Saucer Sections and Their Engines

[B.J.]

The Galor's nacelles are the "wings". That still doesn't help the KBoP, though. A Ferengi Marauder doesn't have nacelles, either, but we all know where the warp drive bits are. I think what you're getting at is ships that there are ships that don't have obvious warp drive bits.

 

[Wingsley]

saucer sections have no nacelles, no nacelles = no warp

Strictly speaking, Sisko's Defiant has no real "nacelles", since the Defiant's engines are built into the hull itself.

 

[MyClone]

Okay, so perhaps the saucer really requires an initial boost from a vessel equipped with conventional nacelles. Beyond that, however, it must perform much better than the TNG TM claims. And in "Arsenal of Freedom", the heroes deliberately release the saucer at sublight speeds, not at warp, which would make no sense if release at warp gave the saucer an extra boost towards safety. It thus seems that there is no crucial gain from the warp release maneuver, and that the saucer can achieve at least medium warp all on its own.

I've always thought that the difference between a "starship" and other, lesser spacecraft is that the starship can operate on its own for an extended period of time. (In "The Menagerie," the shuttle specifically has a range beyond which it cannot return to base.) In modern Trek terminology, this seems to mean a starship must have a warp core. This is why the Runabouts were such a big deal when they were introduced in DS9: they were the smallest starships off the line in some time.

So, how do we deal with the obviously warp-capable shuttles from TOS on and the Ent-D saucer's behavior in "Farpoint?" In Treknical terms, we always hear that the warp core does something that energizes the warp coils in the engine nacelles. We've also heard terms like "energizers" dating back to TOS. Perhaps the warp cores of starships can "fuel up" lesser warp coils or energizers connected to them, like docked shuttles or an attached saucer. Then the lesser craft can head off at sublight under their own power and have warp capability as long as their warp coils or energizers have enough "fuel" remaining. This would allow for warp-capable shuttles and saucers but still keep starships "special."

I have no idea what to do with the Prometheus, though.

Best,
--MyClone

 

[Unicron]

That's an interesting theory, and it would certainly be consistent with the shuttle used in "Menagerie," which pursued the Enterprise but ran out of fuel.

 

[Solariabsg25]

I think it depends on the era you're looking at. TOS, the saucer section of the Constitution has only impulse engines, and is designed for emergency seperation as a life-boat, being unable to re-attach short of a shipyard.

In TNG, saucer-seperation is designed as a tactic to seperate the civilians to protect them from real trouble while the stardrive section covers their retreat, goes into battle, or in case of catastrophic warp-core malfunction.

As designed that way, it would appear that the saucer may have some capability of maintaining warp-speed if seperated at that velocity, but doubt will be able to go to warp on it's own, unless using "micro-warp" engines, which if the shuttles can travel at warp should be little technical problem.

However, we only see impulse engines on the saucer, so no direct on-screen evidence for this.

 

[Timo]

...We do see strange blue-glowing squares on top of the aft part of the saucer, astern of the main shuttlebay. Quite possibly "field windows" for a warp engine, just like comparable blue areas on various nacelles or on the Defiant cowlings.

We also have "Encounter at Farpoint" to indicate that the saucer can travel interstellar distances at high speed, and "Arsenal of Freedom" to indicate that a saucer can and will be launched at sublight speed to fly to a distant starbase, even when there's every opportunity to give it a warp launch, too. An independent ability to accelerate to and maintain warp would seem very likely, then.

Timo Saloniemi