The Problem with Warp Drive

I have made videos exploring the Quantum Slipstream Drive, the Spore Drive and many others, but never really addressed the standard Warp Drive.
So this video looks at Warp as used in the Star Trek universe, as well as its problems, limitations and how it is depicted in the show. Because there are a few.

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Star Trek, Star Trek Enterprise/Voyager/Deep Space Nine/Discovery/Lower Decks/Picard/Prodigy and The Next Generation are all owned and distributed by CBS.
Star Trek Films are owned and distributed by Paramount Pictures
This Video is for critical purposes with commentary.

[Moonbeam]

I figured out how fast Warp really is. It's as fast as the plot needs it to be.

[RiiDii]

Scotty: "What if we make a warp bubble inside a warp bubble?"
Admiral: "How did you find out about our secret transwarp technology?!"
Scotty: "I probably invented it, and will do so again."

[timurkotulic]

Number 1 rule of Warp: we do not speak about Threshold

[nobodyyouknow]

I don’t see Ludicrous Speed on that chart, let alone Plaid.

[midniteoyl]

The deflector shield being needed for warp speeds seems off, even if writers and what not say different. At warp, the ship is in a warp bubble and space is moving around that bubble. The ship is in effect stationary. There is no need to 'deflect' particles anymore.

Now, at 25% the speed of light while in impulse on the other hand...

[ClarinoI]

I have often thought that the idiotic "Warp 10" should have been named something like "Warp Max" or "Warp Ω" And make the scale for Warp numbers logarithmic, so Warp 2 is ten times as fast as Warp 1 and Warp 3 is ten times as fast as Warp 2. In this way not only do you not run out of numbers, and have to decimalise to infinity you also make the advancement slower as technology increases the warp speed achievable.

[THATGuy]

This whole "name New warp factors after milestone speeds and warp 9.999... thing just has me imagining the Romulans or someone telling the Federation, "Are you still using the space Imperial system? Why are you the only people not using space metric?"

[aerodroo]

Ric deserves an honorary degree in squiffy physics.

[rdgkse]

If you create a "Transwarp" scale, then you will also need a "Slipstream" scale.

[The_Lucent_Archangel]

For all its flaws, let's bear in mind that despite Paris' assertion that turning while at warp is not advisable engagements occurred at warp speeds pretty routinely in the TOS era. From a military standpoint, that is an enormous advantage if you're engaging an enemy without the same capability to strafe and fire weapons while moving above light speed. It's also a real testament to how advanced Starfleet/Klingon/Romulan targeting computers are to be able to track and lock a firing solution at superluminal velocities and the extreme ranges seen in the older programs. From the more military standpoint, this is actually something that has gone unsung since the Original Series.

[luminaire]

in ToS warp factor was easily quantified. The speed (c) was equal to warp factor cubed. SO warp 14.1 (the fastest the enterprise achieved in tos) was equal to 2803c

[sarahscott]

Warp drive speeds are so darn inconsistent.
Voyager can fly at 22, 000c
Enterprise D can fly at 9, 000c
Enterprise A can fly at 1, 200, 000c
They're as blindingly fast and cripplingly slow as the plot demands.

[shinyagumon]

If you're a sufficiently advanced society then the Laws of Physics become more of a suggestion.

[theodoremccarthy]

Don't forget that as of the TNG technical manual Warp factor integers represented optimal points in a power utilization curve, so maintaining a drive at Warp 4 was less energy intensive than maintaining it at warp 3.9. This implies that Tom Paris' Warp 10 flight simply achieved new energy threshold. He was not actually moving at infinite speed. This explains why his shuttle was simply a good distance ahead of Voyager when it dropped out of warp, instead of coming to a halt at a random point in the universe. From this we can conclude the TNG Warp scale was based on flawed theories, with the posited infinite velocity of Warp 10 being a math error. Of course, we already knew that Star Fleet's understanding of Warp was incomplete based on the Traveler's effects in the TNG episode "Where No One Has Gone Before".

All of which implies that another revision to the Warp scale, introducing factors above Warp 10, would not be out of line. However, having just re-watched VOY:Threshold when Paris' returned from his first flight his shuttle was described as "emerging from subspace". This implies that, at least using the technology in question, a subspace field at Warp factor 10 pushes a ship out of normal space-time entirely. (In addition to turning the crew into Salamanders. FTR: "Here lies Tom Paris, Beloved Mutant" is one of the funniest lines in Trek)

[deianj]

in a perfect world, the Star Trek writers would have the math skills of Simpsons writers.

[robbrandhoff]

I could be wrong but the table used to show how long what distance would take to cover at what speed seems to have a mistake in it. If "across federation" at warp one would be 100, 000 years, that would be the entire galaxy.

[mistermaumau]

Subspace isn't a linear progression of point A to point B. It's more a wibbly wobbly ball of quasi-spacetime lower dimensional, stuff.

[mastasolo]

If you truly are bending the space around you, there is no need for a deflector dish during warp as said debris would follow the bubble's curve.

[christopherg]

Your idea of "Transwarp Level" reminds me of the Flightlevel. After a certain height (cutoff varries by country), pilots stop giving heigh in feet and start giving it in "flightlevel" - which is really just the first two digits of the height in feet.
I guess later on they kinda ignore the whole "Warp 10 = infinite speed". In "These are the Voyages" future timeline they had grown tired of saying "9.999" and started just talking about Warp 13.

[jimschuler]

1:55 What a strange pronunciation of "Amazing Stories:"

"The force created in the immediate vicinity of the ship a warp in space — a moving warp, which could with fair accuracy be called a ripple in the fabric of space. The ship rode this moving warp or ripple as a surf board rides the moving crest of a wave. The intensity of the force controlled the speed of the warp up to a certain limit." - The Flight of the Starling, 1948