Franz Joseph's Star Trek

[Neopeius]

That's it! I love you guys.

Geoffrey Mandel did a transporter console page with the look and feel of the Tech Manual. Maybe this is what you're thinking of?

Here's an earlier post of mine, dated Jan 17, 2015 (so note that some referenced information may have changed in the interim), that discusses it [https://www.trekbbs.com/threads/transporter-console-slider-controls.244549/page-4#post-10584364]:

Apologies for the thread reanimation, but I have a correction to make regarding this information. This information does not appear in the Star Fleet Technical Manual, and it is not due to Franz Joseph.

Instead, it is due to Geoffrey Mandel, and it originally appeared in The Starfleet Handbook Issue 12, on page 12, in this drawing: thumbnail/full. (At the time of this post, I know of no link to an online copy of this issue. The location of the images is described below.)

There are at least three causes of the confusion about this drawing.

First, the drawing is (undoubtedly deliberately) rendered in the same style as the Star Fleet Technical Manual (SFTM) pages. However, the page is not actually in the SFTM, and its technical order number isn't even in the contents (unlike some missing pages that are), although it logically fits into the gap following the 6 person transporter plan; it is in fact the first unused number in the contents after the 6 person transporter plan.

Second, the Star Trek LCARS Blueprint Database at Cygnus-X1.Net includes Mandel's page on its SFTM webpage. (That's where the images I linked to above are.) Unfortunately, they do not credit Mandel for it, although note that the page is out of sequence, evidently as the "bonus page" that it is.

Third, people have (no doubt unintentionally) propagated the error around the web, such as on this page. And in the post I am responding to.

This is a significant page in the tech manual area of fandom, and I'm just setting the record straight here (naturally, only to the best of my knowledge), so that credit can be given where credit is due. Thanks!

P.S. I think this may have come up before. I know that I found out about The Starfleet Handbook Issue 12 on the board somewhere. I couldn't find the thread, though.​

A follow-up post also seems significant [https://www.trekbbs.com/threads/transporter-console-slider-controls.244549/page-4#post-10586446]:

One other thing needs addressing, I believe.

I'm not in a position to agree or disagree with what you are saying, because I have never seen an original printed copy of the page. However, I have seen another electronic copy from a different source, and I can assert that what's posted at Cygnus-X1.Net is a particularly bad reproduction. For one thing, the pattern for red doesn't show up in the legend of the reproduction, and yet the red pattern, which takes up the bulk of the console, looks particularly messy in the actual figure. This tells me that, in all likelihood, the page is more competently drawn than the images at Cygnus-X1.Net might lead one to believe. I'd doubt that Mandel himself would be pleased with the reproduction, because it looks really bad. But again, whether the page is as competently drawn as Franz Joesph's work, I cannot say.​

 

[Neopeius]

It would be neat to crowdsource the creation of the other missing pages. Obsessive...but neat.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

That's it!

Awesome!

 

[F. King Daniel]

It would be neat to crowdsource the creation of the other missing pages. Obsessive...but neat.

There were several old fan manuals and booklets released in the style of FJ's work. From the Files of Star Fleet Command (was that the name?) was basically a TMP-era update booklet.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

The Star Fleet Medical Reference Manual (1977) by Eileen Palestine, Geoffrey Mandel, Doug Drexler, et al is an official publication that is clearly inspired by the Technical Manual with some drawings that would fit right in as supplementary.

In the area of high-quality fan work inspired by the Tech Manual, there's:

- The U.S.S. Enterprise Officer's Manual (1980) by Geoffrey Mandel and Doug Drexler.

- The Federation Reference Series (1985) by Aridas Sofia et al would also fit in as supplementary to the FJTM. @aridas sofia is a member of TrekBBS who's done a lot of beautiful drawings in the style of the Tech Manual.

 

[F. King Daniel]

The Star Fleet Handbook! There were several volumes. That's the one I was thinking of. Some of it was reprinted in the USS Enterprise Officer's Manual.

 

[Mysterion]

The Star Fleet Handbook! There were several volumes. That's the one I was thinking of. Some of it was reprinted in the USS Enterprise Officer's Manual.

Considering myself fortunate to have acquired three or four issues of this 'zine awhile back. There's some really cool stuff there. And you are correct, some of ended up in Mandel's USS Enterprise Officer's Manual.

 

[publiusr]

I love the old tech manuals.

 

[PCz911]

I love the old tech manuals.

It seems like a more innocent time in fandom.

I recall as a kid spending hours pouring over the tech manual and the blueprints.

 

[Nerroth]

As noted earlier in the thread, the legacy of the Star Fleet Technical Manual also lives on through the games and fiction of the Star Fleet Universe, in which the "Franz Joseph" designs play a prominent role in what the SFU refers to as the "Middle Years". Indeed, a new set of 3D models for "the ships of Franz Joseph" have recently been uploaded to ADB's Shapeways storefront.

(In the SFU timeline, First Contact takes place in Y1; the "five-year mission" dramatized for tri-video takes place between Y154 and Y159; while the prior incident at Talos IV happened in Y142. The "Middle Years" runs from approximately Y120 through to the early-to-mid-Y160s.)

The galaxy map in the SFU is derived from that in the Technical Manual, yet differs in certain respects. The Federation is still a big circle, with the Klingons on one flank and the Romulans on the other. In order to get around it, a "modern" (GURPS Prime Directive Tech Level 12) ship, such as a Consitution-class heavy cruiser, has three tiers of warp movement: "tactical" warp, at which the ship may fight at speeds up to warp 3.14 (or a speed of 31 in Star Fleet Battles terms); "operational" warp, which allows the same ship to move around five hundred parsecs a month (or six hexes' worth of operational movement on the hex map used in the strategic-level game Federation and Empire); and "dash" or "strategic" warp, which allows the ship to rush along pre-prepared routes to and from key strategic movement nodes (such as the bases and planets prominent enough to be marked on the F&E map).

Also, there are deck plans for the Federation Burke-class frigate, one of ADB's "home-grown" ship designs, in the Federation sourcebook for Prime Directive; it's worth noting that this ship, like its sister ships, has no central "warp core", as there would be in post-1979 Franchise Trek - most of the equipment needed to make the warp engines work is in the nacelles themselves.