What Warp Scale are they Using?

[ray gower]

This is just a small nick-pick and I apologise most humbly if it has been asked. However just browsing through one of my favoured tombs of ST knowledge http://www.ditl.org for tricks and scientific rubbish for a story and I came across a comparitive warp scale.

At Enterprise's maximum warp 4.5ish it would take a fortnight to get to the nearest star. Yet it only takes four days to get to Quonos (Kronos)?

 

[Dave]

It hasn't been asked, but it's way too late at night for my brain to get around that one.

I know the scale was changed between TOS and TNG, but that will only make matters worse.

Of course, they could always explain it away as another alteration to the Warp scale. I will investigate it sometime.

 

[Dave]

Here goes... (not sure about the maths)

I don't have anything on the Enterprise 1701 Warp engines, or the Enterprise NX-01, but according to the 'TNG: Tech Manual', on the Enterprise-D, Warp 4.5 would be equivalent to a speed in between 102 times c and 214 times c. (between 30,000,000 km/ sec and 64,000,000 km/ sec) But, as I said, Roddenberry recalibrated the Warp scale between the first and second series, so we really need something like the book 'Mr. Scott's Guide to the Enterprise' to work it out.

I think it was designed so that the Enterprise 1701 could visit a new planet each week, with a weeks journey in between to get there. i.e. a weeks journey between inhabited star systems.

In 'Broken Bow' Archer actually says that they will reach Q'noS in 80 hours "will be to Q'noS in about 80 hours... 80 hours Doctor!..." (I can't remember 4 days being mentioned.)

"Neptune and back in six minutes at Warp 4.5" says Trip. That all depends on where the Earth and Neptune are (both on the same side of the Sun or not) but would between 4,350,000,000 km and 4,550,000,000 km. That means that at Warp 4.5 they can travel 12,222,222 km/ sec. That's not very fast at all.

But, they weren't even travelling at 4.5, only at 4.3 and reached 4.4 into the second act of 'Broken Bow'. Archer says that they are travelling at 30,000,000 km/ sec at that point. There is some mistake there straight away, but if we ignore the 'Neptune and back' figure, and ignore all the big confusing numbers, what Archer says exactly matches what I worked out from the 'Tech Manual'. So, I think the idea must be that they are travelling at about 102 times c.

If we assume that, it works out at about 0.28 light years/ day. In 2 days they could travel 0.55 light years. In 80 hours about 0.93 light years could be covered. The nearest star (Proxima Centuri) is 4.3 light years. Barnard's Star is 6.0 light years, Wolf 359 is 8.1. You have to travel over 12 light years before you reach more than 25 stars. So, in 80 hours they would barely make it out of our solar system.

I assume (from 'Best of Both Worlds' TNG) that the Klingon Empire is further away that Wolf 359, so it is at least 8.1 light years away, most likely Q'noS orbits one of the stars about 11 light years away, so it would take them at least 1 month to reach it.

 

[ray gower]

Wow!
I'm impressed!

Broadly- There is some amazing time compression technology involved.

I suspect that a similar fault could be found in any of the ST's, where nowhere appears to be more than a few hours from anywhere else. It is just that much easier to spot here. (And inventing the science after its use).

Watch and enjoy, but don't look too deep into the science?

The four days was what Archer said to Trip, when announcing the Vulcan was coming for the ride. 'Four days there, four days back.'

 

[ray gower]

It is claimed in at least one Star Trek Encyclopaedia that Sub-Space is not a consistant place. There are regions and channels where there is a greater or lesser amount of it. Where there is a greater 'depth' a vessel will traverse the region at a far higher real speed. Whilst places like the Badlands are shallower and a speed of warp 5 might only equate to warp 1. Giving rise to a whole mess of 'Trade Routes', which could be likened to the old sailing trade routes and winds on Earth.

Quonos, according to my Star Trek Cartography book, is about twice as far away as Vulcan. Fortunately for Enterprise the motorway of these fast channels passes through our solar system and they managed to use the Vulcan Trade Routes to get there in a little over 3 days, as opposed to 3 years. Consequently Enterprise is no longer achieving a real speed of 90c, but something close to 100,000c (or warp 9.9995 on the TNG scale) as an average, which obviously means they are doing rather more than that at times.

As a kludge it as subtle as a brick. The list of 'Get out of this?' questions increase in line with the exponential speed of a warp scale:-

Enterprise is continually achieving these prodigious distances, which means the galaxy is extremely full of these fast channels and regions. It is also claimed the shallower areas of Subspace are infrequent. If this is the case, then why is warp not calibrated against the far more common faster areas?

If it comes to that, On Earth the number of areas of fast 'trade routes' is considerably lower than the number of shallows ships can ram. Why does Subspace break the rules of probability?

Why were the congratulating themselves at breaking warp 2 when they knew they can so easily achieve speeds 1000 times that?

 

[Dave]

I think this is a problem that has become so bad that they have given up on it completely.

In 'The Expanse' ENT they mentioned it would take 1 week to reach Vulcan from Earth, though they changed course before they got there. Then they reach the Delphic Expanse within a matter of hours. I give up on the explanations!

The author of the 'Star Trek Star Charts' has tried to fix some of the goof-ups. He has added "subspace shortcuts through the Beta Quadrant, including [the] one that allowed Enterprise NX-01 to make it's historic journey from Earth to Qo'noS in only four days." 'Broken Bow' ENT

He also added an optical double for Rigel Orionis which he calls Beta Rigel X. The Enterprise visited Rigel on the way to Qo'noS, but the real Rigel would have been years away at their speed.

There may be something in "Sub-Space is not a consistant place. There are regions and channels where there is a greater or lesser amount of it." I was reminded of the TNG episode 'Force of Nature' in which it was discovered that Warp drive actually weakened the fabric of space. I always wished that they had continued with the Warp 5 speed limit that was imposed instead of using the reset button.

 

[gr8scott]

I don't mean this in any bad way at all. And, I count myself amoung them...

But, this is the type of thread that get's us the rep of being "ST Geeks".

BTW Dave, great analysis of warp. And Ray, good catch.