Star Trek TOS Ship Speeds

[Crazy Eddie]

^ agreed, but I like to have a convenient excuse for why plot speed is as slow/fast as it is. Doesn't take but two seconds to drop in a simple "There's no good route to take, Captain... it'll take us at least a week to get there" or even "If we take a detour through the Gamma Hydra junction, we can get there five days sooner."

 

[Timo]

What about "Squire of Gothos?" where Kirk describes exactly such a thing?

Interesting... Where?

And it's at least hinted at in "Broken Bow" where Enterprise needs the Vulcan star charts in order to navigate; since pretty much every star in the galaxy is already visible from Earth, what the hell do they need charts for, except to find the best routes to travel quickly?

For one thing, they'd need to know where the Klingon homeworld is. Is it this star, or that one, or the one behind that? Learning that means consulting the Vulcan star charts one way or another. For another, they'd benefit from knowing who lives on the other stars nearby. They could simply ask the Vulcans which star is the Klingon home, but they couldn't ask in advance about all the dozens of stars whose inhabitants they may need to know later on. Not without essentially getting their own copy of those star charts.

Of course, there'd be more to getting to the Klingon home star than just knowing which one it is. One'd also need to know the exact route where one doesn't get blown to bits, all the fancy choreography one has to go through to avoid getting one's head bitten off. That'd also be in the charts, hopefully.

All in all, you now have a reason why starship navigators have to be very smart people--wiz kids, in fact. It's not just a matter of pointing your ship in the right direction and pressing "engage," you need to know the right route to take to get there in a timely fashion.

The argument for having clever navigators is sound enough - but then again, navigators might be complete morons, too. A military machine like the 1960s-style starship we see has many uses for barely sapient button-pushers, rather than mere automated circuits...

It's a matter of degree: if space were full of variation so that taking this route would give twice the speed of that one, not only would navigators have to plot routes from A to B - they'd have to take over whenever there's combat, and override the skipper's natural but misguided instinct of following the enemy vessel along the most direct course. It would not be like aerial combat - but like fighting in a maze of corridors. Do we go left, right or center here? Did the enemy go through the first corridor to the left, or the third?

Except it's a tad too convenient for that, since it's never used again in 200 years of space exploration.

Indeed. One might well speculate that the Xindi create their own corridors, but that they degrade rapidly, in a matter of days. Borg corridors may do the same thing unless specifically "reinforced" by those giant hub things...

Perhaps regular warp does the same, to some degree - perhaps warp travel creates temporary "smoothness" of subspace for a somewhat lame version of "warp highways", and frequent warp travel creates more permanent smoothness, until subspace goes so smooth a hole is torn in it, like in "Force of Nature". The effects would probably be minuscule, though, as UFP science doesn't believe in them in the aforementioned episode yet.

Since V'ger isn't moving that fast in the movie, and since the Klingon homeworld probably isn't fifteen light years away from Sol

Hmh? V'Ger could easily do something like warp seven, since that's the best speed Kirk dares attempt, and Kirk does catch V'Ger and tag along with it. (Although probably much of the tagging-along is thanks to our heroes being inside V'Ger's warp field, and doesn't require engine use at all.) That'd give fewer days than Archer spent, but still a figure in the same ballpark - all nicely consistent without the need for high speed corridors.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Vance]

Interesting... Where?

Never. He's conflating the idea of well-travelled space routes (mentioned that Trelane's world is NOT on one) with the idea of hyperspace bypasses.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

Actually, I believe Kirk mentioned that Trelane's world was situated in a "star desert" where ships could travel faster than normal. But I could be thinking of another similar reference in another episode.

 

[Vance]

Actually, I believe Kirk mentioned that Trelane's world was situated in a "star desert" where ships could travel faster than normal. But I could be thinking of another similar reference in another episode.

They NEVER say they can 'travel faster than normal'.. just that Trelane's planet was in a bit of a void - the gap between galactic spirals.

 

[Mytran]

Quote from the episode:

DESALLE: All clear ahead, Captain. The sensors indicate zero register.
KIRK: Forward readings, Mister Spock.
SPOCK: Gravimetric readings, no significant change, zero space density.
KIRK: Ahead warp factor three, Mister Sulu. Colony Beta Six wants their supplies. Let's get across this void in a hurry.
MCCOY: Void, star desert...
SPOCK: Thank you, Doctor McCoy. Moving on schedule into quadrant nine oh four. Beta Six is eight days distant.

 

[BK613]

The argument for having clever navigators is sound enough - but then again, navigators might be complete morons, too. A military machine like the 1960s-style starship we see has many uses for barely sapient button-pushers, rather than mere automated circuits...

It's a matter of degree: if space were full of variation so that taking this route would give twice the speed of that one, not only would navigators have to plot routes from A to B - they'd have to take over whenever there's combat, and override the skipper's natural but misguided instinct of following the enemy vessel along the most direct course. It would not be like aerial combat - but like fighting in a maze of corridors. Do we go left, right or center here? Did the enemy go through the first corridor to the left, or the third?


Timo Saloniemi

I t would be exactly like aerial combat, where, in the midst of battle, weather and wind speed and the like aren't as much of a contributing factor. However, in long distance travel, factors such as weather, jet streams, the curvature of the Earth's surface, etc., are important considerations in shortening your travel times. For example, flying east-west at higher latitudes isn't as short a distance as flying a great circle.

 

[Timo]

Like I said, a matter of degrees. If the differences between speeds in various parts of space are an order of magnitude or more, our heroes are fighting in what amounts to such deep canyons that they are essentially corridors. The battlefield is "quantized". If the differences are minor, the battlespace is just a gently undulating landscape that barely affects the maneuvering.

But the minor differences would provide zero help in explaining away the speed or travel time discrepancies, while the major ones would affect even short-distance maneuvering. If the truth lies in the middle, then we need some other explanation for fast travel to the center of the galaxy and back, but we don't need explicit "corridor fight" dialogue nor complete adherence to a given formula between speed and warp factor.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Vance]

Well, Timo, we can start by not using either the "Final Frontier" or "Magics of Megas Two" as datapoints.

 

[Timo]

...Then again, we can tackle both.

After all, in ST5:TFF, the story point was that the center of the galaxy could NOT be reached. Kirk was certain of this, and since nobody later on explicitly said that they had reached the center of the galaxy, perhaps we could take Kirk for his word?

That is, Kirk said that they couldn't go to the center. He quoted just one reason out of no doubt dozens for why this couldn't be done: the Great Barrier. And even though Sybok somehow tackled that Barrier (perhaps he got the pass key from God, perhaps he caught the Barrier at a weak moment, perhaps the Barrier never posed a threat to manned vessels), his belief that Sha Ka Ree lay at the very center of the galaxy may have been wrong. He got the direction right, but not the distance.

In turn, the TAS episode involves the ship studying the galactic center. But she could have done so from afar, merely flying into a position from where such observations would be possible (that is, a bit above or below the galactic plane to avoid the arms obscuring the view of the middle). None of the dialogue explicitly says they have flown into the very center.



Timo Saloniemi

 

[Cary L. Brown]

As I said, the point basically is, there aren't rational interpretations. If 'chi' is used, we're essentially using a 'random number' based on technobabble on how space is already shown to NOT exist in order to explain WF inconsistances. That path's already screwed.

So we're 'realistically' left with options. Find a curve that makes sense to most of the datapoints and ignore the outliers.. .IE, take a scientific approach. Unfortunately, we're still pretty vague, as we see that only WF1 and WF6 are used with any consistancy. (See above).

We're basically trying to apply a mathematical formula to 'Hollywood pulled numbers out of its ass'. Good luck with that, it's been attempted for 40 years now. We're not any closer.. because it's a bit of folly to BEGIN with. Strict canon cannot happen because of the difference between reality and Hollywood's dramatic interpretation thereof.

Sorry I missed so much of this interchange...

I find myself agreeing with Vance here.

We simply cannot accept, without "mental retconning," every single thing seen on-screen for Trek (or for any other show, sci-fi or otherwise!) Some of it simply doesn't work. Some of that may be because the writers and/or producers didn't fully understand their topic. Some of it may be because they simply didn't CARE, and instead wrote the most interesting story that they could, without any regard for "scientific rationality."

The FUN part of all of this... for most of us in here, anyway... isn't "taking everything ever seen on-screen and insisting that it is inviolable and must be accepted without deviation, AMEN!" It's trying to find the "real" explanation which best fits what we've seen on-screen.

For me, the easiest explanation is to assume that many of the cruise lengths we saw were actually quite a bit lengthier than we were informed (either through inference or through direct dialog), for the simple reason that it would be extraordinarily TEDIOUS for the audience to have done so.

As a former soldier (well, technically you're never "former" in this regard, so I suppose I'm still a soldier!), one of the first things you realize is that the life of a soldier is basically long, extended periods of tedium, punctuated by short periods of intense activity. I can't imagine that life on a starship would be any LESS so. But I can easily see the audience not wanting to watch a show like that, any more than I can imagine an audience wanting to watch a "war movie" where the bulk of the film involves soldiers waiting for something to happen.

As far as I'm concerned... there is no "chi factor." As far as I'm concerned, the "WF^3" scale is what was "really" happening in TOS. I accept that because it makes a certain degree of sense from a mathematical standpoint.

Among engineers, we have a phrase we use to describe what's sometimes referred to as the "chi" factor here. We call it a "fudge factor." With "fudge" having scatalogical connotations... basically, the use of "fudge factors" is what's done when you don't really understand the math, but you have an equation you've invested your personal time into and don't want to have to rethink. So you insert that sort of a "constant" in there to compensate for the fact that you don't really know why your equation doesn't fit.

Ok, I'll grant, this isn't always a horrible approach. Sometimes it gives you the next step in developing your equations... since you can look at the curves well beyond your current range of interest, and determine how your supposed "constant" varies outside of the range you were looking at... and sometimes, that leads to some REAL MATH that does, in fact, reflect some factors in the equation you hadn't originally thought of.

The point is that the "fudge factor" is a stop-gap measure, not a solution endpoint.

It makes sense to me that as you step downwards from "real space" into "subspace," you'll see a mathematical shift in distances... and you need it to be in a form which allows both positive and negative values (which means you need an odd-number exponent, not an even one). WF^3.

Take another "step down" below the "surface of space/time"... or rather, a single "step down" below the "surface of subspace"... and you'd be looking at the next odd-numbered exponent. Essentially, you're "warping again from within subspace"... and that's what I treat as "transwarp"... TWF^5.

As for TNG-WF, well... the whole WF10=infinity thing is something I reject, for the most part, because it was supposed to "simplify things" but actually created a far, far worse problem. "Set course, warp factor 9.9999944323432523531242983572983751073... which is twice as fast as warp factor 9.9999944323432523531242983572983751072.

If I really need to think of that, "in-universe," we were given a cheat... it was only the "TNG-WF10 = infinity" warp drive system which was damaging the fabric of space/time."

It's 100% true that many elements from TOS, TAS, TMP-era, and TNG-era don't fit with this in any way. But there's NOTHING you can do to make them fit. NOTHING.

So, you either continue to beat your head against the wall, or you can "mentally retcon" some travel times and assume we just weren't exposed to the between-destinations tedium. I choose the latter.

 

[Ronald Held]

chi may not be a fudge factor but expresses the observable variations in warp factor versus speed as a function of space-time location. Perhaps with a complete warp drive theory there would be a different formula.

 

[Mytran]

Excellent! I'll just dig out my copy of "the complete warp drive theory" and ... oh damn. Anyone got a publication date?

 

[CuttingEdge100]

I think ret-conning the Constitution Class's maximum speed to 0.73 LY/HR is the best solution. It makes the ship a lot faster, conforms to some number that Roddenberry actually used that's canon and it's not too fast as even at that speed it would take 15 years, 7-1/2 months to cross the whole galaxy. Regardless, the ship couldn't do that speed for a protracted amount of time, it would be traveling at cruise-speed. If the cruise speed was 2/3 the maximum speed, it would take 23 years, 5 months, and around 8 days to cross the whole galaxy if the vessel was traveling non-stop from one end to the other; if the cruise speed was 3/4 the maximum speed, it would take a little over 20 years, 10 months to do the same.

Considering the ship is often going from one system to another to another, sometimes going back and forth, and periodically heading back to star-bases and such, and not going in a straight line in one direction for months or years at a time, it is a reasonable speed considering the size of Starfleet.


CuttingEdge100

 

[Wingsley]

As for TNG-WF, well... the whole WF10=infinity thing is something I reject, for the most part, because it was supposed to "simplify things" but actually created a far, far worse problem. "Set course, warp factor 9.9999944323432523531242983572983751073... which is twice as fast as warp factor 9.9999944323432523531242983572983751072.

If I really need to think of that, "in-universe," we were given a cheat... it was only the "TNG-WF10 = infinity" warp drive system which was damaging the fabric of space/time."

It's 100% true that many elements from TOS, TAS, TMP-era, and TNG-era don't fit with this in any way. But there's NOTHING you can do to make them fit. NOTHING.

So, you either continue to beat your head against the wall, or you can "mentally retcon" some travel times and assume we just weren't exposed to the between-destinations tedium. I choose the latter.

I wholeheartedly agree that the TNG "Warp 10 Infinity" was ridiculous and inapplicable to the TREK Universe, canon fidelity or no. As I understand it, "Warp 10 Infinity" was a political concoction promulgated by Mr. Roddenberry and Mr. Arnold to monkeywrench any discussion of continuity between TOS and TNG during TNG's early years.

I also agree with you that, if you take the Cochrane's Formula directly from MAPS, verbatim, and apply it to TREK that it does come across as a fudge factor. Since the Formula itself in canon-derived and not truly canon, there's nothing wrong with modifying or re-interpreting how it works.

How about this: since the days of TMP (when MAPS was published) scientists have begun to discover that our Galaxy and our Universe are being "held together" and shaped by the mysterious forces of dark matter and dark energy. How would these phenomena affect warp propulsion? If, as an example, consider that the Negative Energy Barrier at the Galaxy's Edge is an example of the dark matter/energy at work, and that the interaction between this barrier and the unprepared Enterprise's warp engines caused those engines to fail, it can be assumed that dark matter/energy can have a profound effect on subspace technology. (Rojan said "no form of communication can penetrate the barrier", implying FTL communication to Andromeda.)

So perhaps Cochrane's Variable, the "chi factor", would be useful after all, as an indicator of how dark matter/energy acts as a "trade wind" in galactic "currents" to boost FTL velocities.

 

[CuttingEdge100]

Wingsley,

Personally, I don't really like the warp-factor system at all. They should just measure their velocity in terms of it's relationship to the speed of light (i.e. 0.75c, 1c, 5c, 25c, 100c) or in extremely fast cases, the amount of light years covered per day or hour (i.e. 0.73 LY/Hr)

 

[Wingsley]

I suppose, in retrospect, a different system might've helped. I think it would've had trouble flowing in the dialogue. There's something about Kirk saying "Take us out of orbit, Mr. Sulu. Ahead, Warp Factor One" that worked so well for the show, even if you didn't know exactly what that meant.

It probably would've been better to say it like "Cruising Warp Speed" or "Maximum Warp" and keep it vague. That's the thing about TOS, people love to dive into the specifics, but it's wise to keep it vague so you don't step on toes or wind up tripping over all the contradictions.

 

[Bertie]

There's something about Kirk saying "Take us out of orbit, Mr. Sulu. Ahead, Warp Factor One" that worked so well for the show, even if you didn't know exactly what that meant.

Right; the basic concept of numeric warp speeds added flavor to the show without crossing over into too much tech. I'd go a little further and say that numbers did help convey some things succinctly; for example, a TNG viewer would know generally:

Warp 2 = Pretty Darn slow. This is what you do when you don't want to get anywhere in a hurry. If an alien ship can only go this fast, they're pretty primitive.

Warp 5-7 = Your basic cruising speed. Tends to indicate "routine", "nothing unusual".

Warp 9+ = Emergency. Heightened drama because we can't sustain this forever.

Of course, we all know the problems; the system didn't scale across eras, when by all rights newer ships ought to be more obviously faster (not just a decimal point faster); furthermore, the compression at the high end crosses over into technobabble like Voyager's "warp 9.995".

I don't know what could have been done; expressing everything in units of c would simply have led to more problems — collaborative shows consisting of hundreds of episodes by scores of writers across decades on TV budgets could never have done it without making tons of errors. But abandoning everything and just reverting to ship-relative speeds like "maximum" would have taken away some flavor and some occasionally useful information.

I guess, in the last, I would have preferred the TNG: "All Good Things" approach — allow a modest inflation of the numbers over time; no "maximum" that forces stilted dialog, maintain a (very rough) continuity between TOS and TNG scales. Greater than 10 numbers would still be generally reserved for unusual situations.

 

[Ronald Held]

Mytran, Q refuses to tell me the complete Warp drive theory.

 

[Mytran]

The sick prankster! Is there nothing he won't stoop to? We're trying to have a serious discussion here about 40 year old TV science!