Hyperspace Travel in the ST Universe

[MagicPrime]

First and foremost I am going to say that I am very much on the side of the Empire when it comes to this match-up. But thinking objectively I have a few thoughts.

1. The ease of Hyperspace travel as we know it in StarWars is mostly due to the fact that Hyperspace in that galaxy has been mapped out - and vasts nets of NAV Computers continually monitor Hyperspace for gravity wells, planets, etc.
Without this support structure - the Imperial ships may be able to enter hyperspace but it would be much like the first pioneers into this sub-dimension having to write new charts and maps. Would this be enough to remove their advantage of Hyperspace travel?

2. The Interdictor Class Imperial Cruiser, as we all know, creates massive gravity wells powerful enough to disrupt hyperspace to the point that local ships cannot enter hyperspace and escape. From the description of hyperspace it is a sub-dimension separate from our own where Point A and Point B are a fraction of the distance apart as they would be in real-space, which to me sounds a lot like Star Trek's Subspace. So are Subspace and Hyperspace the same thing when it comes to the technology to manipulate it? aka - Could an Interdictor's gravity well generator disrupt Subspace enough to keep a federation vessel from creating a stable Warp Field. Because we all know that without Subspace, warp travel isn't possible (Omega Particle anyone?)

[Stark]

With regards to (1), oh dear, not another one. You can do a search to find some of the many times this has come up, and look in parting shots to see the result. I don't remember the names of any of the posters, but I'll try and clue you in.

[MagicPrime]

I feared that would happen - I searched a bunch of times on the Forum for the subject and nothing came up. So i figured "what the hell".

[Stark]

Heh. Good old Mikal768 in this thread illustrates why broken-record debating is bad. Basically, it isn't really a problem unless you're talking about a single ship with no support trying to do it. Basically, disposable drones, stolen navigation data (ST poor security helps) and realtime FTL sensors are going to prevent any huge loss of mobility.

Also, I recall somebody mentioned that Worf used an 'inverse graviton pulse' to prevent someone going to warp, so people have mused that interdictors might work on warpdrives. However, given the airy-fairy nature of scifi terminology (especially ST) it's not very conclusive.

[CaptJodan]

Not sure about the interdictors. We do know that warp drives are capable of being activated within planetary atmospheres (ST:IV), although this is clearly not a regular phenomenon. If it could work at all, I think the Imps would have to make modifications to the generators to work specifically against warp field generation.

Given the Death Star's intense jamming fields that had an effect on space time, I'd venture to say that powerful enough jamming like the Death Star could shut down any ability to create a warp field. Something that can do that to space time would have to have a major effect on the very fickle warp fields of Starfleet ships.

That is only a guess, however.

[MagicPrime]

What are you opinions on the similarities between Sub-Space and Hyperspace?

[PayBack]

I might not like it but AFAIK the theory that's been pretty much agreed upon is that Hyperspace is real space from a superluminal perspective. So they can't be the same thing.

[Elheru Aran]

What are you opinions on the similarities between Sub-Space and Hyperspace?

Subspace is quite frankly fucking lame handwavium. Hyperspace, at least, is slightly more realistic; realspace viewed from a tachyonic state.

[Surlethe]

What are you opinions on the similarities between Sub-Space and Hyperspace?

I don't really know anything about subspace, but hyperspace isn't anything different. It's only a different dimension in the sense that everything in hyperspace has a complex-valued mass (not rest mass, mind you) from a frame at rest in the galaxy. That is, hyperspace is simply moving through normal space at speeds faster than c -- nothing special.

[Surlethe]

1. The ease of Hyperspace travel as we know it in StarWars is mostly due to the fact that Hyperspace in that galaxy has been mapped out - and vasts nets of NAV Computers continually monitor Hyperspace for gravity wells, planets, etc.
Without this support structure - the Imperial ships may be able to enter hyperspace but it would be much like the first pioneers into this sub-dimension having to write new charts and maps. Would this be enough to remove their advantage of Hyperspace travel?

No. Even without disposable probes and stolen data (as Stark mentioned), it suffices to simply observe the galaxy from wherever they are, predict, based on distance, probable 'current' locations of celestial bodies, and then avoid those probability distributions.

[PayBack]

Ignoring the fact you'd want to know where you're going for a number of other reasons, if you did a blind jump of say 200LY, wouldn't the odds of flying through something still be minuscule?

[MagicPrime]

No. Even without disposable probes and stolen data (as Stark mentioned), it suffices to simply observe the galaxy from wherever they are, predict, based on distance, probable 'current' locations of celestial bodies, and then avoid those probability distributions.

Get some use out of that million credit Nav-Computer.

[Darth Wong]

Ignoring the fact you'd want to know where you're going for a number of other reasons, if you did a blind jump of say 200LY, wouldn't the odds of flying through something still be minuscule?

I don't recall the mean free path in space, but yeah, people seem to think that space is a lot less empty than it really is. Besides, you could cut down your risk factor by sending hyperspace drones ahead of you and then checking to see if they're still transmitting when they reach the destination. Or you could simply make a lot of short jumps instead of a few long ones.

[Invictus ChiKen]

I'm going to guess that the Empire would probably breakout alot of there exploration technology.

Longrange scanners, the mentioned drones and probably lots of other neat things. Plus the Empire might have highspeed slower than light drives they can use as well.

I'd give them at the maximum three months to have all the data they'd need. That's a FAR maximum assuming they dont buy maps from someone.

[PayBack]

Ignoring the fact you'd want to know where you're going for a number of other reasons, if you did a blind jump of say 200LY, wouldn't the odds of flying through something still be minuscule?

I don't recall the mean free path in space, but yeah, people seem to think that space is a lot less empty than it really is.

My problem is when you try to visualise it you have to be able to see something representing your ship and any other "clutter" so it makes the galaxy seem way more croweded than it is. The same goes for graphical representations. If they were to scale you couldn't see the ships, stars, planets etc, or the screen would have to be impossibly big. Again making it hard to visualise the space in space.

Plus the Empire might have highspeed slower than light drives they can use as well.

Somehow I don't think sublight drives will be of any help mapping the milkyway before their crew die of old age.

[Invictus ChiKen]

Somehow I don't think sublight drives will be of any help mapping the milkyway before their crew die of old age.

I was thinking they could have somekind of use... But I could be wrong...

[Lord Relvenous]

Speeds Sub-c would only be effective really for surveying immeadiate areas. Sheer distance between systems makes sub-c speeds uterlly useless on a large scale. I think the Empire's advanced sening equipment would be the greatest boon. Make a micro jump, scan, jump to edge of scanner range, scan, repeat.

[Kruk]

There is one problem with ST Milky Way. Seeing how the Enterprise, E-nil, E-D and Voyager were in most episodes running into some sort of anomaly, the propability that SW ship going at FTL without precise maps run into 'something' (be it a planet without a sun, a giant space ameboa, time-wrapping anomaly, unstable wormhole or something in that matter) is not that low as one may think.

As for 2) - hyperspace looks for me like either the "transwarp conduit" from TNG, but more unstable or something like (this time more stable and controlable) warp-wormhole from the ST I. Neither of those (both warp and TW) seems to be affected by gravity. There were instances of ships traveling at war inside gravity wells - ST IV (both engaging warp inside the atmosphere and going at warp around the sun), one of TNG episodes, when E-D come on the orbit at war, decelerates to beam someone down and accelerates once again and another one (Klingon Civil war) when Bird of Prey goes into warp near the sun, Voyager with it's "crack in event horizon"...

Using warp inside strong gravity wells is not seen as a good practice (probably higher strain on warp-drive), but it's not a problem.

[glass]

There is one problem with ST Milky Way. Seeing how the Enterprise, E-nil, E-D and Voyager were in most episodes running into some sort of anomaly, the propability that SW ship going at FTL without precise maps run into 'something' (be it a planet without a sun, a giant space ameboa, time-wrapping anomaly, unstable wormhole or something in that matter) is not that low as one may think.

As for 2) - hyperspace looks for me like...

Unfortunately, what it looks like to you is less important than what it looks like to Dr Saxton, since his thoughts (as printed in ICS) are canon and yours (or mine) aren't.


glass.

[Wyrm]

Ignoring the fact you'd want to know where you're going for a number of other reasons, if you did a blind jump of say 200LY, wouldn't the odds of flying through something still be minuscule?

I don't recall the mean free path in space, but yeah, people seem to think that space is a lot less empty than it really is.

My problem is when you try to visualise it you have to be able to see something representing your ship and any other "clutter" so it makes the galaxy seem way more croweded than it is. The same goes for graphical representations. If they were to scale you couldn't see the ships, stars, planets etc, or the screen would have to be impossibly big. Again making it hard to visualise the space in space.

Yes... another failure of "visualization." In this case, you have to fall back to the maths. So let's get down to some of them, hmm?

Suppose for each distance element traveled dx, the amplitude of you smacking into something is λ (assuming "uniform" galactic densities). Thus, if we had a "beam" of ships traveling at hyperspeeds blind, the decrease in the "intensity" of the "beam" is dI = -Iλdx. This is an ordinary differential equation that has the solution I = I_0 exp(-λx), where I_0 is the initial "intensity" of the "beam" of ships. Therefore, the number of ships being "absorbed" between 0 and any x is I_0 - I_0 exp(-λx) = I_0 [1 - exp(-λx)], or I_0 times the cdf of an exponential distribution. Therefore, the probability of a ship suffering a mishap between x and x+dx is dP(x) = λexp(-λx). The definition of the mean free path, l, means that λ is the reciprocal of the mean free path (λ = 1/l).

Plus the Empire might have highspeed slower than light drives they can use as well.

That would make for an extremely slow invasion.

There is one problem with ST Milky Way. Seeing how the Enterprise, E-nil, E-D and Voyager were in most episodes running into some sort of anomaly, the propability that SW ship going at FTL without precise maps run into 'something' (be it a planet without a sun, a giant space ameboa, time-wrapping anomaly, unstable wormhole or something in that matter) is not that low as one may think.

On the order of 350 incidents out of how many ship-light-years traveled?

As for 2) - hyperspace looks for me like either the "transwarp conduit" from TNG, but more unstable or something like (this time more stable and controlable) warp-wormhole from the ST I. Neither of those (both warp and TW) seems to be affected by gravity.

glass has already dealt with this.

There were instances of ships traveling at war inside gravity wells - ST IV (both engaging warp inside the atmosphere and going at warp around the sun), one of TNG episodes, when E-D come on the orbit at war, decelerates to beam someone down and accelerates once again and another one (Klingon Civil war) when Bird of Prey goes into warp near the sun, Voyager with it's "crack in event horizon"...

Using warp inside strong gravity wells is not seen as a good practice (probably higher strain on warp-drive), but it's not a problem.

Actually, being seen as not good practice and having a higher strain on the warping ship is a problem. A higher strain on the warping ship, for instance, could make it break up, which would end your trip pretty quick.

[Darth Wong]

There is one problem with ST Milky Way. Seeing how the Enterprise, E-nil, E-D and Voyager were in most episodes running into some sort of anomaly, the propability that SW ship going at FTL without precise maps run into 'something' (be it a planet without a sun, a giant space ameboa, time-wrapping anomaly, unstable wormhole or something in that matter) is not that low as one may think.

On the order of 350 incidents out of how many ship-light-years traveled?

Another question would be to ask how often they actually "ran into" these anomalies as opposed to detecting them and then diverting course to check them out, and how many of these anomalies would have necessarily been harmful to a ship traveling at hyperspace.

[Kruk]

On the order of 350 incidents out of how many ship-light-years traveled?

Not that much I think. Warp is not very fast (at least at small factors - and E-D standard warp speed was around factor 6) and E-D was always near important places - Romulan, Cardassian and Klingon borders - plus not that far away from Earth and Betazed.

The same goes for Archers Enterprise. The Voyager is another matter, but it was using during most of the way plot-devices, not own warp drive (slower then E-D drive by the way).

Another question would be to ask how often they actually "ran into" these anomalies as opposed to detecting them and then diverting course to check them out, and how many of these anomalies would have necessarily been harmful to a ship traveling at hyperspace.

For the first question the sipliest answer is, that it does not matter. Warp is (as already mentioned) slow, so they wont divert that much from initial course.

For second... one could guess. Running into a lone planet and any phenomanon that is creating gravity shadows would be either deadly or not good for the ship. Same for big space living creatures from TOS times.

Time anomalies also wont be too nice, but probably wont kill the ship (another matter is how SW crews are prepared to handle such anomalies).

The rest are various space distortions, subspace distortions, holes in continuum and such things. I dont know if and how the hyperspace relates to the realspace, but if there is any relation (other then gravity) then they can be harmful (question is how much). If the gravity is the only connection, then probably wont be harmful.

Actually, being seen as not good practice and having a higher strain on the warping ship is a problem. A higher strain on the warping ship, for instance, could make it break up, which would end your trip pretty quick.

I have not said - higher strain on warping ship, but on the warp drive. Like the need to generate stronger warp-field, using more fuel etc.

Unfortunately, what it looks like to you is less important than what it looks like to Dr Saxton, since his thoughts (as printed in ICS) are canon and yours (or mine) aren't.

Since when comparision of two drive systems from two different universes is part of ICS?

[PayBack]

I don't recall the mean free path in space, but yeah, people seem to think that space is a lot less empty than it really is.

My problem is when you try to visualise it you have to be able to see something representing your ship and any other "clutter" so it makes the galaxy seem way more croweded than it is. The same goes for graphical representations. If they were to scale you couldn't see the ships, stars, planets etc, or the screen would have to be impossibly big. Again making it hard to visualise the space in space.

Yes... another failure of "visualization." In this case, you have to fall back to the maths. So let's get down to some of them, hmm?

Actually I fell back on common sense

[apocolypse]

Since when comparision of two drive systems from two different universes is part of ICS?

Er, no. That's not what was being said. What's said is that your thoughts concerning hyperspace are over-ruled by what's stated in the ICS. The ICS states hyperspace is realspace, it's not a separate dimension or whatnot.

[PayBack]

Oh and that's another thing... if Hyperspace is real space from a FTL perspective, doesn't that mean ST ships enter hyperspace?