What ever happened to the supposedly faster and more efficient "Transwarp drive" that the Excelsior had? Did all Warp drives become transwarp and they just continued to call them Warp drives?

It failed, I don't know the exact details and I'm far too lazy to ask my brother, but sufficed to say they never got it to work properly.


For what it's worth, Warp drive operates by creating a bubble of Subspace, and essentially is like skimming across the surface of a pond, Transwarp is a fancy way of saying Wormhole, and works by pretty much folding the pond over.

Anything else?


Edit: It is never outright stated why The Drive failed (Well, the excelsiors failed because Scotty nicked a bit of it before they did a runner, but the tech itself isn't said)

ah, yeah I knew scotty messed with it on tSfS, but by the time the excelsior showed up in "The Undiscovered Country" was it just fitted with a standard warp drive?

From the small amount of information that's appeared in the series about Transwarp, it was discontinued due to dangers. It's still being worked on, though it's unlikely to appear in Trek till some much later point. Voyager featured it a couple of times, only with Seven of Nine's help though and it didn't last for long.
At this time it's unknown if Transwarp has finally been deemed safe enough and successful enough for use in the Trek universe. Depends what happens in future series.

-;[',

Yep, just a standard drive.

Although standard is a bit of a misconception, as warp drive speeds have to be recalibrate every few years to allow for new advances (say for example in TOS Warp 1 was twice speed of light, well by Voyager it is 5 X light) -as such a Warp six craft in TOS is nowhere near as fast as a warp 6 craft in Picard's time.

And then of course all sorts of things can mess with the bubble which alter speeds again, anything from a planet to a nearby star can slow you down due to gravitational eddies (Actually most of space isn't flat, but bunched up on four dimensions, with "Flat" bits being rare - Earth has five in total.


Edit: Brother's back.

He says that basically Transwarp is warp 10 - Anyone who recalls the voyager episode will know that to do this is to be simultaneously in every position in the universe, spatially and Temporally.
this is bad.
The Borg use Transwarp Conduits.


Star trek wiki on transwarp
If you care and stuff.

kewl! Thanks. and yeah I remembered the voyager ep about it too.

The one thing that never really made any sense was Voyager's use of "Transwarp Coils". Towards the end of the series' run, they were picking apart old borg ships and stealing the coils. Technically, Voyager was capable of going Warp 9.975, but it couldn't do it for long because the ship would tear itself apart, so what good would a Transwarp Coil do? Is it insulating them against normal subspace stresses?

Then you have their use of Slipstream Warp(essentially another form of Transwarp Drives and Conduits like the Borg use) and Co-Axial Warp(folding space in on itself, like Event Horizon...but without the creepy Black Hole from Hell).

Hmm.. I never saw the co-axial warp one(s). My vague in-story understanding is that Borg use various technologies they've stolen that either counter or nullify whatever the damaging effects of transwarp are on other humanoids. Or it's a byproduct of their being in the collective. The ship tearing apart is more of a secondary issue, I think. The primary one seems to be the inability to output that much power by using their "conventional" warp technology and power generation methods.

Out of story, it's clear the transwarp coils are just mini-plot devices that reward the Voyager with success by cutting down significant portions of their travel time but are a commodity that gets "used up" such that they still have some distance to go for the remaining seasons the show had left.

Well you can retrofit a motorbike with Jet engines, the thing may moove at damn close to jet speeds but it will break appart. If you do the same to a normal prop type plane then yuo can in theory take the vehicle to many times its speed but the stresses will do irreperable dammage..

My take on the coils is you are adding technology that wasnt designed for the vehicle in question, the lack of true compatibility results in damages to the coils themselves. So in order to use those speeds again then you have to get a new minty fresh coil. Think of it in the ChipPan Oil trick, You can use it in a Diesel engine but not in a Petrol engine without heavy modifications. Say these mods have a limited lifespan, then you have to replace the mods.

That's probalby what was intended originally - I've seen detail shots of the Enterprise consoles from Star Trek IV, where everything was labelled "Transwarp."

However, Gene Roddenberry must not have liked the idea (he had no control over anything done in the movies after #1), as a year later when Next Generation came out (which he did produce) the whole "transwarp" thing was dropped and led to them having to retcon that the drive failed on Excelsior. He also didn't like the idea of going much above Warp 8 for some reason, but he did want the Enterprise D to be faster than the old school ship, so he reset the whole warp factor to speed scale. He also liked the idea of integral Warp speeds. This led the technical people on the show to come up with the idea that Warp speeds are achived by there being addtional power requirements necessary to achive the next Warp factor, but once that factor was achieved the power necessary to cruise at the speed dropped off (i.e. if you can achieve the power to go "over the hump" and reach Warp 3 it's more energy efficient to cruise at Warp 3 than it would be to cruise at Warp 2.3).

Oh, and one slight correction to Asthaloth's post while he's correct about the other warp factors being different, Warp 1 is always the speed of light.

I loved the original "Smiley Spock" series term "Activate TimeWarp factor 1" blurry fading...

A transwarp coil (Borg tech) opens up a transwarp conduit, similar to a wormhole, wheras normal warp skims you across the subspace pond, the conduit puts you right through it.
As such, the wibbly wobblyness associated with warp wouldn't be as much an issue (But of course the drive crapping out far sooner when applied to inferior federation tech would be)

And yeah, warp 1 Is Light speed, with warp 9.999 being about 199.9 times the speed of light.

Didn't the super Enterprise-D from the series finale go Warp-15?

It's a Galaxy-X class annnnnd...
Possibly..



The warp 5 limit was imposed because it damages space time (And removed after new technology prevented this damage entirely) and as the notes say, The scale appears to be different in the alternate time line.


In other words Retcon'D apparently.

Sounds like science to me, "By the 1990's we will be in an Ice Age" same scientists in the 90's "We are heading for Desert conditions due to GlobalWarming". The Trek revision sounds rational to me.

"Transwarp Drive" was just a fancy name for whatever the new Excelcior had in TSfS. It went faster than Enterprise, but that's all anyone knew about it, including the writers. It may not even be the same propulsion system. It's kinda like "Tri-lithium" from TNG... it's an annoying toxic biproduct of using warp engines in one episode and an explosive substance that Riker's never heard of in ST:Generations. It's all just fancy mumbo-jumbo.

They are the same thing..

let's see here. you guys have caused me to dig out & dust off my old Treck tech manuals. i'll say this 1st. I am only familar w/ next generation stuff, but have a very detailed memory of their tech. the reason warp speeds are always changeing is engines are always becomeing more & more advanced & require less & less engergy. now I think we all know that the warp engine is fuled by matter/anti-matter. the ratio for warp reaction is ALWAYS 1:1 (one to one). however its have this generated energy is used that determins the level of effishancy. & this is where the Dylithium Crystals come in to play. depending on how these crystals are orianted says a lot about the ship power level. when the matter/antimatter injecter systems have passed the Dylitium its then shunted thrugh the plasma conduits. from there it goes to both port & starboard warp nacelles & is then channeled in to the warp coils. the reason why all Enterprises have had the same basic design (w/the engines sticking out & away from the ship), is because it helps to create & mantain the warp field. warp speed is measured in Cochranes. 1 cochrane=warp1. but w/the warp curve this dramaticly spikes. I read someone said warp9 is equal to 199Xthe speed of light? WRONG! EnterpriseD (Galaxy class) has a top speed of warp9.86. how ever warp9 is equal to 1,519X the speed of light! remember people, the galaxy is a big place. puttering along at a few hundred time the speed of light just won't cut it. oh yeah, someone also said the Borg use transwarp to go warp 10 or close to it. that wrong to. the Borg used warp conduits that were established at certain parts of the galaxy. kinda like a highway, or to be more accuate kinda like a stargate as in the movie of the same name, or for you animé fans, like in Cowboy Bee Bop! & the last time I knew of Transwarp tech being used was in the last eps. of SNG "All Good Things". Enterprise D was recommished & under the command of Admiral Riker. the ship had (what I thought was ulgy), a 3rd warp nacelle.

And that odd number of nacelles went against Gene Roddenberry's mantra that they should have even numbers. BUT. The third nacelle has 2 warp systems inside it so it SHOULD have 4 nacelles.

To think of the Transwarp Conduits in a more modern series sense think of Andromeda's Slipstream.

Actually, having looked again I have no idea where i got 199X SOL, as the speed is actually 7900.2 X SOL.

Other than being mildly disconcerted as to where 199 came from (As surprisingly you are right and that would take for freaking ever to get anywhere..) I've found the right page now.

And as it happens the three nacelle Galaxy's (Galaxy X class command cruiser) are in commission although presumably in small numbers.

I'm sorry
am I understanding you right?
are you saying the Enterprise's top speed is 7900.2?
if so that's TOTALY WRONG! No ship in Star Treck history
has ever gone that fast (w/out ailen help).
for them to go that fast, it would be equal to warp 20!
like I said Enterprise's top speed was approximately 1600X the speed of light.
if there lucky & with a Blot load of tweeking,
they might be able to punch it up to
1650X the speed of light.

on the original question, although never answered canonically, it is safe to assume whatever experimental drive it had was scrapped because Excelsior was retfitted with standard warp engines in Star Trek VI. Perhaps they scrapped the project because they didn't realize the drive was sabotaged by Scotty. But that's just my theory, as I said, they never gave an answer in the Star Trek canon. I think a few fan-based techincal guides say something about it. Whatever the case, they didn't have transwarp in any of the series/movies that followed.

FYI: just thought some of you might find this bit of triva interesting.
the U.S. goverment (& maby a few other world goverments),
have for quite some time now, had
the plans for the worlds 1st light speed vehicle.
its "unofficely called", the buzzard ram jet.
that's right BUZZARD, like in treck tech.
believe it or not but Gene went to a lot of trouble to give the show as
much sicentifc accuracy as possible.
I've lost count of how many treck tech things that have come true i.e. cell phone (flip style, as in Classic treck).
any way if your wondering why were not zipping around the Solar System
its because other than the plans for a light speed engine, that's ALL
WE HAVE! meaning no damping field or artifishal gravity yet!
so if you thought it was a real
trip hitting the accellerator on your car that jumps to 60mph,
then imagine what would happen to you if you engaged your warp
engine & took off at 186.200 miles per second!
needless to say your entire crew would end up looking like modern art!
that plus it would take for ever to clean what's left of you off the walls.
oh yes! & let's not forget about Deflector shield control!
with out this any & all space debri would turn your craft in to swiss cheese.
strikeing a space pebble at light speed would be disasterious!
so once we get all lil details locked down we'll be ready for our 1st
warp speed test flight.

Yeah. Queen. That information is taken from an officially recognised source with Paramount contacts.
So... You might say it's wrong, but the creators say "Yes Asthaloth, you are right. He is wrong."

Warp9.99 (Which incidentally the Enterprise cannot achieve anyway) is 7900X SOL. whether you want it to be or not.
And galacticly speaking that's still slow, and would take a year to Cross federation space.


And Yes, the Ram jet has been in development for years (DECADES) but will Never achieve speed of light.
Because it can't.
Because nothing can accelerate to Speed of light.


And we have Teleporters, have done for a while now, not that they work to any useful level (We can teleport a photon through a wall, not that useful at the end of the day)


Edit:

Frak, I even found the equation.

V/c = WF[<(10/3)+a*(-Ln(10-WF))^n>+f1*((WF-9)^5)+f2*((WF-9)^11)]

Where a is the subspace field density, n is the electromagnetic flux, and f1 and f2 are the Cochrane refraction and reflection indexes respectively. Under ideal conditions values of a = 0.00264320, n = 2.87926700, f1 = 0.06274120 and f2 = 0.32574600 can be expected within a "normal" area of deep interstellar space. The values for TNG warp speeds under these conditions are shown below, along with travel times across typical distances :

ok, when I get home i'll dig out my Treck tech Official manual & post the page & paragraph,
stating that Enterprise D top speed is at best 1650X SOL.
but I'm not calling u a lier just that
there might be some contiuity issues.

The Daystrom Institute technical library
Officially recognised source.

And incidently, alot of the technical manuals aren't officially recognised, the 1st edition DS9 one being riddled with flaws for example.

I thought the Transwarp drive was given up after Tom Paris got turned into a salamander and had babies with Capt. Janeway? The whole "dangers of infinite velocity" thing......

Yep.
It's a true transwarp drive, the Borg use Transwarp conduits, and the Excelsior never got theirs to work.

... I think the Vuadwar used Transwarp Conduits aswell, offhand.
(Not that I expect anyone to remember them)

The dinosaurs?

I checked out that daystrom place.
I didn't see anything that said Federation ships can go over 7000X SOL.
The manual I use was the 1st publication of treck tech.
it covered everything on board the Enterprise.
it also contained comentary from Gene him self. so what ever site
you have found, I'm sticking w/the
manual Gene helped to create.
far as I'm concerned its my treck bible.
& like I said, it states Enterprice's top speed is 1600X SOL.

well I finaly got off my Royal duff & cleaned my room.
& in the doing, check out what I found.
that's right, my old treck tech manual.
ok, its created by Rick Sternbach & Michael Okuda, w/introduction by Gene Roddenberry.
its publish date is 1991 & is call "Star Treck The Next Generation Techical Manual".
& all the info I was telling you about can be found on page 54.
oh yeah, I amost forgot to tell you,
you blew my mind when you told me about the Transproter that can teleaport a photon.
I've never heard of it.
tell me were I can learn more about it,
if you don't mind. thanks.