Hyperspace Travel in the ST Universe

[Darth Tanner]

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.

Several episodes have the ship taking severe damage (ie. shaking badly with the consoles sparking) because they have pushed the warp drive too hard, or even just to the upper levels of its capabilities. If it wasn't for magical super engineers the Ent D, Ent Nil and Voyager could never maintain maximum warp for any length of time without exploding.

Also that BoP that used its warp to slingshot around a star was damaged severely and lost control and crashed the second time it tried it.

[Kruk]

Also that BoP that used its warp to slingshot around a star was damaged severely and lost control and crashed the second time it tried it.

It was old construction, with big whale and a lot of water doing trip in the time while running on experimental regenerated dilithium crystals.

Also the ship made it from Sun to the Earth without much problems and landed without power because of that big, power draining probe in the orbit.

Several episodes have the ship taking severe damage (ie. shaking badly with the consoles sparking) because they have pushed the warp drive too hard, or even just to the upper levels of its capabilities. If it wasn't for magical super engineers the Ent D, Ent Nil and Voyager could never maintain maximum warp for any length of time without exploding.

True. None of the ships was able to maintain max warp for long amount of time. But pushing engine harder means not pushing it too hard.

Truth is, that I dont remember the case of natural gravity well interfering with warp drive operation. It was not a good practice, but doable, and doable without negative effects on the ship.

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

No. ST ships are staying below light speed even when traveling at warp.

[PayBack]

No. ST ships are staying below light speed even when traveling at warp.

Relative to what? IIRC they "cheat" (for want of a better word) and don't move FTL relative to local space but surely not relative to the rest of the galaxy or they'd take forever to get anywhere?

[SirNitram]

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

No. ST ships are not in realspace when they travel. You're thinking of Alucubrrie Warp Drive, which is absolutely nothing like ST's warp drive.

[Kruk]

Relative to the rest of galaxy... dont know. Sure, they move from one place to another, but... there is a subspace field around the ship which is allowing the ship to cross interstellar distances without going FTL. How the bubble works, well, be my guest. It has something to do with magic:

WESLEY
(slowly)
... that space and time and thought
aren't... well, aren't the
separate things they seem to be?

The assistant is looking at Wesley in such a strange way
that the boy becomes nervous.

WESLEY
I... I just thought the formula
you were using said something like
that...

Anyway - no matter how fast a ship is going, the "outside" look is never like hyperspace, so the simple answer is - not, they are not in hyperspace while at warp (not to mention other drive systems).

[PayBack]

No I realise the outside look is not the same, I just thought technically they would be based on Saxtons Hyperspace theory, but yeah if they're not in realspace as SirNitram says, then that's that idea down the drain.

[Stark]

Whoa whoa whoa little chicky. Did you just use a content-free conversation between Wesley and the Child Molester about his magic FTL using the Power of the Human Heart to describe standard warpdrive? Regardless of the lovesick blithering of Wesley, warp theory is quite well understood and consistent to ST-verse engineers.

[PayBack]

True, the Magic Drive sent them to a competely different galaxy IIRC. Standard Warp Drive doesn't drain the life force from aliens every time they move.

[Stark]

True, the Magic Drive sent them to a competely different galaxy IIRC. Standard Warp Drive doesn't drain the life force from aliens every time they move.

Hey maybe it does. All those Andorians had to go SOMEWHERE. The media tells us the Andorians are a major part of the Federation. Have YOU ever seen more than one Andorian at a time? Have you ever BEEN to Andoria?

In that episode it seemed clear to me that Traveller was simply using Mind Powers to affect the universe, thus propelling the ship/making it faster. He's like a walking warp nacelle, but that doesn't mean all warp drive is inscrutable magic.

[PayBack]

Yes it was obvious The Traveller was doing the work. Made more so by the fact the engineer who supposedly came up with the idea couldn't really explain how it worked (and did his best to avoid doing so) and it didn't make sense to Geordi IIRC.

FYI apart from Enterprise I think I saw an andorian in the third ST movie. Other than that, I don't recall seeing any. Perhaps the don't go through the academy so aren't allowed out of the sewer.

[Darth Wong]

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.

What the fuck difference does that make, moron? Even if they divert so much as one degree from their initial course, the fact remains that they wouldn't have run into it on a straight-line course, so you can't use it as proof that people flying on straight-line courses would run into things.

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.

But you have not established that the chance of doing so is high. How many rogue planets have we seen in Trek?

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.

So this is a non-starter then.

[Stark]

FYI apart from Enterprise I think I saw an andorian in the third ST movie. Other than that, I don't recall seeing any. Perhaps the don't go through the academy so aren't allowed out of the sewer.

Propaganda! Vulcans are everywhere, because they're not compatible with SoulDrive(tm). The government wants to cover it up with their incompetent 'engineers', but warp drives are really run on the life force of slave races. It's 40k-esque magic and the engineering/warp core thing is just staged drama for the masses. Destroyed by warp core breach ... or SMOTE BY THE HAND OF A VENGEFUL GOD? We must repent our soul-stealing ways!

[Wyrm]

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.

Dude, you have to consider all of the other ships the Feds, the Cardies, the Roms, and the Kling-ons are zipping about. Even though warp isn't as fast as hyperdrive, that's still a lot of warp travel that happens every day in the ST galaxy. With a million ship fleet traveling at Warp 5 (~213c) is adding 6 ly per second to the total number of ly traveled.

Also, the Feds may not have sensors comparable to the Empire, but they still have FTL sensors capable of astronomically-relevant range. That's an enormous volume compared to the amount of volume the spacecraft actually travels through, even if the space that is navigationally relevant is larger than the ship that travels through it. Meeting an anomaly is not the same as smacking into it.

[glass]

WESLEY
(slowly)
... that space and time and thought
aren't... well, aren't the
separate things they seem to be?

.

Is wesley, a supoosed 23rd century genius, really suggesting that time and space 'seem' to be separate things? We are pretty sure now that they aren't, right?


glass.

[glass]

In answer to the question about whether ships at warp are in realspace or not, I rather like this explanation. According to this guy's (admitted) speculation, the answer is 'sortoff'.


glass.

[bilateralrope]

As I see it the worst case scenario here is that the Trek starmaps aren't useful for mapping hyperspace routes, as they don't include information about things that will disrupt hyperspace travel but not effect warp travel. This will likely vary from species to species.

In this case, that will just slow the Wars side down as they have to map out the galaxy using the same methods they used for their galaxy. Is there anything in the EU that mentions how long that took ?

Also, how possible would it be for Wars ships to be equipped with warp drives (after capturing a science facility in trek) if they prove to be faster than how fast the Trek galaxy can have its hyperspace routes mapped.

Otherwise I can see the Wars ships demanding the Trek ships transmit their starmaps or facing destruction.

[Darth Wong]

Since the only things known to obstruct hyperspace travel are large physical obstructions such as stars and planets, I don't see why Star Trek maps would omit them. They waste time "cataloguing gaseous anomalies", for fuck's sake. How would entire planets and stars escape their attention?

[Wyrm]

Since the only things known to obstruct hyperspace travel are large physical obstructions such as stars and planets,

Though don't be too surprised when some EU author writes some hyperspace-only hazard.

I don't see why Star Trek maps would omit them. They waste time "cataloguing gaseous anomalies", for fuck's sake. How would entire planets and stars escape their attention?

To be fair, charting anomalies, gaseous or otherwise, is a worthwhile exercise precisely because they are anomalous (though the task is best left to a dedicated vessel — let the Enterprise take make a note of an anomaly and let another vessel study it), but you are right. So far, anything dangerous for a ship in hyperspace is also going to be dangerous for a ship at warp, so they're going to be on a starmap. After all, even if ships at Warp can see where they're going, it's still best to avoid areas of high clutter.

[phred]

IIRC The Emporer had the entire galaxy remapped during his reign. Vader during his search for the rebels had enough probe droids in his fleet to scout a significant portion of the known habitable planets, which probably numbered in at least the 100k range. From this Id guess that a star destroyer in the ST galaxy could probably compile enough info to keep itself occupied for a long time without running into anything
As for the Interdictor question, They simulate a gravity well which sets off the safeties built into standard hyperdrives. Since Trek ships dont seem to have this safety feature, or at least have it very easily overridden, I doubt the Interdictors gravity well generators would work on ST ships

[Patrick Degan]

charting anomalies, gaseous or otherwise, is a worthwhile exercise precisely because they are anomalous (though the task is best left to a dedicated vessel

That's a task for robot probes. Why tie down a fully-manned ship at all with that sort of job?

[Wyrm]

charting anomalies, gaseous or otherwise, is a worthwhile exercise precisely because they are anomalous (though the task is best left to a dedicated vessel

That's a task for robot probes. Why tie down a fully-manned ship at all with that sort of job?

Maybe their robot probes are crap, such that they still require a "home base" relatively close by for support and instructions. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I cannot recall a single incidence where a ST probe was used at any distance except "extremely close," astronomically speaking.

(I'm not discounting institutionalized thumb-twiddling either.)

[Patrick Degan]

charting anomalies, gaseous or otherwise, is a worthwhile exercise precisely because they are anomalous (though the task is best left to a dedicated vessel

That's a task for robot probes. Why tie down a fully-manned ship at all with that sort of job?

Maybe their robot probes are crap, such that they still require a "home base" relatively close by for support and instructions. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I cannot recall a single incidence where a ST probe was used at any distance except "extremely close," astronomically speaking.

(I'm not discounting institutionalized thumb-twiddling either.)

In TOS, we saw at least one example of a totally automated freighter, and Tin Man was discovered by a robot probe to Beta Stromgren, which was beyond the established Federation frontier. There is no logical reason for tying down a ship of the line on a mission best left to robots excepting the out-of-universe one that the writers are simply too stupid or too P.C. to understand that the purpose of a warship is primarily if not exclusively a military one.

Besides which, what's so complicated about a robot probeship programmed to chart and catalogue gaseous anomalies? All it needs is an adequate sensor-suite, extra memory and data transmission capacity, and a cybernetic control system to run the craft and its mission. Worst case, an automated runabout could be fitted out to handle such a task and carry extra fuel for multiyear endurance.

[drachefly]

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.

I can think of a few instances.

One of them was totally unexpected (TOS episode where they accidentally travel to the '60's). I think that was a collision with a less-than-usually-visible neutron star or white dwarf or something, so it would affect Hyperspace, but one would think that SW sensors would be able to detect it. One would have thought that ST sensors would be able to detect it, for that matter, but SW may be enough better.

Another case is the TNG episode with repeating time and the USS Bozeman. It's a major plot point that they had no reason to expect this to occur. However, they may have been travelling towards a different part of the thing that caused the trouble. I believe this was set in the 'Typhon expanse' which may or may not be of some 'suspect' type of space, which the SW folk could avoid.

That might count double. I don't remember how much warning the Bozeman got; they may have begun investigating only after they were already trapped.

Then, of course, there's Yesterday's Enterprise. Totally natural, totally unexpected. I don't know whether being ctapulted a few decades into the future would cause HS trouble, but I think so.
;)

And there's the ship that ran into the nexus by accident in Generations.

Hmm... I'm running out.

[Patrick Degan]

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.

I can think of a few instances.

One of them was totally unexpected (TOS episode where they accidentally travel to the '60's). I think that was a collision with a less-than-usually-visible neutron star or white dwarf or something, so it would affect Hyperspace, but one would think that SW sensors would be able to detect it. One would have thought that ST sensors would be able to detect it, for that matter, but SW may be enough better.

No, that was a full-power escape from an uncharted black hole —"Tomorrow Is Yesterday".

Another case is the TNG episode with repeating time and the USS Bozeman. It's a major plot point that they had no reason to expect this to occur. However, they may have been travelling towards a different part of the thing that caused the trouble. I believe this was set in the 'Typhon expanse' which may or may not be of some 'suspect' type of space, which the SW folk could avoid.

That might count double. I don't remember how much warning the Bozeman got; they may have begun investigating only after they were already trapped.

They never really explained just what the fuck was in the Typhon Expanse beyond some blather that it was a region of space with "unusual temporal properties" —whatever that's supposed to mean. Essentially, "Cause And Effect" proposed a spatial region operating under different laws of physics than the rest of the surrounding universe. Nor did they ever explain just how the Bozeman and the Enterprise got ensnared in their time-loop.

Then, of course, there's Yesterday's Enterprise. Totally natural, totally unexpected.

Not quite. The energies released by the Romulan and Enterprise-C weaponry somehow initiated the formation of a Kerr Loop.

[glass]

Since the only things known to obstruct hyperspace travel are large physical obstructions such as stars and planets, I don't see why Star Trek maps would omit them. They waste time "cataloguing gaseous anomalies", for fuck's sake. How would entire planets and stars escape their attention?

I'd say the problem wouldn't be that the maps wouldn't include the relevant info so much as they wouldn't include enough of it. A SW ship could go clear across the federation's starmaps in minutes, couldn't they?


glass.