Discuss Star Trek: Enterprise
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"Dead Stop"
posted by KnixonSTAFFMOD on February 6, 2020 at 3:13 AM
In this episode, we're told at the beginning that, at warp 2, they were 10 years from home.
If warp 2 is (as we've been told before/elsewhere) 4 times the speed of light, that would mean they are 40 light-years from home.
But that would mean that even at their maximum warp 5 - 25 times the speed of light - they're still over a year from home. Just over a year and a half, actually. About 83 weeks, in fact.
Oh well, what the heck. When the Xindi appear, they get to "The Expanse" faster than they could even reach Alpha Centauri.
Reply by Nexus71
on February 12, 2020 at 5:03 AM
I don't think it works quite like that Knix in Voyager they said they were more than 70,000 lightyears from home and it would take them 75 years at maximum warp(which was 9.975) which means roughly 900 lightyears per year so a Warp 5 engine which is roughly half the max. speed of Voyager can travel around 450 lightyears per year at max Warp
Reply by Knixon
on February 12, 2020 at 5:42 AM
But warp is not a linear scale. It's the square of the warp factor, been that way "since the beginning." And the Enterprise figures support that.
Warp 5 would be 25 times the speed of light, but Warp 9 is 81 times. More than triple the speed of Warp 5.
But the main problem is, space is just so damn BIG. Even if warp factors were cubed, and warp 5 were 125 times the speed of light, it would still take almost 12 days just to get to Alpha Centauri. There's no f'ing way they could get Klang back to Kronos, in the first episodes, in "4 days there, 4 days back."
Also, Voyager didn't "cruise" at warp 9.975, that was their maximum emergency speed for short periods.
Reply by Nexus71
on February 12, 2020 at 6:11 AM
But considering they would travel roughly 10 lightyears per month at Warp 5 (since it takes 12 days to cross 4.2 lightyears ) which means at Warp 5 they would travel roughly 120 lightyears pet year so 240 lightyears per two years devided by 2.5 makes roughly 96 lightyears for two years at Warp 2.
Reply by Knixon
on February 12, 2020 at 6:41 AM
That would be if warp speeds were CUBED, but that was just an example I gave about how BIG space is. "The rule" is - has been since TOS - that warp speed is the squares of the speed of light. So warp 5 is "only" 25 times the speed of light. Which means it would take almost 2 months just to get from Earth to Alpha Centauri.
They goof around some with the scales from time to time, but for example when they said in the pilot episode(s) "Neptune and back in six minutes" that bears out the numbers I used.
But even if it were cubed rather than squared, that means 125 times the speed of light, a multiple of 5. Dividing 58 days, by 5, gets you to the almost 12 days I mentioned before. Just to Alpha Centauri. Still a long way from "4 days there, 4 days back." And Kronos has to be MUCH farther than Alpha Centauri.
Warp 2 would be 4 times the speed of light. So you'd get 4 light-years in a "calendar" year, or 8 light-years in 2 years. Which would get you to Wolf 359.
But even the Earth freighters discussed/shown/visited during the Enterprise series, did almost warp 2.
Reply by Nexus71
on February 12, 2020 at 7:04 AM
Hey it's a show for amusement not to be scientifically accurate the whole point is to make it sound feasable.
Reply by Knixon
on February 12, 2020 at 8:48 PM
They only get away with it because of how little most people know about space. If some non-sci-fi show had someone saying "Yeh, my Corvette goes 100mph, I can leave New York City after breakfast and be in San Francisco in time for lunch!" they'd know it was crap. I just think the sci-fi crap should be noticed as much as the non-sci-fi crap, and the sci-fi writers don't get a free pass from me.
Reply by Nexus71
on February 12, 2020 at 9:28 PM
I think it is hard selling two extreme scientific concepts one the speed of light and travelong faster than the speed light which pretty hard to conceptualize visualise and explain in simple terms to non scientists(the average viewer)and a second extreme scientific concept is the incredible vastness of space.
Reply by Knixon
on February 12, 2020 at 11:36 PM
Well again, it might be more than the average audience member would know. Even if you told them "It's like if I said the pioneers could get from New York to San Francisco by horse-drawn wagon in a day. Sure, warp speed is way way faster. But things in space are way way FARTHER!!!" But I don't think that's a good reason for doing it wrong.
Reply by Nexus71
on February 13, 2020 at 12:48 AM
Just live with it let the people on the show worry about that.Can't you enjoy something for what it is.
Reply by Knixon
on February 13, 2020 at 1:14 AM
Oh I do. That's why I can see Enterprise and ret-retcon it to how it SHOULD be.
And it's why I did enjoy - and still enjoy - The Starlost.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_Kv0VlJvNQ
Reply by Nexus71
on February 13, 2020 at 4:17 AM
Leave the ret-conning to Kurtzman although his ones make even less sense.
Reply by Knixon
on February 13, 2020 at 4:42 AM
You missed one. I don't retcon. I ret-retcon. That means undoing/cancelling out the previous retcon.
Reply by Nexus71
on February 13, 2020 at 4:51 AM
Whatever 😒 If that keeps you busy.