Engineering Glossary

This Engineering Glossary is a guide to common terms one may encounter while serving aboard a starship.

Warp Drive

Warp Drive is a form of non-Newtonian propulsion that moves starships faster than the speed of light by manipulating subspace to bend space and reduce the apparent mass of the vessel in order to bypass the laws of Relativity. Without warp drive, journeys between star systems would be impossible without sleeper or generation ships. Earlier versions of warp drive could not be operated close to large gravitational masses like planets, but this limitation has been removed by the start of the 25th century.

Matter/Antimatter Reaction Assembly (M/ARA)

Known more commonly as the warp core, the Matter/Antimatter Reaction Assembly uses the controlled intermixing of deuterium and anti-deuterium to create energy in the form of plasma to power a starship's warp engines and other systems. At each end of the warp core, there is a reactant injector connected to either the ships deuterium tanks (the matter reactant injector or MRI) or anti-deuterium tanks (the antimatter reactant injector or ARI). These injectors control the rate of flow into the reaction assembly, and thus the amount of power being generated. The magnetic constrictor segments are the next major component of the M/ARA, connecting the reactant injectors to the reaction chamber. These segments use intense magnetic fields to channel the reactants at the right angle and pressure. The reaction chamber uses dilithium to mediate the matter/anti-matter reaction, and this is where the two substances annihilate one another to create plasma, which is channeled to the warp coils through the power transfer conduits.

Warp Core

See Matter/Antimatter Reaction Assembly (M/ARA).