TOS Auxillary Control Phasers

[topcat]

In one episode we have a good racial issue happening. A crewman is trying to start a fight with Spock because he looks like a romulan. Later in the episode they are in a battle and has damage to the auxiliary control room for the phasers. Spock runs down, and saves the day and saves the two guys stationed in there.

The problem I have is,,, I have never seen the auxillary control room for phasers ever shown on any of the blueprints.

 

[feek61]

It was called the Phaser Control Room and it's top secret and doesn't appear on any blueprints by order of Starfleet.

 

[Mytran]

There's something PCR appearing on Aridas's cutaway, at the bottom deck of the saucer
http://www.cygnus-x1.net/links/lcars/blueprints/web/1701-cutaway.jpg

However, the "official" plans and blueprints never get everything right - fan efforts are usually superior

 

[Albertese]

Franz Joseph's Booklet of General Plans places this room on Deck 11, just behind the main phaser banks. The callout is AUX. FIRE CONTROL.

The details don't match the actual set... but then, none of the FJ details do. (None of them.) But the intention is pretty clear.

--Alex

 

[PCz911]

Franz Joseph's Booklet of General Plans places this room on Deck 11, just behind the main phaser banks. The callout is AUX. FIRE CONTROL.

The details don't match the actual set... but then, none of the FJ details do. (None of them.) But the intention is pretty clear.

--Alex

Ouch! Given what little FJ had to work with, combined with the fact that he essentially started the entire blueprint genre, you could have cut him a little slack. :-)

 

[Albertese]

Ouch! Given what little FJ had to work with, combined with the fact that he essentially started the entire blueprint genre, you could have cut him a little slack. :-)

Don't misunderstand, me. FJ's work was great. But then, his intention was not to capture the sets as built and photographed. He had a legit engineering background and was attempting to design an interior that made sense to his own sensibilities. Good for him. He did a great job massaging the sets into a logical layout. Many of us now, decades later, have tried to fold in later Trek technicalities into the TOS ship and FJ's work gets left behind, but it was fantastic stuff. My personal head-canon draws heavily from the FJ material. I love it.

--Alex

 

[PCz911]

Don't misunderstand, me. FJ's work was great. But then, his intention was not to capture the sets as built and photographed. He had a legit engineering background and was attempting to design an interior that made sense to his own sensibilities. Good for him. He did a great job massaging the sets into a logical layout. Many of us now, decades later, have tried to fold in later Trek technicalities into the TOS ship and FJ's work gets left behind, but it was fantastic stuff. My personal head-canon draws heavily from the FJ material. I love it.

--Alex

Nicely said. Not that you need agree with me in all opinions, but I do think you captured my feelings extremely well in your comments.

I am always sort of depressed when I read that FJ isn't "cannon" (even tho his work was approved in that dark time before any movies or spinoffs) (not to mention that his blueprints were used in the movies as graphic art in the background )...

 

[TIN_MAN]

Nicely said. Not that you need agree with me in all opinions, but I do think you captured my feelings extremely well in your comments.

I am always sort of depressed when I read that FJ isn't "cannon" (even tho his work was approved in that dark time before any movies or spinoffs) (not to mention that his blueprints were used in the movies as graphic art in the background )...

Not only that but a lot of the upgrades to TMP Enterprise were inspired by FJ, such as surface detail like grid lines and ball phaser mounts etc.

As for his aux. phaser control, it isn't that different from what we saw onscreen, just a bit smaller and simplified. I’ve actually toyed around with some drawings of my own, attempting to modify it so as to bring it more in line with what we saw onscreen, or at least a happy medium of sorts.

If anyone’s interested I’ll try to post them here when I get time.

 

[Mytran]

Consider me interested!

 

[drt]

FJ also gave himself an out by having the plans be for Constitution then suggesting that the other class ships could be variants, which can be used to explain why Enterprise had different external dimensions and internal arrangement.

 

[Maurice]

Speaking of the Phaser Control room, this from the old days...

re: Foreward Phaser Control.

Shaw, something was bugging me about the floorplan of the Phaser Control room you're using. I pulled out the book Inside Star Trek, which has the same plan, and then I looked at Balance of Terror and, sure enough, the set plans don't jibe with the set as constucted...albeit the way you dropped it in, where the moved the door ended up it would actually meet your corridor.

I figured out the differences...not perfect, but it gets the idea across:

Thing is, if you try to make the sets as built accurate in your ship, the wall seen outside the door in the set would end up smack in the middle of the corridor you have roughed out.

Of course, to make matters worse, Spock runs down a curved corridor and then OUT along a radial one to get to the room...which wouldn't fit into that deck space at all.

Reference:
http://tos.trekcore.com/hd/albums/1x14hd/balanceofterrorhd357.jpg
http://tos.trekcore.com/hd/albums/1x14hd/balanceofterrorhd630.jpg​

 

[TIN_MAN]

here's that phaser room drawing I was talking about...

 

[Mytran]

Thanks! It fits in well to the FJ design, but I still miss my big mesh wall...

 

[TIN_MAN]

Well, the big mesh wall is still there, it's just been moved over to directly in front of the phaser coolant tanks.

I thought that this was a way of keeping it in there while being a little more sensible; since, when you think about it, the original design -while visually interesting- doesn't really serve any practical purpose as is (or was).

My main goal here was to find a happy medium between the two designs and since FJ didn’t provide much detail in his booklet of general plans, I thought I could depict what this area might look like if it had been included in the tech manual with more detail.

 

[Timo]

It's sorta interesting that the meshes never make any obvious sense. They inefficiently partition off spaces that need no partitioning, block passage, and generally take up space.

What role could be assigned to them? Projectors for emergency forcefields? Atmospheric filters (a fat lot of good they did to Tomlinson or Stiles in either case)? Display screens that usually stay inactive?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Mytran]

EM protection screen? Convenient handholds for engineers to grab hold of in a crisis?

 

[Captain Rob]

That's what Scotty uses them for in engineering. Just grab hold and rock back and forth.

 

[blssdwlf]

The hex mesh could be a faraday like em shield in addition to a handy handrail system when the gravity is off
Funny that they show up as part of the supports in the TMP engine room.

 

[wildstar]

This is what I ended up with on the SD plans:

 

[Mytran]

Those are some nice plans! I can also see that you've matched up the sets and corridors to what was seen in the show, which is always a plus for me! The bottom (port) Phaser Room is the one we see in BOT, right?

Just one query - why THREE Phaser Rooms?