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

My theory is that the Miranda Class was actually intended as a replacement for the Constitution class.

 

I have not forgotten your fascinating post about Starship interior volumes I merely mean that Reliant is compact shaped, and if the engine was even the same size with less mass for the rest of the vessel, that would make it more powerful. The big Impulse Deflection Crystal just pushes it even further into advancement, perhaps.

This is possibly implied the fact that, over time, we see them show more of the Miranda on duty, like with the Saratoga in ST:4.

Trying to use the few ships from TOS and the movies to come up with an idea of the location of the TOS engine room guided by your diagrams, as well as others' posts, here is my logic.

I'm building my opinion from some assumptions, which could be wrong, but I'm just engaging in the thought process for the fun of seeing where it takes this conversation.

-My starting assumption is that the Enterprise's shape is for a functional reason, and that a saucer with three engine pods, one of which is expanded to serve as a location for secondary operations, is the basic look for a Starfleet ship of its time.

-Therefore, if a ship does not look like the Enterprise, there should be a functional reason why.

-My second assumption is that Starfleet would build ships as similar as possible (within a given generation of designs) while still changing configuration for each ships role. This could be contentious, but I'm thinking through what that could tell us about how ships are configured.

-The movies showed us Reliant, Grissom, and Excelsior types, with Constellation-class ships as a similar family of ships added later.

-In addition to this, on movie ships, the Impulse Deflection Crystals are assumed to indicate one end of an intermix shaft/warp core, to hint at the location of engineering.

-If the Reliant has no secondary hull, then its engine room is likely in the square area added at the back of its saucer, which we know is true for the Constellation class thanks to a Rick Sternbach article in Star Trek: The Magazine.

-If the Grissom has no neck, it it logical to potentially assume that its engineering is entirely in its upper hull, in the flat deck below the saucer, while the lower pod is not for engines but sensors.

-Excelsior has a different type of saucer, engine pods, and secondary hull, but overall has a similar manner of its layout, compared to the Enterprise.

-Based on this, it would seem that, if Starfleet were trying to keep each ship as standard as possible, then there would be an engineering control room in the saucer, even it was not directly adjacent to the main reactor. The theory that the crystal in the TOS engine room relates to the ship's power distribution seems to be gaining traction.

Which brings around the question again to this:

What does the main reactor look like in TOS? If the part of Engineering that represents the reactor, if it was ever shown, could be confirmed somehow, that would narrow down the room enough to get a clear view of its location.

If the main reactor is the pipe structure, then can there be a main reactor in the saucer for when we are seeing the saucer engine room? Does this make sense for the TOS Enterprise? It would be that way on a ship configured like the Grissom, since all of engineering is on one deck, but would that work on a TOS ship without being unnecessarily redundant?

 

I think of the Miranda Class is to the Constitution Class (Refit) as the Intrepid Class is to the Galaxy Class.

If there was a replacement to the Connies, I think it'd be the Excelsior Class.

 

Voyager is Intrepid-class.
https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Intrepid_class

Do you mean Nebula-class?

https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Nebula_class
https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Miranda_class

 

No I meant the same class as Voyager, which seems more of a multipurpose science vessel. And that's what the Miranda seemed to be too based on its appearance in TWOK.

 

OK. I wasn't sure whether you were going for the idea of a kitbash, but not using all the (principle) pieces, because that's really what the Miranda is, I think. It wouldn't make sense to make a successor be the same thing as the original except with fewer capabilities. That more describes a specialized alternative or variant.

 

Certainly something is needed to lower the overall mass of a ship - there's simply not enough space to store the fuel needed to accelerate the Enterprise from 0 to 0.5c as depicted in the show!

Fortunately I can mine some of my earlier posts for some of those scenarios
Okay, here we go:

SEASON ONE
Both engine rooms looked like the S1 version, likely not updated since the days of Pike. In the lower levels AKA Engineering Hull the Power Converter Assembly (PCA) is a hardy piece of legacy tech from the previous century, inefficient but reliable. While the PCA can be used to convert the M/AM energy coming from the nacelles into a form compatible for ship systems, mostly it is used to redirect that raw energy into the 3 (di)lithium crystal circuits (DCC) housed in the deck beneath the engine room, which can carry out the conversion far faster and more efficiently.
The Impulse Engine reactor in the saucer has its own fuel supply (essential for use in saucer separation) but generally uses some of the raw nacelle energy for propulsion. The PCA by the saucer engine room can in turn convert some of this raw energy, or better use its own DCC which is housed under the floor. Under normal circumstances the power load draw is shared between all 4 DCCs, but under extreme circumstances they can all be brought to bear (and the PCAs too!).

WNMHGB: The "space warp" ability of the nacelles is gone, but they must still be able to generate a sufficient mass reduction field to allow the M/AM Impulse Reactor to propel the ship at near lightspeed. The maximum range for this operation is determined at "a few light days", after which there won't be enough fuel left in the Impulse reactor to allow them to leave the orbit of Delta Vega (well, certainly not the solar system anyway). No mention is made of the PCA or crystals, so we may be free to assume that those systems are operating normally off the nacelle "mains", even if the nacelles are currently incapable of propulsion.

Mudd's Women: The Warp Engines are undamaged, but the rescue operation overloaded and destroyed the crystals along with both PCAs. When Scotty says that they "blew the whole converter assembly" he is referring to the combined system across both primary and secondary hulls (he does this again in Elaan Of Troyius). This means that the inertial dampeners, gravity field, deflectors and other life-saving essentials are solely dependant on "battery" power (probably some sort of small fusion reactors). They exhaust all of their Impulse fuel on the trip to Rigel, leaving themselves in a "shaky" orbit.

The Enemy Within: Evil Kirk hides down in the secondary hull Engine Room. It is sparsely populated, since the process is largely automated and Scotty tends to use the saucer room as his engineering headquarters. The large vertical power conduit only seen here and shot by Evil Kirk may be connected directly to the DCCs.

The Naked Time: Scotty's HQ in the saucer is taken over by the intoxicated Lt Riley

Conscience Of The King: Here we see Lt Riley on duty as the sole officer on deck, monitoring the automated functions in the secondary hull engine room.

The Alternative Factor: All four crystal paddles are removed and placed into "re-amplification" chambers. These paddles are the industry standard form of dilithium, but starship DCCs are designed to be able to utilise natural crystals as well, since they are may have to make use of whatever is available out on the frontier.

Tomorrow Is Yesterday: Prior to this episode the Enterprise put in at Cygnet Fourteen for general repair and maintenance, along with various upgrades following the appalling weapons failures in Balance Of Terror. The relay equipment under PCAs were replaced as well, although the larger size of the more robust relays led to the PCAs being raised higher in relation to their respective engine rooms. Specifically - more horizontal pipes are now visible through the mesh. The white "belaying pin" style control rods may also have been installed in the secondary hull engine room at this time (seen in Space Seed)

SEASON TWO
An engineering upgrade program that had been slowly rolled out across all starship-class vessels was finally given to the Enterprise, some time prior to The Changeling . Maybe this is where Scotty and Enterprise were off to in Metamorphosis, explaining why Kirk et al had to use a shuttlecraft? As a result of these upgrades:

• Accessibility to and from each Engine Room was increased by the addition of an upper walkway and a tri-ladder was installed between the 3 engine room levels
• Control consoles are upgraded to more compact versions.
• Old, redundant equipment was removed from the ceiling area, exposing similar looking support beams to what had been there before.
• There is now a lot of open floor space in the saucer engine room, presumably as an additional working area or perhaps for future expansion?
• In the secondary hull engine room (which I don't believe we see at all this season) a dedicated M/AM reactor monitoring room is installed at some point, although not actually seen until the events of That Which Survives in S3.
• In the saucer engine room a DTD was installed over the central DCC articulation frame for quicker access and maintenance of the reactor (although actual access to the crystal paddle was still only possibly via the deck below).

Doomsday Machine: In a situation not dissimulator to that of Mudd's Women, the Enterprise finds her entire antimatter supply "deactivated". All that's left is is the Impulse reactor and while it can make use of the main deuterium tank, with all the shields, phaser action and high speeds in this episode the fuel will be depleted within 8 hours

SEASON THREE
An upgrade to the DTD means that direct access to the dilithium paddle is now possible, for faster inspection and replacement. We see that the secondary hull engine room is staffed by more than just a single officer now (in That which Survives)

Elaan of Troyius: There's a convoluted mess of apparently contradictory statements in this episode but I think they can be reconciled. First, Kryton is seen messing around with the dilithium paddle unit. Upon discovering him and investigating the issue Scotty tells Kirk that "the anti-matter pods are rigged to blow up the moment we go into warp drive." After the advert break however, Scotty has revised his assessment of the situation - the pods aren't merely rigged to blow, there's an actual bomb! That's fine, as it is probably just shorthand for the explosive overload that Kryton has set up. In any event, there's nothing Scott can do to about it:

Before long however, there is another problem:

No mention of the "bomb"...so it seems our intrepid engineer found a solution as ordered? He couldn't dismantle the setup, but could he have used the raw energy converting tech of the PCAs and DCCs to bleed off the energy from the explosion and then harmlessly vent it? Very creative! Unfortunately, the dilithium decrystalised more than he expected and now they have no PCAs, no dilithium and as such no way to tap the main engines (nacelles) in the upcoming combat situation; certainly nothing for the structural integrity field or the inertial dampeners so warp speed (while technically possible) is also not an option if anyone wants to live
Since there is no power for phasers either, I think we can assume that Kryton also managed to drain the backup power supplies. All they have is low manoeuvring speeds from the Impulse Engines. If only there was a dilithium crystal somewhere...

Paradise Syndrome: We see a situation similar to Mudd's Women, but from the Engine Room POV. The strain of using all 4 DCCs and PCAs is seen as they burn themselves out and we are told that the warp drive is junk. The Enterprise spends the next 60 days slowly retreating in front of the asteroid. No mention of power problems this time. Is the ship coasting on Newtonian speeds? With no enemies in sight and no high speeds required, it is entirely possible.

 

Excellent episodic analyses.

Just focusing in on the ship's power systems, I like to use real science/physics then expand on with as little technobabble as possible. My theories: Conversion of "warp engine power" and "impulse engine power" into useful energy, namely electricity, is the basis for operating the ship's systems. The M/AM reactors in the warp engines provides the most power (in the form of energized plasma), by far. Fusion reactors in the impulse engines provide a fraction of the power as compared to the M/AM reactors. We see "pipes" in the engine control rooms. What's in those pipes and what is its function? Closed-loop fluid-to-vapor heat transfer is out (i.e. our current technologies). More likely, magnetically confined plasma to carry the electrical charges. Our current science suggests this is either (or both) a plasma switching yard to provide energized plasma to the many ship systems, and/or a magneto-hydrodynamic (MHD) system to add/extract? electricity to/from? the plasma. The electro-plasma system (EPS for short, or more specifically the electro-plasma distribution network or EPS grid) is the primary form of electrical energy distribution on starships. All of this is (potentially) real science based.

Moving to technobabble, we add in dilithium crystals. What do they do? As suggested, maybe they provide an exponentially efficient improvement in extracting energy (electricity) from the power sources and direct it into the ship's energy network (EPS). The crystals replace (or are another form of) the MHD system. Since a large amount of antimatter is needed for warp drive, there must be large capacity antimatter generators. Our current tech gives us micrograms of anti-hydrogen (no complete anti-deuterium atoms, yet), so, either these processes have improved over the centuries, or we introduce a technobabble solution. Instead of introducing a second technobabble technology, you may as well expand on the one we've already created, i.e. dilithium crystals. In addition to electricity generation, they are also integral in antimatter generation. This makes the magic rocks doubly magical.

YMMV.

 

Since the output of a M/AM reaction is said to be highly energised plasma (in behind the scenes materials if not in the episodes themselves) I'm happy to imagine a portion of that being diverted to the PCA and maybe even directly onto high energy systems such as the navigational deflectors. I don't see why EPS conduits would need to be laced throughout the ship though, when standard electrical cables are a much safer option

Has it ever been specified how much antimatter is needed for the engines though? Even an ounce (according to Obsession) packs quite a punch!
Also, if there's any correlation to how dilithium behaves in TNG, then it might be problematic to have it be a source of antimatter generation. As a 23rd century method of extracting electric energy by letting the plasma flow through the crystal that's fine. By TNG (or maybe even by TMP) dilithium is also used as a mediator for the M/AM reaction, resulting in a more finely tuned plasma stream. Do the crystals need to conjure antimatter as well?

In TAS's One Of Our Planets Is Missing, just 2 kilos of matter and antimatter is enough for the engines to start regenerating, which indicates a process where matter can be continuously drawn in and either used as is or else converted into antimatter as required.
In VOY's Demon the ship is only desperate for deuterium; no mention is made of its antimatter equivalent.
Both episodes suggest that starfleet have highly efficient means to generate antimatter, so long as there is a constant source of ordinary matter.

I suppose that in both those instances there's no reason to believe that dilithium crystals are NOT present; are there any other examples in Trek where antimatter fuel levels are an issue?

 

You are right, superconducting wires should be common at this point. We do see Kirk pulling out sparking wires that Finney used to bypass/jumble the impulse engines.

Maybe on the reverse side of fuel system in TWS, where the antimatter fuel in being dumped into the warp engines. At least for the 15 minute duration, they were not going to run out of antimatter fuel. They either have a big enough gas tank full of fuel, or the system can self-generate more antimatter than it can use. In any event, I think we still need a technobabble method to efficiently generate antimatter, especially many more times complex if it is creating anti-deuterium.

 

Awesome, awesome thread.

Someone give me a key to the abbreviations. I know most but others are throwing me.

 

TWS - That Which Survives
DTD - Double Traingular doohickey (the central island prop in the S2 Engine Room)
PCA - Power Converter Assembly
Any others you need, just ask!

Good example from Court Martial! We do see that wireless power transfer is possible too (like in Ultimate Computer) but I think the standard systems would be hard wired.

Going by the 24th century technical manuals, we are informed that antimatter can be generated from normal matter at 10:1 ratio (IOW, it's not very efficient, which means that running out of fuel still a plot option and there's still no such thing as a free lunch!) However, if the TOS-Enterprise can generate that much antimatter so quickly then it's the most efficient machine in all of history!
However, I agree that the events of TWS indicate that there would have to be a sizeable fuel tank (or really two, if each nacelle has it's own supply and reactor) otherwise Scotty would just pop out the dilithium paddles to stop them constantly topping up the fuel tank(s).

Incidentally, do we actually have any information to suggest that ships in Trek are unable to carry around enough fuel for the duration of their missions?
Kirk says in Mark of Gideon that power "regenerates" but doesn't supply details on how this is done. There's also plenty of other episodes where power limitation is a major plot point, like in The Apple.
Perhaps regeneration is only possible under ideal lull conditions, when the ship can scoop in interstella matter and leisurely convert it into antimatter. The rest of the time they must rely on their fuel reserves, which generally only seem to be a problem when the warp engines are out of commission. And given how often the Enterprise visits star bases, its not unreasonable to think they get fuel top-ups there as well.

 

Thanks, Mytran! It was DTD that was throwing me.

 

It was a tongue in cheek term I came up with a few pages back. I never expected it to stick!

 

The "tech" manuals are beautiful and informative, but can be misleading at times (and I own a copy of all of them). They also say TOS warp scale was only v=(wf^3)c. Shane Johnson's " Mr. Scott's Guide..." wisely avoids the topic. The others all fall into the warp speed trap. Moving on...

DTD is an excellent short hand designator for the device which belies functional description.

There must be a single point of antimatter flow out of engineering to the warp engines in the nacelles. Scotty was able to stop the flow of AM at this one source point. The AM in the nacelle storage pods were probably the first fuel to get exhausted, followed by using stored AM fuel from the secondary hull. During TWS, were they just burning up the AM fuel stored in that hull, or was the AM generation system locked into running at full output continuously feeding the warp engines? Dialog (with my highlights; its long so if you want, you can just skip to the conclusions at the end):

SCOTT: Watkins, check the bypass valve on the matter/antimatter reaction chamber. Make sure it's not overheating.
WATKINS: But, Mister Scott, the board shows correct.
SCOTT: I didn't ask you to check the board, lad.
WATKINS: Yes, sir.
(Watkins goes off into an adjoining room and checks a console and some panels in there. Then he is confronted by Losira.) ...
LOSIRA: Show me this unit. I wish to learn.
WATKINS: This is the matter-antimatter integrator control. That's the cut off switch.
LOSIRA: Not correct. That is the emergency overload bypass, which engages almost instantaneously. A wise precaution, considering it takes the antimatter longer to explode once the magnetic flow fails. I am for you, Mister Watkins....
SCOTT: Then you're right, Mister Spock. Watkins must've been murdered. I sent him in to check the matter-antimatter reactor. There are no exposed circuits there. It couldn't have been anything he touched....
SCOTT: Aye, Mister Spock, and I found out why. The emergency bypass control of the matter-antimatter integrator is fused.
SCOTT [OC]: It's completely useless. The engines are running wild. There's no way to get at them. We should reach maximum overload in about fifteen minutes.
SPOCK: I would calculate fourteen point eight seven minutes, Mister Scott.
SCOTT: Those few seconds will not make any difference, Mister Spock, because you and I and the rest of the crew will no longer be here to bandy it back and forth.
SCOTT [OC]: This thing is going to blow up
SCOTT: And there's nothing in the universe can stop it.
(Scott is working on the emergency bypass)
SCOTT: It's useless. And there's no question it's deliberate.
SPOCK: Sabotage.
SCOTT: Aye, and a thorough job. The system's foolproof. Whoever murdered Watkins sabotaged this.
SPOCK: You said it was fused. How?
SCOTT: That's what worries me.
SPOCK: Worries, Mister Scott?
SCOTT: Well, it's fused, all right, but it would take all the power of our main phaser banks to do it.
SPOCK: Interesting.
SCOTT: I find nothing interesting in the fact that we're about to blow up.
SPOCK: No, but the method is fascinating.
SPOCK: As I recall the pattern of our fuel flow, there is an access tube leading to the matter-antimatter reaction chamber.
SCOTT: There's a service crawlway, but it's not meant to be used while the integrator operates.
SPOCK: Still, it is there, and it might be possible to shut off the fuel at that point.
SCOTT: What with? Bare hands?
SPOCK: A magnetic probe.
SCOTT: Any matter that comes in contact with antimatter triggers the explosion. And I'm not even sure a man can live in the crawlway in the energy stream of the magnetic field that bottles up the antimatter.​

and later,

SCOTT: It's hard to see. There's so much disturbance that any attempt to get at the flow would rupture the magnetic field.
SCOTT: I'm going to try to cut through the magnetic flow. But if the probe doesn't precisely match the magnetic flow, there'll be an explosion. Starting right now.
UHURA: Magnetic force indicator jumping, Mister Spock.
SPOCK: Mister Scott, ease off.
UHURA: Magnetic force has dropped to normal, sir....
SPOCK [OC]: You were correct in your feel. The Enterprise was put through a molecular transporter and reassembled slightly out of phase. Reverse polarity should seal the incision.
(Scott gets his polarity reversed and puts the probe into the antimatter stream)...
RAHDA: One. Mister Spock, now. Warp fourteen point one. Warp fourteen.
UHURA: Magnetic forces steady.
(We hear the engines slowing down.)
RAHDA: Warp thirteen point nine and dropping.
SPOCK: Mister Scott, you have accomplished your task.​

Here's how I see it:

1. The action primarily revolves around a third M/AM (that is Dilithium Crystal moderated) reactor in the secondary hull. The two M/AM reactors in the warp engines are not Dilithium Crystal moderated. Their purpose is to generate warp plasma to run the the engines.
2. The M-AM integrator sounds like an apparatus that brings the two fuels in close proximity to each other (flow confined in magnetic fields) and meters the amount of fuels to send into the reaction chamber. This does not sound like an antimatter generator.
3. Emergency overload bypass control in the integrator would normally redirect the flow of matter and antimatter away from the M/AM reaction chamber, probably back into their storage tanks, or even venting it into space.
4. The bypass valve is fused (think welded) into a configuration that inputs the integrator with matter and antimatter fuel into the reaction chamber. The valve is physical hardware and not circuitry.
5. For this sabotage to work, a maximum flow rate of antimatter must be flowing into the warp engines. I don't think just the flow of energy, be it electricity or super charge matter plasma, out of the reaction chamber is causing the runaway engines. The only scenario (using just the equipment and dialog presented here and from other episodes on Dilithium Crystals) that makes sense is that new antimatter fuel is also flowing out of the M/AM reaction chamber and is being directed into both warp engines plus looped around back into the M-AM integrator to keep the reaction going. This could be the Kirk, "power regenerates" quote. Excess matter fuel is introduced via the integrator into the M/AM reaction inside the Dilithium Crystals. The energy from the reaction keeps the Dilithium Crystals energized. While energized, it produces electricity and converts the excess matter into new antimatter, maybe near 100% efficiency. Additionally, the hard "valving" for the flow of this fuel out of the reaction chamber into the warp engines are fused open and their bypasses are also fused in the closed positions causing the engines to run wild.
6. Scott says, "Sabotage. Aye, and a thorough job. The system's foolproof. I assume he is referring that the sabotaged system is foolproof, i.e. can't be stopped. I assume this thorough sabotage also jammed the Dilithium Crystal system that pops them out. You most probably need to stop the M/AM reaction in the Crystal first by turning off the flow of M and AM fuel, but they can't.
7. The access tube or service crawlway is between the integrator and the reaction chamber.
8. The fuel (which fuel?) can be shut off in the integrator and before the reaction chamber.
9. The fuel of concern is antimatter, so, I assume they will try to shut off the antimatter stream, only.
10. The flow of antimatter is magnetically confined. Its form is either ionized gas or ionized plasma; my choice is plasma.
11. The magnetic flow is reconfigured by Scott to magnetically seal or pinch off the flow of antimatter fuel flow into the reaction chamber.
12. Scott is successful. The magnetic force holding the antimatter flow back is steady. The antimatter fuel is shut off going into the reactor chamber which shuts down the antimatter flow into the warp engines and its looping back into the reactor chamber.

Unanswered: how does the Enterprise continue it's warp journey with all the sabotage of fused valves? YMMV

 

I take them with a very large pinch of salt too. I only mentioned them as an example of a less than perfect M/AM conversion system which is still believable in the context of the Star Trek universe.

It's a well laid out theory, but the notion of an additional reactor in the secondary hull isn't consistent with with earlier (and later) references to the power source of the ship being in the nacelles themselves, not buried somewhere in the secondary hull.

This recent post confirmed the authorial intent that it was just one nacelle, not some other part of the ship that was supposed to be ejected:

I don't normally ascribe too much weight to authorial intent, but in this instance the second draft example is very consistent with the nacelles (AKA the pods) being the source of power, just like in an aviation model (the first draft is more vague).
Matt Jefferies' own design sketches support this terminology:

So what's my model? I interpret the dialogue in TWS to mean that Losira only fused the bypass control of one matter-antimatter integrator, specifically the nacelle that Scotty was pacing around and worrying about shortly before Watkins got killed. It seems that one nacelle had already developed a fault of some kind (Scotty says "it feels wrong somehow") either started or exacerbated by a trip through the 1,000 LY transporter beam. Following Losira's sabotage the malfunctioning nacelle is driving the ship the ship ever faster.
Common sense would suggest that under normal operations if one nacelle is operating at a slightly higher speed then the other would match it to compensate in order to avoid torque on the vessel. Therefore, we could speculate that because the nacelles are automatically paired then the other nacelle is also generating the same crazy speeds! Consequently, all the avatar of Losira needs to do is sabotage the integrator on one of them - and all Scott needs to do it fix that one in order to save the day.
Alternatively, it might also be that the single malfunctioning nacelle is causing the speed overload by itself but regardless; jettisoning the malfunctioning pod will reduce the speed back to normal although due to the massive deceleration it is incredibly dangerous (hence everyone's reluctance to do it).

It also makes the situation much more tense, since they are dealing with the loss of half the ship's propulsive power rather than just a few barrels of antimatter fuel. One would be a lot easier to replace than the other, I reckon...

In the short term, it uses the one remaining good nacelle

 

I respect your theory, but there is no evidence that this is the case in this episode or any other episodes. Also, there is no evidence that Scott is worrying about only one nacelle, rather, dialog more likely suggests a single M-AM integrator in the ship; "go check the bypass valve in the little room", not the left or right one. If it was one of two, then I would expect dialog about one of two, or port side unit, etc. Nah, the simple answer is that there is only one unit in the ship and it's in the secondary hull.

 

If what is listed in your reasoning here were true, then that would seem to me to mean that the Engine Room shown is INSIDE the nacelle, because the Engineers are walking to a contained area that supposedly is right next to the reactor, which is your example would be in the nacelles as they are the power source in your theory. That is an interesting idea, but totally different from the other locations for the room we discussed. Then, the orange structure would be the actual warp coils, or part of them. Interestingly, if one looks at the floorplan for the Nacelle Control Room in that TNG episode where Troi finds it has an imprint of someone's thoughts, the layout is very similar to the TOS Engine Room, and even has two levels with ladders and a reactor-looking-thing in the middle of the floor. Would it make sense for the nacelles to be inhabited? Could that explain how the Engine Room is on supposed to be on Deck 6 and 7 but has a warp reactor?

 

Perhaps "hyper-power circuits?" I'm not quite sure there is an EPS relay on the ship though.

IIRC, "Booby Trap" had Geordi doing fancy things with angling the dilithium to have multiple M/AM streams hit it to extend their AM supply. Logically if you add more M/AM streams you're using more AM but for that episode it was doing the opposite and giving back AM. Unfortunately, no other later TNG episode referenced this

Hmm, I would think that if he pulled the dilithium then the buffering would immediately go away and it would immediately overload the reactor and blow up the ship.

Regarding TOS, IMHO the dilithium gives the ship effectively infinite range by regenerating AM. That's why Kirk thought a trip to Andromeda (no fuel stops likely!) was not going to be limited by fuel but by time.

I too think that power regeneration occurs only when the ship is not expending large amounts of power and her dilithium and crystal converter assembly plus energizers are undamaged. But I don't think the ship scoops up interstellar matter though. Even when being chased by the Doomsday Machine where they would need regular matter like hydrogen for fuel the Enterprise could not do so and was stuck with whatever emergency impulse energy that was stored up. All IMHO

 

We have evidence of there being three reactors. Though I'm not sure it is stated what these reactor are. But my thought are that there are two main reactors in the nacelles. These are the Big Glowing Orbs of the front of the nacelles. Then there is a smaller third reactor in the secondary hull. This smaller third reactor is like a controlling reactor. Somehow it's output controls the outputs of the other two reactors. This smaller reactor is the one being talked about in "That Which Survives".