Warp Speed?

[The Tatterdemalion King]

They'd require 3d maps.

And, you know, a firm idea of what they wanted. They didn't even invent the Federation until the last half of the first season. : P

[LUGTrekGM]

Yeah, I mourn the loss of UNESPA.

[The Tatterdemalion King]

Yeah, I mourn the loss of UNESPA.

And the conquered Vulcans? : P

[Owen E Oulton]

Yeah, I mourn the loss of UNESPA.

You mean UESPA (no "N")? Pronounced "Yoo-spah."

[C5]

You know, I'm pretty sure there are numerous movies and series set in the present day where people travel from one continent to another overnight, without anyone wondering how fast the plane travelled, and if the timezones match, and so on. Or, on the contrary, people seemingly driving from one city to its closest neighbour in hours while the traffic seems completely clear.

Apart from one disastrous quote in Enterprise, where they state that they're moving at hundred times the speed of light while at Warp 4 (which makes Q'onos at roughly 1 ly from Earth ), I don't seem to recall any mention of in the show of the relation between warp factor and actual speed. Therefore, there is no canon (in the strictest sense) warp scale of any kind, and the nice chart we have in the ICON and CODA books is, AFAIK, a educated guess.

So, as a Star Trek viewer, you could decide that :
- Space is not even, some areas are more "warpable" than others, time doesn't run at the same speed from one area to another, c is not a constant, or subspace has other, variable properties, in short : there's a Cochrane factor which makes the Warp/c relation wildly variable. Like a Rover travelling a country, and driving faster when on even ground, but slower on rocky or uneven ground.
- As we usually don't see Star Trek characters sleeping, visiting the restroom, or taking a shower, we don't see the crew waiting for days to reach their destination while the stars stream past. Just as a movie doesn't show the main characters during six hours in a plane eating sandwiches and watching a movie every time they travel.

As a Trek Narrater (or GameMaster, or whatever), I see two options :
- Completely ignore the travel times and speed. If the players need to know how long it would take them to reach a particular destination, make up a duration that complies with your plot. Craft scenarios that don't rely on travel speeds.
- Establish your personal map of the galaxy and your own warp factor scale (or use the one on the books) and stick to it. It requires a bit more of work, but allows to have more strict scenarios and avoid contestations from players with good memory ("what do you mean, the Enterprise needs 10 days from Earth to Bajor ? But last game it needed only 6"). And you can always fudge the time travels a bit as needed. After all, in a modern day RPG, the distance between San Francisco and New York seldom varies, but you can have faster or slower planes, traffic jams or no cops checking the speed limitations as fits the plot...

[Tobian]

I go with the variable subspace density factor myself. It helps with a lot of things, and is partially the reason why they re-wrote the warp scale in TNG, from a number cubed to a 'Cochrane value', which, by it's existence means that they recognise that speed is not fixed even if the warp factor is: Meaning that your warp factor is a value of how much energy you are putting in to the process, not how much speed you are getting out. It's like driving a car up a steep hill or driving down one: the engine puts less effort driving down a hill, and more effort driving up the hill, but the speedometer reads the same.

While they have never mentioned, in the show, a subspace highway (as affecting warp speed) they do have certain shipping lanes, which implies they go that way for a reason, possibly because it's faster and or easier (downhill) and they have had on Voyager a 'subspace sandbar' which prevented them from going to warp at all (REALLY uphill). Voyager also installed the astrometric sensors, to try and find the best route, which implies space-time is not always equal.

It's the best theory for ironing out all the wrinkles, except the foot in mouth incident on Enterprise, which was using the TOS scale

[LUGTrekGM]

I'm all for the personal map of the federation. Since the main PC in my game is an admiral he orders ships around on various tasks, and trying to figure space lanes and other weird travel times from a Cochrane Factor would be not worth the time, thus a clean map, and defined speeds.


Yeah, Owen, UESPA, from Kirk's first days, when TOS was still rough(er).


And sure movies have people flying from London, to Paris on an overnight. but they don't go from London to Paris via Saudi, with a stopover in Bangkok and have it take 3 minutes after the captain of the plane sets the damn autopilot, after taking off from Heathrow.

[spyone]

You know, I'm pretty sure there are numerous movies and series set in the present day where people travel from one continent to another overnight, without anyone wondering how fast the plane travelled, and if the timezones match, and so on. Or, on the contrary, people seemingly driving from one city to its closest neighbour in hours while the traffic seems completely clear.

I gotta say, most of that is due to the availability of maps and globes.


Imagine you had never heard of Europe, and had no idea where anything at all in the world was except for the places in the town you live in. Now imagine you talk a lot with a man who has travelled the world, and he tells you of his adventures. Isn't it likely that at some point you would ask things like, "How long would it take me to get from here to France? Where is Germany in relation to France? Where is Turkey in relation to France? Does Spain border Germany?"


Someone above mentioned that Robert Howard drew a map of Conan's Hyborian Age before he sat down to write the tales. It is also of note that that map first became public because a couple a fans made a map based on the descriptions of nations and their relative positions given in the stories and sent it to Howard, and he replied with (paraphrased), "Not a bad guess. Here's a copy of the map I drew myself."

Geeks have been doing this since the dawn of time: if a map of a fictional setting is not provided, we try and create one from fragments in the stories. And more and more often, the desire for a map is recognized and one is provided. (Next time you're in a bookstore, check how many of the Fantasy novels have a map between the cover and the first page. If it's not there, try the back.)

But, when the original work was not attempting to be consistant, especially when it is the work of more than one creator (who may have had vastly different mental images), getting a solution that satisfies all the fans is virtually impossable.


One last thing: in modern movies where a character travels by jet (and they cut from him in one city to him landing in another), I do often find myself wonderign "How much time has passed?", and maybe even doing a mental calculation of the flight time. But usually I settle for, "If it's important to the plot, I'm sure they'll tell me."