Unknown Galaxy-Class

posted on December 11th, 2009, 10:40 pm

I recently read the novelizations of The Wrath Of Khan and The Search For Spock. In both novels, there was a mention of a REALLY fast Galaxy-Class. To quote from one of the books, "They work best around warp 12." Apparently, a close friend of Sulu's took command of one of them abnd set course for the Andromeda galaxy before the Enterprise went out on its shakedwon training cruise. When they were returning after fighting Khan, they recieved a report that it had already reached the galaxy.

I've heard of fast-as-hell ships throughout Star Trek, but I don't believe that the Feds had stuff THAT fast back then. Transwarp was supposed to be on Excelsiors, but that was abandoned.

Has anyone else heard of this apparent TMP version of my favorite ship? From the brief descriptions that are in the books, she's nothing like the one we all know and love (and some of us hate...but that soitenly ain't me).

posted on December 11th, 2009, 10:52 pm

As far as I know, the TMP-Era counterpart of the Galaxy was the Ambassador Class. It was probably the fastest ship of the time, the Warp 12 bit could be because of using a different Warp scale back then.

Getting to Andromeda was unlikely to have anything to do with the ship, more likely a Wormhole or something.

posted on December 11th, 2009, 11:12 pm

I believe S31 was working on a Transwarp prototype of the Galaxy somewhere around that time. Though I'd imagine that there'd be one problem. "Where is the Gas stations along the way for the trip?"

posted on December 11th, 2009, 11:37 pm

I think the Ambassador came WAAYY after this time. If what you said was true, the Enterprise-C would have been OLD in in terms of ship design. There's just no way its that.

To the extent of my knowledge, the warp scale has maintained relatively the same, seeing as Warp 10 was supposed to be QUITE a trip everytime it was brought up. I kind of find it hard to believe this was something created just for the book, because I believe the author got a look at the script for both movies. Maybe this could have been a BETA Galaxy. For all we know, Roddenberry's original idea was to have the Feds far more advanced by the time of the launching of the Ent-D.

I don't know, this is just one of those things... I just found it a bit odd to see the name of my fav ship in Kirk's time. Hell, I doubt that Picard even told Kirk what class of ship the Enterprise-D was

posted on December 11th, 2009, 11:46 pm

As I recall, Warp 10 was the End-All barrier of speed.  Warp 10 was the equivalent of teleportation essentially.  I think it had to do with the Quantum theory of metaphysics by which an object CAN exist in two places at once.  To be honest I'm pretty sure a lot of Trek-babble got thrown in and I really don't know how they left it in canon.

  In reality though the speed of light is nature's constant.  That would be Warp 1

posted on December 11th, 2009, 11:59 pm

I think the Ambassador came WAAYY after this time. If what you said was true, the Enterprise-C would have been OLD in in terms of ship design. There's just no way its that.

The C was not likely to be built as soon as the class was new as definatly wasn't the first Ambassador... we don't know how long the B lasted, so we don't know how old the C actually was when it finally kicked the bucket.

To the extent of my knowledge, the warp scale has maintained relatively the same, seeing as Warp 10 was supposed to be QUITE a trip everytime it was brought up. I kind of find it hard to believe this was something created just for the book, because I believe the author got a look at the script for both movies. Maybe this could have been a BETA Galaxy. For all we know, Roddenberry's original idea was to have the Feds far more advanced by the time of the launching of the Ent-D.

The Constitution Class Enterprise has exceeded Warp 12 before, last I checked 12 is a little higher than 10... the fact that that could even happen shows the chart was rewritten by the time the D launched.

As I recall, Warp 10 was the End-All barrier of speed.  Warp 10 was the equivalent of teleportation essentially.  I think it had to do with the Quantum theory of metaphysics by which an object CAN exist in two places at once.

Not always, there has been at least 1 Warp chart in the primary timeline where Warp 10 was simply incredibly fast rather than infinate speed.

posted on December 12th, 2009, 12:00 am

According to Memory-Alpha, the warp scale did change between TOS and TNG. Warp 9.98 in TNG would have been 18.56 on the TOS scale

posted on December 12th, 2009, 12:54 am

In addition, I think the new warp scale was introduced as a means of justifying why the Enterprise D would seemingly cover extremely vast distances in near to no time at all. What would be an extremely vast distance in TOS would have been trivia by TNG.

posted on December 12th, 2009, 9:38 pm

As I recall, Warp 10 was the End-All barrier of speed.  Warp 10 was the equivalent of teleportation essentially.  I think it had to do with the Quantum theory of metaphysics by which an object CAN exist in two places at once.  To be honest I'm pretty sure a lot of Trek-babble got thrown in and I really don't know how they left it in canon.

  In reality though the speed of light is nature's constant.  That would be Warp 1

Tom Paris went at warp 10...but that was Voyager. And of the things Voyager has screwed up, that's the worst.  Paris became allergic to water, then had to breathe special air, then sprouted gills, and finally became a lizard thing, then he mated with Janeway while the two were amphibians as a result of being everywhere at once from the second warp 10 flight . Worst Voyager episode...ever. I'm not going to even bother explaining all of how his shuttlecraft accomplished this, but it involved polarizing the hull plating  (See: Star Trek Enterprise.)

posted on December 12th, 2009, 9:41 pm

I'm not going to even bother explaining all of how his shuttlecraft accomplished this, but it involved polarizing the hull plating  (See: Star Trek Enterprise.)

You sure they didn't do something with the Deflector, too?

[Nebula_Class_Ftw]

posted on December 12th, 2009, 9:48 pm

Last edited by Nebula_Class_Ftw on December 12th, 2009, 9:52 pm, edited 1 time in total.

No. The exact things they used were a polarized hull ([sarcasm]because inertial dampeners have nothing to do with nacelles not accelerating as fast as the rest of the ship, and warp drives can cause inertial problems in the first place[/sarcasm]) and super stable Dilithium from an asteroid, and a weird looking thing that was right behind Paris, unless I'm forgetting part of the episode.

posted on December 12th, 2009, 9:51 pm

The Deflector must have been in there somewhere, this is a Voyager episode we're talking about. They can't do anything without "More power to the Deflector!" getting in somewhere...

[Nebula_Class_Ftw]

posted on December 12th, 2009, 9:54 pm

Last edited by Nebula_Class_Ftw on December 12th, 2009, 9:57 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I'm not sure if shuttlecrafts have deflectors (they're too small aren't they.)  If the shuttlecraft he used had a big deflector dish on it, that line would've definitely been used (to create some kind of x energy/particle/field affect, where x is pure unrefined technobabble.) One of the few good things about Voyager was the deflector dish, seen on prominently every federation ship since TOS, finally did something more than once or twice per series.

posted on December 12th, 2009, 9:57 pm

If Shuttles didn't have Deflectors (or something that did the same job), they couldn't use Warp for the same reason a Starship couldn't.

[Nebula_Class_Ftw]

posted on December 12th, 2009, 9:58 pm

Last edited by Nebula_Class_Ftw on December 12th, 2009, 10:01 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I had no idea deflectors were necessary for warp. I've only watched the shows and movies, so there must be some technobabble explanation I missed in the books or something.

EDIT:Just searched memory alpha and I thought that shields handled that.