History SciFiWritersHave / NoSenseOfVelocity

** Even ignoring "Threshold," ''Voyager'' is guilty of contradicting its own warp speed scale. Although Voyager's maximum ''sustainable'' speed is supposed to be Warp 9.975, in the episode "The 37s" it's stated that warp 9.9 is about 4 billion miles per second, which works out to 21,473 times the speed of light. At that speed -- which is ''lower'' than their ''own cruising speed'' -- they could cross the 70,000 light years back to the Alpha Quadrant in a little over 3 years.
** Eventually, they seemed to settle on Warp 6 being 1000 times the speed of light and the sustainable speed for years on end. Presumably, the faster warp speeds that were deemed "sustainable" were meant relatively to other warp drives, meaning Voyager could go those speeds for a few hours or days, as opposed to a few seconds on the other ships.

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*** What makes this even worse is the fact that, in "Threshold", the "infinite velocity" was Warp 10. This blatantly disregards that both TOS and Next Generation had (through various "not supposed to actually work" means) ships travel as fast as Warp 18. Even with a HandWave of "the warp scale was reassessed at some point in-universe", having a sustainable speed of Warp 8 or 9 take 75 years to cross about half the galaxy, and then having warp 10 be "so fast you're everywhere in the galaxy and/or universe at once" break every type of logical scaling imaginable.

** Even ignoring "Threshold," ''Voyager'' is guilty of contradicting its own warp speed scale. Although Voyager's top speed is supposed to be Warp 9.975, in the episode "The 37s" it's stated that warp 9.9 is about 4 billion miles per second, which works out to 21,473 times the speed of light. At that speed -- which is ''lower'' than their ''own cruising speed'' -- they could cross the 70,000 light years back to the Alpha Quadrant in a little over 3 years, unless warp 9.9 can't be done for years on end, the way warp 6 seems to be able to (and it is mentioned as a design feature of the ''Intrepid''-class that it can maintain a cruising speed of warp 9.975, give or take repair time).

** Even ignoring "Threshold," ''Voyager'' is guilty of contradicting its own warp speed scale. Although Voyager's top speed is supposed to be Warp 9.975, in the episode "The 37s" it's stated that warp 9.9 is about 4 billion miles per second, which works out to 21,473 times the speed of light. At that speed -- which is ''lower'' than their ''own cruising speed'' -- they could cross the 70,000 light years back to the Alpha Quadrant in a little over 3 years, unless warp 9.9 can't be done for years on end, the way warp 6 seems to be able to (and it is a design feature of the ''Intrepid''-class that it can, give or take repair time).
*** It was fairly well established in TNG, and so presumably applies to Voyager also, that ships can't maintain their maximum warp for very long. The 70 years to go 70,000 light years works out to a cruising speed of about warp factor 8, which fits with the idea that Voyager is a fast ship but can't maintain its maximum velocity for long (IIRC the Enterprise-D's cruising speed was around warp 7, with a max of 9.6).

-->'''Colonel Sandurz:''' Ludicrous speed? Sir, we've never gone that fast before...I don't know if the ship can take it.

** ...and which was completely abandoned by ''DeepSpaceNine'', where travelling pretty much anywhere invariably took about half a day. Runabouts (established as having a top speed of warp five) seemed to be able to reach Earth, Cardassia, and various other locations in the same short amount of time (while the distances aren't given, that would put both the Federation and Cardassian capitals within two light years of each other at most). On another occasion, a runabout travels to a planet given as five light years away in a few hours (it should take over a week).

* In ''TunnelInTheSky'', two teenagers notice a new visible star above the alien world they're stranded on, and conclude that they've just witnessed a nova. At the book's end, it's revealed a nova is what interfered with their CoolGate back to Earth. If it's the same nova -- which is strongly implied; indeed, the chapter where they see it is ''titled'' "The Nova", and it reads like a ChekhovsGun -- then the boys shouldn't have been able to see its light until years after it happened.

** Even ignoring "Threshold," ''Voyager'' is guilty of contradicting its own warp speed scale. Although Voyager's top speed is supposed to be Warp 9.975, in the episode "The 37s" it's stated that warp 9.9 is about 4 billion miles per second, which works out to 21,473 times the speed of light. At that speed -- which is ''lower'' than their ''own cruising speed'' -- they could cross the 70,000 light years back to the Alpha Quadrant in a little over 3 years, unless warp 9.9 can't be done for years on end, the way warp 6 seems to be able to.
*** Confirmed in cannon, most ships can only travel at there top speeds for 12 hours.

*** Energy release on account of deceleration, most likely. All that kinetic energy has to go *somewhere.*

* Parodied in ''{{Spaceballs}}'':

* In ''StarTrekTheMotionPicture'' the ''Enterprise'' has left space dock and is on its way to intercept V'Ger. It heads away from Earth and, moving at only sublight speed, manages to pass Jupiter only a ''few moments after leaving Earth orbit.''

* The USS ''Enterprise'' in StarTrekTheOriginalSeries traveled to the edge of the galaxy (in "Where No Man Has Gone Before" and "By Any Other Name") and to the center of the galaxy (in ''StarTrekV'') in the space of a single episode. The trip from one galaxy to another would take about 300 years (though the trip would be made with the modifications of extra-galactic aliens who had engines that were better than the Federation's). Yet in ''StarTrekVoyager'', when ships were about a thousand times faster, the estimated travel time to Earth from the opposite side of the galaxy was upwards of 70 years.

* By the time of ''StarTrekTheNextGeneration'', a Warp Speed scale was firmly established by Paramount, where a speed of Warp X (below Warp 9) meant the ship was travelling at X^3.3333... times the speed of light. This makes Warp 1 equal to light speed, Warp 2 just a hair over 10 times the speed of light, and Warp 9 a little more than 1500 times light speed. Yet in the episode "Where Silence Has Lease", the Enterprise traverses the 1.3 parsec distance to the edge of a giant space cloud at Warp 2 in about 30 seconds.

* In ''StarTrekEnterprise'', the Klingon homeworld is several days' travel from Earth, which would put the two empires right on top of each other, given the increases in cruising speed in the other incarnations of the franchise. (Though one interesting exception: in the first episode of ''StarTrekEnterprise'', Trip describes the ship's top speed in terms of how long it would take to travel to Jupiter and back, and he's exactly right, based on conventional estimates of how warp factors work). In fact if you use those same calculations, the Klingon home planet would be two and a half lightyears from Earth; the nearest star to us in RealLife is four and a half. Missed it by ''that'' much. Which is, really, still a hell of a big distance in conventional terms, but isn't that much in terms of space.
* In ''StarTrekVoyager'', it is stated, that the 70 000 light years back to earth even at maximum speed (Warp 9.975) would take 75 years, so that would make a maximum of 933 light years per year or just under 3 light years per day. Of course only if they always travel at full speed (which they don't). Yet in every scene where you can see a window, you can see hundreds of stars passing by in a mere seconds. Never mind, that stars are usually light years apart).
** ''StarTrekTheMotionPicture'' started the tradition of showing [[StreamingStars stars streaming past the window]] whenever they were at warp speed. Even at the movie-Enterprise's maximum safe cruising speed of warp 6 (TOS scale), they'd still only be going 216 times the speed of light, too slow for distant stars zip past in a matter of seconds as shown. Some fans explains that these aren't stars but dust particles that interact with the warp field.

* Any time you are dealing with a speedster like TheFlash, the laws of physics are pretty much getting raped left and right.

* ''VideoGame/StarRuler'': You can travel faster than light on raw engine power alone, no Phlebotinum handwave provided.

-->'''Colonel Sandurz''' Ludicrous speed? Sir, we've never gone that fast before...I don't know if the ship can take it.

* In Tengen Toppa Gurren-Lagann, during the final battle against the Anti-Spiral, the TTGL uses an attack named the "MY WIFE IS THE BEST IN THE UNIVERSE SWING!" Safe to say, it swings the Granzeboma around, making it pass alongside the edge of the galaxy 2-3 times, before being hammered against a galaxy. All this happens in less than 10 seconds.
** Even earlier, when TTGL and Granzeboma approach each other, first walking, then accelerating until they both run fast enough to cross the galaxy in a matter of seconds.
** At their sizes, any visible movement is far beyond light-speed. By that point in the series, physics have been ground to a fine powder.

* In just about every space opera, whenever there is a battle next to an "asteroid field", you see spaceships passing rocks at relative speeds that would be about right for seagoing vessels passing an island. If there is a chase inside this asteroid field, it looks like a downtown car chase (or jetplane chase, if you're generous). In reality, even with todays technology, flybys are measured in dozens of kilometers per second.

** ''StarTrekTheMotionPicture'' started the tradition of showing [[StreamingStars stars streaming past the window]] whenever they were at warp speed. Even at the movie-Enterprise's maximum safe cruising speed of warp 6 (TOS scale), they'd still only be going 216 times the speed of light, too slow for distant stars zip past in a matter of seconds as shown.
** Never mind that you shouldn't be able to ''see'' stars behind you -- or anything else behind you, for that matter -- if you're outrunning light itself.
*** Some fans explains that these aren't stars but dust particles that interact with the warp field. Really, you shouldn't be able to see stars while in subspace.

* StargateSG1 and StargateAtlantis [[ZigZaggedTrope zig zag this trope]]. One the one hand, the ''Daedalus'' is able to reach Atlantis for the first season finale in about three days while powered by a Z P M. The Pegasus Galaxay (assuming the one in the series is the Pegasus Irregular Dwarf Galaxy in RealLife as is implied) is 3 million lightyears from the Milky Way. That's a speed 365 ''million'' times the speed of light. It's also mentioned that the trip would take about 2 weeks without the Z P M. That's about 78 million times the speed of light. Taken by themselves, these don't seem horrifically unreasonable. The universe runs on more power = UpToEleven. The problem comes when one considers that it usually takes them a few days to get any where in the galaxy. At the aforementioned speeds, they could traverse the entire observable universe in and 55 and 255 years, respectively. So either they normally run their engines ''far'' below their capacity, or it's this trope.

*** This makes some degree of sense. At 78 million times the speed of light, it would take very precise calculations AND hyperspace windows opened for only very brief times(which would be, just like with a car, bad for the engine) to get to a specific place. The Asgard alone are shown as being able to traverse great distances very quickly and precisely, but that can be justified by their being much smarter than humans and having considerably more complex computer systems for the calculations and timing. Therefore traveling at a significantly slower speed within a Galaxy does make sense. . .although why this seems held to even when someone or something is in dire peril is another question.

* {{Handwave}}d in ''{{Warhammer 40000}}'' where the chaotic nature of the [[HyperspaceIsAScaryPlace Warp]] means that the same trip can take vastly different amounts of time. We have at least one example of a ship arriving quite some time before it left, and another of a vessel arriving at it's destination millenia after it was supposed to arrive, though the crew seemed to believe it took only a couple of months. When your hyperspace is made of illogical thought, it's no wonder there's a bit of variation in travel times.
** To illustrate - a particularly powerful Ork Warboss, in the course of a WAAAAAAAAAGH!, managed to make his entire ship travel back in time to before the WAAAAAAAAAGH! even began. The Boss decided to find his past self and kill him so he could have two of his favourite gun. You heard me.
** In one case this is used for some dark humor. A crew of a ship responding to a distress signal travels through the warp ending up being attacked by demons. They proceed to send out a distress signal...which is sent back in time due to the anomalies in the warp, the very signal that they themselves responded to.
** Warhammer 40,000 also came up with a nice solution for the Necrons: the Inertialess Drive. It makes the ship unbound by inertia, allowing it to almost instantly (the time it takes for the drive to activate) accelerate to a practically infinite velocity, then immediately come to a stop. Necron phase technology would prevent them from crashing into anything, and the precision of their machinery (their weapons, for example, are crafted atom by atom, as an idea of how precise Necrons are) would ensure they don't go waaaay too far, out past the galaxy.
** The Tau use a similar system, since their presence in the warp is minimal and thus they do not know about it. Their spaceships would make a "jump" to near-light speed, almost entering the warp, get violently pushed out, and use the resulting inertia to "slingshot" through space. As a result, however, they are the slowest species to expand since their ships takes millenia to reach a new system, and the Tau are already short-lived as is (the average tau is considered ancient to have lived to his 80th earth birthday. Most humans could live well into their hundreds). Their empire barely consist of a few starsystems, while the Imperium stretches across the whole galaxy (everyone else is implied to have come from outside the galaxy).