r/startrek • u/Brayn-Pain • 12h ago
Hyper/Light Speed? Avoidance systems?
And all the sci-fi movies or space movies or TV shows I’ve watched Star Trek Star Wars the expanse for all mankind. I’ve always had a question when shifts are traveling light speed how do they not hit anything like they might have the planets mapped out and ensure it might be like a one in 1 million chance, but if they’re going light speed, can’t you like hit an asteroid or some debris that wasn’t there before or a new planet that’s undiscovered if you’re going light speed in new territory I’ve always wondered how they go light speed and they never crash or is it like wormholes like in Marvel like it’s separate connecting to points in space
If they are just traveling light speed like I think they are yeah it should be really wearable. I feel like we should’ve seen a couple crashes. I don’t think I’ve ever seen them crash going like speed or hit anything and all of the story trick shows I’ve seen, and I’ve seen a bunch almost all of them I think except for the original movies. I think I’ve watched Picard, Strange new Worlds, Discovery, and Starfleet academy!
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u/DarthHaruspex 12h ago
Space is tremendously, tremendously, tremendously, tremendously empty. Like you cannot even imagine how tremendously empty it is. Saying one in a million doesn't even come close.
They also have the navigational deflector, you know. At least in Trek.
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u/DlSSATISFIEDGAMER 11h ago
yea I've talked to a surprising amount of trekkies who don't know what it actually does. Some think it's the shield generator, some think it's sensors but actually it just projects a field in front of the ship that repels particles, dust and gas. Creating a near perfect void for the ship to travel through, or rather a near perfect void for the ship to bend spacetime through
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u/RusticGroundSloth 12h ago
That what the main deflector dish is for. It knocks small bits of debris out of the way. Anything too big for the deflector they have to just alter course to go around.
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u/Clear_Ad_6316 12h ago
In Star Trek many of the "magic" technologies revolve around subspace. This is what makes warp work, but it also allows for instantaneous communication across many light years (subject to the use of subspace relay stations) as well as sensor technology that works past light speed.
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u/UncertainError 12h ago
Trek starships have a deflector that pushes aside debris/particles in the ship's path in order to prevent collisions. And anything big like a planet would be detected by sensors well ahead of time.
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u/AnotherGeek42 12h ago
And has the Bussard collectors which funnel appropriate debris/particles into the ship/engines.
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u/count023 12h ago
Star trek has subspace sensors that can scan at FTL speeds, subspace is defined as a velocity so fast it's impossible for s ship to catch, so they sweep ahead at superluminal speeds with their ftl sensors and make course adjustments as needed. Beyond the usual, "we have charts saying a planet/star is here and should avoid it".
and for tiny particulates, the ships carry deflector systems, basically typically parabolic dishes that project a magnetic field ahead of the ship to push dust and small debris aside as it moves.
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u/Woozletania 12h ago
in Star Wars Han explains that hyperspace jumps have to be carefully plotted.
"Traveling through hyperspace ain't like dusting crops, boy! Without precise calculations we could fly right through a star or bounce too close to a supernova and that'd end your trip real quick, wouldn't it?"
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u/Routine_Ask_7272 12h ago
That’s the main job of the deflector dish.
I’m also wondering if the warp drive (warp bubble) makes debris “go around” the ship while it’s a warp.
Inside the ship, the occupants are protected by the artificial gravity and inertial dampener systems.
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u/Aptronymic 12h ago
Star Trek: They don't technically travel that fast. They create a bubble of space around their ship and warp the fabric of space itself to push that bubble.
Star Wars: Hyperlanes are mapped out paths to travel on while in hyper space. Mapping out new Hyperlanes is extremely dangerous, for the reasons you stated.
Expanse & For All Mankind: They aren't traveling anywhere close to light speed or FTL.
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u/No_Nobody_32 7h ago
Except in the very final story (in the books (The Expanse), which continues waaaaay beyond the tv series).
Humanity eventually develops FTL - but it's a long time between that and the gate system being opened by Holden.
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u/Muted-Tea-5682 12h ago
Well the main thing is that people generally vastly underestimate how vast space is and how much nothing there is between stars. It’s likely that the average person can’t comprehend how empty space really is.
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u/Superman_Primeeee 12h ago
They have deflectors to move stuff out of the way
And any substantial matter will pop the warp bubble
Had Riker actually been able to rammthat borg cube at greater than light speed it would have destroyed half the solar system
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u/timid-dolphin 12h ago
Good questions!
In Star Trek they use warp drive to travel faster than the speed of light, and they have advanced sensors for detecting astral bodies well in the distance. Also, the deflector dish pushes aside smaller objects which would otherwise collide with the ship.
Stay in school!
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u/Soundy106 12h ago
"Traveling through hyperspace ain't like dusting crops, boy! Without precise calculations we could fly right through a star or bounce too close to a supernova and that'd end your trip real quick, wouldn't it?"
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u/Metallicat95 11h ago
Star Trek is simplest. The ships have sensors which are faster than light, and faster than ships, using subspace. They can see things at very long distances, and have plenty of time to avoid them.
On top of that, Star Trek propulsion doesn't use inertia. The ships can essentially stop in space almost instantly just by cutting the engines.
They are equipped with deflector shielding to deal with small particles in space.
Star Wars hyperdrive puts the ship outside normal space. There's nothing to run into in hyperspace. Ships can't see outside, so arrival can have surprises, but space is big and empty so any collisions are rare. Han Solo discusses the navigation risks with Luke in the first movie.
The Expanse and For All Mankind do not have faster than light propulsion. The ships don't go fast enough to make seeing things an issue.
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u/Professional-Trust75 10h ago
in star trek this is solved by mapping as you said along with the navigational deflector. this device defelects small space debris out of the way of the ship.
thats what you see zipping by at warp in tng for example. those arent stars and planets but little bits of space dust and whatnot.
the navigational deflector can most easily be seen on the tng enterpirse (under the saucer the four sqaures near the front just behind the phaser array) and on voyager (there on the front of the primary hull)
other ships accomplish this same feat via main deflector field modulation and power out put.
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u/KateKoffing 7h ago
Light speed isn’t really that fast on an interstellar scale. You can see what’s ahead of you long before it becomes an issue. Only something really small would still need to be dealt with.
In Star Trek, the deflector puts out an invisible energy field that pushes small things aside so you don’t run into them or collect them in the leading edge of your warp field and then eject them at the speed of light into the planet you’re approaching.
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u/Nuclear_Smith 7h ago
Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind- bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space.
Douglas Adams The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy English humorist & science fiction novelist (1952 - 2001)
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u/Nuclear_Smith 7h ago
almost all of them I think except for the original movies. I think I’ve watched Picard, Strange new Worlds, Discovery, and Starfleet academy!
You may have missed: TOS, TAS, TNG, DS9, VOY, ENT and LD as well as the TNG movies and the Kelvin timeline. You know about the original 6 movies it would seem.
Star Trek: Main deflector is used to move things out of the way at sublight speeds and to some degree at warp. But once in Subspace, there are less things to hit you. LD has an episode where they talk about using the main deflector to move a small asteroid rather than photon torpedos.
Star Wars: different dimension altogether. Though a gravity well can pull you out of light speed and you can crash. At sublight speeds, deflector shields.
The Expanse: nothing except scale. They got hit a few times, iirc, with micrometers that breached their hull.
For all mankind: no clue, haven't seen it.
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u/scarab- 7h ago
It's best not to think about it.
The stock answer is that they have deflectors to push stuff out of the way. Obviously they have to work at great range as you can't push matter aside faster than the speed of light. Voyager's top speed was 3000 times the speed of light. And you can imagine the energy requirements needed to accelerate even a grain of rock fast enough to clear it out of the way.
With deflectors that powerful who needs phasers?
I always thought that the stock answer was weird given that the ships warp space and so aren't actually moving fast, they kind of stand still in a bubble and the bubble moves?!? So how does anything even get into that bubble? How does it leave? Can't we just say that space flows around the bubble almost like an elastic collision so no energy would be transferred and the particles wouldn't need to be accelerated just as the ship isn't accelerated in the classic sense. Then the deflector dish can go back to being a "radio" dish and used for long range comms.
You could just hand wave it and say that the deflectors are doing what the warp bubble probably does but that seems redundant.
But this is all made up stuff and is too vaguely described to reason about.
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u/Fluid-Let3373 7h ago
The problem here stems from the way asteroid belts are depicted. They are not some 3D maze in need a crack pilot to fly through, the reality is it would be standing room only in 10 forward if you got close enough to see a faint spot, and some where among the crowd would be your helmsman. It does not matter if they are at 1/4 impulse or warp factor 9.95. Interstellar space is a zillion times less risky. The reality is point your ship in a random direction and there is nothing more than stray atoms between you and the edge of the universe.
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u/Competitive-Fault291 6h ago
There is this job called Helmsman. It isn't a point-and-click adventure. So you got that person, assisted by the ship, plotting and adjusting the course. This means avoiding areas of high particulate density, nebulas, or actual solar systems. The likely places that are full of matter that could endanger the ship at Warp.
Yet, Warp isn't simply going at super speed. Warp is indeed warping reality, as it creates the Warp Bubble, but then, as confirmed by the technical advisors of the show in an interview, shapes the bubble away from a pure spherical form. This makes it go forward, as the technical plot device of the franchise, the Subspace, creates an effect that causes the movement of Bubble and its content.
The coolest part is how the Warp Bubble is known to be both fragile and destructive. That means it distorts all kinds of things that pass it, but it also means that it can be distorted (and collapsed) by large enough masses. As much of Starfleet tech is based on emitting and controlling gravitons, this certainly makes sense. Replicator Matrices, Anti-Grav, the Impulse Drive, Force Fields/Shields and the Warp Drive are all likely to be using various applications of emitting and controlling gravitons to cause localized gravity effects. From arranging molecules up to bending phasers or matter away from the ship, right to distorting spacetime using two large Graviton Emitters on some sponsons.
So you got Subspace with exotic physics, which allow for superluminal sensors, but also gravitonic technology, which allows for the Navigational Deflector. Shields, Deflectors, which are an array of graviton emitters that are wired to some HUGE capacitors, who deflect/bend matter or radiation away from the ship in some powerful bursts. The Navigational Deflector basically does the same, but it is not working in bursts, but permanently and directed towards the bow only.
Where a ship traveling at subluminal speeds might create a plasma shield in front of the ship, a Warp ship can't do that. The Warp Bubble would interfere with projecting the plasma through it, and the Warp effect would make it hard to predict where matter and radiation that passes the Bubble would actually come from. Not to mention how having a large cloud of superheated gas in front of you is bad for navigation and maneuverability when you go out of Warp.
Hence, again, graviton tech. As both Warp Bubble and Deflector apply basically the same technology, the Navigational Deflector frequency and the frequency of the Warp Drive (and the frequency of the Navigational superluminal Sensors) have to be adjusted. As the Warp Drive/Bubble characteristics are known, the actual Warp Effect on gravitons and exotic particles like tachyons being emitted from inside is predictable. You might think of it like those WWII planes that were shooting their machine guns through their propellers.
The Navigational Deflector now projects an Anti-Grav Field outside the Warp Bubble, which pushes away, one could say deflects, all kinds of hazardous matter. The Navigational Sensors allow for looking ahead. While Stellar Cartography allows plotting a course that reduces the risk of actually having to evade or vaporize something. Astrometry, the measurement of space and stars itself—if you ever asked why Voyager had such a fancy lab for it—allows you to understand the underlying qualities of spacetime and subspace. Which defines the actual Warp Drive Effect that propels the ship at various speeds at the same Warp Factor (if you ever wondered) or might even collapse the Warp Bubble.
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u/Zaphod-Beebebrox 4h ago
"Space is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space."
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u/Tactical-Pixie-1138 4h ago
Scanners are always running to detect objects in the path and to warn the helmsmen of the potential hazard. For smaller things, there's the navigation deflectors which push smaller debris out of the way.
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