Remember the time ship Aeon. https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Aeon It had "Hyper-Impulse" drives mentioned on screen. In my Head Canon, I think the "Hyper-Impulse" was a modified Impulse Drive System that allowed normal ships to approach 1.0c or close to it without having any of the negative effects like "Time Dilation" and constant resetting of clocks, all without going into "Full Warp" and using the "Warp Drive". I think it was a cut-back system that created some form of Static Warp Field & other SubSpace field that lowered the Inertial Mass of the vessel even more than normal Impulse would, and use less power than the traditional Warp Nacelles to accomplish the same task. This would allow you to cross the 0.25c barrier and closer to 1.0c without actually getting to 1.0. We know that as you approach 1.0c due to E=MC^2 law, that the Energy output for going ever closer to 1.0c would rise exponentially, that energy cost would probably intersect the point where it's more energy efficient to activate warp drive and go >= 1.0c. So that limit acts as a logical transition system where the computer would be programmed to use the more efficient propulsion system. That would mean activating the Warp Drive as needed to not waste energy on going faster in SubLight beyond that intersection point when it would cost more energy to go faster at SubLight speeds. That intersection point would be crucial and be defined in the tech specs of most vessels with Hyper-Impulse systems. And I believe that upper StL(Slower than Light) limit would vary from vessel to vessel based on Volume/Mass/Shape/etc, a whole multitude of factors that would affect it's Hyper-Impulse upper limit before it makes more sense just to hit Warp Drive and go >= 1.0c.
Do we have any onscreen reference to such a thing, though? Or is it best to interpret this as our heroes never engaging in anything one could describe as "normal operations"? The Manual itself freely speaks of impulse travel at 0.5 or 0.75, so there are no technological showstoppers even in the Manual take on the issue. The operational speed limit just doesn't crop up in any onscreen adventures we would have seen so far, and OTOH the heroes do engage in sustained high impulse travel but never suffer any time dilation effects we'd hear of. Is impulse exempt from relativistic concerns after all, then? Timo Saloniemi
In Best of Both Worlds, you have the Enterprise D coming out of Warp to the Sol system and being near Saturn, and saying that they have 25 minutes? So they were also probably going 0.8 or so. Suprised they didn't do Warp to Earth to catch up. "technically" Warp can be used for any speed, there in there own bubble of space, can go 2mph to 2 billion mph in that universe.. So there might be a way to create a warp bubble and not break the Light speed.
We don't know whether the heroes did warp there or not. Whenever we see the Borg, we see them traveling at low sublight, which rather suggests that the villains warped to one of the Sol system highlights, did a bit of assimilating there, and then warped to the next one, thus maintaining a speed that was FTL on the average, but just barely (they do about 2c there). Riker would go straight for Earth, though, so his equally dismal performance can't be due to frequent stops. Rather, he probably had more distance to cover to begin with. But the very fact that he only does perhaps 5c against the 2c of the Borg would still require us to think that warp inside star systems (or at least inside the Sol system) is very slow. Which is what we see with our own eyes in adventures like "Tomorrow is Yesterday" or ST4, and can infer from the likes of "Paradise Syndrome", so that's no biggie. High relativistic flight doesn't really solve any problems there, since the Borg assuredly slow down and then accelerate again, as we see from the Mars encounter. If impulse provides such effortless acceleration, why doesn't Riker beat the Borg by never slowing down? Constant acceleration should give him a landslide victory, his speed increasing basically exponentially against the Borg linear touch-and-go routine. Timo Saloniemi
The "mass reduction" system for the ship is a separate system from both the Warp Engines and the Impulse Engines. I propose that the mass reduction system and the ship's inertial dampening system are one in the same. Inertial dampening provides a static zero g field (at high g maneuvers it tends to lag a little) around the ship while another system like gravity control provides 1 g inside the ship. From WNMHGB; interesting ship chatter in the background: The ship was at warp speed before it entered the Galactic Barrier, so when the main engines (warp drive and its M/AM reaction power supply) were knocked out, the ship switched to emergency power cells (i.e. batteries) because the Impulse (fusion?) power supply was not turned on, yet. Crewman (1)'s job is in Gravity Control informing that GC is switching its power feed to batteries and that gravity is down to 0.8 g, perhaps on the whole ship. I get the impression he is at the Environmental Control Station on the Bridge. He is needing a damage report from Engineering Deck 3, so, that deck might be key for GC equipment or power distribution for GC. As to whether Engineering Deck 3 is simply an engineering station on Deck 3 of the ship or the third deck down in the Engineering Hull (in the neck?) is not clear. I like to think the GC issue is only about power feed to the GC equipment and it was "interrupted" at a power "switching yard" somewhere in the ship. If we look at the external hatches and other red lines on the ship hull, we see a set of narrow double red lines running from the Impulse features (I call it the Impulse Rudder and Keel ) to a red hatch feature on Deck 3 of the ship. So, high power lines run perhaps to the rear of the Deck 3 which has a power distribution switching yard for the Primary/Saucer Hull. The physical switching yard might be on Deck 4 with an Engineering Station directly above it on Deck 3 controlling the yard. Crewman 2 is at the Engineering Station on the Bridge and he is trying to keep power for the Sensor Beams and the Deflectors in which he says the Deflectors are on full power. Good thing the Deflectors are on full power since they just got hammered by the Galactic Barrier. Later, we find the Enterprise "heading back on impulse power only. Main engines burned out. The ship's space warp ability gone." Thinking at the time is that power is provided by the engines (both main/warp engines and impulse engines) which are tapped for power for ship operations. Very aircraft thinking.
I'd still argue that gravity control (that is, control of onboard gravity) and mass masking (that is, control of the ship's overall inertia) are completely separate systems, and that the former is an auxiliary system easily powered by batteries, while the latter is a function of the warp drive and the loss of warp power deprives the ship of sublight agility exactly because she can no longer reduce her mass. After all, "Elaan of Troyius" is very clear on the warp/agility connection, but there are no adventures where the status of onboard gravity would affect agility as such. Inertia dampening for the occupants is likely to work in close cooperation with the force that pulls them towards the decks; it might be the very same system, pulling in all the right directions at all the right moments, or then a separate system that creates overall zero gravity onto which the deck pull can be imposed. But when impulse agility is lost and warp power is down, such as in "Elaan", we observe no difference in onboard gravity or onboard inertia. Might be that what we have is merely a type of shipwide tractor beam pulling everybody down - such beams seem to negate any other pull whenever used, after all, and appear to be available at all power ranges, from batteries to warp power. Timo Saloniemi
I just posted something similar on another thread where the gravity systems on a ship don't take very much energy to maintain, rather it is the gravitons that are controlled: https://www.trekbbs.com/threads/st-...-one-discusssion.305023/page-10#post-13527201 You are suggesting a mass reduction field is generated by the warp engines and that is the same as the inertial dampening field? I think a ship needs an inertial dampening system regardless they are using warp drive or impulse drive. Even at impulse maneuvering, g forces can be extremely high, so, an inertial dampening field is always needed. Any impulse maneuvers, even at 10-100 g's are still sublight and "sluggish" as compared to pivoting at Warp 2 (spinning instantly at multiple c speed).
You'd need IDF for any translational maneuvering of the ship -- especially at high sublight velocities. When you're going thirty thousand kilometers per second, making a hard left turn would likely leave the crew as raspberry jam on the starboard bulkheads. Warp, on the other hand, is non-Newtonian. The fabric of spacetime is being compressed in front of the ship and restored behind it. It's not moving any faster or slower than it was when it engaged warp. A ship could jump from dead stop to warp nine, and there wouldn't be any inertial forces at play (as long as it was straight-line). And then back to dead stop, same thing. Change the ship's heading at warp, and IDF would come into play. I also think the older ships had big enough engines relative to their overall size that the mass-reduction was a convenient byproduct. By the time we got to the Ambassador class, Starfleet engineers turned to the notion of using low-powered warp coils to reduce the ship's mass without sending it into warp, and then the ship could be pushed by smaller impulse engines. Can sorta see the transitional period when we went from the TOS engines having the heat exchangers dark all the time to TMP on when they're glowing when the engines are in operation. Basic electromagnetic principles: the hotter a conducter gets, the less conductive it gets. I can see them spending a lot of time finding ways to reduce the load on the sublight engines from the 2260s on (I say that since the Miranda class was in service by then, in numbers, and I tend to think they rolled out of the yards with those saucers and impulse engines, at least -- Lantree has the lowest registry we've seen for the class, and it looked the same as the Reliant minus the rollbar). One wonders if the mass reduction also reduces the load on the IDF. Less mass = less inertia to dampen.
I think I'm suggesting that the mass reduction field is the warp field, in most ships at least. Inertial dampening for purposes of making life comfortable for the crew is a separate application that may use similar tech but fine-tunes whatever inertia is left once the mass-negating field has done its magic on the entire ship. A lot of its job would consist of creating inertia, really... Agreed on that. And I also think the ship needs the big inertia-canceling field at both drive modes, or else no engine could make the ship budge. Sometimes the impulse engines would be the ones creating the warp field necessary for impulse drive; oftentimes the main warp field would be manipulated for the purpose, via that "impulse deflection crystal" aka "asymmetric warp regulator" aka "big blue doodad". But the crew-friendly inertia micromanager would work on top of that, and possibly be the same hardware and software as the deck gravity plates. Timo Saloniemi
I really liked the idea of a natural substance that had some kind of gravity effect without having to be powered. I hated seeing Kirk fall in TAS’ Practical Joker, or the Klingons float in TUC
Neutronium, assuming you can't replicate it given the way it's naturally made out of a Star going Super Nova and collapsing in on itself, you would probably have to alloy it by hand since it probably can't be made via replicator. So given it's incredible value and toughness, using it to line important items for protection would be incredibly important. Imagine the casing of a Matter/Anti-Matter reactor Warp Core made out of a Neutronium Alloy. It'd be impervious to outside attack, even hand phasers and photon grenades would do nothing to the casing of the Matter/Anti-Matter reactor. Imagine the walls of the Bridge surrounded by Neutronium. Or the Computer Core's Room encased by Neutronium. Since it's so expensive (resource wise), unless you have a small vessel, it's probably impractical to line the hull of the ship with it. Imagine the amount of labor hrs it would take to mass produce the entire outter hull of the Enterprise-D with Neutronium. That's be ridiculous given the vast surface area. But encasing critical components: Warp Cores (Matter/Anti-Matter reactor; Artificial Singularity Reactor; Fusion Reactor; Tetryon Reactor; etc) Computer Core Room Bridge Torpedo Room.
Probably a neutronium alloy or some sort, since neutronium can only truly exist inside a hyper dense star core (and a teaspoon's worth would be as heavy as a mountain). My comment about lining decks with the stuff was entirely flippant, just to illustrate my point about what a substance capable of acting as a self sustaining source of gravity would have to be, if it existed. Of course, Trek forcefields could possibly hold a skin of neutronium in state around a warp core, but woe betide any engineers nearby should that forcefield fail...
That's why I wanted to use a "Neutronium Alloy" so that you aren't relying on active Force Fields to do the work. My "Neutronium Alloy" would be more like a Surface Coating / bonding / impregnating the surface of the metal with "Neutronium Alloy" to make it a far tougher surface. Kind of like modern DLC (Diamond-Like Coatings) used in the FireArms industry where they impregnate the surface and some amount of layer below to help toughen the metal.
For the neutronium to generate one g or the equivalence of one Earth mass, then the Enterprise has the mass of the Earth. Boy, do we need a mass reduction field, now!
The technology used to create such an alloy would be truly impressive - basically, capturing a portion of the mass of neutronium and suspending it in a non-volatile state, but still enough to make use of its hyper-dense properties. Trek science at its finest! Indeed - makes you wonder how exactly artificial gravity generation is so energy efficient in the Trek universe at all! Probably something subspace Or quantum
Slightly offtopic but I always thought the name "impulse drive" was a bit weird. I don't think that today we even have a drive system that isn't an "impulse drive" in that it adds impulse to the object, so in that sense I wonder if the name wasn't simply chosen to contrast with the fictional "warp drive" that supposedly doesn't work with impulse and that therefore 'impulse drive' doesn't necessarily refer a specific technology, but simply to any technology that is non-FTL and relies primarily on changing the amount of impulse of the object.
I concur with your analysis, given that Star Trek likes broad but accurate naming categories. Impulse Drives makes sense given the drive should change the Linear Momentum & Vector Change by imparting a force to cause said change in vessel, usually at STL methods. Where as Warp Drive is literally moving a small Bubble of space around the vessel and not actually changing the vessel's Linear Momentum or Vector. Imagine the number of Shuttles sitting outside the vessel you can cluster together in the Warp Bubble of the Galaxy Class to hitch a ride in it's Warp Bubble =D.