Talk:Warp drive

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Other fictions in which warp drive technology is featured

Doctor Who does feature faster-than-light technology but it's nothing as primitive as a warp drive. 2.98.242.131 (talk) 09:29, 31 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The person who listed these series (eg: Mass Effect) as having Warp Drive maybe be confusing Warp Drive with other forms of FTL travel, because there is no Warp Drive in Mass Effect. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.168.244.50 (talk) 22:03, 20 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Dilithium crystals

How can you have a discussion of the Warp drive without mentioning dilithium once? Boardhead (talk) 16:30, 7 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

FTL escape from black hole.

A black hole is noteworthy for its singularity and associated event horizon, where not even light possesses escape velocity. Being able to travel at transluminal velocity would not necessarily make it possible to escape a black hole, as the common notion that a black hole merely possesses an escape velocity greater than c is not correct. Rather, inside the event horizon of a black hole, all paths in the space-time geometry lead closer to the singularity.^{[citation needed]} [1]

I removed this. I'm pretty sure it's wrong, and the challenge tag is a year old. Not sure but I think the author was thinking of the interior of the Schwarzchild solution, and that all timelike paths point inward. And that's true, but an FTL path is not timelike!

Another way to look at this is that up close a black hole horizon looks like a Rindler horizon, and you can escape from that using FTL (because the underlying space is just ordinary space). So unless your warp bubble is comparable in size to the black hole itself, the same thing should hold. --192.75.48.150 (talk) 20:15, 29 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Removing table

I again removed this table. It's unnecessary in-universe trivia that doesn't do anything to advance an out-of-universe understanding of the subject. Additionally, if it is, as claimed, straight from the TNG Technical Manual, it is highly dubious to replicate verbatim and without commentary a complete table from a copyrighted source. --EEMIV (talk) 05:52, 26 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Could you point to the policy that says you cannot represent a table of information if you cite the source? I also beg to differ that it doesn't advance understanding. The article talks about warp factor mentioning two different and vague scales. This table actually gives the data. Star Trek warp factor...to begin with...is 99% fictional and has little to do with in-universe reality so the entire section here does absolutely nothing to further out-of-universe understanding of anything. Shall we delete the whole section (or most of the article)? Or you could give us the criteria that decides which information about a fictional technology from a fictional show is trivia and what isn't. BTW, adding a reference table at the end of a section is hardly bold. --Shabidoo | Talk 16:25, 26 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

This article has become FTL Drive in Star Trek.

Neither the FTL article nor any other article that I've found in Wikipedia discusses fictional FTL travel in normal space (as opposed to hyper[space]drive, jump drive, skip drive, jump gates, etc.) I note that Star Trek was far--very far!--from the first science fiction using normal space FTL, whether normal space is warped or not. This monopolization of "Warp Drive" by Star Trek views is unsupportable. As is, this article belongs in a Star Trek wiki, not in Wikipedia--or as it was, Warp Drive (Star Trek).

I note this is the discussion page. It's here to present opposing viewpoints, not to sing Kumbaya. Laguna CA (talk) 21:01, 6 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Well, based on the number of sources and references in the article, this monopolization of "Warp Drive" by Star Trek views is supportable - to paraphrase. What I think you're obliquely suggesting is that the article is renamed to Warp Drive (Star Trek) which would be acceptable, but as WP:PRIMARYTOPIC is clearly the Star Trek version of Warp Drive, I don't think it's really an essential change. Warp Drive would probably end up as a redirect to it in any case. Chaheel Riens (talk) 08:46, 7 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

First, please read the introduction to the article, "Warp drive is a hypothetical faster-than-light (FTL) propulsion system in science fiction works...." The introduction promises a wide discussion of the topic, but the article itself is purely from a Trek POV. Numerous FTL drives were used in SF before Trek, and TOS is basically an FTL normal space drive named "warp drive"; IIRC, the details of Trek warp drive, dilithium crystals excepted, were established in TNG or later. (It's not clear to me whether the original TOS version was more about warping space or warping through space, as a boat or ship warps.) I'm less upset about the monopolization of "warp drive" by Trek than by the absence of an SF view of FTL in general, discussing (at least) E. E. "Doc" Smith, Buck Rogers, Asimov, Clarke, Heinlein, etc. as introduced by the article.

At a minimum, some article (which this article would link to) needs to discuss what the intro promises this article will discuss. In keeping with usual Wikipedia practice, I think this article should be the general article, with a short discussion of Trek and Main article: Warp Drive (Star Trek).

I note Hyperspace (science fiction). Hyperspace is not warp drive is not FTL in normal space is not a jump drive (Babylon 5 usage is somewhat atypical: B5 has hyperspace; many jump drives do not allow access to, or even use the term, hyperspace). Laguna CA (talk) 02:19, 10 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I disagree. I have read the introduction to the article - there's no need to be patronising - and I note that you missed out (to your own convenience) four very important words after your quote - "most notably Star Trek". The introduction does not promise a wide discussion of the topic, given that emphasis is given to ST in the very first sentence.

Look - you don't like the subject of the article, fine - suggest it gets renamed to "Warp Drive (Star Trek)" and then write another article on just the generic concept of the warp drive - with appropriate sources and references, of course. I also reckon that the Star Trek Warp drive is the primary topic, given its level of popularity and perception with the general public. I think you would be hard pressed to justify having this article called "Warp Drive (Star Trek)" and then a stub entitled "Warp Drive" - but hey - go for it. Be Bold. Chaheel Riens (talk) 07:22, 10 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with Laguna CA (talk. This page and a bunch of editors within a certain clique are trying very hard to make warp drive about star trek. It's ridiculous. This whole article is a mockery and should be deleted or made impartial by having only 1 mention of star trek and at least a few other mentions regarding other titles such as star wars, battle star Galactica, stargate, etc. There was a section at the top with a feww titles and it was deleted after i added Stargate sg1 to the list. Now it's consult a sham of an article with star trek written all over it. I'm going to ask for moderation cause it's ridiculous, is a star trek fan boy article.