This question is about this plot from the Star Trek: The Next Generation Technical Manual:
This plot shows energy discontinuities at the integer warp factors warp 1 through warp 8.
Presumably (out-of-universe) this is to justify why Picard often picks round numbers for the warp factor -- it's more efficient and safer. (Related: How does Picard choose a warp speed?)
It also explains why they can have notions (in First Contact and Enterprise) of "breaking the warp barrier", "breaking the warp 2 barrier", "breaking the warp 5 barrier", etc. They are not arbitrary numbers; they represent some real warp physics effect.
But if you look at the plot carefully, you can see that the last discontinuity is not at warp 9.0. Actually, it's around warp 9.1, easily read since the plot already has clear vertical lines at warps 9.0 and 9.2.
Assuming there is no in-universe explanation, perhaps there is an out-of-universe explanation for why someone decided to plot it like this.
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