StarDestroyer.Net BBS

Simon_Jester wrote:Hm. The ship had no warp capability whatsoever?

The NX-Columbia had taken extensive damage, with the warp drive, communication system and even the shuttlepods being wrecked. So were most of the ship's supplies. Rescue was seen as virutally next to nil because they were off regular traffic lanes and the Romulan-War had just broken out (which htey were a victim of, incidentally). So the options were basically die, or use relativity to their advantage... at the cost of being 12 years out of the loop. Spoiler Of course, this is non-canon... do we have any canon-references as to how fast star-trek ships can travel at impulse?

Batman wrote:Not having read the book I'm speculating of course but presumably none worth using. We're talking 63 days vs 12 years. They'd need to be able to go faster than 69c to shorten the trip from the crew's perspective.

Check my figures, Batman. They're so close to the speed of light it's ridiculous. As in almost the realm of impossible.

Bafallo we're talking about a universe where going faster than light is not only possible but a part of everyday commerce. I don't see why in a framework like that 'very nearly c' is 'almost in the realm of the impossible'.

Batman wrote:Bafallo we're talking about a universe where going faster than light is not only possible but a part of everyday commerce. I don't see why in a framework like that 'very nearly c' is 'almost in the realm of the impossible'.

Yes but that faster than light travel still requires warp drive. Without that, they're forced to rely on normal physics, which is going to make moving that fast incredibly hard. I'm not saying it can't be done, just that when you start going that fast, you're starting to use up so much energy that I don't think the ship could produce it. Artistic license? Sure. I'm just saying that it would be incredibly hard.

Baffalo wrote:

Batman wrote:Bafallo we're talking about a universe where going faster than light is not only possible but a part of everyday commerce. I don't see why in a framework like that 'very nearly c' is 'almost in the realm of the impossible'.

Yes but that faster than light travel still requires warp drive. Without that, they're forced to rely on normal physics, which is going to make moving that fast incredibly hard. I'm not saying it can't be done, just that when you start going that fast, you're starting to use up so much energy that I don't think the ship could produce it. Artistic license? Sure. I'm just saying that it would be incredibly hard.

Yes but clearly not impossible lol.

And (unrealted) SG Atlantis had an Earth ship do that (McKay even going over the maths).

And the Ent-Nil went at warp 0.7 at Impulse in TMP. And faster, when inside V'Ger, in the original 82 AUs thing.

Also, "forced to rely on normal physics". Like transporters, holodecks, replciators, anti-gravity and phasers?

They can do a LOT of things without a warp drive that break physics already, and having some flipping big cold-fusion reactors is also one of those things.

EDIT: and the warp coils don't require a matter-antimatter core to run. They just need lots of power to break warp 1. You can still use them on a low level to mass-lighten the ship a bit. They don't have to be at warp to do it.

"warp core" is just a colloquial term for matter-antimatter reactor. The core itself doesn't generate anything except power. And trilithium.

Romulans can go to warp and they use a black hole, for example. The Think Tank used something entirely different. Was it their power core they said was "nothing so mundane" as Voyager's ?

Q can go to warp yet he doesn't have a "warp core". Same for the Borg, actually. No idea what the heck powers their vessel.

All the warp coils need is power, and the fusion reactors can do that. Just not enough for Warp 1.