Ship Fighting in Warp Speed？

[ycmak24]

Hello guys, I am a newbie who just finished watching Into Darkness.
I want to ask if the Warp Speed fighting scene was supported by the theory on Star Trek.

Warp Speed is not on the speed of Starship but the space around it, which were called Warp bubbles.
It seems there might be something happened when two Warp bubbles crashes...

If they don't, the lasers may also not able to reach target as usual. Because there are still a folding space wall between two bubbles.

I am definitely not a Physics guy, will there someone could answer these questions??

 

[Phily B]

I dunno, but it's definitely happened a bunch of time on the TV shows.

 

[Mr. B]

Phaser fire or anything like it definitely can't happen at warp since it's only traveling at light speed. (TNG era) photon torpedoes are warp-capable. I hated this movie and by that point in the film I was already in a mindset that I noticed the phaser fire depicted would be impossible.

 

[Norsehound]

The TNG Tech manual has some handwaving to talk about phasers being fired at warp speeds I think...

But I think the understanding on how Warp works needs to be entirely re-written for this new Trek universe because it's obvious they don't work the same way. I'd blame it on the Narada's warp engines and advancement of alternate warp theories to shift the drive system away from Cochran's original.

 

[yenny]

USS. Bonchune had fire phasers on the USS. Prometheus, while both ships traveling at wrap speed. And the USS. Voyager had fire phasers on the USS. Equinox, while both ship were travel at warp speed.

Also in TOS, the Enterprise could fire phasers while traveling at wrap speed.

 

[Squiggy]

Phaser fire or anything like it definitely can't happen at warp since it's only traveling at light speed. (TNG era) photon torpedoes are warp-capable. I hated this movie and by that point in the film I was already in a mindset that I noticed the phaser fire depicted would be impossible.

Yet the not-yet-invented lasers shooting between the two spaceships going faster than is currently scientifically possible is entirely possible?

Lighten up. It's a movie. Not a religion.

Besides, as mentioned before we already saw it in Voyager. Like it or not, as far as Star Trek is concerned, it's possible.

 

[Locutus of Bored]

Phaser fire or anything like it definitely can't happen at warp since it's only traveling at light speed.

Except for all the times it does.

However, in Star Trek, phasers have been regularly used while starships travel at warp speeds, so the beam must also be traveling at faster-than-light velocities. Beginning with the 1993 episode TNG: "Inheritance", instead of being labeled as EM weapons, as the reference works have stated, phasers have been consistently referred to as particle beam weapons on screen. This information was also included in the 1994 Star Trek: Voyager Technical Manual - Writer's Guide, and has been corroborated in such episodes as "Time and Again", "Memorial" and "Endgame".

Even though the phaser beam was canonically established as not a beam of pure EM energy but a particle beam of nadions, the 1998 reference book Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Technical Manual still goes on to describe the phaser beam as an EM energy beam. According to page 84 of the Manual, a phaser beam can be delivered at warp speeds due to an annular confinement beam jacket and other advances in subspace technology. These are stated to be new inventions in the late-24th century. However, considering that first on-screen uses of phasers at warp occurred as early as the first season of The Original Series, this timeline for the invention would be inconsistent with canon.

http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Phaser

I hated this movie and by that point in the film I was already in a mindset that I noticed the phaser fire depicted would be impossible.

A bunch of stuff in Trek movies and TV shows is "impossible" according to our understanding of physics. If that's the standard you're going to go by, you're always going to be disappointed. Though I suppose like many fans hyper-realism only becomes an issue when it's a film or TV show from the franchise that you already happen to hate.

 

[WarpFactorZ]

Phaser fire or anything like it definitely can't happen at warp since it's only traveling at light speed.

So, you're suggesting that phasers (being beams of light) can't be used because the ships would outrun them. In that case, how does anyone see anything on the ship? Wouldn't all the light be smooshed up against the back wall?

 

[shapeshifter]

Phasers fired from inside a warp field remain subject to the rules of the warp field even beyond the bubble the same way the saucer in TNG continued at warp after being separated from the drive. [/nerdish treknobabble which has always served to reconcile bad science in the past so why the hell not with this?]

 

[trevanian]

Phaser fire or anything like it definitely can't happen at warp since it's only traveling at light speed. (TNG era) photon torpedoes are warp-capable. I hated this movie and by that point in the film I was already in a mindset that I noticed the phaser fire depicted would be impossible.

Yet the not-yet-invented lasers shooting between the two spaceships going faster than is currently scientifically possible is entirely possible?

Lighten up. It's a movie. Not a religion.

Besides, as mentioned before we already saw it in Voyager. Like it or not, as far as Star Trek is concerned, it's possible.

VOYAGER is also the show that had that howler about not being able to turn while in warp, neatly sidestepping the refit's approach to vger in TMP, the 'pivot at warp 2 and bring all tubes to bear' from ELAAN OF TROYIUS and probably a dozen other instances.

Unless of course 24th century warp drive only runs in a straight line.

 

[The Wormhole]

Half the time they fought battles on TOS the Enterprise and whoever they were fighting were usually travelling at warp. The problem is TOS didn't use a different visual effect to show they were at warp so it doesn't get noticed by the casual viewer.

The other Treks didn't show starships fighting at warp because they couldn't pull off "kewl" looking battle scenes with the stars streaking by. It actually does look kind of silly most of those Dominion War battles taking place in deep space. Particularly Sacrifice of Angels, where the way things are set up implies the Federation and Dominion fleets drop out of warp, fight out their epic battle, then when the Defiant clears the battlefield it warps off to the station.

 

[horatio83]

Re: Ship Fighting in Warp Speed?

Phasers fired from inside a warp field remain subject to the rules of the warp field even beyond the bubble the same way the saucer in TNG continued at warp after being separated from the drive. [/nerdish treknobabble which has always served to reconcile bad science in the past so why the hell not with this?]

Didn't the saucer drop out of warp after some time?
I don't think it is a big issue as I am not that into hard sci-fi anyway and notice this stuff rarely. But I also think that unless it is dramatically necessary one should try to keep the fictional technology side as consistent as possible: phaser fire during warp shouldn't occur, beaming through the shields shouldn't happen (this is harder to notice) and so on.

I also think that firing merely torpedoes during warp makes the two weapon system more distinguished and shows that fighting at warp is possible but not the same as during impulse (you cannot quickly turn around).

 

[yenny]

Phasers fired from inside a warp field remain subject to the rules of the warp field even beyond the bubble the same way the saucer in TNG continued at warp after being separated from the drive. [/nerdish treknobabble which has always served to reconcile bad science in the past so why the hell not with this?]

Actually the warp field is form around the nacelles not around the entire ship.

 

[M'Sharak]

Re: Ship Fighting in Warp Speed?

Half the time they fought battles on TOS the Enterprise and whoever they were fighting were usually travelling at warp.

Just thinking of the Orion ship in "Journey to Babel" - employing "standard phasers" while traveling at "high warp speed" (estimated at warp 10 and warp 8, on two different passes.)

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Lighten up. It's a movie. Not a religion.

More than that, it's also not science.

 

[Amaris]

Lighten up. It's a movie. Not a religion.

More than that, it's also not science.

I liken it to magic dressed up as pseudoscience.

 

[Enterprise is Great]

Re: Ship Fighting in Warp Speed?

Lighten up. It's a movie. Not a religion.

More than that, it's also not science.

Some people (sadly) think Star Trek is really a documentary

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Re: Ship Fighting in Warp Speed?

In TMP, it was clear that the only reason phasers couldn't take out the asteroid that fell into the wormhole was because the phasers were cut off by the power overload.

Although slowing, the Enterprise was still traveling faster than light at that point, as evidently the asteroid was, being caught in the same wormhole. Of course, the warp drive was out of control, and creating the wormhole was not how it was supposed to operate.

Still, Kirk's first instinct was to order phasers, and apparently phasers were going to work in that situation.

The new "warp corridor" looks very much like the TMP wormhole, to me. So, even if the JJ warp drive operates on a somewhat different principle than the Prime Universe warp drives, maybe it's still not that far off from what we've already been exposed to on screen.

 

[Squiggy]

Re: Ship Fighting in Warp Speed?

Lighten up. It's a movie. Not a religion.

More than that, it's also not science.

Some people (sadly) think Star Trek is really a documentary

Beaming to Kronos? UNPOSSIBLE!

Beaming to New Orleans? Happens every day.

 

[SeerSGB]

Phasers fired from inside a warp field remain subject to the rules of the warp field even beyond the bubble the same way the saucer in TNG continued at warp after being separated from the drive. [/nerdish treknobabble which has always served to reconcile bad science in the past so why the hell not with this?]

Actually the warp field is form around the nacelles not around the entire ship.

Actually, the field wraps around the whole ship. Memory-Alpha.

I think TOS's approach was more "Floor it, Scotty!". No real babble-science behind it, it was just "we're going faster than the speed of light".