posted
Hey all. I was sortta wondering about this at school one day and I thought you guys will be the kind to answer this. While starships are at warp, how do they deccelerate so quickly? It's not like the impulse engines or chemicl thrusters will do the trick in my eyes. Is there a canon or non-canon description which focuses on this? Thanks!
Blair
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Registered: Aug 2003
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posted
Well let's see, once the warp field collapses, the ship will face the laws of physics, so to speak, and slow to Warp 1, the speed of light. Minute decreases may occur due to gravitational pulls from nearby objects. The crew will want to decrease the ship further to impulse, so I would think forward RCS thrusters are applied to decrease the speed further. On some ships like those of the Intreped and Prometheus classes, there are forward vents for the impulse engines, so they can be used as well. Well, that's my take on it.
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Registered: Feb 2000
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posted
Actually, I go more with the Jesco von Puttkamer idea as per TMP. It's the WARP that is traveling FTL, and the ship within the warp isn't moving at all relative to it. Once the once the warp field goes bye-bye so does any velocity.
Or think of it this way: --You have a body of water and air above it. --The air is normal space, the water is subspace --Your ship goes to warp and sinks just below the surface of the water in an air bubble --The bubble (the warp) slides around just outside of normal space, separated from it by this micro-thin layer of subspace --The ship ain't moving in normal space, it's stationary within the bubble --The bubble slides around in the water where the physical rules aren't the same as in the air (except in this case you can travel faster under the surface than over it, unlike air and water) --Just as in the air/water model, you can see out into normal space from your bubble and vice versa (and a weapon with any kind of subspace field can pop into your self contained universe and smack you...Ouch!) --You slide your bubble to point X and pop it. --Your ship now is back above the water/subspace and the only velocity it has was whatever velocity it had within the warp bubble (little or none)
One way of looking at it.
-------------------- "Well, I mean, it's generally understood that, of all of the people in the world, Mike Nelson is the best." -- ULTRA MAGNUS, steadfast in curmudgeon
Registered: Feb 2001
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posted
I assumed it was similar to the last, but: When a vessel drops out of warp, it applies a minute 'deacceleration constant' which slows it down that last 186,000,000 mps.
-------------------- 'One man's theology is another man's belly laugh.' - Lazarus Long
Registered: Feb 2001
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posted
Warp drve is non-Newtonian. When the warp field collapses, the ship will be travelling the same speed it was just before it engaged the warp drive. The warp drive works by forming a bubble of subspace around the ship. Subspace is not subject to the physical laws we are familiar with in normal space, and the peristaltic action of the moving warp field(s) is what "moves" the ship, by warping space past the bubble.
If you've ever watched a plotter work, it's a bit like that. The ship is the pen, normal space is the paper. The warp drive lifts the pen off the paper, moves space past, then drops the pen back on the paper in a new position.
A ship cannot travel at the speed of light (warp factor 1) without engaging the warp drive, as Ensteinian effects will still affect a ship in normal space. According to the TNG Tech Manual, most starships routinely operate at .25c or below to avoid relativistic effects. In emergencies, they can use the impulse engines combined with non-propulsive subspace fields (to lower the ship's inertial mass) to get up closer to the speed of light, but it would usually be easier to just engage the warp engines and avoid the messy time dilation effects.
--Jonah
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Registered: Feb 2001
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posted
Just to add to what Peregrinus said... the warp field doesn't move the ship it moves a bubble of space the ship is in.
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It's all made-up nonsense, we can keep on adding more made-up nonsense until we've patched all the holes.
Or put it another way, we've already buggered around with special relativity, so why stop at buggering around with general relativity?
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Registered: Mar 1999
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Use the first warp flight (Phonix) as the model. When they dropped out of warp, the Phoenix was almost standing still.
And when Archer's test pilot friend blew up the test vehicle, the wreckage immediately slowed down to almost rest speed.
Settled, I think.
-------------------- 'One man's theology is another man's belly laugh.' - Lazarus Long
Registered: Feb 2001
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posted
for further treknological study, i recommend D.J. Schmidt's 'Starfleet Dynamics' with the chapter on overstressing the warp field to port or starboard to turn the vessel.
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Registered: Sep 2001
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