Warp Drive in Star Trek Into Darkness - [SPOILERS]

[boobatuba]

The simple fact is, we don't know how much time passes to get from point A to point B.

Most of the time, you're correct. But coming back from the edge of Klingon space, we go from McCoy saying "at least we're moving again" to Carol Marcus running to the bridge to Sulu getting a reading he can't understand. That's not much time and a cut doesn't make sense anywhere in there.

I know, I know...McCoy might have made his statement hours after they zoomed off at warp. But, if that's the case, why does it take a ship three times faster hours to catch the Enterprise at warp?

It's just poorly thought out.

 

[beamMe]

The simple fact is, we don't know how much time passes to get from point A to point B.

Most of the time, you're correct. But coming back from the edge of Klingon space, we go from McCoy saying "at least we're moving again" to Carol Marcus running to the bridge to Sulu getting a reading he can't understand. That's not much time and a cut doesn't make sense anywhere in there.

I know, I know...McCoy might have made his statement hours after they zoomed off at warp. But, if that's the case, why does it take a ship three times faster hours to catch the Enterprise at warp?

It's just poorly thought out.

Finding the right warp-channel, synchronising the warp-field to that channel.
I don't know. I could technobabble an explanation.

In the end, I just don't care.

 

[Belz...]

Most of the time, you're correct. But coming back from the edge of Klingon space, we go from McCoy saying "at least we're moving again" to Carol Marcus running to the bridge to Sulu getting a reading he can't understand. That's not much time and a cut doesn't make sense anywhere in there.

Right. It's near-impossible to reconcile with anything resembling logic. But, plot-wise it makes sense. I didn't expect them to be that close to Earth when they dropped out of warp.

 

[Tiberius Jim]

I don't see the problem with the apparent travel time between Earth and Qo'noS. If memory serves, the ship goes to warp near Earth, Kirk gives his "let's get this sumbitch" speech, there's a cut to the exterior of the Enterprise warping (which denotes time has passed) then the ship gets thrown out of warp. There's no telling how much time passed from Kirk's speech to when the ship exits warp...or how far Kirk and Co. had to travel in Mudd's ship to get to the planet.

People need to chill out...

 

[OpenMaw]

I don't see the problem with the apparent travel time between Earth and Qo'noS. If memory serves, the ship goes to warp near Earth, Kirk gives his "let's get this sumbitch" speech, there's a cut to the exterior of the Enterprise warping (which denotes time has passed) then the ship gets thrown out of warp. There's no telling how much time passed from Kirk's speech to when the ship exits warp...or how far Kirk and Co. had to travel in Mudd's ship to get to the planet.

It's not really the first warp jump that was kinda "huh..." It was the fact that the return trip was literally snap your fingers fast.

People need to chill out...

People are entitled to their opinions and can ask questions without it being implied that they are not "chill" about it. It is a curiousity, and while yes Trek has at times played fast and loose with warp speed. It's clearly MUCH faster in the JJ verse.

 

[Belz...]

I don't see the problem with the apparent travel time between Earth and Qo'noS. If memory serves, the ship goes to warp near Earth, Kirk gives his "let's get this sumbitch" speech, there's a cut to the exterior of the Enterprise warping (which denotes time has passed) then the ship gets thrown out of warp. There's no telling how much time passed from Kirk's speech to when the ship exits warp...or how far Kirk and Co. had to travel in Mudd's ship to get to the planet.

People need to chill out...

The problem is the trip back to Earth, Flux, not the other one.

It's clearly MUCH faster in the JJ verse.

Though in Star Trek V....

 

[The Old Mixer]

The Enterprise in TOS and TAS visited the rim of the galaxy twice ("Where No Man..." and "By Any Other Name"), and the centre of the galaxy ("Magicks of Megas Tu") like it was nothing. By Voyager's standards, they would have been lifelong trips.

For the trips out of the galaxy, that's assuming that they went "horizontal" along the galactic plane. If they went "vertical" (at a right angle to the galactic plane), the galaxy is only a few parsecs thick in Earth's vicinity, IIRC. Which explains how and why the Valiant had left the galaxy so soon after the discovery of warp drive. Even at the low warp speeds of the time, it was a relatively simple thing to do.

And the engines were souped up by the Kelvans in "By Any Other Name", so that a transgalactic journey was feasible.

 

[OpenMaw]

Though in Star Trek V....

Can we just forget that ever happened, please?

 

[Belz...]

Oh, no. We must not forget the pain.

 

[The Old Mixer]

"We need our pain!"

 

[Vezner]

Another issue that I have with warp drive in Nu Trek is how they don't seem to have multiple warp speeds. For example, in STID Kirk and crew seemed blown away that someone could have caught up to them while in warp. I guess they never heard of any warp speeds faster than...what, 1? As I recall in the prime universe, Kirk's Enterprise could go warp 7 safely. In TNG it was 9. A better way to have that part of the movie go is for Kirk to order them back to Earth at Warp 7 or something. Then when the Vengeance catches them they could have just been shocked that it could go at warp 8 or 9 since that would have been clearly beyond their technological capability (again, in the prime universe anyway).

Of course there's the whole transwarp idea but that's never really clearly explained in the movie and they continually refer to their faster than light speeds as warp, not transwarp. So yeah, I suppose transwarp is the best theory it just sucks that it's not more clearly explained in the film. The only trans anything that gets talked about is the beaming.

So yeah...that part of the movie kind of bugged me.

 

[Vezner]

I don't see the problem with the apparent travel time between Earth and Qo'noS. If memory serves, the ship goes to warp near Earth, Kirk gives his "let's get this sumbitch" speech, there's a cut to the exterior of the Enterprise warping (which denotes time has passed) then the ship gets thrown out of warp. There's no telling how much time passed from Kirk's speech to when the ship exits warp...or how far Kirk and Co. had to travel in Mudd's ship to get to the planet.

People need to chill out...

This is how I saw that whole thing. Having said that, I don't think people are freaked out about it. It's just one of those things that's fun to nitpick and have a discussion about. So...chill out?

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Cue the defenders saying Warp speed is whatever the plot dictates.......

Well, you've certainly never come up with an objection to that which holds up, so why not?

 

[M'Sharak]

Cue the defenders saying Warp speed is whatever the plot dictates.......

Well, you've certainly never come up with an objection to that which holds up, so why not?

If there was ever a two-week-old post which demanded a response, that one wasn't it.

 

[F. King Daniel]

The Enterprise in TOS and TAS visited the rim of the galaxy twice ("Where No Man..." and "By Any Other Name"), and the centre of the galaxy ("Magicks of Megas Tu") like it was nothing. By Voyager's standards, they would have been lifelong trips.

For the trips out of the galaxy, that's assuming that they went "horizontal" along the galactic plane. If they went "vertical" (at a right angle to the galactic plane), the galaxy is only a few parsecs thick in Earth's vicinity, IIRC. Which explains how and why the Valiant had left the galaxy so soon after the discovery of warp drive. Even at the low warp speeds of the time, it was a relatively simple thing to do.

And the engines were souped up by the Kelvans in "By Any Other Name", so that a transgalactic journey was feasible.

It's definitely the horizontal rim thet visited, according to "By Any Other Name":

ROJAN: There is an energy barrier at the rim of your galaxy.

KIRK: Yes, I know. We've been there.

http://www.chakoteya.net/startrek/50.htm

 

[publiusr]

Another issue that I have with warp drive in Nu Trek is how they don't seem to have multiple warp speeds.

Was it traveller, or some other game that had a VOID drive.

I think temporal tampering allowed tech to avoid warp factors. Destination is important, and energy input saves time, but it might be between hyperspace in Star Wars and what we see in Babylon 5--although that is rather like the Vaduaar "underspace"

Therer was a wing Commander manual that had an interesting blurb.

Here is my theory. Warp behaves normally in free space. Space lanes have cosmic strings along either side witha modified speed of warp.

Here in nu Trek I am going to say that warp travel (and here is the Paris striaght line thing again) is most effiecnt if a ship is in a straight line between not worlds as per normal--but between their host stars.

In this way, the gravity well of the two stars dead ahead and in front allow a tunneling effect. A ship knocked out of this snaps to whatever destination is closest--explaining what we saw in STiD even though they weren't done cruising.

It's harder on the ship, but allowed a quicker story exposition.

At least that is what I am sticking to.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

Another issue that I have with warp drive in Nu Trek is how they don't seem to have multiple warp speeds.

Was it traveller, or some other game that had a VOID drive.

I think temporal tampering allowed tech to avoid warp factors. Destination is important, and energy input saves time, but it might be between hyperspace in Star Wars and what we see in Babylon 5--although that is rather like the Vaduaar "underspace"

Therer was a wing Commander manual that had an interesting blurb.

Here is my theory. Warp behaves normally in free space. Space lanes have cosmic strings along either side witha modified speed of warp.

Here in nu Trek I am going to say that warp travel (and here is the Paris striaght line thing again) is most effiecnt if a ship is in a straight line between not worlds as per normal--but between their host stars.

In this way, the gravity well of the two stars dead ahead and in front allow a tunneling effect. A ship knocked out of this snaps to whatever destination is closest--explaining what we saw in STiD even though they weren't done cruising.

It's harder on the ship, but allowed a quicker story exposition.

At least that is what I am sticking to.

Why between stars? It could easily be that warp drive works by creating a long tunneled space warp that is physically anchored to the gravity well of your destination planet and therefore warp travel is really only possible between planets or between solar system you can anchor your warp field to. You can probably switch destinations in flight or drop out of warp early, but you need a sufficiently massive destination as a base target. You can travel much faster by anchoring your warp field at a larger object, so if you want to get to Vulcan faster you would have to attach your warp field to the central star first and then switch to Vulcan as you near your destination.

 

[Kemaiku]

The new films *do* have standardised warp factors. When the Enterprise is at maximum warp the viewscreen infront of Sulu and Chekov reads Warp 4.25 twice during the movie.

On leaving the Vulcan system and heading for the Laurentian system Spock orders Warp 3. When they start coming up for the plan to sneak up on the Narada in the Sol system they mention 'bringing it up to warp 4' to reach the system sooner and get to Titan as the Narada enters Earth orbit.

 

[cbspock]

Here is your answer...It is a movie!


-Chris

 

[shapeshifter]

There is... Light speed. Ridiculous speed. Ludicrous speed.