Warp speed and Nacelle size
- Thread starter ngc7293
- Start date
But it looked so kewl!!
Personally, I like to think that with the "environmental issue" solved and with improved engines, variable-geometry warp nacelles became obsolete (they no longer needed to be raised) and the feature was discontinued in later Intrepid-class ships.
Then again, it's possible that the entire Intrepid-class is now considered obsolete and has been surpassed by a newer, more advanced design (as of this date, the Intrepid-class has been presumably in service for 15, almost 16 years, if not even longer).
Then again, it's possible that the entire Intrepid-class is now considered obsolete and has been surpassed by a newer, more advanced design (as of this date, the Intrepid-class has been presumably in service for 15, almost 16 years, if not even longer).
It would IMHO be more reasonable to look for explanations to the unique configuration by examining the other known unique aspects of the ship. The Voyager was the first large starship we saw landing on planets, and she was also faster and more maneuverable than others according to dialogue. The nacelle movement would most probably have something to do with those things.
Perhaps the ship gets to high warp more easily because it "squeezes" its nacelles at the moment of acceleration? This would also explain why she always lowers the engines right after coming out of warp, regardless of what she's planning on doing next: that way, she stands prepared for another warp acceleration if necessary.
If, OTOH, it's absolutely necessary to have the nacelles at the lower position for operations in deep gravity wells or atmospheres (CoG issues?), but also absolutely necessary to keep them in the upper position for warp (warp dynamics?), it's much more difficult to explain why the nacelles would go down immediately after the ship leaves warp. The pollution avoidance explanation doesn't cover the immediate lowering, either.
Timo Saloniemi
Perhaps the ship gets to high warp more easily because it "squeezes" its nacelles at the moment of acceleration? This would also explain why she always lowers the engines right after coming out of warp, regardless of what she's planning on doing next: that way, she stands prepared for another warp acceleration if necessary.
If, OTOH, it's absolutely necessary to have the nacelles at the lower position for operations in deep gravity wells or atmospheres (CoG issues?), but also absolutely necessary to keep them in the upper position for warp (warp dynamics?), it's much more difficult to explain why the nacelles would go down immediately after the ship leaves warp. The pollution avoidance explanation doesn't cover the immediate lowering, either.
Timo Saloniemi
Avoidance of doing damage to subspace was a fan speculation for Intrepid class moveable nacelles if I'm not mistaken.
At least, there is no official on-screen evidence to support this premise.
At the time though, the Intrepid likely turned out to be a class of ship that was needed at which point SF managed to solve the problem of damaging subspace with the variable nacelles (but were still some time away from how to modify pre-existing ships with the same capability although without the movable pylons).
SF managed to construct a ship that's equal to a Galaxy class and can be virtually anywhere much faster than any other ship in the fleet (at least with 9.975 Warp factor - Prometheus not withstanding) without damaging subspace.
It's possible that they wanted to avoid doing creating numerous rifts throughout well known shipping lanes and/or exploratory ships that went through certain points of Federation space under high warp.
At least, there is no official on-screen evidence to support this premise.
At the time though, the Intrepid likely turned out to be a class of ship that was needed at which point SF managed to solve the problem of damaging subspace with the variable nacelles (but were still some time away from how to modify pre-existing ships with the same capability although without the movable pylons).
SF managed to construct a ship that's equal to a Galaxy class and can be virtually anywhere much faster than any other ship in the fleet (at least with 9.975 Warp factor - Prometheus not withstanding) without damaging subspace.
It's possible that they wanted to avoid doing creating numerous rifts throughout well known shipping lanes and/or exploratory ships that went through certain points of Federation space under high warp.
Saquist
Commodore
Voyager is about efficiency and the Admiral says as much before she is launched. Not more powerful than a Galaxy but smarter. The ship creates a more stable field at higher speeds.
Voyager's nacelles might actually create energy because of the moving components.
Sternbach labels field enhancers on the hull in the blue prints.
~Essentially Bigger is better likely because bigger is the easiest way to create stable fields. In other worlds you can protect the ship from normal space with a larger field because the distance from normal space and the hull is greater. The temporal fluctuations that occur due to irregularities in field strength will not transition to the ship.
The funny thing is, we heard of the Intrepid in the very same episode that gave us the warp pollution problem: TNG "Force of Nature".
Or of an Intrepid, at any rate. But we know the engineers of the E-D and this Intrepid competed on engine efficency, and LaForge would only compete with the best - he says as much. It's possible that LaForge would compete with a ship that had an engine design different from that of the E-D: efficiency would be efficiency. But this would be sort of meaningless unless the Intrepid were a modern top-notch ship and a challenge to him. So we're probably speaking of the class ship of Voyager's class here - operating before the warp pollution phenomenon was discovered!
Was that ship extensively modified to introduce nacelle swing where there originally had been none? If so, why weren't other designs likewise modified? Surely at least some of the smaller ship types could have served as further proofs-of-concept for that solution to the problem. Or if the solution was a failure from the very start, judged by the first testbed, Voyager and Bellerophon would probably not have received the modification.
We never heard that the Voyager would not damage subspace, though. Perhaps the pollution theory was quickly debunked or declared irrelevant?
Timo Saloniemi
Mainly, it played holy hell with the storytelling. Making a commentary on present day pollution is one thing, but when you wind up hamstringing every story that follows...
The related speed limitation was mentioned twice in later TNG, though. Probably Starfleet spent a few months assessing the problem, then decided that the speed limitation was the wrong way to go, and proceeded to do one of the following:
- Dismiss the problem: perhaps Hekaras was the only place where it mattered, and damage there was already done.
- Solve the problem: repolarizing the frammistats might be the perfect solution, once they figured it out, and would require no hardware modifications.
-Postpone the problem: rather than fly slower, Starfleet and the UFP could fly more evenly, not congesting specific cubic kilometers of subspace. This could be programmed to the navigation computers without affecting storylines or dialogue one iota (and only affecting the flightpaths by mere kilometers).
-Exploit the problem: closer study of the phenomenon might reveal that warp pollution creates smoother subspace at first, and the smoothing only wears through subspace after millennia of normal use, so it's actually a good idea to pollute the important spacelanes for a few centuries more.
All this would also be nice commentary on pollution problems. Global warming may be Somebody Else's Problem; it may be stopped or reversed by adopting new technology and practices; it may be weathered by the same; or it may be turned into an advantage, because hey, who likes cold anyway?
Timo Saloniemi
One advantage to larger nacelles might be high-warp endurance. The Intrepid class has a very high top speed of warp 9.975 but its cruise speed seemed to be no better than warp 8.
Another possible reason for the Intrepid's small nacelles might be because of advanced materials which make the ship much lighter. This may also be a factor in its ability to land on a planet.
Another possible reason for the Intrepid's small nacelles might be because of advanced materials which make the ship much lighter. This may also be a factor in its ability to land on a planet.
The Ambassador class prototype NX-10521 had larger diameter nacelles relative to the overall size of the ship when compared to the Excelsior and Constitution types. I've wondered if these might be "warp-optimized" with new, dedicated (ie. separate from the nacelles) driver coils now providing the subspace field for the impulse drive - a job which would previously have been done by the main engines with perhaps lower efficiency due to related coil design compromises.
It seems safe to assume the Ambassador class represented a new standard in top end and cruising speeds.
It seems safe to assume the Ambassador class represented a new standard in top end and cruising speeds.
Um, source?
Sorry mate. My previous post is as per the TNG Tech Manual of a few years back with regard to the impulse driver coil reference.
It's an assumption on my part though that subspace fields were a component of impulse drive before the NX-10521. The performance ascribed to impulse drives would seem to require simple newtonian rockets to punch well above their weight in even the ENT and TOS eras.
The relatively slow crawl that the original refit 1701 was limited to in STII:The Wrath of Khan, after the mains were knocked out by the Reliant, seems more likely what the impulse drive was capable of when operating as a non-augmented fusion rocket.
That'll be the TNG Tech Manual again - an admittedly pseudo-canon source.
Page 75, to be specific.
A bit off the mark actually.
It was repeatedly stated on screen that the top cruising speed of Voyager was 9.975.
Only, the ship was seldom seen flying at those speeds due to drama demands (plus it would still take it 75 years to reach Earth at those velocities - which of course was intentionally done to illustrate that the galaxy is vast ignoring technology altogether).
Besides, the ship suffered a lot of damage in the initial transition to the Delta Quadrant with low amount of supplies because it was launched for a 2 week mission, so it might stand to reason the ship was not up to par of flying at those speeds for the first few weeks.
Regarding the Ambassador engine design, it might be noteworthy that she's the first major starship to lack the prominent blue dome or domes next to the impulse engines since the TOS Constitution. The dome was later/earlier seen on the NX class of starships, where designer intent (albeit noncanon) was for it to manipulate the main warp field. And elsewhere technobabble establishes (canonically, even) that subspace fields can reduce the inertial mass of an object.
I'd thus like to argue along the lines of Shipfisher: that impulse propulsion was made possible by the manipulation of main warp fields for inertia reduction in those ships that have the blue dome(s), and by the use of dedicated subspace field generators in the impulse engines themselves in those ships that lack the domes.
But of course, the reverse could also be true: the ships with the domes are the ones to exhibit the blue glow usually associated with subspace fields in a location close to the impulse engines, so perhaps they are the ones not requiring the main warp field for impulse movement. Instead, the ones that lack the blue glow at the impulse engine area are the ones that have to manipulate the blue glow from the main engines in order to move at impulse. This goes somewhat against Drexler's ideas on the NX-01, but is perhaps better in line with canon cues.
One wonders if the Excelsior might be going for a belt-and-suspenders approach: she has the dome or sometimes two, but she also has these fancy warp engines where there's both the glowing side trench and the occasionally glowing upper "window". In the Ambassador, that top window might be what gives the impulse field (although in the Sovereign which has the top window but not the side ones, it probably gives the warp field), while the Excelsior would have multiple ways of reducing her inertial mass. The Akira would have the cute little windows close to the forward ends of her nacelles for the impulse field, while the larger, longer ones in the main body of the nacelle would be for warp.
100% speculation, of course...
Timo Saloniemi
I'd thus like to argue along the lines of Shipfisher: that impulse propulsion was made possible by the manipulation of main warp fields for inertia reduction in those ships that have the blue dome(s), and by the use of dedicated subspace field generators in the impulse engines themselves in those ships that lack the domes.
But of course, the reverse could also be true: the ships with the domes are the ones to exhibit the blue glow usually associated with subspace fields in a location close to the impulse engines, so perhaps they are the ones not requiring the main warp field for impulse movement. Instead, the ones that lack the blue glow at the impulse engine area are the ones that have to manipulate the blue glow from the main engines in order to move at impulse. This goes somewhat against Drexler's ideas on the NX-01, but is perhaps better in line with canon cues.
One wonders if the Excelsior might be going for a belt-and-suspenders approach: she has the dome or sometimes two, but she also has these fancy warp engines where there's both the glowing side trench and the occasionally glowing upper "window". In the Ambassador, that top window might be what gives the impulse field (although in the Sovereign which has the top window but not the side ones, it probably gives the warp field), while the Excelsior would have multiple ways of reducing her inertial mass. The Akira would have the cute little windows close to the forward ends of her nacelles for the impulse field, while the larger, longer ones in the main body of the nacelle would be for warp.
100% speculation, of course...
Timo Saloniemi
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