From: MLINDROOS@FINABO.ABO.FI (Marcus Lindroos INF)
Subject: Re: More warp/s'date babble...
Organization: Abo Akademi University, Finland
Date: Mon, 14 Dec 1992 13:32:43 GMT
X-News-Reader: VMS NEWS 1.24

In <1992Dec13.211040.547@u.washington.edu> mcclaine@hardy.u.washington.edu writes:

> In article <1992Dec13.151541.13567@abo.fi> MLINDROOS@FINABO.ABO.FI (Marcus Lindroos INF) writes:
> >Yet another stab at the never-ending subject of warp velocities and stardates.
> >First, has it occurred to anyone that warp factors might translate into
> >different velocities for different starships?! R.a.s. warp guru Leon Myerson
> >came up with the idea that the warp scale measures power rather than speed and
> >I have to agree.
> 
> 	Finally, another fan of Leon Myerson!  (Whoever he is...)  I happen 
> to like and even agree with a lot of his theories as well.  They are well
> thought out and argued and have some mathematical support to go with it!
> 
> 	I did consider the idea of the argument that if warp factors refer
> to power, then wouldn't starships of different masses move at different 
> velocities.  Well, after some thought, I realized that this idea would have
> no standing in the Star Trek universe.  For one, that argument would 
>
> 	Anyway, back to the starships of different masses.  It seems that
> 	when two different ships are moving at the same warp factor, they
> 	are also moving at the same velocity  At least this is what the dialogue
>         in the shows entail.  Thus, we have to maintain
> 	the constant link between warp power and light speed, ignoring the
> 	mass or inertia of the vessel.  Different mechanics such as continuum
> 	drag become a factor with warp fields.

Well...could it be that Worf or whoever is scanning the instruments
automatically "translates" the velocity of the ship to Enterprise warp numbers?
Sure, it is a bad explanation but no worse than the problems you run into if
you assume the warp scale indeed stays the same for all vessels.

 
> 	However, you still might argue that a larger mass disorts space more
> 	and thus requires more power to enact the same amount of skew.  Well,
> 	that much is probably true.  I mean a warp shuttle certainly would
> 	put out less power at warp 1 than the USS Enterprise!  My answer to
> 	that would be that the generated power in terms of warp factors is
> 	only that power generated by the ship that is manifested in the form
> 	of nested warp fields or space time distortion.  Thus there is a
> 	certain bit of inertial "resistance" to such distortion as seen from
> 	the main engines, but this is really just the engines seeing the
> 	load of having larger warp nacelles, the units that actually induce
> 	the warp field effect.  A more massive vessel requires larger 
> 	field coils to create a warp field covering a sufficient amount of 
> 	volume around the ship (even a tiny but massive ship still occupies
> 	a large volume of distorted space) for optimal space distortion 
> 	modulation.  Thus the power generated by the central source is soon 
> 	dissipated throughout the larger volume of the warp nacelles and
> 	the acutual warp power generated from any one volumetric piece of 
> 	that larger field coil is would be the same as compared to
> 	the power per volume of warp coils of the smaller warp nacelle 
> 	arrangement of the warp shuttle, even though its engines have a much
> 	smaller load to achieve the same effect. 

Well, don't forget we're dealing with pseudo science here. Basically, I'm not
too serious about physical laws affecting a starship travelling at >warp 1
because the concept is supposed to be "impossible" in the first place. Far more
useful to examine more basic problems such as how fast the ships "really" move.
> 
> >
> >According to Sternbach's/Okuda's technical manual, warp factors work like this:
> >
> >Warp factor 1 = 1     x the speed of light
> >            2 = 10
> >            3 = 39
> >            4 = 102
> >            5 = 214
> >            6 = 392
> >            7 = 656 
> >            8 = 1024
> >            9 = 1516
> >          9.2 = 2000 (estimate from graph. on page 55)
> >          9.6 = 2500 (              "                )
> >
> >The main problems with this scale:
> >1) In "Where No Man Has Gone Before," Geordi tells Picard the Enterprise will
> >   need 300 years to travel 2,7 million light-years "at maximum velocity" 
> >   which is supposed to be warp 9.6. This translates into a maximum velocity of
> >   9000c.
> 
> 	However, if you take into account that the warp engines can only 
> 	maintain a warp speed of 9.6 for 12 hours before it needs maintenance,
> 	I think the values would translate to much higher speeds.  Perhaps
> 	even to the believable scale given by Leon Myerson, no?

Well...you would be wrong here if it weren't for STAR TREK V with its idiotic
journey to the center of the galaxy. This is a nice, short two-way trip of some
65,000 light-years - they didn't seem to need to much time to do it [and after
escaping from the brig, Kirk -the sucker- tries to contact starfleet via
subspace radio and is expecting an IMMEDIATE answer while tens of thousands of
light-years from home! Than GOD they decided to invite Sternbach and Okuda
to clean up the pseudo-science after that movie]. The best explanation is that
the entire movie is just an exaggerated fairy tale about the overrated
starfleet captain and never "really" happened at all. Such a shame, Star Trek V
at least had an interesting idea, tried to be different and (like ST:TMP) would
have succeeded had anyone possessing an ounce of talent been involved in the
making of the film.
---
I do think Leon's scale is way too high, especially the figures for higher warp
speeds. Geordi probably didn't even care to calculate what the real time it
would take to travel 2,700,000 light-years after discovering it would take 300
years at warp 9.6.
 
> >Does this mean that the Enterprise-D's "continuing
> >mission" of six years in fact has taken place over 18 years? Yes, but only in
> >Earth time. The biological clocks aboard the ship still show that the crew and
> >ship have aged only six years. 
> 
> 	I beg to differ on this point.  Becuase the passage to warp speeds
> occurs at a point of about .763c when utilizing warp drive, the time distortion
> carried with the ship during warp travel is minimal and would certainly not
> span 3 times as much time in the non-warp world.  Star Trek has demonstrated
> that people at home don't have to wait THAT long for a ship return from its
> mission.

I erred a bit. The real range of stardates between "Encounter at Farpoint" and
the end of the fifth season is "only" about 4800 days, or thirteen years. So
you could say that the relatives back on Earth only age about twice as fast
as their comrades on the Enterprise. 
> 
> 	As a final point on warp speeds.  I found the Okuda/Sternbach speed
> 	figures to be to far off to fit with what we are familiar with in 
> 	Star Trek.  How long do you suppose it takes a starship to get from
> 	Earth to the Klingon border?  A day?  A week?  3 months? 
> 
> 	If all of you fans whip out your Starlog Technical Journal and do a
> 	little measuring, you will find that by proportion, since the galaxy
> 	is approximately 100,000 ly across, a straight shot to the Klingon
> 	border would be a trip of about 10,500 ly from Earth.  Will this 
> 	take three months?  No, if the Enterprise went at the new scale speed
> 	of Warp 9 or 1516 times c, it would take 6.9 YEARS to get there!

10,500ly to the Klingon border? Hogwash! We know from Star Trek II:TWOK that the
neutral zone is in the vicinity of Gamma Hydrae, some 120ly from the Sun. In
"Heart of Glory," we are being told that a subspace message [moving at
50,000ly/year] needs one day to reach Earth from the neutral zone =150ly.
The "Federation Exploration Zone" may or may not be correct, but we haven't
seen it in any of the movies or the TV episodes.
 
> 
> 	What is wrong with this picture.  Sure has me confused.  I think
> 	maybe Okuda and Sternbach made the universe too small.  At least it
> 	does not fit their maps.  On the Myerson scale, however, a warp 9
> 	trip would take about 2 1/2 months.  I feel this is a little more 
> 	reasonable.   However, even on this scale, the Enterprise A would
> 	take about a year at it's max speed of warp 8!  

Bzzztt! Where does it say that *MANNED* spacecraft have ventured some 10,000
ly. into space?! All we know is that the Technical Journal map [which is 
"canon" BTW as it was seen hanging on a wall in one episode] shows an area
covering most of the galaxy's spiral arms on our side of the Milky Way, some
19% of all stars fit inside. So far, so good. But the 
Klingon/Federation/Romulan border that have been drawn on the map afterwards 
are courtesy of the people who wrote the manual - we don't know this from
watching the TV series!
---
If Sternbach/Okuda's figures are roughly correct (and I believe they are, with
some fine-tuning), Federation space is pretty limited. Assuming Leon's scale is
correct, why did Picard say they would need some five years to travel the
comparatively short distance of 7000ly in "Q Who"? And there are countless
other examples. Indeed, it seems as if the writers became more cautious after
the first few episodes, probably after Sternbach/Okuda's "rules" came into
effect. We know that almost all
"real" stars (Sol, Gamma Hydrae, Capella, Altair etc.) are within 200ly of the
Solar system. If the Federation were much larger than that, one would expect to
hear few "local" systems being mentioned, even with our own sun in the middle. 
In addition, with the huge number of inhabited star systems within 50ly of our
Sun, there has to be MILLIONS of planets that are UFP members if Federation 
space indeed is, say, 10,000ly across. This is a common problem for most Star
Trek writers, they just don't realize how damn big the galaxy is! My own
estimate is that most Federation worlds are within 500ly. of the Solar system.
In addition, there are "arms" reaching out to Deneb (1800ly) and Rigel (900ly)
among others, with inhabited planets and colonies near this "railway" to the
outer limits. This is how the Mountain states in America were colonized,
California and Oregon were the main targets for most immigrants but there were
also small towns, forts and camps between the Pacific coast and St.Louis that
grew like mushrooms close to the railway that transported the golddiggers. I
believe that is why there is no shortage of Federation worlds for the 
Enterprise to visit while 1500ly from the Sun - they are on Highway One to
Deneb!
---
The remaining 99% of explored space has been surveyed by remote, unmanned
probes but no starships. We know that the alien"Tin Man" spacecraft 
originally was discovered by a
Vega IX automatic probe and sending out small, semi-intelligent probes on long
journeys that would take decades even for the Enterprise makes sense,
particularly from a financial point of view.  
 
> 	I don't know, do you guys have any suggestions?
> 
> 	Would you guys like a reposting of Myerson's paper?  It is worth 
> 	reading.  I will post it.
> 
> 	_/_/_/_/   _/_/_/_/   _/_/_/    NEW FOR 1993: 
> 	_/     _/  _/       _/     _/   The Ronald Reagan Commemorative 
> 	_/     _/  _/       _/                    Typewriter
> 	_/_/_/_/   _/_/_/   _/              
> 	_/   _/    _/       _/          This is the one you've been waiting 
> 	_/    _/   _/       _/     _/   for; the only one with no memory 
> 	_/     _/  _/_/_/_/   _/_/_/  	and no colon!
> 	Robert E. Casey  (mcclaine@hardy.u.washington.edu)
> 

MARCU$
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