Charlie X
Kirk: Are you responsible for what happened to the Antares, Charlie?
Evans: Why?
Kirk: Answer me.
Evans: There was a warped baffle plate on their energy pile shield. I made it go away. It would've blown up anyway.

The Menagerie, Part I
Menedez: Inspection tour of a cadet vessel. Old Class "J" Starship. One of the baffle plates ruptured.
McCoy: The delta rays?
Menedez: He went in bringing out all those kids that were still alive.
(Later, from The Cage)
Tyler: You won't believe how fast you'll get back. The time barrier's been broken. Our new ships can...

Paradise
A reference by O'Brien to baffle plates being removed from the SS Santa Maria.

An interpretation of canonical information
Between 2161 and 2238, Starfleet starships used baffle plates as a intergral component of the warp drive. These devices regulated the flow of the matter and antimatter. Baffle plates, numbering in size depending on the size of the ship's engines, were metal plates placed over force fields which contained the matter and antimatter. These plates were subject to the stresses of warp drive and could fracture. If a baffle plate fractured from stress, the ship's crew were faced with two possiblities: 1) if aware, the crew could shut down the engines, save lives, and repair the engines. One of the dangers encountered by the damage control teams is delta rays. The rays, a form of radiation, attack the neural system and can cause death in a person. 2.) if not aware, the crew and ship are destroyed by an uncontrolled joining of matter and antimatter. One of the disadvantages of baffle plates is that at medium to high warp speeds, the plates could fracture more often. For this reason, starships were limited to low warp speeds and travel between star systems was of a longer period of time.
After the loss of the SS Columbia in 2238, starship designers developed the magnetic containment fields to regulate the flow of matter and antimatter for the warp drive. This development saw the reduction in time needed to travel from star system to star system and improved engine efficieny. One of the first classes to benefit from this development is the Constitution Class starships. From the 2240's onward, all modern classes of starships had magnetic containment fields.
In the years of TOS, the only Starfleet ships using baffle plates were the ships of the older classes. Outside Starfleet, civilian ships would continue to use baffle plates for the next hundred years. An example is the Erewon Class which saw service in the 2350's.

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takeoffs are optional; landings are mandatory

[This message has been edited by targetemployee (edited September 30, 2000).]

[This message has been edited by targetemployee (edited September 30, 2000).]

(The term "pile" is a reference to contemporary fission generators, where quite literally a "pile" or large amount of radioactive material is brought together; liberated neutrons from radioactive decay either escape or encounter other atoms and catalyze their decay thus liberating further neutrons, etc. The trick is having enough radioactive material in the pile to keep the reaction going but not enough to "go critical" - an out-of-control reaction. This is mediated by having neutron-absorbing control rods which essentially just suck up some of the neutrons and slow things down. Doing this underwater generates steam which drives turbines to generate electricity.)

My speculation (http://members.aa.net/~skeksis/Star_Trek/declaration/declaration.html) is that until M/AM drives were available, warp drives powered by fission/fusion reactors were severely limited in terms of speed - enough that the "time barrier" (i.e. reasonable times for interstellar travel of commerce, months versus years) was deemed broken. IMHO, this is more realistic than having required fully functional M/AM reactors from the 2060s onward.

It is somewhat dependent, though, on the notion that essentially the warp core reactor is merely an energy producer, pumping energy into plasma streams heading to the nacelles (as proposed in the TNG Tech Manual). Later episodes make it unclear if the plasma actually travels in the conduits, or if the plasma itself is merely the conduit for energy, or if there is something else going on (the M/AM reaction with dilithium creates special "warp particles" in the plasma which power the nacelles).

Rather than having antimatter drives introduced back between 2236 and 2254 as Joshua Bell writes, I figured these drives might have been developed around the time of the Earth Romulan war and gave the Earth a winning advantage. I figured that most Starfleet vessels look pretty similar and don't allow big fuel tanks for fusion reactors. However, I wasn't aware of the "pile" references JB noted.

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When you're in the Sol system, come visit the Starfleet Museum

I suspect there was a quantum leap in warp performance when coils or spools made of materials available to 21st century Earth were replaced by some sort of a "solid-state" die-cast construction utilizing the now familiar vertenium cortenide of TNG TM fame. This could well be the development that provided the crucial tech edge for Earth forces in the Romulan war, in case one wants to retain the introduction of antimatter warp drives in the "conventional" 2230s-40s timeframe.

So warp drive would develop in steps:

1) Primitive coils/spools and fusion power
2) Solid-state coils and fusion power
3) Solid-state coils and antimatter power by dilithium regulation (if one wants, the crystals can be lithium first and dilithium later, although I think these are the very same thing, named differently in different eras)
4) Solid-state coils and Q-singularity power, possible ZPE power or other future developments
5) Transwarp coils?

Reaction drive would also develop in steps:

1) Chemical rockets
2) Nuclear rockets (implied for the Charybdis and perhaps the DY-100) and (nuclear/solar?) ion engines (stated for the Ares IV)
3) Possibly something better, to justify the "Space Seed" statement of a quantum leap in propulsion in the early 21st century (this may also refer to the super-duper ion engines, though)
4) Impulse engine (by the time of Romulan wars)

One might want to divide the impulse engine development into

1) Simple hyperhigh exhaust velocity fusion rocket
2) Same with subspace coils doing something weird to Newton's laws
3) Same with ship total mass reduction (Ambassador class onwards)

The introduction of subspace tech into the impulse engines should come as early as possible, since even a fusion rocket isn't a viable drive system for Deadalus-like compact ships unless there is some "magic tech" assisting it. It would also jibe with the "200 years and nothing new" statement.

Powerplant development would also involve steps, possibly including this baffle plate vs. forcefield development in containment tech.

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"Human race in tha house!" KoRn & Kittie, This Town
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Titan Fleet Yards - Harry Doddema's Star Trek Site

Flatterer!

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When you're in the Sol system, come visit the Starfleet Museum