New Treknology Into Darkness

[Pauln6]

If JJPrise can travel 90 light years in 12 hours isn't that a corridor of 20,000,000,000 km per second? That's huge!

But also very very skinny: the corridor may be 20 billion kilometers long, but it's only about five hundred meters wide. Anything that wanders into that corridor is going to get pushed out of the way by the navigational deflector.

More to the point, we don't really understand the interaction between the warp field and other objects in space. Again, we've seen ships go to warp in an atmosphere and in fogbank nebulas without really disturbing the local environment, and in the last movie we saw Enterprise drop out of warp in Titan's atmosphere. The warp field clearly causes some effect, but it seems to be that it merely allows things within that field -- starships, for example -- to obey modified laws of physics and move through space much easier than they would if they were outside of the field (and this probably applies to the deflector as well; most of those asteroids and subatomic particles wouldn't be so easy to push out of the way if they weren't inside the ship's warp field).

So I guess the only real difference between you and me is that you never played Halo.

It's true! I prefer games with hobbits and/or Homer Simpson.

Then you're missing out. Alot of very innovative science fiction is being manifest in video games these days. Actually, I've been saying for a while no that Star Trek is showing more and more influence from Mass Effect. Hell, the site of the Klingon gunfight in STID bears an uncanny resemblance to Wrex's throne room on Tuchanka (and I'm not just saying that because Gatatog Uvenk was voiced by Michael Dorn). Not to mention, the skyline of Ketha Province looks EXACTLY like the aerial view of Feros.

Yes, I suppose I've always viewed bending space-time as having a similar effect to gravity bending space time, with the ultimate being the creation a singularity that creates an Einstein-Rosenberg bridge - i.e. a wormhole or subspace corridor. A singularity is tiny but its gravitational effect is significant as we saw in the last movie. As a consequence, I've never really bought things like warping into orbit around a planet as being safe because compressed space time will have a nasty effect. The writers and special effects people just tke the 'a wizard did it' perspective - lol.

I just can't find the time to play games these days - too much time spent on Dungeons & Dragons with real people, plus custojm action figures and painting a Polar Lights Enterprise. I also went a bit mad and created a Youtube comic crossing Star Trek with Babylon 5 and Alien (among others) - on the last part of the second story now! Why not do Halo too? If you've got any screenshots let me have them! The main problem I've encountered is that there were just no action shots in TMP so it has been a challenge to put in any action at all. So if anybody also has any screen shots from Star Trek Online of officers in TMP uniforms, let me have them please! I tried playing that game too to get my own pics but I never got past the intro - lol.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

Why not do Halo too? If you've got any screenshots let me have them!

I can do you one better:

"The Package"

 

[Timo]

Whatever the method of space bending used by the warp drive, it allows for two ships to chase each other within visual range. And lest it be suggested that optical distortions are at play there (either in-universe, or just for the sake of dramatic license), we also have situations where two ships at warp come close to touching each other (the two NX ships in ENT mating) or the opposite (the Prometheus splitting up).

Warp bubbles thus seem to be extremely compact things, actually. Moreover, with a bit of effort, you can hide them inside a cloaking field... Them being an environmental hazard looks extremely unlikely, then. (Hey, even space within the fields themselves only degrades after centuries of exceptionally intense traffic!)

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Pauln6]

Whatever the method of space bending used by the warp drive, it allows for two ships to chase each other within visual range. And lest it be suggested that optical distortions are at play there (either in-universe, or just for the sake of dramatic license), we also have situations where two ships at warp come close to touching each other (the two NX ships in ENT mating) or the opposite (the Prometheus splitting up).

Warp bubbles thus seem to be extremely compact things, actually. Moreover, with a bit of effort, you can hide them inside a cloaking field... Them being an environmental hazard looks extremely unlikely, then. (Hey, even space within the fields themselves only degrades after centuries of exceptionally intense traffic!)

Timo Saloniemi

To quote Douglas Adams, "Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind- bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space."

I've always thought that chasing down a ship to attack them while at warp is a bit silly in most cases. You have to warp space in front of you quite some distance so I don't see how you would have visual on another ship until you were able to merge your warp bubbles at exactly the same speed. You can't be in the same bubble with one ship going faster than the other - the ship in front would just be able to cruise along in the other warp bubble and save it's energy? If you are in separate warp bubbles at different speeds the odds of you synchronising your warp bubbles seem pretty slim when you consider that a slight differential would lead to the other ship overshooting by light years but its plausible that Federation ships tracking other Federation ships should be able to do this since they use the same tech and have coded transponders. Since they would have to be in separate warp bubbles the Enterprise might have been better off dropping out of warp for an instant, let the Vengeance fly by and plot a different course. Not so easy to pull off when being pursued by a Federation ship since they will find it easy to track you with your transponder I guess.

Still it should be harder to follow non Federation ships than they make it out to be in episodes since you have to travel slower than the ship in front to detect the trail and they are bit vague on what happens to a trail when you warp space to follow it - I would have thought the original trail would get over-written. I wish I understood sensor ranges better. Range of plot, I know...

 

[Timo]

Well, it's an inescapable feature of every chase scene (other than car chases or the like where there is an environment that affects speed) that the party doing the chasing decides the speed. If the fleeing party is faster, she flees, and there's no chase; if the fleeing party is slower, she is caught, but there can be a chase if the chasing party so decides. If both parties are equally fast, it's a dream sequence, because that's physically impossible; even slight differences in speed would rapidly put an end to an interstellar chase.

Indeed, if the chasing party feels he isn't in control of the chase, he will smell a rat, such as in "The Survivors"!

Thus, in Trek chases, the chasing party would be motivated to ride bumper-to-bumper since the very reason he's chasing in the first place is to psychologically harass the fleeing party. If he were actually trying to shoot that party to pieces, he'd have done so already. Overshooting is an obvious risk, but one worth taking, because since you chase, you known you are faster and can afford an escape attempt or three.

"A tunnel of bent space stretching in front of the ship" sounds cool but isn't consistent with how it's done in Trek. Warp fields don't extend - they just surround. And indeed if one wouldn't need to stretch space all the way from A to B into a wormhole, and an extension of X ly would do the trick, why shouldn't an extension of two millimeters be fine as well?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Pauln6]

"A tunnel of bent space stretching in front of the ship" sounds cool but isn't consistent with how it's done in Trek. Warp fields don't extend - they just surround. And indeed if one wouldn't need to stretch space all the way from A to B into a wormhole, and an extension of X ly would do the trick, why shouldn't an extension of two millimeters be fine as well?

I think maybe I'm too thick to understand how warp fields are supposed to work and the visuals don't really help. I understand that you're not compressing the whole of space so you must be compressing only a small area around you and extending that in front of you but you have to keep extending that field forward to get anywhere - after all, your speed is zero, it's space that is being moved - so it's not a tunnel but more of a scrunchie isn't it? It sounds to me that this would be dangerous to anything in your path and two ships should never be able to interact at warp at all unless it's in the unlikely event that two exactly aligned warp fields cross and that sounds like a death sentence if the bubbles really are that small.

I would have thought that warp drive would have automated systems that drop ships out of warp if another warp field or an object too large for the navigational deflectors is detected in your path or automatically adjust course perhaps?

Could transwarp be technology that allows ships to interact at warp by adjusting the warp field to avoid disaster - a failed experiment according to Excelsior's history but successful enough to fit it to the Vengeance?

 

[Crazy Eddie]

"A tunnel of bent space stretching in front of the ship" sounds cool but isn't consistent with how it's done in Trek.

Arguably, it's pretty much how it was done in TMP.

And indeed if one wouldn't need to stretch space all the way from A to B into a wormhole, and an extension of X ly would do the trick, why shouldn't an extension of two millimeters be fine as well?

Probably because contracting the space around your ship by two millimeters would result in a relative motion of two millimeters per second. By the same token, your starship could be rendered entirely weightless in Earth gravity by creating a distortion field that "lengthens" space by exactly 9.8 meters along the ship's dorsal axis.

The same field, stretched two hundred billion kilometers ahead of the ship, would cause the ship to accelerate forward at two hundred billion kilometers per second.

 

[Pauln6]

The same field, stretched two hundred billion kilometers ahead of the ship, would cause the ship to accelerate forward at two hundred billion kilometers per second.

Yeah - that's how I assumed it had to work. Wormholes just use sufficient energy to 'pop' a hole into subspace instead of the scrunchie effect and that allows even faster travel. Although You don't need to reach out and pull from the far end, the warp field itself can pull in from its closest point and keep on pulling.

However, you still need a big enough bubble to allow you the ability to avoid objects that are too large for your deflector - a small bubble wouldn't allow time to do this, since you are effectively travelling in a straight line and pulling those objects to you at fantastic speeds. This is where the inconsistent abilities of sensors becomes a problem.

 

[Timo]

Arguably, it's pretty much how it was done in TMP.

...And considered a major malfunction!

Probably because contracting the space around your ship by two millimeters would result in a relative motion of two millimeters per second.

How so? You could contract space by two millimeters per attosecond, or whatever - the "per second" part doesn't follow from anything much. The numbers on this are completely arbitrary if we drop the "tunnel all the way from A to B" idea.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Crazy Eddie]

How so? You could contract space by two millimeters per attosecond, or whatever - the "per second" part doesn't follow from anything much.

Of course not, I'm just ballparking it for the sake of argument. But it makes as much sense as anything else.

The numbers on this are completely arbitrary

Welcome to Star Trek.

 

[Pauln6]

Probably because contracting the space around your ship by two millimeters would result in a relative motion of two millimeters per second.

How so? You could contract space by two millimeters per attosecond, or whatever - the "per second" part doesn't follow from anything much. The numbers on this are completely arbitrary if we drop the "tunnel all the way from A to B" idea.

I don't think the visuals are very helpful and have some episodes shown ships enclosed in other ships warp bubbles or is that just shields I'm thinking of?

For safety I think a warp field has to be bigger than 2mm around a ship, although as i say, it's hard to work out exactly how and how far sensors can work while at warp. Not good enough to detect the carnage at Vulcan but good enough to pull out of warp right next to a planet or to avoid colliding with large Kuiper Belt objects? It's all very inconsistent.

 

[Ronald Held]

Warp fields need to be large enough to leave the ship in "flat"space. I suspect as time progress from the Phoenix the warp field became smaller .

 

[ralfy]

Good points. You can see problems concerning such devices in various negative reviews of the film. The spoiler FAQ from IO9 is a good example.

 

[Timo]

have some episodes shown ships enclosed in other ships warp bubbles or is that just shields I'm thinking of?

We see two bubbles merging in the ENT episode. And of course any starship traveling at warp and carrying shuttlecraft is encasing other warp-capable units within her warp bubble - although there aren't many completely confirmed cases of the encased craft running their warp engines.

Basically, we do have one, though. An alien ship flies into the close proximity and ultimately into the shuttlebay of the Enterprise in TAS "Albatross", at a time when the hero ship is underway at warp six or better. This is achieved without any sort of cooperation between the two ships (save for our heroes deliberately looking the other way when the alien makes his "stealthy" entrance).

In comparison, episodes like VOY "Basics" show point-blank-range warp battles that indicate it's either trivially easy to merge warp bubbles with hostile ships, or trivially easy to drive one's own warp bubble through that of a hostile ship - or, most probably, that a warp bubble is virtually skintight.

Not good enough to detect the carnage at Vulcan but good enough to pull out of warp right next to a planet or to avoid colliding with large Kuiper Belt objects?

Well, it should suffice for the carnage to have taken place where we saw it take place - at very low orbit over Vulcan. The horizon would then take care of shielding Nero from the approaching fleet, and later the debris field from Pike's approaching ship. Certainly it would be Nero's decision where to face the fleet: he deploys his drill only well after the fleet leaves Earth, and could easily calculate a position that gives him optimal protection by the horizon.

It's not a proper datapoint on sensor performance, then. Especially when Nero's noisy drill makes sensing difficult in the first place.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Pauln6]

Well, it should suffice for the carnage to have taken place where we saw it take place - at very low orbit over Vulcan. The horizon would then take care of shielding Nero from the approaching fleet, and later the debris field from Pike's approaching ship. Certainly it would be Nero's decision where to face the fleet: he deploys his drill only well after the fleet leaves Earth, and could easily calculate a position that gives him optimal protection by the horizon.

It's not a proper datapoint on sensor performance, then. Especially when Nero's noisy drill makes sensing difficult in the first place.

Lol - but the problem is that if ships can't detect debris close to a planet they are going to crash into ships in orbit. Kirk was just lucky that he didn't warp into a Section 31 secret base in Trek 09.

 

[Timo]

Crashing into a ship in orbit takes a lot of doing - like you say, space is big, and if ten thousand starships parked on low Earth orbit today, warping into their midst blind should still be statistically quite safe. You really need to crash into a hostile starship's death rays, or to the dense debris field created by same. And this only happens if the hostile starship knows beforehand where you are going to warp (which Nero has every right to know, as he seems familiar with Starfleet procedure and isn't exactly facing their best and brightest).

It's pretty consistent that things on or near planets are obscured from long range sensors, whereas things seen against the background of deep space are somewhat detectable - and things actively glowing with warp energies can be both spotted and identified far more easily than things not doing so.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Pauln6]

Crashing into a ship in orbit takes a lot of doing - like you say, space is big, and if ten thousand starships parked on low Earth orbit today, warping into their midst blind should still be statistically quite safe. You really need to crash into a hostile starship's death rays, or to the dense debris field created by same. And this only happens if the hostile starship knows beforehand where you are going to warp (which Nero has every right to know, as he seems familiar with Starfleet procedure and isn't exactly facing their best and brightest).

It's pretty consistent that things on or near planets are obscured from long range sensors, whereas things seen against the background of deep space are somewhat detectable - and things actively glowing with warp energies can be both spotted and identified far more easily than things not doing so.

Timo Saloniemi

I don't disagree that stuff in close orbit should not be easily detectable. I disagree that any ship should be warping in and out so close to any planet, for that very reason. It's similar to driving your car really fast just because you can right up until the point some other tw*t is driving his car really really fast in the opposite direction. They don't even seem to have air traffic control in Star Trek and they certainly had no input from Vulcan. Anything could have been waiting and - oh - was waiting - lol.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

I disagree that any ship should be warping in and out so close to any planet, for that very reason. It's similar to driving your car really fast just because you can right up until the point some other tw*t is driving his car really really fast in the opposite direction.

And yet ambulance drivers and police officers do it all the time.

 

[Pauln6]

I disagree that any ship should be warping in and out so close to any planet, for that very reason. It's similar to driving your car really fast just because you can right up until the point some other tw*t is driving his car really really fast in the opposite direction.

And yet ambulance drivers and police officers do it all the time.

I work in motor accident claims and believe me, a LOT of accidents happen at speed (although more happen through driving too close and not looking when reversing). The purpose of the siren is to warn oncoming traffic to slow down and pill over but even then I've seen accidents. What consequences are there warping space which another object in front of you already occupies? Anti-matter imbalance allowed it in TMP - is there a fail-safe that prevents it? If so, how did the JJprise warp into a debris field?

 

[Timo]

They don't even seem to have air traffic control in Star Trek and they certainly had no input from Vulcan.

Oh, "Amok Time" had the Vulcan Space Central for the purpose, and "Miri" had a Space Central that might or might not be related. It's just that space isn't all that crowded in TOS yet (or "any more", as it might be); Kirk didn't have to assume a holding pattern for his unannounced visit to Vulcan, so a rescue fleet wouldn't risk much by assuming they, too, would have a clear run.

It's the whole concept of flying to Vulcan blind and unassuming that calls for critique or rationalization. We should remember that the emergency on Vulcan was bogus in the first place: the "seismic troubles" were reported starting long before Nero started drilling. So in all likelihood, the call for help was a fake, sent by Nero after he had similarly faked an emergency that sent most of Starfleet to Laurentius. Nero would seem to have the ability to silence genuine communications from Vulcan (and his drill is indeed confirmed to be a jamming device) and to send messages of his own nevertheless (and he indeed does this while his drill is running).

So, for all we know, while Kirk was asleep Nero might have been feeding the rescue force more disinformation, perhaps even pretending to be Vulcan Space Central and assigning them an approach vector that would send them right into a red matter minefield or whatever.

Anti-matter imbalance allowed it in TMP - is there a fail-safe that prevents it? If so, how did the JJprise warp into a debris field?

I don't see how these should be related. If a failsafe normally prevents forward-reaching wormholes that catch debris, then starships should indeed freely warp into debris fields as these would pose no real threat to them. Indeed, no threat was posed to the JJprise, and no benefit came from Kirk's insistence that the ship drop from warp with shields up - Sulu simply maneuvered around the debris, while shields did zip.

Expanding the invisible parts of a starship (shields, warp fields, the occasional impulse trail or exhaust) far beyond the visible physical boundaries of the ship seems to be a rare phenomenon overall. It can be done, but it calls for explicit action and is no concern in normal operations.

Timo Saloniemi