Warp 13

[Herbert1]

I was watching TNG "All Good Things..." again last night and noticed that both the U.S.S. Pasteur and the refit U.S.S. Enterprise could travel at Warp 13 in 2395. What about the Warp 10 speed limit on the revised Cochrane Warp Scale? How did both ships pass Warp 10 barrier?

 

[Brandonv]

I don't know if there is any canon answer, but the most common explanation I have heard, is that the warp scale was revised again. For example, what used to be warp 10 might now be referred to as warp 20. So instead of saying something like, "Warp 9.99885, engage!", they could simply say, "Warp 13". I like this explanation because the warp 10 limit would still be true.

 

[MacLeod]

I'd go with Brandonv's reason. After all the 1701 once did Warp 14.1, and evidence from the 24th C Trek's is that the scale under went a revision to have Warp 10 as a theortical infinite speeed. With the Warp 13 line in "All Good Things" it seems it under went another revision.

Perhaps as the maximum sustainbable crusing speeds incresead such as the Intrepid Class stated Sustainbable crusing speed of Warp 9.975, It made sense in order to make it easier to revise the scale once again,.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Outside of the TNG technical manuals, warp speed never changed. Thus, in canon, warp 13 is just two warp factors above the warp 11 the TOS Enterprise reached in "The Changeling".

Voyager's "Threshold" throws a spanner in the works.... but that's just Voyager being Voyager

 

[The Badger]

Also, in TNG's 'Where No One Has Gone Before' LaForge clearly states tha the Enterprise is passing warp 10.

 

[C.E. Evans]

^^^
And yet in that same episode, Data says the ship's actual velocity never moved past warp one-point-five all along, suggesting perhaps that it was space (or whatever phenomena caused by the Traveller) that was moving off the chart...

 

[Sandoval]

That portion of All Good Things was set in the future. An essentially throwaway reference intended to make things sound more futuristic.

Nothing more, nothing less.

 

[Herbert1]

That portion of All Good Things was set in the future. An essentially throwaway reference intended to make things sound more futuristic.

Nothing more, nothing less.

Gene Roddenberry had imposed the Warp 10 limit as "infinite speed" at the beginning of Star Trek: The Next Generation. Should we ignore the references to Warp 13 in "All Good Things..."?

Could the Warp 13 figure be evidence that Starfleet starships in the future use transwarp or quantum slipstream drives to get past the Warp 10 barrier? Or we could speculate that the Warp Factor chart was revised again sometime before 2395.

 

[Sandoval]

Gene Roddenberry had imposed the Warp 10 limit as "infinite speed" at the beginning of Star Trek: The Next Generation. Should we ignore the references to Warp 13 in "All Good Things..."?

As I've said, it's a throwaway reference used because thirteen is bigger than nine, thus conveying the impression to the viewing audience that the ships in the All Good Things 'anti-time' future were faster than the ships from the All Good Things present.

There's no real mystery or foreshadowing to be found here, just a bigger number being used by the writers to easily indicate faster ships in the future.

 

[Admiral Shran]

Could the Warp 13 figure be evidence that Starfleet starships in the future use transwarp or quantum slipstream drives to get past the Warp 10 barrier?

I like this retcon the best. Starfleet in this alternate future is using either transwarp or quantum slipstream drives and still using warp terminology.

But, Sandoval is right. It was just a throw-away reference that now needs to be explained away.

 

[Timo]

Then what would be the point of having TrekBBS?

The current technobabble on warp factors 1 through 9 is that they are peaks on a sawtooth curve contrasting speed against the theoretical power expenditure of warp drive (that is, the power cost that is independent of engine type; engine inefficiencies supposedly come on top of that). This is why it's better to fly at warp 7 than at warp 6.8, and why virtually nobody chooses a non-integer warp factor if their ship is rated for the next integer value.

Above warp 9, the curve doesn't feature further sawteeth. But few starships go past warp 9 in the TNG era. Once this becomes more commonplace, Trek science may well find more of these power minimum sawteeth, and label them warp 10, 11, 12, 13 and so forth. And if, say, the sawtooth that gets the label "warp 17" again seems to be the highest one in this next cluster of teeth, engineers may decide to call infinite speed "warp 18". Until one more cluster of power minima is found...

This is a great analogy to things happening in real science: we're finding patterns in how elements are put together, and every time we think we have figured out what a pattern should look like, there's still a gnawing feeling that something new will emerge and force a rethink if we just expend greater energies, synthesize heavier elements, introduce more terms into our formulae...

Of course, TOS ships weren't even doing warp 8 on a regular basis, so it's quite natural to think that they had a very fuzzy idea about the structure of the power minima series. Engine inefficiencies may have hidden the structure of the higher minima so that the TOS idea of warp 8 didn't really match the eight minimum, and TOS warp factors from 9 up were all mucked up and didn't correspond to real power minima at all. By the 24th century, this at least was remedied. But only up till warp 9, above which UFP science could only verify the absence of minima up to certain speeds (say, warp 9.91) after which engine inefficiencies again prevented empirical observations.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Sandoval]

Then what would be the point of having TrekBBS?

The current technobabble on warp factors 1 through 9 is that they are peaks on a sawtooth curve contrasting speed against the theoretical power expenditure of warp drive (that is, the power cost that is independent of engine type; engine inefficiencies supposedly come on top of that). This is why it's better to fly at warp 7 than at warp 6.8, and why virtually nobody chooses a non-integer warp factor if their ship is rated for the next integer value.

Above warp 9, the curve doesn't feature further sawteeth. But few starships go past warp 9 in the TNG era. Once this becomes more commonplace, Trek science may well find more of these power minimum sawteeth, and label them warp 10, 11, 12, 13 and so forth. And if, say, the sawtooth that gets the label "warp 17" again seems to be the highest one in this next cluster of teeth, engineers may decide to call infinite speed "warp 18". Until one more cluster of power minima is found...

This is a great analogy to things happening in real science: we're finding patterns in how elements are put together, and every time we think we have figured out what a pattern should look like, there's still a gnawing feeling that something new will emerge and force a rethink if we just expend greater energies, synthesize heavier elements, introduce more terms into our formulae...

Of course, TOS ships weren't even doing warp 8 on a regular basis, so it's quite natural to think that they had a very fuzzy idea about the structure of the power minima series. Engine inefficiencies may have hidden the structure of the higher minima so that the TOS idea of warp 8 didn't really match the eight minimum, and TOS warp factors from 9 up were all mucked up and didn't correspond to real power minima at all. By the 24th century, this at least was remedied. But only up till warp 9, above which UFP science could only verify the absence of minima up to certain speeds (say, warp 9.91) after which engine inefficiencies again prevented empirical observations.

Timo Saloniemi

Phew! Why use fifty words when four hundred will do!

 

[Timo]

You forgot the "to be sure".

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Sandoval]

You forgot the "to be sure".

Timo Saloniemi

To be sure, I plan on using it sparingly.

 

[inflatabledalek]

Though I know it was in things writers bible from pretty much the start is there a single TV episode of either TNG or DS9 broadcast before All Good Things that says going faster than Warp 10 is impossible? Or was everyone's favourite Voyager episode the first one to bring it onscreen?

But yeah, for an in universe reason either assume they've done the equivalent of going metric on it, or that some brand new scientific discovery has found out it isn't impossible after all.

 

[Alrik]

...and the refit U.S.S. Enterprise could travel at Warp 13 in 2395.

Simple. That third nacelle made it go 1/3 faster.













Okay, the real answer is probably somewhere between what Herbert and Timo have proposed.

 

[Jerikka Dawn]

Though I know it was in things writers bible from pretty much the start is there a single TV episode of either TNG or DS9 broadcast before All Good Things that says going faster than Warp 10 is impossible? Or was everyone's favourite Voyager episode the first one to bring it onscreen?

I believe the closest we got was 2x13 "Time Squared" where Riker mentioned that, in theory, being propelled past warp 10 would send a ship backward in time. This doesn't specifically prove any type of limit on warp speed, however it does imply that the scale changed between TOS and TNG, because if it didn't change, Picard simply would have replied to Riker with "Are you daft, Number 1? The Old E used to do warp 14 without time travel!"

 

[Saquist]

I've never looked into this because I think it's as the "to be sure guy" said.
It's throw away tech babble to sound better than 9....
I also heard that it was really just a Q construct which is none of it ever came true.

 

[CaptainStoner]

That portion of All Good Things was set in the future. An essentially throwaway reference intended to make things sound more futuristic.

Nothing more, nothing less.

Gene Roddenberry had imposed the Warp 10 limit as "infinite speed" at the beginning of Star Trek: The Next Generation. Should we ignore the references to Warp 13 in "All Good Things..."?

Could the Warp 13 figure be evidence that Starfleet starships in the future use transwarp or quantum slipstream drives to get past the Warp 10 barrier? Or we could speculate that the Warp Factor chart was revised again sometime before 2395.

If Warp 10 were supposed to be infinite speed, wouldn't that mean that at Warp 10, you could traverse an infinite distance, instantly?
But how then do you go from 9.999, which has a set travel duration, to 10.0, and have it be infinite?
I'm just not getting why Warp 13 is a problem. 10.0 must be a specific speed, maybe a theoretical limitation, but once traversed, you need to increase the numbering.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

I don't know if there is any canon answer, but the most common explanation I have heard, is that the warp scale was revised again. For example, what used to be warp 10 might now be referred to as warp 20. So instead of saying something like, "Warp 9.99885, engage!", they could simply say, "Warp 13". I like this explanation because the warp 10 limit would still be true.

From http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Warp_factor:

In the October 1995 issue of OMNI, science advisor Andre Bormanis stated the idea of warp factors beyond 10 in the alternative future was in a recalibration of the warp scale, as ships had gotten faster. Maybe warp 15 was set to be the ultimate speed limit instead, according to Bormanis, and warp 13 in that scale would have been the equivalent of warp 9.95 of the previous scale.

Among other things, André Bormanis was the science consultant on the seventh season of TNG.

This would appear to settle the issue.