BARNES%TARTAN@CMU-CS-C.ARPA@sri-unix.UUCP (08/16/83)
"The higher the warp, the closer things are, the faster you can effectively go" versus "all those dramatic effects like shaking while under high warp". Assuming that you have a way to warp space artificially.... It will take some amount of energy to warp space and presumably it should take more to warp it more. I believe that the power required was supposed to be exponential with the warp factor so that is one reason for not warping too high needlessly. I believe physics tells us that matter warps space simply by its existence. More matter = more warp (at any rate lots of SF uses this feature). If your basic ship's drive works by warping space and then moving through the warp it would not surprise me to find that hitting the warp caused by extraneous matter causes a slight shake in the ship. Analagous to a dip or bump on a road. The higher your warp and thus your relativistic speed vis a vie the bump I would not be surprised to find that very high speeds cause these bumps to become noticable or even destructive. So, all of the theatrics about very high warps doesn't seem out of place. One interesting question that all this does bring up however is this. Any racing cyclists out there (or race car drivers) will be familiar with the idea of traveling very closly behind whoever happens to be in front of you. This puts you in his slipstream and reduces your drag. If the Enterprise was warping along at high speed and some Klingon (Cling-On?) was following (or the reverse) would there be any slipstream affects? Ie. If you let them get too close does it become easier for them to ride along and catch you further? Gary -------