Structural integrity field and warp drive

[Johnny7oak]

The structural integrity field counters the gravity forces placed on the ship from what I gather. Its in place during warp drive in case warp travel is disengaged suddenly, although not needed at warp. This is because warp fields actively place the ship in a warp stream of subspace that floats the ship from the structural constraints of mass acceleration. The though occurs that a warp tunnel or slip-stream affect would require structural integrity fields for the ship to survive if collisions with the tunnel occurred. In the two differing situations: Warp Tunnel = preexisting tunnel in subspace Warp drive = subspace plow-like maneuver collapses into subspace afterward

EDIT: To note, Inertia Dampers make the ship inhabitable for people while experiencing gravity forces. Structural integrity holds the ship together while accelerating, decelerating, maneuvering at high velocity of normal space or under normal space gravity affects and changes.

EDIT 2: I just wanted to clarify, mass acceleration problems place the ship in limbo too far apart in sections of small distances... the stretching under forces of acceleration between distances of the hull would make the ship tare apart on top of the forces faced on the brunt. But in subspace the ship does not experience the stress. the warp tunnel in voyager was held open by some sort of spatial phenomena to the region of delta quadrant, but I don't know if it was naturally occurring or not. Warp tunnels are typically smaller and give ships extra time off the trip but not much to boast.

 

[Praetor]

Based on my understanding, the structural integrity field actually IS needed for warp flight, even without the potential for collisions. The structural integrity field is a "cheat" of sorts that allows space-faring civilizations to build a ship sturdy enough for warp flight using available materials. I think there is even secondary evidence that indicates it is required for high speed sub-warp travel.

In an episode of VGR, Seven states that the Borg project a field (I think structural integrity) ahead of the vessel to prevent if from "linearly dissociating." This may be what you are thinking of. From this we can infer that somehow Borg transwarp drive is apparently different enough from other forms of travel that there are different forces at play that require this special integrity field..

 

[Johnny7oak]

I think you are right on secondary evidence... but if the ship maintained warp travel rate, there would be no need for the field potentially. Speeding up and slowing down to lower warp factor may be another reason for the structural integrity field... but getting to warp factor and decelerating from warp factor are primarily good reasons. a catch all in case drive fails, and of course as you mention sub-light travel.

 

[Deks]

I think you are right on secondary evidence... but if the ship maintained warp travel rate, there would be no need for the field potentially. Speeding up and slowing down to lower warp factor may be another reason for the structural integrity field... but getting to warp factor and decelerating from warp factor are primarily good reasons. a catch all in case drive fails, and of course as you mention sub-light travel.

I'm not so sure SIF wouldn't be needed - well actually, it SHOULDN'T be needed considering that we're talking about a spacefaring civilization capable of generating quantum based metamaterials with really diverse properties - but one has to consider the kind of forces at play that would be battering up the ship during Warp speed.

The thing is that SIFs are greatly relied upon during Warp travel.
Even the NX-01 had to enhance the SIF to be able to travel at faster velocities.
Same happened on the USS Defiant... when the crew transfered power from phasers to SIF, they were able to increase their Warp speed.

Given that Warp effectively manipulates the fabric of space-time, the gravitational forces here would be quite high... you'd probably want to use the hull in combination with SIF to enhance and protect it from being crushed or pancaked.

 

[Johnny7oak]

non-consistent rates also a factor?

99% efficiency is 1% away and warp drive velocity is not 100% held to velocity thus pancaked?

Warp drive should be outside normal space, but does subspace behave like normal space with adherent gravitation forces? space with in space thus you travel at impulse velocity through subspace within a subspace field that allows you travel faster than "real" space. Does this stream of subspace incur gravity affects like space and require SIF? Kind of science fiction theoretical too me.


EDIT:

INTRA FIELD: Other ships in subspace
INTER FIELD: Inside subspace Field
Exterior FIELD: Outside Subspace

Do ships at WARP experience Gravity affects from outside subspace? (exterior field)
Do ships at WARP experience Gravity affects from within subspace? (Inter field)
Does this occur Simultaneously with other ships at warp? (Intra field)

Wave-initiated Angular Resonance Packet? WiARP Propulsion for acronyms'.

Wave Initiated Angular Relay Package... I've never been really good at these, but I think they are both answers on the exam. I would gather WiARP is altered to WARP, but it was really W-I-A-R-P.

 

[Johnny7oak]

Wave initiated Angular Relay Package: I believe is used in Communications

Wave initiated Angular Resonance Package: I believe is common to a couple things:

Wave intitated - The process is Sinusidal frequency
Angular - Travels at straight line
Resonance - Its a resonating frequency
Packet - You are the packet on a ship, but yes transmission in WiARP are also the package that becomes relay in communications

Edit: ship is in a self-initiated wave frequency resonance package traveling between two points of space at quickest time... in a place called "Sub-space" outside normal space.


EDIT 2: Light from the sun could be equivocated to an empty shell of wiarp traveling at C. Pulse width modulation is probably not subspace but electron emissions expanding simultaneously from the centrical point of creation. Thought is even though all are C in rate of travel of a vacuum subspace.... is just equivocated to light transmitted at wiarp without a package. An electron is thought to travel at C, so could be evidence of subspace wiarp possibility with a package... although small beyond comparison, perhaps subspace could be applied systematically with a larger object or body than subatomic particle and speeds greater than C.

 

[Johnny7oak]

I am just getting that subspace is not a place in space specifically, but potentially a phenomena of place of like relativity toward all encompassed with in that section operate uniformly to natural ordering as in space... exterior of this surrounding field objects act the same as inside but do so uniformly to the relationship outside phenomena known as the universe adheres too. A subspace field provides the available relationship like a bubble to space... perhaps not true that naturally is non-existent…. but the field may present itself on subatomic particles...

 

[Kerock]

Subspace is not a place in space specifically and not a place in time either. It is where the normal flow of time and space do not occur. Time is a measurement of the distance between particles/objects in our space, measured by light (which has constant speed anywhere) and flowing at different rates depending on proximity/distance from mass/gravity or inertia relative to massive objects. You don't travel through space/time in subspace, you enter a bubble which inside the bubble encapsulates and separates a piece of our time and space but outside is separated from the normal space/time fabric. It is connected every-where and every-time at once comes out at another point in space and time. Usually in what we perceive as the present or very near future......but not always...lol. Let's face it Star Treks limited warp bubbles don't really go very far or move very far through time. Q does it better.

 

[Deks]

Subspace is not a place in space specifically and not a place in time either. It is where the normal flow of time and space do not occur. Time is a measurement of the distance between particles/objects in our space, measured by light (which has constant speed anywhere) and flowing at different rates depending on proximity/distance from mass/gravity or inertia relative to massive objects. You don't travel through space/time in subspace, you enter a bubble which inside the bubble encapsulates and separates a piece of our time and space but outside is separated from the normal space/time fabric. It is connected every-where and every-time at once comes out at another point in space and time. Usually in what we perceive as the present or very near future......but not always...lol. Let's face it Star Treks limited warp bubbles don't really go very far or move very far through time. Q does it better.

But Warp bubbles do manipulate subspace, and we've seen other technical applications where Federation was able to manipulate subspace on a large level.

Q doing it better is not exactly a good analogy... they are far more advanced in comparison to the Federation (at least for the time being), so I don't think they should be used as a reference.

While inside Warp, the ships do seem to be capable of interacting with the local universe... so they don't actually enter subspace, but rather manipulate it from the real universe to achieve FTL and do all kinds of other useful things.
Essentially, they create a localized subspace field that encompasses the ship... and we've seen them doing this on a level by projecting local subspace fields around people too.
If they were to actually enter subspace, I wonder what they could do.

Do we have any instances where Starfleet was shown to be able to enter subspace itself on its own?
I cannot recall any on-screen references, but I would imagine they should be capable of that.

We've seen some other races having structures in subspace...
The Borg constructed TW manifolds inside transwarp (or a layer of subspace).
The Think Thank were able to get their ship inside subspace, and Voyager (along with the Hazari) were able to flush out the think thank from normal space.
What makes it a bit implausible for the Think Thank to be 'difficult to track' inside Subspace is that Federation sensors (and most sensors in Trek) are subspace based in the first place, capable of scanning subspace as well, and are accurate to the subatomic.

 

[Johnny7oak]

sub-space would be tandom to relational space and how it affects a ship traveling with a spatial field. Kind of like earth is tandom to sol as are the other planets. Although gravitational affects sol causes may be felt by nearby solar systems they are Earth is sub-category to the field generated by sol. creating a gravitational field ending its strength of retaining celestial bodies at solar shield distance. So the Subspace affects of Sol diminish in realm by solar shield.

 

[Kerock]

The interesting thing about gravity is that any particle with gravity affects every other particle in the universe at the same time no matter how far away. It has been thus since the big bang. I always imagined subspace to have the same kind of network. Communication bursts and energy burst in subspace obviously travel much faster than objects in subspace (in bubbles or whatever). But you have a good point Deks about being able to manipulate normal space while traveling inside warp. You can communicate, performs scans of other objects in FTL and shoot energy weapons at them. You are normal space inside the warp bubble which is traveling in subspace inside normal space and you can communicate or manipulate between the two. And warp speeds are increasing with technology which according to Wesley appears to be related to more complicated warp fields. P.S. I never accepted that episode where warp travel is destroying the fabric of the universe (bad writing should be banned...lol).