In a documentary with writers who worked with Roddenberry they said it was his design choice for all ships. Apparently warp nacelles are supposed to have 40% empty space between them for the warp field to generate. In Voyager they rotated up to exit the plane of the ship.
Never understood why voyager’s nacelles moved before warping. Seems purely aesthetic with no use other than to distinguish it.
In canon, it was described as an implementation of “variable warp geometry”.
To keep repeated warp use from destroying the fabric of spacetime, like in that episode where they talked about the warp speed limit.
Basically that. It made for good TV.
Now I’m wondering if Discovery needed to spin or if that was more of the same.
In a documentary with writers who worked with Roddenberry they said it was his design choice for all ships. Apparently warp nacelles are supposed to have 40% empty space between them for the warp field to generate. In Voyager they rotated up to exit the plane of the ship.
It’s also the reason that the romulan ships have that big space in the middle.