Hi ho, Davezilla here. As new CHENG on Eagles Nest II(Eagles nestII, Electric Boogaloo!), I have been tasked with writing a 'Tech Article'.

Seeing as I have difficulty changing my oil (Or 'awl' as they say here in Florida) I figure I'm better off writing this in a sort of Socratic method, so that I can leave room for response(beyond the level of 'Hey Davezilla ! You suck!'. I get that already)

The topic I was handed was on Soliton Wave Travel. The gist of soliton wave travel is this: A station provides motive power to a ship sending it form point a to point b at warp speed, rather like a cable car. The ship itself doesn't have to carry a warp engine, and therefore doesn't have to muck around with all that dangerous antimatter. The only power necessary is that for ships housekeeping procedures(life support, impulse, and so on)

It would work thusly: Your ship, teh SS Minnnow, would impulse over to a specific station. It would be locked onto by the transmitting station, go into warp with all the fanfare you would come to expect. At the recieving end, a station locks onto the same signal, slows the ship down at the desired point, and Boom, there you are. Sounds science fictiony, and good fodder for Trek. I think it was even mentioned on TNG once or twice.

A similar concept , using lasers instead of warp technology, has been proposed been proposed by NASA. It was also the propulsion source of the "Crazy Eddy" probe in Niven's 'Mote in Gods Eye' But, with warp engines on ships, why bother? why use it at all? Ships get around just fine, don't they?

FIrst: on any ship , whether it be sea going(like an aircraft carrier) or space going(like a satellite) space is at a premium: cubic space that is. YOu have to cram everything you can into said space. On ships, your motive and power supplies are your biggest drain on your space budget(remember: we're talking room here); and, while size goes up linearly , power demand for movement will go up geometrically. If you double the size of your ship, you will have to quadrple the size of your engine. That's why you will never see a death star in the ST universe. WEll, hopefully not, anyway. With the Soliton WAve system, you could build a humongous engine, and push just about any ship at maximum warp. An added bonus: you don't have to worry about the temperamental things failing on you!

The second reason, almost as important , is efficiency: It is more efficient to build one large power source than several small ones. That's why you have a power company, instead of a bunch of gas generators running n every house. Greater efficiency means cheaper costs. "Starfleet: We're getting you more efficiently, and passing the savings on to you!"

What are the problems with this sorta system.? WEll that depends on how it works

First off, you have to have at least one station, to get you going: lock on and give you a push. the first question I encountered is"Do you need a second?"

That depends. According to Michael Lockwood, who initially brought up the topic, the station in ST needed a recieving platform to slow it down. Otherwise it continued to accelerate, on into infinity. If something goes wrong at the recieving end, you go faster and faster, presumably forever.

My problem with this scenario is; according to physics, energy is directly related to mass and velocity; Infinite velocity=infinite energy.. While an object exceeding lightspeed is transcending the Eisnsteinian laws of space and time, it still has to have some source of power that allows it to do so. No such thing as a free lunch, here.

SO, maybe the second station is unnecessary. OR maybe it's a preaution; if Station 1 fails, the recieving station can drag the vessel in quiestion to it's destination.

Or maybe it's like an airbag: when station one shuts off, the ship is going to drop out of warp precipitously, possibly shredding itself. Station two catches it, letting it down gently.(Maybe it's a bunch of huge capacitors, absorbig the energy of shops emerging from warp, and then using it to fling them back again when the time comes. Even more energy efficient!)

Of course, you may need more tha two; a series of relay stations might be needed(because of the vast distances involved) His would be good, because now you'd have a whole WEB of the things, shuttling ships all over the plce. If one goes, you just divert around it. The donwside would be the expense of strating up so many of the things.