Vents vs Spheres.

[Redfern]

Nothing can, ahem, "top" those last two posts! Might as well lock the thread.

 

[drt]

To be sure, "sink" or "acqisition" does not necessarily mean a vacuum cleaner, even if Mandel already decided these things clean vacuum. Rather, "sink" is the opposite of "source", the word FJ used for the other end of the engine. In his mind, the nacelle apparently was a linear magnet with sink and source poles...

Some of that is lost if only the sink is a sphere half the time, I guess. Symmetry would be nice for pole magnets.

Timo Saloniemi

When i first got the technical manual back in the 1970s i assumed from those descriptions that the nacelles worked like jet engines, sucking in space-time and expelling it in order to move.

 

[johnnybear]

And these spikes are only on the Mirror version? Can't say I've noticed them on the usual Enterprise!
JB

 

[Henoch]

When i first got the technical manual back in the 1970s i assumed from those descriptions that the nacelles worked like jet engines, sucking in space-time and expelling it in order to move.

With a jet, air gets combusted with fuel and exhaust also gets expelled out. I wonder what space-time gets combusted with and what combustion space-time by-products are expelled with the rest of normal space-time. This sounds like an space-time environmental catastrophe.

 

[Henoch]

And these spikes are only on the Mirror version? Can't say I've noticed them on the usual Enterprise!
JB

On the Cage Enterprise, the whole time:

 

[Henoch]

And these spikes are only on the Mirror version? Can't say I've noticed them on the usual Enterprise!
JB

I think they broke them off for most of WNMHGB, I know one scene where they show up again (but I think they were trying to hide them with only far-away, out-of-focus shots with file footage from the Cage):

 

[Marsden]

Silly, those spikes are where the waitress puts the orders so the cook can make them.


The bigger dish on the front that coresponds with the spikes being there makes me think (ouch!) that they are the transmitter to what the dish is catching back the reflection of, like a sonar but obviously not sound waves, because: space.

 

[drt]

With a jet, air gets combusted with fuel and exhaust also gets expelled out. I wonder what space-time gets combusted with and what combustion space-time by-products are expelled with the rest of normal space-time. This sounds like an space-time environmental catastrophe.

Maybe that's why there's a Warp 5 speed limit in TNG, lol

 

[ZapBrannigan]

On the Cage Enterprise, the whole time:

That same shot of the 11-footer got a new background over the blue screen for WNMHGB. The spikes are visible in this re-use frame from "Is There in Truth No Beauty"
http://tos.trekcore.com/hd/albums/3x05hd/isthereintruthnobeautyhd0647.jpg

 

[Ryan Thomas Riddle]

http://tos.trekcore.com/hd/albums/2x04hd/mirrormirrorhd0064.jpg

The nacelle spikes were probably a nod to the "needle nose" seen on some military jets. They are especially seen on prototypes, because the little pitot tube has been calibrated on the production version of the jet plane, and the long needle nose is no longer necessary. Those things were for air probes that gave speed info and so forth.

Considering that Matt Jeffries was an aviator, that may very well be.

 

[Mres_was_framed!]

I know that they were used interchangeably through the series, but in my mind the vents were at the end of the nacelles in the Pike/"Where No Man Has Gone Before" era, and the spheres were there during the series proper.

^This.
The ship was able to extend the spheres or retract them and have the vents. So I don't really pick which look I prefer. It also had retractable spikes on the nacelle domes, the bridge module could raise and lower, and the deflector dish could extend to become larger.

As a kid watching the show for the first time, I assumed that the ships appearance could change based on the situation, and they just did not have the money to show the vents being exposed or the spikes being extended.

And by Season 2, all these features were removed during its refit when they upgraded the Engine Room and corridors outside it.

That does not work for me because the pilot version is in the Main Titles for Seasons Two and Three, making it seem like this was how the ship could look, too.

Because so many episodes end with the "series" version flying into the camera and the "pilot" version flying away from the camera, I assume that when at normal warp operation the deflector/bridge are compacted, and that the vents are exposed. Because so many episodes show the "series" version orbiting a planet, I assume normal operation is to cover the vents with the spheres while in orbit.

Anyway, that's what I thought as a kid, and I don't think TOS-R had to go and change it. Would it not have been stellar to see the deflector change its orientation or size in the midst of an effects shot?

Perhaps the spikes are communications antennas that are more useful at certain times?

Has anyone catalogued each shot from each episode and noted warp/sublight, shields up/down, sensors at long/short range, communications open/closed, orbit or interplanetary flight?

 

[Henoch]

Has anyone catalogued each shot from each episode and noted warp/sublight, shields up/down, sensors at long/short range, communications open/closed, orbit or interplanetary flight?

Yep, let me find it...got it. Tallguy put an exhaustive level of research into each ship shot. But not like you list on your ship conditions.
http://www.trekplace.com/tosfxcatalog.html

 

[Maurice]

That same shot of the 11-footer got a new background over the blue screen for WNMHGB. The spikes are visible in this re-use frame from "Is There in Truth No Beauty"
http://tos.trekcore.com/hd/albums/3x05hd/isthereintruthnobeautyhd0647.jpg

That particular shot was filmed against black, not blue. It was done as a hi-contrast matte, which is why you see the "barrier" through chunks of the ship when it was composited onto the barrier element for "Beauty".

 

[publiusr]

Now IIRC, the same pattern on the front domes f the nacelles was to have been replicated in the back spheres and the insides of the nacelles-so show a churing up and down the length of the nacelle. In my head canon--that's what the Enterprise looked like heading into spacedock for the refit--alrready having Achernar placement phaser banks all over.

 

[The Old Mixer]

I don't think that the Enterprise switching places with its pilot version is to be taken literally in-universe any more than when Shatner and Nimoy switch places with their stunt doubles.

To answer the question: Spheres, definitely!

 

[Henoch]

Spheres - Yes! But what's their function? Ass-end warp field stabilization babble or simple antimatter fuel tanks? I like the fuel tank idea. KISS.

 

[Ssosmcin]

Why do do they have to have a specific function? It's a transparent sphere to display the warp energy. Maybe the people designing it just wanted it to look badass. LIke the Flying Sub's reactor wall in Voyage tot he Bottom of the Sea. You can also tell upon approach if the power is out...

 

[aridas sofia]

So if they weren't bussards what were they?

Microsingularity containers. The dome is a gravity focusing lens. The Bussards are the ridges behind the dome- stacked funnels.

 

[Ssosmcin]

Microsingularity containers. The dome is a gravity focusing lens. The Bussards are the ridges behind the dome- stacked funnels.

“Micro singularity containers” is waaaay too technobabbly for the original series.

 

[Henoch]

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/da/1f/ba/da1fba64bf4778c8aa968e39e7dfbe3c.jpg
https://static.comicvine.com/uploads/scale_large/6/67663/6034170-01.jpg
I doubt they are the coal-fired, boilers, either. Maybe too un-technobabbly. M/AM reactors are something in the middle. KISS.