star trek - What is the difference between "Warp" and "Transwarp"?

In Star Trek III, Kirk takes the Enterprise out on a little "joyride", with the U.S.S. Excelsior in hot pursuit (initially). The audience learns that the Excelsior is equipped with "trans-warp drive". The captain of the Excelsior smirks confidently that Kirk is "really in for a shock" if he thinks he can get away with the Enterprise's old warp drive. Turns out the Excelsior's drive was sabotaged by Scotty, allowing Kirk to escape to Genesis.

In further series in the Star Trek universe, there are various mentions of "trans-warp" technologies, such as Slipstream, folding-space and wormhole conduits. However, no Federation ship to my knowledge ever possesses a technology with that label again (not for long anyway), and even in Star Trek VI they do away with the term for the Excelsior (now commanded by Captain Sulu).

So, what is the basic definition for "trans-warp"? Is it simply any technology allowing a ship to travel faster than the known limits of conventional warp drive? Was Excelsior simply a "next-generation" warp drive ship that pushed the envelope that much further?

Answer

Trans-warp is one of those generic terms that was thrown around a lot in the Star Trek Universe. In the case of the USS Excelsior, it is my understanding that trans-warp stood for an experimental technology that allowed a ship to jump from standstill to any warp velocity the ship was capable of without having to accelerate through the various levels (warp 1, warp 2, warp 3, etc). So, in that case, Excelsior could have caught Enterprise because it not only could accelerate instantly, but it also had a higher top sustainable speed.

In other instances, the term trans-warp referred to any technology that allowed ships to travel "faster" than a normal warp speed ship. For instance, the Borg created wormhole-like conduits, in Voyager there was the slip-stream technology, and so forth.

I've heard in a couple of places that Gene didn't like the term and kept it out of the shows and movies as much as he could until he passed on.

Comments

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