Impulse Power vs. Impulse Drive

[TIN_MAN]

Another thing to ponder is that there may be a distinction between a space warp drive and a time warp drive?

The former is the older tech "discovered" by Zefram Cochrane 150 years before the TOS era, the latter would be the more recent innovation that "broke the time barrier" and may be what Sarah April was talking about in TAS when she said she was the chief medical doctor on the 1st ship equipped with (time?) warp drive.

So perhaps the space warp was originally tied to impulse/fusion power, but the time warp is linked to M/A-M reactor power?

 

[Ithekro]

Columbia crashed sometime in the mid-2230s. As I guess a survey ship she probably had something more along the lines of an NX style warp drive. While the NX Enterprise could make warp 5 after a lot of tweaking, the base model could do basically warp 4 for a time with warp 3 being easy. It had that governor in the pod between the warp nacelles. The later Constitution-class and probably Kelvin types didn't need such a thing, but Kelvin had a massive warp drive, while Constitution has smaller drives but more power to warp capabilities.

 

[oberth]

Another thing to ponder is that there may be a distinction between a space warp drive and a time warp drive?

The former is the older tech "discovered" by Zefram Cochrane 150 years before the TOS era, the latter would be the more recent innovation that "broke the time barrier" and may be what Sarah April was talking about in TAS when she said she was the chief medical doctor on the 1st ship equipped with (time?) warp drive.

So perhaps the space warp was originally tied to impulse/fusion power, but the time warp is linked to M/A-M reactor power?

hust (that's german for cough) - how about nx-01's antimatter injectors?

 

[TIN_MAN]

hust (that's german for cough) - how about nx-01's antimatter injectors?

Sorry, I should have made it clear that I was talking about the original TOS timeline. Besides which, the two types of warp drive theory is not dependent on when M/A-M first came into use, there could be many possibilities as to why and how the two types are different.

Also, let me use this opportunity to say that the 200 year old Valiant -and the possibly the Columbia- may have been sleeper ships with the crew in suspended animation for much of the duration of their respective voyages.

 

[publiusr]

Agreed.

Here is a thought...if a ship somehow goes FTL...it goes backwards in time...but as it slows just shy of light speed....time slows down.

Thus the crew of Valiant is rather young when Enterprise shows up at warp.

I think I heard it said that at .707 light speed elapsed time and ship time converge...I seem to remember that from a web post.

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

Agreed.

Here is a thought...if a ship somehow goes FTL...it goes backwards in time...but as it slows just shy of light speed....time slows down.

Thus the crew of Valiant is rather young when Enterprise shows up at warp.

I think I heard it said that at .707 light speed elapsed time and ship time converge...I seem to remember that from a web post.

Here's a Time Dilation Calculator.
The slower you are, the closer you are to normal time.

The faster you are relative to the speed of light (1c), the heavier the time dilation factors.

The only convergence point really is when you are at the same speed as your reference point (Stationary on a planet).

 

[Tango]

Agreed.

Here is a thought...if a ship somehow goes FTL...it goes backwards in time...but as it slows just shy of light speed....time slows down.

Thus the crew of Valiant is rather young when Enterprise shows up at warp.

I think I heard it said that at .707 light speed elapsed time and ship time converge...I seem to remember that from a web post.

I think they must have meant that at a speed of 70.7% of the speed of light (0.707c), the time dilation factor is about 0.707. Try it in the time dilation calculator!

 

[Henoch]

At extreme warp speeds, the ship experiences reverse time dilation as shown in The Naked Time, Tomorrow is Yesterday, and Assignment: Earth. The effect is strong in with a strong gravity source, and I interpret that a weak reverse time dilation effect occurs at extreme warp speeds in a weak gravitational source such as the galaxy itself. In reverse time dilation, forward time occurs inside the ship, but slower or even reverse time occurs on the outside. YMMV .

 

[blssdwlf]

At extreme warp speeds, the ship experiences reverse time dilation as shown in The Naked Time, Tomorrow is Yesterday, and Assignment: Earth. The effect is strong in with a strong gravity source, and I interpret that a weak reverse time dilation effect occurs at extreme warp speeds in a weak gravitational source such as the galaxy itself. In reverse time dilation, forward time occurs inside the ship, but slower or even reverse time occurs on the outside. YMMV .

I'm not so sure since we didn't see any time dilation effects for "Operation: Annihilate".

 

[Nerroth]

For comparison's sake, impulse engines over in the Star Fleet Universe are referred to more properly as "Non-Tactical Warp" engines. They allow a ship to "cruise" from one star system to another, but require a ship to slow to sublight speeds in order to fight. They are fusion-based, so do not require the use of dilithium crystals.

Tactical Warp, on the other hand, is (in most known cases) based on matter/antimatter reactions, and does require dilithium crystals to regulate these reactions. The "modern" warp engines on the Constitution-class heavy cruiser are the third generation of tactical warp drive - but the impulse engines in the saucer are no faster than the ones operated by "sub-light" Federation ships a century before.

Further, at the tactical level seen in games like Star Fleet Battles and Federation Commander, there is a difference between using warp and impulse power to actually move the ship, and to do other things (like reinforce shields or arm weapons). In SFB, a Federation CA can move at Warp 3.14 (Speed 31) in a single game turn, by using all 30 points of warp engine power to move 30 hexes and a single point of impulse engine power to add a 31st hex of movement. But while the "battle speed" is typically much lower than this (since it needs some of that warp engine power for other things), the impulse deck has much more redundancy, at least for arming things which do not require warp power.

SFB also has auxiliary power reactors and auxiliary warp rectors; these cannot be used to help with a ship's movement, but can help pay for on-board systems which otherwise require warp or impulse engine power to operate. For example: the more AWRs your Star Fleet ships have installed, the fewer points of warp engine power you need to divert to arm their photon torpedoes...

 

[Henoch]

I'm not so sure since we didn't see any time dilation effects for "Operation: Annihilate".

The Enterprise never exceeded Warp 8, and even so, maybe some reverse time dilation occurred that we didn't see, for example, the ship experienced 5 minutes in the dive into the sun's gravity well, while on the outside, only 4 minutes passed.

Also, there was some interesting maneuvering orders per the dialog:

SULU: He's too close, Captain.
SPOCK: So are we. Hull temperature one thousand degrees and rising. The sun's gravimetric pull increasing.
PILOT [OC]: I did it. It's finally gone. I'm free. I'm
SULU: He burned up, Captain.
KIRK: Reverse course. One hundred and eighty degrees about.
SULU: Aye, sir.
SPOCK: All clear, Captain. Hull temperature falling, gravimetric pull approaching tolerance level.
KIRK: Very well. Reduce to sub-warp speed. Take us to Deneva.​

Perhaps Kirk's orders to reverse course then later to reduce the speed to sub-warp was meant to stop/correct the slight time differential caused by the high warp into the sun's higher gravimetric field. YMMV

 

[blssdwlf]

The Enterprise never exceeded Warp 8, and even so, maybe some reverse time dilation occurred that we didn't see, for example, the ship experienced 5 minutes in the dive into the sun's gravity well, while on the outside, only 4 minutes passed.

Also, there was some interesting maneuvering orders per the dialog:

SULU: He's too close, Captain.
SPOCK: So are we. Hull temperature one thousand degrees and rising. The sun's gravimetric pull increasing.
PILOT [OC]: I did it. It's finally gone. I'm free. I'm
SULU: He burned up, Captain.
KIRK: Reverse course. One hundred and eighty degrees about.
SULU: Aye, sir.
SPOCK: All clear, Captain. Hull temperature falling, gravimetric pull approaching tolerance level.
KIRK: Very well. Reduce to sub-warp speed. Take us to Deneva.​

Perhaps Kirk's orders to reverse course then later to reduce the speed to sub-warp was meant to stop/correct the slight time differential caused by the high warp into the sun's higher gravimetric field. YMMV

You're right in that Kirk keeps the Enterprise at Warp 8 when they dived into the sun after the Denevan ship. However they didn't show any chronometer readings so we don't know if there was any time dilation. When the "reverse course" order is given we see that the Enterprise turns around to get away from Deneva's sun. The "reduce to sub-warp speed" seemed to be in response to the gravimetric pull but not any time warp effects though.

If we look back at "The Naked Time" we know that traveling "faster than is possible for normal space" causes a time warp:

SULU: Captain, my velocity gauge is off the scale.
SPOCK: Engine power went off the scale as well. We're now traveling faster than is possible for normal space.
KIRK: Check elapsed time, Mister Sulu.
SULU: My chronometer's running backwards, sir.
KIRK: Time warp. We're going backward in time. Helm, begin reversing power. Slowly.
SULU: Helm answering, sir. Power reversing.
SPOCK: We're back to normal time, Captain.
KIRK: Engines ahead. Warp one.​

And in "Tomorrow is Yesterday", the time warp kicks in at "over Warp 8" (actually, "off the dial") but they are seeking out the sun's "magnetic attraction" to give them the speed boost.

It doesn't seem then that extreme Warp + gravity well would cause time dilation (there doesn't appear to be any evidence of this). Rather, going faster than normal space allows causes a time warp. Gravity, magnetic fields, massive power (warp implosion), etc are things that can help that happen.
YMMV

 

[publiusr]

I have heard it said that FTL travel would result in backwards time travel as well. The key is perhaps shedding the warp bubble to whatever cosmic body also warps space with it's mass.

The warp bubble shed...the universe "rejects" any superluminal travel backwards timewise.

Keeping the warp bubble separate from any star's "dent" means no time travel.