posted
Presumably, Starfleet engineers came up with the idea on their own. There is no previous reference to the transwarp drive that I know of. We know that the Excelsior was designed as the testbed starship for the transwarp drive. However despite simulation tests that must have showed it would have worked, (I extrapolate this from Captain Style's confidence in "breaking some of the Enterprise's speed records"), it didn't. No one at this point knows why, because it was never explained.
The first time in Federation history that a Starfleet craft reached transwarp speeds was in Voyager. I forget the episode, but they had discovered a new form of dilithium that could tolerate the high stresses induced by transwarp speeds. The only problem was that any human that travelled at such velocities experienced some, ahem, evolutionary problems. Namely that this aspect was highly accelerated. We can assume that this was not the reason Starfleet abandoned the Excelsior project because otherwise, Janeway probably would have known about the aftereffects of the drive and never have put Tom, or herself, through that.
Why does it work for the Borg? Because they're better? Probably because they utilize a totally different drive system. You never hear anything akin to "fire on the cube's matter/antimatter core." And we know that they use something known as a "transwarp coil," presumably something Starfleet, with its pitifully small technology base, cannot replicate. Anyone else have anything to add? I'm not a TNG person, so I missed out on a lot of the development of the Borg and their technology.
posted
I think that TPTB made the term up in ST:III so they'd have an excuse to say why the Excelsior was so much "better" and "faster" than the Enterprise. I doubt they thought much about the technical aspects. Later, it was generally accepted that transwarp drive didn't work properly (thanks to Scotty), and the project was abandoned.
In early TNG, the Borg's method of propulsion was unknown, but there didn't seem to be any sort of "drive" running the ship. IIRC, "Descent" was the first TNG ep to state that the Borg used transwarp corridors, although it seemed to imply that this technology was being used by Lore's Borg renegades only. By the time of Voyager, however, someone made the decision that an actual transwarp drive was the propulsion system that all Borg ships used.
So it's possible that one method of propulsion that Starfleet couldn't get to work right 70 years ago could have been perfected by the Borg fairly recently, thereby renewing Starfleet's interest in it.
posted
When Kirk hijacked the Enterprise didn't he and Scotty have a conversation that the Excelsior wouldn't beable to catch them. Thus it was Scotty's fault that the transwarp drive tests failed.
------------------ "One's ethics are determined by what we do when no one is looking" Nugget Star Trek: Gamma Quadrant Star Trek: Legacy Read them, rate them, got money, film them....
posted
Well, it was Scotty's fault that the Excelsior couldn't chase after them at all. Presumably, the transwarp part was a failure in and of itself, since it disappeared after that.
------------------ My new year's resolution is the same as last year's: 1024x768.
posted
It's theoretically possible that the tampering by Scotty caused the as such perfectly functional transwarp engines to melt down into slag, wasting gadzillions of taxpayer credits and man-millennia of working time, and crippling the test program. Starfleet did not have the sort of money needed to build another testbed, so they just sighed and said "well, we know it would have worked - perhaps in the next fifty years we'll gather enough money to make another attempt".
And then money disappeared from UFP economy and put SF Accounting Division into utter chaos which wasn't sorted out before Voyager's time, so the second testbed never got built.
posted
I think we have to accept the fact that there are different forms of transwarp drive.
The transwarp they talked about in "Threshold" involved being everywhere at once. If the Borg used this kind of technology, no one would stand a chance. Instead, they use transwarp corridors. I don't know what this means, but I've always assumed that it limited their superspeed travel to specific entrance and exit points. They probably have to set up a corridor using normal speed before they can use it.
------------------ "A gathering of Angels appeared above my head. They sang to me this song of hope, and this is what they said..." -Styx
posted
Actually no, Paris engaged the transwarp drive at warp 9.something way before he got to warp 10, which is a barrier _beyond_ the transwarp range. That why so many people hate Threshold, because they could have used the transwarp drive and go warp 9.99999 (or whatever) and be home in minutes...
------------------ "That's your plan? Wile E. Coyote would come up with a better plan than that!" - Crighton, Farscape.
[This message has been edited by Altair (edited January 26, 2001).]
posted
Nope. Paris kept increasing speed until he got to warp 10 which they equated with transwarp. THAT'S why I hate the episode. Because if the shuttle could make it to Warp 10, it could go 9.99999999999999999999999999999 and ferry people back and forth in a few hours.
------------------ "A gathering of Angels appeared above my head. They sang to me this song of hope, and this is what they said..." -Styx
Shik
Starship database: completed; History of Starfleet: done; website: probably never
Member # 343
posted
[ahem]...
"HERE y'go, Doctor...from one surgeon to another. I took them out of her main transwarp computer."
Oddly enough, they looked like spark plugs.
Do you REALLY think that Excelsior's ONLY test of the drive was its abortive chase of Enterprise? C'mon.
There was actually something quite interesting as to why transwarp failed from FASA...well, not failed--they embraced it originally, as did many of us. But it had something to do with nacelle size, integers, & all that shit. Star Station Aurora had a wonderful explanation of why it failed as well; I'll dig out my plans.
------------------ "You just push off....and the falling sort of happens on its own." ---Dave Titus
posted
No, but Scotty may have done something that had long lasting effects on the TWD.
------------------ "One's ethics are determined by what we do when no one is looking" Nugget Star Trek: Gamma Quadrant Star Trek: Legacy Read them, rate them, got money, film them....
posted
Well, I've read somewhere that the transwarp experiment was a success, if not a major one as expected. It worked, but only marginally increased performance rather than exponentially increase it as expected.
------------------ Chickety china, the chinese chicken, you have?
posted
Of corse, Mr Scott's Guide to the Enterprise claims that the Enterprise-A has transwarp drive.
*cough*
Going by what First said though, even if it was just a marginal speed increase, why'd they stop calling it "transwarp"? Can it only be called transwarp if it's, to use a technical term, "pretty bloody fast"?
------------------ "And Mojo was hurt and I would have kissed his little boo boo but then I realized he was a BAD monkey so I KICKED HIM IN HIS FACE!" -Bubbles
posted
Where's First? He hasn't said anything here.
Oh, you mean Fabrux!
------------------ [Bart's looking for his dog.] Groundskeeper Willy: Yeah, I bought your mutt - and I 'ate 'im! [Bart gasps.] I 'ate 'is little face, I 'ate 'is guts, and I 'ate the way 'e's always barkin'! So I gave 'im to the church. Bart: Ohhh, I see... you HATE him, so you gave him to the church. Groundskeeper Willy: Aye. I also 'ate the mess he left on me rug. [Bart stares.] Ya heard me!
posted
My pet theory is that transwarp refers to a certain level of subspace beyond what's used for normal warp drive. So anything that utilizes that level could be called transwarp.
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