Star trek transwarp drive series#

In Et in Arcadia Ego, Part 1 (the ninth episode of Star Trek: Picard), Admiral Picard tells Dr Jurati that the use of a Borg transwarp corridor allowed La Sirena to travel вЂњ25 light-years in fifteen minutes.вЂќ Picard says this with a tone of surprise, as if such speed is something that the Federation, even in the year 2399, is unaccustomed to. Even if 100 light-years is the absolute maximum distance for transwarp beaming, itвЂ™s still a far faster method of travel than anything else known to the Federation. This technology was known to Spock in 2387, so it definitely existed in the Prime Timeline in the late 24th Century. Memory Alpha, the Star Trek wiki, suggests that the distance between Earth and QoвЂ™noS could be somewhere between 90-110 light-years, so for a rough guide for the sake of this argument weвЂ™re going to say that transwarp beaming has a range of at least 100 light-years. The travel time from Earth to QoвЂ™noS at warp 4.5 was around four days in that same episode. Into Darkness doesnвЂ™t give an exact distance to QoвЂ™noS, but in EnterpriseвЂ™s pilot episode it was far enough away from Earth that no human had ever encountered a Klingon despite humanity being a spacefaring species for decades. As with most of Star TrekвЂ™s technologies, transporters have always been somewhat vague and mouldable to the needs of a particular story, but Into Darkness actually gave us a pretty solid idea about the range that transwarp beaming has: itвЂ™s possible to transport from Earth to the Klingon home planet of QoвЂ™noS. In Star Trek Into Darkness we see how much more powerful transwarp beaming can be than a regular transporter. Sometime prior to 2387, Scotty perfected the formula for transwarp beaming, and Spock provided this equation to ScottyвЂ™s younger self on the planet Delta Vega after arriving in the alternate reality. On first viewing I felt the film wasnвЂ™t clear about how and when transwarp beaming was invented, so for the sake of clarity hereвЂ™s what seems to have happened: after arriving in the 24th Century following decades in suspended animation вЂ“ events depicted in The Next Generation sixth season episode Relics вЂ“ Montgomery Scott eventually went back to work with Starfleet. But the Federation is much larger than just Starfleet, and there must be an awful lot of civilian and cargo traffic that uses warp drive in the same way we use a car, bus, train, or aircraft вЂ“ itвЂ™s a means to an end a way to get from place to place.Д«ookвЂ™s ship at warp in Discovery Season 3.Дў009вЂ™s Star Trek introduced something that I think is vital to this consideration: transwarp beaming. Not so fast! What is the main purpose of warp drive in the Federation? Starfleet uses it for exploration and military purposes, of course, so as viewers thatвЂ™s what we associate warp drive with вЂ“ setting course for an unknown destination and racing away to explore it. Faster-than-light starship travel is in a completely different ballpark, right? Transporters are mainly shown on screen as a method of sending people from starships to planets, and vice versa. On the surface it may seem that the two things arenвЂ™t related. In short, would it have been possible for transporter technology to provide an alternative to some or all of StarfleetвЂ™s faster-than-light travel? WeвЂ™re going to leave those ideas behind for now and focus on one aspect of Star Trek that has been present since the beginning: the transporter. SB-19 was a pre-Burn experiment to send starships at faster-than-light speeds without warp drive. One of the ideas they considered was something called SB-19 вЂ“ a NiвЂ™Var project that seemed to involve some kind of starship-sized вЂњgatewaysвЂќ to get from place to place.

This shortage was so severe that the Federation began looking at alternative options for faster-than-light travel. In short, for a long time prior to the Burn there had been a shortage of dilithium across the galaxy. In order for the Burn to have occurred at all, a very specific set of circumstances needed to align in just the right way (or should that be just the wrong way?) One of these was the dilithium shortage that Admiral Vance elaborated on after Saru, Burnham, and the crew of the USS Discovery arrived at Federation HQ.

WeвЂ™re going to consider different ways that the Federation вЂ“ and the wider Star Trek galaxy вЂ“ could have avoided the Burn, a catastrophic event that caused untold damage to factions and citizens across known space and beyond.

Star trek transwarp drive series#

This article is going to be the first in a short series about the Burn вЂ“ one of the main elements of DiscoveryвЂ™s third season. Spoiler Warning: There are spoilers ahead for Star Trek: Discovery Season 3, Star Trek: Picard Season 1, Star Trek Into Darkness, and for other iterations of the Star Trek franchise.