This is probably just an issue of terminology. If sublight speeds are possible with the warp drive, why not always use it? As we've discussed, it might be due to gravitational influences of astronomical bodies. But it might also be because the impulse engines are more efficient at those speeds than the warp drive.
Maximum Impulse Speed, Minimum Warp Speed, and the Transition
- Thread starter Donovan Loucks
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This is probably just an issue of terminology. If sublight speeds are possible with the warp drive, why not always use it? As we've discussed, it might be due to gravitational influences of astronomical bodies. But it might also be because the impulse engines are more efficient at those speeds than the warp drive.
This is exactly what I had in mind.
Actually, that's the opposite of how the Cochrane factor works, according to Jeff Maynard's Star Trek Maps:
I always liked this explanation because it explains why warp drive wasn't used within a system, why the warp-factor-cubed formula wasn't high enough to account for how the Enterprise got around so fast, and why travel to the Andromeda galaxy wasn't practical.
Based on both real physics and an explanation in Treklit (from the Reeves Stevens IIRC) I THINK impulse speed will take you to almost lightspeed, with the proviso that you need progressively more power the closer you get to lightspeed and that warp drive is required for anything past the speed of light.
Would that make lightspeed Warp One ?
Would that make lightspeed Warp One ?
Excellent point regarding "Tomorrow is Yesterday". At one point Sulu states that the Enterprise is "travelling at over warp eight". However, using the warp-factor-cubed formula would get the Enterprise from the Earth to the sun in just under one second at warp 8. That is, 95,376,384 miles in one second, and it's only 93,000,000 miles to the sun. Add in the Cochrane factor, and the Enterprise is moving far too slow.
My first thought was to argue that the Enterprise started its run further out from Earth to get its speed up in time. But then Spock went and said this:
Perhaps the solution is related to some sort of time-dilation that we'd expect not to exist except under high impulse speeds. So, while the Enterprise really is moving at warp 8, apparent time has slowed for the crew so it seems like it will take minutes. Of course, I have no explanation for why that would be the case...
Donovan:
Good points about both the TOS "no impulse, warp okay" episodes. Arguably, impulse engines might still be necessary for maneuvering at warp.
Agreed; this probably applies to most of the closing scenes of TOS.
This happens at the very end of the movie ("Thataway").
But early on, Spock had made it clear that the only way to intercept the asteroid was to "warp out of orbit". And since he also specifies this has to happen within thirty minutes, he's clearly assuming maximum possible speed of warping out or else there would be variables allowing for a longer stay. So the question goes, do the heroes understand without saying that warping out of orbit at maximum possible warp in fact means warping out at less than warp nine, for technical reason X? This is somewhat unlikely in light of Spock's subsequent log about how it is "imperative" to maintain maximum warp against all recommendations.
...But that's the interesting thing: Spock doesn't return at impulse. He coasts all the way, the ship's bow remaining pointed more or less at the asteroid and the distance remaining constant.
Spock says he wants to "resume heading", but in the same phrase he also emphasizes the asteroid will remain four hours behind the ship "all the way", indicating either that the ship will not be accelerating at all, or that the asteroid will be accelerating (beyond the freefall accelerations affecting both objects, that is). He further establishes that he considers a rescue time window of four hours to be "another calculated risk", thus probably a choice.
Perhaps there exists an absolute speed limit there for some reason? Say, dense interplanetary medium that can only be pushed aside with the raw power of a warp field? Full impulse thrust against the medium would thus result in zero speed gain, so it's best to remain in the asteroid's protective shadow (which for some reason is in front of it!) and coast...
That sounds contrived, though. It already appears that Spock doesn't want to get to the planet quickly - there's no point until and unless he has solved the riddle of the obelisk, and he calculates this will take him two months anyway. So, coasting is a likely explanation, likelier than propulsive shortcomings.
As for the speeds and distances involved, supposedly the asteroid moves at a respectable fraction of lightspeed or else deflection at two-month distance should be a breeze, even for an object almost the size of the Moon. But not at a high fraction, because the asteroid is said to block out the sun just before it hits. Incidentally, this may mean the asteroid is going to go rather straight past the sun, which (if we assume the sun is creating the warping difficulty) must pose maximal propulsive problems for our starship, both out and in.
Makes good sense.
...While for the chronometers, the time has slowed even more and is going backwards. I really wonder how the chronometers get their time cues! Supposedly, they're in synch with "outside time" somehow, and ignore the passage of time aboard the ship - another nifty built-in capability that might suggest relativity is a regular concern for starships.
Timo Saloniemi
Good points about both the TOS "no impulse, warp okay" episodes. Arguably, impulse engines might still be necessary for maneuvering at warp.
Agreed; this probably applies to most of the closing scenes of TOS.
This happens at the very end of the movie ("Thataway").
But early on, Spock had made it clear that the only way to intercept the asteroid was to "warp out of orbit". And since he also specifies this has to happen within thirty minutes, he's clearly assuming maximum possible speed of warping out or else there would be variables allowing for a longer stay. So the question goes, do the heroes understand without saying that warping out of orbit at maximum possible warp in fact means warping out at less than warp nine, for technical reason X? This is somewhat unlikely in light of Spock's subsequent log about how it is "imperative" to maintain maximum warp against all recommendations.
...But that's the interesting thing: Spock doesn't return at impulse. He coasts all the way, the ship's bow remaining pointed more or less at the asteroid and the distance remaining constant.
Spock says he wants to "resume heading", but in the same phrase he also emphasizes the asteroid will remain four hours behind the ship "all the way", indicating either that the ship will not be accelerating at all, or that the asteroid will be accelerating (beyond the freefall accelerations affecting both objects, that is). He further establishes that he considers a rescue time window of four hours to be "another calculated risk", thus probably a choice.
Perhaps there exists an absolute speed limit there for some reason? Say, dense interplanetary medium that can only be pushed aside with the raw power of a warp field? Full impulse thrust against the medium would thus result in zero speed gain, so it's best to remain in the asteroid's protective shadow (which for some reason is in front of it!) and coast...
That sounds contrived, though. It already appears that Spock doesn't want to get to the planet quickly - there's no point until and unless he has solved the riddle of the obelisk, and he calculates this will take him two months anyway. So, coasting is a likely explanation, likelier than propulsive shortcomings.
As for the speeds and distances involved, supposedly the asteroid moves at a respectable fraction of lightspeed or else deflection at two-month distance should be a breeze, even for an object almost the size of the Moon. But not at a high fraction, because the asteroid is said to block out the sun just before it hits. Incidentally, this may mean the asteroid is going to go rather straight past the sun, which (if we assume the sun is creating the warping difficulty) must pose maximal propulsive problems for our starship, both out and in.
Makes good sense.
...While for the chronometers, the time has slowed even more and is going backwards. I really wonder how the chronometers get their time cues! Supposedly, they're in synch with "outside time" somehow, and ignore the passage of time aboard the ship - another nifty built-in capability that might suggest relativity is a regular concern for starships.
Timo Saloniemi
Mayne this is not the correct thread, but the Cochrane factor is applied: warp speed=chi * v^3 . If the chi is low or 1, the speed is slower(as in a planetary system). In interstellar space on a "warp lane" chi is larger and you travel faster.
You're right about the formula, but you've got the conditions backward. Chi is 1 in interstellar space and high in planetary systems. That's why the Enterprise can jet around the Federation but can't get to Andromeda.
That's sort of what I mean. Throughout TOS and through TMP, sublight or sub-warp means exactly that: any arbitrary velocity below warp speed. So even in the Doomsday Machine, there's the subtle implication that the Enterprise is still maintaining some sort of immensely high relativistic velocity to keep ahead of the machine -- a velocity that would be easier to maintain IF they had warp power available, and of course there's also the explicit references in "Tholian Web" and "Corbomite Maneuver."
Granted, post TWOK impulse is treated with a general "fudge factor" so it's always more or less the speed of plot, but in the latter case the situation seems to be more consistent with writers not realizing that space is big.
What I mean is, it isn't clear if he's basing his countdown on a reading of the ship's range, their position relative to the planet (is the conference over the horizon?) or based on his projection of whatever flight plan Chekov programmed to get them there, or on a specific region of orbital space which -- for diplomatic regions -- has been left un-jammed by transporter scramblers.
He COULD be doing just an ordinary "We're this far and going this fast" computation, but I kind of doubt it.
We kind of see this in "Doomsday Machine" where intrepid fires up its engines before the inertial dampeners kick in and Kirk is suddenly slammed into a wall. There's also the classic example of a Romulan warship CLEARLY traveling interstellar distances under "simple impulse."
Still, you're right that we don't have a whole lot of datapoints to compare, mainly because TOS had such a short run in the first place and what it DID contain was less focussed on the performance of the ship than it was about Captain Awesome and his adventurous crew. Given what eventually passed for scientific accuracy in TNG, I suppose TOS would have ended up with the same set of conventions if they'd had the time and money to really flesh out the background tech.
That one's tricky, and depends on what exactly is happening during the flyby. If V'ger is generating its own warp field (i.e. the cloud) then Enterprise is inside that warp field and maneuvering around with thrusters. if V'ger is traveling by some other means that doesn't really produce an encompassing propulsive field, then Enterprise is probably still making small adjustments to its position using thrusters, as ONLY these would be able to provide the sort of pinpoint maneuvers Kirk is asking for (seriously: would you use an engine that propels you at hundreds of times the speed of light to control a passing maneuver 500 meters above another spacecraft? That'd be hard enough to do with thrusters alone.)
That's where I originally got the idea, actually. Spock is CLEARLY using the Bird of Prey's thrusters to control the maneuver, since he needs to make minute changes in their trajectory at precisely the right moment and in precisely the right direction to get them to arrive at the proper moment in time. Their warp drive power -- to the extent it can be controlled at all -- doesn't provide nearly enough control for that, and it ultimately leads me to believe that the RCS thrusters are the ship's primary means for attitude control even at warp speed and its ONLY means of fine control (minor course corrections, slight attitude adjustment, etc).
And likewise, the Klingon bird of prey in the second half of the Voyage Home. We see the Klingon ship go to warp while still in the atmosphere; it is at least a minute or two between this and the "power falloff" where Scotty reports their speed as "warp seven point nine," at which point they're only just leaving Earth orbit. And even at that speed, they should have shot past the sun in half the time it takes for Spock to say "I need thruster control!"
Although it isn't so explicit in the FIRST part of the movie, judging by the size of the sun the Klingon Bird of Prey is clearly well inside the solar system when it first goes to warp; it takes them almost a full minute to get to warp nine, and from that point several seconds longer to reach the sun. At either timeframe, their maximum velocity couldn't have been much faster than four or five times the speed of light.
I always liked the theory that the Romulan vessel had something like a warp sustainer that carried it from its homeworld to the neutral zone and that was it. The Romulans developed the cloaking device and plasma torpedo, and then rushed them into service with whatever ship they had. It was a suicide mission from the start because they couldn't get home...
Or then Scotty was dead wrong about their power being "simple impulse", and in fact the Romulans were firing up their very visible warp engines with a quantum singularity power source or other such unidentifiable alien invention.
The specific problem with that is that Kirk later on chases the Romulans at warp three and doesn't overshoot. So the Romulans do appear to be capable of accelerating from standstill to a speed matching the Federation (or universal?) definition of "warp three"; IMHO the simplest interpretation is that they have a standard warp engine for the job.
Timo Saloniemi
The specific problem with that is that Kirk later on chases the Romulans at warp three and doesn't overshoot. So the Romulans do appear to be capable of accelerating from standstill to a speed matching the Federation (or universal?) definition of "warp three"; IMHO the simplest interpretation is that they have a standard warp engine for the job.
Timo Saloniemi
That's right - I totally forgot about "Balance of Terror"!
It's that plus Enterprise having to cross the edge of the cloud boundary to the center. So we have the precise maneuvering next to V'ger at 100's of meters away and the multi-c approach to V'ger. Since Enterprise doesn't disengage her warp engines until she gets tractored, she was warp powered all the way in. There would have to be some fine level of warp speed control otherwise we would have alot of situations where ships can't match pursuit speeds or outright overshooting the prey, IMHO.
I think you can apply that thinking even back to TOS. "The Immunity Syndrome", "Court Martial" and "The Ultimate Computer" mentions thrust used for warp. Where I differ is that I believe that warp strength (and thus speed) can be finely controlled. Warp engine "thrusters" are used for attitude control and acceleration.
TOS has examples of ships not using "warp" drive to keep up with the Enterprise at warp or travel great distances over times only possible by FTL. "Ion Propulsion", "Total Conversion Drive", "Unknown", and "Simple Impulse".
"Ion Propulsion" - The shuttle from "The Menagerie" and the ship from "Spock's Brain"
"Total Conversion Drive" - "The Doomsday Machine".
"Unknown" - First Federation probe from "The Corbomite Maneuver"
"Simple Impulse" - Romulan Bird of Prey from "The Doomsday Machine"
I highly doubt that Scotty would be wrong given that TOS had a variety of different types of drives that were FTL capable.
Actually the simplest interpretation is that impulse engines are capable of FTL speeds, IMHO
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You would think so, but I believe that would be covered by the fact that you can really only control your velocity to a specific warp factor and achieving small fractions above or below it isn't usually something you can intentionally do. That, at least, is a possible in-universe justification.
I might agree it could be possible for speed (although we've never really seen this except in a "Can't we go a teensy bit faster?" scenario) but attitude control is another matter entirely. Your warp engines would have to be able to precisely fix the ship's attitude to within a billionth of a degree in order to produce the kinds of small course corrections we've seen in formation flying; at those speeds, even the smallest movements would mean lateral motion of tens of millions of kilometers one way or the other.
So I DO think it's like trying to dock with the space station by firing your SSMEs at full burn at the exact moment and the exact direction needed to come to a stop three inches off the docking port. Even if you have enough control over your engines to pull it off, using your verniers is unquestionably safer.
Of course, in a combat situation that kind of sudden approach might be standard procedure
. Certainly the NuTrek warp drives have enough control to drop to sublight at a precisely calculated location and still maintain total vessel control when they get there. I just don't see them relying on their warp engines for that measure of control unless they really really have to, and CERTAINLY not for attitude control.As I understand it there are three types of propulsion, Warp Drive, Impulse Drive, and thrusters. The Thrusters are for fine maneuvering such as docking, the impulse engines are for quickly moving about a star system, and the warp drive is for interstellar distances. The warp drive is not configured well for sublight travel, the impulse engines do that more effectively.
"We'll pivot at Warp 2 and bring all tubes to bear" sounds like controlled maneuvering to me.
Pivoting would be performed by the thrusters, which control the movement of a ship that is traveling at warp 2.
I sort of doubt that, because it's loss of agility specifically that Kirk seems to be lamenting when he's deprived of warp drive.
If Kirk could pivot that way without using warp drive, this should already solve his problems of targeting the strafing Klingon ship; linear speed as such is of little use to him in such maneuvering.
(Sulu: "She won't respond fast enough on impulse" to Kirk's repeated calls for turning the weakened shields away from the enemy. Also Scotty: "Maneuver? Aye. We can wallow like a garbage scow..." although admittedly he may be worried about not being able to put any distance between them and the Klingons, rather than about turning.)
Perhaps warp power is what also powers the thrusters (or subspace gyros, or whatnot) doing the turning? Or perhaps warp power is the only way to create the mass-reducing subspace field that allows for sublight maneuvering with thrusters or the like? Nevertheless, e.g. the "Ultimate Computer" mention that the Lexington, despite damage to impulse engines, is "still maneuverable at warp" might be taken to indicate that warp drive itself allows for steering in addition to linear propulsion - or that steering is facilitated by warp even in situations where other means fail.
Timo Saloniemi
If Kirk could pivot that way without using warp drive, this should already solve his problems of targeting the strafing Klingon ship; linear speed as such is of little use to him in such maneuvering.
(Sulu: "She won't respond fast enough on impulse" to Kirk's repeated calls for turning the weakened shields away from the enemy. Also Scotty: "Maneuver? Aye. We can wallow like a garbage scow..." although admittedly he may be worried about not being able to put any distance between them and the Klingons, rather than about turning.)
Perhaps warp power is what also powers the thrusters (or subspace gyros, or whatnot) doing the turning? Or perhaps warp power is the only way to create the mass-reducing subspace field that allows for sublight maneuvering with thrusters or the like? Nevertheless, e.g. the "Ultimate Computer" mention that the Lexington, despite damage to impulse engines, is "still maneuverable at warp" might be taken to indicate that warp drive itself allows for steering in addition to linear propulsion - or that steering is facilitated by warp even in situations where other means fail.
Timo Saloniemi
