• Welcome! The TrekBBS is the number one place to chat about Star Trek with like-minded fans.
    If you are not already a member then please register an account and join in the discussion!

Is warp travel somehow faster in this new Trek universe?

The Rock

Fleet Captain
Fleet Captain
When the ships went into warp in this movie, they seemed to go in a "hyperspace tunnel" like in Star Wars instead of just stars streaking by like what was first seen in TNG. Do you think this new Trek universe has faster warp travel than the previous one?
 
Well the only real Travel we saw was Earth To Vulcan and Back and Earth to out of our Solar System. So since none of these are very far in the Trek universe, its hard to say.
 
I like the new effects. The ships don't seem to accellerate at all before going to warp, though once you see Enterprise going to warp from the bridge, the speed indicator at the top of the viewscreen increases rapidly toward 1.0x lightspeed (warp factor 1) and that accelleration is smooth, unlike the exterior effect of an instantaneous shot. Suppose the ship would be hard to make out once it hit .3c or so anyway...
 
Chekov informs the crew that they'll be arriving at Vulcan within 3 minutes. If the previous scenes are in real-time, which they seem to be, we're only talking about 4-4.5 minutes from Earth to Vulcan at maximum warp for the Enterprise. Most sources put Vulcan about 16 light years away from Earth.

Light years are: 5,900,000,000,000 miles

Assuming a total of 4 minutes travel time at max warp, that's: 24,583,333,333.33 miles / second.

Or 131,968.096 times the speed of light. Which is well above the TNG era Warp 9.9 (21,473c) according to Memory Alpha.

I gotta go. My mom's calling me upstairs for dinner.
 
The speed of plot is variable even within this movie- Earth to Vulcan takes about three minutes, while Vulcan to Earth takes about two days!

Maybe the route back is all uphill or something...
 
It's all about the time the plot needs to advance before arrival. Turbolifts work the same way... each trip lasts one conversation.

I do admit things seemed to move more quickly, warp-wise, than I'm used to.

Did anyone else notice the slight stretching effect of the leading edge of the saucer section as seen from the bridge just as they went into warp?
 
Chekov informs the crew that they'll be arriving at Vulcan within 3 minutes. If the previous scenes are in real-time, which they seem to be...

Ummm no.

At the very least McCoy changes his clothes at some point and the running around between Uhura's station and the bridge was jump-cut together. Events did not occur in "real time" during the travel to Vulcan.
 
The trip did seem to take perhaps a few hours, during which Kirk had time to become more seriously ill, then recover, then convince Pike of the value of dropping out of warp with shields up in the nick of time. But it didn't take more than that - it couldn't have been days, not with this level of urgency on what plot elements were in motion during the trip.

Contrast that with ST:TMP, where after the fancy-schmancy refit, Scotty promises that he could do the Earth-Vulcan run in four days, and everybody is duly impressed.

So yes, STXI warp is at least an order of magnitude faster than TMP warp. Whether this is relevant in the greater scheme of things is debatable, as "warp speed" in any case spans anything from zero to hundreds if not thousands of times lightspeed, depending on the warp factor. A skipper feeling a bit more relaxed might have his ship go a hundred times slower than a more nervous skipper...

Although I do hear rumors that somebody spotted the STXI dashboard or viewscreen showing a tachometer reading of warp 4.3 or so? That would definitely contrast with ST:TMP where the four-day trip must have been at warp 7 at the very least.

Timo Saloniemi
 
The speed of plot is variable even within this movie- Earth to Vulcan takes about three minutes, while Vulcan to Earth takes about two days!

Maybe the route back is all uphill or something...

The trip from Earth-Vulcan was however long Kirk was unconcious for. While the trip from Vulcan-Earth was also thrown off by Spocks diversion.

I don't see why there are all the hyperspace comparisons (other than not detecting anything before the drop out, which could be down to an unseasoned crew). It just looks like a blur of light rather than slowly streaking stars... sexier effects.
 
During the movie, I was cringing right before the Enterprise warped to Vulcan. That CRACK! noise effect we heard from the other ships leaving caught me by surprise. But, I absolutely loved the new effects nonetheless! Both the sound and visuals. I think its more "real". I mean c'mon, we're talking about the speed of light here. You would assume a ship engaging into the speed of light (a.k.a. warp) from either a stationary position or moving at impulse or by thrusters would vanish instantly. It's something that the Human naked eye could not comprehend due to the rate of speed it would be traveling at. At least in my humble opinion.
 
If the previous scenes are in real-time,

In such cases, I somehow like to think that not all scenes are in real-time/we do not see most of the travel-time on screen (it would be kinda boring anyway) because otherwise it's just too problematic...

The scenes are not in real time! They are only real time if Kirk was given a sedative effective for only about ten seconds.

There is a space there where there must have been some time pass, I noticed it on a second viewing.

Oh, and its also a film.
 
Chekov informs the crew that they'll be arriving at Vulcan within 3 minutes. If the previous scenes are in real-time, which they seem to be...

Ummm no.

At the very least McCoy changes his clothes at some point and the running around between Uhura's station and the bridge was jump-cut together. Events did not occur in "real time" during the travel to Vulcan.

I was just running through the same sequence of events from the movie in my head, also!

I think it was considerably longer than thought to get there. You also have to take into account all the cadets getting into duty uniforms and acclimated at their stations, which is what you see when Kirk is running to find Uhura and then to the bridge.
 
I like Scottys comment when looking at his future equation for beaming while at warp. He mentions that it's space that's moving. I think that's why the ships just disappear when they go to warp and then just suddenly reappear when coming out of warp. The ship is standing still and suddenly space is moving around them. That's a theory of faster than light travel, that space would distort, or move around you, bringing your destination to you instead of you moving toward your destination.
 
Warp is the same as it ever was: travel at Plot Speed.

Good one!

image.php


Calling Starfleet... calling Starfleet... Damn, I can't tune these things in!
 
In such cases, I somehow like to think that not all scenes are in real-time/we do not see most of the travel-time on screen (it would be kinda boring anyway) because otherwise it's just too problematic...

Ummm no.

At the very least McCoy changes his clothes at some point and the running around between Uhura's station and the bridge was jump-cut together. Events did not occur in "real time" during the travel to Vulcan.

Sulu punches it, flash to sick bay, Kirk is knocked out. Back to Sulu saying the ship has reached maximum warp, then Chekov does his announcement thing, back to sick bay with Kirk waking up to Checkov saying "lightning storm."

That's all real-time except, maybe, how long it took the ship to go from "punch it" to maximum warp.
 
The scenes are not in real time! They are only real time if Kirk was given a sedative effective for only about ten seconds.

Absolutely Right(TM).

BTW, everyone's noticed that in "The Empire Strikes Back" several weeks or months pass for Luke on Dagobah while a couple of days pass for Leia and Han in the Millenium Falcon and on Bespin, right?
 
The scenes are not in real time! They are only real time if Kirk was given a sedative effective for only about ten seconds.

Absolutely Right(TM).

BTW, everyone's noticed that in "The Empire Strikes Back" several weeks or months pass for Luke on Dagobah while a couple of days pass for Leia and Han in the Millenium Falcon and on Bespin, right?

The Falcon was travelling at sub-light. It could have taken them a long time to get to Bespin once they lost the bad guys.
 
If you are not already a member then please register an account and join in the discussion!

Sign up / Register


Back
Top