Most modern motorized vehicles are capable of both forward and reverse motion.  In the Star Trek universe, can an unmodified warp drive also be used to move backwards?  I realize that pretty much every ship we've seen has its navigational deflector (that is, the force field generator that pushes space dust and small debris away from the path of the ship) installed at the front of the vessel.  But ; it doesn't make it impossible.  Safety issues aside, is there any technical or engineering reason why warp drives cannot operate in reverse?  If not, have we ever observed a ship warping backwards, perhaps to escape from a dire emergency?  Or have we perhaps observed ships with an extra navigational deflector mounted on the rear?  I'm interested primarily in the canonical TNG-era continuity (including the DS9 and Voyager series), with preference given to evidence from the shows and movies themselves, or alternatively to reliable print sources such as the show's Writers'/Directors' Guide and the Technical Manual.  If this issue is absolutely never discussed in those sources, then an answer based on other Trek series/movies/continuities/canons would be acceptable.
122051
I've seen them maneuver. They definitely can go backwards. How fast can they go in reverse? Is warp speed possible, or is reverse limited to impulse power? If it is limited to impulse power, can they travel backwards under impulse power as fast as they travel forwards under impulse power?
112949
Is there an in-universe explanation for why the Borg always move like 1950s cheap-special-effects sci-fi tin can robots?   With the advanced technology they have, you'd think they would have BETTER (faster, more graceful) movement than humans, with more advanced power sources, better motors (or augmented muscles), and better controlled software/hardware.  Instead, they have these jerky, slow motion movements that make absolutely no sense whatsoever, except possibly that "the studio people wanted to make them look 'like robots'" (on top of all the visible Borg gear) and this was the only, not-too-brilliant, idea they came up with.  Is there an explanation for this? (ideally, in-universe, or an "official" franchise out-of-universe one)?   P.S. I'm interested in an existing explanation, NOT in someone's personal theory.
6951
During the Wolf-359 incident, 39 starships were destroyed, and 11,000 people were killed or assimilated.  Why didn’t one of the smaller ships warp into that one Borg cube? Doesn’t warping into it destroy anything?  Even if it just warps through without touching, one could program the navicom to self destruct while the ship is in the middle of Borg cube.
37222
In Star Trek, it seems like they take forever to build ships.  It takes months, if not years to make them.  So why not just build gigantic replicators in space, then replicate the ship (excepting non-replicatable objects like the warp core)?  This would presumably come with a huge energy cost, but would save massive amounts of time.
116246
So this is the question that's been bothering me:  Say you have a simple rigid body in space that is at rest or traveling with only translational motion at a constant speed. Say that the body is something like a rod and it's not rotating. So, at some point, an external force is acted on the rod, just for an instant and it is not acted along some axis that goes through the center of mass. What will happen??  My guess is that it will start rotating about the center of mass (because of torque) + it will get some translational motion towards the direction of the force. Is that correct? and if so, how much of the force becomes rotation and how much translational movement and why??  Please forgive my English and thnx in advance!!
26955
In Zelda Speedrunning, namely Ocarina of Time, one of the tricks that speedrunners can use is called "wrong-warping". As I understand it, this happens when you go outside of a level and somehow go to some other room I don't know it's confusing.  So, how does this even happen in the first place? And how am I supposed to do it on my own game?
37220
The  basically boils down to: "surprise your enemy by jumping right next to him and unload all your cannons". However, Trek canon makes a bit more of a technological fuss about how it works.  Seeing that the Star Wars universe also has FTL travel, I wondered if:   the Picard Maneuver would be technically possible in SW and  if there are any references (probably by a different name) in the SW universe.
81790
In Star Trek Into Darkness, the Vengeance was able to catch up to the Enterprise and attack it while in warp.   According to the , warp is a bubble around a specific ship. This would explain why Kirk was so surprised when it happened.   How was the Vengeance able to catch up, or get into the Enterprise’s warp bubble?
78119
In the universe of Star Wars, many ships (excluding the X-Wing - the large circles on the front are retro thrust nozzles) appear to lack forward-facing thrusters or retro thrusters.    The TIE  fighter has 2 engines, . So, what slows it down?  I read on Wookieepedia that they turn using etheric rudders, and read on a chat forum (I do not remember which) that they can use etheric friction to slow down, but I couldn't find any references to this. Do they perhaps use special repulsors to slow down? In  many people answered that they use special repulsors to control their flight and direction, so perhaps could the same technology be used to slow them down?  So, how do Star Wars ships slow down?  To clarify, I want answers based on the Star Wars universe, not real-life physics. I am also willing to accept answers based on the Star Wars Extended Universe (now named Star Wars: Legends).
83028
First, I consider the following as given: All the galaxies, solar systems and planets in the universe travel on a different route at a different velocity through space, mostly moving away from each other.  Now, imagine we would be able to create a wormhole from planet x in solar system y in galaxy z to planet a in solar system b in galaxy c. Since both planets are moving in different directions, I see 2 options how it could work.  1) The wormholes would travel with the planets, constantly changing the spacetime-wrapping.  2) The wormholes would stay at the position they were initially created, which means the planets would move away from them, after they were created. But the spacetime-wrapping would stay the same.  I know most people (me included) think that option 1 is the case. But the following question really made me think, and led me to the question I'm now asking:  If option 1 was the case, what would happen if someone entered the wormhole? Would he keep the velocity of the planet where he entered at the planet he came out, which means he would move away from the target planet? Or would he adopt the velocity of the target-planet? If the latter was the case, would this person notice the slow-down/speed-up/direction-change? Could the person even die?  I'm not a physicist, so I may assume totally wrong concepts. I'm sorry about that.
119573
At one point in Star Trek Beyond, everyone fastened their seat belts. At last! Is this the first time in Star Trek (TV, movies) that seat belts have been used?  If not, what was the first time?
13041
Take the following gedankenexperiment in which two astronauts meet each other again and again in a perfectly symmetrical setting - a hyperspherical (3-manifold) universe in which the 3 dimensions are curved into the 4. dimension so that they can travel without acceleration in straight opposite directions and yet meet each other time after time.  On the one hand this situation is perfectly symmetrical - even in terms of homotopy and winding number. On the other hand the Lorentz invariance should break down according to , so that one frame is preferred - but which one?  So the question is: Who will be older? And why?  And even if there is one prefered inertial frame - the frame of the other astronaut should be identical with respect to all relevant parameters so that both get older at the same rate. Which again seems to be a violation of SRT in which the other twin seems to be getting older faster/slower...  How should one find out what the preferred frame is when everything is symmetrical - even in terms of GRT?  And if we are back to a situation with a preferred frame: what is the difference to the classical Galilean transform? Don't we get all the problems back that seemed to be solved by RT - e.g. the speed limit of light, because if there was a preferred frame you should be allowed to classically add velocities and therefore also get speeds bigger than c ?!? (I know  is only a local theory but I don't understand why the global preferred frame should not 'override' the local one).  Could anyone please enlighten me (please in a not too technical way because otherwise I wouldn't understand!)  EDIT Because there are still things that are unclear to me I posted a follow-up question:
50434
After watching (I'm sure quite too) many Star Trek episodes, I've noticed a number of occasions where the characters seem to step away or onto a more specific location to get transported, even if they are not anywhere near a transporter "pad."  Recently, I noticed this at the end of Deep Space Nine, Season 4, Episode 11, Paradise Lost - Part 2 where it's clear that Sisko steps slightly out of the way and closer to the group of other people to get transported, before he actually is ...   However, I've noticed this, to some extent in episodes of all 5 live-action TV series.  So, the question is ... is there there something inherent in transporter technology that requires people to be either:   Closer together in proximity or ... In a certain location before normal transportation is possible?   Note: I realize this is sci-fi and an easy answer is "well it's a bit of a plot device, it depends ..." That's kinda weak, I'm looking for a more well-rounded anwser.
46564
From  onward,  has a basically cubic scale from warps 1 - 9. But then, close to warp 10, it suddenly develops its own puzzling scale, as can be seen in .  In this scale, , occupying all points in the universe simultaneously and therefore effectively teleporting instantaneously.  My question is why have this confusing scale? Why not have a uniform cubic scale? Was there ever any "official" explanation for this?  Clarification: I'm looking for why the writers decided on this, not the "in-universe" explanation.
108727
I read on wiki that gravitational shielding is considered to be a violation of the equivalence principle. Is that so, How? A conceptual description without lot of mathematics will be helpful.   I am not sure whether the wiki article refers to shielding only by materials, or it also includes mechanisms - e.g a rotating disk. I know rotating disk does not shield gravity, but just to describe what a mechanism could mean.  It goes on to say that any evidence of gravitational shielding would falsify GR, is this true?  It is hard for me to believe because - suppose gravitational shielding is demonstrated somehow, then how GR can be falsified all of a sudden, which has been verified by so many experiments and phenomena. So, that makes me think gravitational shielding would not invalidate GR.
100151
Hypothetically, if you were to travel say, 6 months into the past with no spatial displacement, you would end up floating in space because the Earth would be on the opposite side of the sun.  I know when it comes to sci-fi, they can't account for everything and I don't expect them to. So I'm not nit-picking or anything, I'm just wondering if this is something that has been addressed to any detail, as it seems like it would have to be a major component of any time travel.
97669
The space ships in my game a meant to be player-built with an arbitrary amount of thrusters attached anywhere with any rotation. I currently have some dirty code to rotate the ship to a given angle (accelerating and decelerating).   Here's an example of a symmetrical ship facing where the red line points, being told to rotate left.    However, as you would imagine, depending on where the player has put the thrusters, sometimes undesired linear forces are affecting the ship. In this case, the ship starts moving forward.  I'm elaborating on whether it's possible to find the maximum thrust a thruster can apply to cause no linear velocity. (In the above case that would be none since there's nothing to counteract the forces from the rear thrusters, and the front ones kill eachother).  What I've come up with so far is a formula to determinate the "turn efficiency" e.g. how much rotation is caused in relation to linear movement.  a - position vector to thruster a b - position vector to thruster b v1 - force from thruster a v2 - force from thruster b  efficiencyDelta = a.cross(v1) / |v1|  -  ( a.cross(v1) + b.cross(v2) ) / |v1 + v2|  , basically "a.cross(v1 * t) / |v1|" is supposed to be the turn efficiency. And then we subtract it by the turn efficiency of the thrusters combined, to see if firing the new thruster is worth it.  Problem arises when I realize that thrusters aren't surposed to be on/off, but can vary their thrust from 0 to 1. And how to go about when the player wants the ship to go forward. Ofcourse, there would need to be a balance of how much to rotate/move.  I'm no rocket scientist so I'm hoping there's someone who can tell me if it's even possible to calculate the throttle of each thruster this way and give me a push in the right direction.  Thank you for taking the time! / Kim