The Original Series: Establishing A Background
Warp drive is one of the fundamental features of the Star Trek storyline; in the first pilot episode of Star Trek: The Original Series, "The Cage", it is referred to as a "hyperdrive"/"time warp" drive combination, and it is stated that the "time barrier" has been broken, allowing a group of stranded interstellar travelers to return to Earth far sooner than would have otherwise been possible.
The episode "Metamorphosis", also from the original series, establishes a backstory for the invention of warp drive on Earth, stating that Zefram Cochrane discovered the 'space warp'. Cochrane is repeatedly referred to afterwards, but the exact details of the first warp trials were not shown until the second Star Trek: The Next Generation movie, Star Trek: First Contact. The movie depicts Cochrane as having invented warp drive on Earth in 2063 (two years after the date speculated by the first edition of the Star Trek Chronology). By using a matter/antimatter reactor to create plasma, and by sending this plasma through warp coils, he created a warp bubble which he could use to move a craft into subspace and hence exceed the speed of light. This successful first trial led directly to first contact with the Vulcans.
The later prequel series Star Trek: Enterprise describes the warp engine technology as a 'Gravimetric Field Displacement Manifold' (Commander Tucker's tour, "Cold Front"), and describes the device as being powered by an anti-matter/matter reaction which powers the two separate nacelles (one on each side of the ship) to create a displacement field (the aforementioned "bubble") The episode also firmly establishes that many other civilizations had warp drive before humans; First Contact co-writer Ronald D. Moore suggested that Cochrane's drive was in some way superior to forms that existed beforehand, and was gradually adopted by the galaxy at large. Throughout the series, the viewer is made aware that the Vulcans have more advanced warp drive technology than humans even in the 22nd century. Enterprise, set in 2151 onwards, follows the voyages of the first human ship capable of traveling at warp factor 5.2 which under the old warp table formula, is about 140 times the speed of light. In the episode "Broken Bow", Capt. Archer equates warp 4.5 as "...Neptune and back in six minutes."
Read more about this topic: Warp Drive
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