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Why Did Roddenberry Hate the "dreadnought" from the Starfleet Technical Manual?

As to the nav deflector, let's not forget that it wasn't a nav deflector at first. It was the main sensor dish, as evidenced by the "radome nose" on some of Jefferies early designs. Not sure at what point the decision was made to start calling it the deflector, but it might be after the Klingon ship was designed.
Yes, I did wonder about that. I didn't know if it was an FJ extrapolation that it was a "main sensor" or if it was the original intention.
 
FWIW it's also identified as the main sensor in The Making of Star Trek's section on the Enterprise.
 
I suppose it's down to interpretation, but there must be some value in keeping the nacelles away form the bulk of the ship - I believe Jefferies had radiation in mind.

And both the Romulan BoP and the Klingon battlecruiser have the nacelles out on pylons away from the body of the ship. The first ships that broke that rule were the ones introduced in ST III, the Grissom with its nacelles attached to the saucer and the Klingon BoP with guns on the ends of the "wings" and the engine pods evidently on the back of the main body. Another case of ILM's designers throwing out Jefferies's design logic in favor of what they thought looked cool, and part of the general dumbing down of Star Trek on the big screen.


I guess I just don't see the Reliant in any way as inconsistent with Jefferies' design, or the other previously established starships in TOS and TMP.

I suppose one could see it as sort of a Starfleet equivalent of the Romulan Bird-of-Prey, a basic saucer-with-nacelles design. From that standpoint, I guess it kind of makes sense. Still, I like the modularity of the Enterprise design, the way it looks like it's designed to function in space, all spread out and shaped in a way that would be precariously top-heavy and fragile under gravity but is perfectly fine in free fall. Too many subsequent Starfleet designs are flattened out and compact and feel like they're shaped by planetbound assumptions. I find that less satisfying. I like spaceships that look like they could only exist in space.


As to the nav deflector, let's not forget that it wasn't a nav deflector at first. It was the main sensor dish, as evidenced by the "radome nose" on some of Jefferies early designs. Not sure at what point the decision was made to start calling it the deflector, but it might be after the Klingon ship was designed.
FWIW it's also identified as the main sensor in The Making of Star Trek's section on the Enterprise.

You're thinking of the schematic on p. 178, but you're overlooking the text on p. 191: "The starship's main sensor-deflector (a parabolic sensor antenna and asteroid-deflector) is located at the front end of the secondary hull." Not to mention the 1964 Roddenberry memo on p. 85-6 which summarizes his discussions with scientists and includes the following passage:
Some kind of "meteoroid shield" or "meteoroid force field deflector" will be necessary in true spaceships. If not a force field, it may be a magnetic field which deflects cosmic dust or small meteoroids via an opposite charge. Or it might consist of a probing Laser beam which deflects and/or destroys dust and small particles from the path of the ship.

So yes, it absolutely was intended as a navigational deflector from the very beginning. Since there's no dish on any of Jefferies's early design sketches, he presumably added the dish in response to the scientists' recommendation that a deflector would be needed.

(Those real-science proposals for meteoroid deflection have been around for a long time, before and after TOS. My first published story, "Aggravated Vehicular Genocide" from 1998, was inspired when it occurred to me to wonder what would happen if a starship's asteroid deflection laser destroyed a space habitat by mistake. I was just recently trying to figure out when I first had the idea for that kind of deflection system, and now I realize I've probably had it in mind ever since I read The Making of Star Trek as a child, since it's right there on p. 86.)
 
Missed that in my cursory glance. I don't think you can decisively conclude the "very beginning" (1964–5) but pretty early on, sure. :)
 
Missed that in my cursory glance. I don't think you can decisively conclude the "very beginning" (1964–5) but pretty early on, sure. :)

As I said, it was during the period when the ship was still being designed. The memo isn't specifically dated, but it's reproduced between memos from July and August 1964 and is part of a section discussing the thinking and research that went into the design of the ship's interior and exterior. The deflector idea was established before the models were built, before the teleplay for "The Cage" was completed, before a single frame of film was exposed. So yes, it was from the beginning.
 
As a side note, Wah Chung's Bird of Prey seems to have been designed around the draft script idea that Romulan spies had stolen Starfleet designs.
 
It's from an interview with FJ's daughter. Here's the link:

http://www.trekplace.com/fj-kdint01.html

There are several places in the interview where the tech manual is mentioned. Here's one of the relevant quotes:

"FJ kept meticulous records as to which drawings he was working on and how long they took, and NONE of the "non-canon" material in the TM was produced after the contract for the motion picture was signed. Further, GR had already seen all of FJ's extrapolative material in 1973 and 1974. FJ was very concerned about doing anything extrapolative in GR's universe, and made a point of sending "in-production" materials from the Technical Manual to GR on a regular basis, including all the speculative stuff like the new ship designs (see below). GR only responded with words of encouragement. If GR had said "no," or "stop," or "this isn't how I envisioned it," or "this conflicts with another project I'm working on," FJ would have dropped it or changed it immediately. GR never said a single negative word.

Again, in FJ's own words: "FACT: A copy of the Articles of Federation were sent to Gene Roddenberry on 22 June 1973. His reply of 28 August states: 'I thought the Articles of Federation were extremely well thought out and presented, although I have some question in my mind whether they are a bit too long to maintain fan interest.' FACT: Copies of the Fleet Ship Classifications and the Dreadnought 3-view were sent to Gene Roddenberry on 22 June 1973. At no time during the preparation of the Manual did Gene ever mention he objected to these types. In his reply of 28 August 1973, he did state: 'Your drawings jump right off the page to the reader and are very exciting.'"

Now stay with me here, 'cause this is the most Important Part of this whole interview. If you follow the FJ Timeline through 1975 and 1976, Paramount rejects script after script from GR and others, while FJ's Plans and Manual climb the bestseller lists to astronomical heights. GR's head must have been ready to explode. Then, if you read further, Paramount starts to court FJ as a consultant for the movie but FJ declines any involvement. At that point, Paramount and GR have the same problem. Because of the aborted Lincoln Enterprises deal to publish the Plans and the Tech Manual in 1973, and because Lou Mindling of Paramount allowed FJ to copyright the Manual in his own name in 1975, neither GR nor Paramount owns the rights to FJ's original work (such as the Star Fleet space station, the Dreadnought and other ship designs, the UFP "two faces and starfield" logo, etc.). [The rest of this paragraph is pure speculation, but I don't think I'm too far off the mark.] GR doesn't want to use FJ's designs because he feels he has had little control over their creation and no control over their publication, and he'll be damned if he'll pay royalties to an outsider for stuff spun off from the universe he created. Further, FJ has proven difficult to deal with in other encounters (Planet Earth) and GR doesn't want to go through that again. Paramount desperately wants FJ to be involved with the movie because FJ's work is so enormously popular, but FJ is not being a "team player" and agreeing to be a consultant or a writer on the project. If FJ is not going to be directly involved so they can exploit his name in their publicity, then Paramount doesn't want to pay him royalties, either.

After that point, everything in the movies was either designed to directly contradict FJ's work, or to modify designs or concepts first put forward by FJ to make them just different enough that FJ could not claim copyright infringement (especially the UFP logo you mention in Q12). In retrospect, knowing what a "control freak" GR was about the series and the movies (as documented in many written accounts), none of this is a surprise to me."


Don't get me wrong: I don't hate GR or think he was some jerk. He was a businessman and felt he wasn't getting his due from a spinoff of something he created. Whether he was right or wrong about that assertion wasn't my point. My point was that he had no particular issues with FJ's ship designs until he realized FJ was making more money off of them than he was. Then after the fact he proceeded to discredit FJ's work because he made it personal. Did he really need to do that? I don't think so, but I'm not him.
This is why Propulsion Units were renamed to Nacelles.
 
I dropped this thread for awhile by accident, but Dukhat, thanks for the response to my query way upstream. This is interesting. Now I have to bop back two pages and start reading more . . . cheers.:beer:
 
As a side note, Wah Chung's Bird of Prey seems to have been designed around the draft script idea that Romulan spies had stolen Starfleet designs.

The original idea was that the BoP was an exact copy of the Constitution class's saucer section (presumably with a bird painted underneath), which was why the ship was described in the script as only capable of impulse speeds, since it had no warp nacelles. Which was why there's so much confusion about that line because the finished model did have nacelles.

I dropped this thread for awhile by accident, but Dukhat, thanks for the response to my query way upstream. This is interesting. Now I have to bop back two pages and start reading more . . . cheers.:beer:

No problem. :)
 
Of course, Sulu was going to command the Excelsior when she was still without form and could have looked cool, in the cut scene of ST2:TWoK. Back then, she might have been envisioned as less important than the current hero ship, with the name choice simply arbitrary, harking back to silly British ship names.

That Sulu eventually gets the buffoon ship of ST3:TSfS is for practical reasons, as the only other options would have been the Miranda and the Oberth, and at that point the story explicitly called for something that could, would and should usurp the Enterprise. And of course episode after episode of TNG had softened the audiences to the idea that the Excelsiors were not enemy vessels...

The design of the ST3:TSfS ship is a result of a choosing process where Nimoy dumped several sleeker alternatives, no doubt with specific ideas in mind already. I could easily see the man who insisted that the rest of Starfleet ships have pink chairs to establish them as wimps to deliberately choose the least attractive Excelsior possible. I wonder who chose to use the name Excelsior, now that there was no obligation from the cut ST2:TWoK

Timo Saloniemi


Are there any artists designs remaining from the possible ship designs? Any idea what they looked like?
 
And both the Romulan BoP and the Klingon battlecruiser have the nacelles out on pylons away from the body of the ship. The first ships that broke that rule were the ones introduced in ST III, the Grissom with its nacelles attached to the saucer and the Klingon BoP with guns on the ends of the "wings" and the engine pods evidently on the back of the main body. Another case of ILM's designers throwing out Jefferies's design logic in favor of what they thought looked cool, and part of the general dumbing down of Star Trek on the big screen.
What about the Galileo shuttle? It's nacelles are separate from the body of the ship, but only slightly - about the same as the Grissom's saucer proper is separate from her nacelles.
 
As I said, it was during the period when the ship was still being designed. The memo isn't specifically dated, but it's reproduced between memos from July and August 1964 and is part of a section discussing the thinking and research that went into the design of the ship's interior and exterior. The deflector idea was established before the models were built, before the teleplay for "The Cage" was completed, before a single frame of film was exposed. So yes, it was from the beginning.
I think the only disagreement here, Christopher, is over what constitutes an established certainty. I am reticent to go that far without being able to find a primary source that clearly indicates a+b=c. You may very well be right but I suggest the idea that the dish was intended to be the deflector is as yet unverified because that function is not clearly indicated for it prior to TMOST.

Consider the facts we've laid out thus far:
  1. The 1964 memo that asserts there ought to be a "meteoroid shield" or "meteoroid force field deflector" cited on p.85–6 of TMOST. Harvey verified the date of this by showing me a photo of the original (link), which—while undated—has Pato Guzman cced on it, which means it's "The Cage" era, ergo 1964 as you surmised.
  2. There's the TMOST published in 1968 p. 191 text: "The starship's main sensor-deflector (a parabolic sensor antenna and asteroid-deflector)."
  3. There's the TMOST published 1968 p.178 The Enterprise diagram reprinted on p.178 of starship diagram that indicates the dish as "Main Sensor" w/o mention of the deflector function
  4. Jefferies'1964 construction drawings which show a radome type nose prior to the dish, but no function is indicated for these features as far as I can recall (and I'm unable to findthe image I stored of it at this moment).
  5. The Writer's Guide mentions the deflectors but does not say from where they emanate.
Thus my point is simply that the works cited provide no record of when the function of navigational deflector was assigned to the radome nose/dish other than that decision was clearly made by the time TMOST was being written. Again, it's possible and perhaps even likely that was the intent from early on, but not proven by the materials presented thus far. That's the distinction I am making.

And I make it because in this era of Cash Markman and his ilk treating assumption as fact, I think it unwise to state with certainty that which is as-yet not fully proven. :)
 
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Bill George built several study models of the Excelsior, and Nimoy chose the one that looked close to the actual filming model.

http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Excelsior_class_model

Hmm, interesting. I kinda like the four-engine study models better than the final Excelsior.


What about the Galileo shuttle? It's nacelles are separate from the body of the ship, but only slightly - about the same as the Grissom's saucer proper is separate from her nacelles.

A fair point, I guess. But that was more a matter of production necessity. Jefferies's original, more aerodynamic design for the shuttle had the nacelles further out from the ship. Also, it was ambiguous whether TOS shuttles were warp-equipped, although several episodes (like "The Menagerie," "Metamorphosis," and "...Last Battlefield") did show them making interstellar flights.

In-story, perhaps, you could rationalize it in terms of the engines being lower-powered and not emitting as much radiation.


I think the only disagreement here, Christopher, is over what constitutes an established certainty. I am reticent to go that far without being able to find a primary source that clearly indicates a+b=c. You may very well be right but I suggest the idea that the dish was intended to be the deflector is as yet unverified because that function is not clearly indicated for it prior to TMOST.

You're just splitting hairs at this point. It doesn't matter what exact day during the production of TOS the decision was made. The issue on the table was whether the deflector-dish idea originated with TOS's creators or was a later retcon by Franz Joseph or Andrew Probert or someone of the sort. The answer is, yes, TOS's own creators did intend it to be a deflector, and TMoST proves that.
 
Seems that some of the Jeffries ideas have been grossly misunderstood. Perhaps by himself, too?

If warp nacelles are hazardous, why does his Enterprise design deliberately place them in closest possible proximity with the habitat saucer (after that dogleg to the secondary hull and back)?

OTOH, if "hazardous" just means "it would be nice to be able to jettison these things rapidly", then the Reliant is a fine design... And the Grissom provides a clear path of ejection, too.

Timo Saloniemi
 
They just kitbashed together some pieces of the TMP ship without thinking through Matt Jefferies's underlying design logic...

You're correct but at the same time, at the very least ILM managed to give the ship a decidedly nautical feel, i.e. the Miranda looks like a catamaran.
 
Sure, I agree the Miranda is one of the best-looking ILM designs, but my whole problem is that they valued how a ship looks over how it works. Jefferies was able to balance both quite well.
 
You're just splitting hairs at this point. It doesn't matter what exact day during the production of TOS the decision was made. .
Truth is, you're rarely willing to concede anything. You argue minutia when it suits you then dismiss others as being nitpicky if they do the same. I admitted it's likely you may be correct and that my point was merely that it's not an absolute certainty given the lack of documentation, but you can't even allow that tiny point.
 
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