Warp Speed Collisions

[Corradus]

So, I was wondering;

Let's say for a minute we have two ships - doesn't matter what they are really for the purposes of this question I think, all that's important is they're warp capable.

Let's say that they are at warp - any speed - and they collide.

Why do they collide? Who knows. Technical malfunction, sentient error, massive momentary system failure...everybody on the bridge distracted by the Orion Slavegirl asking in a husky voice "Mr. Operations Man...could you tell me what this panel does again, I forgot..." Whatever you want.

They collide.

Does that automatically mean they both go kaboom and everyone is dead? Is this perhaps something like a car accident where there can be degrees of collision and commensurate degrees of damage done?

What do you guys think?

 

[judge alba]

I'd reckon at the speeds they are going at both ships would just go boom.

 

[Timo]

But if their relative speed is small - say, one-eighth of a lightspeed's worth of difference - then is the effect greater than if they collided at impulse speed of 1/8c?

We have seen impulse collisions, and we have noticed that starships aren't necessarily more durable than today's seagoing ships in this respect. Relatively low speeds (assuming we didn't see these things in slow motion) were sufficient for devastating the hulls of starships in "Jem'Hadar", "Tears of the Prophets", "What You Leave Behind" and ST:NEM, where low and medium speed rammings were performed.

On the other hand, we have never seen a warp collision. Such a possibility has been mentioned twice: in "Best of Both Worlds", Riker decided to ram the Borg at warp rather than impulse, and in ST:TMP, Kirk was worried about a collision with an asteroid while the ship was theoretically at warp, but in practice inside a wormhole created by a warp imbalance. Yet neither is a solid datapoint, because Riker never did complete the ramming, and the wormhole made things too exotic while the asteroid may have been a far greater collision threat to begin with than a smallish fellow starship. There has never been a case where two ships that both had their warp fields on would have collided, or tried to collide, or would have barely avoided colliding.

However, there have been cases where two ships at warp carefully maneuvered next to each other: DS9 "Paradise", ENT "Divergence", even TNG "Encounter at Farpoint" where the saucer section detached at extreme warp. Also, many warp chases have involved maneuvering in close proximity. So apparently two warp fields almost touching each other isn't TOO bad knews...

We might argue that a ship at warp speed possesses almost no kinetic energy, because we have never seen any evidence of inertia when a vessel's warp field collapses. Instead, such a vessel quickly comes to a standstill. But it's possible that there is a lot of energy stored in the warp field - and while controlled touching or close proximity is no threat, a collision will release those energies and cause a kaboom. But we don't know that for sure.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[JuanBolio]

I'd think that each ship's warp fields, each trying to bend and stretch the fabric space in different directions, might just tear a hole in the universe before the ships themselves ever come into contact.

Assuming that didn't happen and the nacelles of each ship didn't melt or explode under the strain of the other's warp field, I would imagine that once both ships were in the same bubble of space/time their relative closing velocity would be small, and the resulting accident would at worst look like a truck collision as opposed to a cosmic catastrophe, assuming all the antimatter stayed contained. I don't think a ship at warp builds up tremendous kinetic energy, otherwise some psychotic freighter captain would've used his ship as a doomsday device and obliterated Earth long ago. Same goes for impulse.

 

[BlastHardcheese]

An Excelsior class starship departs spacedock in earth orbit traveling at warp 6 (421 billion kilometers per hour), on a course for the Klingon neutral zone. At the same time, a Klingon B'rel class bird of prey departs Q'onos at warp 8 (1.10 trillion kilometers per hour) on a covert mission into Federation space. Unbeknownst to both ship captains, they are on a direct collision course.

Calculate the exact moment in time at which point a convenient plot device will prevent both ships from colliding.

 

[Timo]

Stardate 55723.6.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Vance]

It's a little tricky, but the kinetics would be the equivalent of the 'real space' velocity of vessel one, mulitplied by the mass, countered by the 'real space' velocity of vessel two, multiplied by the mass. This is likely to be an insane amount of force to begin with.. THEN we need to figure in if the collision would include spadis effects from each warp field causing disruption.

So, yeah, both ships go boom.

 

[Bertie]

In ENT: "Divergence" the contact between the warp fields of the Enterprise and Columbia was actually a plot point rather than something that just happened in passing; the Enterprise did the usual Trek vibrating and lurching until something was done to merge the fields. Unfortunately, I don't remember the dialog and the details and don't have access to a recording at the moment; I kind of remember there being some additional danger or dangers that were present in this scene.

 

[JuanBolio]

In ENT: "Divergence" the contact between the warp fields of the Enterprise and Columbia was actually a plot point rather than something that just happened in passing; the Enterprise did the usual Trek vibrating and lurching until something was done to merge the fields. Unfortunately, I don't remember the dialog and the details and don't have access to a recording at the moment; I kind of remember there being some additional danger or dangers that were present in this scene.

True, but this was a carefully planned convergence of warp fields. They probably had time to properly tune everything... plus they were on the same vector. I'm guessing in a random collision would have more dramatic effects.

 

[sojourner]

See similar discussion here:
http://trekbbs.com/showthread.php?t=103390

 

[T'Girl]

There's a question in my mind as to how much of the ship's mass is reduced by the warp drive. If two ships hit head on with, hypothetically, zero mass and zero inertia, would there be any level of damage? This would be different than striking a asteroid or even a grain of sand, which would be a case of a zero mass ship hitting a full mass object.



T

 

[Vance]

Warp drive effectively reduces mass (actually, density, thank you DS9 technical idiots) relative to outside the warp field since it's 'extending' the volume within the field to cover more space outside the field. Once you get inside that field, all the mass once again comes into place.

 

[The Fatman]

I would imagine if something at warp hit a stationary target it would deal less damage than it would ramming at sublight. I'm assuming the physics would be similar to shooting a soda can with a .30-06 hunting rifle. The bullet is so fast it passes right through leaving a small hole and the pop can never moves. In this case, the impact would certainly destroy the vessel at warp... but the warp core explosion (presumably, the bulk of the destructive force) would occur a fraction of a second later (which at warp would be at least many thousands of kilometers away) after what's left of the ship had already passed clear through the target. I can see a warp impact only being preferable if the object is dense or large enough to absorb the kinetic energy of the object at warp.

I imagine two vessels traveling at warp would largely follow Newtonian physics. Unless structural integrity fields are a hell of a lot stronger than I would assume, I don't think any starship is going to survive a warp impact of any sort.

 

[Timo]

Warp drive effectively reduces mass (actually, density, thank you DS9 technical idiots)

Huh? Why would an object in a subspace field be less dense, as opposed to simply being less massive?

Supposedly, the magic field specifically reduces the quality we call mass, without actually taking away any of the substance that possesses this mass. It should be completely irrelevant whether one considers the altered situation (less mass per volume than before) a change in mass or a change in density, because it is both - but saying that mass was reduced is more informative, because it tells us that the process was a magical one directly affecting the quality of mass, rather than a conventional one removing some substance that retains its mass, so that the remaining substance that also retains its mass becomes less dense.

One could argue that the whole idea behind warp drive is one of mass reduction. Perhaps one goes FTL by making the ship's mass negative? Something like that would be implied by Einstein's equations, in the pure mathematical fiddling sense...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Vance]

It doesn't gain mass... what happens is that the area in the warp field effectively occupies a larger volume than the area outside the warp field. It, when trying to determine the effects of a collision, means that the same mass is spread out over greater volume with higher warp fields - but only compared with things OUTSIDE of that warp field. Ergo, relatively speaking, a warp field area is less dense in that the warped space has greater volume compared to non-warped space. It's weird, yes...

It gets numerically insane to deal with... and, lets face it, spadis is going to do a hell of a lot more initially to whatever crosses into an unlike warp field.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

If like me you believe deflector shields operate on similar principles as warp fields, then the leading edge of the warp bubble would tend to deflect nearby objects away from the ship at fantastic speeds. The thing is, the warp field looses energy by repelling these things, which can knock the ship off course and screw up everyone's day (science officer gets flipped over a railing, Captain's stunt double does a really impressive shoulder roll, etc).

Theoretically, depending on how they collide, their warp fields should interact and the two ships will be propelled away from each other like a pair of bumpercars. It gets tricky if one of them rear-ends the other; the reaction might siphon energy from the lead-ship's warp field, either spinning it out or forcing it out of warp entirely while the ramming ship shoots past it at high velocity.

There's probably a whole technique for doing this in warp speed pursuits, like the "PIT" maneuver cops use to spin out fleeing vehicles in a pursuit, or the similar (unnamed) technique developed by Soviet pilots, intentionally "buzzing" past the noses of F-14 pilots to try and make their engines flame out. It's a good way to stop a pursuit if you want to slow someone down without blowing his head off.

 

[T'Girl]

... or the similar (unnamed) technique developed by Soviet pilots

"Thumping"

 

[Cyke101]

Data: There is something very important I forgot to tell you.
Riker: What?
Data: Do not cross the warp streams.
Riker: Why?
Data: It would be bad.
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000195/Riker: I'm fuzzy on the whole good/bad thing. What do you mean, "bad"?
Data: Try to imagine all life as you know it stopping instantaneously and every molecule in your body exploding at the speed of light.
LaForge: Total protonic reversal.
Riker: Right. That's bad. Okay. All right. Important safety tip. Thanks, Data.

 

[JarodRussell]

Inside the warp bubble, ships move at normal speed, much, much, much slower than light speed. So if a ship moving at warp collides with an object... the object would enter the bubble, and crash at, I dunno, 20.000 km/s into the ship or something.

 

[CuttingEdge100]

Well assuming warp-drive works more like the Alcubierre model I would assume the tidal forces from the two warp-fields interacting with each other in a head-on collision would be massive... I assume they'd spaghettify each other.

As for a rear-end collision, the front of the trailing ship's warp-field would be neutralized by the aft section of the leading-ship's warp field. The leading ship's warp-field up front would remain the same though which would mean that you'd have more tugging than pushing (the front of the field tugs, the rear of the field pushes) which means you'd probably feel acceleration... a lot of it

As for the ship behind the same would happen I'd imagine, the forward part of the field being neutralized, the rear part of the field would be pushing the same so I'd assume they'd feel some acceleration too