Faster Than Light travel

[Shodan]

That's how Voyager got home though, wasn't it? So although Starfleet abandoned it, it clearly still works - and is faster than warp drive too.

Voyager "borrowed" a Borg transwarp conduit to get home. i.e. a big gate thing allowing access to the Borg transwarp system.

Yes, the experimental transwarp drive flopped in the testing of the Excelsior, and the Federation did continue to research it but couldn't get it to work properly. Thus the continued use of Warp Drive.

The Borg on the other hand got Transwarp working as they assimilated it from a different species that had indeed managed to get it to work. In Voyager they "play" with their standard Warp Drive by enhancing it with Borg technology.

[Beowulf]

Voyager "borrowed" a Borg transwarp conduit to get home. i.e. a big gate thing allowing access to the Borg transwarp system.

Yes, the experimental transwarp drive flopped in the testing of the Excelsior, and the Federation did continue to research it but couldn't get it to work properly. Thus the continued use of Warp Drive.

The Borg on the other hand got Transwarp working as they assimilated it from a different species that had indeed managed to get it to work. In Voyager they "play" with their standard Warp Drive by enhancing it with Borg technology.

I didn't like Voyager.. but IIRC didn't Paris and Janeway turn into mutant gecko's at some point after messing with a new propulsion system? I think I stopped watching it around that point Liked ST :TOS, ST:TNG and really enjoyed STS9 the rest? I could live without)

[LMC]

I've just upgraded from an Infinite Improbability to a Bistromathics drive.

[andystyle]

Originally Posted by andystyle
Interdictor-class vessel. Basically park it on any hyperspace route and drag a ship out of it.

Originally Posted by killingtime
The geek is strong in this one.

Obi Wan has taught him well...

Almost a hijacked thread. Almost...

I didn't like Voyager.. but IIRC didn't Paris and Janeway turn into mutant gecko's at some point after messing with a new propulsion system? I think I stopped watching it around that point Liked ST :TOS, ST:TNG and really enjoyed STS9 the rest? I could live without)

I remember that episode. Reminds me of a scary TNG one (7th season?) when the crew started to de-evolve - Worf was pretty mental!

I quite liked Enterprise - always been a fan of more 'gritty' sci-fi where the solution isn't always some technobabble, but might just involve some good ol' fashioned thinking and blowing stuff up...although I think they took that too far in the last 3 films, with Enterprise-D being destroyed and Enterprise-E leaving a large section of itself in an enemy vessel...

[killingtime]

I quite liked Enterprise - always been a fan of more 'gritty' sci-fi where the solution isn't always some technobabble, but might just involve some good ol' fashioned thinking and blowing stuff up...

I didn't really watch Enterprise, I watched the first season for a bit but then they played the Time Travel card way to early.

I'm a fan of shades of grey in my fiction (so not just Good Vs Evil) and I love much more personal conflict etc (though some big space battles can be good). I love the human element in Firefly; just each character seemed to have such good development and... and... . For the same reason I've been enjoying Battlestar Galactica though I haven't seen the second season yet.

[andystyle]

I didn't really watch Enterprise, I watched the first season for a bit but then they played the Time Travel card way to early.

I'm a fan of shades of grey in my fiction (so not just Good Vs Evil) and I love much more personal conflict etc (though some big space battles can be good). I love the human element in Firefly; just each character seemed to have such good development and... and... . For the same reason I've been enjoying Battlestar Galactica though I haven't seen the second season yet.

I've never seen Firefly...will have to look into that.

I don't think the time-travel thing was bad in Enterprise, IMHO. Yeah, having seen what it was like in previous series might make you worry, but it was a good storyline handle which they could keep coming back to.

However, had they involved the TNG crowd in any way, it would have been a completely different question...

[killingtime]

I've never seen Firefly...will have to look into that.

No! Don't do it! I saw that Firefly was on TV and went "oh, that's that program that was canned, well I don't want to start watching that otherwise I might get into it and then become one of those fans that spend their days on forums whining about how they cancelled it and how fabulous it was". Then I picked it up when it was cheap and, sure enough, went "How could they have killed this?" like all those other fan[boys|girls].

Don't become one of us .

[MartinHarper]

In my first post I was referring to newer Warp systems, as used from TNG onwards where Warp 10 is the limit, as it is infinite speed....

Ok, but in your first post you also said:

So far, the arguement has edged towards the use of Hyperspace could theoretically be the faster means as Warp travel has a limit of Warp 10.

How do you go faster than infinite?

[killingtime]

How do you go faster than infinite?

Like, infinite squared or something .

Do they not use "light speed" as a term in Star Wars at some point or was that on the ride? Light speed isn't generally fast enough for most of these sci fi things, indeed it is considered quite slow (though I get that 10 years between stars doesn't make for great TV).

I mentioned it on another thread but I shall mention it again here (since it is sort of related). Though we might not be able to answer which one is faster we can see which one is bigger at that place that shows the sizes of spaceships.

[andystyle]

Because in the Star trek universe, starships travel by wrapping themselves in a warp bubble, which moves through our dimension of space. Dubious physics - or just not developed yet - but that's how it was explained.

Hyperspace involved the vessel entering another dimension (like subspace in Star Trek) where there are, I imagine, different rules. So it basically circumvents any speed limitation.

Added to which, Warp 10 is a Star Trek rule and therefore not applicable to any other sci-fi series.

[killingtime]

Added to which, Warp 10 is a Star Trek rule and therefore not applicable to any other sci-fi series.

I suppose what Mr Harper is getting at is that if you can get from A to B ignoring how far B is away from A in 0 seconds then others can't get faster than that (Yog-sothoth is faster, I guess, since he is coterminous with all space and time but ignoring that). It's still boils down to which fiction do they go faster in discussion which is a strange argument to be having.

[Stuart M]

I mentioned it on another thread but I shall mention it again here (since it is sort of related). Though we might not be able to answer which one is faster we can see which one is bigger at that place that shows the sizes of spaceships.

It's a lovely site but as far as I can see, fails to include the Liberator. Fairly whopping omission from my POV (albeit an understandable one, given the site is US-based).

[andystyle]

It's still boils down to which fiction do they go faster in discussion which is a strange argument to be having.

I guess that it's something that will never be categorically answered, unless someone Googles it and finds a site that gives a decent answer.

Another thing that I never quite understood were speeds. In Star Trek you had a maximum warp, and the vessel could go at any speed between these. In Star Wars, there was hyperspace, with the MF being very fast. Could they select what speed they could go at? Or was it a case of 'We want to arrive then, so we set off then...' Arguably they'd have to, as if there was a fleet of ships going into battle, it would be interesting trying to coordinate the jumps so they all arrived at the same time!!

[TheTramp]

:shrugs:

Read Julian Mays books which started off the the Saga of the Exiles.

Marc Remillard could be instantaneously anywhere in the universe.

I think that's likely to be the winner.

[Stuart M]

:shrugs:

Read Julian Mays books which started off the the Saga of the Exiles.

Marc Remillard could be instantaneously anywhere in the universe.

I think that's likely to be the winner.

Fine and dandy if you're Marc Remillard, but what if you're trying to see the wonders of the Galaxy on less than 50 Altairian dollars a day?

[killingtime]

Another thing that I never quite understood were speeds. In Star Trek you had a maximum warp, and the vessel could go at any speed between these. In Star Wars, there was hyperspace, with the MF being very fast. Could they select what speed they could go at? Or was it a case of 'We want to arrive then, so we set off then...' Arguably they'd have to, as if there was a fleet of ships going into battle, it would be interesting trying to coordinate the jumps so they all arrived at the same time!!

Well the Star Trek Compendium (not that I've ever owned such a beast) had the exact speed listing of various warp speeds. How fast each was in light years per second or whatever. Star Wars, like it should have been for the films, didn't. They got there when it was cinematic for them to do so. The MF was faster than other ships, apparently, but they didn't worry about this only that it apparently got their faster. I know the roleplaying game has a base unit and multiplier so if a Star Destroyer is 1.0x then the MF might be 2.0x meaning if we say it takes a week to get from A to B then it gets there in half the time.

It's a different concept from one trying to define everything in "some understood unit" and the other just saying "meh, some sci fi stuff". Your "hardcore sci-fi" readers/viewers/whatever will probably want more of the former (though they'd probably want a good reason for being able to go faster than light in the first place). Whereas your "fantasy sci-fi" bunch are easy with "it just works that way, ok".

[TheTramp]

Fine and dandy if you're Marc Remillard, but what if you're trying to see the wonders of the Galaxy on less than 50 Altairian dollars a day?

Better practice that thumb thingy eh!

[MartinHarper]

I suppose what Mr Harper is getting at is that if you can get from A to B ignoring how far B is away from A in 0 seconds then others can't get faster than that.

Precisely. Saying that Star Trek ships are "limited" to warp 10 is meaningless.

but surely you can only see through time and space with the melange? not travel.

Yep. Travelling quickly is achieved with Holtzman effect. The melange allows the navigator to avoid crashing. This is reminiscent of Holly on Red Dwarf complaining about the difficulty of avoiding collisions when travelling faster than the speed of light.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holtzman_effect
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melange

[Ghost]

Sorry, in my first post I was talking about Babylon5's Hyperspace system. I forgot that Star Wars also uses the same name for it. Apologees.

Unless I'm missing something really obvious, the answer is Warp Drive. As Martin says top speed is infinity, whereas in Babylon 5 they had to travel for days just to get from one part of the Universe to the other.

I suppose you could argue which is faster the maximum warp drive acheived in Star Trek vs Hyperspace in B5, but the Tom Paris episode kind a messes that up too.

I guess the answer is hyperspace or warp drive will only allow you travel fast enough to dramatically accelerate the plot without wrecking it.

Paris: Captain you won't believe how far we've travelled!!
Janeway: Oh well, Warp Factor 10 then
Janeway: Oh good we're home.

(Actually shouldn't the device which kicked Voyager across the Universe in the first place get dibs on 'fastest' as it took both them and the Borg a lot longer to get back to Earth?)

[andystyle]

The fact that there is a Warp 10 limit doesn't mean that they can actually travel at Warp 10. Episode shenanigans aside, the idea is that you can travel at any speed, but not beyond Warp 10. As engines developed they would redefine the scale - I would imagine more efficient power sources could get you closer to Warp 10, but never actually to Warp 10. If the scale is exponential, even an warp factor increase of 0.001 would be a large increase in the factor of light speed they were going at.

So yes, in theory warp drive is the fastest, but in practice it's not...