Galaxy X debate (renamed)

posted on August 17th, 2011, 10:16 am

Second, the most logical explination as to the Enterprise going warp 13 would be due to having the extra warp engine mounted on it and presumably a more powerful warp core.

you see now you're equivocating. this isnt the most logical explanation. its 1 of many possible explanations.

you've just repeated your point that you think the third nacelle added the speed, doesnt make your argument stronger. the 3rd nacelle giving more speed is just 1 possibility among many.

It seems silly to do all that work just to make a "cleaner" engine when they could just limit how fast the ship goes or just retire it.

are you kidding? that's ridiculous. starfleet would definitely refit ships to prevent damaging subspace and causing those huge anomalies that break warp. the speed limit that they added in tng was a completely temporary measure until engines could be fixed.

you just dont want to admit that there is just as much evidence for 3rd nacelle = less damage to subspace as there is for 3rd nacelle = more speed.

i'll repeat again, warp engines get faster over time, so the fact that the future ent can go faster than old ent would likely be true regardless of a third nacelle being added. as warp tech gets improved over time. therefore you cant come to the conclusion that the third nacelle is the reason why the future ent goes faster. only that the third nacelle is possibly why, and refinement to warp technology is another big possibility.

And as far as sources, I never stated it was cannon, just that MA listed the ONLY info we have to go on that comes even close to authentic.

just because it only lists a crap source doesnt make that source any more relevant. you cant defend this source, otherwise you have to defend similar sources such as shatner novels and the encyclopedias.

And pointing out something like the constellation doesnt make sense as its old technology thats almost a century out of date, obviously some ships wouldnt be able to be upgraded to that extent.

actually it shows rather well why your argument is bad. the constellation has 4 nacelles, so according to your warp theory it can warp space more and go faster than its fellow 2 nacelled ships of the same time period. yet it clearly wasnt very fast, in fact it was underpowered as picard said.

Warp drive is established using a warp field created by the warp nacells, a stonger warp field means you can "warp" space more, ergo you go faster. Strength of the field is determined by your core and your field coils, it would make sense that the more field coils you have the stronger field you could create and the faster you could go. And seeing as how in Voyager and Enterprise the ships had damaged nacelles but were able to maintain warp at a slower speed indicated that less nacelles indeed equals less speed, and the reverse should also apply.

and now you're completely speculating on how YOU think warp should work. warp drive doesnt exist, all we have to go with is canon, and you cant try add real life science to it (as its science fiction). so all of what you are saying is meaningless. its not canon, very little detailed science of warp was given in canon, because it was a tv show not a tech manual. so this whole paragraph is pointless, all we can reason from is evidence from canon.

and the evidence on nacelles being taken out is very clear, i dont know what you've been watching, but whenever a nacelle is knocked offline, warp drive all goes off. to further complicate matters we have seen a ship designed with only 1 nacelle (in the BOBW graveyard) so there isnt some magic 2 nacelle lower limit. but ships with 1 nacelle offline cant fly. this destroys the idea of more nacelles = more speed.

also to point out a flaw in your argument you were just arguing from damaged (but not offline nacelles) = lower speed implies more nacelles = more speed. which is really silly. as a damaged nacelle still operates. adding a new nacelle is the opposite of disabling an existing nacelle, not damaging an existing nacelle.

posted on August 17th, 2011, 10:32 pm

Myles I mostly agree with you however in the case of the underpowered stargazer, the naccles have nothing to do with power, the warp core does.

As for the Galaxy X, as stated above I agree that the warp scale was likely re-adjusted (or the TNG writers decided to use a big number for fun in the final episode).

As for the third nacelle, if nothing else it likely simple gave the ship more options, it could accelerate more quickly for tactical purposes, it could sustain decent speed even with a nacelle damaged, and it could likely sustain a faster top speed, especially since without a doubt by that point it's new warp core was no doubt capable of powering all three nacelles at the high warp nine point lol decimal places, whereas in earlier times in TNG they could onyl go that fast so long before having to shut the warp core down or have it blow the ship up.

posted on August 17th, 2011, 10:57 pm

Myles I mostly agree with you however in the case of the underpowered stargazer, the naccles have nothing to do with power, the warp core does.

ahem, thats my point. moar nacelles =/= moar speed/power or anything. if anything from the stargazer being underpowered, we have that more nacelles didnt help at all in more speed or power.

As for the third nacelle, if nothing else it likely simple gave the ship more options, it could accelerate more quickly for tactical purposes, it could sustain decent speed even with a nacelle damaged, and it could likely sustain a faster top speed, especially since without a doubt by that point it's new warp core was no doubt capable of powering all three nacelles at the high warp nine point lol decimal places, whereas in earlier times in TNG they could onyl go that fast so long before having to shut the warp core down or have it blow the ship up.

as i said before those are possibilities, just as much as 3rd nacelle to stop hurting subspace.

my main point is that there was no explanation given for the third nacelle in the show, and it stinks of stupidity, tacking on another nacelle for no production reason.

posted on August 18th, 2011, 1:06 am

Agreed on the first point, plus it appeard to be a VERY late TMP era ship (10ish years after generations tops maybe ?) so it likely got a weapons upgrade taht, combined with having to feed FOUR nacelles, kept the warp core over taxed.


Second point, well the Gal-X is pretty sexy looking, the design was basically intended to throw it in your face that its the future big-E, and they had a design that was wondrous.

Plus there ARE valid tactical reasons for the third nacelle, and with the no doubt new warp core they could actually power a single extra one, or maybe even only keep it on standby, just incase they loose one of the others.

But yeah, of all the 'lol lets add an extra warp nacelle' ships, the Gal-X was deffinitly the best looking one.

[Equinox1701e]

posted on August 18th, 2011, 4:00 am

Last edited by Equinox1701e on August 18th, 2011, 7:29 am, edited 1 time in total.

Myles I never said the 3rd nacelle didnt mean less damage to subspace, (altho that theory seems odd to me, instead of making the 2 nacelles NOT damage subspace, lets add a 3rd, that'll fix it) and I also never said I was right, this is ALL speculation, however given what we know in Star Trek we can draw some conclusions.  And you are the one that seems to be unable to accept the fact that the 3rd nacelle has a function other then "looking cool". I try to come up with an explination that falls in line with what we know in the Star trek universe, and explain my theory, you on the other hand, just seem to like to disagree and say Im wrong and call my argument illogical when your argument is equally illogical. And you dont even bother to try to show WHY you think your right. Seems like you jsut dont like the ship design so you dont really care either way so Im not sure why you even bother replying at this point.

Now on to some of your other statements, yes Picard called the Stargazer underpowered, but since when does that mean slow? That could mean alot of things from weak armarment to defenses to weak sensor systems. It doesnt mean anything about how fast she was. And MA lists her top speed at warp 9, not too bad for a late TMP era ship.

About warp power and nacelles. Watch the episode of Voyager year of hell, Torres tells Janeway that one of the nacelles was a complete loss and that the other one was off line, Janeway told her to divert ALL power to the good nacelle, meaning the one nacelle was INOPERABLE, yet they had warp power. And Enterprise episode Twilight, they lose the starboard nacelle but were able to do warp 1.7 or something like that with 1 nacelle. So yes a ship with a damaged nacelle CAN go to warp using just 1 good nacelle. And I never said anything about some magical 2 nacelle number, and as far as the show is concerned its usually plot reasons warp drive is knocked offline moe then anything.

And yes though warp drive is fictional, but based on what we have seen from the show there are things we can deduce about how it WOULD function.

First warp core creates electro plasma that feeds the nacelles, thats cannon.

The nacelles house warp coils that are powered by said plasma, also cannon.

Warp coils create a subspace bubble around the ship "warping " the space around the ship making FTL travel possible. Cannon.

Now we have seen the Enterprise warp core running at very high speed when the ship was at high warp, now even tho it was never stated why, presumably it s because you need more power to generate a stronger subspace field around the ship making higher warp speeds possible, seems to make sense to me.

Now this is where my logic takes us, by adding a 3rd nacelle, you add another set of warp coils that have the potential to allow for a more powerful warp field, thus making the ship move faster.

Now alot of what I said comes from cannon sources as to how the warp drive works, i didnt make up a bunch of crap, and again I never said I was right, but when I look at the way warp drive works as seen in the show, this seems the most likey explination for the 3rd nacelle to me anyway.

posted on August 18th, 2011, 6:01 am

The Galaxy X is A dreadnaught based on the Galaxy class. I have seen  (dont remember where ) there is a Semi dreadnaught  classifacation where  a  refit would get a Additional  yet smaller in size warp engine .The reason was to give a  boost to  warp speed and warp power and weaponds systems of the ship with out a  tieing up major  critical  system  components in short  supply. A example would be a Ent B  class ship getting a Ent A class  slab  sided nacelle  attached on the dorsal spine. If I remember  correctly  the  additional engine refit    was  not a  success because of the additional weight  and  stresss it placed on  the ships  spaceframe, along with a additional 30% increase in  warp fuels  consumption versus a 2 nacelled version.

posted on August 18th, 2011, 10:13 am

Plus there ARE valid tactical reasons for the third nacelle, and with the no doubt new warp core they could actually power a single extra one, or maybe even only keep it on standby, just incase they loose one of the others.

so redundancy? that seems expensive just for a little redundancy.

But yeah, of all the 'lol lets add an extra warp nacelle' ships, the Gal-X was deffinitly the best looking one.

i disagree it's sexy looking, it looks stupid to me. the original galaxy was a nice looking ship, the galaxy x was childish.

it may look stupid, but if it had looked more like the original ent d it would have been better. i could live with the giant phaser cannon of death. it was a tad op tho. future fed ships tend to be (agt future ent, rhode island from endgame etc).

that theory seems odd to me, instead of making the 2 nacelles NOT damage subspace, lets add a 3rd, that'll fix it

why is it odd? we don't know anything about how warp engines caused the problem in the first place, and we have no idea how it was solved (if we believe the intrepid and sovvie solved it). those 2 designs were new, and could take into account the issues in their design process. but maybe the galaxy couldnt be refitted to not damage subspace without adding a third nacelle.

and I also never said I was right, this is ALL speculation, however given what we know in Star Trek we can draw some conclusions.  And you are the one that seems to be unable to accept the fact that the 3rd nacelle has a function other then "looking cool". I try to come up with an explination that falls in line with what we know in the Star trek universe, and explain my theory, you on the other hand, just seem to like to disagree and say Im wrong and call my argument illogical when your argument is equally illogical. And you dont even bother to try to show WHY you think your right. Seems like you jsut dont like the ship design so you dont really care either way so Im not sure why you even bother replying at this point.

you have clearly not been reading my posts? you blatantly misrepresent my argument, either because you didnt read it or are making a weak attempt at a straw man argument.

either way, i never said you theory of the third nacelle is impossible, i said your conclusion that the third nacelle is for speed is wrong. 3rd nacelle = more speed is 1 of many possibilities. many reasons for refitting warp engines exist, there are many qualities of warp engines that starfleet would like to improve. not damaging subspace is one of them, maybe a 3rd nacelle is more fuel efficient without giving a boost in speed. maybe a 3rd nacelle allows turning at warp. these are all possible explanations. my point is that you cannot say any of them are right, as there is no evidence in canon to support any of them. im not replacing your theory with my own theory and saying mine is right, im saying none of the theory's have adequate evidence to support them.

About warp power and nacelles. Watch the episode of Voyager year of hell, Torres tells Janeway that one of the nacelles was a complete loss and that the other one was off line, Janeway told her to divert ALL power to the good nacelle, meaning the one nacelle was INOPERABLE, yet they had warp power. And Enterprise episode Twilight, they lose the starboard nacelle but were able to do warp 1.7 or something like that with 1 nacelle. So yes a ship with a damaged nacelle CAN go to warp using just 1 good nacelle. And I never said anything about some magical 2 nacelle number, and as far as the show is concerned its usually plot reasons warp drive is knocked offline moe then anything.

nice work finding 2 examples that support your case. this stems from a problem with trek being inconsistent. in nearly every other episode when a ship has 1 nacelle damaged or taken offline, the whole ship drops to impulse. these are more numerous.

And yes though warp drive is fictional, but based on what we have seen from the show there are things we can deduce about how it WOULD function.

no we cant. because this is science fiction you cant apply much real science to it. you can only argue from the science we heard in canon, which is pretty lacking.

First warp core creates electro plasma that feeds the nacelles, thats cannon.

The nacelles house warp coils that are powered by said plasma, also cannon.

Warp coils create a subspace bubble around the ship "warping " the space around the ship making FTL travel possible. Cannon.

Now we have seen the Enterprise warp core running at very high speed when the ship was at high warp, now even tho it was never stated why, presumably it s because you need more power to generate a stronger subspace field around the ship making higher warp speeds possible, seems to make sense to me.

Now this is where my logic takes us, by adding a 3rd nacelle, you add another set of warp coils that have the potential to allow for a more powerful warp field, thus making the ship move faster.

[img width=300]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8f/Cannon_pic.jpg[/img]

cannon?

but seriously some of the basics of warp theory from the shows is in your idea. but a lot of it is terrible assumptions. you assume you know how a warp field works. you assume that a "stronger" (with no definition of stronger) warp field will increase speed. you also assume that just giving a warp coil more power will make it produce a "stronger" subspace field. which is a bad assumption since we dont know how warp coils work. you also assume that adding more warp coils creates a "stronger" subspace field. thats not something we can assume either. we saw wesley mess around with the shape of the warp field in some eps, apparently trying to improve stuff. its equally possible (although equally not provable with the evidence at hand) that the shape of a warp field is what determines higher warp capability. and that warp speed improves because geniuses do complex theoretical warp theory and devise new warp field equations for better shaped bubbles.

you also assume that the speed of the cool flashing lights on the enterprise warp core is it increasing its power output. which is a bad assumption, for all we know its increasing another property such as frequency of some kind to support higher speeds. if it indicated more power then it would flash a lot in battle as more power is used for weapons and shields at impulse, but it doesnt do that.

basically canon gives us very little to work on. it doesnt explain how warp coils work, nor the properties of a subspace field. and if it did it would probably be a load of technobabble.

thats why the evidence available in AGT does not allow us to conclude why the 3rd nacelle was put there. i still maintain (from a production point of view) that it was put there for visual reasons, and that it was just something stupid tacked onto the hull, like the wings on the saucer. they altered the future ent cos they thought the audience was just too damn stupid to understand that the enterprise from the future could look similar to the ent we remember, so they altered it visually to make it clear.

[Quatre]

posted on August 18th, 2011, 1:24 pm

Last edited by Quatre on August 18th, 2011, 1:27 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Are Staships powerd by the Warpcore or is the warpcore just powering the  warpdrive? On the one hand the Voyager lost the Warpcore and was full of energy (but without warp) on the other hand they where running out of "warpcorefuel" and where short on energy. Or was it just mainreactorfuel which is used for both. Star Trek cannon is one of the badest cannons I've ever seen. Nobody is intrested in what was said yesterday.

I think we can say, that more energy is given to the coils at higher speed. It could be more energy at all or, if the energy is given in parts, the energy is given with a higher frequency. Else somethin like turn of the lights (what they never ever did on starships as it seems), power down the shields an weapons and redirect all power to the warpdrive to be faster won't work. Both would stress the hardware more and in both forces you to produce more energy at the same timeframe. And we saw, that on high speeds the hardware worked at his limits or beyond (like the reactor is running an 120%, possible bot no good idea and it will make damage after some time).

I thought the warpdrive allways worked like a magnet. A field is builded up between two coils. On the older ships you had 1 coils on one nacelle (TOS). That is one field build up between two coils  On the newer ones you have more coils per nacelle (Rodenberry said it is so ). so between 2 nacelle you will build up to fields or streams of energy ( 2 coils on one nacelle). That would give the Stargazer the same fieldstrengh of the Galaxy IF the hardware would be the same and not outdatet. On the Galaxy X you got 3 nacelle and 6 coils so 3 fields (if the nacelles are the same, there could be 3 coils in the outer nacelle). If you connect some magnetic poles there won't be 3 fields but one that is stronger. I thougt that this is the way how the field works. How the warpdrive workes at all and if a stronger field would make you faster (it would make an electromagnetic field stronger), well...
How does the Heisenbercompensator works .

posted on August 18th, 2011, 2:23 pm

erm i'm having a bit of trouble understanding that post. but some of it i did get was about the question: does a warp core power only the warp engines.

the answer varies. in voyager when the warp core was gone they obviously lost warp capability, but also the whole ship went dark and it took them some time to get impulse back, powered by the fusion reactors. they also said their combat capabilities were limited by not having the warp core.

so my best guess would be that the warp core is regularly used for all power needs, and when not at warp it is used for powering combat systems. but when the core is off or ejected, these systems can still be run from fusion reactors, just at a lower setting.

posted on August 18th, 2011, 3:34 pm

Yes, also not quite sure what to make of your post Quatre, but yes the warp core powers the whole ship, thats why you have exploding EPS conduits all over the ship, to power all the subsystems.

Altho your analogy with magnets makes alot of sense when you think about. Older ships prolly dont have as powerful coils, and even with more nacelles cant compete with ships with newer nacelles/coils. And of course a warp coil is only as powerful as the amount of juice you pour into it, so the stronger the core, the more powerful field you get. But at some point the coils just cant take any more energy and you need to find another solution and adding moe coils (basically a bigger magnet) would get you a stronget field.

Speculation of course, subject to Myles approval. 

posted on August 18th, 2011, 4:11 pm

Speculation of course, subject to Myles approval. 

so you've given up on arguing your point and have decided that the only way you can represent yourself is with sarcasm and smarm? far from rapier wit.

posted on August 18th, 2011, 4:17 pm

Just some random thougts about how the ship is powerd (ok, the warpcore does it all in general). It is long ago I saw Voyager.

How bad canon is and how much we know about the warpdrives. More energy (however it is send, like co-current flow with higher voltage or ampere or like single-phase alternating current with an higher frequency, it dosen't matter) -> faster. Because you can send the energy of lifesupport to the warpdrive to go faster.

And how I understand the warpdrive (in some points). Like an giant magnetic field(s that become one field) ) between pairs of elektromagnets (2 coils 1 field, 4 coils 2 fields, 6 coils 3 fields -> 6 coils 3x stronger field (in an perfekt world without energyloses)).
More energy and more (stronger) elektromagnets -> stronger field -> MAYBE higher warpspeed (mass and form of the ship, gravityfields in space...).

And the thought, that the Galaxy X could have even more then 6 coils

But on the other hand, we don't know anything because never it was explaint clearly. Like the Heisenbercompensator Heisenberg compensator - Memory Alpha, the Star Trek Wiki


And I think I made some mistakes in the text. Sorry for that. Mostly I read english. Writing is much more rearly. Speaking... ah, go away .

The discussion were flown away much earlyer.

posted on August 18th, 2011, 4:59 pm

so you've given up on arguing your point and have decided that the only way you can represent yourself is with sarcasm and smarm? far from rapier wit.

Myles it was a Joke, Im not trying to offend you, just seems like this topic was getting a bit more heated then it should have. And I think ive made my argument pretty clear and see no further need to clarify it any more at this point. I mean seriously look at us, were sitting here arguing about technology that doesnt exist! If thats not humerous I dont know what is, just trying to keep it civil and fun. If I offended you I apologize. 

posted on August 18th, 2011, 5:12 pm

Myles it was a Joke, Im not trying to offend you, just seems like this topic was getting a bit more heated then it should have. And I think ive made my argument pretty clear and see no further need to clarify it any more at this point. I mean seriously look at us, were sitting here arguing about technology that doesnt exist! If thats not humerous I dont know what is, just trying to keep it civil and fun. If I offended you I apologize. 

a well written post and i am no longer offended.

[Equinox1701e]

posted on August 19th, 2011, 3:13 am

Last edited by Equinox1701e on August 19th, 2011, 3:29 am, edited 1 time in total.

no we cant. because this is science fiction you cant apply much real science to it. you can only argue from the science we heard in canon, which is pretty lacking.

you also assume that the speed of the cool flashing lights on the enterprise warp core is it increasing its power output. which is a bad assumption, for all we know its increasing another property such as frequency of some kind to support higher speeds. if it indicated more power then it would flash a lot in battle as more power is used for weapons and shields at impulse, but it doesnt do that.

basically canon gives us very little to work on. it doesnt explain how warp coils work, nor the properties of a subspace field. and if it did it would probably be a load of technobabble.

Funny I missed this entire post you put up, just some food for thought to clarify on some of my assumptions. Do you remember the episode of TNG Hollow Persuits? Near the end when the Enterprise races out of control its because the matter and antimatter injectors were stuck. The core basically is just a delivery system for matter and antimatter to intermix in the articulation frame where the crystals are. So based on the conversation LaForge has with his team, with the injectors stuck they couldnt control the flow of fuel and the core was racing out of control, that episode alone helps alot in understanding how the engine might function. Basically the Enterprise throttle was stuck wide open, and with no way to curb the flow of fuel the core just kept pumping juice to the nacelles, from what we know of matter and antimatter, the more you mix together the more energy you produce. These are the types of episodes that come to mind, that while not totally explaining warp drive, give important tidbits on how it would function in CANON (of the not firing ball type). With all weve seen it shouldnt be hard to come to some logical conclusions.

Heres another thing I find interesting, generally the crew referr to the nacelles as "engines". and they make the ship go, now when the captain orders all availble power to the engines what do you think they mean? Not the warp core, the core produces the power, so the only thing left is the nacelles, and given that they only usually order all power to the warp drive when they want to go faster, that iseems to indicate the more power you dump into the warp coils the faster you go. it makes more sense when you figure the same electro plasma feeds all the other ship systems, and when they really need warp power they just divert the electro plasma to the nacelles and redice the flow to other systems.

Now we may not know exacly how the nacelles do what they do, but we know they DO make a warp field using electro plasma, and it seems likely the more electro plasma getting fed to them is what allows for faster warp factors.

Funny the more we debate about this the more it seems to make sense on how the ship would actually function, to me anyways. What do you think Myles, interested in hearing your thoughts on it.