Warp Engines

Warp drive was a technology that allowed space travel at faster-than-light speeds. It worked by generating warp fields to form a subspace bubble that enveloped the starship, distorting the local spacetime continuum and moving the starship at velocities that could greatly exceed the speed of light. These velocities were referred to as warp factors. Warp drive was the most common form of interstellar propulsion used in the Milky Way Galaxy, making interstellar exploration, commerce, and warfare; essentially Interstellar civilization possible. By the 24th century, warp was the primary means of interstellar transport, but scientists from various cultures were pursuing various alternative propulsion methods that were hypothetically faster or more efficient.

Contents[]

[hide]

Etymology Edit[]

[1]

The USS Discovery at warp in 2257

[2]

The USS Stargazer performs a warp jump

In 2063, the term "warp drive" was already used by Zefram Cochrane of his engine on the Phoenix. However, Cochrane used the term "space warp generator" in the monitor displays on his spacecraft (Star Trek: First Contact). Even as late as the 2150s, the warp five engine was still officially known as a "gravimetric field displacement manifold" (ENT: "Cold Front").

Most cultures throughout the Milky Way Galaxy used the term "warp drive" and by the late-23rd century it was the most common term used by the Federation as well (Star Trek: The Original Series, et al.). In the 2250s the term "hyperdrive" was used by Starfleet (TOS: "The Cage") and the Ferengi occasionally used the term "lightspeed drive" (TNG: "Peak Performance"). Finally, there was the term "star drive" which was only used by the Federation and Starfleet in the 2260s. (TOS: "Bread and Circuses", "The Paradise Syndrome")

Space warp was one of the vocabulary words listed on the chart "A Tunnel in the Sky". This chart was seen in the schoolroom aboard Deep Space 9 in 2369. (DS9: "In the Hands of the Prophets")

The process of going to warp was described as a warp jump. (ENT: "Horizon"; TNG: "Peak Performance", et al.)

The use of the term "hyperdrive" in "The Cage" was never fully explained, but the writer's guide, The Star Trek Guide (third rev., p. 8) [1] suggests an origin for the term. According to the guide, "hyper-light speed" was an alternative, less preferred, term for "space warp speed". Hyperdrive later became more prominently known as the ftl drive in the Star Wars franchise. [2]'According to Star Trek: The Next Generation Technical Manual (p. 54), the original official term used by Cochrane in the 2060s was "continuum distortion propulsion", which was only informally dubbed as "warp" propulsion at the time.'

Technology Edit[]

[3]

Sovereign-class warp core

24th century Federation warp engines were fueled by the reaction of matter (deuterium) and antimatter (antideuterium), mediated through an assembly of dilithium crystals, which were nonreactive with antimatter when subjected to high-frequency electromagnetic fields. This reaction produced a highly energetic plasma, called electro-plasma or warp plasma, which was channeled by plasma conduits through the electro-plasma system (EPS); that system also provided the primary energy supply for the ships other electronic systems. For propulsion the electro-plasma was funneled by plasma injectors into a series of warp field coils, usually located in remote warp nacelles. These coils were composed of verterium cortenide and generated the warp field.

Other civilizations used different power sources, such as the Romulans' use of artificial quantum singularities to power their warp drives (TNG: "Timescape"), but the basic process was similar. In some vessels, such as the Intrepid-class, the nacelles were mounted on variable geometry pylons. (VOY: "Caretaker")

[4]

The main components of a warp drive

Parts of the system Edit[]

System types Edit[]

Development Edit[]

Warp drive and other faster-than-light (FTL) propulsion technologies were the linchpin of an interstellar civilization, making trade and exploration across vast interstellar distances viable. Without these technologies, these distances could not be crossed in any reasonable period of time, making interstellar civilization usually limited to a single sector. (TNG: "A Matter of Time") To put this in perspective, planets that were years away with impulse speeds could be reached in days with ships equipped with warp drive. (TOS: "Where No Man Has Gone Before")

[5]

The IKS Rotarran accelerates to warp, viewed from within the vessel

Cultures in the galaxy discovered warp drive at their own pace and rate of development, as most of the cultures had to do. The Vulcans were an interstellar civilization by 9th century BC and had reached the level of warp 7 by 2151. (ENT: "The Andorian Incident", "Fallen Hero"; DS9: "Little Green Men") Klingons had interstellar travel capability around the time of Kahless in the 9th century. They had achieved the capability of warp 6 by 2151. (TNG: "Rightful Heir"; DS9: "Little Green Men"; VOY: "Day of Honor"; ENT: "Judgment") Romulans were once considered a group of thugs and warp drive was regarded as the key technology that allowed the founding of the Romulan Star Empire. (Star Trek: Insurrection) The Vissians developed warp drive around the 12th century. (ENT: "Cogenitor") The Borg in the Delta Quadrant began to establish their interstellar collective by the 15th century. (VOY: "Dragon's Teeth") However, it was the rapid progress of Humanity which led to the wide-scale exploration of the galaxy and the formation of the United Federation of Planets. Quark stated in "Little Green Men" that the Ferengi would have had warp drive before the "Humans, Klingons, and even the Vulcans," had he delivered warp technology to Ferenginar in 1947. See Little Green Men - Trivia for more information.'According to "Rightful Heir", before Kahless died, he declared he would one day return, in the Boreth star system. Shortly after this, Klingons built the Boreth monastery there to await for his return. According to the episode "Day of Honor", Kahless lived in the 9th century. It is stated in Star Trek: Star Charts (p. 55) that Klingons had achieved warp capability in the year 930. Quark, however, stated in "Little Green Men" that the Ferengi would have had warp drive before the Klingons, had he delivered warp technology to Ferenginar in 1947.'Regarding Vulcan propulsion technology aboard the T'Plana-Hath, Ronald D. Moore commented, "Certainly Cochrane is credited with the invention of warp drive as we know it in Trek, so we could assume that the Vulcans were using something else – possibly a variant of the contained singularity used by the Romulans. That might have been a much more dangerous and inefficient technology which was quickly abandoned by most of the galaxy when Cochrane's system was introduced." (AOL chat, 1997)' The development of the warp drive was recognized by the United Federation of Planets as the marker of an advanced society. It was only after a people developed warp drive that the Federation made contact, as codified in the Prime Directive. (TNG: "First Contact") A warp capable society was deemed technically and psychologically ready to embrace the universe at large.

21st century Edit[]

[6]

Phoenix goes to warp

On Earth, warp drive was initially developed by Zefram Cochrane, in the period following World War III. (Star Trek: First Contact)

The spacecraft credited with discovering the space warp phenomenon was the Bonaventure (C1-21). (DS9: "The Nagus", production art)

Despite the hardships imposed by the war's aftermath and the lack of advanced materials, Cochrane was able to build a manned warp-capable vessel using a converted Titan II missile. The successful first flight of his ship – the Phoenix – took place on April 5, 2063, and drew the attention of a Vulcan exploratory vessel, leading to the event known as First Contact. (Star Trek: First Contact)

The Bonaventure (10281NCC) then became the first deep-space starship to have warp drive installed. (TAS: "The Time Trap")

22nd century Edit[]

[7]

Two NX class starships in tandem warp flight

Development of warp technology proceeded slowly over the next eighty years, after the flight of the Phoenix – due, in no small part, to the cautious advice of the Vulcans – and it was not until the 2140s that a warp engine developed by Henry Archer at the Warp Five Complex could exceed warp factor 2.

This engine was successfully tested in the second NX prototype by Commanders A.G. Robinson and Jonathan Archer to a speed of warp 2.5, breaking the so-called "warp 2 barrier" in 2143. Eight months later, Duvall achieved warp 3 with the NX Delta. Warp 4 would be first achieved by the Franklin. (ENT: "First Flight"; Star Trek Beyond)

By the year 2149, warp technology was sufficiently advanced to begin the construction of Enterprise, a vessel capable of warp 5 and launched in 2151. (ENT: "Broken Bow") Although Enterprise was at first unable to fully realize this potential (maxing out at warp 4.7), the starship finally reached warp 5 on February 9, 2152. (ENT: "Fallen Hero")

By 2161, Starfleet warp drive technology had achieved the capability to reach warp 7, and these engines were being built into the latest class of Starfleet vessels as the NX class were being decommissioned. (ENT: "These Are the Voyages...")

23rd century Edit[]

[8]

The USS Shenzhou at warp in 2256

Development and improvement of warp drive continued apace, and by the 2240s, Starfleet vessels of the Constitution-class had standard cruising speeds of warp 6 and emergency speeds as high as warp 8 (although under the right conditions, the engines could reach warp 9). These ships took advantage of a major breakthrough in warp technology that took place between 2236 and 2254, the breaking of the so-called "time barrier". (TOS: "The Cage")

Higher warp factors continued to be reached, mostly through alien intervention, or dangerous malfunction. The USS Enterprise was modified by the Kelvans to maintain a speed of warp 11 in 2268. Later that year, the Enterprise accelerated to a speed of warp factor 14.1, after being sabotaged by a Kalandan planetary defense system. At that velocity, however, the ship came within moments of destroying itself. (TOS: "By Any Other Name", "That Which Survives")

At around the same time, warp engines were being redesigned to allow standard speeds of warp 8 and above. During the refit of the Constitution-class, the cylindrical-shaped nacelles were replaced with a new flattened design. (Star Trek: The Motion Picture)

According to the Star Trek Spaceflight Chronology (p. 180), the new warp drive of the Enterprise after the refit was an advanced fourth generation warp drive system known as "pulsed warp drive". [9]

The USS Enterprise-A jumps to warp to escape an incoming photon torpedo.

Warp theory continued to advance with the development of the first transwarp drive engines in the mid-2280s, which would have theoretically allowed greater efficiency and any warp speed to be available for a ship. However, the transwarp experiment of USS Excelsior ended in failure, and the technology was abandoned at that time. The Excelsior itself was deemed spaceworthy, retrofitted with conventional warp drive and commissioned as NCC-2000 under the command of Captain Hikaru Sulu. (Star Trek III: The Search for Spock; VOY: "Threshold"; Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country)

24th century Edit[]

[10]

The USS Enterprise-D at warp

At some point in the 24th century, a new warp factor scale came into use, which placed warp 10 as a theoretical maximum. (VOY: "Threshold") According to Star Trek: The Next Generation Technical Manual, the new scale was a more advanced function than the previous cubic power scale, with factors increasing exponentially in terms of power consumption and equivalent speed. This "new" scale also presents a maximum "cap" on the absolute velocity of a warp drive, even beyond the warp 10 limit; since energy cannot be created or destroyed, an exponential increase in power consumption would eventually outstrip the amount of available energy in the known universe. By the time the Galaxy-class starship was being designed in the 2360s, warp technology had progressed to the point where speeds of warp 9.6 could be sustained for up to twelve hours, although warp 9.2 was considered the "red line." (TNG: "Encounter at Farpoint")

According to Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Technical Manual (pp. 151-158), the classification of Federation warp drives capable of maintaining speeds of warp factor 9.2 and above for at least 12 hours was "1,500+ cochrane warp core". [11]

The USS Voyager accelerates to warp

The USS Voyager was capable of a top cruising speed of warp 9.975. (VOY: "Caretaker", "Relativity")

The USS Prometheus was capable of a sustained cruising speed of warp 9.9. (VOY: "Message in a Bottle")

In 2370, the Hekaran scientist Serova discovered that the use of conventional warp engines caused damage to the fabric of spacetime. The Federation Council imposed a speed limit of warp factor 5 on all Federation vessels in all but extreme emergency cases, such as medical emergencies. (TNG: "Force of Nature", "Eye of the Beholder") Warp speeds above warp 5 were routinely used after 2370, without mention of the harmful effects, suggesting a solution was found, even though it was not mentioned on-screen. (Star Trek Encyclopedia (2nd ed., p. 187)) See also: Variable geometry pylon. As the "speed limit" probably also limited potential future storylines, it seems that the concept was quietly done away with, shortly into the next season. Brannon Braga has noted that, "When you limit warp drive, the rug is being pulled out from under Star Trek." (Captains' Logs: The Unauthorized Complete Trek Voyages, p. 294) It was not until 2372, that the transwarp threshold was broken by the Federation. Tom Paris of the USS Voyager managed to achieve infinite velocity on the shuttlecraft Cochrane. However, this form of travel was found to have severe, unanticipated side effects. (VOY: "Threshold")

...and beyond Edit[]

In what was originally the future which was observed and altered by Jean-Luc Picard, speeds of at least warp 13 were possible. (TNG: "All Good Things...") In the October 1995 issue of OMNI, science advisor Andre Bormanis stated the idea of warp factors beyond 10 in the alternative future was a recalibration of the warp scale, as ships of that era had gotten faster. Bormanis suggested the possibility that warp factor 15 was set to be the ultimate speed limit and warp 13 in that scale would have been the equivalent of warp factor 9.95 in the previous scale.'The box of the Playmates desktop model of the alternative future Enterprise-D called it a transwarping ship. [3]

Appendices Edit[]

Background information Edit[]

Gene Roddenberry originally intended the Enterprise to become transparent while in warp drive, as depicted in "The Cage" (later reformatted into the two-part "The Menagerie"). The idea was that the ship would be traveling faster than light, which means that light would not reach it, rendering the vessel invisible to the naked eye. However, according to Einstein's Theory of Special Relativity, the speed of light is a constant from any frame of reference; an observer moving at close to "c" would still observe light moving toward him and away from him at "c."

When the writers of Star Trek sat down to plan the series, they found themselves confronted with a few problems. They were essentially creating a space opera, a subgenre of science fiction that takes place in space and covers the span of several galaxies and millions of light-years. As the “opera” part of the name suggests, a show like Star Trek isn’t meant to be slow or ordinary. When people think of the series, they probably think of melodramatic plots involving aliens, space travel, and action-packed laser fights.

So the creator of the series, Gene Roddenberry, and the other writers had to find a way to move the show’s characters around the universe in a timely, dramatic fashion. At the same time, they wanted to do their best to stick to the laws of physics. The biggest problem was that even if a starship could travel at the speed of light, the time to go from one galaxy to another could still take hundreds, maybe thousands of years. A journey from Earth to the center of our galaxy, for example, would take about twenty-five thousand years if you were to travel just under the speed of light. This, of course, wouldn’t make very exciting television.

The invention of warp speed solved the opera part of the problem, since it allowed the Enterprise to go much faster than the speed of light. But what was the explanation? How could they explain an object traveling faster than the speed of light, something Einstein proved impossible in his special theory of relativity?

The USS Enterprise

The first obstacle the writers had to confront is much simpler than you’d think. It comes down to Newton’s third law of motion: how for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.

What does this have to do with Star Trek and the Enterprise? Even if it were possible to accelerate to something like half the speed of light, such intense acceleration would kill a person by smashing him against his seat. Even though he’d be pushing back with an equal and opposite force, his mass compared to the starship is just too small. The same kind of thing happens when a mosquito hits your windshield and splatters. So how can the Enterprise possibly go faster than the speed of light without killing the members on board?

To sidestep the issue of Newton’s third law of motion and the impossibility of matter traveling faster than the speed of light, we can look to Einstein and the relationship between space and time. Taken together, space (consisting of three dimensions: up-down, left-right, and forward-backward) and time are part of what’s called the space-time continuum.

In his special theory of relativity, Einstein states two postulates:

The speed of light (about 300 million meters per second) is the same for all observers, whether or not they’re moving.
Anyone moving at a constant speed should observe the same physical laws.

Putting these two ideas together, Einstein realized that space and time are relative—an object in motion actually experiences time at a slower rate than one at rest. Although this may seem absurd to us, we travel incredibly slowly when compared to the speed of light, so we don’t notice the hands on our watches ticking slower when we’re running or traveling on an airplane.

USS Enterprise at warp speed in Into The Darkness.

What does this mean for the Captain Kirk and his team? As an object gets closer and closer to the speed of light, that object actually experiences time at a significantly slower rate. If the Enterprise were traveling safely at close to the speed of light to the center of our galaxy from Earth, it would take twenty-five thousand years of Earth time. For the crew, however, the trip would probably only take ten years.

Contents[]

1 Technical data
2 History
3 Appendices
- 3.1 See also
- 3.2 Background information
- 3.3 Apocrypha
- 3.4 External link

Technical data[]

The quantum slipstream drive operated by routing energy through the vessel's main deflector, which then focused a quantum field, allowing the vessel to penetrate the quantum barrier. In order to maintain the slipstream, the phase variance of the quantum field had to be constantly adjusted, or the slipstream would collapse, violently throwing the ship back into normal space. No antimatter was involved. (VOY: "Hope and Fear", "Timeless")

According to Star Trek Encyclopedia (3rd ed., p. 651), the slipstream was created through subspace.

History[]

The Voyager crew first encountered slipstream technology in 2374, when they discovered the USS Dauntless, a vessel ostensibly sent by Starfleet to transport them back to the Alpha Quadrant. It was subsequently discovered, however, that the vessel was an elaborate ruse by an alien named Arturis, who was seeking revenge on Captain Janeway for what he saw as her complicity in the assimilation of his species by the Borg. Planning to use the Dauntless to transport the Voyager crew back to his Borg-conquered homeworld for assimilation, Arturis settled for Janeway and Seven of Nine when his plot was discovered. Arturis was pursued in the slipstream by Voyager, which had been outfitted with the same technology. Lieutenant Commander Tuvok managed to breach the Dauntless' shields with a photon torpedo, allowing them to rescue Janeway and Seven. Commander Chakotay subsequently ordered their slipstream altered in order to avoid Borg space, leaving Arturis to be assimilated. Voyager remained in the slipstream for an hour before it collapsed, traversing three hundred light years, although their diagnostics concluded that they could not risk using the technology again. (VOY: "Hope and Fear")

The next year, the Voyager crew constructed their own quantum slipstream drive using benamite crystals, overcoming some difficulties in their first attempt. Despite promising potential results, Tom Paris discovered a phase variance in the slipstream threshold, threatening to overload the drive's quantum matrix and destroy the ship. Harry Kim realized that the smaller size of a piloted shuttle leading Voyager could allow early phase variance detection of the complex, dynamic slipstream threshold for the larger ship. These advanced data and corrections would help Voyager safely navigate the quantum slipstream.

During the test flight, with Chakotay piloting the Delta Flyer, Kim sent wrong correction values to Voyager, causing the slipstream to unexpectedly collapse ten light years from the Alpha Quadrant. Voyager crashed on an class L planet in the Takara sector, killing all hands – however, ahead of Voyager in the stable Delta Flyer slipstream, Kim and Chakotay survived the disastrous test and returned to Earth, filled with guilt.

Fifteen years later, the pair acquired a stolen Borg temporal transmitter and recovered The Doctor's program from Voyager's debris, and attempted to change history by allowing Voyager to stay in the slipstream. With The Doctor's expertise of Seven of Nine's physiology, Kim and Chakotay used the Borg technology to transmit a time index and new phase corrections back in time to Seven of Nine's interplexing beacon.

The initial corrections did not work – with no chance to correct their mistake, The Doctor convinced Kim to give up on the Alpha Quadrant and at least avert the disaster by transmitting information which would end the flight rather than prolong it. As Seven implemented these new corrections, the slipstream dispersed and returned Voyager safely to normal space – eliminating approximately ten years from their journey to the Alpha Quadrant. (VOY: "Timeless")

In 2375, the Think Tank requested quantum slipstream technology as part of the payment for solving the "Hazari paradox." Captain Janeway warned Kurros that they never managed to get the technology to work reliably. Kurros commented that it was still intriguing, "theoretically." (VOY: "Think Tank")

By 2384, Starfleet had successfully recreated their own version of the USS Dauntless, captained by Vice Admiral Janeway. (PRO: "A Moral Star, Part 2")

According to Prodigy producer Aaron Waltke, this version of the USS Dauntless was also equipped with a limited form of quantum slipstream, which is why Starfleet repurposed and built a modified recreation of the original design.[1]Voyager

In 3188, Book implies his ship is capable of slipstream travel, if he had benamite. (DIS: "That Hope Is You, Part 1")

Appendices[]

Background information[]

The quantum slipstream core prop is made up of a novelty plasma globe and "bubble tubes", available from most joke/gadget shops. (Delta Quadrant: The Unofficial Guide to Voyager, p. 248)

The drive was discussed in detail in the "Briefing: Propulsion Systems" article in Star Trek: The Magazine Volume 2, Issue 4.

The slipstream drive became a more prominently featured method of FTL propulsion in Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda sci-fi series that premiered in 2000.

Based on the three hundred light year trip in "Hope and Fear", the average speed of a quantum slipstream drive calculates out to 2.63×10⁶ times the speed of light. At that speed, Voyager could traverse its original stranding of 75,000 light years in as little as 10.4 days, assuming it didn't require significant shutdown time for maintenance or refueling.

Apocrypha[]

The Star Trek: Destiny trilogy introduced the Vesta-class starships, a test-bed for a Federation quantum slipstream drive, along with numerous other technologies.

In A Singular Destiny, Starfleet began to install quantum slipstream drives on its vessels in 2381. Due to the nature of the technology, not all ships were compatible with the upgrade. An upgraded version of the technology proved to be successful, and in the novel Full Circle, Starfleet mounted an expedition to the Delta Quadrant by outfitting Voyager and several other starships with a fully-functional version of the drive.

In the Star Trek: Typhon Pact novel Zero Sum Game, set in 2382, the Breen sent an operative to Utopia Planitia Fleet Yards to capture data pertaining to the Federation quantum slipstream drive, regarding it as a potential Federation weapon that would allow them to deliver a decisive first strike in any war between the Breen and their new allies in the Typhon Pact (β), including the Romulans, the Gorn, the Tzenkethi, the Kinshaya (β), and the Tholians.

The Breen were then contracted to build the first Typhon Pact prototype slipstream vessel. The lead researcher of the project, Thot Keer, intentionally withheld information from the other members relating to the drives development, in order to promote the Breen to a level of Pact authority equal to the Romulans. Shortly before the initial trials, the prototype, its designer, and all information relating to the project were destroyed.

In Plagues of Night, set in 2383, various members of the Pact, led by Sela, attempted to travel to the Gamma Quadrant to obtain Jem'Hadar technology to perfect the drive. They believed that Jem'Hadar ships possessed the right structure to cope with the stresses of slipstream. The attempt resulted in the destruction of Deep Space 9, when bombs planted to cause a diversion while they used the Bajoran wormhole caused more damage than was intended. Further attempts to develop the drive came to an end in Raise the Dawn, when the Romulan Praetor officially denounced the Pact's attempt to build a drive, noting that attempts to do so have caused more problems with the Federation than the original existence of the drive, ending their attempts for the time being.

In Star Trek Online, players are also able to use slipstream drives for brief periods after reaching Vice Admiral rank in order to travel faster between star systems. Two ships use advanced slipstream drives: The Odyssey-class allows for extended usage while the Multi-Mission Explorer series of ships, when two special devices are used, grants this the fastest warp drive level, reaching a theoretical Warp 25 without modifications and a maximum of Warp 67.56 utilizing bonuses and special items. The 2014 Risian Summer Event added in the Risian Luxury Cruiser, which gave it the Solar Sail Quantum Slipstream Drive, which made it faster than a ship's natural Quantum Slipstream, but was slower than the special slipstreams used by the Odyssey and Multi-Mission Explorer series. The newer Miracle Worker cruisers feature a Cyclical Quantum Slipstream Drive, which allows the ships to stay in the slipstream longer, and recharge in only 30 seconds, but maneuverability is significantly reduced while in slipstream drive.

https://science.howstuffworks.com/warp-speed3.htm

Warp Engines

Contents

Contents[]

Etymology Edit[]

Technology Edit[]

Parts of the system Edit[]

System types Edit[]

Development Edit[]

21st century Edit[]

22nd century Edit[]

23rd century Edit[]

24th century Edit[]

...and beyond Edit[]

Appendices Edit[]

Background information Edit[]

Contents[]

Technical data[]

History[]

Appendices[]

See also[]

Background information[]

Apocrypha[]

Fan Feed