Excelsior had transwarp drive?

generator_g1 · Post by **generator_g1** » 2003-04-02 12:29am

Just finished watching ST3 In Search of Spock, when I noticed the captain of the Excelsior (Doogie Howser's dad) saying something about the Excelsior having a transwarp drive. Surely it's just some fancy Federation name for a new improved warp drive and not an actual transwarp drive that the Borg uses, right?

BTW saw the HoloDoc in Gremlins 2. He still had his hair then

Post by **Beowulf** » 2003-04-02 01:36am

I believe it was a prototype, and was subsequently junked.

Equinox2003 · Post by **Equinox2003** » 2003-04-02 03:02am

I don't know if it was the exact propulsion system the Borg used, but in
any case it was meant to be easily faster than standard Federation
warp drive. (reference the Excelsior Captain telling Scotty that he was
exited about breaking the Enterprise's speed records)
And in a point that I never could figure out, since we all know the
Excelsior's drive was sabotaged by Scotty, that explains why we did
not see that particular ship using the new drive, but why did we never
see any type of Federation ship using it afterward?
Put onto ships in the TOS era, one might expect Federation Engineers
to have perfected it by the TNG era, and in use throught the Federation
Fleet.

Bartman · Post by **Bartman** » 2003-04-02 12:19pm

According to one book (and therefore not official), the drive had some basic flaws. Had Scotty not sabotaged it, the Excelsior would have blown up when the drive engaged. The drive was subsequently removed, and theoretical work on trans-warp theories were continued.

seanrobertson · Post by **seanrobertson** » 2003-04-02 01:53pm

generator_g1 wrote:Just finished watching ST3 In Search of Spock, when I noticed the captain of the Excelsior (Doogie Howser's dad) saying something about the Excelsior having a transwarp drive. Surely it's just some fancy Federation name for a new improved warp drive and not an actual transwarp drive that the Borg uses, right?

BTW saw the HoloDoc in Gremlins 2. He still had his hair then

I think he was wearing a wig in that movie with Meg Ryan and Dennis Quaid, which came before Gremlins 2, but I could be wrong

As far as the transwarp drive goes, I agree with you--it's just Starfleet's nomenclature for "really fast warp drive." But it goes beyond that.

More specifically, I think it might mean a far more efficient form of warp drive...consider it this way. The Enterprise-D and VGR were capable of far greater speeds than the NX-2000 (at least, if one ignores all that stupid crap about TOS being far faster than TNG+, and one considers that the trip in Trek V was to the figurative "center of the galaxy," as in known galaxy).

Yet, neither of those ships is accredited with transwarp capability. It's probable that the E-D and VGR, especially the E-D with its greater size, can simply reach higher warp speeds than the Excelsior because they can generate more power. More power = higher potential warp speeds, all things being equal, so the bigger/more powerful the ship, generally speaking, the faster it can go. (Defiant had trouble going above about warp 9 in the series for several reasons, but ships like Prometheus, with three power cores, and the E-D were among the fastest in the fleet. VGR simply strikes a balance between mass and power.)

Transwarp might let you attain similar speeds without consuming quite as much fuel; that, in turn, means you can attain even higher speeds because you're not hitting your power limits when you go warp 9.6, for instance. You might tap out your reactor at 9.999 or something.

This seems to be the case when the Delta Flyer was fitted with a "transwarp coil." The ship was able to go thousands of times faster than it ordinarily could, yet its fuel supply and the rate at which it can use fuel are very finite, very limited. So it's simply a far more efficient form of warp in one sense.

That sounds much more circular than I would like, but I think you get the idea.

Sidious · Post by **Sidious** » 2003-04-02 07:27pm

Ignoring the fact that on the commentary its said they pulled transwarp out of their ass just to give the Excelsior something different then the Enterprise.

Thought that was interesting actually heh

seanrobertson · Post by **seanrobertson** » 2003-04-02 10:46pm

Sidious wrote:Ignoring the fact that on the commentary its said they pulled transwarp out of their ass just to give the Excelsior something different then the Enterprise.

Thought that was interesting actually heh

Yeah, I seem to remember that. They also wanted the Ex to have a "Japanese" feel to its design IIRC.

It's too bad designer's intentions aren't canon, sometimes. "Trans just makes it sound newer, doesn't it?!"

"Yeah, like Transformers!"

Equinox2003 · Post by **Equinox2003** » 2003-04-02 11:03pm

So what if they just made it up? That is no reason why they could have
re visited the idea later on.

Equinox2003 · Post by **Equinox2003** » 2003-04-02 11:10pm

*spelling error*

So what if they made it up? That is no reason why they could not
have re visited the idea later on.

Isolder74 · Post by **Isolder74** » 2003-04-02 11:16pm

I'm pretty sure that in ST 6, when Sulu was commanding it, the Excelsar only had standerd Warp drive. The Excelsar was a test bed for Trans warp theory. What gets me is that if they wanted test such a thing should they not have used a smaller ship to test it with first rather than risking the cost and manpower of such a large ship for such a test.

Equinox2003 · Post by **Equinox2003** » 2003-04-02 11:33pm

Assuming of course that the Excelsior in ST6 is the very same one
used in ST6. After all there are several Enterprises, there could have
been more than one Excelsior.

Isolder74 · Post by **Isolder74** » 2003-04-02 11:43pm

Equinox2003 wrote:Assuming of course that the Excelsior in ST6 is the very same one
used in ST6. After all there are several Enterprises, there could have
been more than one Excelsior.

Of course the Excelsar in ST6 is the Same as in ST 6!

Uraniun235 · Post by **Uraniun235** » 2003-04-02 11:59pm

seanrobertson wrote:
Sidious wrote:Ignoring the fact that on the commentary its said they pulled transwarp out of their ass just to give the Excelsior something different then the Enterprise.

Thought that was interesting actually heh
Yeah, I seem to remember that. They also wanted the Ex to have a "Japanese" feel to its design IIRC.

It's too bad designer's intentions aren't canon, sometimes. "Trans just makes it sound newer, doesn't it?!"

"Yeah, like Transformers!"

More specifically, the Excelsior was supposed to be "What if the Japanese had designed the Enterprise?"

generator: It was just invented to sound cooler and more advanced than the Enterprise.

Oberleutnant · Post by **Oberleutnant** » 2003-04-03 04:21am

It's canon that the "Great Experiment" aka Excelsior's transwarp drive was a total failure and they cancelled the entire project at some point before ST VI. Since Excelsior was otherwise an excellent design that later proved extremely durable by remaining in Starfleet service for over 80 years after the commisioning of the USS Excelsior, they just fitted her with a normal warp drive.

Post by **NecronLord** » 2003-04-03 04:30am

It would explain ST:5

Personally I like to keep TNG+ seperate from TOS+ there really are a pile of inconsistencies.

It is however something different from borg transwarp conduits. "We'll catch up to them in transwarp." would preclude that.

Akm72 · Post by **Akm72** » 2003-04-03 04:08pm

Just my feeling on the matter...

I've always thought that the Excelsior was probably designed as a large conventional design from the outset - on the grounds that if it had been designed around an exotic propulsion system, it seems unlikly that it would ever have been built in large numbers after that system was found to be a failure.

Also it seems unlikly that an entire combat-capable starship would be designed around a propulsion that hasn't already been thoroughly proven.

I'd suggest that the Excelsior was a prototype of a new super-sized cruiser with conventional warp drive, that was also used to test an early transwarp technology demonstrator. Probably the transwarp systems were extremely bulky and the Excelsior was the only hull large enough to carry them, otherwise they'd have used a well-proven design like a Constitution or Miranda.

Raoul Duke, Jr. · Post by **Raoul Duke, Jr.** » 2003-04-14 01:42am

Bartman wrote:According to one book (and therefore not official), the drive had some basic flaws. Had Scotty not sabotaged it, the Excelsior would have blown up when the drive engaged. The drive was subsequently removed, and theoretical work on trans-warp theories were continued.

That's actually a damned good explanation.

Stormbringer · Post by **Stormbringer** » 2003-04-14 02:10am

Akm72 wrote:Also it seems unlikly that an entire combat-capable starship would be designed around a propulsion that hasn't already been thoroughly proven.

The Federation has done things more dangerous and stupid. They tested an experimental drive with planet killing capacity on full fledged starship with crew and family on board by sending it to a inhabited world

Akm72 wrote:I'd suggest that the Excelsior was a prototype of a new super-sized cruiser with conventional warp drive, that was also used to test an early transwarp technology demonstrator. Probably the transwarp systems were extremely bulky and the Excelsior was the only hull large enough to carry them, otherwise they'd have used a well-proven design like a Constitution or Miranda.

I think the Exclesior was a new cruiser class developed with an early form of transwarp in mind. Most likely as a system they could retrofit into older ships and compatible with other exisiting technology. When the Excelsior's drive didn't work they just refitted it to the old warp drive.

Typhonis 1 · Post by **Typhonis 1** » 2003-04-14 11:55am

Cruiser

she was more of a battlecruiser or even a battleship. Remember this was the Klingon cold war not the neo peacenik Federation

Knife · Post by **Knife** » 2003-04-14 12:06pm

I don't know how much is official and how much is not, but I have always been lead to believe that the Excelcior was not necessarily designed to be a transwarp ship rather was designed to be the next gen ship and then slated to test the new drive system that the Feds were designing.

It was a failure and all indications are that it was a massive one, but what exactly failed is never said (fed coverup?). Weather it was a power issue or a efficiency issue or a control issue, nobody seems to know. What it did do, however, was to appearently make leading scientist rethink certain basic principles of warp drive and improve upon the drive system that resulted in the current warp scale and the current systems.

Wouldn't be the first time that someone invented something that did not function properly for the job it was created for but worked marvelously for another purpose.

THEHOOLIGANJEDI · Post by **THEHOOLIGANJEDI** » 2003-04-14 10:11pm

Personally I've had a little theory on the Transwarp failure and the Federation's inability to fix it. It mostly has something to do with a Fanfic i have but here goes: Excelsior's Transwarp desgin is flawed but not a total loss, so by 2294 they fixed the problem, but it was severely sabatoged, or the experimental vessel was lost and believed destroyed. I just find it sad that no writers wanted to follow up on the storyline and make something of it.

Macross · Post by **Macross** » 2003-04-15 01:16am

I always thought the Transwarp experiment was a sucess. Thats why the TNG warp scale is differant then the TOS warp scale. Oh well.

Sokar · Post by **Sokar** » 2003-04-15 01:45am

Excelsior was the lead ship in a new class of Federation Battlecruisers menat to counter the new Klingon K'Tinga-class Heavy Cruisers that had begun to enter service about 5 years prior to ST:III. Starfleet Intel had learned that the K'Tingas out-gunned the Enterprise-class CA's by nearly 40% and that the Klingons were sinking like 50% of their military budget into the construction of these new super-ships. Excelsior was seen as the answer, mounting an unprecidented TEN Mark VIII heavy phaser mounts on the primary hull and quad photon decks on the 'goose'neck' alongside heavy armor left over fron the "Concordat-class Dreadnought' experiment, Excelsior and her sisters would be the Fleets new battlewagons.

As the Excelsior was in the final stages of completion Fleet R&D was contacted by Shulvanis Warp Technologies Ltd. (Ahh...classic Trek, where all is not perfect and capitalisim reigned throughout the Federation) who had a radical new Warp-drive system that would offer the Fleet unprecidented speed, the Transwarp-drive system. (It should be noted that Shulvanis was one of only a handful of companies that produced military grade warp drives, and who had lost the Enterprise and Excelsior drive contracts to Leeding Engins Inc.) It was decided that after initial shakedown and testing Excelsior would be returned to Spacedock and refitted with the Shulvanis Transwarp drive system, while the rest of the firstrun of Excelsiors would all be finished with the design spec Leeding drive. Despite Mr Scotts sabotage dring the 'Genesis Incident' later trials of the transwarp drive continued, and while testing they discovered that while the Transwarp 'conduit' created offered amazeing speed , easily over 1000x faster than conventional warp, it was impossible to plot the exit point for the vessel and on several occassions Excelsior missed her destination 'exit' point by many, many light years. No solution was found and the project was deemed a failure and shelved. Shulvanis went back to the drawing board and Excelsior was again refitted with her design warp drive from Leeding.

Sources : Mr. Scotts Guide to the Enterprise, the ST Tactical Combat Simulator from FASA, and the TOS novels "Dreadnought", "How much for just the Planet?" and "The Great Starship Race".

THEHOOLIGANJEDI · Post by **THEHOOLIGANJEDI** » 2003-04-15 03:02pm

I've heard differently, Sokar. I hear that the Contitution Refits actually outgunned a K'Tinga class cruiser and that also a Miranda Class did so as well. IIRC the K'Tinga was around somewhat prior to the time the Feds were refitting their Connies, and that the construction of the K'Tinga led to the Feds refittting their Connie fleet.

Sokar · Post by **Sokar** » 2003-04-15 11:20pm

This is just stuff I remeber from playing the Fasa ST combat game, in that the Constitution-class/Enterprise-class refits were badly overmatched by K'Tingas, mainly by the massive spinal mount torpedo as the prime shipkiller on Klingon vessels(The lower 1/3 of the command pod is taken up by the torp decks). Excelsior-class BC's were your best bet if facing off aginst a K'Tinga Squadron or a mixed K'Tinga/D-7 series flight. Having a couple of Larson-class Missile Destroyers tagging along didn't hurt eiether.....

There is no definitive, canon or non canon answer for the presence of a Transwarp drive on Excelsior, and then its dissapearance later in the series. Its just one of thoes mysteries that may never be tackled....

Of course if they had listened to the fans and done "Excelsior" as a series with George Takei rather than that ass grogan "Enterprise" we might have gotten an answer............

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Excelsior had transwarp drive?

Excelsior had transwarp drive?

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