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Old 05-30-2020, 03:32 PM
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In "A Time to Stand" our heroes use integer warp factors despite being on a Jem'Hadar ship...


PNQ: They say over and over again that Dominion ship and engine design is wildly different from that of the Alpha Quadrant. Would they use the same warp scale on the other side of the galaxy?


The tech manuals make it clear that the integer warp factors exist where they are because they represent natural lulls in the speed/energy requirement curve. That is, going at Warp 2 takes much less energy than Warp 1.9. But that's based on the engineering of conventional matter/antimatter reactors and the physics of warp plasma based on such.



It stands to reason that Federation and Klingon warp engine design is based on similar principles. Of course the Romulans use a completely different principle (meaningless aside, how does an artificial singularity generate warp plasma?), but I expect that their system doesn't have the natural lulls, so they convert to our warp scale as a matter of efficiency.



So did our heroes hardwire the warp controls to conform to Starfleet standards? That would look weird to other Dominion ships that they encounter, right? "Why is that ship going at Technobabble Speed 5.78?"


I know, I know, Nate's being pedantic again. But I really do think about this stuff, and at least I'm putting some thought into my discussion and not going "rawr rawr, the writers don't care about continuity, they stink" like most of my Kelvinverse and Enterprise ranting.
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Last edited by Nate the Great; 05-31-2020 at 07:34 PM.
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