Topic: "We're going to attempt warp while inside the solar system"
OnToMars
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Member # 621
posted
Re: The BOP and the solar flare in TNG. As I recall, they did essentially the exact same thing in the DS9 episode where they get Jadzia into Sto'vo'kor by blowing up those Dominion shipyards. There was no treknical explanation in the TNG ep, but there was one in the DS9.
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Registered: Jun 2001
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posted
Also remember that before the NX-01, the only warpships went Warp 1 or 2, and probably didn't really spend much time in solar systems, so this particular rule possibly didn't exist in the 2150s.
posted
TMP wasn't the only instance of people being a bit nervous about engaging the warp drive within a large gravity well. There was some debate along those lines in the DS9 episode with the fake Bashir and the protomatter/trilithium bomb. (Which raises an interesting question: "Ha ha, we've destroyed Bajor and DS9 and all the starships in the system! Now let us send our fleet through the wormhole uncontested and seize the Alpha Quadrant!" "Uh, sir? Would that be through the same wormhole that's currently in the heart of an artificial supernova?")
[And yes, I suppose they could just wait it out, providing said explosion didn't collapse the thing. But then where would my joke be?]
At any rate, were I to try and tie everything together, I'd say that the closer one is to a gravity well (which is presumably creating a distortion in subspace as well), the trickier it is to get your warp drive functioning properly. Not impossible, by any means. But enough of an unknown variable to make testing new engines in deep space a good idea, and to not fly around a few hundred thousand kilometers from a star at warp 9. That is, unless you really want to.
Registered: Mar 1999
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In Voyager's "Dragons Teeth" they take off from the planet and Janeway asks Paris when they are high enough to go to warp. Paris answers that they need to get past the thermosphere before they could enter warp.
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Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
Which means that ST4:TVH may not have been that far off the mark, really. Certainly it's possible to warp from the immediate vicinity of a planet.
Except when it's not. Bajor seems to be a no-warp zone, save for extreme emergencies (and trying to escape a supernova explosion does not qualify as such an emergency, apparently, or else the ships in "By Inferno's Light" would not have been at risk of being caught by the explosion).
Sol seems to have even stricter criteria: going to warp to save the whales is okay, but protecting Earth from Borg assimilation is a strict no-no. Heck, even the Borg themselves slow down to impulse near Sol.
Perhaps subspace Earth's vicinity is worn so thin that any additional warping in the 24th century will tear holes in it, and even the Borg fear such holes. In Kirk's time, people were just beginning to learn that excess warping was a bad thing - but when visiting the 20th century, Kirk could naturally warp with abandon.
posted
So we could conclude that there are many reasons why it's not advised to warp in solar systems: - Gravity wells (presumable gravity has it's effects in subspace as well) - I would assume a higher concentration of space dust, making it a bit more dangerous / energy-expensive. - It's far busier in a solar system... freighters, interplanetary runs, starships, shuttles, tourists, etc. - Perhaps the this high number of warpships has its effects on local subspace.
I think overall it's like the speed limit in residential areas. You can go 120 kph, but I won't try it. And the 'cars' in Archers day couldn't even GO 120 kph, so the speed limit is probably not in use yet.
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