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

languages - Do we ever see written English in the Star Wars films?

In Empire Strikes Back , we see a transcription of what R2's beeps and bloops mean, but it's not English (sorry for the low quality, it's from the 2004 DVDs): I'd assume it's what Basic looks like when written, but is there some point in the the Star Wars films we see written English instead? (This sort of spun off from a discussion in How do people understand astromech droids? .) Answer At one point there was English but it has been phased out in subsequent versions of the films. Chris Gould at DVD Active did a comparison of all versions of each of the Star Wars films, and in his comparison of Episode 4 , there are a couple of screenshots showing how the power gauge for the Death Star tractor beam was changed. I imagine there are probably more to be found in his other comparisons but I haven't got around to reading those yet.

Was the "pure soul" of Harry's what had really hurt Voldemort?

In the Order of the Phoenix, Voldemort possesses Harry, and it hurts. Greatly. I think that Dumbledore explained that it was because Voldemort's rotten soul was incapable of assimilating Harry's pure soul, that Voldemort didn't understand the love and friendship etc that Harry has in his heart. But, I think it was a lie. Remember that in Deathly Hallows, while looking for information regarding Horcruxes, it is discovered that it is in fact possible to merge a soul fragment back, but that the process was extremely painful. Now then, if Voldemort tried to possess Harry, and Harry had a fragment of Voldemort's soul, I think that it could have been the true cause of Voldemort's pain: the fact of having his soul so close of another fragment. I think that Dumbledore knew that fact, but had to lie to Harry because it was inappropriate to let him know that he had one of Voldemort's soul fragments at the moment. Is that right? Or was it truly the pure soul of Harry's...

star wars - What "exactly" happens when someone turns to the Dark Side?

When I saw the original Star Wars saga as a kid, the concept of the Dark Side imprinted in me was quite simple. You did a bad thing, so you're a bad person so you go to the Dark Side and keep doing bad things. Now, obviously this doesn't hold true in reality. In my mind it is perfectly reasonable for Luke to kill the Emperor and Vader and then just flee the Death Star and rejoin the Alliance. After all they are at war, those are enemy officers that have captured him and are taunting him by threatening with death of all loved ones and the whole operation was intended to kill the Emperor anyway. The same would hold true for Anakin. He could have killed Mace Windu to save the Chancellor and Padme but that doesn't mean he's going to then go mad and kill all Jedis including children. It doesn't add up from a merely psychological point of view. He had a set of objectives and that made him want to keep the Chancellor alive (quite valid by the way, Mace Windu is quite clums...

star trek - Warning regarding forward saucer section in Nemesis?

In Star Trek: Nemesis , just before the Enterprise rams into the Scimitar, Picard sends a text message from his captain's chair arm pad to Troi — who is manning the helm in lieu of the crewman who was just blown out through what was once the view screen — indicating that she should put full impulse on standby. (Literally, if you watch the scene closely, Troi's console prefaces the order with "TXT MSG" !) My question is: Did Picard also somehow warn crew members in the forward saucer section about what was about to happen? The ramming of the Scimitar was a heat of the moment decision. Considering that he also resorted to calling the auto-destruct sequence shortly after (which ended up being offline), he probably was of the mindset that any losses would be acceptable in order to hault Shinzon's march to Earth. Still, I'm curious. Answer The original script indicates that he called for the crew to " brace for impact ". Whether that call (or the comma...

Blog

Search This Blog