Engine Room(s) on the TOS Enterprise (revisited)

Thanks for this, I knew that someone round here would have the answer!

I'm sure it's no coincidence that both the secondary hull and the area above the Impulse Engines have the same odd shaped hatches - this is clearly suggesting a maintenance hatch of some kind, both to do with the engines.

I'm not sure why you'd need to rapidly eject the pipe structure though - aren't they just conduits for the energy generated by the main reactor(s)? I can certainly see a need to eject an overloading reactor, assuming it was within the tech limitations of the time!

I said that quite flippantly upthread, but dialogue from The Apple suggests that separating the saucer is perhaps complex and certainly extremely dangerous, perhaps only to be used as a last resort.

KIRK: Status report, Scotty.
SCOTT: No change, Captain. The orbit is decaying along computed lines. No success with the warp drive. We're going down and we can't stop it.
KIRK: I'm sick of hearing that word can't. Get that ship out of there.
SCOTT: Sir, we're doing everything within engineering reason.
KIRK: Then use your imagination. Tie every ounce of power the ship has into the impulse engines. Discard the warp drive nacelles if you have to, and crack out of there with the main section, but get that ship out of there!
SCOTT: Sir, I'm going to switch over everything but the life-support systems and boost the impulse power, but that's just about as dangerous.​

IOW, separating the saucer carries as much risk to the ship as diverting almost all their remaining power into the Impulse Engine. Not a common procedure to be sure, certainly not a safe one!

It seemed to want to flee from the "good vibes" in the Engine Room as quickly as possible, but if all that Deck 6 &7 dialogue is to be believed, it did not take a direct route out of the ship. Why?
We know the Pinwheel alien can put hateful thoughts into people (although this can be beaten with willpower) and it can transmute phasers into swords (no doubt replacements can be manufactured easily enough for next week's episode).
These are one-time transformations that the crew themselves can overcome. But what about the indestructible bulkheads? They are gone by the next episode and if they had been permanently transmuted by the alien then I doubt it would have bothered to turn them back on its way out. Ergo, it was a temporary situation, caused by a temporary phenomenon (alien), more akin to a forcefield than an ultra dense metal. Since the way the alien is presented in the episode is that it needs to be physically in a certain location in order to benefit from "bad vibes" or influence something, it wouldn't be able to remotely project the forcefields from elsewhere in the ship - the alien (or a portion of itself, acting independently) would need to take up "guard duty" on those entry points - one at every door which a member of the crew could potentially try and cut through, while a "seeker" portion stalks the corridors, soaking up the bad feelings.
Interestingly, the point of exit on the secondary hull is almost exactly where a turboshaft might come out if dropping vertically through the dorsal.

I could really cheeky and point out how large the pinwheel is when it exits the hull, suggesting a larger, rejoined form - however, the issue of scale is a whole other debate

If you have the tube structure as a FP set piece then 947' vessel length is OK. If the goal was to fit in the Engine Room and non-FP tube structure then a 947' long vessel is just a bit too tight to permit that without some very strange positioning of decks, as @blssdwlf found out:
https://www.trekbbs.com/threads/tos-enterprise-wip.119751/page-3
However, a small length increase to 1,060' or 1,080' should be enough to fit the Engine Room and pipe structure into the saucer.
Bigger just makes the refit process more believable IMO

 

Yes, it was mentioned in a TOS episode.

 

Two episodes, actually!
We've discussed The Apple upthread, but at late as the end of Season 3 the manoeuvre was still an option in emergencies.
From The Savage Curtain:

SCOTT: I can't explain it, sir, but the matter and antimatter are in red zone proximity.
KIRK: What caused that?
SCOTT; There's no knowing and there's no stopping it either. The shielding is breaking down. I estimate four hours before it goes completely. Four hours before the ship blows up.
...
KIRK: Scotty, inform Starfleet Command. Disengage nacelles, Jettison if possible.​

 

I took me a while to catch up. I love your naval experience you bring to the conversation. So valuable. BK I like to think that there is a night watch with most crew sleeping on the Enterprise. If the episode takes place during this period, it greatly explains why so much of the crew get trapped in the quarters in the outer rim of the saucer. Due to the event with the Klingons, the main command crew (Kirk et. al.) needed to be woken up to deal with the situation. Seal a few areas off, and you get 38 active crew for the Pin Wheel's fun.

 

No, not a quick dump. This major replacement job is only done in space dock. If the pipe structure is the "intermix chamber", then I can see it taking heat and radiation damage over time or in exceeding normal safety limits (like they do all the time).

The only I think they can dump quickly is something through the big yellow circle, probably an antimatter pod with both matter/antimatter injectors and the dilithium crystal convertor assembly above it.

 

Oh no, I was only suggesting that the Klingons were not allowed to separate the ship in the same way they were not allowed to change the ship's course or life support levels. The pinwheel alien was controlling the game

 

I think Scotty refers to the pipe structure as the Energizer. so I don't think that's the intermix chamber. I think the intermix chamber is below the floor of main engineering underneath those weird diamond shaped things with the domes on them where the dilithium crystals are. We get to see you in one episode thatScotty's dealing with horizontal energy flowso if what is vertical and the motion picture was horizontal during the original series that makes a lot of sense. That works very well for what I'm trying to do but it may not work for what others are trying to do. Personally I think that pipe structure is part of an energy converter that converts the raw energy flow that we see in various places and times in the series in the movies two energy that the ship can actually use the power things like the gravity systems in the lights on phasers and everything. But also the way I'm coming ta this is that the TV series is full of a lot of things that are very Hollywood and I'm trying to picture what a real world equivalent would be.

 

I think you are right, it's not the intermix chamber, but rather the main energizer. The pipes are the initial series of the EPS for the ship's power system where the incredibly high-powered energy is somehow converted to useful energy, i.e. the main energizer.

 

The Enterprise must be able to make antimatter as fast as it uses it. At low use periods, it can make extra to fill up the antimatter pods for limited supply to be used in engine start up and emergency high-power use for a short periods. In Obsession, they took 1 ounce of antimatter from the supply; it seemed that was a sizable quantity per the dialog. I've also heard on this site that they need up to 2 pounds of antimatter to restart the engines, so, the antimatter in storage is more likely in the pounds range. Even in the pounds range, safe storage of anti-hydrogen or anti-deuterium in ionic gas/plasma state could be a huge volume, so, the pods could be quite large (two larger ones on rear of nacelles, one smaller one in the engineering hull at yellow circle marking/hatch. Smaller batches (micrograms?) may be used around the ship such as for the photon torpedo system.

 

I will leave the discussion that I was writing below, but before I say more, it occurs to me that the alien could be at the bottom of the orange vertical Jeffries tube that would, in this case, connect the Engineering Rooms in each hull. It may not tell us which Engine Room we see, but ii is interesting that it is below the smaller area through which one could travel vertically though most of the ship. This would be the same basic location of the long elevator shaft in ST: V, on the newer Enterprise.

I have been under the impression that the Energizer and Intermix shaft are the same thing. Both are TWOK terms primarily, I admit that I am using them to have names for things that were not clearly named in TOS. Though, actually, it would make sense for the orange structure to be the main power manifold, especially if the nearby syncrotron unit does a similar job to the Impulse Deflection Chrystal as I have said. But I just cannot get behind the idea that the TOS Enterprise has a main power component that we have never seen because it is under the floor.

Nonetheless, I'll go back to the exterior shape of the Enterprise for clues. Great pic, by the way.

Why is the Enterprise shaped like a saucer with three cylinders, one of which is bigger than the others? I suggest the following:

1. The front of the saucer must be curved to fit some warp bubble "physics" that resembles aerodynamics.

2. The reason the saucer is not arrow shaped like later on is that is must be curved away from the nacelle endcaps. It could have been an oblong shape like the TAS Bonnaventure, but that is why it is curved.

3. Why is the secondary hull a cylinder? I suggest that it is because there is a cylindrical component inside everything else is built around, i.e. horizontal intermix shaft. And though I like the idea of a hatch to remove the orange structure, I think that it is likely integrated into the secondary hull for this reason, requiring dry dock to remove it, by sliding one end out the shuttlebay and the other end out the neck.

4. Why have a thin neck? To keep most of the ship away from the perceived danger from the horizontal intermix shaft, but allow some power into the saucer via a vertical shaft or power transfer conduit.

Therefore, suppose the alien is indicating the location of the room it was just in, even though Deck 7 makes more sense. Would a power manifold/syncrotron/deflection crystal/antimatter pod make sense to be there, not near the nacelles or impulse engines or neck?

 

Ah well, it got my brain motivated enough to expand of what the motivations and actions of the Pinwheel alien might be, so it all worked out. The alien could easily have transmuted the relevant circuits to prevent separation I suppose - sabotage on the Enterprise is hardly difficult!

Having the grey rectangles (and other shapes) as maintenance hatches makes a deal of sense to me. I do think that "emergency ejection" facilties would be extremely limited however, if TWS is any indication

Convert that to metric and you're spot on! The dialogue which supports this is from the animated series episode One Of Our Planets Is Missing:

SCOTT: Keeping the deflectors this high is putting an enormous strain on the engines, Captain. Especially the antimatter. What with the maximum power demands and all, the reserve is falling fast.
KIRK: How much time do we have?
SCOTT: Twenty one minutes, sir. But if the indicator goes below two anti-kilos, the engines won't regenerate.​

That does support the assertion that a certain amount of antimatter can be generated to refuel the engines, under normal circumstances anyway. It also indicates that a fuel reserve of some kind is normally carried on board too.

Another reason for the dorsal neck might be due to the placement of the main dish (be that a sensor or deflector). The front of the secondary hull might be the best place for the dish (being able to tie directly into the main power circuits). However, without the long dorsal neck the dish would be much closer to the saucer, blocking a lot of its functionality.

 

Has Scotty or anyone ever pointed to the FP pipes and called it an "energizer"? The only time we've seen one is in "The Alternative Factor" and that didn't look anything like the FP pipes.

We're never really told how much antimatter the Enterprise can generate or her fuel capacity or rate of usage. In "Obsession", Spock just said only how much they needed to blow up the alien:

SPOCK: An ounce should be sufficient. We can drain it from the ship's engines and transport it to the planet surface in a magnetic vacuum field.​

The "2 points of antimatter to restart the engines" I'm not able to find. Where is that from?

I think we can assume that there is generally enough antimatter onboard to cause a huge explosion but has to be periodically regenerated as it is consumed. When everything is working, it's nearly unlimited.

The "Energizer" and "Intermix shaft" are not the same thing. "Energizer" actually originates in TOS ("The Alternative Factor" and "The Doomsday Machine"). We see what the Energizer looks like in "The Alternative Factor". Energizers simply provides energy to various systems. This apparently did not change in the TOS Movies.

MASTERS: The energizer has shorted. Get out of here. Sound the alarm.
...
PALMER: Sir, Deck seven reports power failure in main energizers. Implementing emergency procedures.​

"Intermix" is from "The Corbomite Maneuver" and "The Naked Time". The phrase "Intermix Shaft" or "Intermix Chamber" was never used in the TOS Movies. Intermix in TOS is some complex control formula of mixing matter and antimatter at specific temperatures to run the engines. That apparently hasn't changed in the TOS Movies.

SPOCK: We're superheating. Intermix temperature, seven thousand four hundred degrees. Seven five,
seven six, eight thousand degrees.
...
SPOCK: Jim, there is an intermix formula.
...
SPOCK: Stand by to intermix. I'll call the formulae in from the Bridge.​

Or why is the Klingon battlecruiser lacking a saucer and cylinders but retains two nacelles? Or the Aurora (original FX) angular shaped with nacelles? Or some ships completely devoid of nacelles?

I'd suggest that the Enterprise is shaped as she is mostly for aesthetic reasons. The reason is that if you look at ships and aircraft they all tend to have common configurations across different countries and cultures. Star Trek, at least TOS, does not, IMHO. It isn't until TNG came along that nacelles needed to be everywhere (but didn't get retroactively applied back to the Klingon BOP - go figure )

 

Yeah, it was never said in the movies. They did refer to "Intermix" as a concept in TMP, but they never said what or where. I am working back from TWOK:

-The door comes down and cuts off part of the long blue/grey swirl device, then Scotty says the main energizer is out. That device is called the Intermix Chamber in some diagrams.

-Supposing that this device mixes the matter and anti-matter to make energy, then that energy is shunted around the ship.

However, none of this is from TOS. I'm merely making the assumption that the "Energizing Circuits" from "The Alternative Factor," are just that, but they are not the "Main Energizer," which I believe to be in or near either the orange structure or the syncrotron. My reason for making this assumption is that it would let us focus on exactly where the engine rooms might be if one of those two structures has to be directly connected to something we can locate.

Very good point. Especially the suggestion that it could tie into the main power circuits. This supports something I read on her somewhere about the idea that the lower part of the ship has the strongest defenses.

I agree that Emergency Warp Core Ejection likely is not an option in TOS. It is interesting that in one of his interviews for Trekyards, Doug Drexler said he would have originally put the NX-01's engine in the pod near the rear, which would have made it electable or at least replaceable, but that he was told to move it into the saucer. Though I don't really consider the 2001 series canon to TOS, it makes an interesting side note on the location of the Engine Rooms in TOS.

 

It did not sound like an abstract idea or thought in TMP. Scott referred to setting the intermix

SCOTT: Intermix set. Bridge, impulse power at your discretion.​

which is in-line with "The Naked Time" where they had to intermix antimatter with matter

SPOCK: Stand by to intermix. I'll call the formulae in from the Bridge.​

Interesting, where in TWOK are these diagrams that call it the "Intermix Chamber"?

I don't recall any and, IMO, at best we can call it a power conduit or the swirly energy shaft. In the past, I had called it "intermix something or other" but now examining the evidence, I couldn't say it has anything to do with the intermix.

The main energizer is more likely connected directly to the side chamber where the dilithium crystals are and where Spock eventually dies in, IMHO.

Ah I see... well, the DTD (sorry, it's more accurate than being called a syncotron since we don't know what it does) could be part of the energizer system in TOS in S3 because it held the dilithium crystals. And because of that, we can work backwards to S2 and assume that the DTD with no crystals also was part of the energizers and the crystals were held somewhere else. We can then work backwards into S1's "The Alternative Factor" and identify the only known energizer with crystals in it as being part of the energizing system. That boils down to:
S1-S2, Crystals in an Energizer in a room not inside an Engine Room
S2-S3, Engine Rooms updated to multi-level look and DTD's added
S3, Crystals moved to the Engine Room DTDs. TAF Energizer Room retired or repurposed.

I do think that with the curved corridors and DOTD as guides at least two engine rooms can be placed in the Enterprise and everyone's imagination can fill in the rest of the empty space without the need to label unnamed devices. YMMV

 

In both cases I'm seeing Kirk telling Scotty to jettison the nacelles which in my mind is not the same thing as separating the saucer section from the secondary hull.

 

Antimatter Production (or regeneration):
ODONA: Can you make it last a long, long time?
KIRK: How long would you like it to last?
ODONA: Forever.
KIRK: Well, let's see. Power, that's no problem, it regenerates.

Could the dilithium crystal be the main element of this system, too? Dilithium, meaning it consists of two lithium atoms. Maybe one is matter and the other is anti-matter, subatomically separated in a stable crystalline matrix so the two atoms do not annihilate each other. When “energized” (don’t know with what, i.e. electrons, positrons, up or down quarks, magnetic fields, gamma rays, etc.), the dilithium crystal has the unique property to absorb and convert matter through subatomic charge transference into anti-matter. The dilithium crystal can be in either its natural crystalline form or processed into a paddle shape. Up to four dilithium crystals are connected in parallel inside the Dilithium Crystal Convertor Assembly (DCCA). Focused streams of matter and antimatter are injected each onto opposite surfaces or facets of an energized dilithium crystal. In addition to controlling the annihilation process, the M/AM reaction energy keeps the crystal energized to allow the excess matter to be absorbed interstitially into the crystal matrix and converts the matter into antimatter. This potion of the DCCA is controlled by the matter-antimatter integrator which also magnetically extracts the now excess (regenerated) antimatter from the crystal then magnetically transfers it up to the warp nacelles for use in the warp engine M/AM reactors (no dilithium), recycles it back into the DCCA, or stores it in the antimatter confinement pod in each nacelle and in the one down below in the engineering hull. Once the reaction starts, the ship only needs to feed enough matter into the system to make up the losses from the M/AM annihilation in the three reactors. To refill the matter fuel, the Enterprise sucks it in from interstellar gases especially when near stars. Remember, the M/AM reaction is what makes the magic work.

Shut down the dilithium crystals, you shut down the warp drive and the warp power it feeds into the ship EPS by starving the M/AM reaction of AM fuel. Turn it on full blast into the warp engines with no antimatter bypass control (TWS), you need to burn it as fast as you can or you blow up due to the excess AM build-up in the reactors. Cut off the AM to the crystal, the crystal shuts down and no more AM is made to blow you up. You don't want to shutdown the matter fuel side or you blow up since it is needed to burn the residual AM still in the system. I think I just solved the sabotage scenario in That Which Survives!

 

That is from "Mr. Scott's Guide to the Enterprise," not canon, I know, but I try to use off screen sources for clues in the absence of onscreen confirmation. It seems illogical, at least in a dramatic sense, for the most powerful part of the Enterprise to be a small side room when there is a huge something else right nearby that connects all major parts of the ship. I fail to see how there is any evidence that the blue/grey swirly thing ISN'T an Intermix Shaft, or an Energizer, or both, and until now, I thought you and I agreed about that. I'm just trying to follow the thread and find an actual location in the ship for 2(+) Engine Rooms, and hoping that determining the function of a given prop might help. The refit designs in that book do a good job of this, and my goal was to try to apply something similar to TOS.

Maybe the Energizer room in "The Alternative Factor" doesn't back right up to the orange structure or be located right underneath the syncrotron, thus one or the other is the Energizer?

Same notation, but from FJSTM this time. And, since a syncrotron accelerates particles, if there is a crystal in there and energy is moving through it or from it, which seems to be the case at times, syncrotron is as good a word as any.

 

Assuming my dilithium crystal theory is close to being correct, then it can also explain why the dilithium crystals are needed to bridge the dimensional transport to and from the Antimatter Universe in the hokey The Alternative Factor.

SPOCK: A kind of physical warp, Captain, in which none of our established physical laws apply with any regularity. However, with the dilithium crystals, I was able to localise it.
LAZARUS: Yes! That's it! The dilithium crystals. With their power we could do it.​

Lazarus' ship is capable to transport objects between the two universes but for some reason it only transposes that object/person with its counterpart. But, by transporting an object through dilithium, that object is not transposed with its counterpart (or visa versa from the other side), rather it is transported into the other universe. So, we get two Lazari (one matter and one antimatter) in the same universe which when they touch, it causes complete annihilation of both universes in some hokey fashion. Apparently, the dilithium also stabilizes the matter so it doesn't react with the antimatter in the universe unless it is identical particles, or Kirk would have blown up the planet when he arrived.

 

I prefer to keep things simple. There are so many inconsistencies in Trek's first season. I'm not inclined to made every variation from each episode fit. Some things just don't. Better to focus on later stories where some of these things are better established.

The way dilithium was used changes every time. It isn't until TNG that it is consistent. But some of the TOS episodes match, depending on how you place the engineering in the ship. There can also be more than one use for dilithium (depending on its purity).

As for the details of the TMP engineering system, we have the cutaway poster David Kimble did (he also did the TMP bluprints from Richard Taylor's drawings with the as built changes for the final version. Here is the detail of the call out on the bottom of the 1979 version of the poster:

And this is Kimble's plan with decks and some details laid out by Andrew Probert:


Not TOS, but I think it is relevant.

 

That is an interesting observation. I guess it would depend on how you would define the warp drive nacelles...
Is it the two nacelles attached to the secondary/engineering hull which also looks suspiciously like a nacelle that is used for warp drive and thus all 3 nacelles? Or is it just the two nacelles at the top?

And then what's the definition of the "main section"? Does that include the secondary hull? I think it is reasonable that "main section" refers to escaping with only the primary/saucer hull.

KIRK: Then use your imagination. Tie every ounce of power the ship has into the impulse engines. Discard the warp drive nacelles if you have to, and crack out of there with the main section, but get that ship out of there!​