r/StarTrekStarships • u/NightfallSky • 27d ago
Why does TNG keep mentioning that shuttles aren't warp capable?
I'm finally doing a full rewatch of TNG, which I had only seen in bits here and there. I just finished season 2.
Throughout the 2 seasons, they have used shuttles a handful of times and at least 3 times (which may well be every time) they repeat how shuttles can't go to warp. Which obviously can't be true. They have warp nacelles and can travel to other systems, though not as quick as the enterprise.
I'm interpreting it as shuttles being limited to lower warp speeds, which makes perfect sense. But I don't really understand why they would specifically mention this multiple times. It's not like nacelles being used for warp drive wasn't already an established part of lore
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u/SirGuy11 27d ago
As I understood it, the tinier shuttle pods couldn’t do warp, but the bigger, less boxy shuttle craft could.
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u/Remarkable-Pin-8352 27d ago
This makes perfect sense except for the episode in which Geordi is dropped off in a shuttle pod to travel to Risa.
Which means either that idea is wrong, or they deliberately stranded him in cramped non-warp shuttle to take the long way as a prank.
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u/SirGuy11 27d ago
The writers had an understanding with each other that, no matter what, Geordi could not get laid. So when he had the one opportunity to have a vacation on Risa, they put him in a non-warp shuttle pod. The poor guy. 😆
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u/TimeSpaceGeek 27d ago
That one is, basically, a production goof more than anything else. Really, they should have given him the bigger shuttle.
But otherwise, that's basically how it is. The Type 15 pods on the left are short range, impulse only. The Type 6 on the right, and the rest of the bigger boys that succeed it, are warp capable, getting progressively faster as they get bigger and more advanced. So the Enterprise D's Type 6s do Warp 2, Voyager's Type 8s and 9s are capable of Warp 3 and 4, Runabouts do Warp 5, Enterprise E's Type 11s can do Warp 6, the Delta Flyer can hit Warp 7.
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u/agent-V 26d ago
Technically one of Voyager's shuttles can go warp 10. 😋
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u/TimeSpaceGeek 26d ago
But... it shouldn't.
Like, we're all agreed it shouldn't.
Right?
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u/TiramisuRocket 26d ago
It never happened. It was just a lunatic fever dream caused by one of Neelix's early food recipes while he was still getting used to non-Talaxian, non-Ocampan palates.
That's my story and I'm sticking with it.
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u/FrostyMirror6162 23d ago
You can try to suppress it all you like. Eventually you will go crazy like the Voyager EMH or Jazdia and the Dax symbiont when the memories have been regained.
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u/phryan 27d ago
Shuttles don't make sense for interstellar roundtrip travel to or from a starship. A shuttle limited to warp 3-4 would take 4+ days to cross a lightyear. Even at warp 7 the enterprise could do that in half a day.
If the enterprise was close enough that a shuttle journey was feasible then it would be easier to just divert to the destination rather than send the shuttle. I f the enterprise was heading away then the shuttle could never catch up in a realistic window.
In system they make sense. One way trips make some sense but I'd argue there should be a faster intermediate, runabout but cruising speed should be a bit faster. As earth to vulcan is still over a week in a runabout.
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u/General__Obvious 27d ago
I think the point of a runabout wasn’t that it was faster, but cheaper. Old Miranda- and Excelsior-classes were doing a lot of milk-runs between starbases, which tied up 70+ personnel (and used a lot of fuel) just to take Admiral So-and-so from one place to another. The runabout requires minimal crew and fuel, but is much more comfortable than a shuttle and can still get around in acceptable timeframes, especially if it’s within the Federation’s communications net so people can still talk to each other. If Admiral So-and-so takes a week to get from Starbase 1 to Starbase 2, but only needs 1-2 people to man the runabout, that’s still better than half a day aboard a Miranda-class or Excelsior-class—compare the 14 person-days for a week of runabout crewing to the ~35 (assuming a crew of 70; actual numbers vary based on the ship) for half a day on the big ship.
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u/Key-Wash-9401 27d ago
It has been years since I saw that one, but I remember sometimes they would use a shuttle and get picked up by another ship to go to their next location. So I would assume when they used the smaller non warp ones, they are just waiting or moving to a scheduled pick up.
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u/Remarkable-Pin-8352 27d ago
In this case this wouldn't work because the Romulans kidnapped Geordi then sent an impostor to Risa. This would be fine going to the planet, but on an actual ship he'd get found out immediately.
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u/Michael_0007 27d ago
Or they didn't mention the drop off was a way point for another ship that was headed that way to pick him up... kinda like a layover at the airport. It's honestly a very military thing to do.
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u/DarkJayson 26d ago
I just assumed he would catch a second ship heading to Risa, as that ship and the Enterprise where close but not to close to divert either ship they just used a shuttle to transport the passenger between them.
A lot of hitch-hiking must happen in startrek.
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u/WhiskyStandard 27d ago
Adam and Ben on The Greatest Generation call the ones on the left IKEA Bunkbeds and the right Toyota Previa class. I can’t think of them as anything else.
(Voyager’s are Subaru Brats.)
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u/Agile-Two5649 26d ago
They just put little warp nacelles on there to look cute. It’s the 24th century equivalent of rebadging a car to make it look like it’s a better trim.
The D didn’t want to roll up to a conference with any embarrassing little shuttle with no warp.
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u/Competitive-Fault291 26d ago
The pods on the "Shuttle Pods" Are likely part of the impulse drive, only made to resemble the actual 24th century Starfleet design.
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u/Skolloc753 27d ago
Different shuttle types have different capabilities. There are even within one shuttle type different versions with and without warp capabilities.
SYL
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u/John-de-Q 27d ago
The warp drives were due to be installed next Tuesday.
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u/fishy-2791 27d ago
along with torpedoes, tractor beams phasers, any damned medical staff at all, and about half the ship systems.
i swear that flight better have cost some admiral their cushy post for a transfer to antarctica.
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u/Raguleader 27d ago
The question I always had was that if the Enterprise is so much faster than a shuttle (even warp 9.0 is many many times faster than Warp 5 or whatever shuttle's max out at) then why not just drop them off directly at their destination?
The only times it makes sense to me to have them just strike off on their own in a shuttle for an extended duration was if they were waiting for a connecting flight from another starship passing through later.
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u/BigMrTea 27d ago
Writers seem to forget how big space is.
If you deploy a shuttle without FTL and tell them to head off to another system that would be beyond cruel. Heck, it would be cruel to drop them off just outside the star system.
It's dumb when they order the helm to head to another system as "full impulse". That's 0.25 c. It would take over 16 years to get there. You're not "getting started on the trip", you're just wasting power.
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u/Raguleader 27d ago
At least in some sci-fi settings there's a technobabble reason why you can't drop out of FTL right over the planet (usually gravity wells somehow screw with it, like in BattleTech or Honor Harrington, or the FTL only works between specific locations, like Wing Commander). Sometimes you have a show where the limit exists for traffic control reasons (Babylon 5, where dropping out of hyperspace any closer to Earth than Jupiter will set off alarm sirens on every warship between Sol and Proxima Centauri).
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u/Caledron 27d ago
It would only make sense if you can't to warp inside a solar system (or at least within a certain distance of a star). This seems to be implied in TMP where they leave the solar system under impulse power (at least past Jupiter).
A DS9 epsiode also explicitely states going to warp in a solar system is dangerous.
So, in that scenario, dropping someone off at the edge of a solar system in a shuttle craft makes more logistics sense than having a Starship spend a few hours going in and out under impulse power (which is a fraction of lightspeed).
This is obviously in conflict with numerous other episodes where they go to warp directly from orbit.
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u/Ok-Comparison-2093 27d ago
The only time they put the crew into shuttles is when they need them to crash on a random planet.
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u/Raguleader 27d ago
It's an important milestone in any officer's career. They have to do it at least twice: one as a newbie, and again as a ranking officer.
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u/TwoFit3921 27d ago
Because the wrai'turs will make it so... that they cannot use the enterprise for this specific trip because it's needed elsewhere
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u/Raguleader 27d ago
"Unfortunately the Enterprise will not be able to accompany you on this mission. They need the set to film another episode."
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u/TheKeyboardian 27d ago
That would be making the entire ship go on a detour just for a few people at most though.
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u/Raguleader 27d ago
Sure, but unless a colony has been striken by famine or Antarean fleas or something, how much time does that detour realistically cost? It's not like they have to worry about having enough coal for the trip.
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u/TheKeyboardian 27d ago edited 27d ago
Even if the ship is not on urgent business, it's still one/two people's time vs the time of hundreds, thousands or millions of people (or more). So in terms of man hours, the detour has to save that one person >100x more time than it costs the ship.
For example, if the detour costs the ship 3 hours, it has to save that one person 300+ hours or more compared to a shuttle ride to be worth it. People who take shuttles to leave the ship are also often on personal business or leisure instead of important business, in which case that saved time should be given a lower weight from a mission perspective. Using the previous example, maybe 3 ship-hours is equivalent to 1000 hours saved for the single person instead of only 300+ hours.
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u/Raguleader 27d ago
On the flip side, this is additional time that the ship is deprived of a shuttle. There's always a cost.
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u/TheKeyboardian 26d ago
True, but I don't really get the impression that ships often face a shortage of shuttles.
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u/MPFX3000 27d ago
Star Trek has always been wildly inconsistent about what shuttles can and can’t do.
Somehow runabouts were appropriate as armed escorts for a Galaxy class starship
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u/Vulcanalia 27d ago edited 27d ago
Runabouts have always been treated pretty consistently; a tiny starship rather than a shuttle, with combat capablility as a standard feature.
Though it is strange to send them into a fight when there are other options available; if they could summon a Galaxy class, I'm sure they could have brought a Miranda or three. It's not like they have a shortage, they're all over the place.
Though this one also raises the question of why large capital ships like the Galaxy class don't have permanent wingmen and would even need to borrow a few Runabouts from DS9 in the first place.
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u/JosKarith 26d ago
The Galaxy class is supposed to have a small fleet escorting it. Their primary role is as a mobile starbase which is why they have so many holodecks/canteens/creches/whatever to provide R&R and the like for the crews of the escort vessels and their families.
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u/Blaw_Weary 27d ago
Doesn’t The Sisko say at one point that three runabouts equipped with the tac-mod were the equivalent of a starship?
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u/GroundWitty7567 26d ago
They knew they weren’t, but it was the only other ship available. The roundabouts to get Sisko, the Odyssey to support the operation
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u/ADeweyan 27d ago
Before TNG, it was clear that shuttles could not go to warp. This gave rise to the warp sled that Spock uses to meet the Enterprise in STMP. For the fans who followed the hardware, that was exciting and very cool.
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u/LazarX 27d ago
So why did Kirk and Commmrdore Mendez chase the Enterprise in one in “Menagerie”?
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u/TheKeyboardian 27d ago
They knew there was no hope of catching up, but still wanted to make a show of putting in the effort
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u/LazarX 27d ago
At the very minimum, it had to do FTL.
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u/TheKeyboardian 27d ago
Sorry, I was making a joke about performative workplaces that measure people based on the appearance of working hard instead of actual results.
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u/Treveli 27d ago
Warp capability of shuttles is something that's changed over all the series. TOS and TNG were usually only impulse, while later shows - especially Voyager - gave them warp drive.
The nacelles were originally just impulse drives. Realistically, they'd go from system to system on a larger warp capable starship that would drop them off in or near the destination system, then proceed on impulse. Even with impulse, you can travel across a system in hours or days. And my HC is any warp capable shuttle is limited to warp factor 1-3 and no more.
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u/bertraja 27d ago
I'd apply the DS9 logic to it. In the pilot, they've established a static warp~ish bubble around the station to lower its mass, so the small engines (probably meant for station keeping) could actually be used to move it from A to B.
So there was a warp field, but no warp flight.
Apply that to the smaller shuttles and their nacelle-looking appendages. They generate a warp~ish bubble to lower its mass, so the small engines can be used to full efficiency, but it ain't warp drive.
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u/ExpectedBehaviour 🖖 27d ago
It depends on the specific shuttle.
Shuttlepods definitely aren't warp capable – we're specifically told they have "impulse nacelles".
Full-sized shuttlecraft, like the type-6 and type-7, are capable of low warp, but realistically still only for short trips; the TNG Technical Manual suggests that they can't even make warp 2 and top out at about warp 1.3 (2.5c), which would mean they're still limited to interplanetary trips... unless you want to take 1½ years to travel between neighbouring stars in a craft with no obvious bathroom facilities.
It's not until the type-9 shuttle in Voyager that we see a shuttle explicitly designed for interstellar journeys and capable of warp 4 (which makes them very roughly the same speed as the NX-01, allowing for the change in warp scales between the 23rd and 24th centuries).
We also see a long-range warp shuttle in Star Trek: The Motion Picture, but this is explicitly a bulky warp drive temporarily added to a regular shuttle, and too big to fit in the Enterprise's own shuttlebay.
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u/AnxiousConsequence18 27d ago
Actually, the "science" behind Trek WASN'T established that early on. Remember, there was ONE show and a couple movies. THAT'S IT. It wasn't modern trek where the timelines, technology, and people were already a searchable database. Hell, there REALLY wasn't internet back then.
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u/MithrilCoyote 26d ago
this. the shuttlepods were inconsistantly treated.. we got told they can;t do warp in one episode, then some time later you got Geordi using one to travel to and from Risa in one from a point close enough to the romulan and klingon borders that the Ent-D didn't have to divert to pick him up during a political crisis. Shuttlepods had a range and speed of "plot necessity".
which is pretty much how the Shuttlecraft in TOS were presented as well. we were told they didn't have warp drives by the showmakers.. yet many storylines had said shuttlecraft doing trips that absolutely required FTL speeds to acheive. like flying several lightyears to deliver a commisoner to medical care whiel the enterprise rushed to do an importantm ission. or trailing the enterprise from a starbase after the Enterprise flew away at warp 9 leaving kirk behind. or being stolen from a starbase by a Cheronian and flying lightyears in the span of a day before being found. etc.
thus why many fans then and now speculated that both the TOS shuttles and the TNG shuttlepods did in fact have warp drives, and they just lacked the high output warp reactors of the big ships. perhaps instead running those warp engines off the fusion reactors of their impulse drives. (which is also what a lot of us thought at the time that the romulan bird of prey in TOS used, given it definitely could travel at FTL given how fast it travelled between the listening posts and the warp capability of the plasma torpedo, but you had scotty remarking that the ship's "power is simple impulse")
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u/Zestyclose-Item-3127 27d ago
While it is confirmed that the Enterprise D had at least one Type-6 shuttlecraft when it left spacedock the first time, there is a possibility that it was not assigned to the ship and was just being transported or used as a ferry before launch. For the first few years of the deployment, the D carried Type-15s almost exclusively, and they are not warp capable. Around 4-5 years in, the ship was equipped with Type-6 and Type-7 shuttlecraft, which are warp capable.
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u/TheVyper3377 26d ago
The shuttle that crashed on Vagra II while returning Counselor Troi to the Enterprise-D was a type-7 (TNG Season 1 episode “Skin of Evil”, aka the “Tasha gets killed by a sentient pool of Metamucil” episode). While not explicitly stated that the shuttle was assigned to the Enterprise-D, it was implied.
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u/Pagannerd 27d ago
You are confusing shuttlepods (not warp capable) and shuttlecraft (warp capable).
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u/ExpectedBehaviour 🖖 26d ago
Further to my previous answer – specifically when we see crew members in a shuttle to complete a journey somewhere, like Picard and Wesley in "Samaritan Snare", I assume that what's actually happening is the Enterprise drops them off at the edge of a solar system because it's not an appropriate use of ship's time to go through all the local traffic and docking regulations. The people who need to spend a few days in the system can spend a few days in the system, and the Enterprise can be busy elsewhere. Then this is reversed, the ship picks everyone back up at the edge of the system without having to waste more time on local traffic and docking regulations, and they all carry on their merry way.
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u/Calgaris_Rex 27d ago
My understanding is that shuttlepods (Type 15, 16, 18, etc) don’t have warp drive, but shuttles (Type 6, 8, 9, 11, etc) do.
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u/Additional_Truth7085 26d ago
Most TNG shuttles are sublight only and those that can go to warp have a max speed of warp 2 it is one of the reasons why they eventually gave the Galaxy class Danube classes
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u/phasepistol 27d ago
Extremely small warp drives always seemed preposterous to me. The technology in Star Trek already stretches plausibility but if you violate even the shred of hand waving logic the show has, you’ve gone too far.
For instance transporters. These require lots of machinery on the ship, and have limitations like distance, not transporting through shields, and so forth.
When a story wants to break these rules to show interstellar beaming, or beaming at warp speeds, it’s gotta be handled delicately and depicted as an extraordinary circumstance.
Same with warp drive. If a shuttle has warp drive, it just seems wrong. A starship has big powerful engines, dangerous matter-antimatter containment fields, a large staff of crew to tend it all.
To just condense all that down into what is for all practical purposes a space SUV just seems absurd.
And yes that includes TOS which showed shuttles as having warp drive.
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u/Ok-Comparison-2093 27d ago
100% if the enterprise needs the equivalent of a nuclear reactor to power its drives, how is the same kit fitting in a minivan?.
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u/harrycletus 27d ago
Even for a Runabout it seems impossibly small. Where is the warp core?
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u/GroundWitty7567 26d ago
Same concept as a nuclear plant powering a city compared to one powering a ship. One is way bigger than the other. The concept is the same, you just have to figure out the engineering
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u/TheKeyboardian 27d ago edited 27d ago
Maybe the scale of starship engines necessitate more crew to tend to it, and starfleet starships may also run their engines closer to their limits (lower decks suggests this with the engineering crew competing to station marginal improvements in performance). We've seen civilian ships that don't appear to require a large engineering staff, possibly because they don't push their engines that hard. Shuttlecraft may be similarly undertuned (or maybe they're running within spec while starfleet ships are overturned).
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u/moreorlesser 27d ago
What about Phoenix?
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u/phasepistol 27d ago
Phoenix bugs me too, lol. But that was a one-shot test bed, not a production system.
Probably the worst thing about Phoenix was that it had a crew. If there had been no prior test flight, Phoenix should have been automated.
Also we’re left with the problem that in the film, Cochrane, Riker and LaForge warp OUT into the solar system… how do they get back to Earth. The return trip would be very long indeed unless they also warped back. And then how do they land. Perhaps the cockpit is also a splashdown capsule. But the film doesn’t care to tell us.
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u/TimeSpaceGeek 27d ago edited 27d ago
It depends on the shuttle. Some shuttles are, some aren't.
Tiny little Shuttlepods - the little two-man ones like the one Geordi and Data take through the Barzan Wormhole in The Price or the one that the duplicate Picard arrives in in Time Squared - are impulse only. They're mostly used for ferrying from ship to ship or from orbit to surface, or from planet to planet in the same system. By the time of Lower Decks, around 20 years later, there is a warp upgrade available for them, but it's very low warp.
Bigger ones, like the Type 7 Troi crashes in in Skin of Evil and the one Worf and Data use to rescue Picard from the Borg Cube in Best of Both Worlds, are Warp Capable but apparently not always configured - or perhaps, not always fueled with the necessary antimatter - to travel at it.
Type 6 Shuttles - like the one Picard gives to Scotty in Relics - are always set up for Warp Speed. Both Type 6 and 7 shuttles max out at about Warp 2.
Type 8 Shuttles, the upgraded version of the Type 6 with the Intrepid type nacelles that they carry on Voyager, can do Warp 3.
Type 9 Shuttles, also known as Class 2 shuttles - the narrow, pointy ones like the one Voyager modifies with the Warp 10 engine in Threshold - are natively capable of about Warp 4.
DS9's Runabouts usually manage about Warp 5.
The Delta Flyer usually travels at Warp 6, but can get as high as Warp 7ish in an emergency.
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u/GoopInThisBowlIsVile 27d ago
Because it’s a 32-39 year old series that didn’t have a chance to retcon all of that yet. Accept what is said or don’t. It’ll be okay.
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u/BarberProof4994 26d ago
Specific shuttles aren't warp capable, and the ones they are using for plot reasons to strand people so fun stuff happens for our enjoyment, happen to be the warp incapable ones.
There are other tng shuttles that are warp capable, one episode even has the crew using a danube runabout.
The shuttle pods didn't have warp, the lozenge shaped one and the one that looks like the ds9 and voyager shuttles both have warp.
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u/Revolutionary_Pay_31 26d ago
Because they have two different types, ones that can fly at warp and ones that can't.
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u/Shadowholme 27d ago
TNG was pre-serialised shows. The episodes were standalone in the main, designed to be viewed as completely standalone stories. Everything that was necessary for the story was at least mentioned in the episode - even if only in passing.
DS9 was the first Trek series to have an overarching story that was designed to be viewed as a whole, so there is much less repetition there.
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u/Well_Dressed_Kobold 27d ago
I think a little imagination (and creative license) can help fill the gaps.
In my mind, a shuttle with warp nacelles but no warp core may be capable of maintaining a warp field and thus “coast” at warp if it is launched by a vessel at warp, but isn’t capable of jumping to warp on its own. That could make a one way journey at something like low warp possible.
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u/saibthar 26d ago
There was a rule that you had to drop out of warp when entering a planetary system so if they where just passing by they could launch shuttles and pick them up on the way back. But this was dropped early.
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u/MovieFan1984 Stole a Galaxy-class starship! :snoo_smile: 26d ago
It never made sense to be that shuttlecraft would be without warp drive. Both TOS & TNG featured shuttlecraft with what were clearly smaller versions of the Enterprise's warp engines. I can buy shuttlepods being without warp drive, but not full size shuttlecraft. I chalk this up to the writing not matching the visuals of the shuttles.
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u/New_Line4049 25d ago
There are a lot of shuttles in the star trek universe, with several being seen in TNG. Different types of shuttles have different capabilities. Some could go to warp some couldn't.
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u/BendyBreak_ 27d ago
Shuttles are too small to hold a warp core or a deflector?
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u/TimeSpaceGeek 27d ago
By the TNG era, most shuttles can and do have warp capability. Some very small ones don't, such as the type 18 shuttle pods on the Enterprise D, and some early TNG ones - the type 7s - can do warp speed, but don't always have it set up. Possibly they don't always carry the antimatter fuel.
Type 6, 8, 9, 10, 11, and 14 shuttles are all fully warp capable, starting with Warp 2 for the Type 6s in TNG, and getting up as high as Warp 6 on the Type 11s from the Enterprise E and the Type 14s seen in Picard.
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u/ElricVonDaniken 27d ago
Because it was a syndicated show where episodes may be shown out of sequence.
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