Warp 10 limitation. WHY?

[Ryag Han]

ok, so in trek, each warp factor increases by several times: warp 1 is 1 c, warp 2 is 10 c, warp 3 is 50 or so c, ans so on. i don't know if that's the factors they gave, most are inconsistent with what they show. so warp 9 is about 1500 c, but what about warp 10?

what's the big deal with warp 10 being infinite? how do you get from a thousand time c to INFINITE? in the last TNG episode, they routinely achieved warp 13 in the future, so my question is, are the TNG era people idiots or something? INFINITE? speed would require INFINITE? energy, would it not?

my point is that the warp 10 limitation is one of the biggest baloney to come out of trek. and transwarp for that matter, since its probably just warp factor above 10.

warp 10 is more likely to be a limitation of the technology, such as energy production, structural integrity, etc. more energy, more speed, so one. but noooo, they threat warp 10 as a PHYSICAL limitation of the universe.

so again, are they just stupid, or ignorant??

[Gandalf]

The warp 13 thing is easily explained away by the Federation adopting a new warp scale.

[Stofsk]

IIRC they didn't make a huge deal out of warp 10 in TNG, all it was was the top of the scale, but they did in Voyager. That's where I recall the 'infinite speed/exist in all points of the universe' thing. Make of that what you will.

Or just go 'Voyager sux/thread'

[Dave]

IIRC, TOS warp scale asymptotically approached infinite velocity as you moved towards warp 10. Like you said, you can't actually get there.

Or you could read the wiki article. http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Warp_factor

[Stofsk]

You mean TNG warp scale? They went above warp 10 in TOS a handful of times.

[Dave]

You mean TNG warp scale? They went above warp 10 in TOS a handful of times.

I honestly don't remember where I read about the asymptotic warp scale concept or precisely which series it was for. It could be total garbage.

[Revy]

I just recently saw the TNG episode Time Squared, and while Picard and Riker are discussing how future Picard could have turned up, you get this:

PICARD: What force or phenomenon could cause the shuttle to be thrown back in time?
RIKER: None that we've encountered. In theory, accelerating beyond warp ten.
PICARD: Using the gravitational pull of a star to slingshot back in time. Is that what happened here?

There was also the Traveler episode where Laforge says they're going past warp ten. So I don't think the Warp 10 = Infinite Speed was the case back then, at least.

[Ryag Han]

I just recently saw the TNG episode Time Squared, and while Picard and Riker are discussing how future Picard could have turned up, you get this:

PICARD: What force or phenomenon could cause the shuttle to be thrown back in time?
RIKER: None that we've encountered. In theory, accelerating beyond warp ten.
PICARD: Using the gravitational pull of a star to slingshot back in time. Is that what happened here?

There was also the Traveler episode where Laforge says they're going past warp ten. So I don't think the Warp 10 = Infinite Speed was the case back then, at least.

that would make more sense. warp isn't a velocity, its space contracting and expanding around the ship. space has no limitation for such contraction or expansion, as far as i know. so you could go to warp 20, 30 and so on, if you have the energy of course.

[Tsyroc]

The warp 13 thing is easily explained away by the Federation adopting a new warp scale.

I just rationalized the "13" as being Warp 9.9999999999999. It still allows for Warp 10 to be the unreachable max velocity while also allowing newer ships to be faster than the old ones. So Warp 9.99 repeating out to 13 decimal places being called Warp 13 as quick reference point to make ordering that speed easier to do. Of course, given Naval terminology the fact that they are actually calling for a set speed can also mean that Warp 13 is not the highest speed since they could use "Full Speed" and "Flank Speed" as near max and max throttle options.

[Batman]

While I consider the limitation moderately pointless, there's nothing saying Warp 10 []can't[/i] be 'infinite speed/everywhere in the universe at once' given that we don't really know the formula used to calculate Warp factors. For all we know it does approach infinity at a value of 10.
(Apparently didn't during TNG, but maybe they tweaked the scale by the time VOY came around).
As for 'all Good Things', I always assumed they just got tired of all those nines to the right of the decimal point ('Ahead Warp 9.9999976548' is sort of awkward) and just recalibrated the Warp scale again.

[Enigma]

Pretty much a revamped warp scale. I remember a TOS ep in which Scotty was trying to stabilize an anti-matter magnetic bottle as the ship exceeded Warp 15.

In the TNG scale that could be a warp 8 or 9.

In "In All Good Things", the scale could have been revamped again to something similar to the TOS scale but scaled upwards.

[StarSword]

While I consider the limitation moderately pointless, there's nothing saying Warp 10 can't be 'infinite speed/everywhere in the universe at once' given that we don't really know the formula used to calculate Warp factors. For all we know it does approach infinity at a value of 10.

Actually, according to the TM's, there's two different formulas, one for 23rd-century ST, the other for 24th-century Memory Alpha has the full list. Interestingly, 24th-century ST has one formula for speeds below warp 9, and another for speeds above it. (Tried to find a downloadable graphing calculator for this, but I couldn't.)

ENT appears to be the odd man out, where warp-capable ships seem to travel at the speed of plot. And ST 2009 doesn't give us any usable numbers at all.

[Batman]

Trek ships have always traveled at the speed of plot. ENT is the odd man out due to it finally making the fatal mistake of giving us enough information to figure out the speed makes no sense. (Overall, TNG/VOY already managed to do that, but ENT hit a new low with essentially telling us that the Klingons are actually our next door neighbours-in the very opening episode, no less-and the Klingon Neutral Zone is apparently the Kuiper belt or something).

[TOSDOC]

I just recently saw the TNG episode Time Squared, and while Picard and Riker are discussing how future Picard could have turned up, you get this:

PICARD: What force or phenomenon could cause the shuttle to be thrown back in time?
RIKER: None that we've encountered. In theory, accelerating beyond warp ten.
PICARD: Using the gravitational pull of a star to slingshot back in time. Is that what happened here?

There was also the Traveler episode where Laforge says they're going past warp ten. So I don't think the Warp 10 = Infinite Speed was the case back then, at least.

that would make more sense. warp isn't a velocity, its space contracting and expanding around the ship. space has no limitation for such contraction or expansion, as far as i know. so you could go to warp 20, 30 and so on, if you have the energy of course.

Not just the energy. I remember Scotty saying in TOS (Enigma's "That Which Survives" magnetic bottle episode) that the ship isn't structurally designed to hold together at speeds over warp 10. That could equally translate to not being structurally designed to withstand the contraction or expansion of space around the ship too.

Never understood the limitation myself. Calling off Warp 12 and higher warp numbers in the episodes after Scotty telling you "that's bad" can be just as dramatic as Sulu or Geordi calling off "9.4....9.5....9.6....9.7", etc. What's the difference?

[Connor MacLeod]

that would make more sense. warp isn't a velocity, its space contracting and expanding around the ship. space has no limitation for such contraction or expansion, as far as i know. so you could go to warp 20, 30 and so on, if you have the energy of course.

The real issue is why we should treat "Warp-anything" as a specific, precise, absolute, that cannot under any circumstance or situation be modified, alterd, varied by any sort of parameter (External or internal) at all, and applies across the board to every possible example in any under circumstance.

That logic actually applies to alot of FTL "speed" examples, for that matter.

Example: we had that TNG ep where traveling over a certain warp factor had disruptions in the local enviroment due to disturbances. People here are mentioning cases where non-warp drive propulsion (or warp drives maybe used in a different way) seem to lead to higher-than-10 factors, or where physical constraints on the starship using a certain known method of warp propulsion lead to limits, or so on and so forth.

[Ted C]

Presumably "Warp factor" has to correspond to some measure output of the warp drive. The changing of the scale from TOS to TNG was presumably just a writing mechanic to avoid "warp factor inflation" with supposedly more advanced engines.

Warp 10 was presumably a limit because the ship couldn't go faster without entering a time warp and moving backward through time or physically damaging the ship (often cited as a problem in TOS). Advanced is the mechanics of warp engines might affect that limit, allowing them to adjust the warp scale. In other words, changes in the way the engines worked may have allowed the ship's actual velocity to be higher at a given "warp factor" with the more advanced engines.

Assuming that "All Good Things" wasn't really happening entirely in Picard's head (a sort of virtual experience provided by Q), then we have to guess that sometime in the future the Federation will overcome the "Warp 10 limit" in another way that won't as easily accomodate a change to the warp scale, making it sensible to describe speed in warp factors higher than 10.

All this to rationalize some poorly considered fictional physics. Yurk.

[Connor MacLeod]

Presumably "Warp factor" has to correspond to some measure output of the warp drive. The changing of the scale from TOS to TNG was presumably just a writing mechanic to avoid "warp factor inflation" with supposedly more advanced engines.

Well I was thinking that. The "thrust" for lack of a better term. We can't measure it, except to note there is a relative difference between the warps. I'm just saying a given "warp factor" does not neccesarily correspond to one particular speed, but it may correspond to a particular, common, range of speeds (or an average speed that may vary between certain minimums and maximums for typical performance.) Various other factors may increase or decrease that speed at any given time, and they could be internal or external.

Warp 10 was presumably a limit because the ship couldn't go faster without entering a time warp and moving backward through time or physically damaging the ship (often cited as a problem in TOS). Advanced is the mechanics of warp engines might affect that limit, allowing them to adjust the warp scale. In other words, changes in the way the engines worked may have allowed the ship's actual velocity to be higher at a given "warp factor" with the more advanced engines.[/uote]

It could be TOS engines were somewhat different than compared ot the TNG-Voyager era warp engines. The difference in "Warp factor" doesn't seem to be much difference in say, a "raw power" sense (then again changes between TOS and TNG dont' seem to be occuring by leaps and bounds in general.) but they may be improving speed in other ways (such as those weird "variable geometry" nacelles voyager had.) which lead to more efficient uses of the existing power. Many of the cases of "beyond warp 10" in TOS either come from the intervention of others or are the results of accidents, neither of which are applicable in the general sense.

Assuming that "All Good Things" wasn't really happening entirely in Picard's head (a sort of virtual experience provided by Q), then we have to guess that sometime in the future the Federation will overcome the "Warp 10 limit" in another way that won't as easily accomodate a change to the warp scale, making it sensible to describe speed in warp factors higher than 10.

All this to rationalize some poorly considered fictional physics. Yurk.

We don't really know why Warp 10 causes nasty problems (at least for Federation warp drives at this point in time.) It could be in the way their drive systems interact with space, or by the process they achieve it, with the power systems, or whatever. Other races may have found ways around this (or the FEderation itself may have, over time.)

[Eternal_Freedom]

Maybe "Warp factor" relates to the order of magnitude of energy sent to the warp engines or something like that. You know, nothing at all to do with speed. That would neatly avoid issues with the same warp factor having different observed speeds.

[Batman]

While I'm not sure if it's ever mentioned in canon material, according to the TNG TM Warp field intensity is measured in Cochranes, and even gives a rudimentary table for which Warp Factor means how many Cochranes. For all we know, the Warp factor values refer directly only to Warp field strength and only indirectly to actual speed. I.e. while given identical circumstances, Warp 6 is going to be faster than Warp 5, but there's plenty of circumstances that figure into actual travel speed given identical Warp factors (heck for all we know some regions of space simply have higher subspace drag than others, the TM mentions gravitational and magnetic fields figuring into it, maybe diesel antimatter gives better fuel efficiency but lower speed for the same Warp factor while high octane AM does the reverse. ). Given how little is known about Warp drive (and how controversial the available evidence is) I don't think we're ever going to know for sure, at least not for oldTrek.

EDIT: If it weren't for the ever-increasing use of fractional Warp factors in TNG and the use of them as early as TMP, I could almost think of them as something of a more incremental system akin to modern day naval/Trek impulse power levels. You know Warp 1 is the Warp engines at 10 percent, 2 20, 3 30 and so on, which would also explain why even back in the days of Kirk and Co, running the engines past Warp 10 was bad mojo.

[Connor MacLeod]

We know what warp 10 is: infinity. Why is it so? Because someone defined it that way.

"why does making a sound ten decibels higher require ten times more power"

Because it's defined that way by humans.


You might wonder why the writers went with this, or why the in universe folks did, but talking about overcoming the barrier is just nonsense. There is no barrier - it's just defined to be infinity.

When they go warp 13.... it simply means some paper pusher changed the definition.


What about the other statements: go above warp ten and you're in timewarp. Greater than infinity is kinda nonsense, but maybe some weird ass math says it like the people who look at relativity to get time travel stuff.

Correct me if I am wrong, but the whole "Warp 10 = infinity" is something in the series that is presented to us largely from the POV of the Federation. That may be true of them and their rough contemporaries, but who says that its a universally true standard? For all we know its a quirk of that particular kind of warp drive, but not neccesarily applicable to others. Hell it may even be a "situational" condition - maybe it happens in certain parts of Trek space but not in others. Star Trek is full of as many weird semi-magical anomalies as Warhammer 40K is (even giant space creatures.)

What about Threshold? Maybe Tom Paris was doing drugs with Brannon Braga.

Well He's Tom Paris and not Data or Spock, so he's clearly not infallible!

[FaxModem1]

Well, luckily for us, Threshold is a non-canon episode as decried by Brannon Braga. Yes, even he realized the episode was stupid.

[Baffalo]

Because I have too much time on my hands, I'll try and explain how warp might work combining existing theories and stuff I'll be pulling out of my ass. Most of this will be serious but I'll probably deviate a bit.

We'll start with a handy reference photo.



Looking at this picture, I realize something right off the bat. It would seem that warp speed has a series of layers, where the amount of power needed to sustain that velocity builds until it suddenly drops. A good analogy would probably be a car accelerating into a new gear. Except that why would you need to shift gears in warp? You're just moving space around you. Not like you're trying to drive down the interstate and shift gears before that asshole in a Ferrari passes you. Yeah fuck you you rich prick!

Anyway. If I had to speculate, it has to do with subspace, the all important godly force that holds Star Trek together and keeps the writers from curling into fetal balls in the corner. Subspace acts weird, and I don't know why. However, a good theory was bounced around in Ex Astris Scientia where subspace acted as a series of layers, each layer corresponding to a compression of normal space. Again, handy reference photo.



If I had to venture a guess, it's similar to the explanation for how hyperdrives work in the Honor Harrington universe. The universe we exist in, normal space, has layers where the amount of space you move through is halved for each layer you go 'down'. The alpha band would therefor be the amount of normal space, only halved. The beta band would be half of the alpha band, the gamma band half of the beta band, and so on. Basically, you would model it as such:

DT=DACT/2n

Where DT is the distance you perceive travelling, DACT is the actual distance you traveled and n is the number of layers down you go in subspace.

Reason I say this is because if you look at handy reference photo 1, you see that before moving to the next 'level', there is a build up of energy before suddenly it becomes substantially less. It could be a build-up preparing to drop down into the next subspace level, where they would move a certain order of magnitude faster. Again, I don't know, I'm just trying to put two and two together and get pi.

[Batman]

You DO know Ex Astris Scientia has disabled hotlinking years ago, right?

[Baffalo]

Did they? o_o

News to me

*EDIT: Moved the pic to a photobucket account and changed links

[Ted C]

So, using that warp curve photo (and I think the old TNG Technical Manual had something similar), it appears that the energy needed to break through to a deeper "subspace domain" (to use a term thrown around in the series) is greater than the amount of energy needed to keep cruising once you've gotten through.

Of course, that power spike gets higher and higher as you hit each new "warp factor", and the spike at warp 10 is presumably higher than they can hope to achieve with their existing technology (but within reach of "transwarp drive").