Posted by Captain John Tiberius Glen (Captain) in Main Sim - Lecture Hall 2B - Tiastri’s lecture on Beyond Warp 9
[snip]

After several moments, the small chrono on the console gave a small blip of light only Tia saw. Smiling, she stepped up beside the table and glanced out at her scattered audience. “Warp speed… simple concept, right? I mean, we travel it all the time. Warp six to the nearest Star Base… warp 8 to escape an attack. Perhaps we have even traveled as fast as warp 9.9 in a dire situation where getting TO someplace, or AWAY FROM IT, were a matter of life and death, itself. But can we ‘actually’ go faster?” She tapped the console and the lights dimmed as the main display at the front of the lecture hall lit up with a basic chart (1). “Here we see the basic table almost every child learns in primary school, and nearly everyone here learned more intimately in higher learning including the Academy. We see the differences in warp are similar to the differences measured in old school descriptions of hurricanes. A category two hurricane wasn’t twice the size of a category one. It was ten times bigger. As with warp, warp two isn’t twice the speed of warp one. It’s an exponential growth, not a simply ‘times itself’ measurement.” She let the words sink a moment before continuing. “To begin with, we will discuss what warp 9 truly means as far as speed is concerned. Then I will attempt to answer the question that’s haunted engineer and science minds since the Vulcan’s first made themselves known to Cochran… Can we go faster?”

She paused one more moment then talked for about 15 minutes about how each subsequent increment of warp was not a single digit jump in speed but a folding of numbers and an exponential speed that grew as each level of warp was attained. She paused several times in order to accept questions.

Cross’s hand went up and when she saw that Tia had her full attention she asked ‘’Lt Tia with that increase in warp drive would there not be any issues biological ,
psychological harm to crew members or anything organic that is concerning life aboard the ship?’‘.

Tia nodded and listened to the question. “Lots of folks over the decades and centuries since light and warp drive have asked that. As far as we have been able to determine, there is no long term affects from repeated and extended warp drive exposure. The few times that there have been accidents or that have been documented cases of deaths were in relation to the collapse and failure of the warp fields and protective barriers during high speed travel.” She slowly paced the stage as she spoke.

“While there are still no tried and true, hard and fast, definite proof, it’s believed that space is bent around a ship at warp speed rather than the ship actually moving thru space on its own. In several tests, ships were placed side by side and one would transfer to warp. There was no way to tell if the stationary ship was ‘pushed’ away, or the moving ship ‘moved’ away. So in answer to your question…” she smiled, “We have no idea. All anyone can say at this point is that it is not ‘unsafe’ if all parameters of safety and drive are working.”

She tapped her console and the next photos (2) to come up were accompanied with a discussion of the various thoughts of how warp fields were created. While there was an inclusion of what was taught at the Academy level, she kept it equal to the other views that were created and thought of during the evolution of faster than light speed.

Cadets from all departments lined the room with every free space it seemed out of all the lecture’s so far oddly this one was the most popular it seemed!

‘’Thank you Lt’’ the CMO replied politely for in that instance she had to behave and conduct oneself well, show good manners, an example to the Cadets who some would scrutinize everything and everyone.

Cross already knew about the increase warp drive but that was classified material which Star Fleet supposedly had not yet reached.

Glen also knew that the increase came along with reports that it caused a deterioration of the fabric of space itself, but that many were trying to sweep that under the carpet, so desperate were they to achieve Warp 10. Others believed subspace damage was only a problem if the space was not allowed time to recover, and that no area of space was so busy with shipping that it could not recover sufficiently.

Glen felt confident that the Federation Science Bureau and the Vulcan Science Academy would deal with the problem effectively. They dealt with complex and technical areas and these kinds of risks and uncertainties impact to some extent on all planets. Glen wasn’t a scientist himself, just an amateur archaeologist, and he had to trust that these organisations would do their jobs.

• Glen, CO

Unaware of several audience members knowing of the same futuristic possibilities as herself, she wasn’t about to open that can of worms. The potential was always there to go faster. It was merely a case of generation after generation making the structural adaptations to do such things, and the technology to keep it stable.

She answered a couple more questions about motion and issues with warp in proximity to spacial anomalies. She answered them in terms both layman and technical. She knew some were engineers and would understand the vernacular, but many were just curiosity seekers and making it realistic and grounded in reality was a necessity as well. After finishing a swift explanation about sling shot maneuvers in conjunction with warp, she smiled and glanced at the clock. “Are there any more questions?” She held her hand up as nearly half the hands in the room went up. “I mean,” she laughed, “that pertain to warp drive…” she watched several of the guys drop their hands as the women around them laughed. “That I can explain in less than five minutes…” she watched as several more hands dropped, “and that don’t involve theoretical queries about Warp 11 and higher?” Finally the list of hands were more manageable.

Tia
CE