Warp Drive

Template:InfoboxFTL DriveThe **Warp drive** is the oldest form of faster-than-light (FTL) propulsion in the galaxy, and one of the most common. For centuries, it was the only way for the Old Empires to reach superluminal velocities. It remains popular today, mainly because of the inertia stemming from said centuries of use.

Strictly speaking, the term "Warp Drive" refers to any transitional, subspace drive with a propulsive warp field; as a result, the term is often used to refer to several disparate (but ultimately similar) drive systems.

## Mechanics

As noted above, all warp drives are, by definition, transitional, subspatial, and propulsive. In other words, all Warp drives create a negative warp bubble, 1 cochrane in strength, in order to access the shallowest subspace strata, level α (k = -1). Like all transitional drive systems, Warp drives are capable of increasing the strength of the warp field to allow access deeper exospace strata. This warp bubble is also eccentric, allowing warp-equipped vessels to take advantage of the Arcite-Summins effect— greatly increasing efficiency, as per Arcite's law.

Most drive systems are static, slipping straight from realspace to the desired exospace strata, in order to avoid the formidable warp barriers between strata, which heavily strain a ship's drives and energy reserves. Being a transitional drive system, warp drives incorporate several unusual characteristics into their warp bubbles in order to better weather these barriers, enabling them to traverse multiple energy layers— increasing superluminal maneuverability and overall ship flexibility.

However, this additional adaptability comes at a cost: after a certain point, warp barriers become too strenuous for even warp drive to cross, effectively capping their maximum warp factor. With current technology, the current highest-reachable barrier is the Warp 10 crest— well below the maximum warp factor reachable by static drive systems.

## Operational Variation

As stated above, warp drives are somewhat unique in that the term applies to all drives that have a certain set of traits, not any particular components or method of operation. Thus, galaxy's long history, countless different drives that would nominally be considered separate (albeit similar) are all grouped into the same term; describing them all would be a simply foolish endeavor. However, ever since the 22nd century, the majority of warp drives have coalesced into two main types: Quantum Singularity Warp Drives and Dilithium-Substrate Warp Drives.

### Quantum Singularity

The *Quantum Singularity* warp drive was the earliest of the two invented. Although sources vary, most attribute the Vulcans to first perfecting this method— as evidenced by their Romulan brother's continued reliance on it. As the name would suggest, these "QSWDs" achieve warp travel by creating and maintaining and artificial quantum singularity inside specialized internal equipment. By manipulating this singularity, a ship with drive can create a microscopic *aperture* within realspace; a small, controlled verteron burst then widens the aperture enough for the ship to fall into strata α.

Although effective in terms of brute force, this method produces several issues. First and foremost among these is the heart of the system itself: quantum singularities are notoriously dangerous to maintain, and miniaturizing the required equipment has remained difficult for centuries. Still, for the old empires, this was the only viable option for superluminal travel until the invention of the dilithium-substrate method many years later.

### Dilithium-Substrate

Common wisdom has it that human Zephram Cochrane invented the *Dilithium-Substrate* method of warp propulsion independently, testing it in 2063 and thus drawing a Vulcan vessel to Earth, entering humanity into the interstellar scene. The reality is somewhat more complicated: Cochrane's drive was actually a tantalum-catalyst drive, which functioned much the same way— albeit with a different base for the reaction. Like quantum singularities, however, this system had a significant fundamental flaw: tantalum is itself matter, and thus tends to react with the antimatter reactants, resulting in extremely poor fuel efficiency and maintenance requirements.

These issues were largely mitigated when a joint team of Vulcan and Human scientists introduced *dilithium* into the reaction, eventually replacing the tantalum base altogether. Dilithium is a special material that is completely nonreactive with both matter and antimatter while conducting an electric current, allowing a relatively small amount of substrate to power a ship for months— if not years. Although quite rare in nature (and incapable of being artificially produced), this advancement did make the substrate method economical— before long, even more so than the quantum singulaity method.

Regardless of the composition, substrate-based warp drives all have the same basic premise: a substrate it used in conjunction with powerful magnetic fields to channel a matter-antimatter reaction (traditionally between deuterium and antideuterium), which then energized an artificial material known as *electroplasma* (occasionally called *warp plasma*). This electroplasma is then shunted throughout the ship's *electroplasma distribution network* (usually shortened to just *electroplasma system*, or EPS), where excess energy is bled off for use as power. This more stable electroplasma is then injected directly into the ship's warp coil(s), usually mounted in external pylon(s), allowing the ship to fall into strata α much like quantum slipstream drives.

## Derivative Drives

Warp drives were never quite as fast as many desired them to be, but their lack of speed was neither urgent nor apparent until the establishment of the New Empires. These new galactic powers derived much of their power from their own, unique FTL drives; while often more restrictive than traditional warp drives, these new drives did possess a massive speed advantage that allowed much greater capacity for operational movement, among other advantages.

In light of this, the Old Empires redoubled their efforts to improve the warp drive's speed. While speed via traditional methods had been effectively capped due to current technical limitations, there were alternate approaches to circumvent the Warp 10 barrier— the research of which had soon come under renewed emphasis.

### Transwarp

The first and most successful attempt was the widespread adoption and integration of Transwarp technology throughout the warp-based galaxy's various fleets. Heavily based off research of Borg FTL technology, this technology revolves around the deployment of *transwarp nodes* throughout the galaxy. These nodes create or stabilize Phasic nodes within subspace levels -9 > k > -13 —in other words, planes κ, λ, and μ— which would normally be inaccessible to vessels with only standard warp drives. Through a process not dissimilar to quantum-singularity warp drives, these transwarp nodes then open up a rift between realspace and the desired subspace layer, allowing warp drives to slip directly into the desired plane— though, using this method, they cannot switch to an upper or lower strata should the need arise as normal.

However, this method has a catch: transwarp nodes can only induce Phasic nodes in very close subspace patches, meaning that travel at full speed is only possible between a single transwarp node and a few "sister" nodes. Because the transwarp process does tend to stabilize the local area of exospace, normal warp travel is also somewhat faster near transwarp nodes, though much less so than proper transwarp.

In short, transwarp nodes essentially turn warp drives into a static drive system, albeit less efficiently due to the lower overall speed compared to proper static drives and the dependence on artificial structures. However, the conversion from warp to transwarp drive is fairly straightforward (to the point where the latter are still often referred to as the former), doesn't impact standard warp travel in any way, and still leads to significant speed increases, leading most of the old empires to adopt it regardless.

### Quantum Slipstream

As effective as Transwarp drives were, their additional restrictions meant they were only useful when traveling through friendly space, providing little benefit in enemy or neutral territory— forcing the Old Empires' engineers to look to more radical solutions. The most promising of these originated from Voyager's famous trek across the Delta Quadrant: the Quantum Slipstream device. Through a complex process, the device projects a field (usually through a ship's deflector dish) that allows a ship to break up or slip past quantum exospace particles. In simpler terms, it significantly reduces a ship's "subspace drag"— allowing it to both move to higher layers without a more powerful drive (even breaking the Warp 10 limit) and move faster within already-achievable layers, all while maintaining the freedom afforded by its Transitional nature.

Unlike Transwarp drives, however, Quantum slipstream drives do require significant technical alterations— most notably, the deployment of a specialized "pathfinder" craft to travel ahead in the slipstream and transmit realtime data on the field's phase variance. Failure to do so will result in the ship's field becoming misaligned with subspace, throwing it violently back into realspace. Furthermore, once used, the drive requires anywhere from a few days to almost a full month before it can be used again, depending on the time spent in-slipstream.

As a result of the limitations, quantum slipstream drives have yet to find wide acceptance within the various fleets of the Old Empires— being mainly restricted to important vessels such as flagships (and, in the case of the Federation, high-end exploration vessels). Still, the potential speed benefits are simply too massive to ignore; efforts are underway in fleet labs throughout the galaxy to make a more widely-applicable version of the device.

## See Also

* Ideal Semispatial mechanics
* Exospace Node Theory
* List of FTL drives

## Notes

1. ↑ The terms "warp field" and "warp bubble" are interchangeable in this context.