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Multiple realities
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Voth research vessel

Voth ship traveling at transwarp speeds

Transwarp was a term associated with some technologies that allowed the utilization of speeds that exceeded traditional warp drive limits. (TNG: "Descent")

History[]

The Federation developed transwarp beaming by 2387. This transporter technology allowed the instantaneous beaming of living beings between planets and distant star systems, or even onto a starship traveling at high warp. The theory was postulated and perfected by Montgomery Scott, but was only effective at a few dozen light years and only a limited amount of mass could be transported.

The complete transwarp beaming technology was introduced to the alternate reality in 2258 by Ambassador Spock. In 2259, John Harrison implemented this technology to a portable transwarp beaming device. (Star Trek; Star Trek Into Darkness)

The Federation also attempted to develop a transwarp drive in the USS Excelsior in 2285, termed "The Great Experiment". However, the effort was ultimately unsuccessful. (Star Trek III: The Search for Spock)

The Borg used transwarp signals for communication and the Borg transwarp drive was based on generating transwarp conduit through transwarp space. (VOY: "Unimatrix Zero") This technology was first encountered by the Federation in the 2350s by the crew of the USS Raven. This encounter remained unreported at the time. (VOY: "Dark Frontier")

In 2370, the ship used by the rogue Borg that were under the control of Lore used a conduit during an attack on Federation space. The USS Enterprise-D also used the transwarp conduit to pursue them, and Geordi La Forge likened going through a transwarp aperture to "falling into a fast-moving river and getting swept away by the current." (TNG: "Descent")

Cochrane, transwarp

The Cochrane reaching transwarp speed

In 2372, Tom Paris of the USS Voyager managed to break the transwarp threshold in the shuttlecraft Cochrane after discovering a new form of dilithium. Although this form of travel was found to have severe, unanticipated side effects, Paris was the first person in Starfleet to cross the transwarp threshold. (VOY: "Threshold")

The Voth employed ships that were equipped with transwarp drives. In 2372, the USS Voyager encountered the Voth. (VOY: "Distant Origin") This kind of transwarp did not appear to use transwarp conduits.

In 2374, the USS Defiant studied a rare subspace compression anomaly in the hopes of collecting data relevant to the development of transwarp corridors, which are approximately fifty times faster than highest warp of Starfleet ships. (DS9: "One Little Ship")

In 2374, Seven of Nine attempted unsuccessfully to modify the systems of the Federation starship USS Voyager to create a transwarp conduit. Instead, it came through flowing tachyons almost to a warp core breach. (VOY: "Day of Honor")

In 2375, Voyager used a transwarp coil stolen from a Borg sphere to create a transwarp conduit to traverse twenty thousand light years closer to the Alpha Quadrant, thus cutting about fifteen years off of its journey. (VOY: "Dark Frontier")

In 2376, the Pathfinder Project wasted six months attempting to develop a transwarp probe, based on simulations made by Reginald Barclay. (VOY: "Pathfinder")

In 2377, Lieutenant B'Elanna Torres participated in a Boray conference on transwarp theory in the Delta Quadrant. (VOY: "Flesh and Blood")

In 2378, the USS Voyager discovered a transwarp hub in an unnamed nebula in the Delta Quadrant. First, the presence of a wormhole is suspected, as neutrinos and intermittent graviton flux emanated from the transwarp hub, which normally indicated a wormhole. After the ship had penetrated into the nebula, it was attacked by Borg. The crew then decided to abandon the attempt to use the hub and continue to travel with warp. However, after a future Janeway emerged via time travel from an alternate timeline, the crew decided to destroy the transwarp hub. Before the hub exploded, however, it was possible for the Voyager to enter a transwarp corridor to Earth and complete the journey home. The ship covered a distance of more than thirty thousand light years within a short time. (VOY: "Endgame")

In 2399, Soji Asha piloted La Sirena to an abandoned Borg transwarp conduit, in an effort to reach her homeworld before the Zhat Vash, using it to twenty-five light years in about fifteen minutes. (PIC: "Broken Pieces", "Et in Arcadia Ego, Part 1")

In 2401, a Borg Queen sought the Federation's help protecting the sector from an energy wave released by the formation of a new massive transwarp conduit unlike any seen before. The Borg Queen revealed that not even the Borg with all of their collective knowledge knew who was behind the creation of the conduit. (PIC: "The Star Gazer", "Farewell")

By 3189, the abandoned Borg transwarp tunnels were used by couriers as shortcuts between quadrants, with an aperture near the Verubin Nebula listed on courier maps. Cleveland Booker noted that few risked using it, due to debris that had accumulated in the transwarp tunnels from centuries without maintenance. Osyraa took the Viridian through this tunnel in that year to pursue the USS Discovery. (DIS: "Su'Kal")

Similar concepts[]

There were other propulsion concepts that were not explicitly referred as transwarp, but which operated on similar principles or were much faster than conventional warp:

Transwarp speeds[]

The following is a list of transwarp speed values that have been given a relativistic speed equivalent on screen. Average speeds are typically calculated from given values for travel time and distance. Some figures were depicted in charts and others given as statements in dialogue.
Travel method Average speed (× c) Distance traveled Travel time Reference
Transwarp conduit ~40,000 La Forge calculates, based on the distance the Enterprise covered while using the conduit, that this type of transwarp was about twenty times faster than the highest warp factor (9.8, equal to ~2,000 × c) of the Enterprise. n/a TNG: "Descent"
Transwarp corridor ~104,000 The USS Defiant studied a rare subspace compression anomaly in the hopes of collecting data relevant to the development of transwarp corridors, which were approximately fifty times faster than highest warp of Starfleet ships (9.9, equal to 2,083 × c). n/a DS9: "One Little Ship"
Transwarp conduit 876,000 La Sirena traveled twenty-five light years. about fifteen minutes PIC: "Et in Arcadia Ego, Part 1"
Transwarp coil 1,000,000 – 10,000,000 The USS Voyager traveled twenty thousand light years by using a stolen transwarp coil from the Borg some days VOY: "Dark Frontier"
Transwarp network
Transwarp hub
> 250,000,000 The USS Voyager used a transwarp conduit from a transwarp hub to travel thirty thousand light years from Grid 986 in the Delta Quadrant to Earth around five minutes VOY: "Endgame"
Transwarp threshold infinite infinite 0 VOY: "Threshold"

Appendices[]

See also[]

Background information[]

In TOS: "The Changeling", set in 2267, the term "multiwarp speeds" was attributed to the velocity of approximately Warp 15. This was obviously before Warp 10 was a reference to infinite velocity. Warp 15 was at that time beyond the limitations of the conventional warp drive of the Enterprise. Multiwarp may be a synonym, or rather an older term, for transwarp.

In TNG: "Where No One Has Gone Before", The Traveler used the energy of his thoughts to move the USS Enterprise-D through space at a speed that appeared to surpass warp 10. According to Star Trek: The Next Generation Technical Manual (p. 55), the ship didn't actually achieve warp 10 or go beyond, but it did travel at the speed of about Warp 9.9999999996. This would be confirmed in VOY: "Threshold", where Tom Paris becomes the first Human to travel at warp 10, eight years after the events of "Where No One Has Gone Before".

According to the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Technical Manual (p. 14), the Cardassian Union predicted a breakthrough in energy-field stability for transwarp computation speeds in computer core technology, during the 2370s.

In the script of the 2009 film Star Trek, "trans-warp" was used to refer to the condition of currently being at warp. [1] The term was replaced on-screen with "mid-warp" used instead.

Apocrypha[]

As a result of the events of the Star Trek: Destiny trilogy, the entire Borg transwarp conduit system had collapsed. Voyager confirmed this in the novel Unworthy.

According to the Star Trek Online video game, the Federation established the first links of its own system of transwarp conduits in 2399.

External link[]

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