This FAQ was written by Otto Heuer (ottoh3@cfsmo.honeywell.com) and was converted to HTML by John M. Michaelides (jmm@doc.ic.ac.uk)
This posting is intended to cut down on the "often asked questions" that seem to pop up every few months in the rec.arts.startrek.tech newsgroup. This FAQL is basically a list of answers to commonly asked questions about technical aspects of StarTrek. It includes (but is not limited to) warp drives, transporters, phasers, photon torpedoes, telepethy, saucer separation, view screen technology, ship models, communicators, holodecks, food replicators, special effects, shuttles, computer memory, Data's storage capacity, satellite uplink times, etc.
Most of these questions have been brought up and discussed to death in rec.arts.startrek.tech, and a lot of people would be happy if they never resurfaced. Please refer to the "LIST OF PERIODIC POSINGS TO r.a.s.* NEWSGROUPS" article for a full list of periodic post-ings, and to the "LIST OF ACRONYMS" article for acronyms used in this and other postings.
For the serious trekologist/treknician, pick up a copy of:
The Enterprise-D seems to have a top speed slightly less than 10, (and coming *very* close to this (whatever "close" means with J-curves) on the occasions when Q flung it a great distance). Riker mentioned that warp 10 instigates time travel. In "Where No One Has Gone Before" it is mentioned that the Enterprise has reached or passed warp 10.
For warp speeds 1 through 9, the formula w ^ (10/3) * c provides the numbers shown, rounded to the integer.
Note that with these figures, the TOS warp 14.1 translates to about warp 9.7 for TNG.
The Rick Sternbach/Mike Okuda Tech Manual mentions that Starships can cruise at any warp factor -- integral or fractionary -- as long as the powerplant's operating limits or warp 10 is not exceeded. However, at integral warp factors the amount of energy necessary to produce the desired field effect lowers drastically. The implication is that it requires more energy expenditure to cruise at warp 3.5 than it does to cruise at warp 4. This is due to the nested nature of the warp field.
Also, the efficiency of the engines drops dramatically as the warp factor increases.
TNG "Where No One Has Gone Before": After the Enterprise jumps 2,700,000 light years it is mentioned that it will take 51 years for a message to get back to SFC via subspace, and that it will take the Enterprise 300 years to get back. Their next jump takes them over a billion light years away.
Warp drive is based on CDP (Contimium Distortion Propulsion). This means that the Enterprise's warp coils distort the space-time continum enough to drive the vessel. This is analogus to moving a bowling ball on a rubber sheet by bending the sheet. Warp is powered by a violent matter:antimatter reaction. This power is regulated by the Dilithium crystals (they are the only known material to Federation science which is transparent to antimatter when subjected to a high-freqency electro-magnetic field), so that the reaction occurs within certain bounds. This energy is then fed to the warp coils, in a carefully predefined sequence, from fore to aft. They energize in this pattern more rapidly (with more power also required) to drive the ship at higher warp factors. Each energy "band" produces some force on the next-innermost field, the closest of which pushes the ship. When enough energy is applied, the Enterprise tunnels through "c" in less than Planck time (the smallest possible amount of time measureable).
>From Richard Arnold: The story on transwarp drive: it doesn't work. The warp drive that we see on TNG is not transwarp or ultrawarp or whatever you want to call it. It is an improved version of the same warp drive that we saw on TOS (at least the fifth generation warp drive according to Goldstien's Spaceflight Chronology). The Excelsior proved that Transwarp wouldn't work by being destroyed by it during a test flight.
"Finally, to Bartley Busse: Shane Johnson CHANGED Michael Okuda's graphics to suit himself in "Scott's Guide to the Enterprise. There were never any graphics in Star Trek IV or V that stated 'transwarp' anything. Your 'photographic evidence' doesn't exist. You only assumed it did." --Richard Arnold/Starlog #169, p4
So Richard Arnold seems to be retconning the pictures in "Mr. Scott's Guide to the Enterprise".
The TNG tech manual says that the Excelcior eventually had a distinguished career (albeit probably not with transwarp).
FASA has another category system which TPTB don't acknowledge.
The novelization of ST6 explains that the events of the story occur before the Excelsior blew up.
Basically, they haven't explained much about it on film, so they can still do pretty much what they please with transwarp.
There's an explanation of it (somewhat) in the Timescape novel "Battle- stations".
"The most dramatic and promising development in many years is the discovery of what has come to be known as transwarp drive. This new propulsion technology is based upon a discovery made several years earlier by the U.S.S. Enterprise while in an area which borders on Tholian space. Enterprise's sensors recorded a natural phenomena never before known; Science Officer Spock carefully documented a "doorway" between two parallel planes of existence, which he labelled an "interphase." This "tear" in the fabric of three-dimensional space-time was found to create, following prolonged exposure, an imbalance in the chemical composition of neural and muscular tissues in human beings, causing insanity and ultimately death; this effect killed the crew of the starship Defiant, which drifted through the interphase ahead of Enterprise. This natural "tear" proved to Federation scientists that travel between dimensional planes was possible, and research began into the possibility of generating an artificial interphase for travel purposes. Enterprise's sensors recorded that time flowed at a different rate in parallel space, and that that plane of existence was devoid of all matter and energy, providing an obstacle-free course of travel. Theoretically, a starship could drop into parallel space and move on a preset course for a predetermined period of time, then drop back into normal space once the destination coordinates had been reached. Because of the time differential, shipboard travel time would vary greatly from the passage of time in normal space; a vessel might undertake a three-week voyage to a distant star system, only to find after arrival that four days had passed in normal space. While the ship actually moved no faster that was possible with standard warp drive, the relative effect would be that of making a three-week trip in four days, giving the same end result as would be provided by vastly increased warp speeds. Such warp speeds would create stresses beyond the tolerances of any conceivable structural design or building material, destroying any ship which attempted them. So, it was concluded, a "shortcut" existed which could open up entirely new areas of space for exploration. After nearly twelve years of intensive research and development, two drive system producers felt that they had each designed the most feasible warp field configuration for interphase travel. Both designs combined intricate warp and transporter field matrices to generate a momentary "doorway" through which the equipped vessel could enter parallel space. This artificial interphase would be of such short duration that even repeated exposure would be harmless to the ship's crew, avoiding the effects suffered by Defiant."-- Mr. Scott's Guide to the Enterprise (Shane Johnson)
"When the official start for the [Galaxy] project was announced in July 2343 much of the original theoretical work had already been accomplished, particularly in the propulsion field. While the attempt to surpass the primary warp field efficiency barrier with the Transwarp Development Project in the early 2280s proved unsuccessful, the pioneering achievements in warp power generation and field coil design eventually led to the uprated Excelsior and Ambassador class starships. Both vessels served Starfleet in exemplary fasion. They continue to do so, even beyond their original design lifetimes. The Galaxy class is expected to remain true to its predecessors."-- Star Trek The Next Generation Technical Manual (page 14)
This seems to be saying that the transwarp drive concept was a failure, but they used the information from portions of that project to increase the efficiency of standard warp drives. As for the original Excelsior, it isn't made clear whether it was destroyed using Transwarp drive, or whether it simply didn't work, so they re-installed standard warp drives on it. In STVI we see it was put into Starfleet service. Thus it obviously did NOT blow up while it was still experimental. Also, it is clearly stated that the uprated Excelsior CLASS starships used normal, but more efficient, warp drives. The only question is whether or not the Excelsior's trans-warp engines blew up at some point and destroyed that particular ship, or if they just failed, and were replaced in the Excelsior by normal Warp engines.
"The third Enterprise, NCC-1701-B, was an Excelsior class ship built at Starfleet's Anteres Ship Yards. Although the decision to model this ship on the failed original experimental Excelsior was at the time controversial, the economics of using the existing (and otherwise successful) engineering of the basic spaceframe was compelling. The wisdom of this decision has been borne out by the large number of Excelsior class starships that still serve Starfleet in a variety of capacities. (Indeed, the Excelsior herself ultimately proved to be a distinguished part of the Starfleet.)"-- Star Trek The Next Generation Technical Manual (page 4)
Again, this seems to indicate that the original Excelsior was NOT destroyed by a failure of the Transwarp drive. Instead, the drive simply didn't work, so they replaced it with a standard warp drive.
Starfleet operational guidelines restrict impulse operations to a small fraction of the speed of light to reduce relativistic effects.
So impulse engines are true Newtonian (non-warp) engines. They are powered by sequential fusion reactors that fuse the slush deuterium into helium, and the high-energy exhaust is expeled out the back, utilizing a vector-controllable nozzle. This was added to the TNG ships (the impulse thrust alone was no longer sufficient to propel the larger ship). Thus, fusion exhaust products from the impulse engines are used to energize a small warp coil which produces a non-propulsive warp field. This field effectively lessens the mass of the ship and means the impulse engines have less work to do.
There actually is a warp field generated, but it is a non-propulsive field which only reduces the effective mass of the ship and gives the impulse engines less of a job to do.
Some sources say that impulse engines must be used near inhabited planets and other systems, because the field created by the warp drives would tear the area apart.
Section 6.1 of the Sternbach/Okuda technical manual states:
"During normal docking operations the main impulse engine is the active device, providing the necessary thrust for interplanetary and sublight interstellar flight. High impulse operations, specifically above 0.75c, may require added power from the Saucer Module engines. These operations, while acceptable options during some missions, are often avoided due to relativistic considerations and their inherent time-based difficulties (See: 6.2)"
And section 6.2 goes on to say:
"As fledgling journeys were made by fusion starships late in the twenty-first century, theoretical calculations concerning the tau factor, or time dilation effect encountered at appreciable fractions of lightspeed, rapidly crossed over into reality. Time aboard a spacecraft at relativistic velocities slowed according to the 'twin paradox.' During the last of the long voyages, many more years had passed back on Earth, and the time differences proved little more than curiosities as mission news was relayed back to Earth and global developments were broadcast to distant travelers. Numerous other spacefaring cultures have echoed these experiences, leading to the present navigation and communication standards within the Federation.
Today, such time differences can interfere with the requirement for close synchronization with Starfleet Command as well as overall Federation timekeeping schemes. Any extended flight at high relativistic speeds can place mission objectives in jeopardy. At times when warp propulsion is not available, impulse flight may be unavoidable, but will require lengthly recalibration of onboard computer clock systems even if contact is maintained with Starfleet navigation beacons. It is for this reason that normal impulse operations are limited to a velocity of 0.25c."
All of chapter six is dedicated to IPS, so buy a copy of the tech manual to read up more on how impulse engined work on the Enterprise-D.
According to the fourth season ST:TNG Writer's Technical Manual, when the Enterprise-D separates, only the battle section has warp capabilities (earlier we were told that the saucer could only go as fast as warp four). According to the 1991 TNG Technical Manual, the saucer section can actually land on a planet. Sternbach and Okuda suggest that such a landing would damage the saucer section beyond feasibility of repair--it is only to be used as a last resort, sort of as a "life raft".
Although there were countless episodes where the Enterprise-D should have separated for safety reasons (entering the RNZ, for example), the only times we have seen them decouple were in "Encounter at Farpoint", "Arsenal of Freedom", and "The Best of Both Worlds II".
Nearly all of the graphics displays were designed on Macintoshes. Not only that, but the "living" displays on the show were also being generated by Macintoshes.
Picard's workstation in the Ready Room is just a plastic-molded model. The display screen has been replaced with a blue screen, so that any action that needs to be shown can be overlayed later.
Most of these workstations don't have the Blue Screen because their displays are not normally shown. Instead, they have some static graphic on the display (known internally as "Okudagrams").
The storage capacity of the Galaxy Class Exploration Cruiser is 125,575,500 terabytes, 1 terabyte being 1 quadrillion bytes, according to FASA's (non-canon) Star Trek TNG Officer's Manual. In the twentieth century, a terabyte is still approximately 10^12 bytes (one trillion).
According to FASA's STTNG Officer's Manual, the storage capacity of the Enterprise's main computer (not counting random-access memory) was 575,000,000 terabytes (or was it 575,000,000,000?).
There are three principal computational units ("cores") on board Galaxy class starships. Two are located in the saucer section, abeam of the centerline. The third is in the battle section abaft the connecting pylon.
Non-propulsive subspace field generators enable signals within the principal units to propagate at FTL speeds.
Each unit consists of 2048 modules, each module containing 144 isolinear optical chips. The capacity of each module is 634,060.8 kiloquads, for a total per-unit capacity of 1.29e09 kiloquads (Tech Manual/page 53). This is roughly the same as the figure given on page 49 for each *module*. [I could not find a reference explaining what a "quad" is.] Each isolinear chip contains a small onboard processor to accelerate data access rates.
There are 380 optical subprocessors distributed throughout the ship. Most are available to the main units for offloading of computational tasks. A few are dedicated to certain critical operations such as the bridge control cluster, transporter operations, and engine control. Signals in these devices do not propagate at FTL speeds.
The computational units are connected by an optical data network.
TNG: ILM did the "Encounter At Farpoint" FX and a bunch of stock footage. They NEVER did the bulk of the effects work. They are credited at the end of the show because their stock footage (which means shots of the Enterprise flying by, etc.) is still used. I noticed in TBOBW2 that the Enterprise fly-by looked a lot better, so maybe the TNG folks have ordered new stock footage from their special effects people (The Post Group).
TNG: There are two separate contractors. The model work is done at a motion-control shop and the compositing is done at The Post Group. There are many specialist shops invovled with TNG visual effects.
TNG "Q Who": The model for the Borg ship is 8'x8'x8', with the underlying cube being 6 feet on a side, with lots of tubes, models, toy soldiers, R2D2s, parts from airplanes, etc to build the outer layer.
TNG: In the opening credits (and occasionally in the same shot during the show) you can see a man walking by the large vertical windows of the observation lounge. It is the slow flyby of the Enterprise (from lower left to upper right) after all the quick flybys. There are large windows just beyond the bump in the saucer section, and if you look closely (and it helps to have a giant screen TV) you can see a man walking from left to right past the windows, then someone walking from right to left behind him. NOTE: It's harder to catch it with freeze-frame since pausing a VCR loses half the resolution, so just watch it at normal speed a few times until you figure out where on the ship you're supposed to be looking.
TNG: Mike Okuda and Rick Sternbach have said that they still use models, not computer-generated ships.
TNG: Richard Arnold has said they haven't used the captains yacht because low bid for it is something like $50,000. Though according to Mike Okuda they've stretched the envelope on this so far that it's now pretty cost effective to throw in new ships (witness the Klingon cruiser). Even the leap into warp space is non-computer-generated. It is an incamera job using slit scanning.
TNG: Thus far, STTNG has shown us Shuttle Bays Two and Three. We have never seen the main bay: Shuttle Bay One. That's because Shuttle Bay One is the size of a football field, and would cost too much to construct. Writers are under orders to use the smaller shuttle bays where possible, when writing their stories. Well, actually I guess we see part of it in "Final Mission" since the blip on data's console representing the shuttle carrying Wes and Jean-Luc is shown leaving the *main* shuttle bay. Also, in "Cause and Effect", we see a model of the main shuttle bay (from outside the Enterprise) when Data opens the doors to depressurize the bay.
The effective range of the transporter is 40,000 kilometers.
Transported matter is not converted to energy, but is disassembled by the transporter (at the appropriate resolution) and is conveyed via an "annular confinement beam" as a "subatomically debonded matter stream." and reassembled at the destination.
Both the source and destination sites, if in motion, must be moving at the same integral warp factor for transport to occur.
See also Joshua Bell's (jsbell@acs.ucalgary.ca) Mini-FAQ which explains the concept of transporters in much greater detail.
Food materials are replicated using a sterile organic suspension as raw material to reduce the amount of processing the replicator must perform. This resource is supplemented by solid waste materials as necessary. Thus, the phrase "flush twice, it's a long way to the cafeteria" has special meaning on Starfleet vessels.
Holodecks use replicator technology for small objects (Wes falling in real water, Wes hitting Picard with a real snowball), but uses force-fields for more complex objects (Picard riding a holo-horse, Worf sparring against holo-partners).
It was mentioned by someone (Richard Arnold or Mike Okuda or someone) at a con shortly after TNG's "Elementary, Dear Data" aired that there was a scene that ended up on the cutting room floor (due to time constraints) that made it more clear that Geordi was showing the paper to Data to show him that it could leave the holodeck and therefore Moriarty could also leave the holodeck (if he had only known) and not just showing him the picture of the Enterprise (which was upside down as well, I believe).
Stewart told a slightly different version of this at a Creation Con. It wasn't just for time that they cut out the implication that Moriarty could leave. Remember that Picard did not defeat Moriarty, but persuaded him that he had no possible independent existance (outside the holodeck). Then Moriarty consented to let Picard store his program until he could really live at some future date. According to Stewart, a cut scene showed that Picard knew Moriarty could leave, because of that paper. However, Picard didn't trust the sweetness, light, tea & crumpets that he was showing. Picard deliberately lied, because he would not free one of the worst villains in English-language fiction. Maurice Hurley, a former supervising producer, said in the September 1990 issue of Cinefantastique that they wanted to it to end with Picard lying to Moriarty. When Dr. Pulaski finds out what happened she calls Picard a liar. However, it seems that Gene Roddenberry refused to have Picard say anything that was not the absolute truth, in spite of arguments by Hurley and Rob Bowman, therefore the ending had to be changed. Both Hurley and Bowman agreed that the episode suffered as a result and did not pay off.
In TNG's "Ship in a Bottle", Picard throws a book off the holodeck and it disappears. You could say that they were on a holodeck within a holodeck, but why wouldn't Picard be surprised at the book's disappearance, since he didn't know he was in a double 'deck?
Also, in TNG's "The Big Goodbye", the holodeck characters were able to live for a short while outside the holodeck, and the snowball Wes threw out of the holodeck didn't seem to dissolve...
I think we can assume that replicators are not able to replicate gold-pressed latinum, or else it wouldn't be so important to the Ferengi and other profit-motivated races. If we go with the theory that it doesn't create matter from energy, but gets the matter from bins filled with various elements, then one would need gold and latinum raw materials from which to make the gold-pressed latinum in the first place, so nothing would be gained.
See also Joshua Bell's (jsbell@acs.ucalgary.ca) Mini-FAQ which explains the concept of holodecks in much greater detail.
I assume there are checks made (and delays (though we don't seem to see any on TNG)) when a crewman is on a planet or starbase.
As far as communications from ship to ship or to StarFleet Headquarters (long-distance communication), the reason messages travel so fast is that voices/pictures are sent via "subspace", and since there's no "matter" (like a ship) to break up, they can send it at VERY high warp (bending space) so it can travel VERY fast.
"The speed of propagation of a subspace signal continues to be the limiting factor in any long-range communications. Subspace radio signals, even those tightly focused and radially polarized, will decay over time, as the energies forced across the subspace threshold will tend to 'surface' to become normal slower EM. As this decay occurs, enormous amounts of information are lost, since the modulated signal does not decay evenly. The proagation speed under ideal galactic conditions is equivalent to Warp Factor 9.9997. This places subspace radio about sixty times faster than the fastest starship, either existing or predicted. The phenomenan, which occurs at distances proportional to the peak radiated power of the outgoing beam with an upper distance limit of 22.65 light years, has necessitated the placement of untended relay booster beacons and small numbers of crew-tended communications bases at intervals of twenty light years, forming irregular strings of cells along major trade lanes and areas of ongoing exploration."-- TNG Tech Manual pg 99
Most people have accepted that if a person is on a ship or starbase or someplace where the computers can monitor one's speech, the person doesn't have to tap his/her badge. If the person is exploring a planet or oterwise away from direct contact with the computer system, a tap on the comm badge will signify that the user wants toopen a channel, and the person may or may not mention who he/she wishes to speak to (the must be some default, such as "the bridge of the last ship I left").
The saucer section is equipped with a dorsal and ventral "collimeter" emitter array.
The battle section has emitters on the dorsal docking area, the upper and lower fantail, and the underside of the nacelle pylons. Isn't it ironic that the "battle section" has no phasers which bear directly forward when the ship is separated? Actually, if you study the Tech Manual closely enough, pages 22 and 26 show side views of a raised portion on the upper surface of the stardrive section forward of the Battle Bridge. This would *appear* to be a phaser bank. (For further reference, in the illustration on page 22, it is located between the blue lines labeled 0 and 1.) On page 27, they show the upper surface of the stardrive section (a detail of the docking latches). Just abaft the forwardmost arch of docking latches, again a section that resembles some of the shorter phaser arrays, merely extending across the the surface of the connection point. Finally on Page 123, in Section 11.1, the TM notes that there are twelve phaser arrays. The drawings on pages 8 and 9 however, only note 11:
Phasers may be fired while the ship is moving at FTL speeds, but the discharge would have no effect.
According to the TNG Tech Manual the saucer section has an aft facing launcher. It can only be used (hence seen) when the two sections are seperated.
The warhead consists of a few kilograms of matter and antimatter. Before launch the reactants are stored in different areas of the casing. Approximately one second after successful launch, the warhead arms and the reactants are brought into proximity separated by forcefields. At detonation, the fields drive the reactants quickly together.
Minimum safe target range is 15 kilometers. Maximum range for nominal warhead yield is 3.5 million kilometers.
Galaxy class starships carry 275 torpedo casings.
Up to 10 torpedos can be launched as a single unit. After traveling for 150 meters, they separate into distinct delivery systems.
Starfleet tactics include simultaneous discharge of phasers and torpedos. The phasers locally weaken the target's defensive shields allowing the torpedos to penetrate and detonate within the shield perimeter, usually resulting in complete destruction of the target.
A "Photon" torpedo is a torpedo casing (with a very small warp engine which has enough fuel for a few seconds of "power-assisted" flight), fired from a huge rail-gun. The casing carries a warhead of a few hundred grams of antimatter in a magnetic "bottle". Upon impact, the magnetic bottle disintegrates, and the anti-matter impacts with the inside of the casing, providing a very powerful explosion, with a blast of mega doses of broad-spectrum radiation, with "extra" energy in the X-ray and Gamma ray range... THAT is what does all the damage. So why is it called a PHOTON torpedo? When electrons and antielectrons (positrons) collide and annihilate each other photons are emitted.
Deflector shields have a significant fratricidal effect on the warp fields. Neither system can be operated at optimal efficiency when both are in operation.
By definition of the Star Trek Technical Manual (STTNG):
Like most forcefield devices, the deflector system creates a localized zone of highly focused spacial distortion within which an energetic graviton field is maintained. The deflector field itself is emitted and shaped by a series of conformal transmission grids on the spacecraft exterior, resulting in a field that closely follows the form of the vehicle itself. This field is highly resistive to impact due to mechanical incursions ranging from relativistic subatomic particles to more massive objects at lesser relative velocities. When such an intrusion occurs, field energy is concentrated at the point of impact, creating an intense, localized spacial distortion.Basically all this says is that the shields are a set of reversed gravity screens. if anything 'hits' the screens, the shield system reverses the gravitational acceleration in that zone, counteracting the force of the photon torpedo or whatever. To the torpedo, it will seem like it hit something solid.
"...In the event of EPS [Electro Plasma System] failure, the stator will continue to provide an attraction field for up to 240 minutes, though some degredation to about 0.8g will be detected."--RS/MO Tech Manual, p144. This explains why there is still gravity on the Enterprise during a total power failure.
In the TOS episodes "Arena", "Tomorrow is Yesterday", and "Where No Man Has Gone Before" a voice in the background can be heard saying "Gravity down to point eight" during emergency situations.
So why did the Klingon ship lose gravity in ST6? In TOS "The Changeling" there are gravity palettes, and in ST5 and ST6 there are gravity boots, indicating that self contained, low power gravity generators that can be quickly turned on and off exist. The Klingons probably used something more akin to this gravity generation system aboard the warship than what the Federation uses.
The Enterprise also carries a device capable of generating small amounts of antideuterium, the antimatter component of the warp and impulse engine fuel mixtures.
TOS "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield": They attempted self-destruct.
TOS "By Any Other Name": They attempted self-destruct.
ST3 "The Search for Spock": They self-destruct the origianl Enterprise.
TNG "11001001": Picard and Riker try to self destruct.
TNG "Where Silence Has Lease": Picard tries to self destruct for Nagilum.
TNG "Contagion": The virus from the probe initiate a self-destruct.
The self-destruct sequence from "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield":
Data has between 90,000 and 100,000 terabytes of memory (approximately equiv to 100,000,000 one-GB hard drives). When on trial, he stated that he had a storage capacity of 800 quadrillion bits (100 quadrillion bytes).
Data processes 60 trillion operations per second. ("Measure of a Man")
If you'd like to compare Data's 100,000 terabytes of storage capacity to something real-world, someone mentioned a chart that set the maximum storage capacity of the human brain to approximately 3 teraBITS, which would mean that Data's brain could contain everything from over 260,000 human brains.
Anyone with more info to put here, feel free to email me. Be sure to mention that's it's for the r.a.s.TECH FAQL.
The novelization of ST6 hints around with cloaking devices on Federation ships, but doesn't say anything explicitly.
It was Albert Einstein with his Special Theory of Relativity in 1905 and his General Theory of Relativity in 1916, who set up the parameters of infinity. The former, of course, pegged the speed of light for all abservers at 186,000 mps. The latter showed how the gravitational field of matter defines the universe through gravitational force. The larger the mass, the larger the gravitational field. The very stuff of space and time can be considered physical entities.
A black hole is matter that has become so dense that its center approaches infinite density. It becomes a singularity. Anything that enters gets scrunched. Any matter, energy, light, etc. that gets too close will not be able to get out. Once you've crossed the event horizon - you're there and presumably in trouble.
Work in the 1960's showed how space and time could be warped around black holes. The Law of Symetry would indicate, some theorists speculate, the existance of a black hole's counterpoint - a white hole. Matter sucked in by a black hole near Pluto, might simply woosh out through a white hole in Andromeda!
Wormholes are also believed to be built into the structure of spacetime at the planck length, (Gh/c^3)^(1/2) =1.6 *10(-35) meters. This length is 20 powers of ten smaller than the nucleus of an atom, so it is far beyond our power to measure. But the nascent quantum theory of gravity seems to predict that wormholes should be continually created and destroyed at the planck length. That means we would be surrounded by trillions of wormholes forming and collapsing trillions of times a second. Hawking has recently argued that this phenomena may explain the nature of the physical constants, like G, h and c. (See Hawking, Physical review D, 1988).
TNG found a wormhole that was stable only on one end, which would still be useful for sending a probe in (and yanking it back before the other end changed) to explore far reaches of the galaxy.
DS9's is the only known stable wormhole.
TOS "Whom Gods Destroy": Garth of Izar learned shapeshifting from someone.
ST6: Kirk encountered a shapeshifting female on the penal colony.
TNG "The Dauphin": Wes fell for a shapeshifter, only to piss off her shape-shifting nanny.
TNG "Aquiel": A creature that exists by consuming and then assuming the form of its prey is discovered and destroyed.
DS9: Odo seems to be able to change into very small objects (a rat, a bag of gold, etc).
We have seen the following shuttlecrafts in the following episodes:
TNG: On the topic of the Enterprise-D having dolphins involved in Guidance/Navigation:
"In the Galaxy class starship, ongoing G&N system research tasks are handled by a mixed consultation crew of twelve Tursiops truncatus and T. truncatus gilli, Atlantic and Pacific bottlenose dolphins, respectively. This crew is overseen by two additional cetaceans, Orcinus orca takyai, or Takaya's Whale. All theoretical topics in navigation are studied by these elite specialists, and their recommendations for system upgrades are implemented by Starfleet."-- Star Trek The Next Generation Technical Manual (pages 44-45).
If you have technical comments on what you believe are technical errors that show up frequently on ST:TNG, the following is an address to send comments to tech. consultants for the show (only responses from people with sufficient backgrounds in science or engineering, please--e.g. physicists, EE's, etc.):
This article is Copyright 1994 by Otto Heuer. It may be freely redistributed in its entirety provided that this copyright notice is not removed. It may not be sold for profit or incorporated in commercial documents without the written permission of the copyright holder. Permission is expressly granted for this document to be made available for file transfer from installations offering unrestricted anonymous file transfer on the Internet free of charge.
--Otto "HACK-MAN" Heuer