Transwarp is dumb
- Thread starter Neoshade
- Start date
I cried when that Kira buried Possum Kira...such a touching scene.
Then it was an excellent idea to start a discussion about it in the DS9 forum.
well, atleast this thread is full of win
It's got tiger blood and adonis DNA.
I have a request concerning transwarp.
I want someone to explain to me in plain, simple English:
WHAT THE HELL IS TRANSWARP?!?!
I want someone to explain to me in plain, simple English:
WHAT THE HELL IS TRANSWARP?!?!
Last edited:
There's 3 or 4 kinds of transwarp (anything over warp 9.9999...47):
* Borg Transwarp- comes in the green tunnel variety and the blue tunnel variety. Special warp system which uses transwarp coil to achieve speeds over warp 10. Seems to be tunnels in a sub-layer of space. Transwarp Hub puts rings in these conduits to maintain them. Voyager during its run had indications there are established Borg transwarp conduits, even before the Transwarp Hub was built (seems like the idea of, like in a field or woods, if people/animals keep using a path, it compacts the soil into dirt and keeps plants from re-assimilating the path).
* Voth Transwarp- looks like the same warp starfield, only more rainbow-ish. The Voth are one of the most advanced races seen on Star Trek, up there with the Borg (they're the evolved dinosaurs). They are probably the reason why the Borg weren't menacing Season 1-3 Delta Quadrant space (and before people mention the Kazon anecdote, consider the Talaxians were considered decent assimilation stock, the Vidiians, if nanotech couldn't cure them, their technology was good, and there were many other races of some value there)... that or the "Scorpion" part of Borg space was their remote frontier like the wormhole space was to the Dominion.
* Warp 10 Transwarp- Sometimes called Warp 10, sometimes considered synonymous with transwarp. This speed puts you everywhere in the universe simultaneously... but turns you into a transwarp salamander. Borg & Voth transwarp presumably took a different form because they didn't want to turn into salamanders.
* Excelsior Transwarp- Who knows what this was supposed to be. Seems to have been TOS Warp+.
And in other systems, there is quantum slipstream (seen in "Hope and Fear"), which is an entirely different >Warp 9.999 technology. It used some dark bluish tunnels. The only species with it was Arturis' species, which was assimilated by the Borg (Species 116, which would indicate they were one of the earlier species encountered). While advanced, the fact Borg use transwarp would indicate slipstream is not as fast or reliable as transwarp. Voyager used it in "Timeless" too.
"Threshold" was a great idea in concept. It was to turn on its head the sci-fi episodic idea of evolving into a big brained humanoid by putting it in reverse without being devolution (or atavism). Evolution is merely change to adapt to the environment, not better, not worse. A good example which they should have used in the episode if they stuck to the evolution label was cave creatures- they lose their sight and coloration. Of course, it would have been much better if they just used the term transformation or metamorphosis. I think if it was just a deluded Paris talking about evolution (and not the Doctor) and either of those 2 words were used, it would've been seen as VOY's take on TNG "Identity Crisis".
Of course, the episode in itself was cool as a horror transformation episode. It resembled The Fly (1986 movie, not 1958 movie) a bit. And of course, it has high camp value. Humanity's future is as overgrown salamanders lazily sitting in swamp grass.
* Borg Transwarp- comes in the green tunnel variety and the blue tunnel variety. Special warp system which uses transwarp coil to achieve speeds over warp 10. Seems to be tunnels in a sub-layer of space. Transwarp Hub puts rings in these conduits to maintain them. Voyager during its run had indications there are established Borg transwarp conduits, even before the Transwarp Hub was built (seems like the idea of, like in a field or woods, if people/animals keep using a path, it compacts the soil into dirt and keeps plants from re-assimilating the path).
* Voth Transwarp- looks like the same warp starfield, only more rainbow-ish. The Voth are one of the most advanced races seen on Star Trek, up there with the Borg (they're the evolved dinosaurs). They are probably the reason why the Borg weren't menacing Season 1-3 Delta Quadrant space (and before people mention the Kazon anecdote, consider the Talaxians were considered decent assimilation stock, the Vidiians, if nanotech couldn't cure them, their technology was good, and there were many other races of some value there)... that or the "Scorpion" part of Borg space was their remote frontier like the wormhole space was to the Dominion.
* Warp 10 Transwarp- Sometimes called Warp 10, sometimes considered synonymous with transwarp. This speed puts you everywhere in the universe simultaneously... but turns you into a transwarp salamander. Borg & Voth transwarp presumably took a different form because they didn't want to turn into salamanders.
* Excelsior Transwarp- Who knows what this was supposed to be. Seems to have been TOS Warp+.
And in other systems, there is quantum slipstream (seen in "Hope and Fear"), which is an entirely different >Warp 9.999 technology. It used some dark bluish tunnels. The only species with it was Arturis' species, which was assimilated by the Borg (Species 116, which would indicate they were one of the earlier species encountered). While advanced, the fact Borg use transwarp would indicate slipstream is not as fast or reliable as transwarp. Voyager used it in "Timeless" too.
"Threshold" was a great idea in concept. It was to turn on its head the sci-fi episodic idea of evolving into a big brained humanoid by putting it in reverse without being devolution (or atavism). Evolution is merely change to adapt to the environment, not better, not worse. A good example which they should have used in the episode if they stuck to the evolution label was cave creatures- they lose their sight and coloration. Of course, it would have been much better if they just used the term transformation or metamorphosis. I think if it was just a deluded Paris talking about evolution (and not the Doctor) and either of those 2 words were used, it would've been seen as VOY's take on TNG "Identity Crisis".
Of course, the episode in itself was cool as a horror transformation episode. It resembled The Fly (1986 movie, not 1958 movie) a bit. And of course, it has high camp value. Humanity's future is as overgrown salamanders lazily sitting in swamp grass.
I don't think the idea of transwarp itself is dumb. I think the idea that transwarp speeds (either by conduit or propulsion or whatever) is somehow indicated as faster than being everywhere simultaneously (warp 10) yet easier to achieve. So to me, the problem isn't transwarp but the definition of warp 10.
I would think that the concept of warp 10 is related to some sort of field of connectivity, almost like a fabric composed of cosmic string. But if that's the case, then the name Warp 10 is really misleading; it also implies that with warp capabilities you're close to infinity, which seems fairly arrogant (yet somehow you can "bypass" infinity with transwarp drive).
I would think that the concept of warp 10 is related to some sort of field of connectivity, almost like a fabric composed of cosmic string. But if that's the case, then the name Warp 10 is really misleading; it also implies that with warp capabilities you're close to infinity, which seems fairly arrogant (yet somehow you can "bypass" infinity with transwarp drive).
The most simplistic answer is anything more advanced or powerful than warp drive.Carolyn333 said:
It was one of those ideas that wasn't executed well.
IIRC, the warp drive scale was to be recalibrated/simplified for TNG so that Warp 10 now represented an absolute value. Warp 10 was to be unattainable. Nothing could travel at Warp 10, not even the Q (although they would probably come extremely close). But I think the Enterprise-D probably was traveling at speeds that would have originally been considered transwarp had the scale not been recalibrated.
Had "Eugene's Limit" been strictly enforced, Warp 9.6 or Warp 9.8 would have been considered "ludicrous speed" for our heroes and yet still prevent them from being able to go anywhere in the Universe in the blink of an eye, IMO...
Last edited:
Sure, I can buy that concept and it's been made on this board several times over. But I find even the name Warp 10 to be problematic, especially since Starfleet has been well aware of faster-than-warp concepts since perhaps Kirk's time, such as transwarp, wormholes, singularities, and time travel. If the name itself is problematic, then I would think it leads to confusion as to what exactly the nature of transwarp or even Warp 10 is, which is probably a factor in why Threshold doesn't make much sense in the context of warp history or the scale of the story itself.
It's like saying steel is the toughest material there is, but when you come across a sheet of pure carbon that's 200 times stronger than steel, it's still called steel despite having nothing to do with it whatsoever, and in many ways transcends the abilities of steel.
So the concept of faster-than-warp is fine. The concept of being everywhere at once is fine. The labels are the issue, I think -- in a sense it might be more sensible to actually switch the labels around (Warp 10 as the beginning of faster-than-warp speeds, Transwarp as infinite speed) and that way the writing in Voyager doesn't get the two concepts mixed up. However, the definitions have been around for so long that they're staying put. Voyager's not the only culprit -- in "Where No Man Has Gone Before," Geordi mentions that they're not AT Warp 10 but rather PASSING Warp 10, sidestepping the issue of infinity seemingly conveniently... but then how do you pass up infinity? How is going fast on a linear scale an improvement over omnipresence?
As a side note, it's kind of interesting that the notion of transwarp-as-faster-than-warp predates Warp 10-as-infinite-speed in Trek production. Maybe the term transwarp couldn't be used for omnipresent "speed" simply because it was already used for a concept much humbler than that in Star Trek III?
I don't think Warp 10 is really that problematic or difficult to understand. The term was likely meant as a short-hand for "infinite velocity" and would be used more in a colloquial tense. Under normal conditions, most ships couldn't get anywhere near Warp 10, so it really wouldn't be an issue for the overwhelming majority of people.
Any real problem is probably keeping the term "transwarp" in the 24th-Century, IMO...
On paper it seems simple enough as short-hand for infinity. But like many things on paper, execution is different, like you said. It's not how it panned out in "Where No One Has Gone Before" or in Voyager whenever someone reaches plus-warp speeds. Why go to the effort to have Geordi make such a comment in the first place? If Warp 10 is omnipresence, how in the entire cosmos did Voyager ever catch up to the shuttle a few days later even if it was standing still? The shuttle could have "stopped" at any point in all of creation, yet so close to the ship -- the odds of that happening are unimaginable. But to me that reflects the problem of scale related to the term -- using the word warp implies that our heroes are always *this* close to reaching Warp 10 even if it's on an ever-climbing scale, and thus to the writers that must've meant a similarly short, attainable distance for Voyager to reach the shuttle.
As well, the shuttle's computer manages to store information of a thousand planets, a fraction of infinity -- which itself is pretty ludicrous, if it was occupying every point in space. But that's another example of how a supposedly simple concept was confused by the writers, but if the term is that simple, where is their confusion coming from?
Admittedly that's a tricky question to ask, and now I wonder if these kinds of discussions about the possibilities of Warp 10 is what lead to the whole thought-manifestation realm in "Where No One Has Gone Before," which was beyond space (whatever that could mean) and could have been metaphysical itself.
Which is where the problem really lies. Used as originally intended, it's really simple as an "ultimate warp scale" that would still be faster than that used in TOS and still allow the Galaxy to remain a big place. It'd be like a Richter scale in many ways.
But as it was one of those ideas that was apparently never really enforced or properly explained to the writers, it was regarded as more of a guide rather than a rule. As a result, we wound up with cumbersome warp factors like Warp 9.975, different kinds of transwarp drive, and ultimately VOY's "Threshold."
I think Geordi was exaggerating or speaking figuratively when he said the ship was surpassing Warp 10--he was written as a slightly flippant character when TNG first started. The ship was likely in the Warp 9.99999+ range, but the navigational sensors weren't designed to operate at that kind of velocity. That same episode also said the Enterprise's warp engines didn't actually exceed Warp 1.5 either, so that does make Geordi's comment not entirely factual, IMO.
I don't think it's so much an issue of confusion as a lack of restraint. Not satisfied with Warp 9.6 or Warp 9.8 as ludicrous, sector-spanning velocities, they had to keep pushing and pushing the envelope until they eventually hit infinite velocity--and subsequently have people turn into salamanders.
Those discussions may only have been as deep as what looked and sounded cool onscreen, IMO...
I would think the lack of restraint comes from confusion, or a lack of thinking through about infinity. This is a show with already-fast ships and superpowerful weapons and shields and other devices, but they tend work up to a certain point and no further because of defined limits -- a photon torpedo by itself can't blow up a planet, for example. Anything past those limits and they tend to get spot-checked by an editor or, beyond that, the viewers for not maintaining consistency in the show. Then again, that's precisely what happened to this episode in the form of massive fan displeasure.
Oh, I don't know about that, if only because of Braga's comments on Threshold. Sure, I'm not a fan of his work overall but I believe him when he says he had the best of intentions and trying out some ambitious concepts as commentary. I believe him because he admits to crashing and burning, but to me that shows at least a sincere intent that goes into Trek scripts, and in sci-fi scripts in general. I think we can agree that Where No One Has Gone Before is superior to Threshold, but if the lesser product had that much conceptual thought put into it, probably the superior episode had more thought going for it.
Yes, scenes are thought up for the show in order to look great on screen, but there's usually rhyme or reason for it, too. There really was a method to the madness for the last galaxy in that episode, since it tied into the Traveler's thought-based powers, so at least there was a storytelling reason for it.
Transwarp was dumb, but Changelings altering their mass along with their size and even flying at warp speed is at least as bad.
Also, Voyager made it seem as if, just as the warp barrier was seen as the threshold between civilizations (pre-warp and off limits vs. warp-capable and open game), the transwarp barrier seemed to separate civilizations as well. The implication is it involves some very advanced concepts and technology, such that very few warp capable civilizations figure it out, kind of like how calculus developed centuries after all the other major categories of math developed.
Transwarp developed especially as the Borg became common villains in Voyager to explain how they got from deep in the Delta Quadrant to known space. TNG made it seem like 1 long range ship attacking the Neutral Zone than Earth, but when the Borg were popular, tepidly introduced 1 scout ship in another area, then in "Descent" introduced the idea of transwarp, but made those Borg the same from "I, Borg". Warp 10 was seen as infinity, but differentiating between 9.9999 and 9.9999999 on an exponential scale is rather mind-glazing. It became necessary to explain the Borg being able to get around the galaxy so quickly (Transwarp Hubs were new and under construction by the time Seven joined. Voyager had indicated recently the Borg were expanding at a rapid rate, which could be explained by having new means to deploy ships, super-highways), not to mention being able to maintain such a gigantic empire. The Dominion, we don't really know how big it is because unlike Voyager, the ST show wasn't passing through the Gamma Quadrant. DS9 GQ space was the equivalent to Season 3 or 4 space in Voyager.
And "Threshold" also struck me as being a bit like the Icarus story, the dangers of tempting to reach a new horizon where none have reached before. As I said, if not for that 1 double-take element of misapplying evolution in such a stupid way (how exactly are transwarp salamanders adapted to a warp 10 environment?), "Threshold" might be seen as a better episode (except for the mate with the captain to produce salamander babies element). "Identity Crisis" seems well liked, though I think the mystery element really helped its story (more mystery less horror, while "Threshold" is the inverse).
I think "Q2" & "Virtuoso" & "Lifeline" are more detestable than "Threshold". At least "Threshold" sticks to a Star Trek-esque story instead of an episode that seems like it was written by juveniles, "Captain, though I'm the only Starfleet doctor in the Delta Quadrant, I want to leave the ship to become an opera singer", and an episode that seems like an ep from a 1980s drama (the son tries to get through to his estranged father and help him "help me help you" yadda yadda) and let's not let tens of thousands of light years stand in the way of that story, and let's shamelessly throw in a few TNG characters for ratings.
Transwarp developed especially as the Borg became common villains in Voyager to explain how they got from deep in the Delta Quadrant to known space. TNG made it seem like 1 long range ship attacking the Neutral Zone than Earth, but when the Borg were popular, tepidly introduced 1 scout ship in another area, then in "Descent" introduced the idea of transwarp, but made those Borg the same from "I, Borg". Warp 10 was seen as infinity, but differentiating between 9.9999 and 9.9999999 on an exponential scale is rather mind-glazing. It became necessary to explain the Borg being able to get around the galaxy so quickly (Transwarp Hubs were new and under construction by the time Seven joined. Voyager had indicated recently the Borg were expanding at a rapid rate, which could be explained by having new means to deploy ships, super-highways), not to mention being able to maintain such a gigantic empire. The Dominion, we don't really know how big it is because unlike Voyager, the ST show wasn't passing through the Gamma Quadrant. DS9 GQ space was the equivalent to Season 3 or 4 space in Voyager.
And "Threshold" also struck me as being a bit like the Icarus story, the dangers of tempting to reach a new horizon where none have reached before. As I said, if not for that 1 double-take element of misapplying evolution in such a stupid way (how exactly are transwarp salamanders adapted to a warp 10 environment?), "Threshold" might be seen as a better episode (except for the mate with the captain to produce salamander babies element). "Identity Crisis" seems well liked, though I think the mystery element really helped its story (more mystery less horror, while "Threshold" is the inverse).
I think "Q2" & "Virtuoso" & "Lifeline" are more detestable than "Threshold". At least "Threshold" sticks to a Star Trek-esque story instead of an episode that seems like it was written by juveniles, "Captain, though I'm the only Starfleet doctor in the Delta Quadrant, I want to leave the ship to become an opera singer", and an episode that seems like an ep from a 1980s drama (the son tries to get through to his estranged father and help him "help me help you" yadda yadda) and let's not let tens of thousands of light years stand in the way of that story, and let's shamelessly throw in a few TNG characters for ratings.
there is some... just plain... stupid stuff in startrek. warp10/transwarp it should ALL be the same. instant travel thats it. plain and simple. not everywhere at once, just... instant.
the warp scale is awesome... just keep adding 9's after warp 9.9 to go faster. simple, easy.
if the federation cannot make a ship obtain a warp factor of 9.9990 ....then how could they ever reach transwarp?
the amount of energy it would take to reach warp 1 is MASSIVE. nevermind anything beyond that. startrek sometimes gos a little too far for me. i wish it would stick to more... realistic approaches rather than outlandish things like "being everywhere at once" because that instantly says space has an ending because its impossible to be infinitely everywhere at once.
trek is set from 2064-2900's in that small amount of time.... fed technology was advanced WAY too fast. a reasonable time frame would be warp 9.999 by the 29th century. instead, the federation cranked out a new warp speed every 10 years. at the rate trek is going, by the 30th century we will travel in silver fluidic orbs that can time travel and instantly become anything. go anywhere, take the form of anything, have infinite space inside yet be the size of a bus. phasers wont exist, torpedoes wont, warp wont, nothing will because everything will be nothing. the 30th century wont exist, because the technology of then would be able to rip apart time. its just too much.
warp 10 is crap. transwarp is crap. being everywhere at once is crap. the rate of technological advance is crap. startrek needs to slow dowwwwwnnnnnnn.
Last edited:
Similar threads
