Warp factor Warp factor was the primary means of measuring speeds attained using warp drive . An alternative term time - warp factor was also used . ( ) The term was often shortened to warp when followed by its value , so that saying " warp six " is the same as saying " warp factor six . " Faster - than - light travel began after warp one , whereas lower fractional values were sometimes used to measure sublight speeds . ( ; ; " display graphic " ) Spacecraft ordinarily traveled at a higher integer warp factor . By the 24th century , infinite velocity was designated as warp factor ten . It was considered to be unattainable by conventional means . ( ) Because of this , extremely high warp factors were indicated with decimal values between nine and ten , such as warp 9 . 975 . ( ; ) Warp factor 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 . ( ) Warp ten and above . 23rd century . In the 23rd century , warp factors of 10 and higher were known as generally unsafe velocities . ( ) Speeds on the order of warp 15 were called multiwarp speeds . ( ) Infinite velocity . In 24th century warp theory , warp factor 10 had been redesignated to correspond with infinite velocity . A vessel traveling at warp 10 occupied all points in the universe simultaneously . Warp 10 was also known as the transwarp threshold . ( ) Warp 10 had also become a slang term referring to anything extremely fast . Kathryn Janeway made the observation in 2376 that rumors traveled fast on the . Chakotay agreed with Janeway , quipping at " warp 10 . " ( ) Alternate timelines . In the original future , which was changed by Jean - Luc Picard , around the turning point of the 24th , warp factor values beyond warp 10 were again used to describe extremely fast speeds . ( ) Appendices . Background information . Variations in relative speed . Although formulas to calculate a relative speed from a warp factor have existed in the writer ' s guides , these were rarely used for reference in the episodes and films . To explain the apparent discontinuities of relative speed equivalents for warp factor speeds , reference sources have given several explanations : The slowing down effect of moving away from a source of gravity to the relative speed has been well established in canon . For example in , the " Enterprise " is at maximum warp but is not moving in space at all , due to the gravity of a black hole behind it . Similarly , in , the engages warp speed while in the atmosphere of Earth , and it takes over two minutes in the film for the ship to achieve and break out of Earth ' s orbit , but reaches the Sun ' s event horizon only a few minutes later . In , a starship moving away from a star system at a speed better than warp 6 is moving slower than the speed of light . In some areas of space with unstable or disrupted subspace , it is impossible to use warp drive at all , as was established in such episodes as and . Many examples of more subtle variations exist . For example , in " By Any Other Name " , the Kelvan s modified the to accelerate to a speed of warp 11 in order to safely cross the galactic barrier . If this was also meant to represent the velocity of travel to the Andromeda Galaxy , a travel time of three hundred years would indicate a far greater speed than can be derived from the basic cubic scale from the writer ' s guide . Warp 8 . 4 was stated to be much faster in " That Which Survives " than warp 9 . 9 in " The 37 ' s " . In , warp 7 was stated to be about 55 times faster than warp factor 2 , again confirming that fluctuations in the relative speeds exist that are not covered by the basic formula . " Star Trek : The Original Series " . In his initial draft proposal , " Star Trek is . . . " , Gene Roddenberry established the maximum velocity of the starship as " . 73 of one light year per hour " . This would translate to a top speed of approximately 6 , 400 " c " ( equivalent to TOS warp 18 . 57 , or somewhere between TNG warp 9 . 9 and 9 . 99 ) . The original warp scale was described in the writer ' s guide , " The Star Trek Guide " , ( third revision , p . 8 ) as a set of warp factors and multiples of lightspeed that can be obtained by raising a warp factor to the third power . This information appeared in widespread print in " The Making of Star Trek " ( 1968 , p . 191 ) . The book also states a shift in relative time occurs while traveling at warp , an hour might equal to three hours experienced outside the ship . ( p . 198 ) In 1975 , the warp scale given a more technical gloss in Franz Joseph ' s " Star Fleet Technical Manual " , now extended to include warp factors below 1 . In 1977 Roddenberry again adopted the scale for the aborted " " series , but abandoned it for " " series . It was not until the the episode of , that the warp factor scale made an official on screen debut . Warp factors from 1 to 5 were depicted with their corresponding relative speed values on a large computer graphic . The scale used by Starfleet in the 22nd and 23rd century is based on a geometric progression , where the speed of a vessel ( measured in multiples of " c " , the speed of light ) is equal to the cube of the given warp factor . The warp factor was calculated as follows : Or , to calculate speed ( " v " ) in terms of " c " , the formula would be : At warp 1 , a starship would reach " c " ; at warp 6 , it would reach 216 " c " . This is a much slower velocity than initially proposed by Roddenberry . Using this scale : " Star Trek : The Next Generation " . According to the " " , the warp factor scale used by Starfleet in the 24th century was based on a recalibration of the scale used in the " Original Series " . Rather than a simple geometric progression based on relative speed , warp factors were established to be based upon the amount of power required to transition from one warp plateau to another . For example , the power to initially get to warp factor 1 was much more than the power required to maintain it ; likewise warp 2 , 3 , 4 , and so on . Those transitional power points rather than observed speed were then assigned the integer warp factors . These transitional points were established to apply to the original warp scale as well in the canonical warp chart presented in " First Flight " . According to an article in by André Bormanis , this scale change occurred in 2312 . A term was added to the above equation that caused the speed to rise slightly at lower warp factor , but to become infinite at warp 10 . The ratio " v " / " c " at a given warp factor is equal to the corresponding value that describes the subspace distortion . The 24th century scale was created at the start of . Gene Roddenberry stated that he wanted to avoid the ever - increasing warp factors used in to force added tension to the story , and so imposed the limit of warp 10 as infinite speed . For warp factors up to 9 , the revised formula became : Or , to calculate speed in terms of " c " ( up to warp 9 ) , the formula would be : In this case , warp 1 is equivalent to " c " ( as it was in the 23rd century scale ) , but above warp 9 the speed increases exponentially , approaching infinity as the warp factor approaches 10 . Using this scale : " Star Trek : Deep Space Nine " . According to and , the Bajoran Wormhole connected the Bajoran system to a region in the Gamma Quadrant 70 , 000 light years away . In " Battle Lines " , Sisko stated that it would take Starfleet ' s fastest ship over 67 years to cross the distance , suggesting the fastest ship in 2369 could travel at approximately 1044 times the speed of light on a flight of that duration . The figure was further explained in the series bible , that it is more specifically a 60 year journey at warp 9 , suggesting warp 9 would be about 1167 times the speed of light . In , the , traveling at warp 9 , is three days away from a planet . Increasing speed to warp 9 . 5 took almost a full day away from the travel time . This indicates that warp 9 . 5 is almost 50 % faster than warp 9 . " Star Trek : Voyager " . In " " ( pp . 12 & 13 ) several other speed equivalents are established : Warp 9 . 6 is 1 , 909 times the speed of light . Warp 9 . 99 is 7 , 912 times the speed of light . Which in turn is nearly three times the speed of warp 9 . 9 . Subspace communication signals travel at warp 9 . 9999 , a hundred times faster than warp 9 . 6 , 199 , 516 times the speed of light . In the pilot episode of the series , , it is established that " " at maximum speeds " " it would take 75 years for " Voyager " to reach Earth , that was at that time approximated to be 75 , 000 light years away . This would mean that the maximum speeds of the " Voyager " were around approximately 933 - 1 , 000 times the speed of light . According to the " Star Trek : Voyager Technical Manual " , this calculation was meant to be based on an unrealistic non - stop direct journey at the speed of warp 9 . 6 ( p . 14 ) or at warp 9 . 99 ( p . 36 ) . A realistic estimate , according to the manual , was that the journey would last somewhere between 200 and 400 years when taking into account the required engine cooling time needed on such an extended journey . According to " Star Trek : Voyager Technical Manual " ( pp . 4 & 27 ) , a sector ( about 20 light years ) took 4 days to cross at warp 9 . 6 , 5 days at warp 9 and about 19 days at warp 6 . However , in , the ship cuts three year s of its journey by crossing thirty sectors , implying that they expected to travel more than a month ( or approximately 36 . 5 days ) to cross a sector . In the episode , Captain Kathryn Janeway stated that the current Starfleet starships in 2373 were twice as fast to what the and the were in the 2290s . According to " Star Trek : Voyager Technical Manual " , ( p . 13 ) the maximum rated speed of the ship was warp 9 . 975 or 3 , 053 times the speed of light . According to the " Star Trek Spaceflight Chronology " ( p . 180 ) and " Mr . Scott ' s Guide to the Enterprise " ( p . 14 ) , the maximum speed of ships like the " Enterprise " - A was warp 12 in the old scale , or 1 , 728 times the speed of light . " Star Trek : Enterprise " . Officially and according to featured in , the warp drive of uses the TOS - scale . Speeds mentioned in of traveling at 30 , 000 , 000 kilometers per second , and going to " Neptune and back in six minutes . " fit well into the ballpark of cubic warp factors between 4 and 5 . In , Trip states that warp 4 . 8 ( approximately 111 times the speed of light in the TOS - scale ) is double the speed of warp 3 . 9 ( approximately 59 ) , which is also a close enough margin of error considering it is an offhand comment made without navigational implications . A location was given to Archer on where to go look for the Xindi inside the Delphic Expanse in the episode . The location was stated to be a three month trip away from Earth at warp 5 . In the next episode , , when " Enterprise " had arrived to look for the Xindi in that region , it was said they were 50 light years away from Earth . This indicates warp 5 would equal to a speed of approximately 200 times the speed of light . This would fall closer to the TNG - scale figure for warp 5 instead of the TOS - scale figure of 125 times the speed of light estimated in the canonical chart . There are , however , instances in " Broken Bow " that do not appear to be compatible with any of the basic scales . Zefram Cochrane notes in his recorded speech that the warp five engine would allow a ship to travel a hundred times faster than what they could in 2119 . Warp 2 was later on established to be the maximum warp ships in the early - 22nd century had achieved in and . Warp 5 , however , is only sixteen or twenty - one times faster than warp 2 in the scales . The journey from Earth to Qo ' noS in four days is another instance . In either scale , " Enterprise " wouldn ' t even reach the closest star to Earth in four days . In , it is stated that a warp three engine would allow a ship to travel ten times faster than warp factor 1 . 8 . This doesn ' t work out in either of the basic formulas , unless we interpret the statement to indicate that a warp three engine would allow a speed of warp factor 3 . 9 in the TOS - scale or 3 . 6 in the TNG - scale . Warp factor 3 would be only around five times faster in either scale . Alternate reality . In the alternate reality , seen in , the traveled from Earth to at maximum warp . According to Vulcan is located slightly over sixteen light years away from Earth . According to background sources maximum warp of the ship was warp factor 8 . Directly after the ship had accelerated to and attained maximum warp , Captain ordered to give an announcement of the mission to the crew . At the end of the broadcast , Chekov stated that the ship would arrive within three minutes . However , there was an unknown amount of time the ship spent accelerating to maximum velocity , so there is no accurate way to ascertain the total voyage time of the " Enterprise " from Earth to Vulcan , beyond the obvious implication that it was not an especially lengthy trip . By comparison to the prime reality , in , when the crew was returning to Earth from on board the , Sulu reported they would arrive in 1 . 6 hours . In , the " Enterprise " and the three times faster were capable of traveling from the Sol system , through the Neutral Zone to the edge of Klingon space and back in less than a day . Co - writer Roberto Orci acknowledged ' s line about his time away from the " Enterprise " should have been something like " one week " rather than " one day " . As a comparison , in , the internal clock of the read 08 : 27 as the ship left Earth Spacedock and 16 : 12 when it arrived to the edge of Klingon space to meet up with " Kronos One " . A trip of a little under 8 hours . Apocrypha . In the 25th - century timeline of the video game " Star Trek Online " , the warp speed scale appears to have been re - calibrated yet again , to allow for the spread of new technologies such as a transwarp conduit network and quantum slipstream drive systems . Warp factors higher than 10 appear in the game , but only when a ship is using quantum slipstream drive or exotic equipment such as Borg - enhanced " Assimilated Subtranswarp Engines " . Speeds higher than warp 10 are classified as " transwarp factors " , with higher numbers equating to faster speed . Borg subtranswarp engines allow ships to travel at an average speed of " Warp 15 " , while activating quantum slipstream gives a temporary speed boost of up to Warp 35 .