In my opinion, the Enterprise-D was the best Enterprise. The armament and propulsion systems alone made the ship cool. And it's sheer size. It's a shame it was blown up/crashed in Generations. They should have kept it around for a few more movies.

-Octane

I'll agree with you on that one, it was quite kick-ass.

I have many bluprints from 1701A and D and if I can get good pics of them I may post them. I also have an unused decal book from the original series that is interesting. I'll start a new thread on this.

Yes, the D was awesome until it was destroyed! (shakes fist at Troi). But I voted for the Enterprise-C, just because "Yesterday's Enterprise" was such a great episode. And Tasha Yar came back for a bit. Yay

You're not going to mention NX-01?

I don't know... 1701/1701-A were the shit. Classic shape, classic series... I still ahve the Star Trek Technical Manual, Mr. Scott's Guide To The Enterprise and Star Trek: TNG- Technical Manual.

Online, there used to be a repository of ships made by fans, right down to crests and actual illustrations, but I can't find it!
There was a group in Lake Placid NY that had made their own ship and called it the USS Tahawus... here's a link for all sorts of ships that people have created:
http://hollywoodfa...rek/st_links_U.htm

Samurai

Posted by Samurai I don't know... 1701/1701-A were the shit. Classic shape, classic series... I still ahve the Star Trek Technical Manual, Mr. Scott's Guide To The Enterprise and Star Trek: TNG- Technical Manual. Online, there used to be a repository of ships made by fans, right down to crests and actual illustrations, but I can't find it! There was a group in Lake Placid NY that had made their own ship and called it the USS Tahawus... here's a link for all sorts of ships that people have created: http://hollywoodfa...rek/st_links_U.htm Samurai

This is the only link in that list that works.
http://startrek.netc.com/

So far, the majority prefers the Enterprise-D. Damn right!

-Octane

majority rule sux0r... the original was the best. When they blew it up in Star Trek III, there wasn't a dry eye in the house. "My god, Bones, what have I done?"
Then in IV, when they popped over the Excelsior, and there 1701-A was all waxed and ready to cruise the cosmos on a Friday night, there was hooting and hollering and all sorts of mayhem!!!

there just wasn't that level of emotional attachment with 1701-D. When it got dinged up in Generations, it sucked, but not 'sucked'. All I could say was that it was their first movie out and they already totalled the Enterprise! The insurance company must've been pissed.

1701/1701-A is the best.
Put that in your warp drive and smoke it.

Samurai

Oh I cried when the Enterprise-D was destroyed. But my faith was restored when I saw the Enterprise-E for the first time in First Contact. One word for it: AWESOME!!!!!

-Octane

I just had to say the Enterprise-E. Enterprise 1701-D are more or less constructed using conventional technology. The Enterprise-E is the first Enterprise to have been constructed with all the improvements brought on by the massive military buildup to fight the borg. Organic warp core, bionueral circuitry, a dual phase cycling shielding system, and of course quantum torpedos and a maximum warp capapbility of 9.9.

Actually, warp capability is kind of a misnomer... the way that the warp scale is designed is that as you approach Warp 10, the curve goes to infinity. In other words, you can't go that fast.

The TNG Tech Manual has an awesome explanation of this curve.

Samurai

Yes, I realize that. However, I think you're mistaken on how fast starships can actually go. The Enterprise D did pull 9.9 for a brief period of time. Also you have to remember that the maximum warp capability of the Intrepid class is 9.975. (--First episode of Voyager).

Posted by Kenshin Yes, I realize that. However, I think you're mistaken on how fast starships can actually go. The Enterprise D did pull 9.9 for a brief period of time. Also you have to remember that the maximum warp capability of the Intrepid class is 9.975. (--First episode of Voyager).

There was also another episode in voyager where they Modded one of the smaller vessels to go warp 10, but Captain Janeway ended up regressing/evolving into some sort of reptile

can't quite remember all of it, it was a few years ago

This is copied verbatim from the TNG Technical Manual by Rick Sternbach and Michael Okuda:

Figuring out how 'fast' various warp speeds are was pretty complicated, but not just from a scientific viewpoint. First, we had to satisfy the general fan expectation that the new ship [1701-D] was significantly faster than the original. Second, we had to work with Gene's [Roddenberry] recalibration, which put Warp 10 at the absolute top of the scale. These first two constraints are fairly simple, but we quickly discovered that it was easy to make warp speeds TOO fast. beyond a certain speed, we found that the ship would be able to cross the entire galaxy within a matter of just a few months. (Having the ship too fast would make the galaxy too small a place for the Star Trek format.) Finally, we had to provide some loophole for various powerful aliens like Q, who have a knack for tossing the ship millions of light years in the time of a commercial break. Our solution was to redraw the warp curve so that the exponent of the warp factor increases gradually, then sharply as you approach Warp 10. At Warp 10, the exponent (and the speed) would be infinite, so you could never reach this value. (Mike [Okuda] used an Excel spreadsheet to calculate the speeds and times.) This lets Q and his friends have fun in the 9.9999+ range, but also lets our ship travel slowly enough to keep the galaxy a big place, and meets the other criteria. (By the way, we estimate that in "Where No One Has Gone Before" the Traveler was probabvly propelling the Enterprise at about Warp 9.9999999996. Good thing they were in the carpool lane.

Samurai

That's actually a very good explanation of the Star Trek warp curve. One thing should be taken into account is that the warp scales between the TOS and TNG story lines are different. Excelsior, which was supposed to be capapble of transwarp (Warp 10 on the new scale) was something like Warp 14 on the old scale. (Someone correct me if that value is wrong, it's been a while since I've studied the specs on the Excelsior class.) If Paramount was indeed committed to maintaining the Star Trek story line, then ST:Enterprise should all be on the old warp scale. However I have not done the math and found out.

Tale of the tape, or what I like to call, shopping for a used starship. Buyers guide meets science fiction. Observe:

click to view

old school meets new school.

Samurai

I remember reading that if warp 10 was possible, it would mean that a starship would occupy all points in the universe simultaneously.

that is what would happen 'theoretically' if you attained the speed of light or faster. According to what I have read, which is probably horribly outdated, as you approach the speed of light, time will appear to slow. Also, space will begin to curve. As you reach the threshold for light speed, time will appear to slow, you will appear to occupy all points of the universe at once. Now, as you go faster, theoretically, time should run backwards.

weird.

With the warp drive, from what I understand, you don't actually go faster than light. You go around light speed. Ok, that is oversimplified, but hey, that's what I am here for.

Samurai

Yes, as you approach the speed of light, time does slow. They have measured this with sattellites with extremely accurate onboard nuclear clocks. However, the temporal dialation is not in itself responsible for infinite velocity. Not only does time slow as you approach the speed of light, but your mass increases as well. In theory, at the speed of light an object will be at infinite mass, which would mean that the object in question would be occupying every point in the universe simultaneously. As a side, it appears that it is anitomically impossible for an object to achieve infinite mass. If you hold that a black hole is a tear in the space-time continuum, then it appears that space physically can't support a mass past a certain point, it will tear before that mass approaches infinity. This is all based on the structure of normal space-time with normal Einstinien variables.

If theoretical warp variables are introduced, space becomes rather bizarre. Warp is the bending in one direction or another of space. Gravity is the normal result of mass pushing space out of the way. Anti-gravity is the result of space being pulled in on itself. For instance, if an artifical gravimetric field is created (i.e. gravity is being created without the corresponding mass) then it might become possible to create a black hole or even some type of worm hole. If a large enough anti-gravity field were to be created, the c^2 part of e=mc^2 would be cancelled out, which would mean that you would no longer have the problem of temporal dialation and mass increasing as you approach light speed. It's the anti-gravity approach that the Star Trek warp drive is based on. A very powerful, very concentrated anti-gravity field is created directly aft of the saucer section of the ship. Because the saucer section has significantly more mass then the rest of the vessel in question, the whole vessel then starts riding the anti-gravity wave like a surf board is riding the crest of an ocean wave.

And yes, anti-gravity can and has been produced. It has been demonstrated that if two metal plates are placed then a hair's width apart, a small amount of anti-gravity is created. The Star Trek idea is that if you are able to charge both plates with a highly charged energy source (warp plasma), then the anti-gravity affeect is exponentially increased.