Question: Going to warp in atmo what would happen.

[Dubwas]

It is my understanding that a warp engine creates a field that causes a rift into subspace and then propels the vessel at its warp allowance. Subspace rift in a planets atmosphere sounds bad. Im trying to determin rules for this. Would it cause a great explosion? would it be a minor thing or quite a major catclismic event on a planet?

[The Tatterdemalion King]

I think the current model follows the alcubierre drive idea, which means that there probably wouldn't be explosions or anything, but depending on what exactly happens severe atmospheric disturbances would be expected. Some sort of shockwave.

As well as the complete pulverization of the starship, unless they have reeeeally powerful deflectors.

[PGoodman13]

Well, there's always the fact that we've seen it done in-canon with no ill effects to Mother Earth. Watch the end of the 20th-century segment of Star Trek IV for the gory details (or lack of same).

[C5]

The trouble with warp is that it isn't always handled the same way in the movies and the series. There is a DS9 episode where Kira or Dax is very upset about using warp inside a star system, while Kirk uses it without a second thought in STIV, and of course, the Phoenix has no trouble with warping very close to Earth in ST:FC.

I guess that a ship travelling at warp could be compared to a plane flying : the better is in a clear sky, but it's also possible for a plane to fly very close to the ground or in a stormy cloud, but it's a lot more hazardous.
In such a case, it would be possible to warp almost anywhere, but the flight would be much more erratic, less controlled and more dangerous to the ship.

I also usually consider warp more as the ship partially immersing itself into subspace in order to reach speeds not allowed by normal space standard physics (warp 10 would be the ship completely entering subspace, while a transwarp conduit would be a sort of mixed space/subspace wormhole inside subspace). Therefore, a ship going to warp inside an atmosphere would probably cause a lot of turbulences, as some gases are sucked into subspace and where the ship has left normal space, but nothing drastic would happen to the atmosphere as a whole.
Of course, any atmospheric ship flying by would be seriously buffeted around or worse, while a very big ship (like a Borg Cube) warping in atmosphere would probably cause something similar to a tornado.

[Tobian]

Yeah I think C5 has it about right, and yes PGoodman13 has a valid point, it has been seen before.

The largest hazard to the ship would indeed be the particulates in the atmosphere! Your deflector would need to be on full, and yes, pushing matter away at speeds faster than light...... would create a heck of a shockfront! But beyond that, there's nothing to support that it would create any kind of 'damage' to the planet/atmosphere, for the same reason it doesn't damage space born matter... there aren't massive cataclysmic explosions every time it runs into space dust If the 'year of hell' you see exactly what happens when a ship flies at warp without it's deflector array! But the onus there was the danger to the ship, not damage that action would have to local space!

While I agree the treatment of warp speed close to planets is woefully inconsistent, I think the main point is simply that of reaction times.... If you make a miscalculation the tiniest fraction of a degree wrong - BANG you just hit a planet! and yes that would make a hell of a mess ! Hence in DS9 they point out that you shouldn't fly at warp anywhere near a star! In Earth's solar-system we know that there are hundreds of thousands of small objects out there in space, especially near any gravity well, they usually also have quite a bit of momentum! While the computer can 'steer' at warp, depending on the density of the objects, at some occasions, local density will mean you simply can't plot a course around them all!

It's entirely possible in oft-visited planetary systems, that they have created special 'warp lanes' - where they have removed as much debris as possible in channels, to allow safe egress from a system at warp, but it's never been stated.

Technically speaking impulse engines also work using subspace fields, as they have a component which lowers the spacial mass of the ship, relative to the vectored thrust, so you need less power for more acceleration, and since these are seen operating frequently in atmosphere, i can't see a specific reason that warp drive would be any more damaging, other than the aforementioned shockfront issue!

[Jem'hadar]

What about the TNG episode where they discovered that travel at high speed warp was causing a spatial rift that was damaging the fabric of the universe, or something like that?

I saw it mentioned only once in TNG, that I recall, & I never saw it mentioned again in subsequent eps or in VOY or DS9.

[Dubwas]

So in general bad but no mroe damage to a planet than say a ship with an antimatter engine crashing into soemthing. Still a large bang but not so bad then agian thats only if they hit somethign in atmo. I firgure there are warp routes because of trade ships and patrols . Intresting target for pirates but perhaps a string of automated defenses to repell them..hmm what if they were hacked by soem evi, dooer..ohh nice new idea...

[Tobian]

It would be a brave pirate who sat on a warp route near Earth! It would be a cool idea, but i also suspect that such a route would be heavily monitored by sensors, because they are... keeping it clear of objects!

and err no - a ship with an antimatter engine crashing into something would be orders of magnitude more explosive than a ship going to warp in atmosphere! It's something they've only dealt with once on the show, but a ship containing antimatter exploding in atmosphere could well damage it's atmosphere beyond repair! in Voyager the warp probe from Zephram Cochrane did just that, and almost wiped out their civilisation!

[Karg]

What about the TNG episode where they discovered that travel at high speed warp was causing a spatial rift that was damaging the fabric of the universe, or something like that?

I saw it mentioned only once in TNG, that I recall, & I never saw it mentioned again in subsequent eps or in VOY or DS9.

In Later Movies and series it was explained that the new warp drives negated this flaw thru various new designs (Enterprise-E's Warp Nacelle's or Voyager Veriable Field Geometry warp drive)

Out of universe explanation, The writers wrote themselves into a corner with a stupid premise and needed a way out

[Rebac]

Well this is what Memory Alpha has to say about how warp works:

Warp drive works by distorting the fabric of space to propel the vessel. Simply put, the drive warps space, both in front of and behind a starship, allowing it to travel faster than the speed of light. Specifically, spacetime is contracted in front of the ship and expanded behind it. The starship itself rests in a warp bubble between the two spacetime distortions. This warped space, together with the region inside it, accelerates off at 'warp speed' and the vessel then 'surfs' the wave in spacetime created by this distortion.

Travel at velocities exceeding the speed of light is possible in this fashion because the starship is, strictly speaking, stationary (relative to the space inside the warp bubble) while space itself is moving. Since space itself is moving and the starship is not actually accelerating, it experiences no time dilation, allowing the passage of time inside the vessel to be the same as that outside the warp bubble.

One could argue that the warp bubble is not very big and only encompasses the ship, thus only affecting a small part of the atmosphere. But I think that the disruptions caused by warp would be too great to not effect a planet.

Although for the sake of game play there could be some type of preventative measure that the pilot can employ to cause minimum space distortions while still achieving warp. You could start at warp 0.5 (or 0.05 just to be safe) and gradually increase the warp factor until you're far enough from the planet. Or if you just want it to be possible with the least amount of explanation just blame the gravitational interference from the planet and have the pilot make a check that's more difficult than normal. If they fail then the atmosphere is severely affected in some way (or the planet could be affected in some way which could lead to an interesting return episode).

[tonyg]

Since the warp drive near a planet problem didn't pop up until TMP, and never bothered TOS again, and only popped upone or twice during TNG, perhaps the problem doesn't actually exist, but was merely a side effect or some other problem?

In TMP the warp drive had not been properly balanced. In early TNG the Enterprise-D was a farily new ship design and still had a few bugs (like when the core computer crashed).

In the other times that warp drive wasn't possible (or difficult) near a planet, what were the circumstances?

So maybe we should just drop the restriction?

[The Tatterdemalion King]

When did it pop up in TMP? Was that the wormhole-y thing?