It has come to our attention that many otherwise educated beings have not been given an adequate understanding of various starship systems. The following report on the success and failure of the USS Excelsior's "transwarp drive" is part of our ongoing effort to provide a basic primer for many of these systems. Further, in-depth information regarding transwarp, the Excelsior, or other aspects of space travel are freely available from Federation information networks.

The USS Excelsior's main propulsion system consisted of conventional, though heavily overbuilt, warp drives. The key theory behind transwarp was the potential to form a "captive" wormhole by creating a sustained, controlled imbalance in the nacelles. This "captive" wormhole would allow the ship to "tunnel" through subspace at pseudovelocities well beyond those attainable by the ships of the day (and of this day, for that matter).

Initial tests were encouraging. Extremely high instantaneous velocities were attained when the neccesary imbalance was properly sustained and controlled. Unfortunately, many hidden defects in the basic theory of this particular propulsive method surfaced, as well. A partial list of specific problems follows:

1. The wormhole effect could only be controlled for a short time before it would destabilize more rapidly than artificial stability compensators could counter. A certain level of oscillation was expected and tolerable, but once destabilization set in, it was a matter of minutes before the ship would experience catastrophic dynamic separation [Editor's note: the previous phrase is engineerese for "parts flying everywhere"].

2. The vessel experienced excessive time dilation effects, not only between shiptime and Federation standard time, but also between different sections of the ship. These effects are attributable to the shear stresses between quantum realities engendered by continuous close proximity to the artificial wormhole. These effects increased dramatically as the wormhole effect destabilized. As destabilization progressed, individual crewmembers experienced multiple quantum realities. This made it difficult for crewmembers to respond appropriately to the situation at hand, in addition to inducing symptoms of migraine and nausea.

3. Although the spaceframe of the Excelsior was heavily overbuilt and understressed to withstand the punishment of operating continuously within an artificial wormhole, nothing prepared the engineers for the actual effects. The time dilation effects caused premature fatigue stresses throughout the spaceframe and quantum shear stresses created microfractures throughout the ship's stress-bearing structures. This resulted in premature "weathering" (aging) of the ship. The Excelsior, following even "perfect" test runs, required several months of inspection, testing and repair to restore spaceframe integrity for the next test.

The Excelsior proved that a ship-mounted system could create and sustain a wormhole, travelling many times faster than other ships of the day. However, the necessary downtime after every use of the transwarp drive cut the actual advantage down to less than nothing. Had an Excelsior-type ship been deployed as a combat vessel, the transwarp run to the combat zone would have delivered a ship too severely weakened to meaningfully participate in combat.

In the final analysis, Starfleet vindicated transwarp theory, but proved it impractical without vast improvements in other areas of technology. Barring unforseen breakthroughs in quantum temporal physics and structural engineering, the transwarp drive will not be considered for any forseeable mission requirement.

The Excelsior was redesigned with efficient, conventional propulsion systems. In that configuration, the Excelsior proved to be an extremely efficient vessel, and several were ordered despite the lack of transwarp drive. Due partly to their extremely robust construction, they serve admirably and efficiently in many capacities to the present day, as conventional starships.

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