In order to maintain a certain ease of comprehension I will stick with the formed paragraphs as I have found when these discussions carry on it's difficult to follow who said what for both me and the others who wish to join the conversation.
Fair enough. I hope you'll forgive my continued use of the alternate format; I find it much easier to respond to things when I have them sitting just above my response, and can isolate the individual pieces to which I'm responding.
Allow me to preface all our musing by saying our overall goal is to find answers to the contradictions or problems that canon presents. When at all possible it is of course best to stick with canon and failing that with the next most reliable source information. I don't think it prevents us from speculating on canon. To quote Spock: "Nature abhors a vacuum." To simply let a canon detail remain a contradiction doesn't help us answer question and it's isn't much fun either. Rampant speculation of course undesirable but I believe it's okay if logic and canon conspire together for something a bit more reasonable.
Oh, agreed. I've no problem making logical extrapolations from canon where the canon provides no answers. Hell, it's great fun! I merely wish to caution against hasty extrapolations, or resorting to absolutes like, "There is no other possible conclusion" unless it's exceedingly clear that there well and truly isn't.
We know the multi-stream reactor is La Forge's idea. That is a direct involvement in the creation of cores in the Defiant and Sovereign. However what we don't know is the extent of his involvement with the development of those power plants. I'm perfectly okay with that unknown. That's story writing potential for someone, right? Just like with Einstien who provided the brilliant concept of nuclear energy, we know he didn't create the Atomic bombs but we definitely know it was born from his ideas. Personally I think it dove-tails beautifully.
Quite so!
I just reviewed the bit from "Booby Trap" where they come up with the multi-stream idea. It's not quite what we end up seeing in the Sovereign and Defiant cores (wherein there are distinct, separate confinement chambers for each distinct stream; Geordi and Holo-Brahms cook up a solution that "bounces" streams off of multiple "crystal facets" -- he's pointing at the stream coils when saying this, not the dilithium reaction assembly, so I'm not sure what those crystals are but it's not really relevant to this discussion), but the idea of multiple streams for a bigger bang may well have originated here.
Of potential note here, when Geordi meets the real Leah Brahms, they discuss some of his modifications and she urges him to write a paper on them. He declines, saying that he's not very good at writing, but since she is, he suggests that they could collaborate. There might well be a paper that results from this meeting, perhaps written piecemeal through subspace communication, that directly leads to the Mark-7+ warp cores.
As concerns the Ablative armor and who had it first, canon is explicit enough. With tech is often unnecessary to make huge assumptions but Prometheus is the only ship designed with the armor in mind.
I'll grant that it's the only ship we know to have been so designed.
-Only the Original Defiant had the armor and cloak. There is no indication that Defiant 2 was ever equipped with ablative armor and neither was Valiant as they make no mention of the extra protection during it's attack on the Battleship.
I don't think this is necessarily reasonable.
The cloak, yes, certainly. The cloak was a loan from the Romulans and I don't recall Defiant II ever cloaking in its two appearances.
However, Defiant II is explicitly stated to have completely reconfigured shield generators to deal with the Breen weapon, so it's known to have received at least some special treatment. Especially given that Sisko was able to have ablative armor added to Defiant I without FleetOps's knowledge, I think it's unreasonable to assume that a ship that could have ablative armor so easily applied, which then went on to prove so successful and resilient with it, wouldn't receive that armor during the height of one of the Federation's worst wars. It's illogical to make that leap, even in the absence of evidence explicitly confirming its presence. Whether or not the Defiant class was designed with the armor in mind, I think Defiant herself proved the class worthy of its installation on subsequent starships.
-As for Sovereign it's issue is it's also never given any indication during it's most intense battles that the armor was ever applied. The ship took a huge pounding in Nemesis and hull breaches were riddled across the hull. Defiant didn't always make and explicit detailing of the percentage of the armor remaining but this is one instance in a battle where this ship could have used the extra protection and plot wizardry and never got it. Thirdly Sovereign is 685 meters long. The other two ships are at most 200 and 400 meters. That's a lot of surface area. Ablative armor has to be reapplied after damaged. The result would amount to months in dry dock to reapply the armor for the ship the size of the Sovereign. The other two ships show us that the number of windows is a factor with the armor and Voyager shows that every attempt was made to conceal every opening to the point of deployment doors with the armor. Some in Star Fleet went to the trouble of designing the Ablative Armor generator for just that purpose.
I'll grant you that.
To be perfectly frank, I had made the (probably erroneous) assumption that every ship seen with the Defiant- and Sovereign-style hull (the dark panels intermingled with glossier metal) boasted ablative armor as a matter of course. This would also extend to Akira, Steamrunner, et. al. but, curiously, notPrometheus, which should have been the obvious indicator that my assumption didn't hold water here.
On the other hand I am willing to assume that Prometheus has a similar core as the other two ships. It makes sense that regenerative shielding would have some power demands that would require a power plant of that nature. For a lighter attack ship of this nature the dual layers of protection is a great idea.
I'd be surprised if the multiple-stream cores didn't become standard in general.
It may be worth a curious footnote that Intrepid lacks the multi-stream core and boasts very high sustained warp capability. As far as we know, both Intrepid and Defiant launched in 2370, with Intrepid seeing immediate success and Defiant not seeing active service until 2371. Then again, perhaps Intrepid's warp capability comes from refined hull geometry, the variable warp field, and so on rather than simply raw power.
But unlike many fans I'm not willing to speculate that Prometheus had Quantum torpedoes other wise in the 3 instances we've seen the ship we would have seen it once. . Maybe they were still in development with Defiant and Sovereign and weren't in mass production. I think the new systems such as Regenerative shields (If the ship has the power) and quantum torpedoes and warp cores are those "Defensive Systems" Shelby was talking about that were in development. (Perhaps not the cores as that episode happened after BoBW.) But every technology has it's draw back. Most things can't be applied absolutely unilaterally. Their may be mass, power, maneuverability, effort and time table considerations that make one technology better suited else where.
Sure, I didn't mean to imply that I thought Prometheus was so-equipped, only that the development of quantum torpedoes appeared to fall in line with the same development timeline as the other technologies. Indeed, as you say, we only see her fire photon torpedoes.
Well at this point, reason is irrelevant. You've used canon to prove the it is possible the ship wasn't had high warp despite the urgency of the situation. With this quote there is cause to believe that stealth was indeed chosen over speed. Touche', Mcc.
Hooray!
However this does not explain the 3 other ships that caught up with Defiant despite a clear 6 hour head start. Those ships weren't capable of such high velocities.
True, but for a good portion of this time, Prometheus was stopped. She first stopped to fight Bonchune and she stopped once more when EMH II knocked out the crew and EMH I forced a warp core overload. They were, however, detected by Romulan ships at this juncture, which moved to intercept. Only later, after confronting the Romulans, did the two Defiants and Akira show up. A number of notable points about this:
Time spent at "0" velocity dramatically reduces average travel speed, always. Using a more mundane example, if you're on a long road trip and make frequent stops but drive very quickly while moving, you will almost certainly reach your destination more slowly than someone traveling at a lower rate but making no stops. Each stop represents a tremendous window during which pursuing Federation forces can catch up to Prometheus.
Bonchune, approaching Prometheus from behind as she did, was pretty clearly "in pursuit." Whether she was in pursuit the whole time or only on detecting Prometheus's warp trail is unknown, but doesn't actually matter. When she finds and engages Prometheus (side note: she almost certainly knew of Prometheus's hijacked status, since she doesn't signal Prometheus before firing), she almost certainly also broadcast Prometheus's location and heading to other Starfleet ships in the area, which might've included the Akira and pair of Defiants. However, Prometheus also alters course after this engagement, instead heading to rendezvous with Tal Shiar ships rather than heading straight for Romulus as she had been before.
The Akira and pair of Defiants may well have been responding to Tal Shiar ships crossing into Federation space, rather than Prometheus, which just happened to be there (and be the cause of the Tal Shiar ships' presence).
Ultimately, there is no need to conclude that any of the ships involved were even remotely capable of matching or exceeding Prometheus's stated warp capability; she spends enough time stopped and there are enough complicating factors that easily justify the arrival of the Starfleet reinforcements.
Star Fleet Registry History
<snip>
On further consideration, I actually think you're right about this. Congratulations, you have changed my mind on a topic I considered long-since settled.
It does make for some really interesting contradictions to justify, though, but justifications are forthcoming and kind of interesting. For example, Grissom has a registry much lower than Enterprise, but perhaps Grissom is, herself, a refit of an earlier iteration of the Oberth class and underwent the exact same sort of refit that Enterprise received prior to TMP. That's quite interesting to consider.
I encourage you to be cautious in using this particular website without corroborating everything on it. Its conclusions are notoriously biased and unrigorous. The particular article you linked isn't one of the more egregious offenders, but some of its contents are outright ludicrous. So, caveat emptor.
"7. The First Contact ships are for the most part a confusing pain in the ass, chronologically speaking. The Akiras, for instance, sport Galaxy-esque saucers, NX-esque catamarans, Sovereign-esque bridges and escape pods, engines that look like a funky fusion of TMP and TNG, and so on.
The Saber is a little weird with her saucer-attached engines and hexagonal saucer, but I find her likable nonetheless. The Steamrunner, however, is just stupid-looking. So stupid-looking, in fact, that she can only barely justify a single solitary 'cool point' for having a name that comes from the original War of the Worlds. The only one that looks decent in a chronological sense is the Norway, and that was the one they never used again."
Them's fightin' words! I love Steamrunner and think it's one of the neatest unorthodox Starfleet designs out there. :P (Operating under the assumption that the above-linked site isn't yours, I realize these aren't necessarily your words or thoughts.)
Remember I spoke of filling the vacuum, previously. This is the art of deduction. You are of course correct that rebuttal doesn't require a counter proposal. That's not what I'm asking for. I'm always looking for errors in logic and if it's revealed in my own there is point in denying it. However there is a mystery to be solved.
Certainly. I commented on this, and in the manner I did, more as a general point than as something specific to this discussion. "I don't see you proposing a better solution" is a mindset that I seek to combat whenever I encounter it because it's not only wrong, but can even be dangerous. If I come across as overly harsh on the matter, I apologize. I feel strongly about it.
What I'm saying is I understand you don't agree with the logic, perhaps if you could delineated as to why or even offer a better explanation to fill that void. Your previous explanation counter argument wasn't particularly explicative. Rather than simply having faith in Sovereign's state of general "advancement" and assuming it refers to literally everything about the ship..can we be motivated to make that conclusion by facts or reasonable speculation on the facts?
Certainly, though I think this whole thread has been a matter of bringing up examples -- some of them ranging far afield of the original line of inquiry, though not without merit -- to address various supporting elements of Sovereign's top speed being above warp 8. While I certainly enjoy speculating about Defiant, Prometheus, and the Neutral Zone, they are only salient here as supporting data for the central premise that Sovereign's warp capability is higher than a "mere" warp eight.
-I was under the assumption that the maximum speed of a Warbird is Warp Eight
So far as I know, we don't have any concrete, canon statement of a warbird's maximum sustainable speed. The warp speed listings on Memory Alpha imply that it has been observed achieving warp 9, and that warp 9.6 is where it sustains major engine damage.
The latter figure is almost certainly meant to reference "Tin Man," though I think warp 9.6 is probably high for that particular scenario. We know Enterprise was moving at "high warp," but not that they were moving at even warp 9.2 (stated normal maximum), let alone warp 9.6 ("emergency" maximum, which itself would have caused harm to Enterprise's engines after 12 hours, per "Best of Both Worlds").
I don't know where the warp 9 figure they state comes from, however, so I remain skeptical of it until it's more firmly established.
-If it's true the Scimitar has 3 such cores then Scimitar was powering shields Weapons, Cloak and High Warp all at the same time with no apparent struggle (as you pointed out)
It's not strictly necessary for Scimitar to have been powering shields at that time. She bombards Enterprise, forcing her out of warp, at which point Scimitar could have transferred warp power to shields. It's not really necessary for them to have done this, either; three singularity cores is an obscene amount of power already, but it's a possibility nonetheless.
-The fact that Enterprise wasn't shaking itself appart at Maximum means either this was the Max sustainable speed (Galaxy's Warp 9.2 vs 9.6) or that it's Max speed was so low that it could not incur subspace disturbance from the velocity like Runabouts and other craft with low max speeds.
I think the conclusion that it's at its "max sustainable speed" is correct.
Typically, "maximum warp" is used to mean "maximum (sustainable) warp" and it remains possible to exceed "maximum warp" (there are several examples of this throughout every series) at risk to the ship. The most obvious example is Enterprise-D going up to warp 9.6 and damaging its engines. Warp 9.2 is the translation of "maximum warp" in most other cases for Enterprise-D. Regardless of that value for Sovereign, I don't think Picard ordered emergency or engine-breaking warp speed. Such measures would have merited mention in a Captain's log, but instead he refers only to "maximum warp."
In any case, all this does is indicate that "warp eight" and "maximum warp" are different values for Sovereign, implying that it can achieve greater performance than warp eight. By how much remains uncertain.
Non-canon sources provide figures of warp 9.7 and 9.925(!), but neither of these goes on to cite a more authoritative source. Even a behind-the-scenes statement indicating an intent for these values, while not canon, would at least point toward a higher "maximum warp" than warp 8. But in the absence of such, we are left with "something higher than warp 8" as the only solid conclusion.
Position of the Neutral Zone
I'm not seeing the contradiction so far.
Enterprise was stated to be at Galordon Core. Picard (Sela actually) sent a message to remain at Galordon Core so the 14 minutes from there to intercept the Vulcans ships is static.
Re-watch the scene, or re-read the transcript. Enterprise-D starts moving at maximum warp to intercept the faux-Vulcan ships per Riker's order, switch to a scene on Romulus, switch back to Enterprise-D and now 14 minutes from intercept. Enterprise-D is not stationary prior to this estimate and an indeterminate amount of time passes between each scene. As is clear from the previous time analysis of the Bassen Rift ambush, even two closely connected scenes can have several minutes separating them.
Sela's Time table implies strongly less than a day travel to Vulcan at whatever the final speed of their escort by saying (Before anyone could do anything) That implies minutes not even hours for if the Federation escorts suspected anything or received a message (like they would have) then the invasion could have been prevented. This plot required timing through distraction and they didn't get it.
P.S This entire episode is completely suspect as to what it suggest, it does give a better concept of the distance between Earth and the Neutral Zone by putting Vulcan and Romulus effectively right nest to each other and Earth a mere 16 light years away in Sector 001. That would give a better location for Romulus for the Original Earth Romulan War.
That much is true; the implication is that traveling to Vulcan from the Neutral Zone won't take very long. Even a week would strain believability. Within one day is the most likely, as you say.
Whether that's indicative of Vulcan's proximity to the Neutral Zone, some trick of the region enabling higher than usual warping, or some other explanation remains nebulous, however.
That said, there are some other interesting things to consider about it. The Federation is, pretty clearly, not contiguous in nature. Picard's remark that it's "spread across 8,000 light years" implies disparate pockets. If it's a single continuous mass, "spanning 8,000 light years" would make more sense. This is consistent with the idea of Vulcan (and, by extension, Earth) being somewhat near Romulus (and even Qo'noS), thereby enforcing why you'd need something like a Neutral Zone buffering the two empires. If there aren't any strategically important planets within easy reach of the border, why bother with a Neutral Zone? But if Vulcan is within a day's travel, even at high warp, of an enemy empire? Oh my, does that ever make the idea of a patrolled Neutral Zone a much more important idea.
If we take Qo'noS to also be in the Beta Quadrant, we've got canon data indicating that it orbits the real start Omega Leonis, which is a mere 112 light years from Earth, and that Enterprise (NX-01) could reach it at warp 4.5 in 4 days. We also know that Enterprise's "warp 5 engine" (primarily capable of warp 4.5) could do "Neptune and back in six minutes," which works out to around 80c. 4 days at this speed is less than one lightyear, which reinforces the idea that warp factors are not constant representatives of actual speed (and that the WF^3 = c, or WF^(10/3) = c equations do not hold in all cases). Again, I prefer the interpretation concocted by Star Trek Maps, indicating subspace field strength fluctuations playing a major role in the actual travel speed at a given warp factor. It handily addresses all inconsistencies will also fitting nicely with the canon data on the weird things subspace does.
In either case, I am happy to posit that the border of the Romulan Neutral Zone is less than 100 light years from Vulcan. The evidence seems to overwhelmingly favor at least that much, and possibly places the RNZ much closer.
Defiant II's Armor
You say it's not "necessarily reasonable" to assume Defiant II doesn't have the armor. In absence of evidence that the armor exist what tells us that it does exist? I will grant you that it's not unreasonable to assume the armor is present on Defiant II but it's effectiveness isn't quite enough to assume the affirmative. Remember that Captain Benteen confirmed that it was not apart of the original design.
This is how I see it. I think Ablative Armor is a material that was undergoing testing and the Advanced Starship Design Project explored it's applications. It's possible that Defiant and Prometheus were considered candidates however there are too many unknowns. One of which is "how available is the material." The second consideration is the War itself. Sisko took some liberties with a war assets. I guess that was fine with Star Fleet before the outbreak of war but these are now extremely valuable war resources and I despite Sisko constantly being on the front lines is possible (however repelling) that they built more Prometheus class ships and they directed the material for the armor where is was thought best applied.
I don't think you're the only person to equate those dark patches with the Ablative Armor. I think I did the same thing at first before the magnifying glass came out. Even my ship, the Enigma shows I was thinking along those lines of darker and lighter patches signifying different hull materials.
Voyager's Warp Core
Well these cores started off with Type 7...Voyager's is a type 9 Tricylic input manifold warp core could be exactly that. But disappoint if the ship is sporting enhanced power and had that much problem with Kazon ships. Regardless I think it's clear that Voyager's articulation frame, hull geometry and warp field enhancers are the real reason for it's top speed. The Admiral described it as "smart". I think if it has an enhanced core and they flaunted it's ability to go 3 years without refueling then the design was about efficiency than about raw power.
Prometheus
I'll have to correct you on the issue of stopping to deal with Bonchune. The ships never left warp but they did stop the ship after the Romulan Commander discovered the transmission sent six hours ago and they managed to anesthetize the invaders. I assume there are cut scenes with Voyager making another Holodoctor so there is a variable passage of time to consider and thus concede the point. Touche' again, monsieur.
Star Trek Star Wars Trek Assessment Website
Curious, your apprehension... I must be honest I've almost always found him extremely literal and insightful. I was mistrustful of the site at first but my research often paralleled Darkstar's. Most attractively is how he often leaves the conclusion to the reader especially if shaky. He and the scientia ex astris guy became my favorite sources. If you think my work on Trek abilities in this discussion were well researched you should see the research I pulled visually and EU canon for Star Wars on some of these claims. I think I may have silenced Mike Wong's arguement permanently with all the goodies I found. I'm always shocked no one catches some of these juicey details that really just put the final word on the whole thing..
Personally I prefer more proof than speculation and I have to say a lot of these "discussions" are more about rampant speculation and contradictory math than anything else...and I always wandered what his beef against Steamrunner was. All of the First Contact ships were pretty pathetic design wise but Steamrunner offends the least. Perhaps it's tricobalt torpedo from Armada sways my bias. (I'd always get a fleet of them and sneak bomb enemy installations...*sigh* so much fun.
Certainly. I commented on this, and in the manner I did, more as a general point than as something specific to this discussion. "I don't see you proposing a better solution" is a mindset that I seek to combat whenever I encounter it because it's not only wrong, but can even be dangerous. If I come across as overly harsh on the matter, I apologize. I feel strongly about it.
Don't feel bad about this at all.
I took it exactly how you meant it. It's a concept turned cliche that annoys me aswell and I certainly don't mind being kept on my toes.
Sovereigns Top Speed
From what I'm gather (had to read it twice) You think Prometheus and Defiant are examples of ships with top speeds that somehow correlate with Sovereign...
-I'll give you one thing. Our discussion has explored this idea to have a certain amount of validity since we know a bit more than when we started out in the other thread. The multistream cores offer more power. Sound of Her voice establishes that part of faster speeds is hull integrity and power to main hull integrity. Ergo they have to have power.
-The ship is also not terrible in hull Geometry.
But there is no reinforcement for the sleeker Saucer and the Warp coils are much smaller and less massive than Galaxy.
The Warbird here is an important factor..perhaps I placed to much importance. I had previously though I read that the top speed of the D'Derridix was warp 8 from the Tin Man Episode. This would have given us a lower limit but I apparently was wrong. I'll have to do more digging. But I also find this quote in Memory Alpha interesting concerning how the Singularity Core limits a ships top speed. So it's a bit of give and take. That's something to take in consideration with it's overall speed. I need to do more research here. I'll be scouring The Magezine on the weekend.
The Distance of the Neural Zone.
I see what you mean here, Touche', touche...so not quite back to square one.
You know you're not the only one to consider using the course headings to triangulate these positions...I just haven't done it yet...
Defiant II's Armor
You say it's not "necessarily reasonable" to assume Defiant II doesn't have the armor. In absence of evidence that the armor exist what tells us that it does exist? I will grant you that it's not unreasonable to assume the armor is present on Defiant II but it's effectiveness isn't quite enough to assume the affirmative. Remember that Captain Benteen confirmed that it was not apart of the original design.
This is how I see it. I think Ablative Armor is a material that was undergoing testing and the Advanced Starship Design Project explored it's applications. It's possible that Defiant and Prometheus were considered candidates however there are too many unknowns. One of which is "how available is the material." The second consideration is the War itself. Sisko took some liberties with a war assets. I guess that was fine with Star Fleet before the outbreak of war but these are now extremely valuable war resources and I despite Sisko constantly being on the front lines is possible (however repelling) that they built more Prometheus class ships and they directed the material for the armor where is was thought best applied.
All fair points. We are, as you point out, presented with a distinct lack of evidence one way or another on this particular point. Had DS9 been more consistent in the way it presented shields vs. hull hits, we might be able to derive something from Defiant II's combat during the Battle of Cardassia, but more often than not, impacts that show a complete absence of shield interference are referred to as hits against the shield.
In any case, whether or not Defiant II had ablative armor is only very tangentially related to our original question, so I am inclined to table the matter for now.
Voyager's Warp Core
Well these cores started off with Type 7...Voyager's is a type 9 Tricylic input manifold warp core could be exactly that. But disappoint if the ship is sporting enhanced power and had that much problem with Kazon ships. Regardless I think it's clear that Voyager's articulation frame, hull geometry and warp field enhancers are the real reason for it's top speed. The Admiral described it as "smart". I think if it has an enhanced core and they flaunted it's ability to go 3 years without refueling then the design was about efficiency than about raw power.
That's particularly curious, isn't it? That Voyager, launched in 2371, would have a Class 9 core, but Enterprise-E would have something that at least appeared to be of the Class 7 variety, launched a year later. Of course, that presupposes that Starfleet will always opt to install the newest design into subsequent starships, which may not be the case at all. If Class 7 is simply representative of a high-yield core, while Class 9 is a high-efficiency core, that may make all the difference.
Getting wildly speculative, we might even suggest that that the Class designation is not representative of development advances, but rather intended uses and performance windows. Defiant may be using a Type 7 Mk 12 or some such, for example, while Voyager's using the first ever of the Type 9 cores, a new type of core aimed at speed and longevity rather than high power output.
Prometheus
I'll have to correct you on the issue of stopping to deal with Bonchune. The ships never left warp
Whoops! You're absolutely right. Here's a YouTube clip of the battle. I could've sworn I saw them drop out of warp for the actual conflict, after splitting into the vectors, but I was completely wrong about that.
but they did stop the ship after the Romulan Commander discovered the transmission sent six hours ago and they managed to anesthetize the invaders. I assume there are cut scenes with Voyager making another Holodoctor so there is a variable passage of time to consider and thus concede the point. Touche' again, monsieur.
Yeah, there are quite a few cuts back to Voyager throughout all of this, so the passage of time becomes quite nebulous indeed!
Star Trek Star Wars Trek Assessment Website
Curious, your apprehension... I must be honest I've almost always found him extremely literal and insightful. I was mistrustful of the site at first but my research often paralleled Darkstar's. Most attractively is how he often leaves the conclusion to the reader especially if shaky. He and the scientia ex astris guy became my favorite sources. If you think my work on Trek abilities in this discussion were well researched you should see the research I pulled visually and EU canon for Star Wars on some of these claims. I think I may have silenced Mike Wong's arguement permanently with all the goodies I found. I'm always shocked no one catches some of these juicey details that really just put the final word on the whole thing..
Personally I prefer more proof than speculation and I have to say a lot of these "discussions" are more about rampant speculation and contradictory math than anything else...
Heh, I'm amused that you regard two sites so highly that I tend to hold in fairly low esteem. I'd rather not get into a discussion about the merits and why-fors about various contributors and participants in the ST/SW debate, though. That will take us very far afield indeed and my own days of that debate are looooong behind me.
and I always wandered what his beef against Steamrunner was. All of the First Contact ships were pretty pathetic design wise but Steamrunner offends the least. Perhaps it's tricobalt torpedo from Armada sways my bias. (I'd always get a fleet of them and sneak bomb enemy installations...*sigh* so much fun.
Right there with ya on the Armada bit. A front line of Defiants distracting from a squadron of Steamrunners bombarding an enemy base. Ah, yes.
Speaking of getting far afield, though...
Don't feel bad about this at all.
I took it exactly how you meant it. It's a concept turned cliche that annoys me aswell and I certainly don't mind being kept on my toes.
Excellent.
Sovereigns Top Speed
From what I'm gather (had to read it twice) You think Prometheus and Defiant are examples of ships with top speeds that somehow correlate with Sovereign...
Oh no, not at all. Defiant is a pretty clear under-performer when it comes to its warp capabilities. That's well-established and supported by canon. Similarly, Prometheus is pretty clearly very fast.
Sovereign is their contemporary, more or less, which is the only reason their performance is relevant to Sovereign's.
-I'll give you one thing. Our discussion has explored this idea to have a certain amount of validity since we know a bit more than when we started out in the other thread. The multistream cores offer more power. Sound of Her voice establishes that part of faster speeds is hull integrity and power to main hull integrity. Ergo they have to have power.
-The ship is also not terrible in hull Geometry.
I think it's definitely a fair assessment to say that Sovereign does not want for power, at the very least. Whether that translates into warp speed or not, well, I am obviously inclined to say "probably."
I must confess that I am inclined to accept the warp 9.7 figure in the absence of any other. I would never go so far as to claim this was canon/true/defensible in a debate, but it's the sort of thing I would include in any work of my own. It seems a plausible prediction of the sleeker design's performance over its Galaxy and Excelsior predecessors, tracks with the statement that Enterprise is "the most advanced ship in the fleet" (until Prometheus launches!), and so on. But, again, this is a completely indefensible number beyond these vague qualifications. The only number I would ever try to defend is "something above warp 8."
But there is no reinforcement for the sleeker Saucer and the Warp coils are much smaller and less massive than Galaxy.
The coils are smaller, but coil size doesn't necessarily correlate with warp performance (c.f. Voyager, which has considerably smaller coils than Galaxy). Galaxy is also considerably more voluminous than Sovereign, which implies (but does not necessarily dictate) that Sovereign has a lower mass, which may play a factor as well. It's noteworthy, I think, that both of Starfleet's very high warp ships (Intrepid and Prometheus) are on the somewhat smaller side. That only goes so far, of course, since the tiny Defiant has such terrible warp performance.
Further, the lack of reinforcement may not be necessary, depending on hull geometry. Reinforcement's going to be required when the hull design conflicts with the necessities of warp travel (e.g. Defiant, Borg Cubes, potentially Scimitar, potentially D'Deridex). It may be that Sovereign's frame is well-optimized for warp travel and needs no additional structural reinforcement. Again, purely speculative, but not a postulation out of line with its hull design.
The Warbird here is an important factor..perhaps I placed to much importance. I had previously though I read that the top speed of the D'Derridix was warp 8 from the Tin Man Episode. This would have given us a lower limit but I apparently was wrong. I'll have to do more digging. But I also find this quote in Memory Alpha interesting concerning how the Singularity Core limits a ships top speed. So it's a bit of give and take. That's something to take in consideration with it's overall speed. I need to do more research here. I'll be scouring The Magezine on the weekend.
I have some memory of warp eight and D'Deridex being related, too, but I can't place it. A Google search for "warbird 'warp eight' transcript" and "romulan 'warp eight' transcript" yields nothing wherein a Warbird is described as traveling that speed, so I've no idea where this comes from.
I always took the line about singularity cores limiting ship speed to be a question of mass. Again, this is pure speculation on my part, but if mass plays a role in affecting a warp field (which seems a reasonable guess, given the dangers of using warp drive in a star system and the nature of distorting space-time), then a larger ship is going to have to overcome/compensate for its own mass in the midst of its warp field. A miniature black hole is going to add a huge mass to a ship and you'll have to balance the size of the singularity (and thus your ship's power capability) against the increase in mass (and thus the "drag" on your warp performance). One might guess that Scimitar gets around this with three perfectly-scaled singularities spread throughout the ship (and thus the warp field).
Anyway, that's enough wild speculation from me.
The Distance of the Neural Zone.
I see what you mean here, Touche', touche...so not quite back to square one.
You know you're not the only one to consider using the course headings to triangulate these positions...I just haven't done it yet...
It's probably going to prove difficult-to-impossible, but it's a fun idea.
As it stands, I'm thinking along the same lines. If the Intrepid class has a new high tech core it probably incorporates perhaps a triple stream, I feels like it's someone's idea of fuel efficient 4 cylinder ecco boost. It does give us a perspective on how long it takes a typical ship to refuel. Many would have guessed that refueling occurred every five year due to the five your mission aspect to the original starship Enterprise.
However...
Considering the a fore mentioned choices and display off knowledge of the three people in question I have to assume while Defiant may typically operate at high warp eight, and Prometheus at Warp 9.9, I'm still in the position of question what is holding Sovereign back or just how powerful is the Scimitar to able to achieve such a high warp speed without any consideration to hull geometry. Even a borg cube is better suited for high warp. Seven has explained that much in terms of temporal stresses and compensation with SIF fields
The problem with assuming Enterprise is Warp 9.7 is that it (as said, wasn't maxing out and nor was their any attempt to to so.) that it was capable of faster and considering Scimitar displayed no signs of distress then this to contradicts that a three individuals new tacticaly the abilities of at least one of the ship in question This could be because the Scimitar had already caught them and they had no time to react. This is the reason I can't eliminate the warp 8 zone (whether low or high warp 8).
I appear to be siding on the conclusion that Enterprise Sovereign Class is mimicking the abilities of Galaxy and it's highest sustainable speed is Warp 9.2. and sprint speed at warp 9.55 and I think the reason for it is the possibly power hogging regenerative shields. There is at least some confirmation that Sovereign has a hug energy reserve like Defiant has for weapons, sovereign has for shields in that in Insurrection Sovereign managed to dump the core and the shields remained at 75%, which I originally attributed to auxiliary impulse reactors (which Sovereign apparently doesn't have since the ship only has two impulse engines)
But this is an imperfect compromise. The knowledge of Sovereign's abilities still begs the question if the best speed a Romulans was ever known to achieve is warp 9.6 and the Sovereign is assumed to be warp 9.7 then where did the precognitive abilities come from to know Scimitar was stalking simply on the basis that the Bassen Rift would not allow communications? And why does that even matter since Enterprise could have sent the fleet the message that they were attacked by Romulans. Frankly the Fleet should entered the Neutral Zone at that point. (Yes we're dealing with an extremely weak plot and may never be resolvable but at least there was a better attempt to try)
Coil Size
If Star Trek Enterprise is to be taken as canon then according to Trip's astonishment of the Constitution's Coil is a Bigger is better situation (Said during the In a Mirror Darkly) While Voyager maybe seen as having other ways to augment it's abilities other than buy coil size and warp cores (such as the field reinforcment positions on the saucer (although one does not have to take that as canon but rather meanderings on the ERTL model specs.) But since no other ship has it I'm personally inclined to agree with a "smarter level of strength"
It seems resolution still escapes us.
(I'm currently feverishly sick so If I don't respond immediately assume exteneded recovery time)
The coils are smaller, but coil size doesn't necessarily correlate with warp performance (c.f. Voyager, which has considerably smaller coils than Galaxy). Galaxy is also considerably more voluminous than Sovereign, which implies (but does not necessarily dictate) that Sovereign has a lower mass, which may play a factor as well. It's noteworthy, I think, that both of Starfleet's very high warp ships (Intrepid and Prometheus) are on the somewhat smaller side. That only goes so far, of course, since the tiny Defiant has such terrible warp performance.
My point exactly vis-a-vis the Defiant and Intrepid warp performance. Let us assume, for the sake of argument, the Defiant core and the Intrepid cores have roughly equivalent power output. However, the Defiant's hull shape, being optimized for combat, is less-than-optimal for high-speed warp travel. Thus, despite have more power, it goes slower than a similarly-powered Intrepid. Consider a Ferrari 458 engine making 562hp. Put it in the Ferrari 458 body and it'll go over 200mph. Put that same engine in the body of a Peterbuilt tractor-trailer truck and it'll go...much slower.
I'm also going to reiterate points made in the prior thread -- but touched upon briefly in your earlier posts -- that there are more data points to core performance besides raw power output. Efficiency of the core and the warp drive it's connected to are huge factors in top speed. Durability for extended, unsupported, unmaintained operations is another. The Defiant clearly isn't intended for long missions due to the lack of creature comforts, basic replicators, small crew size, etc. No doubt the designers planned on that when doing their MTBF calculations on how often Defiant's would head back to base for maintenance. For a contemporary example, compare a Top Fuel dragster to a Honda Accord. The former makes thousands of horsepower, goes over 300mph in less than a quarter mile, but is torn down completely *between* quarter mile runs and consumes *gallons* of fuel per pass. The latter obviously makes less power, goes slower, but gets 30+mpg and can run 200,000 miles without being torn down once.
The problem with assuming Enterprise is Warp 9.7 is that it (as said, wasn't maxing out and nor was their any attempt to to so.) that it was capable of faster and considering Scimitar displayed no signs of distress then this to contradicts that a three individuals new tacticaly the abilities of at least one of the ship in question This could be because the Scimitar had already caught them and they had no time to react. This is the reason I can't eliminate the warp 8 zone (whether low or high warp 8).
You keep coming back to the ST:N example of Scimitar vs. Sovereign as the primary stumbling block to accepting higher speeds for the Sovereign vs. Galaxy. The obvious answer to this conundrum is the absurdly stupid plot foisted on us by the lazy writers of the screenplay (not to mention a vast, poorly-lit, bottomless pit with gravity somewhere in the bowels of the ship so Riker can fight a bad guy). However, we must try to see past this idiocy and see if there is a reasonable explanation that fits within established Trek canon. I think there is.
You're extrapolating the Sovereign is slower than the Galaxy. You're doing this by comparing Warbird top speeds from Tin Man to the Galaxy class and assuming the Scimitar, while an obvious improvement on the Warbird, doesn't have some fundamental warp drive breakthrough. Herein lies a key point: *what if* the Scimitar *does* have some new whizz-bang warp drive "turbo boost" mode that allows it something like warp 9.975 for short periods? Forget hull geometry for a moment; obvious Borg cubes and diamonds don't have any particularly streamlined-looking shape, yet they achieve very high warp speeds. We know the Romulans are very much into espionage. There's nothing to say they haven't stolen Starfleet warp tech from, say, the Intrepid, Prometheus, and Sovereign designs and made good use of the data. Furthermore, it's reasonable to assume the Romulans wouldn't give a damn about "subspace pollution" like Starfleet does, thus they'd emphasize top speed over the eco-friendly Starfleet drive performance. With three singularity cores, the Scimitar would likely outpower the Sovereign. The Scimitar is clearly a no-comprise design from a race known for its militancy. It's logical to assume they'd put everything they could into a ship that could best Starfleet's top-of-the-line, albeit in a design that likely costs a lot more, is more difficult to maintain, and is much less friendly to the crew and the environment.
As it stands, I'm thinking along the same lines. If the Intrepid class has a new high tech core it probably incorporates perhaps a triple stream, I feels like it's someone's idea of fuel efficient 4 cylinder ecco boost. It does give us a perspective on how long it takes a typical ship to refuel. Many would have guessed that refueling occurred every five year due to the five your mission aspect to the original starship Enterprise.
Refeuling's also going to depend on how much time is spent at full (or even high) reactor output, too. The "five year mission" may expect a few warp hops at ~warp six or so (probably the most commonly cited warp factor) to get between stars, and then a fair amount of time spent at impulse studying planets or other phenomena. High-speed warp chases are typically emergency response issues and may throw things like "five year mission" provisioning out of whack.
However...
Considering the a fore mentioned choices and display off knowledge of the three people in question I have to assume while Defiant may typically operate at high warp eight, and Prometheus at Warp 9.9, I'm still in the position of question what is holding Sovereign back or just how powerful is the Scimitar to able to achieve such a high warp speed without any consideration to hull geometry. Even a borg cube is better suited for high warp. Seven has explained that much in terms of temporal stresses and compensation with SIF fields
The problem with assuming Enterprise is Warp 9.7 is that it (as said, wasn't maxing out and nor was their any attempt to to so.) that it was capable of faster and considering Scimitar displayed no signs of distress then this to contradicts that a three individuals new tacticaly the abilities of at least one of the ship in question This could be because the Scimitar had already caught them and they had no time to react. This is the reason I can't eliminate the warp 8 zone (whether low or high warp 8).
Oh, and you may well be correct about that, too! I think my only negative reaction to the idea of "high warp 8" as a sort of compromise of the canon data we have is that the warp power curves drop dramatically at integer values (I'm pretty sure, though not positive, that the chart shown in the TNG TM actually appears on-screen in an episode, thereby canonizing it even if the rest of the book isn't necessarily canon). That would lead me to think warp 9 would be a more desirable target than warp 8.6 or 8.8 or whatever.
And, again, I wouldn't dream of trying to defend 9.7. There's absolutely no canon evidence for it.
I appear to be siding on the conclusion that Enterprise Sovereign Class is mimicking the abilities of Galaxy and it's highest sustainable speed is Warp 9.2. and sprint speed at warp 9.55 and I think the reason for it is the possibly power hogging regenerative shields. There is at least some confirmation that Sovereign has a hug energy reserve like Defiant has for weapons, sovereign has for shields in that in Insurrection Sovereign managed to dump the core and the shields remained at 75%, which I originally attributed to auxiliary impulse reactors (which Sovereign apparently doesn't have since the ship only has two impulse engines)
But this is an imperfect compromise. The knowledge of Sovereign's abilities still begs the question if the best speed a Romulans was ever known to achieve is warp 9.6 and the Sovereign is assumed to be warp 9.7 then where did the precognitive abilities come from to know Scimitar was stalking simply on the basis that the Bassen Rift would not allow communications? And why does that even matter since Enterprise could have sent the fleet the message that they were attacked by Romulans. Frankly the Fleet should entered the Neutral Zone at that point. (Yes we're dealing with an extremely weak plot and may never be resolvable but at least there was a better attempt to try)
Well, even Galaxy had to push itself for warp 9.6. It may well be that something like warp 9.2 becomes a de rigueur warp speed for Starfleet's newer designs, excepting Defiant for reasons already discussed.
I don't think we even know that the D'Deridex can pull warp 9.6, do we? Picard's statement in "Tin Man" was only that Enterprise was traveling at "high warp." This could be anything from warp 8 and up. Given that he didn't say "maximum warp," they may not have even been traveling at warp 9.2; they may have been doing, say, warp 9 (circling back to that integer warp factors = less power draw thing) and that might be the speed taxing the D'Deridex chasing them. We just don't know.
Coil Size
If Star Trek Enterprise is to be taken as canon then according to Trip's astonishment of the Constitution's Coil is a Bigger is better situation (Said during the In a Mirror Darkly) While Voyager maybe seen as having other ways to augment it's abilities other than buy coil size and warp cores (such as the field reinforcment positions on the saucer (although one does not have to take that as canon but rather meanderings on the ERTL model specs.) But since no other ship has it I'm personally inclined to agree with a "smarter level of strength"
It seems resolution still escapes us.
Ehh, when it comes to stuff like that, Enterprise (and by extension, presumably also TOS) may not be operating with the same paradigm as TNG. Tons of complicating factors come into play: the TMP-era refits, the Transwarp Experiment (which I interpret as having been successful in introducing a new "type" of warp drive, hence necessitating the reformulation of the warp scale), and so on all point to a major leap forward in warp drive technology that more than justifies a "bigger != better" interpretation.
(I'm currently feverishly sick so If I don't respond immediately assume exteneded recovery time)
You keep coming back to the ST:N example of Scimitar vs. Sovereign as the primary stumbling block to accepting higher speeds for the Sovereign vs. Galaxy. The obvious answer to this conundrum is the absurdly stupid plot foisted on us by the lazy writers of the screenplay (not to mention a vast, poorly-lit, bottomless pit with gravity somewhere in the bowels of the ship so Riker can fight a bad guy). However, we must try to see past this idiocy and see if there is a reasonable explanation that fits within established Trek canon. I think there is.
So, you obviously see past this with your final sentences here, but...we've long-since established in this thread that "well, the plot was dumb" isn't relevant. The plot is, so we have to work with what we're given. A "non-diegetic" interpretation isn't really useful for this sort of discussion.
You're extrapolating the Sovereign is slower than the Galaxy. You're doing this by comparing Warbird top speeds from Tin Man to the Galaxy class and assuming the Scimitar, while an obvious improvement on the Warbird, doesn't have some fundamental warp drive breakthrough. Herein lies a key point: *what if* the Scimitar *does* have some new whizz-bang warp drive "turbo boost" mode that allows it something like warp 9.975 for short periods?
Mostly, Occam's Razor. There's nothing to suggest that this is the case and it makes unnecessary assumptions in order to produce a desired outcome, rather than deriving a conclusion from only the data available. It's an extra term used to balance an equation in a desired way, rather than trying to see what result comes from an equation comprised only of known variables.
Forget hull geometry for a moment; obvious Borg cubes and diamonds don't have any particularly streamlined-looking shape, yet they achieve very high warp speeds.
Yes, but we know they do this by diverting absurd amounts of power to their SIF, per Seven's statements. Defiant has to take its weapons offline to divert enough power to its SIF to achieve Warp 9.5. While it does stand to reason that Scimitar has a stronger-than-usual SIF due to its status as a heavy warship, it's not just a handwavable detail.
We know the Romulans are very much into espionage. There's nothing to say they haven't stolen Starfleet warp tech from, say, the Intrepid, Prometheus, and Sovereign designs and made good use of the data.
There is: hull shape. The reason Intrepid, Prometheus, and--possibly--Sovereign can achieve the high speeds that they can appears to be a combination of size (neither Intrepid nor Prometheus are especially large and Sovereign is very low-volume) and hull shape (all of them are sleek, which is often described as being desirable for dealing with subspace fields), in addition to tech advancements.
Scimitar, on the other hand, is a collection of giant, pointy blocks. There's nothing at all about the ship that even comes close to resembling hull forms possessed by the known fast ships. If she's capable of competitive warp speeds (e.g. warp 9+), then all the evidence points toward being very SIF-reliant for that.
Furthermore, it's reasonable to assume the Romulans wouldn't give a damn about "subspace pollution" like Starfleet does, thus they'd emphasize top speed over the eco-friendly Starfleet drive performance.
That much is true, though the implication is that Starfleet's new warp engines "fixed" this issue, since warp 5 is routinely exceeded after this point without mention of the issue. (Another instance wherein the writers probably just realized this was a bad idea, but that is -- again -- irrelevant.)
With three singularity cores, the Scimitar would likely outpower the Sovereign. The Scimitar is clearly a no-comprise design from a race known for its militancy. It's logical to assume they'd put everything they could into a ship that could best Starfleet's top-of-the-line, albeit in a design that likely costs a lot more, is more difficult to maintain, and is much less friendly to the crew and the environment.
This is certainly the case. Scimitar has twin shields, a ridiculously huge weapons array, and can maintain some or all of this while cloaked and pursuing the Federation flagship at the latter's maximum warp, whatever that is. She definitely out-powers Sovereign. Enterprise-E survived that fight only due to Shinzon's desire to keep Picard alive. In a straight-up fight where Enterprise's destruction was the goal, Scimitar likely wouldn't have even taken a noteworthy hit.
Starfleet's goal among other things seems to weigh heavily on technical efficiency (or at the very least it should).
To that end, I find it relatively implausible the Enterprise-E is slower than the Enterprise-D.
A state of the art 'flagship' of the Federation being limited to lower Warp factors than a class that came before it while being of newer design?
Not very likely.
At the very least, the Enterprise-E would have to be on par with the Galaxy class if not surpass it when it comes to Warp speed.
SF may have shifted focus away from larger vessels because they may not see any advantages in going bigger than the Galaxy class for the time being.
As such, any new design might be developed along the lines of incorporating higher efficiency while reducing size (which might also speed up construction - though in a fully automated production - which the Federation would be idiotic not to use - Starship construction times would be minimal, seeing how manual labor only slows things down and is downright inefficient compared to automation - this is something the writers of Trek seemingly missed, because, realistically, you cannot have a society like the Federation without massive automation in play - which is the main reason behind production of abundance, and yet was retarded in so many ways by the writers its not even funny).
The Intrepid and Prometheus seem to follow this particular premise of efficiency (as could the Sovereign class).
As for the Defiant - most SF ships do not seem to be specialized, but rather incorporate 'versatility' in their design, and the Defiant was specifically said to have been a 'warship' (a prototype on top of other things and part of the new battle fleet which never came to fruition due to the Borg threat being diminished - per Sisko's own admission - the Defiant seems to be the only vessel that made it off the drawing board into actual development, but was never finished/ironed out what with all the bugs).
The Prometheus was stated to be: 'Experimental prototype designed for deep-space tactical assignments'.
It seems to emulate the Defiant heavily for tactical scenarios, but was obviously capable of overcoming Warp speed limitations the Defiant had to endure and is able to operate in deep space, whereas the Defiant was likely not designed with deep-space in mind but to operate inside or close to Federation space.
The Intrepid for example could be a downsized Galaxy class - same capabilities in most/all areas, but with higher Warp efficiency (probably in part due to variable warp nacelles, Class 9 warp drive and hull geometry in general) and possibly reduced torpedo capacity (though with the torpedoes being the size they are, I find it highly unlikely the Intrepid, which is 15 decks large can only have 36 torpedoes at any given time - it seems more likely the vessel was not launched with all supplies or full torpedo compliment because it was sent on a 2 week mission to retrieve a single Maqui ship of a highly inferior design).
The Sovereign in turn could feature similar enhancements like the Intrepid when it comes to efficiencies and actually end up going faster than the Galaxy class.
It does feature a more 'sleek' design - however... I don't think hull geometry would particularly have to be relevant for subspace fields (given that SF has the technical ability/prowess for manipulating them) - although it seems to be implied to be of help compared to the 'brute force' of siphoning more power to SIF.
The Scimitar was a different ship all together, though it WAS quite similar to the Prometheus in terms of tactical capabilities.
And while we do not have official info on how many main power cores they had... if they did have 3 quantum singularity cores, then that would put the ship on par with the Prometheus (which also has 3 cores) weapons-wise, but I'm not sure about its shields (the Prometheus was a prototype at the time it was stolen and some of its tech might not have been finalized, but the Romulans might have transmitted enough back to the Tal'Shiar to eventually create the Scimitar).
At any rate, what the Prometheus might have lacked in weapons amount (enough for full phaser coverage, but not necessary to have gazillion torpedo tubes), it probably compensated in raw power output.
Plus, the Scimitar was larger, so the Romulans probably wanted to design it to outclass anything the Federation might have (and I don't think it would be difficult to make or maintain with automation and access to large resources the Empire seemingly has).
We do have one more thing to think about.
Vessel mass.
Voyager encountered a Krenim Temporal ship in 'Year of Hell' and it was noted by 7 of 9 that the vessel's mass prohibited them from exceeding Warp 6.
That thing was rather big, but it also had 1 temporal core... and while the ship was relatively powerful, it was specifically designed for temporal manipulation - as such, it may not have been particularly capable or efficient at for Warp travel (or at the very least, it wasn't necessary to make the ship capable of reaching higher speeds seeing how it wasn't in any particular hurry), especially while being out of space time.
If the ship's mass in general plays a part, SF's bigger ships like the Galaxy could be faster due to usage of different materials which may be lighter and stronger than the ones used by the Krenim, and we know SF optimizes their ships for efficiency, to recycle nearly everything, etc.
Also, the Sovereign probably has a lower mass compared to the Galaxy given its size and deck count - and it might feature modified hull materials that further reduce its overall mass compared to the materials used on the Galaxy class (which in turn could receive those modifications during regular upgrades in Starbases etc. - the old hull plates being harvested for their resources and reconstituted into newer hull materials which can improve upon overall efficiency, higher Warp velocity and overall hull strength).
As you say McC,
The Higher energy requirements on the the warp curve shot that appeared on screen makes it canon. That's the reason why initially proposed warp 8. Alternatively we could suggest warp nine and O'brians comment meant that Defiant would reach warp 9. I really don't know. I can only say that Sisko orders warp 8 more often and has never said warp nine and has said maximum warp of course.
Curious though I do recall during the episode Home Front and Paradise Lost Obrian imply they should be able to out run an an excelsior class starship. But the highest speed quoted is the only speed quoted. "Warp 9" by Sulu in TUC. So that at least makes some kind of confirmation of Defiant's best speed.
The Max Warp of a Warbird.
I think we can attribute our miss persception that the Warbird is capable of Warp 9.6 is that it came from Memory Alpha. I'm betting that I've looked it up before and at some point it was changed because there was never any actual on screen evidence that it actually achieved that speed but someone assumed that 9.6 was the Enterprises maximum war so ergo... I understand why. Clearly the Warbird kept pace with them so what ever Enterprises speed was so was the Warpbird. However the proper assumption (since I believe the journey took days then the top speed should be 9.2. That doesn't help the Sovereign's case at all.
At the very least, the Enterprise-E would have to be on par with the Galaxy class if not surpass it when it comes to Warp speed.
I appreciate the input but I can't assume the affirmative without supporting evidence.
-You should also be aware that Voyager confirmed that Hull geometry is critical when the Kazon impacted the saucer section and prevented warp speed. It also implies Voyager doesn't have the power to over come such a deficiency.
I've also located arguments on the internet concerning the difference between warp core and quantum singularity core and why Scimitar had the first rather than the latter. They may have been nit picking. There is every indication that Trek uses "warp core" rather indiscriminately.
As you say McC,
The Higher energy requirements on the the warp curve shot that appeared on screen makes it canon. That's the reason why initially proposed warp 8. Alternatively we could suggest warp nine and O'brians comment meant that Defiant would reach warp 9. I really don't know. I can only say that Sisko orders warp 8 more often and has never said warp nine and has said maximum warp of course.
Curious though I do recall during the episode Home Front and Paradise Lost Obrian imply they should be able to out run an an excelsior class starship. But the highest speed quoted is the only speed quoted. "Warp 9" by Sulu in TUC. So that at least makes some kind of confirmation of Defiant's best speed.
*O'Brien
You're definitely right about the sheer commonality of warp eight being ordered. Almost seems to be the de facto urgent-but-not-desperate speed. Possibly because once you start getting into warp 9 territory, power consumption rises dramatically the faster you go, and it's far more efficient to do warp 8 than warp 8.6 or some such, so the trade-off in speed vs. power saved is preferable to going one warp factor higher. That would fit with the existing evidence, I think.
Also, so far as we know, all of the TMP-era movies still used the "old" warp scale, so an order of warp 9 in TUC won't be directly equivalent to the same order in TNG+. Once again, inconclusive. (
SULU (on viewscreen): I'm getting underway now. We're now in Alpha Quadrant. The chances of our reaching the conference in time are slim.
...
SULU: In range?
LOJUR: Not yet, sir.
SULU: Come on. Come on!
LOJUR: She'll fly apart!
SULU: Fly her apart, then!
The Max Warp of a Warbird.
I think we can attribute our miss persception that the Warbird is capable of Warp 9.6 is that it came from Memory Alpha. I'm betting that I've looked it up before and at some point it was changed because there was never any actual on screen evidence that it actually achieved that speed but someone assumed that 9.6 was the Enterprises maximum war so ergo... I understand why. Clearly the Warbird kept pace with them so what ever Enterprises speed was so was the Warpbird. However the proper assumption (since I believe the journey took days then the top speed should be 9.2. That doesn't help the Sovereign's case at all.
Well, it might. The dialog references needing to exceed their normal power output by 30% to match Enterprise-D.
If we assume Enterprise-D was, in fact, traveling at warp 9.2 ("maximum warp" vs. "high warp") and we take as canon the "power" curve as-presented in the TNG TM (questionable, since it wasn't seen in precise detail on-screen; only the curve itself was visible), then we can actually do some math on this.
Interesting side note: a lot of the original curve looks mispositioned when you drag it into Photoshop. Warp 1 does not line up with the 1c tickmark, even though we know for certain that Warp 1 = 1c from numerous onscreen statements. The Warp 9 power curve "dip" also doesn't line up with the warp 9 tickmark. As such, I have made the (arguably unscientific) decision to manipulate the curves (through resizing only) to fit on-screen statements (warp 1 = 1c, warp 2 = 10c, warp 3 = 39c, warp 9 peak transition threshold = warp 9 tickmark).
Warp 9.2 corresponds to something around 10^9 MW/cochrane (my edition actually says megajoules per cochrane, but I understand later editions correct this) and just shy of 2000 cochranes (going by the left axis of "Velocity in multiples of light speed" and the description text above the chart equating x c = x cochranes). Being generous, that works out to ~2*10^12 megawatts to maintain warp 9.2 (side note: this is >22kg of "perfect" matter/antimatter annihilation every second; that'll eat through your fuel right quick!). For comparison, warp 8 is ~1.3x10^11 MW.
30% lower than the 9.2 value is 1.4x10^12 MW, which is a full order of magnitude higher than the warp 8 value. Warp 9 (once the curve is fixed) corresponds to about 8x10^8 MW/cochrane, with a cochrane value of ~1800...which just so happens to be 1.44*10^12 MW!
There are a bunch of flaws in this argument, which I'm all too happy to point out:
I futzed with the chart. My futzing does not explicitly violate canon (and, in fact, is meant to make it better match canon), but it's certainly unofficial.
It assumes that the axes (MW/cochrane and multiples of c) are multipliable based on quasi-canon explanations. They may not be.
It disregards scenarios wherein the cochrane value, warp factor, and c do not mesh well (numerous instances of this) and straight-assumes that "multiples of c" on the chart is a direct synonym for "cochrane value."
It assumes that this represents power required rather than power consumed. This is a big one, because Enterprise-D may need to put significantly more or less power into creating a desired warp field than the D'Deridex does.
It continues to assume that "high warp" is equal to "maximum warp" for the scenario in question.
There are probably numerous other flaws, but it's at least one fairly straight-forward way to derive a top normal speed for a D'Deridex of warp 9.
The only exception to the TOS scale used in TMP is Star Trek IV which used the divisions of warp 9 to 9.6 as they reached the sun but it was produced the same year as the Next Generation. Regardless I thought Sulu's note of warp 9 was in Flashbacks of Voyager but it's actually a cut line for TUC and so inadmissible. Hard to believe one of the most recognizable ships of the Federation Fleet has no statement on speed at all. I 'm guessing that's due to lack of Hero ship status.
High Warp
I'd also like to note that TNG: The Chase establishes that at least warp 9 and up is considered high warp and including maximum warp which necessitated repairs to the propulsion system. But I understand what you mean.
Interesting side note: a lot of the original curve looks mispositioned when you drag it into Photoshop. Warp 1 does not line up with the 1c tickmark, even though we know for certain that Warp 1 = 1c from numerous onscreen statements. The Warp 9 power curve "dip" also doesn't line up with the warp 9 tickmark. As such, I have made the (arguably unscientific) decision to manipulate the curves (through resizing only) to fit on-screen statements (warp 1 = 1c, warp 2 = 10c, warp 3 = 39c, warp 9 peak transition threshold = warp 9 tickmark).
War Bird's Top Speed
So are you saying that the adjusted curve just happens to match a Warp 9 output for the Enterprise? That's a remarkable coincidence. Regardless of flaws that's quite telling. I will say that it's true that the Warbird is likely to put out more power for the speed but isn't that covered by Data proportionate value of 30%? This may be the most definitive deduction of War Bird Speeds we have, a sort of backdoor canon.
The only exception to the TOS scale used in TMP is Star Trek IV which used the divisions of warp 9 to 9.6 as they reached the sun but it was produced the same year as the Next Generation. Regardless I thought Sulu's note of warp 9 was in Flashbacks of Voyager but it's actually a cut line for TUC and so inadmissible. Hard to believe one of the most recognizable ships of the Federation Fleet has no statement on speed at all. I 'm guessing that's due to lack of Hero ship status.
I don't think using non-integer warp values necessarily indicates a use of the TNG scale. It wasn't common in TOS, but given the extreme and precise maneuver they were pulling at the time, reporting fractional speed increases would certainly be relevant.
High Warp
I'd also like to note that TNG: The Chase establishes that at least warp 9 and up is considered high warp and including maximum warp which necessitated repairs to the propulsion system. But I understand what you mean.
I think "maximum warp" for Enterprise-D usually referred to warp 9.2, with 9.6 being the speed that strained the engines and necessitated repairs. I got the impression that they could do 9.2 as a matter of course, though, setting this as their usual definition of "maximum warp." Warp 9.6 would exceed "maximum warp."
War Bird's Top Speed
So are you saying that the adjusted curve just happens to match a Warp 9 output for the Enterprise? That's a remarkable coincidence. Regardless of flaws that's quite telling. I will say that it's true that the Warbird is likely to put out more power for the speed but isn't that covered by Data proportionate value of 30%? This may be the most definitive deduction of War Bird Speeds we have, a sort of backdoor canon.
The adjusted curve indicates that warp 9 requires 30% less power than warp 9.2. So, if we assume Enterprise was traveling at warp 9.2 when Picard reported "high warp," and the power figures are universal rather than core-specific to Enterprise, and given that the warbird exceeded its normal capability by 30%, then we can make a case for the warbird's normal top speed being warp 9. But that's a lot of assumptions.
So, if fractional values don't indicate the use of the TNG scale what does? I'm guessing you relate the TNG scale only with TNG? If so...then does that exclude ENT too?
One of the reasons I bring up High Warp vs Maximum warp is because of Voyager's issues that create a controversy concerning if Voyager can actually reach warp 9.975 as a sustainable warp speed. Apparently it topped out at warp 9.97 which induced extreme structural stresses. Whether that because her engines were fully balanced when they left spacedock, the damage they incurred in the displacement wave and subsequent micro fractures in the warp core or a just a failure of the design due to insufficient o proper maintenance, I don't know but clearly they are likely factors. As you say it appear that Enterprise could sustain 9.2 nearly indefinitely however there is some implication that high warp has it's consequences on the engines no matter what as Picard says that the constant use of it during the Chase necessitated repairs. So while it seems sustainable warp speed allows an endurance of longer than 12 hours it still causes damage to either the core and injector or the coil and their injectors.
Concerning the Warbird's top speed I'm willing to take that estimate as a likely velocity. Evey once in a while we find the writers do their job in the math department. True we know power is indicative to the hull geometry and size of the ship in question. But neither do we know if the engine out put of a warbird is greater than Enterprise and the regular out put only sustain marginal warp speeds. I think you're right but it's a fascinating parallel.
So, if fractional values don't indicate the use of the TNG scale what does? I'm guessing you relate the TNG scale only with TNG? If so...then does that exclude ENT too?
Time period, mainly. STM and Andre Bormanis would have us believe the change over happened in the early 2300s (2312, specifically), but as that never appears on-screen (as far as I know), can't be taken as canon.
Truth be told, the only indication that we have of the changeover occurring at all is warp 10 equaling infinite speed via "Threshold" (which I'm inclined to disavow as canon ) as compared to the > warp 10 factors cited in TOS. Though I guess the on-screen appearance of the warp chart also counts for that.
One of the reasons I bring up High Warp vs Maximum warp is because of Voyager's issues that create a controversy concerning if Voyager can actually reach warp 9.975 as a sustainable warp speed. Apparently it topped out at warp 9.97 which induced extreme structural stresses. Whether that because her engines were fully balanced when they left spacedock, the damage they incurred in the displacement wave and subsequent micro fractures in the warp core or a just a failure of the design due to insufficient o proper maintenance, I don't know but clearly they are likely factors.
As you say it appear that Enterprise could sustain 9.2 nearly indefinitely however there is some implication that high warp has it's consequences on the engines no matter what as Picard says that the constant use of it during the Chase necessitated repairs. So while it seems sustainable warp speed allows an endurance of longer than 12 hours it still causes damage to either the core and injector or the coil and their injectors.
Oh, quite right you are! Relevant transcript. "Captain's log, stardate 46735.2. Our frequent use of high warp over the last few days has overextended the propulsion systems. We are finishing minor repairs before returning to Federation territory."
They only ever cite warp nine and maximum warp in the high-warp range, so that definitely reinforces the idea that even regular use of high-warp is taxing.
Concerning the Warbird's top speed I'm willing to take that estimate as a likely velocity. Evey once in a while we find the writers do their job in the math department. True we know power is indicative to the hull geometry and size of the ship in question. But neither do we know if the engine out put of a warbird is greater than Enterprise and the regular out put only sustain marginal warp speeds. I think you're right but it's a fascinating parallel.
the problem with the defiant is like they said an spaceframe issue not an engine issue . the reason for this is they dropped a gull size cruiser warp reactor into a tiny little ship. imagine putting a jet engine into a car yes it might have loads of power but if it applied to much of ir it would fly apart because it designed for a jet not a car.
the problem with the defiant is like they said an spaceframe issue not an engine issue . the reason for this is they dropped a gull size cruiser warp reactor into a tiny little ship. imagine putting a jet engine into a car yes it might have loads of power but if it applied to much of ir it would fly apart because it designed for a jet not a car.
Yep, that's pretty much what we've been saying. In order to go faster than warp 9, they have to divert power to the SIF to keep the ship intact. It's not that they don't have the raw power to exceed warp 9, but rather that the ship won't hold up to it without diverting some of that power just to keep the ship in one piece.
About the whole idea of the Scimitar being a refitted Jem'Hadar vessel; Nonsense.... The Scimitar is 890m long, according to official records from the bonus DVD and the Ship Scale Sheets. A Jem'Hadar battlecruiser would 760m long, accoring to its CGI-creators. And the uber-ship that the Valiant fought and that was later seen in the last defence of Cardassia was ... well... At least 1,100m long, if the Galors are used as refence for size comparison. However, if the other Dominion vessels are used, the ship is easily 1,300m long. In any case, hundreds of meters longer than the Scimitar, and even if we allow the Reman engineers to cut the ship shorter, there's no way they could cut over 200m away without altering the ships shape too far. If at all, the Remans simply used a Jem'Hadar vessel as inspiration....
I think much of Sovereign's abilities are Trek myths.
Never saw any evidence for those vaunted Starbase Level Phasers. We know what starbase phasers due in thanks to deep space nine...vaporizing shielded Birds of Prey in one shot in less than a second. That's an epic amount of firepower. That level of firepower could have taken out a Borg cube in short order. (That's proven by the Q-Who phaser strike) Cubes aren't armored so if Enterprise had that kind of phaser power it really begs the question of why Hayes excluded a ship that could destroy a cube single highhandedly from the second Borg Invasion. To this date the only ship capable of destroying a Bird of Prey that quickly is the Defiant.
-Sovereign doesn't have armor either, Otherwise it would have lasted a lot longer vs Scimitar and the shots wouldn't have caused instant hull breaches. Scimitar wasn't hi powered just over gunned.
-Sovereign doesn't seem to be very fast either. If Galaxy was a warp 9.2 Cruiser likely so is Sovereign and the advancement is they don't damage subspace with those hi warp speeds.
Sovereign does seem to have regenerative shields, Quantum torpedoes and a large complement of photons and a powerful and stable warp core. But it can't separate. Sovereign isn't much of an advancement over Galaxy based on the limited specs we have. I wish they had given Sovereign more because it's certainly been in enough varied situations to use whatever abilities it has to the fullest against Borg, Sona and Reman Dreadnoughts.
The truth is Sovereign is just visual replacement and upgrade for Galaxy. Essentially the movie version of the same ship and it's the only reason why they destroyed a Galaxy class against a 80 year old bird of prey. Problem is that Eaves didn't even finish the Sovereign visually in 3 movies. Not only was there an upgrade from Insurrection to Nemesis but Eaves reveals that he planned other upgrades to be shown after it's repaired collision damage. Sovereign just wanted fully planed. If eaves had the same amount of time the Galaxy Class designers had before the start of TNG likely Sovereign would have been designed very different and would have looked very different. I think the ship had moxy and potential but like Prometheus it was a facade for an advancement.
Well, as per your first critisicm of the Sovereign being the only vessel capable of leveling a cube, we've seen that it still took the rest of the fleet helping the Ent-E, and the three quantum torps against the sphere were only sufficient because it didn't have it's shields up... But as Picard so subtly put it, the sole reason why the Sovereign-class Ent-E wasn't included in this battle was not because they didn't trust it powers but rather because they distrusted its captain. Which -ultimatively- was right, as he disobeyed a direct order and joined them, to their benefit and salvation...
As per the alledged strength of those phaser weapons, well, we only ever saw them in odd circumstances. In first contact it only ever fired when joined with the fleet, where we can't really say how strong they are because the damage is an amalgamation of all weapons fire.
In Insurrection, all fighting happened in the Briar Patch, a strange and volatile area, where weapons power was probably diminished in order to not blow the whole region to smithereens. Which, of course, would only have been obeyed by the oh-so loyal Starfleet people, not the Son'a, and thus explain why the sate-of-the-art Enterprise-E sucked so much against the lame old Son'a vessels...
And in Nemesis, it all happened in the Bassen Rift, an area whose electromagnetic interference blocks out communications, so god knows what systems else are affected. And keep in mind that the Bassen Rift is still deep in Romulan territory, means they knew of the rift and likely their weapons were designed to operate even in such regions. Means while the Ent-E was (severely) weakened, the Scimitar was still at strength.
All in all, we can't really draw conclusions based on what evidence we have because said evidence is circumstantial.
However, it's right, the Ent-E is a visual replacement for the End-D, just as the TMP-Connie is a visual replacement for the TOS-Connie. Nothing more, nothing less.
I think you both, Saquist and Aresius, provided good summaries!
The only thing I have to add is: exactly where is it ever stated (in canon, mind you!) that Sovereign boasts starbase-grade phasers? I think this is purely fan-speculated, probably based off the line in the TNG TM that mentions "Type X+" phasers.
As installed in the Galaxy class, the main ship's phasers are rated as Type X, the largest emitters available for starship use.
Certain large dedicated planetary defense emitters are designated as Type X+, as their exact energy output remains classified.
If we accept the Type XII designation for Sovereign's phasers is factual (again, I'm not aware of any canon mention of this), that does not necessarily require that they are starbase-grade phasers, only that they are a later design than the Type X. As we saw with the Class 7 vs. Class 9 warp drive designations between Defiant/Sovereign/(Prometheus) and Intrepid, increased number doesn't necessarily mean increased power.
It's never stated directly... It took me a few months to finally find out where they got the numbers from.
The Galaxy-arrays were often stated to be Type X, by Geordie, Worf, and Data. And Data once said that the common complement of a starbase weapondry consists of Type-XII phaser arrays (it was either the story with the Remmler-array or another episode where Data could act out his chatty subroutines).
And in one of the movie scene, it was either Riker, or Worf who said that a precise shot should do as much damage as a blast from a starbase.
So it's a mere conclusion, nothing more.
It's never stated directly... It took me a few months to finally find out where they got the numbers from.
The Galaxy-arrays were often stated to be Type X, by Geordie, Worf, and Data. And Data once said that the common complement of a starbase weapondry consists of Type-XII phaser arrays (it was either the story with the Remmler-array or another episode where Data could act out his chatty subroutines).
A search of Chakoteya turns up no episode in which the words "type ten," "type X," "type 10," "type twelve," "type XII", or "type 12" are ever uttered.
And in one of the movie scene, it was either Riker, or Worf who said that a precise shot should do as much damage as a blast from a starbase.
So it's a mere conclusion, nothing more.
The word "starbase" is never uttered in any of the three TNG movies featuring Enterprise-E.
However, it's right, the Ent-E is a visual replacement for the End-D, just as the TMP-Connie is a visual replacement for the TOS-Connie. Nothing more, nothing less.
The Consitution refit is a visual upgrade from the Constitution in TOS...in more of a literal way than Galaxy was upgraded to Sovereign. It's literaly the same ship. But I must say it's more than just a visual upgrade.
Literal Upgrades of the Constitution Refit.
-Expanded shuttle and cargo decks
-Warp power directly channeled to the phasers
-Numerous phaser and torpedo hard point ugprades
-Medical facilities
-The ability to channel the impulse power directly to the Warp engines.
True these are minor aspects and perhaps that proves your points that it is mostly a visual upgrade, however it's the level of detail and care that went into visual graded. TMP's work under Andrew Probert set an entirely knew standard of what constituted Trek Technology when we looked a ship and it's hard points. The phasers the torpedoes, sensors, engines, hull pattern external hatches. The only other ship to set that kind of precedent that would last for decades was the Galaxy...again...by Andrew Probert.
Probert's design skill are still emulated by Ryan Churches design of the Enterprise in the previous two films.
The same phasers the deflector and position of the torps, the hull pattern and lighting scheme...Church immediately recognized that Probert's designs were literally the very core of Trek. So yes...a visual upgrade but certainly much, much more.
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Oh, agreed. I've no problem making logical extrapolations from canon where the canon provides no answers. Hell, it's great fun! I merely wish to caution against hasty extrapolations, or resorting to absolutes like, "There is no other possible conclusion" unless it's exceedingly clear that there well and truly isn't.
Quite so!
I just reviewed the bit from "Booby Trap" where they come up with the multi-stream idea. It's not quite what we end up seeing in the Sovereign and Defiant cores (wherein there are distinct, separate confinement chambers for each distinct stream; Geordi and Holo-Brahms cook up a solution that "bounces" streams off of multiple "crystal facets" -- he's pointing at the stream coils when saying this, not the dilithium reaction assembly, so I'm not sure what those crystals are but it's not really relevant to this discussion), but the idea of multiple streams for a bigger bang may well have originated here.
Of potential note here, when Geordi meets the real Leah Brahms, they discuss some of his modifications and she urges him to write a paper on them. He declines, saying that he's not very good at writing, but since she is, he suggests that they could collaborate. There might well be a paper that results from this meeting, perhaps written piecemeal through subspace communication, that directly leads to the Mark-7+ warp cores.
I'll grant that it's the only ship we know to have been so designed.
I don't think this is necessarily reasonable.
The cloak, yes, certainly. The cloak was a loan from the Romulans and I don't recall Defiant II ever cloaking in its two appearances.
However, Defiant II is explicitly stated to have completely reconfigured shield generators to deal with the Breen weapon, so it's known to have received at least some special treatment. Especially given that Sisko was able to have ablative armor added to Defiant I without FleetOps's knowledge, I think it's unreasonable to assume that a ship that could have ablative armor so easily applied, which then went on to prove so successful and resilient with it, wouldn't receive that armor during the height of one of the Federation's worst wars. It's illogical to make that leap, even in the absence of evidence explicitly confirming its presence. Whether or not the Defiant class was designed with the armor in mind, I think Defiant herself proved the class worthy of its installation on subsequent starships.
I'll grant you that.
To be perfectly frank, I had made the (probably erroneous) assumption that every ship seen with the Defiant- and Sovereign-style hull (the dark panels intermingled with glossier metal) boasted ablative armor as a matter of course. This would also extend to Akira, Steamrunner, et. al. but, curiously, not Prometheus, which should have been the obvious indicator that my assumption didn't hold water here.
I'd be surprised if the multiple-stream cores didn't become standard in general.
It may be worth a curious footnote that Intrepid lacks the multi-stream core and boasts very high sustained warp capability. As far as we know, both Intrepid and Defiant launched in 2370, with Intrepid seeing immediate success and Defiant not seeing active service until 2371. Then again, perhaps Intrepid's warp capability comes from refined hull geometry, the variable warp field, and so on rather than simply raw power.
Sure, I didn't mean to imply that I thought Prometheus was so-equipped, only that the development of quantum torpedoes appeared to fall in line with the same development timeline as the other technologies. Indeed, as you say, we only see her fire photon torpedoes.
Hooray!
True, but for a good portion of this time, Prometheus was stopped. She first stopped to fight Bonchune and she stopped once more when EMH II knocked out the crew and EMH I forced a warp core overload. They were, however, detected by Romulan ships at this juncture, which moved to intercept. Only later, after confronting the Romulans, did the two Defiants and Akira show up. A number of notable points about this:
Ultimately, there is no need to conclude that any of the ships involved were even remotely capable of matching or exceeding Prometheus's stated warp capability; she spends enough time stopped and there are enough complicating factors that easily justify the arrival of the Starfleet reinforcements.
On further consideration, I actually think you're right about this. Congratulations, you have changed my mind on a topic I considered long-since settled.
It does make for some really interesting contradictions to justify, though, but justifications are forthcoming and kind of interesting. For example, Grissom has a registry much lower than Enterprise, but perhaps Grissom is, herself, a refit of an earlier iteration of the Oberth class and underwent the exact same sort of refit that Enterprise received prior to TMP. That's quite interesting to consider.
I encourage you to be cautious in using this particular website without corroborating everything on it. Its conclusions are notoriously biased and unrigorous. The particular article you linked isn't one of the more egregious offenders, but some of its contents are outright ludicrous. So, caveat emptor.
Them's fightin' words! I love Steamrunner and think it's one of the neatest unorthodox Starfleet designs out there. :P (Operating under the assumption that the above-linked site isn't yours, I realize these aren't necessarily your words or thoughts.)
Certainly. I commented on this, and in the manner I did, more as a general point than as something specific to this discussion. "I don't see you proposing a better solution" is a mindset that I seek to combat whenever I encounter it because it's not only wrong, but can even be dangerous. If I come across as overly harsh on the matter, I apologize. I feel strongly about it.
Certainly, though I think this whole thread has been a matter of bringing up examples -- some of them ranging far afield of the original line of inquiry, though not without merit -- to address various supporting elements of Sovereign's top speed being above warp 8. While I certainly enjoy speculating about Defiant, Prometheus, and the Neutral Zone, they are only salient here as supporting data for the central premise that Sovereign's warp capability is higher than a "mere" warp eight.
So far as I know, we don't have any concrete, canon statement of a warbird's maximum sustainable speed. The warp speed listings on Memory Alpha imply that it has been observed achieving warp 9, and that warp 9.6 is where it sustains major engine damage.
The latter figure is almost certainly meant to reference "Tin Man," though I think warp 9.6 is probably high for that particular scenario. We know Enterprise was moving at "high warp," but not that they were moving at even warp 9.2 (stated normal maximum), let alone warp 9.6 ("emergency" maximum, which itself would have caused harm to Enterprise's engines after 12 hours, per "Best of Both Worlds").
I don't know where the warp 9 figure they state comes from, however, so I remain skeptical of it until it's more firmly established.
It's not strictly necessary for Scimitar to have been powering shields at that time. She bombards Enterprise, forcing her out of warp, at which point Scimitar could have transferred warp power to shields. It's not really necessary for them to have done this, either; three singularity cores is an obscene amount of power already, but it's a possibility nonetheless.
I think the conclusion that it's at its "max sustainable speed" is correct.
Typically, "maximum warp" is used to mean "maximum (sustainable) warp" and it remains possible to exceed "maximum warp" (there are several examples of this throughout every series) at risk to the ship. The most obvious example is Enterprise-D going up to warp 9.6 and damaging its engines. Warp 9.2 is the translation of "maximum warp" in most other cases for Enterprise-D. Regardless of that value for Sovereign, I don't think Picard ordered emergency or engine-breaking warp speed. Such measures would have merited mention in a Captain's log, but instead he refers only to "maximum warp."
In any case, all this does is indicate that "warp eight" and "maximum warp" are different values for Sovereign, implying that it can achieve greater performance than warp eight. By how much remains uncertain.
Non-canon sources provide figures of warp 9.7 and 9.925(!), but neither of these goes on to cite a more authoritative source. Even a behind-the-scenes statement indicating an intent for these values, while not canon, would at least point toward a higher "maximum warp" than warp 8. But in the absence of such, we are left with "something higher than warp 8" as the only solid conclusion.
Re-watch the scene, or re-read the transcript. Enterprise-D starts moving at maximum warp to intercept the faux-Vulcan ships per Riker's order, switch to a scene on Romulus, switch back to Enterprise-D and now 14 minutes from intercept. Enterprise-D is not stationary prior to this estimate and an indeterminate amount of time passes between each scene. As is clear from the previous time analysis of the Bassen Rift ambush, even two closely connected scenes can have several minutes separating them.
That much is true; the implication is that traveling to Vulcan from the Neutral Zone won't take very long. Even a week would strain believability. Within one day is the most likely, as you say.
Whether that's indicative of Vulcan's proximity to the Neutral Zone, some trick of the region enabling higher than usual warping, or some other explanation remains nebulous, however.
That said, there are some other interesting things to consider about it. The Federation is, pretty clearly, not contiguous in nature. Picard's remark that it's "spread across 8,000 light years" implies disparate pockets. If it's a single continuous mass, "spanning 8,000 light years" would make more sense. This is consistent with the idea of Vulcan (and, by extension, Earth) being somewhat near Romulus (and even Qo'noS), thereby enforcing why you'd need something like a Neutral Zone buffering the two empires. If there aren't any strategically important planets within easy reach of the border, why bother with a Neutral Zone? But if Vulcan is within a day's travel, even at high warp, of an enemy empire? Oh my, does that ever make the idea of a patrolled Neutral Zone a much more important idea.
If we take Qo'noS to also be in the Beta Quadrant, we've got canon data indicating that it orbits the real start Omega Leonis, which is a mere 112 light years from Earth, and that Enterprise (NX-01) could reach it at warp 4.5 in 4 days. We also know that Enterprise's "warp 5 engine" (primarily capable of warp 4.5) could do "Neptune and back in six minutes," which works out to around 80c. 4 days at this speed is less than one lightyear, which reinforces the idea that warp factors are not constant representatives of actual speed (and that the WF^3 = c, or WF^(10/3) = c equations do not hold in all cases). Again, I prefer the interpretation concocted by Star Trek Maps, indicating subspace field strength fluctuations playing a major role in the actual travel speed at a given warp factor. It handily addresses all inconsistencies will also fitting nicely with the canon data on the weird things subspace does.
In either case, I am happy to posit that the border of the Romulan Neutral Zone is less than 100 light years from Vulcan. The evidence seems to overwhelmingly favor at least that much, and possibly places the RNZ much closer.
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You say it's not "necessarily reasonable" to assume Defiant II doesn't have the armor. In absence of evidence that the armor exist what tells us that it does exist? I will grant you that it's not unreasonable to assume the armor is present on Defiant II but it's effectiveness isn't quite enough to assume the affirmative. Remember that Captain Benteen confirmed that it was not apart of the original design.
This is how I see it. I think Ablative Armor is a material that was undergoing testing and the Advanced Starship Design Project explored it's applications. It's possible that Defiant and Prometheus were considered candidates however there are too many unknowns. One of which is "how available is the material." The second consideration is the War itself. Sisko took some liberties with a war assets. I guess that was fine with Star Fleet before the outbreak of war but these are now extremely valuable war resources and I despite Sisko constantly being on the front lines is possible (however repelling) that they built more Prometheus class ships and they directed the material for the armor where is was thought best applied.
I don't think you're the only person to equate those dark patches with the Ablative Armor. I think I did the same thing at first before the magnifying glass came out. Even my ship, the Enigma shows I was thinking along those lines of darker and lighter patches signifying different hull materials.
Voyager's Warp Core
Well these cores started off with Type 7...Voyager's is a type 9 Tricylic input manifold warp core could be exactly that. But disappoint if the ship is sporting enhanced power and had that much problem with Kazon ships. Regardless I think it's clear that Voyager's articulation frame, hull geometry and warp field enhancers are the real reason for it's top speed. The Admiral described it as "smart". I think if it has an enhanced core and they flaunted it's ability to go 3 years without refueling then the design was about efficiency than about raw power.
Prometheus
I'll have to correct you on the issue of stopping to deal with Bonchune. The ships never left warp but they did stop the ship after the Romulan Commander discovered the transmission sent six hours ago and they managed to anesthetize the invaders. I assume there are cut scenes with Voyager making another Holodoctor so there is a variable passage of time to consider and thus concede the point. Touche' again, monsieur.
Star Trek Star Wars Trek Assessment Website
Curious, your apprehension... I must be honest I've almost always found him extremely literal and insightful. I was mistrustful of the site at first but my research often paralleled Darkstar's. Most attractively is how he often leaves the conclusion to the reader especially if shaky. He and the scientia ex astris guy became my favorite sources. If you think my work on Trek abilities in this discussion were well researched you should see the research I pulled visually and EU canon for Star Wars on some of these claims. I think I may have silenced Mike Wong's arguement permanently with all the goodies I found. I'm always shocked no one catches some of these juicey details that really just put the final word on the whole thing..
Personally I prefer more proof than speculation and I have to say a lot of these "discussions" are more about rampant speculation and contradictory math than anything else...and I always wandered what his beef against Steamrunner was. All of the First Contact ships were pretty pathetic design wise but Steamrunner offends the least. Perhaps it's tricobalt torpedo from Armada sways my bias. (I'd always get a fleet of them and sneak bomb enemy installations...*sigh* so much fun.
Don't feel bad about this at all.
I took it exactly how you meant it. It's a concept turned cliche that annoys me aswell and I certainly don't mind being kept on my toes.
Sovereigns Top Speed
From what I'm gather (had to read it twice) You think Prometheus and Defiant are examples of ships with top speeds that somehow correlate with Sovereign...
-I'll give you one thing. Our discussion has explored this idea to have a certain amount of validity since we know a bit more than when we started out in the other thread. The multistream cores offer more power. Sound of Her voice establishes that part of faster speeds is hull integrity and power to main hull integrity. Ergo they have to have power.
-The ship is also not terrible in hull Geometry.
But there is no reinforcement for the sleeker Saucer and the Warp coils are much smaller and less massive than Galaxy.
The Warbird here is an important factor..perhaps I placed to much importance. I had previously though I read that the top speed of the D'Derridix was warp 8 from the Tin Man Episode. This would have given us a lower limit but I apparently was wrong. I'll have to do more digging. But I also find this quote in Memory Alpha interesting concerning how the Singularity Core limits a ships top speed. So it's a bit of give and take. That's something to take in consideration with it's overall speed. I need to do more research here. I'll be scouring The Magezine on the weekend.
The Distance of the Neural Zone.
I see what you mean here, Touche', touche...so not quite back to square one.
You know you're not the only one to consider using the course headings to triangulate these positions...I just haven't done it yet...
In any case, whether or not Defiant II had ablative armor is only very tangentially related to our original question, so I am inclined to table the matter for now.
That's particularly curious, isn't it? That Voyager, launched in 2371, would have a Class 9 core, but Enterprise-E would have something that at least appeared to be of the Class 7 variety, launched a year later. Of course, that presupposes that Starfleet will always opt to install the newest design into subsequent starships, which may not be the case at all. If Class 7 is simply representative of a high-yield core, while Class 9 is a high-efficiency core, that may make all the difference.
Getting wildly speculative, we might even suggest that that the Class designation is not representative of development advances, but rather intended uses and performance windows. Defiant may be using a Type 7 Mk 12 or some such, for example, while Voyager's using the first ever of the Type 9 cores, a new type of core aimed at speed and longevity rather than high power output.
Whoops! You're absolutely right. Here's a YouTube clip of the battle. I could've sworn I saw them drop out of warp for the actual conflict, after splitting into the vectors, but I was completely wrong about that.
Yeah, there are quite a few cuts back to Voyager throughout all of this, so the passage of time becomes quite nebulous indeed!
Heh, I'm amused that you regard two sites so highly that I tend to hold in fairly low esteem. I'd rather not get into a discussion about the merits and why-fors about various contributors and participants in the ST/SW debate, though. That will take us very far afield indeed and my own days of that debate are looooong behind me.
Right there with ya on the Armada bit.
Speaking of getting far afield, though...
Excellent.
Oh no, not at all. Defiant is a pretty clear under-performer when it comes to its warp capabilities. That's well-established and supported by canon. Similarly, Prometheus is pretty clearly very fast.
Sovereign is their contemporary, more or less, which is the only reason their performance is relevant to Sovereign's.
I think it's definitely a fair assessment to say that Sovereign does not want for power, at the very least.
I must confess that I am inclined to accept the warp 9.7 figure in the absence of any other. I would never go so far as to claim this was canon/true/defensible in a debate, but it's the sort of thing I would include in any work of my own. It seems a plausible prediction of the sleeker design's performance over its Galaxy and Excelsior predecessors, tracks with the statement that Enterprise is "the most advanced ship in the fleet" (until Prometheus launches!), and so on. But, again, this is a completely indefensible number beyond these vague qualifications. The only number I would ever try to defend is "something above warp 8."
The coils are smaller, but coil size doesn't necessarily correlate with warp performance (c.f. Voyager, which has considerably smaller coils than Galaxy). Galaxy is also considerably more voluminous than Sovereign, which implies (but does not necessarily dictate) that Sovereign has a lower mass, which may play a factor as well. It's noteworthy, I think, that both of Starfleet's very high warp ships (Intrepid and Prometheus) are on the somewhat smaller side. That only goes so far, of course, since the tiny Defiant has such terrible warp performance.
Further, the lack of reinforcement may not be necessary, depending on hull geometry. Reinforcement's going to be required when the hull design conflicts with the necessities of warp travel (e.g. Defiant, Borg Cubes, potentially Scimitar, potentially D'Deridex). It may be that Sovereign's frame is well-optimized for warp travel and needs no additional structural reinforcement. Again, purely speculative, but not a postulation out of line with its hull design.
I have some memory of warp eight and D'Deridex being related, too, but I can't place it. A Google search for "warbird 'warp eight' transcript" and "romulan 'warp eight' transcript" yields nothing wherein a Warbird is described as traveling that speed, so I've no idea where this comes from.
I always took the line about singularity cores limiting ship speed to be a question of mass. Again, this is pure speculation on my part, but if mass plays a role in affecting a warp field (which seems a reasonable guess, given the dangers of using warp drive in a star system and the nature of distorting space-time), then a larger ship is going to have to overcome/compensate for its own mass in the midst of its warp field. A miniature black hole is going to add a huge mass to a ship and you'll have to balance the size of the singularity (and thus your ship's power capability) against the increase in mass (and thus the "drag" on your warp performance). One might guess that Scimitar gets around this with three perfectly-scaled singularities spread throughout the ship (and thus the warp field).
Anyway, that's enough wild speculation from me.
It's probably going to prove difficult-to-impossible, but it's a fun idea.
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Voyager vs Defiant vs Sovereign
As it stands, I'm thinking along the same lines. If the Intrepid class has a new high tech core it probably incorporates perhaps a triple stream, I feels like it's someone's idea of fuel efficient 4 cylinder ecco boost. It does give us a perspective on how long it takes a typical ship to refuel. Many would have guessed that refueling occurred every five year due to the five your mission aspect to the original starship Enterprise.
However...
Considering the a fore mentioned choices and display off knowledge of the three people in question I have to assume while Defiant may typically operate at high warp eight, and Prometheus at Warp 9.9, I'm still in the position of question what is holding Sovereign back or just how powerful is the Scimitar to able to achieve such a high warp speed without any consideration to hull geometry. Even a borg cube is better suited for high warp. Seven has explained that much in terms of temporal stresses and compensation with SIF fields
The problem with assuming Enterprise is Warp 9.7 is that it (as said, wasn't maxing out and nor was their any attempt to to so.) that it was capable of faster and considering Scimitar displayed no signs of distress then this to contradicts that a three individuals new tacticaly the abilities of at least one of the ship in question This could be because the Scimitar had already caught them and they had no time to react. This is the reason I can't eliminate the warp 8 zone (whether low or high warp 8).
I appear to be siding on the conclusion that Enterprise Sovereign Class is mimicking the abilities of Galaxy and it's highest sustainable speed is Warp 9.2. and sprint speed at warp 9.55 and I think the reason for it is the possibly power hogging regenerative shields. There is at least some confirmation that Sovereign has a hug energy reserve like Defiant has for weapons, sovereign has for shields in that in Insurrection Sovereign managed to dump the core and the shields remained at 75%, which I originally attributed to auxiliary impulse reactors (which Sovereign apparently doesn't have since the ship only has two impulse engines)
But this is an imperfect compromise. The knowledge of Sovereign's abilities still begs the question if the best speed a Romulans was ever known to achieve is warp 9.6 and the Sovereign is assumed to be warp 9.7 then where did the precognitive abilities come from to know Scimitar was stalking simply on the basis that the Bassen Rift would not allow communications? And why does that even matter since Enterprise could have sent the fleet the message that they were attacked by Romulans. Frankly the Fleet should entered the Neutral Zone at that point. (Yes we're dealing with an extremely weak plot and may never be resolvable but at least there was a better attempt to try)
Coil Size
If Star Trek Enterprise is to be taken as canon then according to Trip's astonishment of the Constitution's Coil is a Bigger is better situation (Said during the In a Mirror Darkly) While Voyager maybe seen as having other ways to augment it's abilities other than buy coil size and warp cores (such as the field reinforcment positions on the saucer (although one does not have to take that as canon but rather meanderings on the ERTL model specs.) But since no other ship has it I'm personally inclined to agree with a "smarter level of strength"
It seems resolution still escapes us.
(I'm currently feverishly sick so If I don't respond immediately assume exteneded recovery time)
My point exactly vis-a-vis the Defiant and Intrepid warp performance. Let us assume, for the sake of argument, the Defiant core and the Intrepid cores have roughly equivalent power output. However, the Defiant's hull shape, being optimized for combat, is less-than-optimal for high-speed warp travel. Thus, despite have more power, it goes slower than a similarly-powered Intrepid. Consider a Ferrari 458 engine making 562hp. Put it in the Ferrari 458 body and it'll go over 200mph. Put that same engine in the body of a Peterbuilt tractor-trailer truck and it'll go...much slower.
I'm also going to reiterate points made in the prior thread -- but touched upon briefly in your earlier posts -- that there are more data points to core performance besides raw power output. Efficiency of the core and the warp drive it's connected to are huge factors in top speed. Durability for extended, unsupported, unmaintained operations is another. The Defiant clearly isn't intended for long missions due to the lack of creature comforts, basic replicators, small crew size, etc. No doubt the designers planned on that when doing their MTBF calculations on how often Defiant's would head back to base for maintenance. For a contemporary example, compare a Top Fuel dragster to a Honda Accord. The former makes thousands of horsepower, goes over 300mph in less than a quarter mile, but is torn down completely *between* quarter mile runs and consumes *gallons* of fuel per pass. The latter obviously makes less power, goes slower, but gets 30+mpg and can run 200,000 miles without being torn down once.
You keep coming back to the ST:N example of Scimitar vs. Sovereign as the primary stumbling block to accepting higher speeds for the Sovereign vs. Galaxy. The obvious answer to this conundrum is the absurdly stupid plot foisted on us by the lazy writers of the screenplay (not to mention a vast, poorly-lit, bottomless pit with gravity somewhere in the bowels of the ship so Riker can fight a bad guy). However, we must try to see past this idiocy and see if there is a reasonable explanation that fits within established Trek canon. I think there is.
You're extrapolating the Sovereign is slower than the Galaxy. You're doing this by comparing Warbird top speeds from Tin Man to the Galaxy class and assuming the Scimitar, while an obvious improvement on the Warbird, doesn't have some fundamental warp drive breakthrough. Herein lies a key point: *what if* the Scimitar *does* have some new whizz-bang warp drive "turbo boost" mode that allows it something like warp 9.975 for short periods? Forget hull geometry for a moment; obvious Borg cubes and diamonds don't have any particularly streamlined-looking shape, yet they achieve very high warp speeds. We know the Romulans are very much into espionage. There's nothing to say they haven't stolen Starfleet warp tech from, say, the Intrepid, Prometheus, and Sovereign designs and made good use of the data. Furthermore, it's reasonable to assume the Romulans wouldn't give a damn about "subspace pollution" like Starfleet does, thus they'd emphasize top speed over the eco-friendly Starfleet drive performance. With three singularity cores, the Scimitar would likely outpower the Sovereign. The Scimitar is clearly a no-comprise design from a race known for its militancy. It's logical to assume they'd put everything they could into a ship that could best Starfleet's top-of-the-line, albeit in a design that likely costs a lot more, is more difficult to maintain, and is much less friendly to the crew and the environment.
Oh, and you may well be correct about that, too! I think my only negative reaction to the idea of "high warp 8" as a sort of compromise of the canon data we have is that the warp power curves drop dramatically at integer values (I'm pretty sure, though not positive, that the chart shown in the TNG TM actually appears on-screen in an episode, thereby canonizing it even if the rest of the book isn't necessarily canon). That would lead me to think warp 9 would be a more desirable target than warp 8.6 or 8.8 or whatever.
And, again, I wouldn't dream of trying to defend 9.7.
Well, even Galaxy had to push itself for warp 9.6. It may well be that something like warp 9.2 becomes a de rigueur warp speed for Starfleet's newer designs, excepting Defiant for reasons already discussed.
I don't think we even know that the D'Deridex can pull warp 9.6, do we? Picard's statement in "Tin Man" was only that Enterprise was traveling at "high warp." This could be anything from warp 8 and up. Given that he didn't say "maximum warp," they may not have even been traveling at warp 9.2; they may have been doing, say, warp 9 (circling back to that integer warp factors = less power draw thing) and that might be the speed taxing the D'Deridex chasing them. We just don't know.
Ehh, when it comes to stuff like that, Enterprise (and by extension, presumably also TOS) may not be operating with the same paradigm as TNG. Tons of complicating factors come into play: the TMP-era refits, the Transwarp Experiment (which I interpret as having been successful in introducing a new "type" of warp drive, hence necessitating the reformulation of the warp scale), and so on all point to a major leap forward in warp drive technology that more than justifies a "bigger != better" interpretation.
Ugh, feel better!
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Mostly, Occam's Razor. There's nothing to suggest that this is the case and it makes unnecessary assumptions in order to produce a desired outcome, rather than deriving a conclusion from only the data available. It's an extra term used to balance an equation in a desired way, rather than trying to see what result comes from an equation comprised only of known variables.
Yes, but we know they do this by diverting absurd amounts of power to their SIF, per Seven's statements. Defiant has to take its weapons offline to divert enough power to its SIF to achieve Warp 9.5. While it does stand to reason that Scimitar has a stronger-than-usual SIF due to its status as a heavy warship, it's not just a handwavable detail.
There is: hull shape. The reason Intrepid, Prometheus, and--possibly--Sovereign can achieve the high speeds that they can appears to be a combination of size (neither Intrepid nor Prometheus are especially large and Sovereign is very low-volume) and hull shape (all of them are sleek, which is often described as being desirable for dealing with subspace fields), in addition to tech advancements.
Scimitar, on the other hand, is a collection of giant, pointy blocks. There's nothing at all about the ship that even comes close to resembling hull forms possessed by the known fast ships. If she's capable of competitive warp speeds (e.g. warp 9+), then all the evidence points toward being very SIF-reliant for that.
That much is true, though the implication is that Starfleet's new warp engines "fixed" this issue, since warp 5 is routinely exceeded after this point without mention of the issue. (Another instance wherein the writers probably just realized this was a bad idea, but that is -- again -- irrelevant.)
This is certainly the case. Scimitar has twin shields, a ridiculously huge weapons array, and can maintain some or all of this while cloaked and pursuing the Federation flagship at the latter's maximum warp, whatever that is. She definitely out-powers Sovereign. Enterprise-E survived that fight only due to Shinzon's desire to keep Picard alive. In a straight-up fight where Enterprise's destruction was the goal, Scimitar likely wouldn't have even taken a noteworthy hit.
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To that end, I find it relatively implausible the Enterprise-E is slower than the Enterprise-D.
A state of the art 'flagship' of the Federation being limited to lower Warp factors than a class that came before it while being of newer design?
Not very likely.
At the very least, the Enterprise-E would have to be on par with the Galaxy class if not surpass it when it comes to Warp speed.
SF may have shifted focus away from larger vessels because they may not see any advantages in going bigger than the Galaxy class for the time being.
As such, any new design might be developed along the lines of incorporating higher efficiency while reducing size (which might also speed up construction - though in a fully automated production - which the Federation would be idiotic not to use - Starship construction times would be minimal, seeing how manual labor only slows things down and is downright inefficient compared to automation - this is something the writers of Trek seemingly missed, because, realistically, you cannot have a society like the Federation without massive automation in play - which is the main reason behind production of abundance, and yet was retarded in so many ways by the writers its not even funny).
The Intrepid and Prometheus seem to follow this particular premise of efficiency (as could the Sovereign class).
As for the Defiant - most SF ships do not seem to be specialized, but rather incorporate 'versatility' in their design, and the Defiant was specifically said to have been a 'warship' (a prototype on top of other things and part of the new battle fleet which never came to fruition due to the Borg threat being diminished - per Sisko's own admission - the Defiant seems to be the only vessel that made it off the drawing board into actual development, but was never finished/ironed out what with all the bugs).
The Prometheus was stated to be: 'Experimental prototype designed for deep-space tactical assignments'.
It seems to emulate the Defiant heavily for tactical scenarios, but was obviously capable of overcoming Warp speed limitations the Defiant had to endure and is able to operate in deep space, whereas the Defiant was likely not designed with deep-space in mind but to operate inside or close to Federation space.
The Intrepid for example could be a downsized Galaxy class - same capabilities in most/all areas, but with higher Warp efficiency (probably in part due to variable warp nacelles, Class 9 warp drive and hull geometry in general) and possibly reduced torpedo capacity (though with the torpedoes being the size they are, I find it highly unlikely the Intrepid, which is 15 decks large can only have 36 torpedoes at any given time - it seems more likely the vessel was not launched with all supplies or full torpedo compliment because it was sent on a 2 week mission to retrieve a single Maqui ship of a highly inferior design).
The Sovereign in turn could feature similar enhancements like the Intrepid when it comes to efficiencies and actually end up going faster than the Galaxy class.
It does feature a more 'sleek' design - however... I don't think hull geometry would particularly have to be relevant for subspace fields (given that SF has the technical ability/prowess for manipulating them) - although it seems to be implied to be of help compared to the 'brute force' of siphoning more power to SIF.
The Scimitar was a different ship all together, though it WAS quite similar to the Prometheus in terms of tactical capabilities.
And while we do not have official info on how many main power cores they had... if they did have 3 quantum singularity cores, then that would put the ship on par with the Prometheus (which also has 3 cores) weapons-wise, but I'm not sure about its shields (the Prometheus was a prototype at the time it was stolen and some of its tech might not have been finalized, but the Romulans might have transmitted enough back to the Tal'Shiar to eventually create the Scimitar).
At any rate, what the Prometheus might have lacked in weapons amount (enough for full phaser coverage, but not necessary to have gazillion torpedo tubes), it probably compensated in raw power output.
Plus, the Scimitar was larger, so the Romulans probably wanted to design it to outclass anything the Federation might have (and I don't think it would be difficult to make or maintain with automation and access to large resources the Empire seemingly has).
We do have one more thing to think about.
Vessel mass.
Voyager encountered a Krenim Temporal ship in 'Year of Hell' and it was noted by 7 of 9 that the vessel's mass prohibited them from exceeding Warp 6.
That thing was rather big, but it also had 1 temporal core... and while the ship was relatively powerful, it was specifically designed for temporal manipulation - as such, it may not have been particularly capable or efficient at for Warp travel (or at the very least, it wasn't necessary to make the ship capable of reaching higher speeds seeing how it wasn't in any particular hurry), especially while being out of space time.
If the ship's mass in general plays a part, SF's bigger ships like the Galaxy could be faster due to usage of different materials which may be lighter and stronger than the ones used by the Krenim, and we know SF optimizes their ships for efficiency, to recycle nearly everything, etc.
Also, the Sovereign probably has a lower mass compared to the Galaxy given its size and deck count - and it might feature modified hull materials that further reduce its overall mass compared to the materials used on the Galaxy class (which in turn could receive those modifications during regular upgrades in Starbases etc. - the old hull plates being harvested for their resources and reconstituted into newer hull materials which can improve upon overall efficiency, higher Warp velocity and overall hull strength).
The Higher energy requirements on the the warp curve shot that appeared on screen makes it canon. That's the reason why initially proposed warp 8. Alternatively we could suggest warp nine and O'brians comment meant that Defiant would reach warp 9. I really don't know. I can only say that Sisko orders warp 8 more often and has never said warp nine and has said maximum warp of course.
Curious though I do recall during the episode Home Front and Paradise Lost Obrian imply they should be able to out run an an excelsior class starship. But the highest speed quoted is the only speed quoted. "Warp 9" by Sulu in TUC. So that at least makes some kind of confirmation of Defiant's best speed.
The Max Warp of a Warbird.
I think we can attribute our miss persception that the Warbird is capable of Warp 9.6 is that it came from Memory Alpha. I'm betting that I've looked it up before and at some point it was changed because there was never any actual on screen evidence that it actually achieved that speed but someone assumed that 9.6 was the Enterprises maximum war so ergo... I understand why. Clearly the Warbird kept pace with them so what ever Enterprises speed was so was the Warpbird. However the proper assumption (since I believe the journey took days then the top speed should be 9.2. That doesn't help the Sovereign's case at all.
I'm on the road to recovery. My thanks.
I appreciate the input but I can't assume the affirmative without supporting evidence.
-You should also be aware that Voyager confirmed that Hull geometry is critical when the Kazon impacted the saucer section and prevented warp speed. It also implies Voyager doesn't have the power to over come such a deficiency.
I've also located arguments on the internet concerning the difference between warp core and quantum singularity core and why Scimitar had the first rather than the latter. They may have been nit picking. There is every indication that Trek uses "warp core" rather indiscriminately.
*O'Brien
You're definitely right about the sheer commonality of warp eight being ordered. Almost seems to be the de facto urgent-but-not-desperate speed. Possibly because once you start getting into warp 9 territory, power consumption rises dramatically the faster you go, and it's far more efficient to do warp 8 than warp 8.6 or some such, so the trade-off in speed vs. power saved is preferable to going one warp factor higher. That would fit with the existing evidence, I think.
Also, so far as we know, all of the TMP-era movies still used the "old" warp scale, so an order of warp 9 in TUC won't be directly equivalent to the same order in TNG+. Once again, inconclusive.
As an aside, I don't think Sulu ever explicitly calls for warp 9, does he? Only the following exchanges really reference Excelsior's speed: Well, it might. The dialog references needing to exceed their normal power output by 30% to match Enterprise-D.
If we assume Enterprise-D was, in fact, traveling at warp 9.2 ("maximum warp" vs. "high warp") and we take as canon the "power" curve as-presented in the TNG TM (questionable, since it wasn't seen in precise detail on-screen; only the curve itself was visible), then we can actually do some math on this.
Interesting side note: a lot of the original curve looks mispositioned when you drag it into Photoshop. Warp 1 does not line up with the 1c tickmark, even though we know for certain that Warp 1 = 1c from numerous onscreen statements. The Warp 9 power curve "dip" also doesn't line up with the warp 9 tickmark. As such, I have made the (arguably unscientific) decision to manipulate the curves (through resizing only) to fit on-screen statements (warp 1 = 1c, warp 2 = 10c, warp 3 = 39c, warp 9 peak transition threshold = warp 9 tickmark).
Warp 9.2 corresponds to something around 10^9 MW/cochrane (my edition actually says megajoules per cochrane, but I understand later editions correct this) and just shy of 2000 cochranes (going by the left axis of "Velocity in multiples of light speed" and the description text above the chart equating x c = x cochranes). Being generous, that works out to ~2*10^12 megawatts to maintain warp 9.2 (side note: this is >22kg of "perfect" matter/antimatter annihilation every second; that'll eat through your fuel right quick!). For comparison, warp 8 is ~1.3x10^11 MW.
30% lower than the 9.2 value is 1.4x10^12 MW, which is a full order of magnitude higher than the warp 8 value. Warp 9 (once the curve is fixed) corresponds to about 8x10^8 MW/cochrane, with a cochrane value of ~1800...which just so happens to be 1.44*10^12 MW!
There are a bunch of flaws in this argument, which I'm all too happy to point out:
There are probably numerous other flaws, but it's at least one fairly straight-forward way to derive a top normal speed for a D'Deridex of warp 9.
Glad to hear it!
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High Warp
I'd also like to note that TNG: The Chase establishes that at least warp 9 and up is considered high warp and including maximum warp which necessitated repairs to the propulsion system. But I understand what you mean.
Interesting side note: a lot of the original curve looks mispositioned when you drag it into Photoshop. Warp 1 does not line up with the 1c tickmark, even though we know for certain that Warp 1 = 1c from numerous onscreen statements. The Warp 9 power curve "dip" also doesn't line up with the warp 9 tickmark. As such, I have made the (arguably unscientific) decision to manipulate the curves (through resizing only) to fit on-screen statements (warp 1 = 1c, warp 2 = 10c, warp 3 = 39c, warp 9 peak transition threshold = warp 9 tickmark).
War Bird's Top Speed
So are you saying that the adjusted curve just happens to match a Warp 9 output for the Enterprise? That's a remarkable coincidence. Regardless of flaws that's quite telling. I will say that it's true that the Warbird is likely to put out more power for the speed but isn't that covered by Data proportionate value of 30%? This may be the most definitive deduction of War Bird Speeds we have, a sort of backdoor canon.
I think "maximum warp" for Enterprise-D usually referred to warp 9.2, with 9.6 being the speed that strained the engines and necessitated repairs. I got the impression that they could do 9.2 as a matter of course, though, setting this as their usual definition of "maximum warp." Warp 9.6 would exceed "maximum warp."
The adjusted curve indicates that warp 9 requires 30% less power than warp 9.2. So, if we assume Enterprise was traveling at warp 9.2 when Picard reported "high warp," and the power figures are universal rather than core-specific to Enterprise, and given that the warbird exceeded its normal capability by 30%, then we can make a case for the warbird's normal top speed being warp 9. But that's a lot of assumptions.
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One of the reasons I bring up High Warp vs Maximum warp is because of Voyager's issues that create a controversy concerning if Voyager can actually reach warp 9.975 as a sustainable warp speed. Apparently it topped out at warp 9.97 which induced extreme structural stresses. Whether that because her engines were fully balanced when they left spacedock, the damage they incurred in the displacement wave and subsequent micro fractures in the warp core or a just a failure of the design due to insufficient o proper maintenance, I don't know but clearly they are likely factors. As you say it appear that Enterprise could sustain 9.2 nearly indefinitely however there is some implication that high warp has it's consequences on the engines no matter what as Picard says that the constant use of it during the Chase necessitated repairs. So while it seems sustainable warp speed allows an endurance of longer than 12 hours it still causes damage to either the core and injector or the coil and their injectors.
Concerning the Warbird's top speed I'm willing to take that estimate as a likely velocity. Evey once in a while we find the writers do their job in the math department. True we know power is indicative to the hull geometry and size of the ship in question. But neither do we know if the engine out put of a warbird is greater than Enterprise and the regular out put only sustain marginal warp speeds. I think you're right but it's a fascinating parallel.
Truth be told, the only indication that we have of the changeover occurring at all is warp 10 equaling infinite speed via "Threshold" (which I'm inclined to disavow as canon
Hm, which episode was that in? The only references I see to warp nine+ speeds in the Voyager transcripts all contain mitigating factors or are otherwise situationally non-indicative of maximum speeds.
Oh, quite right you are! Relevant transcript. "Captain's log, stardate 46735.2. Our frequent use of high warp over the last few days has overextended the propulsion systems. We are finishing minor repairs before returning to Federation territory."
They only ever cite warp nine and maximum warp in the high-warp range, so that definitely reinforces the idea that even regular use of high-warp is taxing.
Indeed, I thought so!
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To my knowledge, there is no canon indication of this. We're trying to avoid fanon and secondary sources in this discussion.
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About the whole idea of the Scimitar being a refitted Jem'Hadar vessel; Nonsense.... The Scimitar is 890m long, according to official records from the bonus DVD and the Ship Scale Sheets. A Jem'Hadar battlecruiser would 760m long, accoring to its CGI-creators. And the uber-ship that the Valiant fought and that was later seen in the last defence of Cardassia was ... well... At least 1,100m long, if the Galors are used as refence for size comparison. However, if the other Dominion vessels are used, the ship is easily 1,300m long. In any case, hundreds of meters longer than the Scimitar, and even if we allow the Reman engineers to cut the ship shorter, there's no way they could cut over 200m away without altering the ships shape too far. If at all, the Remans simply used a Jem'Hadar vessel as inspiration....
I think much of Sovereign's abilities are Trek myths.
Never saw any evidence for those vaunted Starbase Level Phasers. We know what starbase phasers due in thanks to deep space nine...vaporizing shielded Birds of Prey in one shot in less than a second. That's an epic amount of firepower. That level of firepower could have taken out a Borg cube in short order. (That's proven by the Q-Who phaser strike) Cubes aren't armored so if Enterprise had that kind of phaser power it really begs the question of why Hayes excluded a ship that could destroy a cube single highhandedly from the second Borg Invasion. To this date the only ship capable of destroying a Bird of Prey that quickly is the Defiant.
-Sovereign doesn't have armor either, Otherwise it would have lasted a lot longer vs Scimitar and the shots wouldn't have caused instant hull breaches. Scimitar wasn't hi powered just over gunned.
-Sovereign doesn't seem to be very fast either. If Galaxy was a warp 9.2 Cruiser likely so is Sovereign and the advancement is they don't damage subspace with those hi warp speeds.
Sovereign does seem to have regenerative shields, Quantum torpedoes and a large complement of photons and a powerful and stable warp core. But it can't separate. Sovereign isn't much of an advancement over Galaxy based on the limited specs we have. I wish they had given Sovereign more because it's certainly been in enough varied situations to use whatever abilities it has to the fullest against Borg, Sona and Reman Dreadnoughts.
The truth is Sovereign is just visual replacement and upgrade for Galaxy. Essentially the movie version of the same ship and it's the only reason why they destroyed a Galaxy class against a 80 year old bird of prey. Problem is that Eaves didn't even finish the Sovereign visually in 3 movies. Not only was there an upgrade from Insurrection to Nemesis but Eaves reveals that he planned other upgrades to be shown after it's repaired collision damage. Sovereign just wanted fully planed. If eaves had the same amount of time the Galaxy Class designers had before the start of TNG likely Sovereign would have been designed very different and would have looked very different. I think the ship had moxy and potential but like Prometheus it was a facade for an advancement.
As per the alledged strength of those phaser weapons, well, we only ever saw them in odd circumstances. In first contact it only ever fired when joined with the fleet, where we can't really say how strong they are because the damage is an amalgamation of all weapons fire.
In Insurrection, all fighting happened in the Briar Patch, a strange and volatile area, where weapons power was probably diminished in order to not blow the whole region to smithereens. Which, of course, would only have been obeyed by the oh-so loyal Starfleet people, not the Son'a, and thus explain why the sate-of-the-art Enterprise-E sucked so much against the lame old Son'a vessels...
And in Nemesis, it all happened in the Bassen Rift, an area whose electromagnetic interference blocks out communications, so god knows what systems else are affected. And keep in mind that the Bassen Rift is still deep in Romulan territory, means they knew of the rift and likely their weapons were designed to operate even in such regions. Means while the Ent-E was (severely) weakened, the Scimitar was still at strength.
All in all, we can't really draw conclusions based on what evidence we have because said evidence is circumstantial.
However, it's right, the Ent-E is a visual replacement for the End-D, just as the TMP-Connie is a visual replacement for the TOS-Connie. Nothing more, nothing less.
The only thing I have to add is: exactly where is it ever stated (in canon, mind you!) that Sovereign boasts starbase-grade phasers? I think this is purely fan-speculated, probably based off the line in the TNG TM that mentions "Type X+" phasers.
If we accept the Type XII designation for Sovereign's phasers is factual (again, I'm not aware of any canon mention of this), that does not necessarily require that they are starbase-grade phasers, only that they are a later design than the Type X. As we saw with the Class 7 vs. Class 9 warp drive designations between Defiant/Sovereign/(Prometheus) and Intrepid, increased number doesn't necessarily mean increased power.
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The Galaxy-arrays were often stated to be Type X, by Geordie, Worf, and Data. And Data once said that the common complement of a starbase weapondry consists of Type-XII phaser arrays (it was either the story with the Remmler-array or another episode where Data could act out his chatty subroutines).
And in one of the movie scene, it was either Riker, or Worf who said that a precise shot should do as much damage as a blast from a starbase.
So it's a mere conclusion, nothing more.
Here's a direct link to the "Starship Mine" transcript, which featured the Remmler Array.
The word "starbase" is never uttered in any of the three TNG movies featuring Enterprise-E.
First Contact transcript
Insurrection transcript
Nemesis
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The Consitution refit is a visual upgrade from the Constitution in TOS...in more of a literal way than Galaxy was upgraded to Sovereign. It's literaly the same ship. But I must say it's more than just a visual upgrade.
Literal Upgrades of the Constitution Refit.
-Expanded shuttle and cargo decks
-Warp power directly channeled to the phasers
-Numerous phaser and torpedo hard point ugprades
-Medical facilities
-The ability to channel the impulse power directly to the Warp engines.
True these are minor aspects and perhaps that proves your points that it is mostly a visual upgrade, however it's the level of detail and care that went into visual graded. TMP's work under Andrew Probert set an entirely knew standard of what constituted Trek Technology when we looked a ship and it's hard points. The phasers the torpedoes, sensors, engines, hull pattern external hatches. The only other ship to set that kind of precedent that would last for decades was the Galaxy...again...by Andrew Probert.
Probert's design skill are still emulated by Ryan Churches design of the Enterprise in the previous two films.
The same phasers the deflector and position of the torps, the hull pattern and lighting scheme...Church immediately recognized that Probert's designs were literally the very core of Trek. So yes...a visual upgrade but certainly much, much more.