Warp speed comparisons

[Pauln6]

A silly nitpick:

Subspace message between galaxies was at 142 light years per day.

To be sure, Data was saying that getting the message across the 2,700,000 ly would take "fifty-one years, ten months, nine weeks, sixteen days-" before being cut off. That doesn't sound like the sum total of 51 years, 10 months, 9 weeks and 16 days, because 9 weeks is more than a month, and 16 days is more than a week! Nobody would say "I'll be there in one week and sixteen days"...

Actually, it might make sense for Data to say it that way since he is suppose to be "quirky" in his manner of speech. When you watch the episode, the context is certainly the sum total of the time for the message to reach back. Nobody, except Data, would say it that way

"Between star systems" seems to suggest some fairly fast speeds crossing a third of the galaxy in weeks according to "The Chase".

Assuming the section of map where this travel plan was demonstrated wasn't zoomed in against the general background of the galactic disk... Which would be a fairly workable way of eliminating this outlier datapoint.

It could be interpreted that way, although when you watch the scene it looked more obvious that he was thinking of zipping around parts of the galaxy.

http://tng.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/s6/6x20/thechase067.jpg

On the other hand, we do know that there was an intentional shift in the TNG production to "slow things down" so that between star system travel would be slower than how it was in TOS. So for TNG, it could be argued that between system travel was probably much closer to between galaxy travel speeds.

@Black_Dranzer - thanks for the datapoint. That would mean W9.9 = roughly 58 ly / day in the Voyager series. I found another one in "Maneuvers" where Kim mentions "2 billion km/s" but no warp speed. That's roughly 18 ly / day. Even at 18 ly / day, that would translate into only a 10 year return trip vs the 70+ year quoted in "Caretaker".

You also have to distinguish maximum speed (emergency speed) from maximum safe cruising speed. That could account for the discrepancy.

 

[blssdwlf]

A couple added for Voyager and ordered by speed

"Resolutions" - .27 ly/day @ Warp 4

"Caretaker" - 2.5 ly/day, no warp factor given

"Friendship One" - 4.4 ly/day, no warp factor given

"Maneuvers" - 18 ly/day, no warp factor given

"The 37's" - 58 ly/day @ Warp 9.9

Although Voyager's "Top Cruising Speed" is Warp 9.975, it would seem that they rarely got up to that warp factor during the series. The quoted 75 year return home "between star systems" in "Caretaker" is about 10x slower than the one quoted for the Enterprise-D's return home from another galaxy.

 

[Timo]

Although Voyager's "Top Cruising Speed" is Warp 9.975, it would seem that they rarely got up to that warp factor during the series.

Actually, IIRC, the Voyager only grazed warp 9.97+ in one episode explicitly: in "Threshold", acceleration to this speed was a hair-raising experience, and after they hit warp 9.97, the computer immediately told them that structural failure would follow in 45 seconds were "present speed" to be maintained. What they could sustain was warp 9.5.

In other episodes, the ship moved at "maximum warp" when in a hurry, or the heroes only spoke of high speeds but didn't actually utilize them.

When Janeway speaks of seven decades in "Caretaker", she uses the expression "even at maximum speed". This would seem to suggest that the ship cannot be expected to maintain said maximum speed for seven decades in practice, and perhaps not in theory, either. In this interpretation, Janeway is mentioning the figure not because she feels they could get home in seven decades, but because she wants to emphasize that they can't really get home even in seven decades by conventional means.

However, we can still debate which "maximum speed" Janeway chose for her deliberately discouraging example. If she chose the ship's absolute maximum dash speed (apparently more than the "maximum sustainable cruise speed" of warp 9.975), she'd be consistent with her rhetoric choice of "even". But she may have settled for choosing a speed that was in fact a theoretically and perhaps even practically possible maximum for a long cruise. And that'd apparently be something lower than warp 9.5, according to "Threshold".

If we go by that latter interpretation, then we can force the ends to meet. Janeway would be giving a realistic estimate in "Caretaker", one where "maximum speed" meant "maximum technologically possible speed" which was way slower than the ship's dash speed and still probably quite a bit faster than the speed they could maintain when having to look for food, fuel and safe passage. In contrast, Data would be giving a theoretical and overtly optimistic estimate in "Where No One", in keeping with his android character, and using the technologically impossible concept of running the E-D at her absolute maximum dash speed for three centuries. The E-D could still be slower than the Voyager, then, both in dash and in cruise - which is a desirable interpretation at least for dash because we have heard the warp factors quoted, and Voyager explicitly got better than 9.9 while E-D redlined at 9.8 already.

Personally, I'd like to think that the Voyager indeed had a "maximum sustainable cruise speed" for long duration cruising, but it was warp 9.75. Stadi just happened to stutter a bit when bragging about her ship to Paris in "Caretaker" (and what hot-looking telepath wouldn't, when exposed to the neck-breathing of said horndog?). And Janeway herself then repeated the stutter in the flashback of "Relativity", due to being so excited about her new command.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Chaos Descending]

I think Star Trek did "Greater Fandom" a disservice by coming up with "warp factor" numbers. They should have kept it vague. I think Star Wars had it (generally) right here by not being too specific about how fast ships could go. There was just "hyperspeed".

I think it distracts from the plot by introducing too much debunkable math. We as viewers shouldn't ever have to think about how far away a ship is from a destination, how long it will take to get there, and how fast the ship is traveling.

 

[C.E. Evans]

I think Star Trek did "Greater Fandom" a disservice by coming up with "warp factor" numbers. They should have kept it vague. I think Star Wars had it (generally) right here by not being too specific about how fast ships could go. There was just "hyperspeed".

I think it distracts from the plot by introducing too much debunkable math. We as viewers shouldn't ever have to think about how far away a ship is from a destination, how long it will take to get there, and how fast the ship is traveling.

For the average viewer, that is still very much the case. It's only Trekkies that worry about such things.

 

[Chaos Descending]

And we shouldn't have to worry about such things.

 

[blssdwlf]

When Janeway speaks of seven decades in "Caretaker", she uses the expression "even at maximum speed". This would seem to suggest that the ship cannot be expected to maintain said maximum speed for seven decades in practice, and perhaps not in theory, either.

The only thing is that there are episodes later on in Voyager where the 70,000 ly trip = 70 years estimate is continued to be used as their baseline. It would've been funnier if Janeway said, "with no space traffic and random pit stops, we can be home in 7 years at maximum speed, but this will be a 70 year journey with this oddball crew..."

Then again, Voyager lived by even quirkier rules than the other series, so

 

[C.E. Evans]

I think Star Trek did "Greater Fandom" a disservice by coming up with "warp factor" numbers. They should have kept it vague. I think Star Wars had it (generally) right here by not being too specific about how fast ships could go. There was just "hyperspeed".

I think it distracts from the plot by introducing too much debunkable math. We as viewers shouldn't ever have to think about how far away a ship is from a destination, how long it will take to get there, and how fast the ship is traveling.

For the average viewer, that is still very much the case. It's only Trekkies that worry about such things.

And we shouldn't have to worry about such things.

And we really don't have to, really, since it's all imaginary anyway, not too unlike the hyperdrive in Star Wars.

 

[Chaos Descending]

Yet so many do. I wonder how many Trek fans have ulcers from trying to figure out how you can get to Rigel at Warp 5?

 

[Saquist]

Warp factors are one of the earliest forms of technobabble.

None of the warp scales have been established onscreen. If anything, ships move far faster than any of those written warp factors, IMO. We can rationalize that warp factors get faster with each passing one, but that's about it. You can sit down and work out the math in any given story, but it definitely won't work for every story, and perhaps not even for most of them...

In TNG Bloodlines they actually got the speed at warp nine exactly right to the distance to Damon Bok's ship at 20 minutes. It's one of the few times we're given both time and distance.

 

[blssdwlf]

^ Good find!

300 billion km in 20 minutes at Warp 9 is ~2.3 ly / day.

 

[SicOne]

I had a police officer pull me over once who clocked me at "Warp Nine"...and was impressed when I told him that maximum crusing speed for an '83 Skylark was only Warp Four.

Asshole still gave me the ticket, though. But he laughed as he wrote it out.

 

[Deks]

^ Good find!

300 billion km in 20 minutes at Warp 9 is ~2.3 ly / day.

More or less consistent with on-screen interpretation that 1000 ly's = 1 year.

However, that's far too slow.

The books for example (despite their non-canon nature) state that ships essentially traverse about 22.5 ly's per day at their maximum cruise warp velocity.

That kind of a speed would be much more realistic in-universe wise for example.
It would also mean that a ship at such a speed would take a year to traverse through 7560 ly's (more or less).
And another 3 weeks to traverse full 8000 ly's (the actual size of the Federation).

Of course, by that analogy, Voyager would effectively get home in just about a decade.

Early TNG was much more ... advanced in terms of warp travel though.
The speeds subspace communications reached were well beyond what was stated in Voyager.
Then again, the writers kept changing the technology (in effect, reducing it's capabilities to increase the drama instead of adapting the drama to work with the advanced technology).

 

[Mytran]

And of course, TOS was even faster! Several episodes indicate a galaxy-wide range for the Enterprise.

 

[Deks]

And of course, TOS was even faster! Several episodes indicate a galaxy-wide range for the Enterprise.

Indeed.
One could say that the writers went overboard a bit.
But, taking into consideration actual size of the Milky Way galaxy, not to mention the universe in general one could also state that Kirk's wording could have been wrong, or 'right' for his particular era, until the meaning changed later on.

Of course, we are still left with the unavoidable problem of each Trek show going at the speed of plot.

They could rectify this by actually doing some basic calculations of distances with standardised Warp speeds.

As for Voyager ... had it actually stuck with the premise of 4 billion miles per second, they could have easily stated that Voyager by itself was unique (testing a new kind of Warp drive).
SF would still presume Voyager was lost with all hands after about 3 years like it happened originally, and the ship could have suffered catastrophic damage to their new engine (class 9 Warp drive as it was stated in Relativity) that would be too problematic to repair on the go without specialized equipment from an actual star-base.
The crew could make incremental increases in their warp factors by the end of each year or two ... thus reducing their journey home.
It wouldn't really require short-cuts they took originally (or they could be minimized) and would require of the ship to get out of Borg held territory by itself instead of Kes giving the ship a push.
So in essence, keep the 'shortcuts' mainly to the warp drive repairs and an occasional thing we saw originally to keep things consistent.

 

[blssdwlf]

Assembled a little comparison graphic

 

[MikeS]

You may calculate Warp with the following Calculator if you wish.
http://www.ussdragonstar.com/utilitycore/warpspeeds.asp

Wow, didn't realise the Federation was so big! It would take 5 years at warp 9 to cross! Difficult to police and certainly makes one wonder how the E-D was able to visit Earth so often.

 

[SWHouston]

Mike,

I may be pointing out the obvious, but, the writers kinda took some literary license, when quoting distances and speeds.

However...
When looking at the difference in an increase of just a few tenths or hundredths of Warp, can make a VAST difference in how long it takes you to get where you want to go.

Have a good Day !
S.W.

 

[C.E. Evans]

Wow, didn't realise the Federation was so big! It would take 5 years at warp 9 to cross! Difficult to police and certainly makes one wonder how the E-D was able to visit Earth so often.

One thing to consider is the shape of the Federation. If it's not a perfect sphere, some of the Federation's borders may be relatively close to Earth while others are much farther away. The Enterprise-D may not have been too far from Earth at times, but it may also have been operating in either non-aligned areas or in areas controlled by other governments, IMO.

 

[SWHouston]

My understanding is that Fed Space is somewhat rectangular, but, not with very regular sides.

About 1/5 is in the Beta Quad, from the other side of Vulcan to Galorndon Core, then from Breen Space out to El Adrel. Then on the long run, out to Trill and the Volans.

The Sol System is very near the Beta Quad line, more inward toward Sag A.

So yes, there could be a very large difference in time/distance, given which direction one was traveling.