Far from the Madding Crowd

[C57D]

Slowing re-watching TOS after a (far too) many years hiatus, two things recently struck me about the presence, or otherwise, of background people on the Big E.

Firstly that when an Alert is called we often see brief scenes of crew hurrying along corridors to alert duty stations. But, even more so, you often see the Bridge transformed into a hive of activity as additional crew take over the normally unoccupied stations (normally those nearest the Viewscreen). I know that there is no canon reason for this, but the FASA RPG deckplans notes call these Auxiliary stations for Environmental, Weapons and Navigation. But only needed to be occupied and utilised in an emergency - hence the rush to them once an alert is called. For me this just adds to the verity of TOS, and is something that I don't recall in TNG - where it seemed that our heroes did it all come rain or shine.

The second thing, and seemingly in contradiction to the first, is the occasional situations we see were someone is banished to Engineering (or "the Engineering decks") and is shown all alone in the big Main Engineering set. (Riley in the Conscience of the King for example). Since I can't imagine that Scotty's domain and the heart of all power and vessel support systems would EVER be so under populated, I just assume that this is meant to be some boring, lonely, distant corner of the Engineering decks that the Producers didn't have a set for so the Engineering set had to do. Or am I wrong?

 

[Laura Cynthia Chambers]

But only needed to be occupied and utilised in an emergency - hence the rush to them once an alert is called. For me this just adds to the verity of TOS, and is something that I don't recall in TNG - where it seemed that our heroes did it all come rain or shine.

I guess maybe they learned a few things in the interim about needing to monitor conditions of things at all times to anticipate, not merely respond to anomalous readings/danger. Also, the Enterprise-D has more crew aboard her than Kirk's did, so they can staff these stations more often. Computing also got better, meaning that you don't need a specialist to handle something all the time, because the computer takes care of some of the specialist-worthy tasks, leaving generalists to do the rest. Cross-training is more of a thing than it ever was, by necessity.

Since I can't imagine that Scotty's domain and the heart of all power and vessel support systems would EVER be so under populated, I just assume that this is meant to be some boring, lonely, distant corner of the Engineering decks that the Producers didn't have a set for so the Engineering set had to do. Or am I wrong?

Remember, though, that everybody is cuckoo during The Naked Time, so it's not a normal state. And in "Conscience", there's probably not as much to do as the Enterprise is just chugging along to Benecia, not actively engaged in damage-causing space battles or investigating new life forms/regions of space. Scotty could be filling out reports or overseeing repair work in another section or even working on hobby projects in his quarters. If there's a problem, Riley can call him. He's sort of like the guy sitting in the car making sure the engine keeps running while his buddies go into the store for a few minutes during a road trip.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Engineering was meant to be much bigger than we ever saw. Hence the "search" for Evil Kirk in "The Enemy Within" or Ben Finney consisting of walking around the 2 big transformer thingies a few times.

As much as fans hated the beer brewery location used for the recent movies, I think that's kinda what they had in mind. People could REALLY hide in there for days if they wanted.

 

[JonnyQuest037]

The second thing, and seemingly in contradiction to the first, is the occasional situations we see were someone is banished to Engineering (or "the Engineering decks") and is shown all alone in the big Main Engineering set. (Riley in the Conscience of the King for example). Since I can't imagine that Scotty's domain and the heart of all power and vessel support systems would EVER be so under populated, I just assume that this is meant to be some boring, lonely, distant corner of the Engineering decks that the Producers didn't have a set for so the Engineering set had to do. Or am I wrong?

With Riley in "Conscience of the King," I figure that he was down there during the night shift, with a skeleton crew of folks on duty. The other two guys in Engineering were probably off adjusting the framastat when Riley called Uhura in the Rec Room (Uhura and the others were there partying because it was a Friday or Saturday night, and none of them were on duty the next day).