13 points
They don’t even need to fly nose-forward. The Enterprise could exit warp at any damn orientation it wanted. Blasting across the alpha quadrant nacelles-first, like Powdered Toast Man.
24 points
They actually do need to fly nose first, believe it or not! The warp bubble created by the nacelle has a front side and a back side. Essentially it bunches up space behind the ship and thins it out in front of the ship, turning space itself into a sort of wave that the ship surfs forward on.
This is what I remember from the TNG Tech Manual anyway
