Warp Drive Idle Zones

[Thomas Kelvin]

I know that this is nit-picky, but it's still basic physics. Warp drive involves the displacement ("warping") of space; however, planets (and other large gravitational bodies) warp space, too. It seems logical to assume that trying to re-warp space that's already distorted would be incredibly difficult. Subsequently, you'd want to get out of the general area of one of these objects before going to warp. If you don't, the warp core and nacelles would be under ridiculous stress to generate the warp bubble. You could achieve Warp 1, but at the energy output of what would ordinarily be Warp 9.

So it seems like the concept of "idle zones" would have popped up by now. Thoughts?

 

[C.E. Evans]

If a ship generates a subspace field (or bubble) around itself, the impact it might have on nearby objects may actually be limited as any distortion may be extremely localized--perhaps only around the actual ship. Kirk used to warp the Enterprise out of orbit fairly routinely, and we've seen other instances throughout Trek in which warp was engaged not long after breaking planetary orbit. In Star Trek IV, the Bounty even went to warp while still within Earth's atmosphere.

 

[Christopher]

A number of tie-in books have assumed that ships have to get outside of a gravity well before going to warp; indeed, Diane Duane's novels assumed that going to warp too close to a star would make it go supernova. Onscreen, ST:TMP implied that the ship needed to travel to the outer Solar system at sublight before engaging warp, and DS9: "By Inferno's Light" implied that going to warp inside a solar system was not recommended; however, we've seen a number of instances of ships going to warp directly from planetary orbit -- and in The Voyage Home, the Bounty went to warp from within Earth's atmosphere. So Trek has been very inconsistent on this point. The way I reconcile it is that it's possible to go to warp from within a gravity well if you've properly calibrated your drive to balance out its effects. It's difficult and potentially risky, but not impossible.

A lot of science fiction universes assume that it's impossible to use FTL drives too close to a star or planet. This is often done for practical story reasons, e.g. to make sure that warships can't just pop out of FTL right on top of their enemy's homeworld.

 

[Timo]

In Trek, such preempting of threats would be a bit futile, because one would still need to invent a wholly separate mechanism by which it becomes impossible to sneak in to a planet in an invisible starship at STL speeds.

We have seen (well, uh, you see...) invisible ships seemingly (ah, you get my drift) effortlessly infiltrate major homeworlds, though. So there is no technological hurdle there, and we have to resort to things like "fair play" or "doctrine of mutually assured destruction" to explain why planets don't get devastated more often. The storytelling need for a "safe zone" around a planet to stop warp-based attacks (approach of warships, deployment of WMDs, use of warp itself as a weapon) is greatly reduced that way, too.

I'd hesitate to claim that warp close to planets requires great care. The rickety Klingon ship that went to warp mere dozens of kilometers above Earth would be my last candidate for finesse, and Cochrane's primitive test rig would be another dubious case for getting it right. I'd rather consider warp quite compatible with the presence of planets. And the existence of natural spacetime-warping fields about as insignificant as the feeble magnetic fields of Earth (or, say, Jupiter) are in comparison with manmade magnetics such as MRI machines...

That Kirk in The Motion Picture would hesitate to go to warp right away would be due solely to his engines being brand new and untested; indeed, his trip from Earth to Jupiter would be that test, conducted at warp 0.5 as stated! Archer's ship supposedly did warp test flights to Neptune and back, so there's "postprecedent" there. The inconsistency at Bajor (even within the episode quoted!) I'd in turn blame on Bajor's unpredictable subspace weather, with its belts of weirdness and major "Invasive Procedures" and "Things Past" style storms.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[F. King Daniel]

In Star Trek IV, the Bounty even went to warp while still within Earth's atmosphere.

Without disrupting a single cloud!

 

[Timo]

...If the ship did go to lightspeed or beyond in that scene, clouds wouldn't have time to get disrupted.

The split-second-long, slow-motion scene would simply end well before the thunderclap of the BoP-shaped hole in the atmosphere refilling.

Timo Saloniemi