The other reason for traveling at Warp 5 is that the Enterprise is an explorer ship. If you never slow down you’ll “make good time” but miss the Universe’s Biggest Ball of String. Working at 100% can make you miss nuances that could be important, or could just add some ineffable element to your inner life.
There’s also that one episode where it comes out that fast warp travel damages the universe and they need to be slower than a certain warp to not damage it. But in good old TNG fashion this is never referenced again in the future.
They don’t directly mention it, but as I recall after that episode traveling at high warp speeds was greatly diminished and warp speeds above certain thresholds were only used in emergency situations/required special authorization. So not completely abandoned but they certainly didn’t build on the premise, which is a shame because I thought it was one of the cooler plot elements that was introduced in the series.
Also because of that one episode that put a standard limit on warp travel, the entire warp scale got rejiggered at some point. Where warp 10 became the upper limit.
There are episodes where ships are noted to have been travelling at warp 13 or 14 before they reworked warp speeds
It was two things, one just being fast warp, another being a different kind of warp drive that the Borg used. In the Kelvin timeline, it was a third thing where you’d use the transporter to beam onto or off a ship at warp.
I think any warp travel at all was damaging, and lowering warp speeds was the compromise to slow down the damage they were doing but did not completely eliminate it
The other reason for traveling at Warp 5 is that the Enterprise is an explorer ship. If you never slow down you’ll “make good time” but miss the Universe’s Biggest Ball of String. Working at 100% can make you miss nuances that could be important, or could just add some ineffable element to your inner life.
There’s also that one episode where it comes out that fast warp travel damages the universe and they need to be slower than a certain warp to not damage it. But in good old TNG fashion this is never referenced again in the future.
They don’t directly mention it, but as I recall after that episode traveling at high warp speeds was greatly diminished and warp speeds above certain thresholds were only used in emergency situations/required special authorization. So not completely abandoned but they certainly didn’t build on the premise, which is a shame because I thought it was one of the cooler plot elements that was introduced in the series.
And I think that was the excuse for Voyager’s flappy wings, but that might be fanon.
As I recall it was vaguely mentioned (in a different series) that newer warp engines didn’t cause the same damage at high warp speeds.
Also because of that one episode that put a standard limit on warp travel, the entire warp scale got rejiggered at some point. Where warp 10 became the upper limit.
There are episodes where ships are noted to have been travelling at warp 13 or 14 before they reworked warp speeds
I think they just started calling those speeds transwarp.
I believe transwarp was a different thing altogether
It was two things, one just being fast warp, another being a different kind of warp drive that the Borg used. In the Kelvin timeline, it was a third thing where you’d use the transporter to beam onto or off a ship at warp.
The Excelsior used a different kind of warp drive. The Borg opened and traveled through “transwarp conduits.”
I think any warp travel at all was damaging, and lowering warp speeds was the compromise to slow down the damage they were doing but did not completely eliminate it