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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.

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

Did they? o_o

News to me

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

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").

Baffalo wrote: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.

Your entire post represents more thought and effort on the concept of "subspace" than any one staff writer, or perhaps even all of the staff writers who ever worked on Star Trek, ever put into it.