Quantum Slipstream V.S. Transwarp
- Thread starter Gorgon
- Start date
Establishing an upper limit doesn't work in the real world or in serialized storytelling. It's like telling people PI is 3.14. While true, someone is always going to compute it out a few more decimal places over time.
Sure, it does. There are definitely limits of how fast things can go in the real world and in serialized storytelling, it's simply a case of creators avoiding the fanboy factor...
Actually the warp scale was drastically changed between TOS and the TNG timeline as indicated by this chart
http://www.star-fleet.com/ed/warp-chart.html
Which is actually non-canon. Neither the so-called TOS or the TNG warp scales really are, and onscreen material has debunked those given warp factors time and time again as actually being too slow.
Onscreen, the only real change in the warp scale between TOS and TNG is that Warp 10 became transwarp or a normally unattainable velocity sometime prior to TNG (and then attainable again in a possible future timeline shown in the series finale). In such a case, it might be argued that warp engines have changed since TOS more than the warp scale has.
yep, cars stopped getting faster in 1937, planes in 1962, and trains in the 1900's. Fictionally, StarTrek starships never got past warp 8 and Lonestar never went plaid.
Why would Starfleet want to make their ships slower? That would put them at a tactical/logistic/spatial disadvantage. If I were Admiral Bossman, I would not approve a new engine type that utterly sucked for my fleet's use, even if it ran on rainbows and vegetable oil.
Probably to keep them from blowing up when pushed to the max and enable them to maintain higher cruising speeds (up to Warp 9) for longer periods of time than they could previously.
While the original Enterprise reached Warp 14.1 in "That Which Survives," the ship came seconds away from being ripped apart at that speed. That's no good. The few other times the Enterprise exceeded Warp 10 were either due to severe alien modifications of the ship, malfunctions/sabotage, or a deliberate pushing of the engines beyond their safety limits. That's not good either.
But in comparison, 24th-Century ships could probably maintain Warp 9 longer than their 23rd-Century predecessors and beat them in a long distance race, IMO.
They had a ship capable of warp 36 in TAS ("Counter Clock" something or other) I guess the tractor beam allows for warp field matching in emergency, like Scotty's transwarp beaming in Abrams'
Going back to the question of whether to do Transwarp Conduits or QUantum Slipstream Drive as a natural progression of propulsion technologies for the 25th century, I was disappointed that our group could not make a clear decision on which to choose.
It seems that many of our group would prefer to maintain the standard warp limitations and not exceed the limits established by the shows.
I just thought I'd let you know. I am very greatful for the many responses so far on this thread.
It seems that many of our group would prefer to maintain the standard warp limitations and not exceed the limits established by the shows.
I just thought I'd let you know. I am very greatful for the many responses so far on this thread.
The actual progression towards which the Feds would go to would likely be the QS drive.
The Voyager crew constructed a working prototype which cut their journey by 10 000 ly's in just 1 minute.
SF would have to work on the bugs to stabilize the phase variance and for the v1 of the QS which is slower, the quantum stresses would have to be settled (unless the VOY crew did it and what they came up with surpassed TW because it incorporated both original QS and TW technologies from the Borg).
The Voyager crew constructed a working prototype which cut their journey by 10 000 ly's in just 1 minute.
SF would have to work on the bugs to stabilize the phase variance and for the v1 of the QS which is slower, the quantum stresses would have to be settled (unless the VOY crew did it and what they came up with surpassed TW because it incorporated both original QS and TW technologies from the Borg).
If I can expand on this, maybe make conventional warp drive able to interact with a natural phenomenon like superstrings, subspace warp wedgies or something similar to use them as "rails" for achieving faster speeds throughout the galaxy (could even latch onto existing phenomenon like the Borg transwarp conduits or something).
It doesn't require a brand new engine, it doesn't require two drive types eating up room on a ship, if you technobabble it right it can be as safe or as dangerous as you want, and you're still mostly in real space, like regular warp drive, as opposed to zooming blind through some glowy corridor in subspace.
Well, I'm in agreeance with those earlier who classify QS as a form of Transwarp, with Transwarp being a catch-all term to classify all exotic, faster than Cochrane-esque propulsion technologies. Of the ones seen, Quantum Slipstream seems to be the most viable, as Voyager has, albeit with difficulty, managed to successfully reverse engineer and use the technology without using some alien black box or interference to make it happen. In the EU, Fed RnD has developed it to the point that other starships are rolling out with the system, now, so I'd say it's definitely the way to go.
Keep in mind, if you decide to go strictly with the 'documented' velocities from the Tech manual, you're talking about some very, very slow speeds to get EVERYWHERE (space is big... really big, even when you can go a trillion miles a second), so QS might give you the fudge factor you need to have a plausible speed of plot device in the 24 3/4 century.
Keep in mind, if you decide to go strictly with the 'documented' velocities from the Tech manual, you're talking about some very, very slow speeds to get EVERYWHERE (space is big... really big, even when you can go a trillion miles a second), so QS might give you the fudge factor you need to have a plausible speed of plot device in the 24 3/4 century.
Well, it sounds at least slightly more revolutionary than the Segway.
At the risk of invoking the dreaded Thread Necromancy comments, the relatively-new Vesta-class starship (as depicted in recent Trek lit) utilizes both conventional warp drive as well as a quantum slipstream drive. In the Voyager book "Full Circle", a small fleet of slipstream-equipped ships is preparing to return to the Delta Quadrant to explore where Voyager left off. You may wish to check the Trek Lit forum for additional information on how the authors are handling slipstream questions.
