Is it time for a new warp speed scale?

[camefromhell]

While reading the TNG relaunch books i asked myself several times how long the current warp scale will be usable or if it is already time for a new one.

Almost every newer starship class (Sovereign, Prometheus, Vesta and so on) is capable of reaching speeds beyond warp 9,9x, some can do 9,99x for a limited time. Developments continues and soon 9,999x will be possible. So we will soon read sentences like "Helmsman, Warp 9,992, Engage!" Sounds somewhat strange.

Will we see this problem addressed in upcoming books?

 

[trekkerguy]

I don't think it's much an issue. All they're doing is approaching the Warp
"limit", I don't think that calls for a whole new scale. The current Warp
scale is sufficient till someone starts using Transwarp and that will have
it's own scale.

Haha, more than likely it'll use the standard Warp scale as a frame of
reference for us.

 

[rtc61]

The warp scale -- or rather, how it's acknowledged at some times and ignored at others -- has always annoyed me. In TOS, warp engines were rated to warp 8, which is 512 times the speed of light. In "Where No Man Has Gone Before," the Enterprise travels to the edge of the galaxy. In order to get there at a mere 512 times lightspeed, it would take hundreds of years (even if the 'edge' they reached was 'vertical' to the galactic plane). TNG had faster ships, but they also covered greater distances. In effect, Star Trek regularly ignores the immense distances, assuming the viewer will simply accept the ease of which starships zip across space.

 

[JoeZhang]

They should use the zoom scale.


It goes

Zoom

Zooom

Zoooom

Zooooom

Zoooooom

Zooooooom

Zoooooooom

Zooooooooom

Zoooooooooom

Zooooooooooom

Zooooooooooom.95 is the current maximum speed.

 

[LightningStorm]

But then they might get sued by Mazda.

 

[William Leisner]

They just need to add "ridiculous speed" and "ludicrous speed" at the top of the scale.

 

[JoeZhang]

They just need to add "ridiculous speed" and "ludicrous speed" at the top of the scale.

"Holy shit, the stars are coming right at us!"

 

[SicOne]

"Prepare the ship...for ludicrous speed!"

A "Spaceballs" reference that may be lost on some of our younger viewers...

Seriously (but only for a minute), I do think it may be time to tinker with the Warp scale a bit. I'm not even sure where slipstream drive speeds, or however fast the Aventine goes, fits in here. Has that been covered?

 

[William Leisner]

A Space-what reference?

 

[Karnbeln]

I don't think it's much an issue. All they're doing is approaching the Warp
"limit", I don't think that calls for a whole new scale.

I don't think it's a limit like the sound barrier, though, where the limit is just a particular speed. It's a mathematical limit for an exponential equation. You can never reach 10, but you can keep getting closer and closer, going faster and faster. That's why warp 10 is infinite velocity, because to get there you'll always have to go faster.

Essentially, therefore, for the same increase in speed, the change in warp factor would be smaller. 9.9999 could be twice as fast as warp 9 (keeping in mind I'm just pulling numbers out of my buttocks to illustrate my point, there's an actual equation written down). 9.99999 could be twice as fast as that. It's just a question of how many nines Starfleet will get the ability to reach before they start measuring speed from a different reference frame, which may or may not be when they get slipstream working.

We know they tinkered with the warp scale in "All Good Things", since the Enterprise was ordered to warp 13, but they may have not found slipstream in that reality.

 

[JD]

"Prepare the ship...for ludicrous speed!"

A "Spaceballs" reference that may be lost on some of our younger viewers...

Seriously (but only for a minute), I do think it may be time to tinker with the Warp scale a bit. I'm not even sure where slipstream drive speeds, or however fast the Aventine goes, fits in here. Has that been covered?

To the best of my knowledge, slipstream is completely different from Warp, so it really doesn't fit in the Warp scale.

 

[Christopher]

The warp scale -- or rather, how it's acknowledged at some times and ignored at others -- has always annoyed me. In TOS, warp engines were rated to warp 8, which is 512 times the speed of light. In "Where No Man Has Gone Before," the Enterprise travels to the edge of the galaxy. In order to get there at a mere 512 times lightspeed, it would take hundreds of years (even if the 'edge' they reached was 'vertical' to the galactic plane). TNG had faster ships, but they also covered greater distances. In effect, Star Trek regularly ignores the immense distances, assuming the viewer will simply accept the ease of which starships zip across space.

Well, it's kind of the other way around. The warp scales in the reference books -- warp factor cubed for TOS, the messy thing for TNG-era -- were never, ever used onscreen, so they arguably aren't canonical. The warp-cubed formula in The Making of Star Trek wasn't coined until after the second pilot sent the ship to the galactic rim. So if anyone got it wrong, it wasn't the show, it was whoever concocted that formula that was inconsistent with the show. And the TNG formula didn't fit what was shown onscreen much better. It was also way too slow.

 

[TheAlmanac]

The warp scales in the reference books -- warp factor cubed for TOS, the messy thing for TNG-era -- were never, ever used onscreen, so they arguably aren't canonical. The warp-cubed formula in The Making of Star Trek wasn't coined until after the second pilot sent the ship to the galactic rim. So if anyone got it wrong, it wasn't the show, it was whoever concocted that formula that was inconsistent with the show. And the TNG formula didn't fit what was shown onscreen much better. It was also way too slow.

I would still agree with rtc61 that the later shows (at least) tried to have it both ways. Voyager's premise--and episodes like "Q Who" and "The Nth Degree"--somewhat depend on the WF ^ 10/3 formula for the TNG era being accurate.

 

[SicOne]

William Leisner, "Spaceballs", the late-80s Mel Brooks movie lampooning Star Wars...surely you were just being tongue-in-cheek?

 

[BryanSorensen]

I am pretty sure he was. They made a damn cartoon of it; so surely more people have heard of it by now.

 

[William Leisner]

William Leisner, "Spaceballs", the late-80s Mel Brooks movie lampooning Star Wars...surely you were just being tongue-in-cheek?

Seeing as how I posted the initial "ludicrous speed" reference in this thread, then yeah, it's a safe assumption that I had the sarcasm cranked up to 11 there.

(And anyone who needs to have "cranked up to 11" explained to them gets hit with my cane...)

 

[DimesDan]

William Leisner, "Spaceballs", the late-80s Mel Brooks movie lampooning Star Wars...surely you were just being tongue-in-cheek?

Seeing as how I posted the initial "ludicrous speed" reference in this thread, then yeah, it's a safe assumption that I had the sarcasm cranked up to 11 there.

(And anyone who needs to have "cranked up to 11" explained to them gets hit with my cane...)

The volume control on the BBC iplayer goes up to eleven so would it be a reference to that good sir

Yes I do know it's originally from This is Spinal Tap before you hit me with your cane.

 

[Trent Roman]

I am pretty sure he was. They made a damn cartoon of it; so surely more people have heard of it by now.

For what it's worth, I made reference to Spaceballs to my students a while back (explaining the difference between pastiche and parody), and everybody seemed to get it. Today's youth has not been entirely lost to the Wayans.

Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman

 

[William Leisner]

Today's youth has not been entirely lost to the Wayans.

That's perhaps the most encouraging thing I've heard in weeks.

 

[Christopher]

I would still agree with rtc61 that the later shows (at least) tried to have it both ways. Voyager's premise--and episodes like "Q Who" and "The Nth Degree"--somewhat depend on the WF ^ 10/3 formula for the TNG era being accurate.

Actually they don't. The assumption in DS9 and VGR was that if they were X thousand light-years from Federation space, it would take them roughly X years, give or take, to get back. This started in "Emissary" when Dax was estimating the distance of the Idran system and the return trip time at warp, and was perpetuated by VGR. Now, that's assuming an average warp velocity of about 1000c, and the TNG-era scale defines warp 8 as 1024c. So it only makes sense if you assume that Voyager maintained an average velocity of warp 8 -- and since they spent quite a lot of time stopping at various planets, space stations, and phenomena along the way, their actual cruising speed would've had to be much higher. But to all indications, the ship usually travelled between warp 4 and warp 6 except in emergencies. Which means their average velocity would've been lower, maybe warp 3 to 4, say. So the shows required warp 3 to 4 to correspond to a velocity that the Okudas' chart pegged as warp 8. Again, the so-called "official" scale in the reference books is too small to fit what's explicitly established onscreen -- despite the reference to fudge factors in the Encyclopedia saying that the speeds given are averages that vary based on local conditions. If they're averages, you'd think they wouldn't be uniformly too low.