posted
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.
posted
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.
------------------ "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..."
posted
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
posted
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).
------------------ http://frankg.dgne.com/ Walter Barnett: "D-Did that thing just shatter an overpass into dust?" Donny Finkleberg: "No, I...I think it was an entrance ramp."
posted
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.
------------------ "Fishing promotes a clean mind, healthy body and leaves no time for succumbing to Communistic or Socialistic propaganda." -- Ivar Hemmings, chairman, South Bend Bait Company
posted
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:
posted
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.
------------------ If you need it I can build it. Just as long as there is a box of junk for me to use.
posted
I know; that's what I meant. The speed of light is the upper (and unattainable) limit.
------------------ 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
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.
------------------ "You hear about 'constitutional rights,' 'free speech,' and the 'free press.' Every time I hear these words I say to myself, 'That man is a Red!!...' You never hear a real American talk like that!" -- Mayor Frank Hague, Jersey City
posted
Hey, Trek can do that! Just whip out that wonderful magical subspace and you're all set!
------------------ 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
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.
Registered: Mar 1999
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Trinculo
Ex-Member
posted
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.
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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?
------------------ 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.]
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