How fast is quantum slipstream drive?

[SicOne]

In the Destiny books, the USS Aventine uses quantum slipstream drive. Has it been determined how fast (on the Warp scale) that is?

This is the point where you guys go, "really, really, REALLY fast!"...so just wanted to get that out of the way and try and find the Trek answer

 

[JNG]

It was inconsistent across different appearances of the drive, but that phony message from Starfleet suggested the equally phony Dauntless traveled 65,000 light years in three months. To do that, it would be hustling along at over 2,600,000c, which is indeed "really, really, REALLY fast!"

 

[Ronald Held]

Does the quantum slipstream drive have a fixed (maximum) speed or is it spatailly varying like the current warp drives?

 

[Plecostomus]

It's as fast as fast can be.

 

[JNG]

Does the quantum slipstream drive have a fixed (maximum) speed or is it spatailly varying like the current warp drives?

Considering that we saw one ship use the drive to overtake another ship using it, I think it is safe to say that a range of speeds is possible in the quantum slipstream flight regime.

 

[Evil_Admiral]

The slip-stream drive moves at the speed of plot.

 

[nx1701g]

I think that it was supposed to go Warp 9.9999+. For some reason that number keeps popping into my head when it comes to the slipstream.

 

[asdf1]

As fast as the writers need to use it,

But probably around Warp 9.999945, so about 411822.6 times the speed of light

 

[Tigger]

I'm pretty sure it was stated in the episode that Voyager hit one billion c with her QSD in "Timeless".

Yes, I know that figure sounds ludicrous, but the ship was said to be able to complete the journey back to the Federation in a matter of hours. DITL.org's article on QSD claims this figure is "canon" from that episode, so it is either stated in said episode or the distance they would travel in the time allotted worked out to a speed in the ten figures.

 

[JNG]

^ Fortunately, they didn't get any more specific than "matter of hours." Although I find it annoying that in its second appearance their own homebrew take on QSD should be SO much faster than the one on a more advanced alien vessel purpose-built for it, if we take the statement literally, it would suggest that kind of speed. Perhaps the Voyager crew should have tried running their QSD at a speed that would get them back to the Federation in a "mere" three months, and their impatience is to blame for its unreliability

 

[SicOne]

Thanks, guys.

 

[Cmdr Sho]

they could have just gone to plaid...

qs, could that be going over the infinite warp speed thing?

 

[DRACO]

they could have just gone to plaid...

qs, could that be going over the infinite warp speed thing?

the infinite warp speed at warp 10 is an error, at that subspace layer, subspace just cant handle it, you get a high vibrational rate... which explains the mutations that occured in VOY

it's like takinging a rubber band, stretching it, and letting go

because of the instability of warp 10, this gives the appearence of infinite speed and in a way it is, and you you appear at every point imaginable on that path, but you're vibrating more so than physically moving which is why when they ended the experiment they where in the same place as when they hit the barrier and why they didn't die crashing into an object that will be there at some point along that infinite path...

thin is thats a problem cause the only velocity they know of for 10 is infinite and not the true speed based on the ability of the level of subspace.... thing is

because of this instability, warp 10 is two dangerous you die, or end up in the same place anyway and if you live you mutate into a lizard

but since they say 10 = infinite, you have the energy and speed skyrocket between 9 and 10, cause it's not so gradual anymore...

if they stabalize subspace, and actually Transwarp is a generic term for beyond warp or beyond the limitations of warp, so if they make it stable , being able to manipulate the fabric of sub-space, a true value for warp 10 will be achieved and they'll have to redo the sacle

we know that warp 9.99 is well under that threshhold cause the fastest sarfleet ship goes at that speed right?

well because they never mentioned the amount of energy to reach 10, in VOY, and other sources, and in the chart its assumed to be infinite cause the speed is inifinite, which isn't the case because if it took infinite energy to reach 10, you'd never reach it no matter what, so reaching warp 10, the warp 10 isn't the same energy eise as the warp 10 on the chart, but without exact numbers you have to really ust assign something, so they said infinite, once a true value for 10 is found,

what why now consider warp 9.99999 or so may be 10, and if they mentioned the energy required to hit that layer as well, 9.999 or so could be just 9.9 or 9.8 or so on....

so the current chart is a little confusing so yeah, they will have to redo it eventually as its rather innefficient

but 10 is considered the Transwarp barrier because you can't get to it using a normal warp drive because not only do you have to reach that level, you have to stabilize it, something a warp drive cannot do, you need a separate sysytem, ex transwarp drive...

and since Transwarp is a generic term as stated aouve, QSd fits into it so yes, QSD is a type of Transwarp... lengthening the warp field forward through the deflecter into a tunnel, wormhole is what I like to call it.... lol

as for speeded it depends on how fast you can go throuh the tunnel (safely), the actual quantum structure of the tunnel ect.

so different QSD's different speeds because it's more about stability than simply speed now...

 

[CuttingEdge100]

JNG,

It was inconsistent across different appearances of the drive, but that phony message from Starfleet suggested the equally phony Dauntless traveled 65,000 light years in three months. To do that, it would be hustling along at over 2,600,000c, which is indeed "really, really, REALLY fast!"

You're a decimal place off... it's 260,000 c.

65,000c would cover that distance in a year... 3 months is one quarter of a year, so to cover the distance in 1/4 a year you'd need to go four times faster which is 260,000 c.

I don't know what warp factor that would achieve in the TNG scale, but on the TOS scale (w^3) it would come out to approximately W=63.825445


CuttingEdge100

 

[JNG]

JNG,

It was inconsistent across different appearances of the drive, but that phony message from Starfleet suggested the equally phony Dauntless traveled 65,000 light years in three months. To do that, it would be hustling along at over 2,600,000c, which is indeed "really, really, REALLY fast!"

You're a decimal place off... it's 260,000 c.

65,000c would cover that distance in a year... 3 months is one quarter of a year, so to cover the distance in 1/4 a year you'd need to go four times faster which is 260,000 c.

I don't know what warp factor that would achieve in the TNG scale, but on the TOS scale (w^3) it would come out to approximately W=63.825445


CuttingEdge100

Sorry; I quoted rec.arts.startrek.tech FAQ [http://www.calormen.com/Star_Trek/FAQs/warp-faq.htm] in a hurry and without examining it too closely.

Dauntless does appear to exceed that speed in "Hope and Fear" in her fifteen light-year jaunt, though.

Just for fun, by my favorite set of TNG warp equations, 260,000c would be around warp factor 9.999997359835618. Be home in time for dinner!

 

[Mysterion]

This is very OT, but I think it's a fun expanation of the slipstream concept written by Robert Hewitt Wolfe, used in the TV series Andromeda:

In most space-based science fiction shows, travelling between solar systems is accomplished simply by going very, very, fast. Hyperspeed, warp speed, superzoomorama speed. Not only is this if blatantly impossible, it's been done.

So let's find another way.

While humans were still playing with fun new inventions like the wheel, the Vedra made a startling discovery. The Slipstream. The Slipstream is an extension of our reality, an additional dimension that's integrally intertwined with our own. According to an application of quantum physics called string theory, everything in our Universe is connected to everything else. And the Slipstream is a place where those connections are visible.

In the Slipstream, small and weak connections (those linking small and weak concentrations of matter, such as the link between you and your jelly donut) look like strings, gauzy bits of cotton candy fluff. But large and complex and strong connections, like those between huge concentrations of matter, say planets or suns, form gigantic, pulsing ropes, writhing monstrous tendrils with the diameter of a skyscraper and the length of the universe.

The Vedra also discovered something even more exciting. If you enter the Slipstream, you can harness the energy of these cords… and ride them from one star system to another, like the Universe's largest and most unbelievably convenient rollercoaster.

The only problem is that the strings are in constant motion, crossing and recrossing each other in a hundred different places. So to get from one star to another, the pilot of a ship in Slipstream has to constantly choose between divergent paths in the stream. And the right path changes from moment to moment. Faced with such randomness, all a pilot can really do when it's time to choose it guess.

So, here's what happens when a pilot reaches an intersection. Before the pilot chooses, according to the physicist Erwin Shrödinger (you can skip this part if you want, we'll meet up in a few sentences), both paths are simultaneously right and wrong. In other words, they both manifest the potentiality of being correct and incorrect. It's only when the pilot chooses a specific direction that this potentiality collapses and one path becomes right, and the other wrong. But the cool thing about being an observer in a quantum reality like the Slipstream is that THE ACT OF MAKING A DECISION ALTERS REALITY. So when you guess that a certain path is right, in Slipstream space, 99.9% of the time, you guess correctly.

In other words (start back here if you skipped that last part), human pilots in Slipstream have to guess where they're going, but because of the nature of Slipstream space, they're mostly always right.

Unfortunately, Artificial Intelligences don't guess the way we do. They don't follow their guts. They don't hope they've made the right decision. They really do just pick randomly. In Slipstream, this is not a good thing. It means they're only right 50% of the time. Thus, computers can't pilot ships through Slipstream. Even the Andromeda, a sentient ship, can't pull it off. She requires an organic pilot, or she can never travel between the stars.

Okay, nice theory, but what does it look like? Good question. What we see when the Andromeda travels through Slipstream is this: The Andromeda reaches a point in normal space where the Slipstream is accessible (as far from gravitational sources like suns as possible). Then she shifts, distorts, and suddenly… she's someplace else, riding along a bunch of gigantic glowing ropes like an out-of-control roller coaster on a rail. When the ropes twist and wind, the Andromeda rotates and spins on her axis. When she reaches an intersection, she whips off at wild angles along new tracks, whizzing along to her destination. Finally, thanks to a series of monumentally lucky guesses by her pilot, the Andromeda arrives at her destination and shifts back into normal space. It's like Mr. Toad's Wild Ride on fast forward.

One interesting thing about moving through the Slipstream is that travel time has almost nothing to do with the distance between stars. If you're lucky and the Stream unfolds just right, you could get from here to the next galaxy in minutes. But if you're not lucky, and things get hairy, the same trip could take weeks or even months. About the only rule is that the more frequently a certain path is traveled, the easier and more predictable the journey becomes.

Most of the time. Unless it's not.

 

[Magisterfrodo]

I thought it was funny that it was stated that it would take them a matter of hours, but in the 30 seconds or so they were in slipstream, they made it all the way to the edge of the Alpha Quadrant, which would be the vast majority of the trip.

 

[JNG]

Yeah, bit of compressed time for dramatic purposes there, which is why I am wary of taking any measurements directly from the Dauntless jaunt in "Hope and Fear." It's very rare in Trek that we can be sure the events we are supposed to be seeing are completely chronologically contiguous and uninterrupted...even if the writers/editors sometimes act as if the runabout really only did take 5 minutes to fly to the Gamma Quadrant and visit a strange, new world.

Still, we should probably assume that quantum slipstream drive, borked as it is, appears capable of a range of speeds that can match even the transwarp hub business glimpsed at the end of Voyager. Seven of Nine did comment on QSD's similarity to transwarp conduits, which also appear to have a range of speeds depending on implementation but a very, very high top end.

 

[Herkimer Jitty]

Just for fun, by my favorite set of TNG warp equations, 260,000c would be around warp factor 9.999997359835618. Be home in time for dinner!

I'm sure that when Starfleet impliments a drive capable of such velocities, they'll either retool the scale (So that said speed is Warp 21 or something), or add another scale for said drive (I.E. Transwarp Factor 1, Transwarp Factor 2 etc etc).

 

[Cmdr Sho]

hmmm.... but when voyager had the slipstream drive, why not just jump 10,000 light years stop, jump another 10,000 light years and so on?? that would have made sense..