Warp Question

[Derek]

Originally Posted by Burt

One point that has yet to be explained (to me at least) is the difference between the 'old' warp speeds and the 'new' warp speeds, and there relevence in Enterprise.
We know that back in Kirks time the Enterprise reached warp speeds of around warp 14. But when Next Gen started, old Gene wanted to put warp 10 at the top. So all the older speeds have been 'recalibrated' - meaning they were less than warp 10. Kirk's warp 11.8 is Janeway's warp 9.2. Ok. Heres the bit:
Enterprise has a top speed of warp 5. Would that mean they are really going around warp 2-3?

As memory serves, the TOS warp speeds were just a strict cubic function. Warp x = (x^3)*c. So Warp 1 was the speed of light. Warp 3 was 27 times the speed of light. Warp 5 was 125 times the speed of light.

I guess the problem with TNG and later was that warp speeds continued to climb, so Starfleet redid the warp scale at some point. Why they would redo the warp scale is beyond me. Why the producers of TNG felt the warp scale needed to be redone is beyond me. What's so wrong about Warp 20? Anyway, maybe once Starfleet engineers realized that there was a (ahem) threshold that couldn't be passed, they decided to rework the warp scale to make that threshold Warp 10.

If you want to see a graph of the how the two scales look, go to http://flare.solareclipse.net/ultima.../6/2585/1.html and be scared.

Whether Enterprise falls under the TOS scale or the TNG scale strikes me as being whether you see the warp scale being changed as a product of Star Trek designers in the real world, or Starfleet engineers in the Trek universe. If the former, then it would still be TNG; if the latter, then TOS. I personally have always assumed the latter. (And Burt, notice in that link above how Warp 5 TOS is not that far off of Warp 5 TNG and is definitely higher than Warp 4 TNG.)


Lostoyannaya, the episode is Season 3, episode 5, "The Lone and Level Sands"