Echo that! Fantastic stuff and great job! I love seeing the different classes of Starfleet ships and their designs.
Franz Joseph's Star Trek
- Thread starter Lt. Tyler
- Start date
Echo that! Fantastic stuff and great job! I love seeing the different classes of Starfleet ships and their designs.
IT may be there, as that site isn't the easiest to navigate. I routinly find stuff there that I can't actually find a link to.
LIke Starship Design, with illustrations by Todd Gunther:
https://www.cygnus-x1.net/links/lcars/starship-design.php
Cygnus X1 became confusing!
Ships of the Star Fleet is listed about halfway down this page, but inside images are not shown:
https://www.cygnus-x1.net/links/lcars/TCH.php#TCH711
Ships of the Star Fleet is listed about halfway down this page, but inside images are not shown:
https://www.cygnus-x1.net/links/lcars/TCH.php#TCH711
Ad from Star Trek Giant Poster Book 2, 1976:
This is a common misconception. FJ had no connection to the production of TAS whatsoever. If you check the dates on his drawings (the stardates are real dates, in YYMM.DD format) and compare them to the TAS airing schedule, you'll see a lot of overlap. The two projects were concurrent, but unconnected. He always claimed to have never watched the animated show, having had better things to do on Saturday mornings. His work was based on TMoST, some still frames purchased from the Franklin Mint and watching reruns with his daughter as they ran on tv while making notes. His take was that of an actual engineer trying to render an idealized version of the ship. He put a second door on the bridge because he thought it made more sense. It's similarity to the background art in TAS is one of convergent evolution, rather than linear decent.
Hey! Sounds like we grew up in the same religion! I would never have gotten away with sneaking a Star Trek book into a convention. But I did spend those long days mastering my starship doodles. Definitely a period in my life I have mixed emotions about.
Anyhow, the TM is still an essential part of my head cannon. Besides the architectural details, it doesn't really conflict much with TOS (in isolation). I own all the official Trek technical publications and thick percentage of the fannon ones too, and still, FJ's SFTM is the one I thumb through the most. By a wide margin. Really fleshed out the Trek universe.
--Alex
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Don't you mean Lincoln Enterprises?
Well, I didn't say he had a connection to the production.
It is just too coincidental, in my opinion, that FJ's plans are similar to the Enterprise's look on TAS. Not only does the bridge have a second entrance, but it's in the same location. I know, 50/50 chance. Plus the detail on the helm/nav station. On TOS the middle console is a turn knob. On TAS the middle console is a map.
On FJ's plans, it's a map.
But hey, if it's coincidence, then it's coincidence.
The animated series premiered in September of 1973 and the earliest date of the FJ bridge layout is October 1973. So, yes, I'll concede there was a narrow window where there could have been an influence of the cartoon. However, the man claimed to have not watched TAS and the extra door is coincidence. Which I don't have a reason to doubt. I'll posit that there are only so many places an extra door would even fit on the Jefferies bridge design, so it's not hard to imagine that both projects made the same choice. I would also point out that, though the positions are the same, the ideas are quite different. In TAS, the second door clearly opens to a second turbolift (as per both of Probert's bridge designs), but that FJ has it being a simple pocket door leading to an access space behind the bridge consoles where one could access a toilet and ladderway to the deck below.
Relevant Timeline:
"Beyond the Farthest Star" 08 September 1973
"Yesteryear" 15 September 1973
Booklet of General Plans, 21 September 1973-14 December 1973
"One of Our Planets is Missing" 22 September 1973
"The Lorelai Signal" 29 September 1973
"More Tribbles, More Troubles" 06 October 1973
---(Sheet 6 of BoGP has the bridge plan, dated 07 October 1973)
The drawing of the Bridge in the Star Fleet Technical Manual is dated 07 September 1974, which is the same day the second season of TAS began with "The Pirates of Orion." However, all the details in this drawing match the earlier one except being drawn with the ship's bow facing the top of the page rather than the left edge of the page.
So, sure, I agree that there was opportunity, but, given the narrow window, and the assumption that he certainly must have already had notes he made in his initial research before beginning the BoGP project in September, plus the fact that his work completely ignores any mention of the unusual TAS shuttlecraft, and given what the man himself said when asked, I think it's fair to say that TAS wasn't an influence on the SFTM.
I'm tempted to rewatch those five pre-October 6th episodes to see how many glimpses we even get of the second turbolift door. I'll do that and get back to you!
--Alex
This definitely wasn't the case, as the TAS stuff was already either finished, or well into production before any of the FJ stuff was published.
See the timeline on my post above.
--Alex
Yes I agree with everything you said.
Yes let us know when you watch them.
Also I think if you can post a picture side by side of exactly what you said. One picture of the layout in the Star Fleet Technical Manual and next to it or below it, a screen capture of the doors/ bridge layout from one of those TAS episodes.
I know what it all looks like but for others it would great to post and compare those examples for the thread.
Why did Jefferies decided not to be a part of Phase 2?
As I understand he didn't want to give up a certain gig on "Little House, for a possible one on Phase II, but he did the basic form of the refit's lines
You also need to account for the lead-time it takes to get an animated program completed. While TAS began airing in the fall of '73, the actual work producing it would have been started much earlier.
Okay, why this matters this much to me, I'll never know, but I did go ahead and watch the first five episodes of TAS on Netflix to see what Franz Joseph might have seen had he bothered to watch the show before making his first drawing of the bridge. I was looking for shots which include the second turbolift door. And here are my findings:
"Beyond the Farthest Star" has two brief glimpses, first at 14:43 and once again at 17:06. The time indices are from Netflix. This episode is unique among the first five in that it is the only one which includes the second turbolift more than once.
"Yesteryear" has no occurrences of the second door. Neither does "One of Our Planets is Missing."
The next two episodes show the second door prominently in the first few minutes. In "The Lorelei Signal," this is seen at 1:26 and in "More Tribbles, More Troubles," it is at 2:50. So in both these cases, having tuned in late would mean missing these moments.
So, FJ had, at most, four brief moments in which he could have possibly seen the second door before making his own drawing for Booklet of General Plans.
Interestingly, The location of the door is different between the two sources. In TAS, the door is to port of the two side walls that flank the viewscreen. In this way, shots of the viewscreen will still include the two walls to either side, just as seen in TOS. This means the half-width station (the Engineering Sub-Systems Monitor) is deleted to make room for the door. In the SFTM, however, the half-width station is there and the portside wall flanking the viewscreen has been deleted to make room for the access door to the serviceway.
But, wait! There's more! His book (Star Fleet Technical Manual) was being made in 1974, with most of TAS having aired already. If he had meant to include TAS material, then it's pretty astonishing how much of it he ignored. In just these five episodes we have Scotty and Uhura's bridge stations including pretty different gear than in TOS which are not included in the book, neither is the bridge defense device that disco-balls its way from the ceiling, nor does it include life support belts, or the upright graduated cylinder thingie in Engineering, or the warp engine interior, or the robot grain ships or Cyrano Jone's single seat scout ship, or the uniform variant for Lt. Arex.
The dude seriously dropped the ball if he was trying to include TAS material. All of this only reinforces, for me anyhow, that the cartoon had essentially no bearing at all on FJ's work.
Now, I will offer a single possible caveat to this: the center console being a map instead of a giant knob. This console is seen as a position map a number of times and I can envision a moment in the year between TAS first airing and FJ sitting down to draw the thing for SFTM where his daughter or one of her Trekkie friends suggests this use. On the other hand, In the show, it's pretty clear that Sulu is using this gizmo to plot the ship's course and appears to glance at it before reporting position info to the CO, so I can as easily imagine FJ's naval engineer brain simply thinking that'd be a good place for a map to live.
Again, I think it's much more likely that the TAS production and FJ simply were extrapolating from the same material at the same time and ended up going in somewhat similar directions.
--Alex
P.S. If you do want material that purposefully includes TAS stuff, check out the Star Trek Role Playing Game FASA made in the 80's. They did a thorough job working it all together.
"Beyond the Farthest Star" has two brief glimpses, first at 14:43 and once again at 17:06. The time indices are from Netflix. This episode is unique among the first five in that it is the only one which includes the second turbolift more than once.
"Yesteryear" has no occurrences of the second door. Neither does "One of Our Planets is Missing."
The next two episodes show the second door prominently in the first few minutes. In "The Lorelei Signal," this is seen at 1:26 and in "More Tribbles, More Troubles," it is at 2:50. So in both these cases, having tuned in late would mean missing these moments.
So, FJ had, at most, four brief moments in which he could have possibly seen the second door before making his own drawing for Booklet of General Plans.
Interestingly, The location of the door is different between the two sources. In TAS, the door is to port of the two side walls that flank the viewscreen. In this way, shots of the viewscreen will still include the two walls to either side, just as seen in TOS. This means the half-width station (the Engineering Sub-Systems Monitor) is deleted to make room for the door. In the SFTM, however, the half-width station is there and the portside wall flanking the viewscreen has been deleted to make room for the access door to the serviceway.
But, wait! There's more! His book (Star Fleet Technical Manual) was being made in 1974, with most of TAS having aired already. If he had meant to include TAS material, then it's pretty astonishing how much of it he ignored. In just these five episodes we have Scotty and Uhura's bridge stations including pretty different gear than in TOS which are not included in the book, neither is the bridge defense device that disco-balls its way from the ceiling, nor does it include life support belts, or the upright graduated cylinder thingie in Engineering, or the warp engine interior, or the robot grain ships or Cyrano Jone's single seat scout ship, or the uniform variant for Lt. Arex.
The dude seriously dropped the ball if he was trying to include TAS material. All of this only reinforces, for me anyhow, that the cartoon had essentially no bearing at all on FJ's work.
Now, I will offer a single possible caveat to this: the center console being a map instead of a giant knob. This console is seen as a position map a number of times and I can envision a moment in the year between TAS first airing and FJ sitting down to draw the thing for SFTM where his daughter or one of her Trekkie friends suggests this use. On the other hand, In the show, it's pretty clear that Sulu is using this gizmo to plot the ship's course and appears to glance at it before reporting position info to the CO, so I can as easily imagine FJ's naval engineer brain simply thinking that'd be a good place for a map to live.
Again, I think it's much more likely that the TAS production and FJ simply were extrapolating from the same material at the same time and ended up going in somewhat similar directions.
--Alex
P.S. If you do want material that purposefully includes TAS stuff, check out the Star Trek Role Playing Game FASA made in the 80's. They did a thorough job working it all together.
I always loved the Starfleet Technical Manual! I remember doing 24" X 36" color hand drawings of the bridge and orthographic views of the Dreadnought for my senior drafting class in high school. These days, my Star Trek Online main ship is a 3-nacelled Yamato-Class Dreadnought (basically the same as the All Good Things Enterprise-D), which I named the USS Star Empire, NCC-2116-E, in tribute.
Can it also be just as simple as his daughter watching TAS and telling her dad "Hey, add a door on the port side of the Bridge. I think it's by the viewscreen?" FJ isn't watching TAS, he's simply getting input and feedback from his daughter (or someone) who is.
The map on the helm/nav station is quite evident in "More Tribbles More Troubles" http://tas.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/blu-ray/105-BR/moretribblesmoretroubleshd0110.jpg
The second entrance to the bridge is used in "Counterclock Incident."
At the beginning of the episode, yes.
