135 AGT-era: "All Good Things..." (TNG final episode) (Warp Velocities - Star Trek)
Description
This article is from the Star Trek Tech FAQ, by Joshua Bell inexorabletash@hotmail.com with numerous contributions by others.
135 AGT-era: "All Good Things..." (TNG final episode) (Warp Velocities - Star Trek)
Quoted in the final episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, in a
possible or imaginary future, is the speed Warp 13. Both Admiral Riker
and Captain Beverly Picard call for this speed, and at another point
in the episode, Admiral Riker calls for "maximum warp", which is
either Warp 13 or greater.
While we haven't a clue how fast this is, they're presumably faster
than Warp 9 on the TNG scale, and necessarily slower than Warp 10 on
the TNG scale (since TNG Warp 10 is infinite speed). A few
possibilities present themselves:
* Just another technical muck-up. (But that won't stop this intrepid
FAQ maintainer!)
* Warp 10-13+ are shorthand for Warp 9.x. One possibility is that
9.90 is called Warp 10, 9.91 is called Warp 11, etc.
* New warp technologies provide at least 13 power usage minima
between c and infinite speed, instead of the 9 possible with old
warp technologies.
* Further research revealed that there were more than 9 minima
accessible with traditional drives, and that they simply required
more power to attain than had been previously attempted, but less
power to maintain than 9.x values.
* The Federation switched back to the TOS scale.
The last one is demonstrably incorrect (see below). Among the others,
there's no way to tell which is correct. Sharp-eyed Boris S. found the
following explanation by Andre Bormanis, Star Trek's science advisor:
I raised that question in a TECH note. Basically, the idea there
was that they recalibrated the warp scale. I don't think that ended
up in the final draft teleplay, but the idea there was that if
you've got ships that can routinely travel at speeds in excess of
Warp 9, then maybe it makes sense to recalibrate your speed scale
so that Warp 10 is no longer infinite velocity. Maybe Warp 15 will
be the ultimate speed limit, and Warp 13 in that scale will be the
equivalent of warp 9.95 or something like that.
OMNI, October 1995.
Evidence
Tom Bagwell writes:
I timed the interval in AGT between when Data reported the second
Klingon ship to be disengaging and when Riker's helmsman reported
it to be a "half a light year away" at about 22 seconds, so I
calculated the speed assuming 20 seconds to reach 1/2 a light year
and assuming 30 seconds to reach 1/2 a light year.
At 30 seconds, the velocity would be approximately 525,960c which
equates to roughly Warp 9.97244 on the TNG scale and approx. Warp
81 on the TOS scale.
At 20 seconds, the velocity would be approximately 788,940c which
equates to roughly Warp 9.97535 on the TNG scale and approx. Warp
92.4 on the TOS scale.
Martin Shields updates that with:
Assuming 30 seconds to travel 1/2 a light year, v = 525,960c which
he estimates is Warp 9.97244 on the TNG scale. However, the Tech
Manual and Encyclopedia tell us that Warp 9.9999 (a higher warp
factor) is set at 199,516c (less than half the speed calculated).
This figure comes from the M = -11/3 equation. My equation gives
the TNG warp factor of 9.999974 (approx.) which better fits the
known data.
If a damaged AGT-era Klingon ship can limp home at TOS Warp 81, while
a Federation ship trying to be sneaky can only manage TOS Warp 13, the
Klingons have nothing to worry about. I consider this adequate
evidence that the TOS scale was not returned to use in the AGT future.
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