They say she has transwarp drive

Part of my new/old campaign involves the USS Odyssey an experimental development of the Intrepid class with advanced hull materials, improved shielding and deflectors, new bioneural gel-packs and a transwarp drive.

The transwarp drive is based on a new theory designed by the ASDB working with materiel captured from the Borg and information retrieved from Voyager and 7 of 9. It is a mixture of the old "great experiment' drive and the Borg 'transwarp conduit' system. Basically, the Federation will seed beacons all over its space for the transwarp drive to lock-on.

The ship travels up to warp 9.9 and then activates the transwarp engine, taking it to warp 10 and landing them on the beacon they locked onto.

Now obviously my problem is to prevent player abuse of an ability to move instantanouesly from place to place. Obviously the beacon system must be in place and since the system is experimental, Starfleet has only seeded a few in unpopulated systems for testing purposes. So any ideas how I can make the transwarp drive something that should only be used in emergencies. The Federation 'speed limit' thing is definately out the window.

You could limit the use of transwarp in several ways:
[list=1][*]It puts a heavy drain on energy reserves, meaning the ship will arrive at its destination with reduced capabilities. Having to manage with half power for several hours could be a real problem, especially if you have no way of telling if there isn't an alien battle fleet waiting at the target beacon.[*]Transwarp may need a clear "line of sight" to the target area. For a long range jump this could mean several hours (or even days) regular warp flight to reach a starting position that is guaranted to have no suns, nebula, dark matter planets, etc. between the ship and the destination.[*]As this drive makes use of borg technology there is always the risk of attracting unwanted attention from the Borg.[*]Nasty side effects are always a possibility, even if it doesn't involve mutating the crew into lizards or frogs. What if transwarp produces a radiation that is not immediately harmful, but has to be cleansed away after 8 or 10 jumps. If your crew wants to risk transwarping 12 or 15 times to get away from any danger... Well they have been warned.[/list=1]

Why does the ship go to Warp 9.9... After all, there have been minor percentage increases past that up to warp 9.99997 basically to pinch a little more performance out of the script without breaching Warp 10... :D

But in a science fiction kick, why not have the ship Transwarp capable from Warp 8.8? Which could also give you fun with time travel should you want to? ;)

Good suggestions Lancer, thanks. I might go with a combination of 1 and 2. 3 is well way too nasty to comprehend. 4 is technical redundant, warp 10 allows instantanoues travel to the destination, you'd probably outrun any enemy except the Borg.

Dan, there was a slight typo, the ship has to reach warp 9.0 before it can make the jump to warp 10. The warp 10 insertion is like a 20th space launch with all stations having to call "Go" before the Captain can order the ship to go into transwarp drive.

Actually, the Borg "transwarp" conduits don't enable Warp 10 speed, as has been stated on screen in TNG and confirmed visually on VOY. They actually just accelerate the ship to somewhere around 20 times faster than maximum warp (although from the VOY evidence, I'd say probably faster than that - the Delta Flyer went nearly 10,000 light years in about an hour or so in Dark Frontier - fast but nowhere near "instantaneous" as Warp 10 would be).

Things Live in Transwarp Subspace.



Hungry Things.

Big scary things that like to eat starships and their crews... but season them with fear :)

That Damn Fish!

(Anybody heard from Styro?)

Quote:

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Originally posted by AslanC
Big scary things that like to eat starships and their crews... but season them with fear :)

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For the moment I'm staying out of 'creatures living in transwarp' stories. Too cliched for my taste. But then again I'm using a classic Trek monster this week so who am I to cast the first stone.

Some interesting input so far. Thanks guys and gals.

I take Captain H's point about transwarp and I think I may have to modify the idea slightly. Instantaneous travel is not something I want the PCs to have on a regular basis at least for now.

Maybe a change is in order. But for now I'm sticking with the idea. If the PCs get abusive then I'll take the damn thing away from them.

What if prolonged exposure caused the crew to gain uncontrollable pschic powers or go insane?

Or both. :D

Insert genaric anti-warp 10 rant here.
Follow it with a discussion of how Transwarp is not Warp 10.
Rant on about the dangers to the physical universe posed by Warp 10 travel.

Rant, rave, vent, bang head on table.

Allow that other people are welcome to do with their campaigns as they see fit.

Quietly slink away.

"We're hip-deep in alien cod footsoldiers. Define 'weird'"

I think you've done the job for us, Spyone... :)

As far as creatures in the "warp stream"...I'm still waiting for the Enterprise episode in which they find some sort of creature in the "insert technology here" field/stream/emmision and try and communicate with it to make that particular technology safe for future generations. Of course I'm still waiting for the warp core to breach on that show...a man can dream can't he?