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Why did the Star Trek writers decide Warp 10 would be infinite?

In TOS (I forget the episode) but with some help enterprise reaches warp 13 (or something significantly greater than 10).

Yet in TNG the Warp scale is supposed to top out at 10 (being infinite or something like that). Several times you see the Enterprise-D straining at 9.x but it never reaches 10.

Was there a re-calibration of the Warp-Scales in the intervening 200 years?
Or some other explanation for the differences in scales.

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  • Possible duplicate: scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/1731/…
    – morganpdx
    Commented Apr 7, 2011 at 17:14
  • @morganpdx: I agree, so I've closed the question. In the future, please cast a close vote in such situations. @Martin: If you disagree with the closing, please reply to this comment.
    – user56
    Commented Apr 7, 2011 at 18:14
  • @Gilles - Yes, I would have voted to close, but I wasn't sure if this would be considered a dupe or not. It's kinda borderline.
    – morganpdx
    Commented Apr 7, 2011 at 21:22

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It seems Micheal Okuda revised the warp formula for TNG and shows that follow. In Okuda's scale, warp velocities approach warp 10 asymptotically. That means you never reach 10.

Also the reason for this is Gene Roddenberry. It seems that he wanted to impose some kind of limit on the speed which starships travel. If the Enterprise-D traveled too fast, the Galaxy would become a very very small place, and have limited plot potential for the writing staff. So Okuda did it.

The canon explanation is like this; between the time of TOS and TNG scientists made some discoveries about how the warp speed is calculated.

There is a comprehensive entry on wikipedia. I think it's what you are looking for.

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