Reverseing warp drive

[Pauln6]

Why should it?

I mean, it's a common conceit in science fiction that faster-than-light travel requires some sufficiently `flat' spacetime. That's a good way to explain why the characters need to have spaceports and space stations and the like. But it isn't like space near the surface of a planet is that curved. It's detectable, surely, but if the warp field equations are so sensitive that the difference between the flatness of space near the Earth's surface and the flatness of space in, er, space matters, then they're surely too sensitive to be used in practical applications.

In any case we've seen going to warp from sea level isn't apparently a problem.

Except we're not talking about warping space at FTL speeds, just generating a subspace field sufficiently enough to lower the inertial mass of the ship - much as O'Brien did in the pilot episode of DS9

I think this is my problem. I'm not a physicist so I get very confused trying to work out the physical parameters for Trek tech and when the writers move the goal posts I get even more confused. It seems to me that if you are warping space to go in a direction, you are warping space in front of you and it snaps back into normality behind you so your navigator needs to make sure that there is nothing significant in your path that might be crushed and/or slam into you and if you generate a space warp in an atmosphere then all the atmosphere in front of you is going to be affected by that warp. This would disrupt weather patterns (fine if you have weather control satellites I suppose) and might wrench a chunk of your atmosphere out into space because you are drawing a vacuum into that atmosphere. It just looks a bad idea to me.

If you are going to generate a warp field to reduce the pull of gravity on your ship by reducing its mass then I would have thought you need to warp space between you and the object that is exerting its gravitational pull i.e. the planet, so you are warping space behind you. So while I agree that in the grand scheme of things you would not require much in the way of a warp field to do that, complex life forms tend to be adapted to a very narrow band of existence and are very squishy when their conditions are altered. What happens to the life forms that exist between you and the gravity source when you warp the space that they're in to let your ship pull forward a bit easier?

The only thing I know that warps space at the moment is gravity but I think that conventional warp fields are based on purely gravity warps or travelling at warp really would play havoc in solar systems wouldn't it?

I rather like the tech having limitations and drawbacks so I suppose I don't like it when I see some new magical technology thrown on screen to look cool if it makes a mess of my understanding of fictional world physics. Reversing at warp actually seems a lot more straightforward to me, since you just need to extend the warp field in the opposite direction.

 

[Maurice]

The Enterprise went into reverse warp in "Balance Of Terror".

KIRK
Full astern! Emergency warp speed!

KIRK
Do we have emergency warp?

SULU
Full power, sir. It's still overtaking us.​

 

[Captain Rob]

I was always under the impression from some of the on screen graphic animations. That the ship moved forward at warp by the sequential pulsing of the warp coils in the nacelles. The faster the pulsing, the faster the warp speed. Just reverse the pulsing sequence and the ship goes in reverse. Have half of the coils pulse in one direction, and the rest pulse in the opposite direction. And the ship remains stationary in a static warp shell. Pulse one side faster than the other and the ship turns at warp.

 

[Timo]

The problem with that sort of steering is that it can't explain up and down.

Did TMP dumb down the tech though? Do you mean they started to ignore real world physics or that they started to wind back the clock to real world physics to make it less magical? The less magical and more rooted in real world physics it is, the more I like it.

A bit of both, really. TMP did not acknowledge real world physics any more than TOS or TAS did, but it did "wind back" so far that Trek essentially became steampunk - meaning that the technology was now explicitly unable to cope with the magic requirements imposed upon it.

I can appreciate technology based on reciprocating steam engines, wrought and stapled-together iron, and brass cogwheels. But if said tech produces helicopters and motorbikes instead of just fancy-looking airships and romantic submarines, it's distanced itself from the region of applicability of the tech too far to earn the right to use the word "real" much. TMP shows us NASA-primitive structures, mechanisms and practices that would never allow a starship to fly through a Space Amoeba or escape the grip of Apollo. Clumsy docking ports requiring hour-long approach procedures for rocket-powered capsules, when you explicitly have transporters and helicopter-nimble shuttlecraft? It's about as attractive as equipping a modern amphibious assault ship with a fleet of steam-powered paddle-wheelers to deliver an invasion force of knights and wooden tanks designed by ol' Leonardo.

Ion propulsion is definitely a thing in Trek

Only in backstage material, thankfully. Onscreen, ships have ion power, a fictional technology of somewhat contradictory applicability (amazingly advanced on alien starships, mundane for Starfleet shuttles).

and would involve using ionised gas to move forward, using as suggested above, projected force fields to redirect the thrust force forward to reverse

The two obvious shortcomings in the Trek context are that there'd never be enough fuel aboard for the practical applications we see (unless the rocket equation were defeated by applying antigravity on the fuel tanks!), and that there is no visual or dialogue evidence for the use or existence of rocket exhausts. Except in extreme emergencies, as Plan H when all the previous ones have failed (Spock in "The Cage" wants to apply rockets when his ship refuses to work, Picard in "Booby Trap" fires visible RCS jets for the first and last time in the history of his starship).

Timo Saloniemi

 

[psCargile]

're: warping space: Yeah but...subspace is the magic realm that makes it possible.

 

[Captain Rob]

I think that changing course up or down at warp was explained by having some off-axis warp coils in the aft ends of the nacelles.
I'd still like to know how you're supposed to pivot the ship at Warp Two. Sounds cool, but really?

 

[Mytran]

Reduce power in one of the nacelles, thus facilitating a turn?

 

[Pauln6]

A bit of both, really. TMP did not acknowledge real world physics any more than TOS or TAS did, but it did "wind back" so far that Trek essentially became steampunk - meaning that the technology was now explicitly unable to cope with the magic requirements imposed upon it.

I can appreciate technology based on reciprocating steam engines, wrought and stapled-together iron, and brass cogwheels. But if said tech produces helicopters and motorbikes instead of just fancy-looking airships and romantic submarines, it's distanced itself from the region of applicability of the tech too far to earn the right to use the word "real" much. TMP shows us NASA-primitive structures, mechanisms and practices that would never allow a starship to fly through a Space Amoeba or escape the grip of Apollo. Clumsy docking ports requiring hour-long approach procedures for rocket-powered capsules, when you explicitly have transporters and helicopter-nimble shuttlecraft? It's about as attractive as equipping a modern amphibious assault ship with a fleet of steam-powered paddle-wheelers to deliver an invasion force of knights and wooden tanks designed by ol' Leonardo.

The two obvious shortcomings in the Trek context are that there'd never be enough fuel aboard for the practical applications we see (unless the rocket equation were defeated by applying antigravity on the fuel tanks!), and that there is no visual or dialogue evidence for the use or existence of rocket exhausts. Except in extreme emergencies, as Plan H when all the previous ones have failed (Spock in "The Cage" wants to apply rockets when his ship refuses to work, Picard in "Booby Trap" fires visible RCS jets for the first and last time in the history of his starship)

See I love the feel of TMP. I'd much rather that transporters are not used casually or frequently due ongoing risks related to repeated frequent use. I'd much rather that pad to pad is used wherever possible to minimise signal leakage that might damage delicate equipment. If you take transporters to their everyday logical conclusion it takes away a lot of the excitement and mysticism for me. The issue with TMP is more rather why Earth's resources are so limited more generally, given that this is a global threat but that trope is used more often than not.

Fuel and power consumption is one thing that we have no choice but to ignore or the entire concept fails. It's impossible to produce sufficient energy to warp space and it would be impossible to store enough matter/anti-matter for any journey of any length even if warping space was possible. Deuterium is not common enough in the vacuum of space for the collectors to replenish their supply of matter just flying around.

Fuel for the impulse engines and thrusters could be compressed under great pressure I suppose but you're right to say that it would not last long with all the acceleration, deceleration, and changing direction that goes on. One suggestion is that the dilithium crystals magnify the energy output beyond normal limits to fudge fuel and power needs, which is why without it, the ship can't last long.

 

[Pauln6]

TMP did not acknowledge real world physics any more than TOS or TAS did, but it did "wind back" so far that Trek essentially became steampunk - meaning that the technology was now explicitly unable to cope with the magic requirements imposed upon it.

Clumsy docking ports requiring hour-long approach procedures for rocket-powered capsules, when you explicitly have transporters and helicopter-nimble shuttlecraft? It's about as attractive as equipping a modern amphibious assault ship with a fleet of steam-powered paddle-wheelers to deliver an invasion force of knights and wooden tanks designed by ol' Leonardo.

Sorry Timo - just watching TMP now and if the tech has been dumbed down then I'm loving it! I think I like the way it feels more relatable.

I take your point about the transporters. My personal feeling has always been that it should be difficult and dangerous to beam onto a vessel that has active warp engines unless beaming to the safety of a receiving pad. That sensible limitation would deal with so many plot holes, as would the sensible rule that living beings should not use transporters too often to make McCoy's concerns more logical and make the use of shuttles more sensible.