this post was submitted on 27 Dec 2025
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TenForward: Where Every Vulcan Knows Your Name
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Re-route power to the shields, emit a tachyon pulse through the deflector, and post all the nonsense you want. Within reason of course.
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You'd need power to stop.
Otherwise, the ship would just keep going past system after system...
We have no meaningful understanding of how FTL works. It is presented to us as an active process, something that must be maintained, unlike normal space velocity.
But, again, no meaningful understanding.
Either way, you need power.
If warp speed respects inertia, you need power to stop.
If it's an active process, you need power to keep going.
I like the system the writer came up with in 'The Forever War.' Einstein rules until you get to specific stars with 'wormholes'
No, if warp speed has to be maintained, then when it stops being maintained, you stop moving at warp. This is very well outlined in the show. It doesn't work with our understanding of, well, anything, but that's covered under "we have no meaningful understanding of FTL."
You're trying to impose real world physics on something that has no real world analogue.
you would not, because you are not moving, so you don't really need to stop. it is just the universe around you that is moving, which solves some problems with laws of physics ;)
it is impossible to go faster than speed of light.
collapsed inline media
check what happens in this equation when v (the actual speed) approaches c (the speed of light). the number below the fraction bar approaches zero and the whole value approaches infinity.
it is why nothing with mass can move in a speed of light, because it would need infinite energy, which is rather hard to get.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorentz_factor
that is why startrek ships are not moving faster than speed of light, what they actually do, is contract the space around the ship (which, in science fiction, needs less energy than actually flying and is somehow doable.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warp_drive
also check: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcubierre_drive
You’re describing an Alcubierre drive. Star Trek doesn’t use that. Star Trek warp forms a bubble in subspace and you traverse the galaxy there. This bubble makes your inertial mass smaller which allows you to reach velocity values above c.
The ship is moving because the few times we see something get ejected from the warp field it continues moving in normal space. It doesn’t stop dead.
(it's just a TV show, man)
(You should really just re-lax)
as long as the mass is non-zero, the value really does not matter, you would still need infinite energy
These generators are basically coils in warp nacelles protruding from the spaceship. These generate a subspace field, the so-called warp field or a warp bubble, which distort space-time and propels the bubble and spaceship in the bubble forward
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warp_drive#Star_Trek
OK how does subspace communication work faster than light
i am not sure they ever bothered to explain that, the only relevant thing is occasional mentions about subspace relays, which can be installed, repaired or destroyed if it is needed to drive the plot forward.