Symmeterical warp governor

[Ithekro]

By the 24th century they are playing with warp fields to get higher speed. Yet in the 22nd century they need a large specialized component to keep it balanced for anything above warp 2 or maybe warp 3 it seems. Techology progresses over the course of 200 years. The understanding of warp fields gets better over time. Components get smaller, or get incorperated into other systems so they are as noticable or exposed to fire.

 

[kirkfan]

By the 24th century they are playing with warp fields to get higher speed. Yet in the 22nd century they need a large specialized component to keep it balanced for anything above warp 2 or maybe warp 3 it seems. Techology progresses over the course of 200 years. The understanding of warp fields gets better over time. Components get smaller, or get incorperated into other systems so they are as noticable or exposed to fire.

It's amusing how they gradually forgot about the warp five limitation though.

 

[C.E. Evans]

By the 24th century they are playing with warp fields to get higher speed. Yet in the 22nd century they need a large specialized component to keep it balanced for anything above warp 2 or maybe warp 3 it seems. Techology progresses over the course of 200 years. The understanding of warp fields gets better over time. Components get smaller, or get incorperated into other systems so they are as noticable or exposed to fire.

It's amusing how they gradually forgot about the warp five limitation though.

They did keep up with it for a little while, but eventually that speed limit wasn't going to be around forever, IMO. Even though it wasn't stated onscreen in any episode or movie, it's not unreasonable that there ultimately had to be more environmentally-friendly warp engines developed or something that made existing warp engines so.

 

[at Quark's]

By the 24th century they are playing with warp fields to get higher speed. Yet in the 22nd century they need a large specialized component to keep it balanced for anything above warp 2 or maybe warp 3 it seems. Techology progresses over the course of 200 years. The understanding of warp fields gets better over time. Components get smaller, or get incorperated into other systems so they are as noticable or exposed to fire.

It's amusing how they gradually forgot about the warp five limitation though.

Voyager and other newer ships, I believe, were supposed to have been equipped with more advanced propulsion systems that didn't cause damage to subspace as much, so the speed limitiation wouldn't apply to those ships.

Might have been a pity though. I would have loved a Janeway speech like this:

J.: Crew, this is the captain speaking. As you know, we're stranded 70.000 ly from home, which means we would have to travel for 70 years at top speed. However, as I'm sure you're all aware, the warp 5 speed limit will increase our journey time to about 560 years. Since I've chosen to abide by starfleet regulations and did not receive any dispensation, that means that your great-great-great-great, well you get the picture.... -great children will see home again. Bon voyage, everone!

 

[Timo]

Or the Federation just did the math and decided that the integrity of the texture of the universe wasn't worth protecting.

It would take millennia for any harm to be done outside the Hekaras Corridor, after all. And one should assume that there had been warp travel at higher than W5 for the past billions of years already - meaning the universe heals itself somehow.

Asimov's Foundation, Brin's Startide Rising and other works make fun of civilizations that explore the universe exclusively by going to the library. But it's actually even more ridiculous that the Federation doesn't do that. Wherever Kirk or Picard goes, somebody assuredly has gone there before! Whatever Starfleet discovers, it has been known to somebody else already, has been somebody else's problem, and either has been solved or has been the death of that somebody in a manner that might well be documented.

Yes, yes, there apparently are "great purges" where major civilizations die and become mere myth and legend, and lots of knowledge is lost, apparently because they take all the neighbors down with them. But that nobody would have studied this warp pothole problem before and lived to tell the story...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[kirkfan]

In Asimov's Foundation it is taken as a sign of decay of the empire by Salvor Hardin that the visiting delegate from Trantor is reputed to be a competent Archaeologist, yet had never participated in a dig himself but base his work on works of more ancient author. And he is right in that case.