I think it was said to be warp-capable in the Star Trek: The Next Generation Technical Manual, but I don't have that available.
I think it's at least strongly implied, however. In the episodes in which the NCC-1701D separates, the saucer section is ordered to travel to the nearest starbase, and in "Encounter at Farpoint", the saucer arrives at its destination before the stardrive section. Unless the saucer section had a warp drive, it would take many years to reach an adjacent star system.
It also came up in Arsenal of Freedom. IIRC they mentioned there that it could do Warp 6 on it's own.
It also came up in Arsenal of Freedom. IIRC they mentioned there that it could do Warp 6 on it's own.
I just watched that episode yesterday, actually. I'm pretty sure they never said anything about the velocity of the saucer section. But, Geordi did order another officer to take the saucer section to a particular starbase, which implies that it could fly fast enough to actually get there.
I think it was said to be warp-capable in the Star Trek: The Next Generation Technical Manual, but I don't have that available.
I think it's at least strongly implied, however. In the episodes in which the NCC-1701D separates, the saucer section is ordered to travel to the nearest starbase, and in "Encounter at Farpoint", the saucer arrives at its destination before the stardrive section. Unless the saucer section had a warp drive, it would take many years to reach an adjacent star system.
The Technical Manual says that the Saucer Section is not capable of warp flight independently, but if ejected at warp speed, it can maintain the subspace field for a while to basically "coast" along for a while. Torpedoes use something similar - they can't go to warp independently, but fired at warp, they can maintain warp speed for a bit (but maintaining warp uses the same anti-matter as used in the explosion, so the longer it stays at warp, the weaker the final explosion will be.)
Of course, the tech manual is not canon, so take that as you will.
Don't forget however that Star Trek never had a problem claiming that ships could reach planets or starbases with just impulse. The writers generally don't seem to realize how big space is and how slow non-FTL travel is for interstellar destinations...
Star Trek Online Advancement: You start with lowbie gear, you end with Lobi gear.
Gotta love the ineptitude of Team Berman... it's sad that you can poke holes into even the smallest of details about this show, in particular. Voyager (and Enterprise) deserved better.
It doesn't matter whether it was highlighted or not. Taco showed us pictures of the Voyager manual he posesses. And he clearly said that the auxiliary warp core is not attached to any of the ships systems and only meant to be a spare warp core.
If the primary warp core has to be ejected and cannot be salvaged, the auxiliary one is ejected as well and then reinserted through the hatch of the primary core and then reconnected to the main systems. The reason this has never been done in the show might be that the auxiliary core was cannibalized early in the show to have enough spare parts to keep the ship running.
I dont care what Taco has to say on this. I only brought up the STO Specs because it brought my attention to what I saw. Not because I care what a Dev has to say on the matter. They arent Star Trek Experts and most of their comments are at best fanfic.
The Series Specs on Memory Alpha clearly indicate a secondary warpcore. And if you had read through my OP youd have noticed I observed the secondary warpcore was in some sort of storage.
As for it being cannibalized. We never hear mention of it. Even when the warpcore needed to be repaired you never hear Torres or Janeway refer to their backup.
Now something like a Galaxy Class, that makes sense. The saucer section is supposed to be warp capable on its own, so it would need to have its own warp core. But as far as I know, Intrepid Class was never made to separate, and an Intrepid Class is much too small for that to make sense anyway.[/COLOR]
As I understand it, just about every class dating back at least to the Constitution class (see TMP saucer separation concept drawings: http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Saucer_separation) is supposed to be capable of saucer separation -- it's just a question of how routine the procedure is meant to be, ranging from a dire emergency situation with reattachment possible only at a starbase, or a fairly routine coupling/decoupling procedure as we see on the Galaxy class.
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I just watched that episode yesterday, actually. I'm pretty sure they never said anything about the velocity of the saucer section. But, Geordi did order another officer to take the saucer section to a particular starbase, which implies that it could fly fast enough to actually get there.
The Technical Manual says that the Saucer Section is not capable of warp flight independently, but if ejected at warp speed, it can maintain the subspace field for a while to basically "coast" along for a while. Torpedoes use something similar - they can't go to warp independently, but fired at warp, they can maintain warp speed for a bit (but maintaining warp uses the same anti-matter as used in the explosion, so the longer it stays at warp, the weaker the final explosion will be.)
Of course, the tech manual is not canon, so take that as you will.
Don't forget however that Star Trek never had a problem claiming that ships could reach planets or starbases with just impulse. The writers generally don't seem to realize how big space is and how slow non-FTL travel is for interstellar destinations...
+1
/10char
I dont care what Taco has to say on this. I only brought up the STO Specs because it brought my attention to what I saw. Not because I care what a Dev has to say on the matter. They arent Star Trek Experts and most of their comments are at best fanfic.
The Series Specs on Memory Alpha clearly indicate a secondary warpcore. And if you had read through my OP youd have noticed I observed the secondary warpcore was in some sort of storage.
As for it being cannibalized. We never hear mention of it. Even when the warpcore needed to be repaired you never hear Torres or Janeway refer to their backup.
As I understand it, just about every class dating back at least to the Constitution class (see TMP saucer separation concept drawings: http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Saucer_separation) is supposed to be capable of saucer separation -- it's just a question of how routine the procedure is meant to be, ranging from a dire emergency situation with reattachment possible only at a starbase, or a fairly routine coupling/decoupling procedure as we see on the Galaxy class.