Miranda->Nebula->??

[137th Gebirg]

Weird! I have those same blueprints and that call out isn't on there. Maybe a different printing.

Well, I guess that answers the question. Thanks very much for posting that!

 

[Mytran]

Good point about Kirk's shuttle - but I never really bought why the shuttle would have little copies of the Enterprise's warp nacelles if it didn't also have some measure of warp power? Unless of course we're getting it all wrong, and the nacelles were actually the impulse power units all along.

Not full-on starship nacelles maybe, but something similar (although much more basic). I see them as subspace field generators which lower the overall mass of the shuttle (like O'Brien did to DS9 in Emissary), thus allowing the shuttle's engines to propel the craft at ridiculously high speeds without needing ridiculous amounts of fuel.

I think many of these issues actually stem from writers not understanding interstellar distances. I think that they envisioned the Romulan BOP, Ent-D's saucer and possibly various shuttles to bee sublight crafts, but failed to comprehend the implications.

An all too common problem in science fiction! This is why I choose to see craft like the BOP and the shuttle as utilising a more primitive form of FTL technology ("subspace assisted Impulse", if you will)

 

[BillJ]

The TNG blueprints by Rick Sternbach refer to them as "Arboretum".

Cool. Thanks for taking the time to research and post this for us. Mystery solved!

 

[Ar-Pharazon]

Weird! I have those same blueprints and that call out isn't on there. Maybe a different printing.

Well, I guess that answers the question. Thanks very much for posting that!

Are they the Pocket Books blueprints? I wouldn't doubt there were more than one set printed.

 

[Mytran]

According to the Ed Whitefire plans (which were the originally conceived official ones before Sternbach's) those windows are the ship's casino! I like that.
http://www.cygnus-x1.net/links/lcar...1d/whitefire-enterprise-ncc-1701d-sheet-6.jpg

 

[Ar-Pharazon]

^ And "Phys-LE"

 

[Timo]

The Sternbach blueprints have "ARBORETUM" for the exterior, but the corresponding interior is a vast empty area left unlabeled...

As for TOS shuttles, there was antimatter residue expected when one went missing in "Metamorphosis". From the sounds of it, though, this would only be expected if the shuttle were destroyed, or damaged and towed away leaking this stuff, as there was no such trail in evidence even though the shuttle indeed had been at that very location!

Possibly ion power does involve antimatter. Or then it's related to the polaric ion power of VOY "Time and Again", and any non-Eymorg attempt at scaling up that tech results in extinction-level events but small-scale applications are fine. Or then those two are one and the same thing, and polaric ions (perhaps aka ion cascades, as in Dave Stern's novels) are a way to gently release the energies of antimatter without requiring expensive dilithium (and Starfleet does daily prayers for the tech working on shuttles, so that they don't have to beg Ben Childress for crystals to 23,500 small craft!).

In any case, there's little reason to think TOS shuttles would be devoid of warp capabilities - although it's pretty easy to explain away every instance of their use as sublight-only anyway (mothership dropped them off / picked them up, Kirk chased a starship while she was still doing sublight in the shallows, a long-lived thief didn't care whether his interstellar trip took millennia). Every instance, that is, except the inaugural "The Galileo Seven" where four star systems were within equal reach of the small craft after it had been deployed...

Remarkably, there is equally little reason to think the TNG saucer would be devoid of warp capabilities. The only plots where the warp engine should have been engaged are the two already discussed: "EaF" and "AoF". In the former, it quite possibly was; in the latter, it may or may not have been engaged, mainly depending on how long Lieutenant Logan decided to sulk in his cabin. In both, we were carefully denied the chance to see with our own eyes.

The idea that saucer warp is labor-intensive is a great way to deal with "EaF" and "Brothers" both. OTOH, clearly the thing wasn't designed for warp separation ("Inadvisable at any warp speed"), so the sustainer idea doesn't work well at all...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[BillJ]

Remarkably, there is equally little reason to think the TNG saucer would be devoid of warp capabilities.

Except for a book by the people who worked on the show that directly lines up with dialogue from one of the episodes.

 

[Timo]

But only one of them, while directly contradicting two of them. And any "writers' guide" type book is problematic in coming so early in the show that it will have time to accrue contradictions for basically every page therein.

The TNG TM doesn't merely come at such a point of TNG that contradictions from later episodes crop up, it fails to adequately explain certain earlier TNG events and later gets stepped on by two seven-season spinoffs and four movies. Which is not a problem at all, and many a cool idea from the TM still awaits the inevitable contradiction and defends its place as a not-anticanon ratkionalization. Not so with saucer warp drive.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[BillJ]

But only one of them, while directly contradicting two of them. And any "writers' guide" type book is problematic in coming so early in the show that it will have time to accrue contradictions for basically every page therein.

Not really a contradiction. Because neither of the two instances explain how the saucer would eventually arrive at its destination. For all we know, it could have communicated with Starfleet once out of danger and been towed to its destination.

 

[Timo]

It's quite a bit larger "for all we know" than any rationalization we would ever need for "Brothers", though. Big as a starship, really, and where does that starship go afterwards? She should have made an appearance in both "EaF" and "AoF", and mentioned as a decisive tactical factor in the latter.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[BillJ]

...than any rationalization we would ever need for "Brothers", though.

You need a much larger rationalization for the saucer to just "fall" out of warp. But then, if the saucer has warp, Data could've split the ship when they all went running to the secondary hull and stranded them there with the command codes. Seems like the smart thing to do with all the things he went through to get there.

 

[RunawayStarShip]

You need a much larger rationalization for the saucer to just "fall" out of warp. But then, if the saucer has warp, Data could've split the ship when they all went running to the secondary hull and stranded them there with the command codes. Seems like the smart thing to do with all the things he went through to get there.

As aforementioned, my theory is that it takes an engineering team to maintain the saucer's warp field. Data, for all his talents and abilities, isn't a crew of people. A saucer section without FTL capability seems like a major design oversight. As fun as the Tech Manual is, it's also not canonical.

TMP seems to indicate that impulse engines do generate some kind of warp field. During the drydock departure sequence, Kirk says, "Impulse power, Mr. Sulu. Ahead warp point five." The saucer impulse engines flare to life, and before we know it, the Enterprise has gone from Earth to flying by Jupiter and its moons. Eventually, the Enterprise even reaches "warp point nine" on impulse power before the the warp nacelles take over and send the Enterprise to Warp 1.

Why do I think it's a warp field rather than just a measure of speed? There's no indication of any time dilation or length contraction even at "warp point nine". Furthermore, I think it has been shown that there isn't enough propellant coming from the impulse engines to actually accelerate any starship to any appreciable speed.

Can impulse engines actually push a starship to warp speeds if they generate warp fields? No idea. The Enterprise in TMP is basically shifting gears to hit Warp 1, but we don't know the actual limit of what the refit Enterprise's impulse engines can do. Maybe in a century, with a lot of TLC, a Galaxy-class saucer could limp along at some low warp factor to safety.

Or maybe a huge design flaw somehow got past Starfleet. Oh well.

 

[BillJ]

As aforementioned, my theory is that it takes an engineering team to maintain the saucer's warp field. Data, for all his talents and abilities, isn't a crew of people. A saucer section without FTL capability seems like a major design oversight. As fun as the Tech Manual is, it's also not canonical.

But the show is canon. In the show, they very clearly state that the saucer will fall out of warp. And we've seen Data do the job of numerous technicians before, so if he can't keep it in warp, I'd say it simply doesn't have that capability.

 

[Rick Sternbach]

The Sternbach blueprints have "ARBORETUM" for the exterior, but the corresponding interior is a vast empty area left unlabeled...

Heh. That would have been fixed in the DeAgostini Japan subscription model project; all 42 decks of the ship have been redesigned, and the arboretum is there, modeled after the one seen in the show. Whether or not the revised deck plans will ever be published is still up in the air. Or space.

Rick

 

[Tomalak]

Blimey Rick, I hope they find their way out somehow!

Thanks for posting that snippet.

 

[137th Gebirg]

Agreed, thanks very much, Mr. S.

Although I do think that one unofficial blueprint's call-out of that space being a "casino" would have been more amusing to see in-show!

 

[Ar-Pharazon]

Heh. That would have been fixed in the DeAgostini Japan subscription model project; all 42 decks of the ship have been redesigned, and the arboretum is there, modeled after the one seen in the show. Whether or not the revised deck plans will ever be published is still up in the air. Or space.

Rick

Thanks for joining the discussion.

Probably a lot of unlabeled and (eventually) mis-labels areas in the original blueprints eh? Lots of areas that they decided on a use for later, like 10-Forward?

I really would've loved to see a larger, more grandiose arboretum on the show. The "windows" blue for the daytime and black for the night, and real plants. A shame that what we saw in EAF was the holodeck.

 

[Tomalak]

Although I do think that one unofficial blueprint's call-out of that space being a "casino" would have been more amusing to see in-show!

I'm sure Quark would sell his brother for the chance to run Dabo franchises on all Starfleet ships!

 

[Mytran]

But the show is canon. In the show, they very clearly state that the saucer will fall out of warp. And we've seen Data do the job of numerous technicians before, so if he can't keep it in warp, I'd say it simply doesn't have that capability.

Data can press buttons quickly, but even he can't be in several different places at once (which is what I imagine the aforementioned team of engineers would need to do)