Okay, it was a fairly important ploy device in TOS that you needed some distance from a gravity well before warp was even possible, though they then began promptly contradicting the recommended distances in TNG. Some of the earliest ST novelisations I remember reading stated that going to warp too close to a star risked sending it nova! Can't remember the book's title, but the TOS story when they first attempted Transwarp stated that they blew up at least one star by doing exactly this.Picard wrote:Maybe they dropped out of warp doe to inability to maintain warp speed, or maybe due to some automated security system. We don't know. But we do know that Defiant can enter warp inside solar system, right into star, and exit warp less than half of star's diameter.I don't know if anyone else caught this, but doesn't this show a failure in warp navigation? When cruising along at multiples of C, isn't being able to detect planets, moons, large rocks, etc., before you hit them a good thing. Yet Data seems to be saying here that the contact was so big and so massive... that sensors couldn't read it at all
Nonetheless, running into a gravity well deep enough that it forces you to drop out of warp can't be good for your engines. This is something that nav sensors really should be looking out for, even if you don't have to worry about flying through a star or bouncing off a super-nova. Flying in a straight line until some natural obstacle collapses your warp field and dumps you into realspace has to be the clumsiest means of exploration I've ever heard of.
