In TNG and VOY, (especially in the infamous episode "Threshold), they talk about warp ten being a point where you are at every point in the universe and you just have to chose one to slow down. But, what if warp ten is not actually this magical point? We already know according to TNG that "every time you breach a warp barrier, you spread a Deteriyon Pulse." For instance, at warp one, a deteryion pulse travels one light-second. At warp two, a deteryion pulse travels one Light^2 second. And so on. So what if at Warp Ten, a Deteryion pulse spreads so far that it LOOKS like it is forever. At warp ten there is radiation that turns people into salamanders, so scientists and theoretical physicists could be forgiven for thinking that Warp Ten moves infinity. And this salamander radiation PROBABLY only exists at exactly warp ten. In real life, space-time waves "crest" at a very specific point. So, in a future Trek, you could have higher warp than ten. BUT, if this is used, trek writers need to make sure this high warp is not faster than Slipstream. The ONLY good thing VOY set up is the idea of slipstream travel, and I would hate to ruin it.
What on earth is a "Deteriyon Pulse"? One light second? How do you square that? 300,000km squared is 9e10km, or 5.6e10 miles. 186,000 miles squared is 3.4e10 miles. 1 light second squared is 1 light second. You get different distances depending on the unit, as you would as squaring a distance gives an area, cubing gives a volume, and higher powers give exotic multi dimensional sizes. The TNg technical manual it says that at each warp factor the power usage drops a little, so warp 7 uses less power than warp 6.9 (but more than warp 6). It also suggests that these humps stop after warp 9, although AGT could imply there were more of these thresholds found post 2360s.
The Warp scale is probably adjusted over time to keep it simple, and on a ten scale. Anything "faster" than warp travel is given the generic term "trans-warp" If the warp scale is going into the teens, it's probably time to adjust it again. Threshold is just a wacky episode. It was probably an alien induced simulation or something. "Warp 13" was just used in AGT to say "This is the future!" EDIT: I have a good solution for Threshold. It was a nightmare Paris had. The reason it was never mentioned again is because he was too embarrassed to tell anyone about it. He once told B'elanna, but not even she knows the ending.
Warp Ten may not be a lie, but it could very well be a joke. That is, until the 24th century, folks believed in a warp formula of some sort that would define warp factors from One to Infinity, each one faster, shinier and cooler than the previous one. This model tallied with the early observations on low warp factors, the only ones the engines of the day could achieve. But then it was found out that the formula diverged from truth higher up, and that there was nothing beyond Warp Nine for the engines to observe and enjoy. So infinity was labeled Warp Ten by some smartass whose easygoing manner, good looks and insidious natural pheromones made the joke gain widespread acceptance. Riker certainly uses it in the figurative sense in "Time Squared". He's musing with Picard how time travel could happen, and sweeps the trivial out of the way first by saying that if you go faster than Warp Ten you obviously arrive before you left... As for Salamander Radiation, the episode instead suggested that being in infinitely many spots is perhaps associated with living infinitely many moments, so that an individual may undergo billions of years of life and opportunities (and associated adaptation to the environment) without actually aging. The effects would be as unpredictable as evolution always is, which is why the EMH would be within his rights to suggest that Paris had evolved, even if he seems to be ascientifically ranting about a direction of evolution. Adaptation to environment would of course be defined by the environment. Essentially, Paris would become the ideal creature for sitting on the soft cushions of a shuttlecraft piloting chair, i.e. a lounge lizard; this might be further modified by the environment back on that swampy real estate, but probably not, as the happy couple wouldn't be doing transwarp there any longer. Timo Saloniemi
Warp 10 is not a limit other than the dial only goes up that far. On the USS Spinal Tap, the dial goes up to 11.
"Threshold" flew in the face of the idea that Warp 10 was a theoretical velocity that no ship would ever achieve. Ever. Even transwarp, slipstream were slower than Warp 10--both would fall into the Warp 9.9999+ range, IMO. Even Q can't really move freely around the Universe at Warp 10 (but he'd probably be closer to it than anyone else). As such, it didn't matter what kind of new propulsion technology was invented, Warp 10 would still be unreachable unless one simply recalibrated the warp scale to make Warp 10 substantially slower (which would likely explain Warp 13 in "All Good Things...") or just do away with the warp scale altogether and make ludicrous speed the highest velocity.
I don't think there ever was such an implication. Sure, infinite speed sounds like difficult to achieve. But why impossible? Indeed, our heroes should have no need for infinite velocity in their quest to return home; "very fast" should suffice. That they instead achieve infinity suggests that they hit on something qualitatively different, something that clearly doesn't allow for "very fast" and (after a bit of obligatory warming up) jumps all the way to infinity. Which is why it's eventually useless to them - they get everywhere with it, so they never get anywhere in particular. But infinitely fast is no more unlikely conceptually than, say, infinitely slow... Timo Saloniemi
The TNG technical manual states that Warp 10 (on the TNG scale) can't be reached, as the warp power is a factor of how many joules per concrane are used in sustaining the warp field. Each warp factor contains a dip in the power requirement, so warp N uses less power than warp N-0.1. If there was another threshold beyond warp 9, that would be an acceptable use of warp 10 (and warp 11, warp 12, warp 13). In Voyager they were unaware of any future warp factors, and coloquially warp 10 was infinite power, thus infinite velocity, and completely unreachable. I'm not entirely sure what infinite velocity means, given that the shuttle never went more than a lightyear or so. It's all very well being everywhere in the universe, but unable to interact (including absorbing photons), but that's a meaningless statement. If you can't drop out of warp10 any more than a few minutes away from where you were, it's not really travelling. Of course in Where No One has Gone Before, Geordi does say "We've passed warp 10". Perhaps a rather enthusiastic young lieutenant, perhaps the instruments detected a drop in the delta-joules-per-cochrane usage as they increased velocity, and those results went back with Kajinsty who studied them and eventually they came into normal use after the dominion war ended (hence Warp 13 in AGT)
...Apparently based on the assumption that infinite power cannot be generated. But Trek technology is good at exceeding infinities: warp drive is based on something similar, achieving higher than lightspeed even though Einstein clearly states that it takes infinite energy to even attain lightspeed. Since this magical substance dilithium has something to do with the exceeding of infinity in the case of FTL propulsion, it makes good sense that our VOY heroes finding a new magical substance would help them get over another infinity. From the two references to Warp 10 in modern Trek, the colloquiality seems supported, but the idea of unattainability doesn't seem to get similar support. Never mind the above musings on how infinities don't pose unassailable obstacles to our heroes, it's the dialogue from the episode itself that paints our heroes as treating Warp 10 aka Infinite Speed as a milestone more or less certain to be passed in the future. Which meshes well with the overall storyline. The shuttle appeared to go everywhere, but there was no way to make it go somewhere specific, so ultimately it went nowhere much. The question then goes, what guided the shuttle? If it was her regular sensors, those should be thinking in terms of finite velocity and thus grasping at those parts of the universe that were close to where the shuttle previously was - so hitting the brakes would result in the speed dropping to finite again somewhere in the neighborhood of where the shuttle thought it used to be. Also, tracking a shuttle through infinite speed should be a non-starter, so when the ship tracked the shuttle to the destination of its second flight, she probably tracked the finite acceleration phase of the shuttle - and once the shuttle was done accelerating and jumped to infinity, it effectively again didn't move an inch, but returned to where it jumped from, which was the swamp planet. Timo Saloniemi
Einstein has no problem with space moving faster than light, but more to the point light speed isn't infinite (as anyone trying to talk over a sat phone realises pretty quick). You need infinite power to accelerate a mass to the speed of light due to the mass increasing to infinity. Trek sidesteps that (Abercrombie drive principles). Well Voyager's always being doing crazy things (crack in the event horizon, clearly not referring to any event horizon we in the 21st century know about) Warp powers are a function of power used, not velocity attained, with specific numbers referring to transitional states where the power usage curve drops rather than increasing. What does 'go everywhere' mean. If it was everywhere, that meant there was data from 'everywhere', which means that it was having an effect 'everywhere' (removing photons from a room for example).
Why's that a point? Infinities are still involved, and Trek shows those are not a problem (practical or theoretical) despite them very much remaining so ITRW. Hmm. Their ship renders "event horizons" a continuum (she can do FTL, so her horizon is drawn by her engine performance rather than being tied to lightspeed). So do her sensors (they can do FTL, so they don't have trouble seeing in or out). But Nature around the ship should still have an event horizon, and no doubt there would be circumstances where said "natural event horizon" would attain some sort of physicality - say, accrue matter or energy in a "queue" that would form an obstacle of sorts that the ship needs to physically pierce in order to sail out. And? Warp Ten is conceptually different here (but not in TOS, and supposedly not in "All Good Things", either). Also, different engines would no doubt use power differently. The curve must refer to some sort of an abstraction of a warp engine, its "ideal" output or input or throughput or whatever. The end result is two different ships using two different engines flying at the same speed when applying the same warp factor. Unless that's the result of using the Universal Translator... So there's a more or less straightforward relationship between warp factor and speed, probably well known to our heroes even though it continues to elude the audience. Quite possibly. Then again, if I spent an infinitely short period of time "there", I would fail to have any effect. The same probably holds true for periods of time longer than zero but shorter than certain "time quantum". May be Planck's time, may be something different (in reality and/or in Trek fiction). Timo Saloniemi
No. It is not a lie. If you reach Warp 10, we will celebrate, and there will be cake. Real cake. I promise.
Still, take just a single crumb and you can extrapolate the whole universe out of it. Isn't that proof enough that the stuff does get around? Timo Saloniemi
No. Only in the interconnectedness of all things. (And now we both get a synergism bonus for the doubled-up DA references! )