was set as an unattainable maximum (according to the new scale, reaching or exceeding warp 10 required an infinite amount of energy). This is described in Star Trek Technical Manuals as "Eugene's limit", in homage to creator/producer Gene Roddenberry. As stated in the collection Star Trek Fact Files, no ship, including highly developed ships like the Borg cube, may exceed warp factor 9.99 with their normal warp drive. To achieve higher speeds, the use of transwarp technology is required. Warp velocities In the book Star Trek Encyclopedia and the compilation Star Trek Fact Files, some warp velocities are given directly. For comparison, the following table shows these values and also the calculated speeds of the original warp scale, the calculated speeds of a simplified Okuda scale and some canonical reference values for warp speeds from onscreen sources. Transwarp Transwarp generally refers to speeds and technologies that are beyond conventional warp drives. The warp drive has a natural physical or economical limit beyond which higher speeds are no longer possible. The reference work Star Trek Fact Files indicates this limit at warp factor 9.99. This is the highest conventional warp speed mentioned for a spaceship (Borg cube). Also in the episode Threshold (Star Trek Voyager) the warp factor 9.99 is suggested as the limit. This is the last warp factor mentioned before the leap takes place in the transwarp state. In the book Star Trek: The Next Generation Technical Manual the authors describes the idea of transwarp: Finally, we had to provide some loophole for various powerful aliens like Q, who have a knack for tossing the ship million of light years in the time of a commercial break. .. This lets Q and his friends have fun in the 9.9999+ range, but also lets our ship travel slowly enough to keep the galaxy a big place, and meets the other criteria. The transwarp concept itself is not tied to any particular technology or speed limit. Variants of transwarp are: Space folding coaxial warp drive Rutian Inverter Sikanian spatial trajector Hyperspace quantum slipstream Vaadwaur subspace corridors (underspace) Xindi subspace vortex Borg transwarp conduits Wormholes geodesic fold intermittent cyclical vortex / interspatial flexure spatial flexure spatial vortex See also Ansible Time travel in fiction Star Trek technologies Cloaking device Communicator (original seen in TOS; similar to the modern-day mobile phone) Holodeck Replicator Tractor beam Transporter Universal translator References Further reading Star Trek