name) have existed since before the departure of the Valiant, in-universe. So her having one of those installed is more or less the default assumption: a ship lacking warp drive would be hard pressed to "disappear" when warp-capable ships could trivially mount a search.
We really don't need to believe in FTL impulse in any TOS episode. FWIW, the series bible did make it clear that the hero ship would have two separate drives, only one of which was FTL; not that the writers would really be obligated to follow the bible, or to succeed in an attempt (whether due to fumbling with the slide rule or misunderstanding the definition of parsec), but it does seem they did.
Timo Saloniemi
1) The Valiant did make it back through the Barrier somehow, and was able to deploy the disaster recorder. Possibly by using her warp engines?
2) After all, what the "old" impulse engines were surmised to have been incapable of was freeing the ship from the clutches of the apparent magnetic storm - this had nothing to do with the Barrier as such.
3) Our heroes seem to know what "magnetic storms" are like; they could well be in the belief that warp doesn't help with those, so the strength of one's impulse engines is decisive. (Warp works fine inside "ion storms", but those would be different things, hence the different name!)
4) Our heroes also learn a bit about the Barrier the first time around - and in "Is There In Truth" they seem to think that their return is absolutely predicated on the use of warp drive. All the more reason to think the Valiant also possessed that, then - even if we can then debate whether their "old impulse" was their warp drive by some older name.
5) Yet we now know that warp drives (indeed by that very name) have existed since before the departure of the Valiant, in-universe. So her having one of those installed is more or less the default assumption: a ship lacking warp drive would be hard pressed to "disappear" when warp-capable ships could trivially mount a search.
We really don't need to believe in FTL impulse in any TOS episode. FWIW, the series bible did make it clear that the hero ship would have two separate drives, only one of which was FTL; not that the writers would really be obligated to follow the bible, or to succeed in an attempt (whether due to fumbling with the slide rule or misunderstanding the definition of parsec), but it does seem they did.
Timo Saloniemi
The Valiant did not have warp drive. She was swept up in a magnetic space storm. She had only sublight impulse engines.
Two out of three were never mentioned in the episode. And even the middle one was derived from 200-year-old records and could have been based on a misconception by the inexperienced Valiant crew - but it was part of the episode nevertheless. Sunce the other two bits don't fit in the Star Trek context, why believe in them?
Timo Saloniemi
Timo Saloniemi
I wonder how the Valiant travelled back through the barrier after the storm hurled it out of the galaxy and with no warp drive? Spock states in By any Other Name that you cannot traverse the barrier without warp drive and yet the Kelvan probeship was destroyed in it's contact with the barrier but somehow they managed to make it down to that nice little planet in a shuttle which was a long way from the barrier! 
JB
JB
Certain warp drive fields are more able to travel in the Barrier?
I think it comes down to the technical nuance between shields and deflectors. The Kelvan ship didn't detect the barrier, so, it didn't have its shields up. In WNMHGB, the "deflectors" were at full intensity, but they weren't technically "shields" at that time. Shields popped up by the end of season one and were the norm by season two. 
Could deflectors initially only meant navigational deflectors?
I'm sure the terminology is multiply redundant, and different Starfleet employees have different names for the tech they use. I say deflector, you say shield, he says forcefield, everybody means the same thing. But I say deflector, you say deflector, he says deflector, and it's completely different pieces of protection.
But variety in shielding or propulsion is not necessary for explaining variety in Barrier effects. We could just as easily surmise that only a certain percentage of onboard telepaths get killed or turned into gods, and that only a certain percentage of frammistats get fried. Perhaps the Barrier varies in density just like it varies in brightness, down to pretty microscopic level, and thus misses Spock while godiying Mitchell and killing Ensign Ricky.
Nevertheless, I see no good reason to think that either the Valiant or the Kelvan lifepod would have lacked warp drive. We have a couple of requirements and we can easily meet them all: impulse engines can't be old and feeble if one wants out of a magnetic storm, warp drive has to be up and running if one wants to cross the Barrier either way, and one has to count on luck for not getting too badly hurt by the Barrier.
In contrast, there's no requirement for the Valiant to have a warp drive that could take her to the edge of the galaxy (the magnetic storm takes care of that bit, and indeed it should be "impossible" as Kirk puts it for the ship to do it on her own). But conversely, there's no requirement for the ship to lack warp drive, either.
Timo Saloniemi
But variety in shielding or propulsion is not necessary for explaining variety in Barrier effects. We could just as easily surmise that only a certain percentage of onboard telepaths get killed or turned into gods, and that only a certain percentage of frammistats get fried. Perhaps the Barrier varies in density just like it varies in brightness, down to pretty microscopic level, and thus misses Spock while godiying Mitchell and killing Ensign Ricky.
Nevertheless, I see no good reason to think that either the Valiant or the Kelvan lifepod would have lacked warp drive. We have a couple of requirements and we can easily meet them all: impulse engines can't be old and feeble if one wants out of a magnetic storm, warp drive has to be up and running if one wants to cross the Barrier either way, and one has to count on luck for not getting too badly hurt by the Barrier.
In contrast, there's no requirement for the Valiant to have a warp drive that could take her to the edge of the galaxy (the magnetic storm takes care of that bit, and indeed it should be "impossible" as Kirk puts it for the ship to do it on her own). But conversely, there's no requirement for the ship to lack warp drive, either.
Timo Saloniemi
Roddenberry has said the shields/TMP forcefields and the deflectors/deflector screens were intended to be different things but they often got conflated. The shields are the forcefield bubble around the ship and the deflectors are more powerful but projected out away from the ship in a given direction.I think it comes down to the technical nuance between shields and deflectors. The Kelvan ship didn't detect the barrier, so, it didn't have its shields up. In WNMHGB, the "deflectors" were at full intensity, but they weren't technically "shields" at that time. Shields popped up by the end of season one and were the norm by season two.
Spock is a different kind of telepath and the Barrier may only affect humans?
I thought all the human espers got zapped. Only the highest rated ones lived.
In TMP Decker did recommend they approach V'Ger with "Screens and shields" up and actilve. Kirk shot that idea down as potentially provocative, as I recall.
Then when they go to red alert Chekov says "Forcefields and deflectors up full, keptin.”
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In light of later usage, this sounds appropriate enough. You need to ramp up those internal forcefields when going to alert, lest the baddie give you an antimatter containment failure or an embarrassing jailbreak - and V'Ger might be mightily offended by anything shown on the screens of the starship, so better cancel all that preemptively.
Timo Saloniemi
Timo Saloniemi
That'd make sense if we'd actually seen it depicted that way on the show. Red alert? Well, then, pop on those forcefields in the hallways to help deter potential intruders or seal off unexpected hull breaches. Eh, that'd remove some of the drama.
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