Would a warp-capable starship actually need a navigational deflector?

Is warp speed an absolute or a relative number? In other words, could a different ship (or celestial body, or whatever) go faster than warp speed?

If it’s a relative speed, then having the deflector might well be useful.

We could have some discussion about that “all educated people” thing. Seems to me that such a deflector would be a rather necessary device, because even in (relatively) empty space if you’re moving at speeds that are a significant fraction of the speed of light, you’ll be covering so much ground that you are bound to encounter something, be it a particle of dust. And a particle of dust at ⅔ the speed of light is the end of the trip.

We don’t know the precise physics of warp space, but having read some authors’ takes on it in the novels I can say that it probably has some very weird properties. For example, a black hole gains a warp event horizon; a starship which is travelling faster than light can orbit a black hole inside its light event horizon, but since the gravity level at the point of the singularity is infinite, there’s a new event horizon formed at which nothing even travelling at warp speed can escape.

We know that there are any number of lifeforms which exist in space in the Star Trek Universe, ranging from giant amoebae to space dragons, and Species 8472 swims around in “fluidic space.” Odds are good that there are exotic particles, strangelets, and even lifeforms which populate warp space and need to be shielded against.

The theory of FTL speed is very fuzzy. As the physics is now, anything going faster than light actually occupies all space, everywhere, so the idea of actually needing some sort of shield against what would essential be deflecting-bugs-against-a-windscreen type idea is odd, but it is what we, as humans who have traveled in a fast car, can relate to. I’m sure there needs to be some sort of ‘matter protection and collection’ system on a star ship going FTL.

Nobody talks about the inertia dampeners. As anyone who has ever tried to stand up and move to the door or walk to a seat and sit down on an accelerating or decelerating bus knows, we could use those puppies to be invented sooner rather than later. Worse thing is when I am carrying heavy groceries. Damn Newtons laws.

It would probably take less power and stress on the ship to deflect rather than go around each object it might encounter.

Anything in front of the warp field with enough cohesion would either break the warp field or come trough and hit the ship. Bending space means inertial dampeners aren’t needed for warp speed, that’s part of the beauty, there is no real need for intertia. Well, some intertia might make you go even faster… Warp and regular movement don’t really exclude each other as far as I know. Also I think inertial dampeners are impossible (because they require some sort of all-encompassing quantum field, so impossible in the practical sense).

FTL travel implies being everywhere at once or travelling to the past or something but warp isn’t really FTL, it’s (kind of) like the difference between moving in the universe and moving the universe around yourself. It’s swimming squared.