Star Trek TOS Ship Speeds

[T'Girl]

Actually, T'Gil, pay attention, the Enterprise explicitly does not visit multiple star systems within a show. In fact, explicitly, more than once, several weeks (and even months) go by between ports of call.

Menagerie, part one -- starbase 11 to talos 4 -- Spock "... it's only six days away at maximum warp."....Conscience of the king -- planet Q to benecia colony -- leaves on stardate 2818.9, arrives on stardate 2825.3, that's 4.4 stardates .... The geolileo seven -- murasaka 312 to makus 3 -- Kirk "...it's three days to makus." .... Turnabout intruder -- lumus 2 to benecia colony -- Chekov "forty neight hours, sir" ( that's at warp two) -- lumus 2 to starbase 2 -- "seventy two hours captain." Yes, two planets count as multiple. Some others probily less that a week. Ariannus to cheron. Gamma hydra 4 to starbase 10. I do pay attention sir.

 

[Longinus]

I would just ignore that warp formula altogether. I has never been canon, and it just does not match the observed evidence.

 

[SonicRanger]

Actually, T'Gil, pay attention, the Enterprise explicitly does not visit multiple star systems within a show. In fact, explicitly, more than once, several weeks (and even months) go by between ports of call.

Menagerie, part one -- starbase 11 to talos 4 -- Spock "... it's only six days away at maximum warp."....Conscience of the king -- planet Q to benecia colony -- leaves on stardate 2818.9, arrives on stardate 2825.3, that's 4.4 stardates .... The geolileo seven -- murasaka 312 to makus 3 -- Kirk "...it's three days to makus." .... Turnabout intruder -- lumus 2 to benecia colony -- Chekov "forty neight hours, sir" ( that's at warp two) -- lumus 2 to starbase 2 -- "seventy two hours captain." Yes, two planets count as multiple. Some others probily less that a week. Ariannus to cheron. Gamma hydra 4 to starbase 10. I do pay attention sir.

Oh, don't start bringing evidence into this!

 

[Vance]

T'Girl ... two is not several. Going from point A to point B in an episode, with trips that explicitly take several days (as per all of your examples) is exactly what the writers were instructed and consistant with the TOS intention of the warp scale.

Warp 1 - Speed of Light
Warp 2 - Speed of freighters, effin' slow.
Warp 6 - Cruising speed, takes a few days to go between two 'plot points'
Warp 8 - Emergency speed, takes a few HOURS to go between two 'plot points'

That's about as much thought as the TOS writers put into things. The WF^3 thing did in fact come later and really was mapped so that Warp 6 could reasonably get you from star to star in the times required.

It's long been known that 'Warp Factors are Technobabble at the Speed of Plot', and MOST of us accept that. Trying to invent Star Wars-fanboi-like rationale to explain away a handful of technical inconsistancies (and introducing a few thousand more layers of stupidity and inconsistancy to do it) is a futile and foolish effort.

 

[Vance]

Further note:
This crap right here is why no one wants to produce tech material anymore. :P

 

[SonicRanger]

... the E would visit multiple systems in a single show...

Actually, T'Gil, pay attention, the Enterprise explicitly does not visit multiple star systems within a show. In fact, explicitly, more than once, several weeks (and even months) go by between ports of call.

T'Girl ... two is not several...

Two is multiple, though. As in more than one. So T'Girl is right: Warp 3, for instance, is much too fast as portrayed in TOS to be only 27 times the speed of light.

 

[T'Girl]

Further note:
This crap right here

Really, it's as fast as you need it to be.

 

[Vance]

Two is multiple, though. As in more than one. So T'Girl is right: Warp 3, for instance, is much too fast as portrayed in TOS to be only 9 times the speed of light.

But we're making several assumptions which cannot be made. One, the most obvious, is that they're going warp 3 (or warp 1, which is more often) the ENTIRE trip rather than just breaking orbit and travelling within system.. etc.

(Add to the point that Warp 3 is actually 27C, not 9.. :P )

I mean, if we're going to be THAT strict on the datapoints, we'll have to explain why the ship changes shapes, size, and markings between shots all the time, right?

 

[Ronald Held]

It could be explained by the Cochrane factor being spatially dependent.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

Yeah, I've always assumed that warp factor was a measure of power, not a measure of speed. It's possible that close to a planet or star a warp factor really is just a multiple of the speed of light (thus explaining the "better than warp seven" from Elaan of Troyus) while also justifying relatively modest warp factors making interstellar travel--over distances of hundreds of light years--feasible.

 

[Longinus]

Yeah, I've always assumed that warp factor was a measure of power, not a measure of speed. It's possible that close to a planet or star a warp factor really is just a multiple of the speed of light (thus explaining the "better than warp seven" from Elaan of Troyus) while also justifying relatively modest warp factors making interstellar travel--over distances of hundreds of light years--feasible.

I just hate this explanation. The warp factors are obviously referred as absolute measurements of the speed in the show. Telling the captain a warp factor the enemy is travelling would be bloody useless if it would not tell how fast they are actually going.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

Yeah, I've always assumed that warp factor was a measure of power, not a measure of speed. It's possible that close to a planet or star a warp factor really is just a multiple of the speed of light (thus explaining the "better than warp seven" from Elaan of Troyus) while also justifying relatively modest warp factors making interstellar travel--over distances of hundreds of light years--feasible.

I just hate this explanation. The warp factors are obviously referred as absolute measurements of the speed in the show.

In space, there's no such thing as an absolute measurement of speed. All velocities are relative; if you're going Warp 5 and the other ship is going Warp 6, what speed are you actually going? Relative to Earth? Relative to the center of the Galaxy? Relative to Captain Robau?

Besides, in some of the source material for TMP it's implied that velocity can only be estimated based on warp factor, and warp factor itself is a measurement of output from the warp engines.

Telling the captain a warp factor the enemy is travelling would be bloody useless if it would not tell how fast they are actually going.

You wouldn't know how fast they're going if there's a variation of chi factors. Besides which, warp factor is an independent measurement and holds true even if BOTH ships are traveling at warp. As in Encounter At Farpoint where Tasha Yar states "the hostile is beginning to overtake us, Sir," because it has now passed Enterprise' warp factor. If it was a measure of velocity, the Q-ball's velocity should have been stated as much lower warp factors, since Yar would be calling off RELATIVE velocities, not absolute ones.

 

[Longinus]

Absolute in the sense that a specific distance is covered in specific time on specific warp factor, and this does not change.
The dialogue always treats warp factors like this.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

Absolute in the sense that a specific distance is covered in specific time on specific warp factor, and this does not change.

And that distances is measured relative to... what?

The dialogue always treats warp factors like this.

Dialog often treats "energy" as if it is a physical substance that can be created or destroyed. I'd chalk that up to imprecision of the English language before any engineering convention.

 

[Cary L. Brown]

Absolute in the sense that a specific distance is covered in specific time on specific warp factor, and this does not change.

And that distances is measured relative to... what?

The dialogue always treats warp factors like this.

Dialog often treats "energy" as if it is a physical substance that can be created or destroyed. I'd chalk that up to imprecision of the English language before any engineering convention.

See, here's the thing that bugs me so much about how "modern physics" is taught, and has been for some time.

We don't KNOW that there is no such thing as some absolute frame-of-reference, nor if there's some "fabric of space" that may be in movement relative to some other region of the "cloth" against which we measure all "local" velocities and so forth.

We have some simple math that represents, pretty accurately, what little we have experienced, and which has led us to make some correct extrapolations (and a whole lot of unsubstantiated extrapolations).

It's ... "hazardous"... to start making absolute statements like "there is no such thing as an absolute frame of reference." All we can say for certain is that the (flawed, but useful) mathematical approximations we currently have don't have any "central frame" incorporated in them.

Doesn't mean that the universe is driven by our math. Our math is only our best effort to approximate the universe. And our math is always, inherently, only an approximation.

Could there be some "absolute frame of reference?" Absolutely... there is NO reason to believe otherwise. Could there be "relative to the moving fabric of the universe" frames of reference? Absolutely.

Let's not pretend we know more than we really do. That's where we always get into trouble. Just like, centuries ago, people were just dead certain that they knew that the Earth was at the center of the cosmos.

We, as a species, haven't changed one iota since then. We have more knowledge... but compared to the amount of information available in the universe, or even just in our own little corner of it, we've barely scratched the surface.

We're still largely ignorant of the "intimate workings" of reality, and we're still arrogant enough to pretend we know "everything we need to know." Some things never change.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

Absolute in the sense that a specific distance is covered in specific time on specific warp factor, and this does not change.

And that distances is measured relative to... what?

The dialogue always treats warp factors like this.

Dialog often treats "energy" as if it is a physical substance that can be created or destroyed. I'd chalk that up to imprecision of the English language before any engineering convention.

See, here's the thing that bugs me so much about how "modern physics" is taught, and has been for some time.

We don't KNOW that there is no such thing as some absolute frame-of-reference, nor if there's some "fabric of space" that may be in movement relative to some other region of the "cloth" against which we measure all "local" velocities and so forth.

We have some simple math that represents, pretty accurately, what little we have experienced, and which has led us to make some correct extrapolations (and a whole lot of unsubstantiated extrapolations).

It's ... "hazardous"... to start making absolute statements like "there is no such thing as an absolute frame of reference." All we can say for certain is that the (flawed, but useful) mathematical approximations we currently have don't have any "central frame" incorporated in them.

I agree 100%, but I wasn't speaking in terms of physics. It just isn't meaningful to speak of "absolute velocities" in space since, in space, velocity really IS relative. Two space craft in the same orbit can have zero relative velocity and yet 20km/s with respect to another space craft in a retrograde orbit. A ship that is "stationary" with respect to a planet (in stationary orbit, for example) could be moving at dozens of kilometers per second relative to another ship that is stationary over another planet in a different galactic orbit.

You can't estimate velocity without a fixed point of reference to judge changes in relative distance. In deep space, the only reference points you have are the other ship and yourself, so a ship traveling just a half a warp factor below you on a parallel course isn't moving at "warp nine" unless the thing you're measuring is the output of its warp field.

 

[Hofner]

Absolute in the sense that a specific distance is covered in specific time on specific warp factor, and this does not change.

And that distances is measured relative to... what?

The distance between the ship and its destination.

Robert

 

[Vance]

Yeah, it may be three-dimension, but it's still just vectors.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

Absolute in the sense that a specific distance is covered in specific time on specific warp factor, and this does not change.

And that distances is measured relative to... what?

The distance between the ship and its destination.

Robert

How do you measure that if you don't know its destination?

 

[Hofner]

And that distances is measured relative to... what?

The distance between the ship and its destination.

Robert

How do you measure that if you don't know its destination?

Distance is a measurement between two different points in space. You're asking how to measure the distance between one point.

Robert