The Warp Scale: Trek's Biggest Mistake?

[Matthew Raymond]

As such, it would probably still be a BAD IDEA to travel at high sublight speeds in system, not to even mention travel at warp. Just a point to consider.

It's very impractical not to use FTL inside a star system. Leaving a star system at even one tenth of the speed of light would literally take days. Maybe you could get away faster by traveling perpendicular to the plane of the system, but it would still take a while (and you'd need to make sure you go out in the right direction, of course). Forcing ships to leave the system before engaging FTL only makes the "you're the only ship close enough" scenario even more preposterous. If the ship in question has to transition from out-of-system to in-system or vice versa, whoever's being attacked is dead meat.

 

[C.E. Evans]

It's very impractical not to use FTL inside a star system. Leaving a star system at even one tenth of the speed of light would literally take days.

Given what we've recently learned of our own star system, the average system could be an entire light-year in diameter (some systems could be less, others could even be more).

 

[Matthew Raymond]

Given what we've recently learned of our own star system, the average system could be an entire light-year in diameter (some systems could be less, others could even be more).

Right. Any practical FTL drive can't have significant "splash damage", or else you're throwing comets into star systems all the time. I would, however, expect FTL to disrupt things directly in the ship's path, for example that kamikaze run by Vice Admiral Amilyn Holdo in The Last Jedi.

 

[Lord Other]

Because of the lack of time dilation effects on the crew, plus the fact that the kind of accelerations they would have to endure to achieve those kinds of velocities would literally destroy the entire ship. An inertial dampener field would have to have a tolerance of something like 99.9999999999% just to avoid killing very living thing on the ship every time they accelerated. So it's just more likely that the engines propel the entire ship by a fictitious force, rather than a newtonian force transmitted through the frame.

How do you know that would "literally destroy the entire ship"? The ship, I'm quite sorry to say, is a fictional construct, as are all its equipment and capabilities. The ship's systems work in "narrative mode" which means that the ship accelerate and decelerates as needed, as fast or slow, from whatever speed the writer so desires. Again, we are creating data points from thin air that are not supported by dialogue or what was shown on air.

There are no references to the contrary. NO ONE ever describes warp drive as imparting "thrust" or momentum. Moreover, a deceleration or acceleration caused by relativistic movement would liquefy the entire crew in less than a nanosecond.

On the other hand, the use of warp drive clearly doesn't negate the usual effects of newtonian motion within the warp field.

Really.. ? Hmmm. Warp drive, as a fictional construct still evidently follows the law of inertia, that is, "A body will preserve its velocity and direction so long as no force in its motion's direction acts on it." Visual evidence which you discount so easily is supported directly by dialogue. For instances, the wormhole imbalance in Star Trek: TMP (which is created by the warp drive) has an inertial component, which is specifically stated in the dialogue..

DECKER: Negative control from inertial lag will continue twenty-two point five seconds before forward velocity slows to sub-light speed.

Aether it is.

No, just hydrogen atoms and other stray particles. Interestingly a old io9 article outlines the hazards that these particles could pose a rather significant hazard for Alcubierre warp drive vessels too.. hmmm.

Thank you, grand master, for educating this poor ignorant peasant.

It says master, does it? I should really change that to petty dabbler. I hate to put on airs.

Mass increase is not a real thing that actually occurs at relavistic velocities. This is a common mistake.

I may be a petty dabbler, but I'm anything but common. LOL. While its true it does not increase the mass of the particles, the vessel's apparent mass, via inertia does increase relativistically, coming from the kinetic energy of the object.

Anyway, the overall point is that the distribution of objects in space is thin enough that your chance of accidentally colliding with another object of any appreciable mass is astronomically small.

And yet.. ***SIZZLE***

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

Isn't that why they had "Navigational Shields" for traveling at Warp?

This way a stray particle doesn't do significant damage to the ship when traveling at Warp Speeds?

 

[Matthew Raymond]

How do you know that would "literally destroy the entire ship"? The ship, I'm quite sorry to say, is a fictional construct, as are all its equipment and capabilities. The ship's systems work in "narrative mode" which means that the ship accelerate and decelerates as needed, as fast or slow, from whatever speed the writer so desires. Again, we are creating data points from thin air that are not supported by dialogue or what was shown on air.

That depends on where you are on the hard-science/soft-science spectrum. The more realistic you make the science in your science fiction, the more careful you need to be. I think a show like Star Trek doesn't need to be super accurate, but they still need to be in the right ballpark.

Really.. ? Hmmm. Warp drive, as a fictional construct still evidently follows the law of inertia, that is, "A body will preserve its velocity and direction so long as no force in its motion's direction acts on it." Visual evidence which you discount so easily is supported directly by dialogue. For instances, the wormhole imbalance in Star Trek: TMP (which is created by the warp drive) has an inertial component, which is specifically stated in the dialogue..

DECKER: Negative control from inertial lag will continue twenty-two point five seconds before forward velocity slows to sub-light speed.

They may simply be using the word "inertia" loosely to describe how residual power in the warp nacelles continues to generate a weak warp field for several seconds after you cut power the the engines.

Isn't that why they had "Navigational Shields" for traveling at Warp?

This way a stray particle doesn't do significant damage to the ship when traveling at Warp Speeds?

That was my understanding.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

How do you know that would "literally destroy the entire ship"?

Because NX-01 in "Stormfront " is subject to attack from a couple of Stuka dive bombers equipped with plasma weapons whose explosive yields are described as being equivalent to "three eighty eight milimeter shells." (Depending on the caliber of the gun involved, that's probably somewhere in the neighborhood of 50 MJ.)

These weapons did some minor damage to NX-01's already-weakened hull during the attack on the Nazi weapons facility. Not nearly as much damage as the Xindi did earlier, but enough to give Archer pause.

A non-inertial field propulsion system acting on the Enterprise would cause no hull stress at all if the field was uniform through the entire ship. An inertial force large enough to accelerate it to superluminal speeds would transmit all of that force from the warp nacelles through the hull pretty much instantly. If 50MJ is enough to rattle the hull plating and cause minor damage, imagine a force of several billion megajoules instantly applied to the base of the nacelle pylons; the ship would evaporate pretty much instantly.

These things are fictional, yes, but they at least TRY to be consistent from a materials science perspective. The Enterprise isn't indestructible -- in fact, it is very deliberately destructible for the sake of drama -- so we can assume that something powerful enough to destroy the ship would indeed be likely to do so.

Warp drive, as a fictional construct still evidently follows the law of inertia

Well, no, it follows the law of General Relativity that tells us that an object in an non-inertial reference frame (e.g. a warp field or an extremely powerful gravitational field or other conditions that involve the curvature of space) will experience acceleration even if no outside force is acting on it. This is equally true of any object that enters that reference frame.

I may be a petty dabbler, but I'm anything but common.

Your mistake, however, is.

the vessel's apparent mass, via inertia does increase relativistically, coming from the kinetic energy of the object.

No, it does not. As I said, that's a common misconception, but relativistic mass increase doesn't actually occur. Relativistic mass is a variable that is sometimes used in calculations to determine energy states of objects traveling at those velocities, but the mass increase itself doesn't truly occur.

Put it another way: mass and energy are EQUIVALENT, but that does not mean that energy actually has mass.

 

[Lord Other]

Isn't that why they had "Navigational Shields" for traveling at Warp?

This way a stray particle doesn't do significant damage to the ship when traveling at Warp Speeds?

That's one of things I discussed in this post - specifically that is the reason that the power requirement at the low end is equivalent to having to deflect a particle beam weapon, and at higher speeds above c the energy requirement would be truly onerous, depending on the density of the ISM and the speeds of the vessel.

 

[Lord Other]

That depends on where you are on the hard-science/soft-science spectrum. The more realistic you make the science in your science fiction, the more careful you need to be. I think a show like Star Trek doesn't need to be super accurate, but they still need to be in the right ballpark.

I agree, but that issue that I was addressing was in reference the how the warp drive HAS an inertial element (as show on air) which Crazy Eddie refuses to acknowledge / comprehend.

They may simply be using the word "inertia" loosely to describe how residual power in the warp nacelles continues to generate a weak warp field for several seconds after you cut power the the engines.

You missed the point- Crazy Eddie stated that warp drive works in an non-inertial framework. The citation argues directly to the contrary of that assertion.

That was my understanding.

Yep. The Navigational Deflector does work to that purpose, but you don't get "somethin for nuthin" or to put it another way, TANSTAAFL.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

You missed the point- Crazy Eddie stated that warp drive works in an non-inertial framework.

No, I said warp drive works by placing a starship in a non-inertial reference frame. This is obvious and uncontroversial, since starships are said to accelerate to high speeds because they are inside of a "warp field." The Earth's gravitational field is another well-known case of a non-inertial reference frame: you are constantly accelerating towards the center of the Earth at about 9.8 meters per second despite the fact that there is no outside force acting on you that would cause you to do so.

So to backtrack. You wrote:

That assumes that warp fields and the nature of subspace operate in a manner in accordance with Einstein's Theory of Special Relativity- which in Star Trek, by inference of the violation of c as the absolute universal speed limit and constant casts this argument as a red herring.

And I'm pointing out that you are incorrect, because special relativity is inapplicable in a non-inertial reference frame, such as a region of curved or non-linear space, which a warp field, BY DEFINITION, is.

It is also worth pointing out that neither SR nor GR predict that an object cannot actually exceed the speed of light, only that its relative velocity cannot be measured at greater than or equal to the speed of light in any inertial reference frame. Distant galaxies near the cosmological horizon are indeed observed moving away from us at several times faster than the speed of light because the expansion of the universe is itself an manifestation of curved space and the assumptions of special relativity simply do not apply. More importantly, an object moving away from you at several multiples of C will never appear to be moving much faster than about 98% of C, but will appear blueshifted and distorted to the point of being almost unrecognizable. Since all reference frames are equally valid in SR, then your observation (that the speeding object is not moving faster than light) is true in your reference frame even if later observation shows the speeding vessel seems to cover a distance that should not be possible based on your observations; in that case, time travel seems to have occurred as well.

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Inertial_damper
A starship could not jump to warp speed without inertial dampers, as the rapid acceleration would smash the crew into the walls, killing them instantly. (VOY: "Tattoo")

It also could not jump to warp without the external inertial dampers disengaged. (Star Trek)

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

Even if the StarShip inside the Warp Bubble isn't moving relative to the space within the Warp Bubble itself.
The StarShip is moving relative to "Real Space".

Think about this analogy: pretend that you, the person is the StarShip and are about to go to Warp.
You're standing on the open cargo bed of a Pickup Truck and the Pickup Truck is your Warp Engine.
When the Pickup Truck moves, you're analogous to going to Warp.
You need to "Brace Yourself" so you don't move relative to your position within the Truck Bed.
Ergo, you hold onto the Light Bar mounted to the roof of the Pickup Truck Cabin for stability / holding onto the Warp Engine.
By holding onto the Light Bar you're applying a form of Inertial Dampening by using your arms to hold onto the Truck (Warp Engine).

I hope this helps.

 

[Matthew Raymond]

Even if the StarShip inside the Warp Bubble isn't moving relative to the space within the Warp Bubble itself.
The StarShip is moving relative to "Real Space".

Think about this analogy: pretend that you, the person is the StarShip and are about to go to Warp.
You're standing on the open cargo bed of a Pickup Truck and the Pickup Truck is your Warp Engine.
When the Pickup Truck moves, you're analogous to going to Warp.
You need to "Brace Yourself" so you don't move relative to your position within the Truck Bed.
Ergo, you hold onto the Light Bar mounted to the roof of the Pickup Truck Cabin for stability / holding onto the Warp Engine.
By holding onto the Light Bar you're applying a form of Inertial Dampening by using your arms to hold onto the Truck (Warp Engine).

I hope this helps.

No, it's doesn't. Even if there were inertia imparted by the warp field, it would basically impart an infinitesimal amount of inertia relative to the amount of inertia you'd have when approaching the speed of light. If the warp field itself imparted even small amounts of inertia, you'd basically blow out your inertial dampeners every time you went into or came out of high warp.

What I actually suspect is that warp fields fold space in the direction you travel, so you must have a certain amount of inertia in a particular direction in order for warp to work. If a ship suddenly stops or changes direction at warp speed, it's this existing inertia that must be countered. Thus the inertial dampeners are necessary, but no more than if you instantaneously went to full impulse. This would explain your Voyager and JJ-Verse examples.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

The StarShip is moving relative to "Real Space".

You cannot, by definition, measure velocity relative to "space," real or otherwise. "Space" is just the set of coordinates you are using to judge the distance to other objects within your frame of reference. If those other objects are not moving towards you, or if there are no other objects to measure distance, then your relative velocity is exactly zero.

Think about this analogy: pretend that you, the person is the StarShip and are about to go to Warp.
You're standing on the open cargo bed of a Pickup Truck and the Pickup Truck is your Warp Engine.
When the Pickup Truck moves, you're analogous to going to Warp.
You need to "Brace Yourself" so you don't move relative to your position within the Truck Bed.

Yes, that's newtonian motion. Because the pickup truck is being moved by the force of its wheels being rotated by the engine. The wheels apply force to the road (action) and are caused to move forward (reaction). The force is transmitted from the wheels to the frame, from the frame to the body, and from the body to you. If you are not properly braced for motion, the force will only be applied to the soles of your feet, which will move out from under you and you will fall over. If you are sitting down, the force is transmitted through the chair to your back and you are moved forward along with the truck.

If the truck accelerates really really fast, then you will crash into the back of the truck really hard, because the entire vehicle is accelerating forward and you, who are not attached to the wheels, are not. You only begin to move because the truck -- whatever part of it you're attached to -- is moving too.

Now picture this same pickup truck going over the side of a cliff and beginning to fall. If you take wind resistance out of the equation, what's going to happen? Of course, the truck is going to begin to accelerate towards the ground at 9.8 meters per second. Are you going to be propelled upwards into the top of the truck and pinned the roof of the truck as it accelerates downward? No, you are not. Because gravity attracts ALL objects at exactly the same acceleration -- 9.8 meters per second -- in which case it doesn't matter whether you're attached to the truck or not, you will accelerate at the exact same speed.

This is because a gravitational field is a non-inertial reference frame: the motions of bodies within a gravitational field DO NOT strictly follow newton's laws of motion, and are in a condition such that they will continually be in motion in a particular way whenever they are within this frame. This is why astronauts experience weightlessness in orbit, and -- by the same token -- why people in an aircraft accelerating straight towards the ground at 1G also experience weightlessness.

So no, inertial dampeners are not needed to accelerate to warp speed, because the warp field will propel everything IN that field at a uniform acceleration.

More likely, inertial dampeners are needed to keep the crew from being thrown against the bulkheads whenever the ship turns. For a ship the size of the Enterprise-A performing a 15 degree per second turn, people on the forward edge of the saucer section would be thrown towards the bow of the ship at a little over 1G. A ship the size of the Enterprise-D making the same turn (15 degrees per second is fast enough to turn completely around in 12 seconds, which the -D is more than capable of), then everyone in Ten Forward would be splattered against the windows at 2.2Gs. Inertial dampers would DEFINITELY be useful in that scenario, and the tollerances would be a lot lower (they could miss up to 10% of the imparted force and the worst that could happen is somebody spilling a drink).

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

Then why does the show reference using Inertial Dampers when going to Warp?

http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Tattoo_(episode)
"Can we go to low warp?"
"The ship might make it without inertial dampeners but we'll all be stains on the back wall."
- Kim and Paris

 

[Crazy Eddie]

Then why does the show reference using Inertial Dampers when going to Warp?

Because Voyager is fucking retarded, and its extremely thin veneer of scientific realism is just meaningless word salad farted out of the ass of a one-armed monkey in a lab coat.

I've seen Power Ranges episodes more scientifically accurate than Voyager.

I've heard R. Kelly songs more accurate than Voyager.

I've talked to flat Earth creationists with more scientific knowledge than the writers of Star Trek Voyager.

Reference Voyager one more time, and I will feed you to my children.
(Just kidding. We are vegetarians)

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

Because Voyager is fucking retarded, and its extremely thin veneer of scientific realism is just meaningless word salad farted out of the ass of a one-armed monkey in a lab coat.

I've seen Power Ranges episodes more scientifically accurate than Voyager.

I've heard R. Kelly songs more accurate than Voyager.

I've talked to flat Earth creationists with more scientific knowledge than the writers of Star Trek Voyager.

Reference Voyager one more time, and I will feed you to my children.
(Just kidding. We are vegetarians)

Wow, talk about hostility.
We're all Star Trek friends here, don't need to get into such a big rage fit.

 

[blssdwlf]

Any thoughts on how the E-D's inertial guidance was able to measure distance traveled in "Where Silence Has Lease"? Would not this imply that some inertial reference frame exists for this to work for a ship at warp?

DATA: Inertial guidance shows one point four parsecs travelled, Captain.

 

[Matthew Raymond]

DATA: Inertial guidance shows one point four parsecs travelled, Captain.

That's not inconsistent with my theory that some initial sublight inertia is necessary for Warp travel.

 

[blssdwlf]

That's not inconsistent with my theory that some initial sublight inertia is necessary for Warp travel.

I think a ship at warp has momentum and that power to the warp drive magically warps space but still needs thrusters to accelerate the ship in a direction. When a ship at warp needs to slow or come to a stop, we hear "Reverse power!" ("Squire of Gothos") and "Reverse thrusts" ("The Ultimate Computer"). When a ship needs to go faster we hear "more thrust" ("Court Martial") or "more power" ("Arena"). We also do occasionally hear of Impulse engines used to help with the acceleration ("Corbomite Maneuver", "Conspiracy"). But since Impulse isn't the same as a space warp drive, one wonders what the full properties of it is. In TOS, Impulse by itself seemed to be capable of interstellar flight while in TNG it appears to be redefined as sublight-only.

I'm also in the camp that "space terrain" (ion storm ("Court Martial"), space density and gravity ("Squire of Gothos", "The Voyage Home") can dramatically slow a ship down while at warp, even keeping it at sublight speeds ("The Voyage Home"). IMHO, this accounts for the variations in speeds for at least TOS.

Also, since in TNG we see that the E-D has Inertial Guidance, it doesn't sound like the ship is merely stationary with space moving around it to propel it since it can measure it's own acceleration and perform dead reckoning while at warp to be able to measure distance traveled.

I think the Warp Factor was very clever in that it allows the writers to make the ship as fast or slow as the plot needed to be. But I do think the change in warp scales between TOS and TNG caused way more confusion than it needed to, IMHO.