Clearly if they work while detached, they must get their power without a direct physical connection to the warp core. Most probably they need proximity to the warp core (or to the wireless power transmission nodes near where the nacelles attach when not deployed or whatever,) but they certainly seem to be able to start up and go to warp without being attached. Ostensibly once they’re no longer close to the rest of the ship, the warp field(s) would collapse and they wouldn’t get “very far.” But surely “not very far” when dealing with warp speeds would still be a few light-seconds at least. (Maybe more if they chose the specific warp factor carefully. The nacelles might even have small power storage relays (like capacitors in present-day electronics) in them that might take a little bit to run down.) Plausibly much more than far enough to ram into (or fully through) an enemy vessel staring Discovery down while the bad guy of the season monologues at Discovery’s bridge crew over a subspace hail.
I think even when they look detached they are still physically attached to the ship with that smart alloy or whatever it’s called that just looks invisible. In the scene when they’re at warp and they almost lose a nacelle you can see this smart alloy keeping the nacelle from flying off away from the ship.
I wonder if there is a canon reason why detached nacelles are better.
Clearly if they work while detached, they must get their power without a direct physical connection to the warp core. Most probably they need proximity to the warp core (or to the wireless power transmission nodes near where the nacelles attach when not deployed or whatever,) but they certainly seem to be able to start up and go to warp without being attached. Ostensibly once they’re no longer close to the rest of the ship, the warp field(s) would collapse and they wouldn’t get “very far.” But surely “not very far” when dealing with warp speeds would still be a few light-seconds at least. (Maybe more if they chose the specific warp factor carefully. The nacelles might even have small power storage relays (like capacitors in present-day electronics) in them that might take a little bit to run down.) Plausibly much more than far enough to ram into (or fully through) an enemy vessel staring Discovery down while the bad guy of the season monologues at Discovery’s bridge crew over a subspace hail.
(Nerd debate!)
I think even when they look detached they are still physically attached to the ship with that smart alloy or whatever it’s called that just looks invisible. In the scene when they’re at warp and they almost lose a nacelle you can see this smart alloy keeping the nacelle from flying off away from the ship.
I wonder if there is a canon reason why detached nacelles are better.