Twelve Point Seven Five Billion Gigawatts!

Here is a popular clip that is often Cited as an indication of the power generated by Star Trek Warp Cores.

However, if you watch this uncut, contiguous clip from the Episode "True Q", you will note two very critical things.

1) The ship is moving on impulse power (The space graphics for the ship moving are different for Warp Drive...no star streaks are visible)

2) The ship is not in combat or on alert (at least not on alert until the alarm goes off at the end of the clip)...so the ship's power generation at the time doesn't include charging weapons, raising shields, or any of the other myriad of systems that are turned on in an emergency.

Thus, we can conclude that 12.75 billion gigawatts is just about the MINIMUM that the Warp Core of the Enterprise D generates...not a maximum power output figure by any stretch of the imagination.

Category:

Film & Animation

Tags:

• Star
• Trek
• Warp
• Core
• power
• Generation

[MrNickWright]

What the hell is a gigawatt?!!

[donnomar]

Twelve Point sevet five ExaWatts....

[Sassymui8]

but can it run Crysis? that is the question

[outsideredge]

That's a lot of power, but please don't use the toaster, and electric kettle and microwave at the same time. You might blow a breaker.

[VictorLepanto]

Wow, you could run a flux capacitor off this thing!

[gleehmee]

@redwoodtheElf without even having to watch any of the rest of the episode (although I have, though not for reasons such as this clip) you can tell the clip says very little about the power of the enterprise. Two words "presently" and "per" and he didn't get to say what it was "per" OF. per second? per system? per matrix? per X amount of anti matter?

[TheDarkIllumination]

Amanda: What the hell is a jiggawatt?

[terminat1]

@Draknfyre I can't find the episode on youtube, but I do remember the quote. Your conclusion might be possible, but Q also may have meant that, because the Q's natural abilities are so much above a Vulcan's natural abilites, or a Borg's natural abilties, or a Klingon's natural abilites, etc., that the Federation sees them as being 'magical,' when in fact they are not.

Just think: someone from the 18th century might think that the Vulcan mind meld is 'magical,' but of course it is not.

[Draknfyre]

@terminat1

Go back and watch that episode again.

"If a stoneage man were to see you with your technology, he would think you were magical. It's not different with the Q", is the quote as best as I can remember it. Implying the Q's powers are actually from their advanced knowledge and technology.

[terminat1]

@RedwoodTheElf Yeah, but I think the facts show that Trelane probably wasn't a Q. The cliche may be true, but it doesn't prove that sufficiently advanced beings must be using technology, and not their own abilities.