133 TOS-era: The Original Series (Warp Velocities - Star Trek)
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This article is from the Star Trek Tech FAQ, by Joshua Bell inexorabletash@hotmail.com with numerous contributions by others.
133 TOS-era: The Original Series (Warp Velocities - Star Trek)
The original series warp equation is generally accepted to be:
v = (W ^ 3) * c
But this has never appeared in any episode. However, it has such wide
acceptance that it has pretty much stuck. It's even in the
Encyclopedia.
Boris S. writes:
The equation is almost certainly the work of TOS producers. Stephen
Whitfield extensively researched the show in the period of 1967-68
and published the information in his book The Making of Star Trek
(1968). He states that Warp 1 is the speed of light, Warp 3, 24
times the speed of light, Warp 6, 216c and Warp 8, 512c. With the
exception of the value for Warp 3 (which should be 27c), the W^3*c
formula holds. Whitfield almost certainly obtained the numbers from
the TOS writer's guide which contained a small technical manual.
This chart compares TOS-era Warp speeds with the speed of light:
Warp Factor Velocity 1 1 Speed of Light 2 8 3 27 4 64 5 125 6 216 Maximum stable speed of NCC-1701 7 343 8 512 Emergency speed of NCC-1701 9 729 10 1000 11 1331 12 1728 13 2197 14.1 2803 "That Which Survives" [TOS]
It is also generally accepted that the TOS scale was also used for the
first few movies. Since speeds are rarely quoted in the movies,
however, that's only speculation.
Joe Chiasson, describing Star Trek Maps, a map and manual combination
by Bantam Books from 1980, offers:
The booklet contains quite a lot of written information on the
development of warp drive systems and how warp travel is affected
by matter density in a given area of space. The above formula was
written as v = Wf^3 * c. This was further modified to include the
Greek letter chi (X), which was a variable denoting the local
density of matter, which changed depending on where you happened to
be. So the proper formula for TOS level warp drive is
v = c * Wf^3 * X
where Wf was the warp factor, and c was the speed of light.
Included was a table of corrected warp speed for a given average
value of X.
Wf Wf^3 X * Wf^3 Time per parsec hrs min sec 1 1 1,292.7238 22 05 29 2 8 10,341.7904 02 45 41 3 27 34,903.5426 00 49 05 4 64 82,734.3232 00 20 43 5 125 161,590.4750 00 10 36 6 216 279,228.3407 00 06 08 7 343 443,404.2634 00 03 52 8 512 661,874.5856 00 02 35 9 729 942,395.6502 00 01 49 10 1000 1,292,723.8 00 01 19
This correction factor does make a lot of sense, given that v = W ^ 3
by itself is almost ludicrously slow given the speeds quoted by TOS.
Joe also suggests that by the time of TNG warp fields have been
refined to the point that the chi factor is dropped from the formula.
I think that the numbers are a little too high, however, when compared
to TNG speeds.
As a side note, wf(n) = n * c appears in James Blish's TOS script
adaptations, which have been widely read, so you may see that formula
cropping up from time to time as well. Those speeds would be
ridiculously slow, so that formula isn't really worth considering.
(Thanks to Taki Kogoma for pointing that out.)
John "Eljay" Love-Jensen points out that in "By Any Other Name" [TOS]
the Kelvans were using there technology to propel the Enterprise "to
Andromeda, 300 years of travel". Andromeda is 2.3 million light-years
away. For 300 years of travel, that translates into Warp 19.7! They
probably intended to accelerate to that speed once they made it
outside the galaxy, and the Enterprise didn't end up going that fast
during the episode, but it means they thought it was possible for the
ship to make it.
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