'Damage' Series 3

[Listerlad]

In the series 3 episode 'Damage' there's reference to a 'Warp Coil'. What part of the engine is it? I thought the coils were in the nacelles, but this was only about 3 feet in length.

Thanks.

 

[Timo]

The writers and tech folks doing the show also thought the coils were in the nacelles. But they very seldom put that into actual dialogue.

The earlier ENT episode "Cold Front" is explicit, though: when Trip gives a tour of the ship to the visitors, he tells them this:

Tucker: "We channel that energy through those conduits over there. They lead to the two large glowing cylinders you may have seen on the outside of the ship."
Sonsorra the likeable alien: "The nacelles."
Tucker: "That's right."
Sonsorra: "Which contain warp coils that create the subspace displacement field."
Tucker: "I see you already know a thing or two about starship engines."

Unless Trip is humoring the ignorant hillbilly by not contradicting his false claims, we have a pretty clear discrepancy within the show.

Then again, every species has warp engines of different shape, and they all get the job done. Perhaps a row of sixteen round Earth coils and a pair of triangular Oddian ones will do just as nicely, and one can also freely mix and match?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[F. King Daniel]

Voyager previously did this, with a tiny "transwarp coil" stolen from a Borg ship which let them use transwarp conduits.

I imagine a writer heard the technobabble of "warp coil" without knowing what it was intended to be, and imagined it as seen in "Dark Frontier" and later "Damage"