Ahead Warp Factor Two...

We all know what warp speed is, it's pretty fucking fast, but what is warp speed really?  In fact, it's not speed at all.  The ship in question, here the NCC-1701-D, sits inside a Warp Bubble which has no connection the the movement happening around the ship.  The ship and the space around the ship are not moving. 

A massive gravitational field is formed in front of, and behind the ship.  It pulls the place you want to go closer to you, and pushes the place you want to leave further away.  That's why in Star Trek The Next Generation when the Enterprise goes into warp speed we see it stretch out like that.  It gets all long and skinny and then snaps away real fast.  In the old Star Trek we never see them traveling at warp speed because they had no really cool visual effect to represent it.  The best we get is when the Enterprise whizzes by in the opening credits, and makes that swooosh sound, which is really retarded because there would never be a sound like that in space or moving at that speed.  Its like "Hey run at 4,000,000,000,000 km/h and hear the wind rustling in our ears!" 

That brings us to Warp Factors.  The speed of light is 299,792,458 meters per second or 1,079,252,848.8 kilometers per hour.  A warp factor is the speed of light squared, so warp factor two is 1,079,252,848.8 x 1,079,252,848.8 kilometers per hour.

The Enterprise can only go up to warp factor 9, because anymore than that would tear the ship apart.  Look at the picture, there are two opposing gravity wells, if they get too big they will split the ship in half.  But lets face it, if warp factor nine can get you to some hot green chick on  Argelius Two, and away from a mind controlling brain worm on Seti Alpha Five in like 2 seconds, isn't that fast enough?