How to explain Starfleet forgetting alternatives to warp drive

[fireproof78]

I think it's a combination of scare exotic materials and a reluctance to continue on with a technology that proves to be the least bit dangerous. Things like interphasing cloak with the Romulans and Klingons-they gave up on it after one ship was destroyed. Warp 10 has some mutating effects. Better not use it again.

It's an interesting attitude that is presented that keeps getting repeated down the line by various Trek cultures. If something presents as dangerous to use, even once, then it gets relegated to the warehouse of "Whelp, we tried" technology.

 

[XCV330]

sometimes an idea can work, and its still a bad idea.

We could have had nuclear submarine sized missions to the outer planets by now, if we'd been willing to take the risk and the expense back in 50s of Project Orion. We might even have been building the first starships later this century.

Even Carl Sagan thought it had some merit, but no one capable of making fission weapons tried that swords-to-ploughshares approach to spaceflight has ever tried it.

It would seem that now that the federation has some dilithium again, they need to find an alterative. It won't last forever, and since it's basically the only source of the stuff for an entire galaxy that practically makes that world the Dune of ST.

 

[F. King Daniel]

I think it's a combination of scare exotic materials and a reluctance to continue on with a technology that proves to be the least bit dangerous. Things like interphasing cloak with the Romulans and Klingons-they gave up on it after one ship was destroyed. Warp 10 has some mutating effects. Better not use it again.

It's an interesting attitude that is presented that keeps getting repeated down the line by various Trek cultures. If something presents as dangerous to use, even once, then it gets relegated to the warehouse of "Whelp, we tried" technology.

It's a symptom of very long running episodic television. And trying to make sense of it in-universe is kinda futile. If we didn't have online resources like Memory Alpha, I shudder to think what modern Trek's idea of continuity would be.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

Maybe all the best engineers died in the Burn, and the people left didn’t understand the alternative methods.

 

[Sci]

I just don't see how there's any reason to think alternate FTL technologies were lost. We know from DIS S3 that other FTL technologies were still being used after the Burn. It's not that the tech was lost, it's that all the tech involved dilithium and therefore it was all affected by the explosion, and that post-Burn the destruction of so many FTL-capable vessels devastated the interstellar economy to such an extent that every major power experienced significant social contraction.

 

[Locutus of Bored]

The Federation probably has dozens or hundreds of different propulsion methods that they have inherited, discovered, or invented over the centuries, some more efficient, safe, fast, and resource friendly than others.

But as long as they rely on warping the fabric of space-time around the ship to propel it at FTL velocities, they all eventually wind up under the colloquial umbrella term "warp drive", even if it may consist of vastly different technologies and fuel sources and regulatory substances than the warp drive on the NX-01, NCC-1701, or the 1701-D.

Sort of like how photocopiers are called Xerox Machines, adhesive bandages are called Band-Aids, soda pop is called Coke (depending on the region) etc. It becomes identified with the most popular/common/widespread example of the type.

 

[Tim Walker]

Thinking about the old concept of technological tiers. It may take centuries of technological development beyond 24th century engineering for any alternative to become practical.

Dominion engineering may have been somewhat more advanced than the Federation's, but still within the same tier. The Borg, on the other hand, were definitely at least one full tier above both. And the Kelvins from the Andromeda galaxy also seem to have been higher tier.

My own speculation is that transportation stagnates for a long time. But a larger Federation could be made to work by building more relay stations for subspace radio.

 

[Macintosh]

This is part of a larger issue that I have with Discovery's 32nd century setting, which is – between ENT, TOS, and TNG, there is a mostly consistent trend of starship speeds being shown to have roughly quadrupled every 100 years or so.

The NX-01 tops out at warp 5.2 (old scale) – 140c

The 1701 tops out at warp 8 (old scale) – 512c

The 1701-D tops out at warp 9.6 (TNG scale) – 1909c

By 3190, the speed of starships should be in the region of 130,000,000c. Whether they're using incredibly powerful conventional warp drives, or quantum slipstream drives, or someone finally got the Excelsior's transwarp drive to work, that's in line with the rate of technical advancement we see across all the other Trek series. And yet they still seem to be pottering around using conventional warp drive running at conventional 24th century warp speeds. It's the almost complete technological stagnation lasting for centuries even before the Burn that bothers me.

 

[fireproof78]

And yet they still seem to be pottering around using conventional warp drive running at conventional 24th century warp speeds. It's the almost complete technological stagnation lasting for centuries even before the Burn that bothers me.

My larger issue with that comes back to Voyager and Threshold. Threshold said that Warp 10 is infinite velocity, according to the TNG scale. Never mind the fact that the Enterprise-D went above that barrier, and had access to an interdimensional being who redefined the very nature of reality so that warp speed would be fairly archaic by the definition. Voyager established that warp 10 is "infinite velocity" occupying all points of space at once. This didn't require slipstream or new tech. Just a newer version of dilithium that allowed them to achieve higher velocities and overcome the Warp 10 barrier. Since they know the side effect why wasn't that used more? Moreover, what new trait of dilithium was discovered that allowed for this?

Other drives being left aside don't bother me because of the extreme protectionist attitude that Starfleet has, i.e. if something has even a hint of risk, or upsets the status quo it gets left by the wayside. Starfleet does not have a pro technological growth stance. It has a "prove it won't kill us and we'll consider it" stance. Because even Voyager gave up the Warp 10 project.

 

[1001001]

Beverly took the Pasteur to Warp 13 in All Good Things….

I know, Q and all that. Still…

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

I'm surprised that nobody mentioned spore drive in this thread.

 

[F. King Daniel]

I'm surprised that nobody mentioned spore drive in this thread.

That's a little different, the tech was deliberately buried by Starfleet. And fast-forward to the 32nd century, it's be duplicated, miniaturized and is likely to become the norm.

 

[fireproof78]

I'm surprised that nobody mentioned spore drive in this thread.

Spore drive raises more ethical and source questions than anything else. Even if one is willing to exploit a tarigrade or genetically modify a person to navigate you still need the spores.

 

[hbquikcomjamesl]

Assuming the technology didn't go moldy.

 

[fireproof78]

Always a risk.

 

[Vger23]

Look, Starfleet has a lot of shit going on. They can't be expected to know and remember everything. Cut them a break, will you?

 

[Qonundrum]

In most cases, a later test proved something catastrophic so they abandoned the notion because it went boom-boom.

Except for transporters.

Maybe for the Klingons too, since after the prototype of a ship that can fire "while cloaked" was defeated...

 

[Vger23]

Maybe for the Klingons too, since after the prototype of a ship that can fire "while cloaked" was defeated...

It’s always a game of measures and countermeasures.

And then Shinzon figured it out 80 years later.

 

[Macintosh]

Beverly took the Pasteur to Warp 13 in All Good Things….

I know, Q and all that. Still…

I took one of the most commonly available TNG warp factor equations and modified it so that warps 1-9 were the same, but infinite speed was warp 20 instead of warp 10. The interesting thing is that doing this makes "warp 13" in the AGT scale almost exactly the same as warp 9.975 in the TNG scale, to within 1% – and as I'm sure we'll all remember warp 9.975 is given as Voyager's maximum possible speed in "Caretaker". A happy coincidence I'm sure, but it pleases me! I have a spreadsheet somewhere...

EDITED TO ADD: Some more data points in case anyone is interested: Warp 10 on the AGT scale is warp ~9.7 on the TNG scale and warp 19 on the AGT scale is warp ~9.998 on the TNG scale.

 

[Vger23]

I took one of the most commonly available TNG warp factor equations and modified it so that warps 1-9 were the same, but infinite speed was warp 20 instead of warp 10. The interesting thing is that doing this makes "warp 13" in the AGT scale almost exactly the same as warp 9.975 in the TNG scale, to within 1% – and as I'm sure we'll all remember warp 9.975 is given as Voyager's maximum possible speed in "Caretaker". A happy coincidence I'm sure, but it pleases me! I have a spreadsheet somewhere...

EDITED TO ADD: Some more data points in case anyone is interested: Warp 10 on the AGT scale is warp ~9.7 on the TNG scale and warp 19 on the AGT scale is warp ~9.998 on the TNG scale.

Seems complex