|
In the fictional universe of Star Trek, the warp drive is a form of faster-than-light (FTL) propulsion. It is generally portrayed as being capable of propelling spacecraft or other objects to many multiples of the speed of light, while avoiding the problems associated with time dilation. It is also featured in the Stars! computer game, and in the motion picture Starship Troopers. It is not generally capable of instantaneous travel between points at infinite speed, as has been suggested in other science fiction using theoretical technologies such as Hyperdrive and Jump Drives. It is called FTL in the Titan novels. The concept of using spatial warping as a means of propulsion has been the subject of theoretical treatment by some physicists (such as Miguel Alcubierre, see Alcubierre drive), although no concrete technological approach has ever been proposed, nor is there any known way of inducing the effect described by Alcubierre. Fictional Warp history On Earth, it was invented by Zefram Cochrane, with the first warp flight taking place in 2063 as depicted in Star Trek: First Contact. He used the immense power given off in a matter-antimatter reaction to give energy, which he could use to move a ship into a warp bubble that could then move the ship at faster than the speed of light. According to Star Trek: Enterprise, many other civilizations had warp drive before humans, notably the Vulcans, who had more advanced warp drive technology than humans even in the 22nd century. In the Star Trek pilot episode The Cage, warp was mentioned with the term time warp. The episode revealed that the time barrier had recently been broken, but since this was given as news to a group of shipwrecked interstellar travelers, it could not refer to the breaking of the light barrier. Early variations of the warp engine, or Warp Drive, could only move at just faster than light, but eventually by the time of Star Trek: Enterprise the engine could travel at warp factor 5 (one hundred twenty-five times the speed of light). By the mid-24th century, the Enterprise D could travel at warp 9.8 at extreme risk, while normal maximum operating speed was warp 9.6 and maximum rated cruise was warp 9.2. The Intrepid-class starship Voyager could manage warp 9.975. Warp 10, which is at the top of the TNG era warp scale, represents infinity. This Warp 10 Barrier is actually infinite speed and is considered unattainable, except in a single episode of Voyager where a shuttle managed to go at infinite speed and was appropriately at every single place in the universe at the same time. However, this episode is deemed non-canonical by producers and fans alike. The alternate future depicted in the Next Generation episode All Good Things... shows Federation vessels capable of going warp 13 when Admiral Riker, commanding what looks like the Enterprise D with a third warp nacelle, uses this extra turn of speed to rescue the crew of the USS Pasteur. However, this episode was produced before the Enterprise D was destroyed in Star Trek: Generations, so the two universes may diverge further than previously expected, and warp 13 may not be possible in the "real" Star Trek universe. The rate of warp travel is usually given only in warp factors. Warp factors are not simply a unit of speed that is related to regular units of speed through a fancy formula. Warp factors must measure something for which our SI system does not have a unit ; what we do know is that according to the official manuals integer warp factors are related through a complex warp formula to warp field strengths in Cochranes (named after Zefram Cochrane) that represent local minima of power usage. For example, a warp field of 10 Cochranes in TNG-era engines corresponds to warp factor 2. Finally, only under average conditions does a certain Cochrane-value correspond to a multiple of c. All of this is essential to understanding the purported "errors" in onscreen travel times. Achieving warp factor 1 is equivalent to breaking the light barrier, while at higher factors the average speed increases according to a specific warp formula. Several episodes of the original series placed the Enterprise in peril by having it travel at high warp factors, once as high as warp 14.1 ("That Which Survives"). However, the actual speed of any given warp factor is rarely explicitly stated on screen, indicating that it is not of much use to our characters. Travel times for specific interstellar distances are not quite consistent , indicating that different average speeds can correspond to the same warp factor. The creators of Star Trek: The Next Generation decided that warp 10 should be the maximum. This is described in some technical manuals as Gene's Recalibration as a homage to creator/producer Gene Roddenberry. The warp factors above warp 10 in the Original Series, such as the one above, were "actually" less than warp 10 on the new scale. According to The Star Trek Encyclopedia, warp 6 (new scale) is equal to 392c and about warp 7.3 on the old scale, whereas warp 9.2 new, to about 1649c and warp 11.8 on the old scale. The scale reaches an asymptote at warp 10 which represents infinite speed in accordance with the speed limit imposed by the producers. The Voyager episode Threshold agreed with this, in that the characters said attaining the velocity of warp 10 was impossible (called Eugene's Limit, another homage to Roddenberry)—but then they achieved it anyway, with the side effect that they hyper-evolved (reversibly) into anthropomorphic newts. In this episode, Tom Paris describes that, while travelling at warp 10, he is concurrently in every part of the universe. At this speed, the Shuttlecraft Cochrane's sensors are able to process enormous amounts of telemetry such that the data storage of the shuttle is completely filled. It is unclear whether the warp 13 achieved in the possible future shown in All Good Things... represents a new recalibration of the warp curve or some form of transwarp, though as this future was a creation of Q it might not occur in the "real" Star Trek timeline. A ship travelling at warp or impulse speeds will not experience any form of time dilation, indicated by the numerous cases where impulse speeds were stated as being far above the limitation of 1/4c mentioned in the technical books, nor will they require huge quantities of fuel to achieve such speeds. Impulse drive is only partly conventional propulsion, the other part being based on the same technologies used in warp drive. Transwarp The term transwarp has been used a number of times, referring to an advanced form of warp drive most commonly used by the Borg, but also the subject of a Starfleet development project in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock. Episodes of TNG and Voyager seem to indicate that transwarp is best described as a wormhole-style conduit through subspace: this suggests a subsuming into subspace, rather than warping normal space via subspace. (In reference to the TNG episode All Good Things..., warp 13 could be achievable via transwarp drive, which could also be the reason why the 'Enterprise' was changed in its configuration to 'Dreadnaught'. However, the 'Dreadnaught' configuration was probably done just to make the ship look like it had been beefed up a bit.) Federation experiments The USS ''Excelsior'' (NX-2000), under the command of Captain Stiles was a Federation testbed for transwarp technology. Though not explained on-screen in Star Trek III: The Search For Spock, it is assumed that transwarp is a faster version of the conventional warp drive. Excelsior Borg Conduits The Borg (in the Star Trek: The Next Generation two-part episode Descent and in the Star Trek: Voyager final episode Endgame) have discovered the existence of the possibility of transwarp conduits—regions in subspace that facilitate transwarp travel at up to 20 times faster than conventional warp drives. As stated in Descent and Endgame, the Borg set up networks of these conduits between important areas in the galaxy. Borg transwarp conduits are activated by an encoded tachyon pulse. When a Borg vessel enters a transwarp conduit, it is subject to extreme gravimetric shear. To compensate, the Borg project a structural integrity field ahead of the vessel. Artificial conduits are linked together with transwarp hubs. Six hubs were known to exist, but in the Voyager episode Endgame one was destroyed, along with the Unicomplex due to the neurolytic pathogen with which Admiral Janeway infected herself. Quantum Slipstream See Slipstream (science fiction) Quantum Slipstream Technology is presumed to be the standard interstellar propulsion method used by Species 116 (of which Arturis was a member) prior to their assimilation by the Borg. In the Voyager episode Hope and Fear, Seven of Nine remarks that the technology involved is not dissimilar to Borg transwarp technology. Warp velocities
Warp theory and technology For a more in-depth discussion of warp propulsion systems, refer to the Star Trek: The Next Generation Technical Manual by Rick Sternbach and Michael Okuda. Chapter 5, "Warp Propulsion Systems", discusses the following topics: However, the shows often contradicted both the TNG and DS9 technical manuals. The Slingshot Effect A side effect of Warp travel which has been shown throughout Star Trek is the "Slingshot effect." First discovered by accident in Tomorrow Is Yesterday (1967), one of the first episodes of the original Star Trek series, it is a method of using a Warp drive to travel through time. Whereas the actual procedure is intentionally obscure, it involved travelling at high warp speed toward a star (established in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986) to be somewhere over Warp 9.8), on a precisely calculated "slingshot" path, and if successful it can allow for travel to the future or past. The same technique was used later in the episode Assignment: Earth (1968) intentionally for historic research (where it is given the technical name "light speed breakaway factor"), and again in Star Trek IV (where it was called "time warp"). The technique was mentioned as a viable method of time travel in the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode ''Time Squared'' (1989). Behind the scenes explanation Star Trek science consultant and writer André Bormanis, has revealed that in the Star Trek universe in a starship warp engine, high-energy plasma, created by a matter-antimatter reaction, is pumped through a series of warp coils cast from an artificial material called verterium cortenide. Verterium cortenide provides a bridge between electromagnetic and gravitational forces. By design, it has the property that when a high-energy plasma circulates through appropriately fashioned verterium cortenide castings, a "warp field" is generated. Electromagnetic interactions between waves of superhot plasma and the verterium cortenide coils change the geometry of space surrounding the engine nacelles. In the process, a multilayered wave of warped space is born, and the starship cruises off to its next destination at velocities equivalent to hundreds of times the speed of light. Relative to "normal" space, within the warp field, the starship does not exceed the local speed of light, and therefore does not violate the principal tenet of special relativity. * Warp core A warp core is a fictional form of reactor used in the Star Trek universe. It supplies power via a matter-antimatter reaction, which gives sufficient energy to power a warp drive and allows a ship to travel faster than light. Mechanics Warp cores utilize a matter-antimatter reaction that is regulated by dilithium crystals. When matter and antimatter are exposed, they annihilate each other upon contact. This annihilation releases colossal amounts of energy. Dilithium crystals are used to regulate the reaction because they are nonreactive to anti-matter when bombarded with high levels of radiation. The matter used in the reaction is usually deuterium, a form of hydrogen, and the antimatter is usually antideuterium, the corresponding antimatter to deuterium. The matter and anti-matter reaction inside the dilithium matrix is usually referred to as the matter-antimatter reaction assembly (MARA). The MARA is surrounded by a magnetic field to prevent the highly reactive anti-matter from escaping the assembly. The energy is then transferred into a highly energetic form of plasma called warp plasma. This warp plasma then travels to the warp nacelles via magnetic conduits. The warp coils are exposed to the warp plasma by plasma injectors, which carefully release the plasma into the coils. When exposed to such energetic plasma, the coils create an energy field called a warp bubble. The warp bubble expands space behind the vessel and contracts space in front of the vessel, and the warp bubble forms the barrier between these distortions. The bubble is accelerated while the space inside the bubble does not technically move, so the vessel does not experience time dilation, and time passes inside the bubble at the same rate as time in the other parts of the galaxy. Warp cores can use other sources of energy besides a MARA, such as an artificial wormhole. On starships, warp cores are often the main source of energy for primary systems in addition to propulsion. Use The warp core is one possible way to generate enough power for lightspeed travel. In case the ship needs to be destroyed, the warp core can become a powerful bomb. Notable Star Trek events involving warp cores In Star Trek chronological order; Trivia Warp and the environment In the Season 7 Next Generation episode Force of Nature (1993), it was revealed that warp drive travel can be detrimental to subspace, and in some areas it can cause subspace fissures along heavily travelled routes. Travel faster than warp 5 was banned in the aforementioned episode, but there is argument among fans as to whether the ban exists only in the affected areas of space, or in all areas. If it is a universal limit, it is widely ignored and rarely even mentioned in later episodes and series. In the TNG episode Eye of the Beholder (1994), advance permission was required from starfleet command for the Enterprise to travel above warp 5 (in this case on a mission of mercy). A technological solution was found, involving the warp engines on the USS Voyager. This has been confirmed by the www.startrek.com library, explaining that Voyager was designed to go faster than warp 5 without causing subspace damage such as fissuring of space. The Sovereign Class Enterprise-E also featured advanced Warp Drive engines that allow travel at very high warp velocities without damaging the fabric of space. Is a nonfictional warp drive possible? As many Star Trek fans know, many of the futuristic technologies featured on Star Trek have actually been created (such as the hypospray) or are currently being researched (e.g., the VISOR). In 1996, NASA established the Breakthrough Propulsion Physics Program, which sponsored some speculative work on warp drives. This program was discontinued in 2002. While thought experiments on the wilder shores of theoretical physics continue, no scheme that may allow "warp speed" travel has yet been devised that has been accepted by mainstream science. Some physicists have proposed a model of FTL travel, formulated in the context of Lorentzian manifolds, which are used in general relativity to construct spacetime models. However, contrary to a common misunderstanding, these models are in no sense solutions to the Einstein field equation, and they give absolutely no hint of how to actually make a warp bubble. These models do however show that while it is indeed impossible to go faster than the speed of light, in principle it might be possible to circumvent the problem by suitably "warping" spacetime itself. The best known such, known as the Alcubierre drive, has the amusing feature that its terminology is in accord with Trek jargon: "warp factors" measure the warping of space (or rather spacetime), not actual speed. See also | |||||||||
|
| ||||||||||
 |
|
| |