In the Trek universe ships do not accelerate to anywhere near relativistic speeds, they create a “warp bubble” that compresses space behind the ship and expands the space in front of the ship, creating a kind of pressure differential/wave (as in ocean waves) in spacetime itself. The ship doesn’t “move” at all at warp. To quote the late, great Cubert Farnsworth: “I understand how the engines work now! It came to me in a dream. The engines don’t move the ship at all. The ship stays where it is and the engines move the universe around it!”
That said, I don’t think I’d want to be moving at any speed through space without a way to slow myself down.
Canonically the impulse engines at least on the Enterprise D can achieve a top speed of 0.25 c. This means that when they’re being “cautious” and moving at one quarter impulse, they’re still moving at an insanely high velocity.
Was talkin about that in another comment thread actually. My headcannon is that’s why you hardly ever see them use full impulse unless it’s a life or death situation. Like you said, even 1/4 impulse is still something like 20 million meters per second.
Edit: If anyone is curious, the fastest man-made object in the universe is currently the Parker Solar Probe, which hit 0.000641C by slingshotting around Venus seven times!
In the Trek universe ships do not accelerate to anywhere near relativistic speeds, they create a “warp bubble” that compresses space behind the ship and expands the space in front of the ship, creating a kind of pressure differential/wave (as in ocean waves) in spacetime itself. The ship doesn’t “move” at all at warp. To quote the late, great Cubert Farnsworth: “I understand how the engines work now! It came to me in a dream. The engines don’t move the ship at all. The ship stays where it is and the engines move the universe around it!”
That said, I don’t think I’d want to be moving at any speed through space without a way to slow myself down.
Canonically the impulse engines at least on the Enterprise D can achieve a top speed of 0.25 c. This means that when they’re being “cautious” and moving at one quarter impulse, they’re still moving at an insanely high velocity.
Was talkin about that in another comment thread actually. My headcannon is that’s why you hardly ever see them use full impulse unless it’s a life or death situation. Like you said, even 1/4 impulse is still something like 20 million meters per second.
Edit: If anyone is curious, the fastest man-made object in the universe is currently the Parker Solar Probe, which hit 0.000641C by slingshotting around Venus seven times!