warp drive on shuttlecraft
- Thread starter Jadzia
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Just wondering today, we know that shuttlecraft are warp capable, and have the nacelles, but no warp core? I can't remember ever seeing one in a shuttlecraft.
Tell me what I'm missing
You just haven't seen the warp core in the shuttles. The core in the runabouts was supposed to be horizontal and run front-to-back on the top of the ship. It is also possible that, in small systems like shuttles, warp cores aren't necessary -- either a different power source (e.g., fusion reactors, big batteries) is used, or the reaction is contained in the nacelles, as TOS sometimes suggested.
I believe Andrew Probert's TNG shuttle design was to have a crew-accessible mini warp core inside; I remember thinking it looked cool from the sketches. Must have ended up being too expensive to build and/or not needed in any scripts, though, because we sadly never got to see it. I suppose the canonical version of the Type-7 hasn't got that.
I find that a lot of people seem to thank that "warp core" is required for "warp flight" which is patently untrue. What TNG+ scripts have referred to as a warp core is really just the power source: a Matter/Anti-Matter reactor. A shuttle or any ship built prior to the use of M/AM reactors could just as easily utilize warp drive technology, just with a different power source. A photon torpedo can travel at warp speeds but no one would suggest it has a warp core (AFAIK) it just has warp sustainer coils, but that doesn't prevent it from using warp speed.
High warp speeds for something as massive as a starship require an extraordinary amount of electrical power and the most efficient way to generate that much power in Star Trek's vision of the future is M/AM reaction. But that doe not by any means make it the only possible way to power warp drive.
High warp speeds for something as massive as a starship require an extraordinary amount of electrical power and the most efficient way to generate that much power in Star Trek's vision of the future is M/AM reaction. But that doe not by any means make it the only possible way to power warp drive.
I used to have a tech manual and iirc it showed a small core under the floor of the TNG shuttles. It wasn't very powerful, only about warp 2 in an emergency, and there was a small hatch to get to it for repairs. The runabouts had slightly larger ones that ran for and aft in the ceiling area of the craft.
I haven't had that thing in a long time, so I could be wrong about it.
I haven't had that thing in a long time, so I could be wrong about it.
One wonders if any and all means of powering up the warp engine wouldn't be called "warp core", quite regardless of whether they smash matter and antimatter together, or use deuterium-deuterium fusion, or uranium fission, or sarium krellide batteries, or whatever.
Also, even the antimatter type of warp core probably comes in all shapes and sizes, including fancy pancakes that fit nicely under the shuttlecraft floors, or nice arcs that fit around the butt end of a Type 7 shuttle, or whatever.
Timo Saloniemi
Also, even the antimatter type of warp core probably comes in all shapes and sizes, including fancy pancakes that fit nicely under the shuttlecraft floors, or nice arcs that fit around the butt end of a Type 7 shuttle, or whatever.
Timo Saloniemi
Shuttles might use a "capacitor" sort of warpdrive. The shuttles regular reactors charge up the nacelles and the craft can run at warp till the charge runs out. Repeat as needed. The down side being fuel (which was a issue brought up in TOS with shuttles) and probably the strain of "Boosting off" the nacelles each time would put on the reactors/generators.
"warp core" isn't 100% synonymous for "power source" and the "warp core" is only the source of power for the warp drive, and is not the thing that bends space/time, remember!Just wondering today, we know that shuttlecraft are warp capable, and have the nacelles, but no warp core? I can't remember ever seeing one in a shuttlecraft.
Tell me what I'm missing
There is no more reason to expect a "warp core" (as seen in TNG-era terms) in a shuttle than there is to NOT expect one. All we know is that there's a power source on board, not what it looks like (exception being the runabout, where there is a linear warp reactor on the roof).
It's quite easy to imagine any warp-powered shuttle having a main reactor which would be dramatically different, in appearance and configuration, than the linear "warp core" you've become familiar with... or to have several smaller power sources, or so forth.
Why does there have to be a core?? I'd say something more like Self-contained warp engines in the nacelles..
This is a pretty cool idea that could allow shuttles to sometimes have warp when they clearly are travelling out of sublight range while also explaining why sometimes the same shuttles seem so limited.
The way TNG/VOY went on about warp plasma, it gave me the impression that the recipe of the plasma was a precise part of the warp field mechanics, which is why the recipe was being stolen in one late TNG episode iirc.
So I went on to think that the warp core (antimatter reactor which generated plasma in its exhaust) was an important part of the design.
Maybe the writers were just not consistent when it came to shuttles? That the plasma recipe was unimportant/non-existent there?
So I went on to think that the warp core (antimatter reactor which generated plasma in its exhaust) was an important part of the design.
Maybe the writers were just not consistent when it came to shuttles? That the plasma recipe was unimportant/non-existent there?
What would indicate that the recipe was unimportant for shuttles?
In TNG "Starship Mine", some thieves went after a kind of waste product of warp engines that had weapons applications. It was in VOY "Fair Trade" where Neelix did some shady deals with the warp plasma of Voyager, suggesting that the recipe indeed matters. But no doubt a zillion different recipes exist, and a fair share of those work on any specific engine design - and the business of fine-tuning is not particularly important to everybody, not even Starfleet.
When do shuttles seem limited, tho? It's not as if any episode would have particularly claimed that shuttles cannot do warp or whatnot. Hell, even the tiny shuttlepods of TNG, which the designers and backstage books suggest might have been sublight only, have been seen crossing significant distances that might indicate warp - and nobody has actually said on screen that they would lack warp drive. They do have nacelles, after all.
Since tiny torp-sized probes can go to warp (or at least cross interstellar distances after leaving the mothership's launcher at sublight), it isn't that difficult to believe that strapping two torps onto a phone booth would give you warp capacity... Sure, the engines of those probes, torps, shuttlepods, shuttles, runabouts and starships need not be of the same type or work on the same principles, but they all could be "warp engines" in practice and in nomenclature.
Timo Saloniemi
In TNG "Starship Mine", some thieves went after a kind of waste product of warp engines that had weapons applications. It was in VOY "Fair Trade" where Neelix did some shady deals with the warp plasma of Voyager, suggesting that the recipe indeed matters. But no doubt a zillion different recipes exist, and a fair share of those work on any specific engine design - and the business of fine-tuning is not particularly important to everybody, not even Starfleet.
When do shuttles seem limited, tho? It's not as if any episode would have particularly claimed that shuttles cannot do warp or whatnot. Hell, even the tiny shuttlepods of TNG, which the designers and backstage books suggest might have been sublight only, have been seen crossing significant distances that might indicate warp - and nobody has actually said on screen that they would lack warp drive. They do have nacelles, after all.
Since tiny torp-sized probes can go to warp (or at least cross interstellar distances after leaving the mothership's launcher at sublight), it isn't that difficult to believe that strapping two torps onto a phone booth would give you warp capacity... Sure, the engines of those probes, torps, shuttlepods, shuttles, runabouts and starships need not be of the same type or work on the same principles, but they all could be "warp engines" in practice and in nomenclature.
Timo Saloniemi
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