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Following this question, why are Romulans using warp scale for speed when it’s clearly a Federation unit? They do so in many episodes (for example in "Face of the enemy"), while at the same time using onkians (a clearly Romulan unit) for temperature (for example in "The Defector").

Are they using the same scale as the Federation or their own? And what is going on with this at all? Somehow I can't imagine any species or nation using one scale for some measurements and a different (alien?) scale for others. This just doesn't make any sense.

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trejder
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    The universal translator corrected it (pure speculation) – Dreamwalker Jan 20 '15 at 10:50
  • Nope, not at all. It was (few times during episode) a direct voice order from commander Toreth, the commanding officer of Romulan ship, as this episode runs mostly onboard Romulan ship. There is nothing about Federation or translation of messages (by universal translator) in episode parts, I'm reffering to. – trejder Jan 20 '15 at 10:51
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    @trejder: but you hear him giving the order in English, not Romulan, right? That’s your TV’s universal translator doing the conversion. – Paul D. Waite Jan 20 '15 at 10:54
  • @PaulD.Waite LOL! :> Right... and do we have any, "more serious", explanation of reasons or causes for mixing scales in case of Romulans? Or is this just a bug in script? – trejder Jan 20 '15 at 10:55
  • “I can't imagine any species or nation using one scale for some measurements and a different (alien?) scale for others” — you should visit the UK. We use celsius (part of the metric system, devised in — horrors — France!) most commonly for temperature, and miles (part of the imperial system) for distance. This works because temperature and distance are different things, like temperature and warp speed. – Paul D. Waite Jan 20 '15 at 10:56
  • Maybe that example wasn't to good. But, don't forget, that France and UK are not (at least officially! :>) that kind of enemies like Federation and Romulan Empire. If I'm correct, that warp scale is clearly Federation unit of speed, then this must be a bug in script. I can't imagine anyone using units from their "biggest enemy". Half of "powerful people" in Romulan Empire would see that as an example of treason. – trejder Jan 20 '15 at 10:59
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    Whether it's the universal translator or the magic TV translator, everything that Romulans say is translated into English. There's no reason why the units wouldn't be translated as well. If you have any evidence of Romulans talking about warp factors in Romulan, then please post it. – Mike Scott Jan 20 '15 at 11:09
  • @MikeScott Who you address with this comment? I've read it three times and I'm still lost, whether you're supporting, that my question is valid or you're against it? – trejder Jan 20 '15 at 11:16
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    @trejder I'm addressing you, as the original questioner. – Mike Scott Jan 20 '15 at 11:35
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    @MikeScott Then I miss your point completely. This question asks, how it is, that one Romulan commander uses (verbal order) a Federation unit of speed, while another Romulan commander uses Romulan unit for temperature. This difference in units doesn't make any sense to me, no matter, if these units are spoken in English, Romulan or any other language. I thought, that previous comments about translator were jokes. Going this way, we can start arguing, why Romulans speaks English on boards of their ships (where using translator in not required). But, that is not a point of this question. – trejder Jan 20 '15 at 11:44
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    My point is quite simple. You don't know what Romulans are saying on their own ships. because they're clearly not talking English, and therefore everything you hear has been through a translation process of some kind before you hear it. Any inconsistencies or discrepancies are therefore an artefact of the translation process, unless you have any other evidence as to what the original content was before it was translated. So there's no point asking any questions about the words that Romulans (or any species except humans or Kingons) use, because you don't actually know what those words are. – Mike Scott Jan 20 '15 at 11:54
  • In my opinion, you're mixing translation with meaning. If everything, what Romulans say, is translated into English, then why one unit is translated into Federation unit (warp) and other into non-Federation one (onkian)? – trejder Jan 20 '15 at 12:20
  • “France and UK are not (at least officially! :>) that kind of enemies like Federation and Romulan Empire.” We’ve got an election coming up in the UK, so check back at the end of the year. I’m also not sure that the warp scale is necessarily a Federation invention. – Paul D. Waite Jan 20 '15 at 14:42

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The Star Trek: The Next Generation Technical Manual (which is semi-canonical since it was written by the technical consultants for TNG, Michael Okuda and Rick Sternbach, and was based on a document that was used as a guide for the writers) indicated that there were 9 local minima in the graph of power usage vs. warp factor, so many species may have independently chosen to use a "natural" scale in which each minimum is assigned an integer value 1-9:

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Hypnosifl
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    This answer deserves upvoting. Warp speed factors can relate to some discrete natural quanta. Think like the orbital energies of atoms. So it is natural that there would be an easy mapping between terminologies of different races. Temperature scales are basically continuous so arbitrary. – ThePopMachine Jan 22 '15 at 19:31
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Warp is never defined on screen. There is no explanation of it, or why the scale changes between TOS and TNG+. There are only a few benchmarks of how fast a certian warp factor is; warp 1 is the speed of light, warp 10 is everywhere at once, warp 5 is "here to Uranus and back in 10 minutes" or some such. There is nothing in the series that states that it is a Federation, Human, or natural unit (a universal constant).

Knowing this, one possibility is that Warp is just the English word for a universal constant, where the Romulan unit of kinetic energy is not a natural unit (neither is Celsius) and is not trivially translated.

Tritium21
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    Also the terms humans use for warp ect, are probably related to vulcan terminology. as immediately after discovering FTL travel the vulcans land on earth. their may have already been terms used between vulcans and others, or since the romulan language is essentially a dialect of vulcan the romulans naturally used the same terms for warp travel. – Himarm Jan 20 '15 at 14:05
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    @Himaram I think pointing out the common technical linguistic heritage of the three cultures is worthy of an answer (...do the Klingons use warp numbers?) – Schwern Jan 20 '15 at 17:46
  • @Schwern Yes, they do, if only I'm not mistaken. I can't recall direct example in any particular episode, but I'm pretty sure, that I heard at least few Klingon commanders in TNG ordering a speed of "Warp X". – trejder Jan 20 '15 at 20:04