Is transwarp standard in the Kelvin timeline?

[The Rock]

I've always wondered this. When the Enterprise in Star Trek 2009 (and STID) went to warp, the starfield outside of the ship looked different than it did in the prime universe. Plus, they got to destinations much faster than they ever did in the prime universe.

I know, in the old ST movies, they basically went at "the speed of plot" (ST V in particular). But I think for the two Kelvin timeline movies so far, all of those ships now go at transwarp no matter what.

 

[Tosk]

Then why hasn't the crew turned into giant axolotls?

 

[Nerys Myk]

I've always wondered this. When the Enterprise in Star Trek 2009 (and STID) went to warp, the starfield outside of the ship looked different than it did in the prime universe. Plus, they got to destinations much faster than they ever did in the prime universe.

I know, in the old ST movies, they basically went at "the speed of plot" (ST V in particular). But I think for the two Kelvin timeline movies so far, all of those ships now go at transwarp no matter what.

Still speed of plot. Different SFX choice. Don't sweat it.

 

[Avro Arrow]

But I think for the two Kelvin timeline movies so far, all of those ships now go at transwarp no matter what.

Sure, why not? (shrug)

Then why hasn't the crew turned into giant axolotls?

"Regular" transwarp, like what Excelsior was going for... not Magical Infinite Speed Transwarp™.

 

[Captain_Amasov]

There's a display that both Admiral Pike and Marcus have in their offices that mentioned "Transwarp Network". What it exactly is wasn't made clear, but it appeared to reach into Klingon space:

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[squidward]

Meh, it's just a movie thing. JJ wanted to do something different, and he did. Remember, he's a Star Wars guy (well, I'm both Wars and Trek, oh and Galaxy Quest!)!!!!!!

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Then why hasn't the crew turned into giant axolotls?

Because "Threshold" was the hangover-induced nightmare of a drunk Tom Paris, that's why.

 

[publiusr]

It seems almost like hyperspace.

The warp effects from BEYOND are my favs. That's a warp field.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Star Trek Online says:

Examination of the time-lost salvage taken from the Kelvin Timeline reveals that the Federation of that reality had a decidedly higher investment in advanced military technology, likely as a direct result of their overwhelming defeat at the hands of the alien vessel that invaded their space in the 23rd Century. The same has shown to be true of the Klingon and Romulan ships of that time. This emphasis allows their technology - though technically hundreds of years old - to be comparable with our own in the early 25th Century.

There's also Simon Pegg's WTF tweet that Altamid was in Andomeda galaxy...

Personally I think Trek is so inconsistent with time/speed/distance, it's regular warp in the new films. Either that, or the NX-01 had transwarp when it made it to Kronos in "Broken Bow"

 

[retroenzo]

Spock Prime also showed Scotty a transporter method when they first met so maybe Spock Prime wasn't adverse to lending a hand technology-wise.

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

Spock Prime also showed Scotty a transporter method when they first met so maybe Spock Prime wasn't adverse to lending a hand technology-wise.

It was kind of a backhanded nod to The Voyage Home. Transparent aluminum, anyone? (Except this time, Scotty benefits. To further tie your brain in knots, maybe AR Scotty will recall Spock's giving him his own transwarp equation, which will ultimately motivate him to pay it forward to Dr. Nichols in the AR's future.

 

[Mytran]

Spock Prime also showed Scotty a transporter method when they first met so maybe Spock Prime wasn't adverse to lending a hand technology-wise.

...implying that Spock really wasn't bothered about altering his own timeline's future. So either he had already resigned himself to the fact that his timeline of origin was beyond saving (the single timeline model) or believed he was in a divergent timeline (the Parallels model) or had figured out he was in a totally distinct parallel universe, where he could get away with anything!

It was kind of a backhanded nod to The Voyage Home. Transparent aluminum, anyone?

The crew's apparent lack of concern about altering the past in ST4 has always stood out in stark contrast to their earlier time travel escapes (and especially later crews'). However, if you look at them in order, you do see a progression towards an acceptance of the "you can't change history" AKA predestination paradox model of time travel:

• Tomorrow is Yesterday: the crew worry that even the tiniest change (like returning Capt Christopher) will drastically impact their own history.
• Assignment Earth: the crew struggle to foil Gary Seven, only to later realise that their role in the events was already part of established Federation history.
• The Voyage Home: the crew know that any of their actions (even ones they come up on the fly like the transparent aluminium gag or absconding with Doctor Taylor) are a part of already established history and decide to just have fun with it.

 

[Nyotarules]

Prior to the Genesis incident in one of their little chats Spock informed Kirk that according to an ancient book called 'Mysterious Disappearances' a Dr Gillian Taylor disappeared from San Francisco, Earth date 1986, it is believed she was abducted by aliens in Golden gate park according to some local garbage collectors. They both dismissed this as illogical nonsense......

 

[Crazy Eddie]

My personal theory is that transwarp drive has been in use by the Federation since the acquired the technology from the Xindi (who, in the 22nd century, used the technology to send their superweapon to attack Earth). The technology was notably problematic for requiring MASSIVE engine cores with very complicated and resource intensive power generation systems, necessitating the use of equally large and over-engineered starships to take advantage of the higher speeds. In this paradigm, small ships the size of the TOS constitution are relatively slow-going vessels using the older style warp drive we're familiar with since ENT while big "flagship" type vessels like Enterprise and Kelvin and even Vengeance are equipped with the more advanced transwarp drives that allow them to cover VAST distances in a tenth of the time of conventional starships.

OTOH: if one assumes that the TOS timeline is a separate universe from TNG anyway (as I VERY MUCH prefer to do) TOS warp speeds have always been remarkably fast, with the Enterprise capable of traveling to the Center of the Galaxy in just a matter of days. The reboot movies are only inconsistent with the shape of the TNG universe, and IMO that's a contradiction that is better left unresolved.

 

[Nyotarules]

Nope its under guard at section 31 OR
Harrison used the only prototype OR
Scotty had to sign an Official secrets act to never divulge the formula to anyone on pain of death of his sister and his nephew Peter Preston OR
Having been forced into bankruptcy after being sued by Admiral Archer for distressing his dog, Scotty deleted all research work and had his memory of the formula removed from his brain via Vulcan mind meld

 

[Go-Captain]

We have the transwarp network per the screens, the Star Wars style warp effect and its use within the Federation, the new bubble style warp effect, and its use on the periphery of the Federation. Taken together that tells me transwarp is only usable within the Federation while normal warp has to be used outside. Thus we have the space tunnel and space bubble effects. It also fits with the impression that it only takes minutes to get to Vulcan and the Klingon homeworld.

Nope its under guard at section 31 OR
Harrison used the only prototype OR
Scotty had to sign an Official secrets act to never divulge the formula to anyone on pain of death of his sister and his nephew Peter Preston OR
Having been forced into bankruptcy after being sued by Admiral Archer for distressing his dog, Scotty deleted all research work and had his memory of the formula removed from his brain via Vulcan mind meld

I hate those explanations. I can understand Symon Pegg just ignoring the issue for Beyond, and it works fine considering the setting, but I think tackling the implications of transwarp beaming is really something which needs to be done. Its advantages are as overwhelming and obvious as are its dangers, but hiding it does no good especially if another civilizations gets it and does use it. Suppressing technology never works in an environment where you cannot close yourself off to enemies, they just use that banned tech and reap its advantages while you fall behind.

Besides, weakness can be written into it with ease, such as not working through shields, and only being able to beam to planets and systems which have been carefully mapped. I know that doesn't fit perfectly, but it fits well enough. It also means ships are still important for exploring the periphery and projecting power.

 

[Deks]

If you take into account that VOY established onscreen when Paris said that Warp 9.9 = 4 billion miles per second (21 473 Ly's per year), that's easily explained away as Voyager indeed being usually capable of Warp 9,975 (that would take them through 75 000 Ly's in just under 7 days), but due to the initial transit to the DQ (which was very violent and damaging to the ship) caused Voyager to not be able to use anything higher than Warp 9.5 for short periods of time (hence why it was mostly seen travelling at Warp 6 through 8. And it wasn't until late TNG that we saw the Enterprise-D achieve velocities closer to Warp 9.9
DS9 regularly used speeds of roughly Warp 9 to 9.5 (briefly), but that was it.

That said, the TOS Warp velocities do seem very fast.
ST V had the Enterprise reach the center of the galaxy in what... 2 and a half days?
That's roughly 10 000 Ly's per day (equivalent to what the TW drive on the Excelsior might have achieved once Scotty's sabotage was removed and allowed the ship to reach its full potential). Prior to that, at maximum, The Enterprise was limited to about 990 Ly's per day (or 10x slower).

So it's possible that TNG, DS9 and VOY took place in a slightly different reality where faster Warp drive didn't take off until construction of the Intrepid class, while the 24th century Federation of the original TOS series was exploring other galaxies (as Rodenberry originally intended for the Enterprise-D).

We've seen that political problems influenced technological development (or prohibitions) for the Federation.
So, the Federation simply might not have wanted to antagonize its neighbours with potentially powerful technologies that might disrupt the balance of power - and there's that notion that the Federation (or other interstellar AQ powers) isn't allowed entering other quadrants for the sake of expansion.

One of the things I never bought about the Federation was its slow Warp capabilities.
Such a collection of different cultures with free exchange of ideas and resources (without monetary constraints), not to mention ridiculously powerful computer technology would result in massive advancements over very short periods of time through automation alone (their computer systems are more than capable of it).

I like it that the Warp drive is much faster. It doesn't make the Galaxy small at all. You can still spend enormous amounts of time exploring it and re-exploring it with newer/better technology, and it would still take you large swaths of time.
Even so called 'voids' of space probably contain physical properties that might change or provide different results with improved technologies and methods of scanning.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

I hate those explanations. I can understand Symon Pegg just ignoring the issue for Beyond, and it works fine considering the setting, but I think tackling the implications of transwarp beaming is really something which needs to be done.

WHAT implications? It's a stupefyingly dangerous way to travel that requires a fantastic amount of intelligence and precision to perform and even then you have a very high probability of dying a horrible and humiliating death wherever you materialize. The only people likely to use it are either crazy or desperate or some unseemly combination of both.

Its advantages are as overwhelming and obvious as are its dangers, but hiding it does no good especially if another civilizations gets it and does use it.

I actually don't think it's that big a deal. It's difficult to use and not all that reliable, so it's not something a CIVILIZATION would really adopt as a practical means of transportation. A few crazy individuals and/or daredevils, sure. Section 31 probably has a network of these things setup for quick escapes, as do probably the Tal Shiar and the obsidian order, but the difficulty of using them is their own limitation. In that sense, it's probably like the whole skyhook thing the Navy dreamed up in the 60s.

Besides, weakness can be written into it with ease, such as not working through shields, and only being able to beam to planets and systems which have been carefully mapped.

They already did that, remember? Scotty beaming into a water tank and nearly being sliced to pieces is pretty much the definition of "weakness." You beam blind into a location you can't see, you have NO IDEA where you're going to land. Consider, for example, that 70% of the Earth's surface is covered with water, which means blind transwarp beaming from a location outside of Sol gives you barely a one in three chance of even materializing on land, let alone in a safe landing site (e.g. not inside of a tree trunk or on the side of a very tall mountain or in the middle of a desert or in the middle of the freeway).

It's not really even a new technology, it's just a novel way of using transporters that we rarely see because it's really REALLY dangerous. I'm sure there are a dozen of those little tricks floating around and I'm sure the reason we never see them is because there's only a handful of people in the galaxy crazy enough (and/or smart enough) to attempt it.

The classic example of this is Spock's "breakway time warp" equation. There are dozens of ways to time travel, but Spock's method is by far the easiest. So how come there was no fan consternation about the implications of THAT technique? What would prevent, say, the klingons or the Romulans from traveling back in time to destroy the Federation before it started? That's simple: Spock is the only one smart enough to run those equations and the only one stupid enough to try it on purpose.

It also means ships are still important for exploring the periphery and projecting power.

Starfleet doesn't project power.

 

[Mytran]

If you take into account that VOY established onscreen when Paris said that Warp 9.9 = 4 billion miles per second (21 473 Ly's per year), that's easily explained away as Voyager indeed being usually capable of Warp 9,975 (that would take them through 75 000 Ly's in just under 7 days), but due to the initial transit to the DQ (which was very violent and damaging to the ship) caused Voyager to not be able to use anything higher than Warp 9.5 for short periods of time (hence why it was mostly seen travelling at Warp 6 through 8. And it wasn't until late TNG that we saw the Enterprise-D achieve velocities closer to Warp 9.9
DS9 regularly used speeds of roughly Warp 9 to 9.5 (briefly), but that was it.

That said, the TOS Warp velocities do seem very fast.
ST V had the Enterprise reach the center of the galaxy in what... 2 and a half days?
That's roughly 10 000 Ly's per day (equivalent to what the TW drive on the Excelsior might have achieved once Scotty's sabotage was removed and allowed the ship to reach its full potential). Prior to that, at maximum, The Enterprise was limited to about 990 Ly's per day (or 10x slower).

I do think that the "official" velocities for warp speeds are way too slow to even match what we see onscreen in TNG, as LaForge mentioned to the holographic Leah Brahms that the E-D had clocked "tens of thousands of light years" in a little over 2 years of service. Even if just 20,000ly that's still more than should be allowable at a constant speed of "official" Warp 9. It's also kind of a necessity to have those faster speeds, given how spread out the Federation seems to be.

Conversely, I think we can ascribe the seemingly speedy velocities in TOS to odd one-off occurrences rather than the standard, often due to the presence of unusual local phenomena. For instance, in That Which Survives the ship had just gone through a massive transporter beam - that kind of activity is going to leave a dent in subspace (at least for a while) which is something the Enterprise could use as a kind of "subspace highway" to get far more ly/day at Warp 8.7 than usual

As for reaching the centre of the Galaxy - that statement so contradicts everything else in Trek that I have to interpret Sybok as actually "the centre of the Galaque Sea", a strange and violent region of space from which no probe has returned. The name of "Galaque Sea" sounds less confusing in the original Vulcanian

 

[Go-Captain]

WHAT implications?

Instantaneous shipless cargo and people moving between all affiliated worlds. It utterly beats conventional shipping, it avoids the conventional dangers of spaceflight, and utilizes less infrastructure while being more flexible.

Every ship which needs to evacuate should be capable of either beaming its crew to a safe port, or beaming its escape pods away.

Ships have to run with shields up at all times. Planets require planetary shields or planetary transporter inhibitors and scramblers to prevent transwarp beam-in and beam-out.

I actually don't think it's that big a deal. It's difficult to use and not all that reliable.

It's 100% reliable, as it was used twice and worked twice. Three times if we count it on a per user basis.

For planet to planet beaming it is easy, because it only has to account for the predictable orbital velocities of the origin planet and destination planet within their respective systems. That's a matter of a few thousand kilometers per second, and offers thousands of square kilometers for landing. That is as apposed to hitting a moving starship with uncertain information moving at millions of kilometers per second, with tens of square meters for a target zone. Those are the specific reasons Scotty had trouble getting the transwarp beaming safe enough to use.

Hitting the Enterprise with the first beaming means everything else is easy, and because normal transporters can be trivially modified to perform transwarp beaming it means the system is already as innately safe as regular beaming in all other ways.

They already did that, remember? Scotty beaming into a water tank and nearly being sliced to pieces is pretty much the definition of "weakness." You beam blind into a location you can't see, you have NO IDEA where you're going to land. Consider, for example, that 70% of the Earth's surface is covered with water, which means blind transwarp beaming from a location outside of Sol gives you barely a one in three chance of even materializing on land, let alone in a safe landing site (e.g. not inside of a tree trunk or on the side of a very tall mountain or in the middle of a desert or in the middle of the freeway).

You are the only one bringing up blind beaming. Any reasonable system would use carefully plotted worlds, and destination pads.