In the 1968 book "The Making of Star Trek" by Stephen Whitfield and Gene Roddenberry, a simple exterior schematic identified the Big Dish on the front of the Enterprise's secondary hull as a "main sensor". There was do direct discussion of the dish by the characters in TOS at all. It wasn't until TMP's novelization that Mr. Roddenberry weighed in on the refit Enterprise's dish as being a "navigational deflector", performing forward sweeps ahead of the ship to keep space debris and particles from colliding with the ship while in flight. This notion of the ship relying on such a device to make flight practical seemed pretty dicey and implausible to me. Now, speculation into faster-than-light propulsion (the IXS Enterprise) suggests such a sweeping device may not be necessary. The proposed FTL drive stretches and compresses space around the vehicle; the vehicle itself barely moves while in flight. So if something did cross paths with the proposed IXS Enterprise, the ship's faster-than-light velocity would be irrelevant. Once the object crossed the warp threshold it would be inside the warp bubble, at a natural velocity. Assuming this speculation holds up, the notion of a navigational deflector makes much less sense. Does this mean the STAR TREK dish would go back to being something else? Changing times would suggest the dish would have to, lest it become a dunsel.
This is not quite true. Break out your copy of TMoST and turn to Page 191. The first paragraph that starts on that page says: And then it goes on to describe the hangar facilities. So, the idea of the dish being a deflector was in place at least as early as 1968 and Trek's second season. Also, while Franz Josef's 1974 Technical Manual only refers to the dish as "Main Sensor" or "Main Scanner" his Booklet of General Plans of similar vintage calls the dish the "Main Sensor And Navigational Deflector." So, the idea certainly predates Roddenberry's TMP novelization. Regarding the rest of what you're talking about, I would suggest that the warp drive pictured in Star Trek is fundamentally different from the theoretical stuff you're describing. For example, warp drive pods in that model would most likely be ring shaped, and certainly would not be nacelle shaped. So, I'm quite comfortable with the deflector dish continuing to serve it's traditional roles. --Alex
Navigational Deflector(s) might still be of use at sublight speeds. Remember the Columbia, and how she had to travel at relativistic speeds in her attempt to reach Earth or a colony in one of the Star Trek: Destiny novels. That'd be handy to block any space debris from causing any damage, which would cause ever more damage at higher speeds. It'd also be nice if it could passively filter out radiation traveling from stars, or random black holes.
What'd ya expect from a very old space-faring civilization who cares about no one but themselves? I'm pretty sure that the Klingons picked up the nasty habit of leaving space flotsam behind too, on a much smaller scale, either from their own ships, or those who they blew up.
My assumption is that that the deflector beam we see in Paradise Syndrome is coming from the deflector dish, although we never actually see the emitter.
What about the tree bright circles on the forward-most rim of the TOS Enterprise's saucer? Are those deflectors as well?
The only thing official about those three circular lights I've seen is from the Franz Josef materials. In the Technical Manual there is a schematic on TO:02:06:13 "Course Tracking Elements" which has three parabolic dishes labeled as scanners 1, 2, and 3, but nowhere else does it specifically tie those to the three light on the bow. However, in his Booklet of General Plans those do show up on the bow of Deck 7 and are labeled as "Search Sensors and Deflectors" so, that's what I've always assumed they were. Interestingly, on page 88 of the TNG Technical Manual the 1701-D's saucer deflector is described, and I always wondered if that was a nod to the three circles on the 1701's bow. I guess only Rick Sternbach would know for sure... maybe he'll drop in with a word on the matter. If TOSr is to be believed, then they are just three big boring windows through which can be seen people and red doors. I personally prefer the FJ concept. --Alex
I assumed those were the backup navigational defector in case of emergency saucer seperation or just damage to the main deflector. That was why Drexler's refit NX-01 Enterprise with both its original bow deflector dish and the new secondary hull deflector dish made sense to me. It starts a trend for future starships.
Actually, only Andrew Probert would know for sure, since he designed the thing. I could make a techy guess about function, but what's in the TNG TM will have to do for now. Rick
Ah, sorry. Didn't see the phrase "saucer deflector" and thought you meant the main deflector. Not enough coffee. Anyhow, the windows that got pressed into service as deflector emitters was indeed me. What might have been big windows were "converted" into big radiative gizmos. Now for the cancelled DeAgostini Japan Ent-D project, I "updated" the emitters to be clear antennae that definitely allowed viewing out, so the rooms could finally be used for crew functions. That material never got published, of course, but do I think it's a pretty good mental reworking of the equipment.