Transwarp

[Teaos]

OK a little chat about transwarp.

Firstly we had the transwarp on the Excelsior which we now know never worked. I like to think that this was just a more advanced form of warp drive and not a whole new system like what we would expect it to be. The name transwarp now means a new more power form of travel but it didnt mean that back then.

Then we have the several types introduces over the next few series.

Firstly how about we all agree to pretend Paris never broke warp 10 in a shuttle... please. Its just stupid.

Ok we have the "Transwarp" the Voth used and the Voyager tried to use in that episode it crashed into the planet (I suck at remembering episode names)

Visually this just looks like really fast warp so I think this may be the next step the Federation will take. Some form of next step in warp travel.

Then we have the Borg transwarp.

It appears as if most of their ships can travel in a corridor of sorts that lets them move really fast.

We also have the hubs we saw in end game. I tend to think that the Hibs maintain a set of premade and very stable corridors that let them move very fast. With out them the corridors will degrade severly limiting their movement.

The personal ship ones may only be able to be used with mapping or in specific areas or somewhere near one of the stable main Hub corridors.

Thoughts?

[Captain Seafort]

Overall there seem to be two forms of transwarp, one of which is simply a very fast form of standard warp drive, the other requiring corridors. The Voth used the first, as did the Borg (as demonstrated in "Dark Frontier", since no predetermined route was mentioned for the Delta Flyer's trips under transwarp). The system Voyager was using in "Timeless" was quantum slipstream drive, not transwarp, although the description of the system is similar enough to transwarp that it may be a different name for the same system.

Overall, the typical coil-driven transwarp and slipstream seem to be slower than the corridors (given that several minutes in a corridor in "Endgame" took Voyager from the DQ to Earth, tens of thousands of light years, while a similar timespan in "Timeless" and "Dark Frontier" only covered thousands of light years.

As for the Excelsior's transwarp, while fanon (and the TNG tech manual) maintain that the project was a failure, I have my doubts. None of the minor changes to the Excelsior model between ST3 and ST6 were to the nacelles. This suggests that her propulsion system was not replaced before going into active service. My personnal opinion, therefore, is that the Excelsior's "transwarp" is actually the same system as the TNG warp drive. Note that in "Relics", while La Forge states that the Jenolan's transporter and impulse engine design are basically the same as the E-D's, regarding warp drive he simply states that it "still works on the same basic principles", and while in Engineering mentions several aspects of the E-D's systems that have changed radically since Scotty's day. Both of these points suggest that warp drive has changed somewhat since the late 23rd century.

[Teaos]

Yeah I think that the Excelsior had just a more advanced form of the same system. Like a piston engin in the 40's and one nowadays. They both work in similar ways and are the smae type but one is radically better. Were as a Jet engin is totally different.

If it was just a more advanced form of warp why both calling it transwarp and not just warp though.

[Mikey]

Very insightful, Captain Seafort. It makes sense that the Excelsior project is where we get the redefinition of the warp scale; and then the next logical leap for the Feds would be from TNG scale warp tp faster, Voth-style transwarp - not actual infinite speed, but still leaps ahead of what we have currently.

[IanKennedy]

Have you read our Transwarp article? It details the various times that we've seen transwarp used and tries to unify them. We also have a scitech entry which explains it in a more 'within universe' way, with a good deal of speculation on our 'chosen' unified theory.

[Blackstar the Chakat]

Corridor Transwarp seems to be like railroads. Trains are able to go much faster on rails(when not in the US) then cars, but are limited to pre-determined routes. I suspect a Transwarp drive can take a ship into the corridor, or push through normal space when a corridor doesn't lead directly to the destination.

[Teaos]

Yeah the only problem I have with your ideas on transwarp are the Excelsior. I just cant see Starfleet building a whole new ship with a whole new drive. Even enterprise had test beds for their engines and they were idiots.

[Thorin]

We saw another transwarp in 'Decent' - which was a bit strange. It wasn't like a corridor, it seemed (to me) that the ship just disappeared and instantly was somewhere else.

[Mikey]

Yeah, the transit in "Descent" was very odd - I think I have to agree with the Kennedys' take on that one - that that particular form created its own transwarp corridors rather than use pre=existing ones.

[Graham Kennedy]

Yeah the only problem I have with your ideas on transwarp are the Excelsior. I just cant see Starfleet building a whole new ship with a whole new drive. Even enterprise had test beds for their engines and they were idiots.

It's hard to avoid the idea that that did happen, though. The only way you can exclude Excelsior's transwarp being a failure is to claim that TNG+ drives are what was called transwarp in Kirk's time, and that transwarp then came to mean something else.

Personally I always hate explanations that involve words or concepts suddenly being redefined for no good reason. But YMMV.

[Captain Seafort]

I wouldn't say it's sudden changes so much as evolution - just as modern blueprints bear little resemblance to the original concept and phaser "rifles" don't have rifling.

Alternatively "transwarp" might have been a codename that was later dropped, just as "Have Blue" became the F-117 Nighthawk.

[Thorin]

I don't think it's actually that hard a concept, in this situation, that a word did change.
Transwarp means in a most basic sense - beyond warp. The fact that it is beyond 'normal' levels of warp makes it transwarp. When that transwarp becomes 'normal', it is no longer transwarp. Thus transwarp is always a relation to warp, not an actual speed. Simply beyond warp speeds.

[Captain Peabody]

Personally, I've always liked the idea that the Exelsior's 'transwarp' was actually just the kind of warp drive commonly used in the 24th century...this would explain the 'warp factor recalibration' that's supposed to take place sometime between TOS and TNG...

[Mikey]

Yeah, I like that explanation. I mean, without specific knowledge of it, who would guess that "Deep Blue" referred to a chess-playing computer?

On that note, how about the fact that Garry Kasparov is running for the presidency of Russia?

[Teaos]

I like the idea that it not "real" transwarp but I dont like the fact that starfleet would call it transwarp when it just seem to be a slightly more refined version of the old design. In my book you dont give something a new name unless its new and not just a modification.