I suspect that the Phoenix was just a proof of concept. It was later discovered that Dilithium crystals were needed to manipulate anti-matter and stabilize it... I doubt the Dilithium was necessary for Cochrane's flight in order to achieve Warp speed for a brief period of time.
I can agree with this assessment. He most likely had anti-matter given the power requirements and the fact that we know
Friendship One was using anti-matter only four years later. Since dilithium is an off world resource, and reasonably rare, it makes sense that its discovery would be a large part of what allowed that next step in warp drive capability.
As for what kinds of phenomena could cause space travel without Warp... well, multiple things:
1. sufficiently powerful gravity fields for example can disrupt Warp engines (but usually these conditions occur in specific areas of space and aren't exactly widespread or common to prohibit Warp travel in otherwise regular star systems).
2. unusual anomalies
3. Omega molecule explosion which destroys subspace.
4. Dampening fields
5. Nebulae (not all of them inhibit Warp engines, but some can).
I'll number my responses just to keep it clear which point I'm addressing.
1. There has been a comment or two about not using warp within a star system, though we clearly also see it used in such a fashion
many times. It's been theorized among a lot of fans, though not supported anywhere on screen that I can recall, that this could be cautionary due to gravity potentially interfering with the generation of warp fields. Do you hold with this, or just disregard those random implications about warp in solar systems in favor of the often shown reality of them doing exactly that?
2. The question is, of course, what sort of unusual anomalies?
3. This is where I initially started thinking about this, having recently done a complete rewatch of
Voyager. As you know, in that episode we find out that the entire Lantaru Sector was rendered inhospitable to warp travel due to an Omega molecule related accident. I considered using the pre-existing sector in my scenario, but eventually decided against it in favor of putting together my own region of space. There's enough of the galaxy left unexplored to do so, even in
Star Trek (though I do wish I had some sort of canon, or canon respecting, map to help me place it.)
4. I hadn't thought of a dampening field. I generally think of them more in terms of inhibiting power systems than doing something like interfering with a warp field (while not interfering with normal power systems.) We certainly have seen them applied for various purposes, though. Have we seen naturally occurring dampening field that interfered with warp drives?
5. Yes, certain nebula do seem to cause problems for starships, the most common being sensor and communications interference, of course, and there are some gasses I imagine could exist in nebulae which would destabilize warp fields, such as metreon gas. Are you thinking of the Briar Patch from
Insurrection, or was there another example you were referring to?
I suppose the primary question for me with regards to the suitability of a nebula for my premise would be "how big can a nebula get?"
The Warp coils inside the nacelles generate a Warp field around the ship... and other systems like the main deflector or even the Warp coils can also generate other subspace fields which usually lower the ships mass and allow Trek ships to achieve very high sublight velocities - over half the speed of light without relativistic effects.
The same thing is likely happening with Impulse engines. A ship generates a low level subspace field to drop its mass substantially and then achieve tremendous speeds at sublight.
This also explains how you can achieve 'full Impulse' in full reverse... technically speaking, a Federation ship can move at both Warp and Impulse forwards and backwards.
Although there is no canon (as in on-screen) evidence to this fact, at least as far as I can recall, this theory certainly makes sense. To accelerate an object to even a fraction of the speed of light would most likely require a substantial degree of mass lightening, and given what we understand of warp drives, it seems that the most likely way to achieve that would be with a subspace field.
If you destroy subspace via Omega, I would imagine that establishing a subspace field would become impossible... either that, or you can but you cannot use it to INTERACT with naturally occurring subspace to achieve technical marvels (like Warping, etc.)... it would be weak to the point where it would be virtually useless.
I was actually wondering about this myself, so I went back and reviewed the episode again out of curiosity, and the exact dialogue makes two things clear.
1. What the Omega molecule does when it explodes is create what are referred to as "subspace ruptures," openings to subspace layers. One molecule only created enough of these ruptures to make the creation of a stable warp field impossible over a couple of light years, whereas a much larger explosion is described by Janeway as enough to "wipe out subspace across half the quadrant."
It's unclear if she simply means this would cause the same effects seen in the Lantaru Sector, only across a larger region, or if she means that it would be more destructive. She does state at the outset that Omega "destroys subspace," but this could certainly be a synonym for "devastates," the other word she uses, and more figurative than literal.
2. For whatever reason, sublight travel across such a region of space is still possible -- at least it is in the case of the Lantaru Sector. Though Paris only refers to "sublight" speeds, it seems to me this can only mean impulse. Whether impulse simply doesn't interact with subspace in the same manner as warp fields do or they don't interact with subspace at all is unknown (at least to me.) If you know more, or have more speculation, I'm certainly open to hearing it.
PARIS: The Lantaru Sector. It's impossible to create a stable warp field there. You can only fly through it at sublight speeds. I was always told that was a natural phenomenon. You're saying it was caused by a single molecule of this stuff?
JANEWAY: Omega destroys subspace. A chain reaction involving a handful of molecules could devastate subspace throughout an entire Quadrant. If that were to happen, warp travel would become impossible. Space-faring civilisation as we know it would cease to exist. When Starfleet realized Omega's power, they suppressed all knowledge of it.
The amount of testing to create a jump drive and pass through and back would probably require enough power to over-come the natural energy draining effects of being inside it wouldn't be worth it. The fact that you can be charged up, thrown through "Null Space" and cross vast interstellar distances at only the cost of activating your shields and leaving it on is good enough.
In the end, I don't think it's worth making / developing "Null Space"-drive when we already have options for:
1) Quantum SlipStream Drive
2) Transwarp Drive "Borg-Style with Transwarp Corridors"
3) Transwarp Drive "Voth-Style w/o Transwarp Corridors"
4) CoAxial Warp Drive ~= Space Folding drive
5) DASH Drive (Displacement Activated Spore Hub) Drive.
6) Higher Level Warp drive thanks to the new form of Dilithium that Voyager Discovered that allowed them to hit Warp 10/Infinity.
Fair enough. I can't really disagree. It was just something I was curious about. It would be an interesting alternate FTL drive. You are right, though,
Voyager brought home several different means of propulsion which need to be studied, and miniaturizing the graviton catapult probably isn't worth the effort in the face of the alternatives. It would be a very useful technology to have, however, and ripe with narrative possibilities (as is the Coaxial Warp Drive) for malfunction based adventures while it's still new to Starfleet.
The one that I'm rolling around in my mind for a separate
Star Trek campaign is the enhanced warp drive thanks to the new form of dilithium
Voyager discovered and Harry Kim and Tom Paris' engineering designs. The first step in warp ten research would be testing it with unmanned probes, I imagine, and once they'd gotten enough data that way, they would analyze it to determine if it could be made safe for organics.
My theory for the narrative is, of course, that what happened to Paris can be prevented by keeping the drive's activation to mere moments, and by instituting certain protective measures (perhaps keeping the travelers in stasis during transit or by making specific shield modulations to prevent the ship from being penetrated by the types of energy and radiation which were responsible.) It would be viable only as a sort of jump drive, and navigation would have to be plotted ahead of time, and likely the computer (perhaps a holo-AI like the EMH) would control the entire journey once the drive was activated, but it would be worth it for the ability to cross great distances near instantaneously.
Of course, being intended for narrative (a game in this case), something will go wrong with the test flight and the crew (two or three individuals) will have some struggles to overcome with fixing the damaged drive and surviving in unfamiliar territory in the meantime.
..look at Travis Mayweather's family, they had Warp Drives, Plasma Cannons, no Torpedoes, but that could just be because they weren't rich enough to waste resources on Photon Torpedoes. That Anti-Matter could be better used to power the vessel then to waste it on pirates. Using Directed Energy Weapons like Plasma Cannons or Phasers or any # of other energy weapons seems to be more "Energy Efficient" in controlled use rather than dumping a massive amount into Torpedos, especially given that Civilians don't operate on a "Infinite Budget" like StarFleet.
That's a good point. Earth Cargo Service is a civilian enterprise (no pun intended), right? Or at least a non-Starfleet organization at any rate?
Speaking of ECS, I always thought that a series set in the 22nd century, but focused on space boomers just trying to get their cargo from place to place, truly going into the unknown, only having themselves and their crew to rely on in emergencies, would be really interesting.
In international waters, it's generally considered a "Law-less" area to some degree. I'd assume the same rules would be in place for Interstellar open space.
With the UFP, as long as you don't bring your ship down planet side or mis-use your technology, I see no reason to restrict any certified citizen from having their own Weapons that are "Comparable" to anything StarFleet might have.
I hadn't thought of it that way. Despite different species claiming territory throughout the franchise, the majority of space must be considered uncontrolled, and thus without the support needed to keep a legal infrastructure. With no one claiming infrastructure to control it, there's a certain freedom in that, and also a certain danger. As we see with the space boomers on
Enterprise, you sometimes need the ability to defend yourself -- or to run away exceptionally fast.
You can have star systems that are on a collision course with one another be only light-months apart. You can also have relatively new star systems that are gradually moving away from one another be that close too. But the vast majority of star systems are indeed light-years apart from each other. Even the closest system to Sol is roughly 4 four years away at 1c.
One caveat may be systems that have more than one star. While these closely-knit stars may orbit a common center or simply each other, they could hold individual planets that can be "easily" traveled between at sublight velocities. IIRC, most of the worlds in the Firefly universe (sorry, 'verse) fall into this category.
Your memory hasn't abandoned you yet. That is how the
Firefly 'verse is shown to be. The series takes place in a star cluster with one central main sequence star orbited by four others. This system contains seven proto-stars, seven gas giants, three asteroid belts, seventy-five planets, and one hundred and forty-nine moons.
I don't mind having a grouping of stars and planetary bodies with a similar set-up for this hypothetical region of space, and I was actually considering the possibility that it could be an open star cluster which is still drifting apart (as you suggest.) I'm not an expert in stellar science but from what I understand, open star clusters are the youngest star systems (cosmically speaking), and it is common for them to have a hundred or more stars (formed from the same nebula) spread over a distance of thirty light years or less. Scientists also seem to believe that it is more likely for planetary bodies to exist in an open cluster than a globular cluster.
Can you think of any reason that wouldn't work or doesn't make sense?
