Flare Sci-Fi Forums: Drive systems

This is topic Drive systems in forum Starships & Technology at Flare Sci-Fi Forums.

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Posted by JVBpc1 on :

I am trying to convince my friend that a ship from Startrek is faster than a ship from Starwars. I think it would help if I could find the names of a bunch of different drive systems and then find out how they work.

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Joe Momma

Posted by Montgomery (Member # 23) on :

I confess to ignorance of whatever technical details have been invented for Star Wars ships.

But I can tell you about Star Trek ships. All of those are based on warp drive - the technique of generating a "subspace field" around your ship to isolate it from the normal universe and its troublesome physics. You can then through manipulation of this field project your ship through normal space at speeds up to 1000s of times the speed of light.

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"Plagues extinguished, the world becomes smaller.
For a long time there is peace in empty lands.
People will walk safely by air, land, sea, waves.
Then again wars will be stirred up..."

- Nostradamus, 1568

Posted by deadcujo (Member # 13) on :

I remember seeing Sublight Ion Thrusters in the Essential Guide to Ships..or whatever it's called.
I chose to buy the Weapons and Technology book though, so I dont know anymore than that :P

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The Unknown Vulcan
www.gamingsector.com

Posted by Aethelwer (Member # 36) on :

In terms of sublight speed, any ship can go as fist as it wants, up to the speed of light, as long as it has enough fuel. As for FTL, well, it's all under debate, although SW ships seem to be faster (except when you take into account the recent "quantum slipstream" stuff).

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Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :

My advice would be to avoid the debate altogether. There is no "right" answer. The issue is too dependant on the universe in which each drive is used.

Example: The Phantom Menace has roughly two hours to get Qui-Gon and company from Coruscant to Tattooine. As I understand it, there's a lot of distance to cover there. Hence, the ship they are on is going to be fast. (Can't afford to wait a few months for a trip!)

Voyager has six (or seven) seasons to get from one side of the galaxy to the other, just about. More time to tell the story means the ship has to go slower in order to fill up the time.

Of course, having said that, Star Wars would be objectively faster, as I've never heard of a trip that takes more than a few weeks, even to travel from the Core Worlds to some backwater like the Corporate Sector.

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Posted by Bernd (Member # 6) on :

Well, Star Wars ships cover distances of thousands of light years in days, maybe in hours, while Star Trek ships need years for such a voyage. The question is what such a discussion is useful for.
The conclusion that Star Wars is "better" or "more powerful" than Star Trek is rubbish, because it's both fiction. Another author could invent an even faster drive and dwarf the capabilities of the Galactic Empire.

The quality of the shows can't be judged on the basis of their fictitious tech. As Sol said, the Star Trek ships are slower because the story requires them to be, while the Galactic Empire covers the whole galaxy and needs very fast ships. It's both justified.

Finally, the technical credibility (see the other thread in this forum). Maybe I get bludgeoned by SW fans, but almost all of the technical specs for SW have been made up afterwards, while they play an important role on screen in Star Trek. One more reason not to compare them. Let the SW ships be just fast.

If you like to know more about ST propulsion, have a look at my Treknology glossary, where I have tried to combine the essential canon facts with some additional explanations to make them plausible:

http://www.uni-siegen.de/~ihe/bs/startrek/treknology2.htm

Nevertheless, a real concept is not available, let alone a way to determine performance limits.

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I'm a doctor, not a bricklayer. (McCoy in "Devil in the Dark")
www.uni-siegen.de/~ihe/bs/startrek/

Posted by Epoch (Member # 136) on :

In response to The Shadows comment about being able to go as fast as the speed of light (remember I do this to annoy). Nothing can travel at that speed thanks to the laws of physics. As a ship increases in speed so does its weight until it can no longer produce the thrust needed to keep increasing speed.

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If you need it I can build it. Just as long as there is a box of junk for me to use.

Posted by Aethelwer (Member # 36) on :

I know; that's what I meant. The speed of light is the upper (and unattainable) limit.

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"[Steve Jobs] shouts at his employees a lot, using language you can't use on TV, not even on UPN." - Andy Ihnatko

Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :

It's not impossible at all. Any particle with zero mass moves at lightspeed. Just figure out how to make a ship massless and you're all set.

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Posted by Aethelwer (Member # 36) on :

Hey, Trek can do that! Just whip out that wonderful magical subspace and you're all set!

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http://frankg.dgne.com/
"[Steve Jobs] shouts at his employees a lot, using language you can't use on TV, not even on UPN." - Andy Ihnatko

Posted by Bernd (Member # 6) on :

I like subspace.

Posted by Omega (Member # 91) on :

Speeds in SW seeme to be ludicrisly fast, as the Falcon supposedly got away from a Star Destroyer in "Empire", and very soon thereafter, an officer said that they could be on the other side of the galaxy by then. Also, in one of Zahn's novels, "Dark Force Rising", it was stated that a Star Destroyer could go point-five (whatever that means), although with some danger, and that that was 127 light-years per hour, or 1,113,285 c. That works out to about warp 104 on the old
scale, or warp 65 on the new scale, assuming that 10 wasn't the cutoff. At that speed, you could cross this galaxy in a little over four weeks, assuming that that galaxy so far, far away the same size as ours, and the Falcon is supposedly
even faster. That would make hyperdrive about six times faster than a quantum slipstream, and about 1200 times faster than conventional warp drive.

Posted by Trinculo on :

Laws of Physics is a set of theories that can be disproved in whole or in part by another set of theories. They are not the permanent word on physics.

Posted by Brown_supahero (Member # 83) on :

My theories:

Star Trek-
Warping space around the ship to achieve close to frictionless travel.

Star Wars-
Folding space so that distance travel is close to zero (like in Event Horizion

My advice:
speed (it self) doesn't mean anything! It's where you use it. Say if their is a Wars/Trek battle, yes a Star Destroyer can get to a battle faster. In battle a Galaxy Class Starship with it's impulse drive can do circles around the thruster driven thing. But that is another thread all together, is n' it?

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Homeboy in Outerspace
(The only surviving fan of UPN's Homeboyz in Outer Space)

[This message was edited by Brown_supahero on May 16, 1999.]

Posted by Aethelwer (Member # 36) on :

Well, sublight engines all operate on the same principle...pushing the ship forward.

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Posted by Cargile (Member # 45) on :

Hyperspace isn't a spacefold.

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Sector One at last. We are home. Tuvok, arrest the Maquis. Mr. Kim, inform Starfleet Command we have completed our mission.
Capt. Janeway upon reaching Earth.

Posted by Bernd (Member # 6) on :

...and the warp drive does not warp space, but subspace.

But what is hyperspace exactly? I didn't care about it since it was mentioned only one or two times in Star Trek.

Posted by Bernd (Member # 6) on :

Hyperspace isn't a spacefold. But hyperspace is a higher dimension, and a higher dimension is used to describe a spacefold, a wormhole for instance.