TOS Enterprise Internals

[Mytran]

I'd not share the idea of a sliding wall. The red grill that we often see on the Enterprise - corridors, machine room, Emergency Manual Monitor - is always a fixed wall. Besides, there is no slide construction to be seen in The Changeling, the grill on the left side of the pilar being just missing. On the Constellation, Matt Decker's ship in S2 Doomsday Machine, the grill is closed and Washburn (and Scotty) are no doubt entering the back compartment via the sliding door on the right side (not to be seen in the pic above, but in my post a moment ago). In The Children Shall Lead and The Way To Eden there are also two grills.
The missing of the left grill is due to dramatic reasons. The technician Singh must be distracted so that he cannot see that Nomad is leaving the room. That's why he is going to check some flashing lights in back ground behind the grill, and easy access is only possible when the left grill is missing.

I'd rather not posit the idea of a sliding mesh section either, but otherwise there's simply not easy access from the main area into the side room. In Doomsday Machine the side room is accessed from an unseen door off the outer corridor. This was on the USS Constellation which presumably has a different layout to the USS Enterprise, because when we see that outer corridor in Way To Eden there is no second door present!

This set reconstruction shows the issue rather well:

 

[Koloth TOS]

I'd rather not posit the idea of a sliding mesh section either, but otherwise there's simply not easy access from the main area into the side room. In Doomsday Machine the side room is accessed from an unseen door off the outer corridor. This was on the USS Constellation which presumably has a different layout to the USS Enterprise, because when we see that outer corridor in Way To Eden there is no second door present!

This set reconstruction shows the issue rather well:

Excellent observation.

I just watched The Doomsday Machine again and noticed that Scotty ist leaving the main room by the sliding door behind Decker’ s control desk and showing up in the side room 2 seconds later. There must have been an access from the corridor nearby on the USS Constellation that would be missing on the 3rd season’s Enterprise due to a set decoration malfunction.

 

[Mytran]

I just watched The Doomsday Machine again and noticed that Scotty is leaving the main room by the sliding door behind Decker’ s control desk and showing up in the side room 2 seconds later. There must have been an access from the corridor nearby on the USS Constellation that would be missing on the 3rd season’s Enterprise or is just out of view because it is simply behind the curved corridor.

That's my thinking as well. I suspect that the corridor in TWTE was put together quickly to meet the requirements of the scene, with no time or need to consider the side room access.
Another access point for Auxiliary Control was seen in And The Children Shall Lead when a child enters from the "top" of the side room

If the screens are fixed in place and access to the side room exists from the corridor, then you would have to follow one of these two routes

Neither looks terribly convenient; no wonder Commodore Decker insisted on an extra door being built on the USS Constellation!

Some further thoughts from your earlier post:

...there is no slide construction to be seen in The Changeling, the grill on the left side of the pilar being just missing

Good point, although "seemless" mechanisms do appear to pop up now and again in the Trek universe - especially around the turbolifts!
As an alternative, maybe the door retracts vertically - all that would be needed is a storage pocket tucked into the deck above (or not, if AC was located on a taller engineering deck)

The red grill that we often see on the Enterprise - corridors, machine room, Emergency Manual Monitor - is always a fixed wall.

In The Conscience Of The King Spock and McCoy walk past a pair of mesh screens in the corridor. You are correct that the mesh screens are normally depicted as static, but in this episode there's a red rectangle attached to one side which looks sort of like a locking clasp, as if one or both of the screens were mobile in some way, perhaps hinged?

No firm conclusions either way, just food for thought

 

[Koloth TOS]

That's my thinking as well. I suspect that the corridor in TWTE was put together quickly to meet the requirements of the scene, with no time or need to consider the side room access.
Another access point for Auxiliary Control was seen in And The Children Shall Lead when a child enters from the "top" of the side room

If the screens are fixed in place and access to the side room exists from the corridor, then you would have to follow one of these two routes

Neither looks terribly convenient; no wonder Commodore Decker insisted on an extra door being built on the USS Constellation!

Some further thoughts from your earlier post:
Good point, although "seemless" mechanisms do appear to pop up now and again in the Trek universe - especially around the turbolifts!
As an alternative, maybe the door retracts vertically - all that would be needed is a storage pocket tucked into the deck above (or not, if AC was located on a taller engineering deck)

In The Conscience Of The King Spock and McCoy walk past a pair of mesh screens in the corridor. You are correct that the mesh screens are normally depicted as static, but in this episode there's a red rectangle attached to one side which looks sort of like a locking clasp, as if one or both of the screens were mobile in some way, perhaps hinged?

No firm conclusions either way, just food for thought

Excellent observations, well documented!!!!
I am building part of the Auxiliary control in 1:6 scale for my QMx figures (and hopefully the Exo-6 TOS figures to come) and am lucky enough that the access problem doesn't concern my construction: I will have two mesh screens with no direct access to the side room being consitently a back drop.
BTW I love the red mesh screens very much!!!

 

[yotsuya]

Considering the security we see in I, Mudd and the Way to Eden, I don't think a secondary access to that area makes sense. I think a sliding mesh (which is similar to a door in thickness) is the most logical design explanation. My assumption for interpreting the sets is that sometimes they let necessity dictate how they navigate for acting purposes. TOS was quite full of small continuity issues and ironing out the set and ship related ones is one of my goals. I consider the security of Aux Control and the single door we see in the Way to Eden to be the definitive requirements for designing how that room exists in the ship vs. how the set was constructed. Or sets I should say since in one episode we see the other side of the room. I leave it to you to interpreted it as you see fit, but for my purposes, a sliding grille makes the most sense.

 

[Koloth TOS]

In The Doomsday Machine Scotty is leaving the Auxiliary Control room to enter the side room 2 seconds later from the right side. Trekcore doesn't show the photo where he is entering from the right side and I do not know how to post a video clip of the scene.

So there must be a door, see the violet arrow below.

This does not answer the question why, in TWTE Kirk, Spock and Scotty are trying to enter Aux by the bulkhead rather than accessing from the side room where there would only be a mesh (and probably even a sliding one).

 

[137th Gebirg]

I wonder if the whole scene is available on YouTube. I can't check behind my workplace's rather fussy firewall.

 

[blssdwlf]

In The Doomsday Machine Scotty is leaving the Auxiliary Control room to enter the side room 2 seconds later from the right side. Trekcore doesn't show the photo where he is entering from the right side and I do not know how to post a video clip of the scene.



So there must be a door, see the violet arrow below.

Yeah, in "The Doomsday Machine" we are not shown the corridor outside the Aux control room and given how quickly (uncut) Scotty goes there then a door or access point must be where the violet arrow is in order to access that section. The Constellation's layout can be different than the Enterprise's layout.

This does not answer the question why, in TWTE Kirk, Spock and Scotty are trying to enter Aux by the bulkhead rather than accessing from the side room where there would only be a mesh (and probably even a sliding one).

I would imagine Sevrin locked out the access to the side room which would suggest that there is a door into the side room. IMHO

 

[blssdwlf]

I wonder if the whole scene is available on YouTube. I can't check behind my workplace's rather fussy firewall.

I found this on YT. For Doomsday Machine where Scotty walks to the side room.. At the 1:40 mark

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[Koloth TOS]

Yes, that's the scene. Given that Scotty is going right away to the engeneering console room without searching any entrance I suppose the Constellation is the same construction as the Enterprise.

 

[Mytran]

Yes, that's the scene. Given that Scotty is going right away to the engeneering console room without searching any entrance I suppose the Constellation is the same construction as the Enterprise.

Well the whole repair crew came into AC via the corridor so they would have seen beforehand if there was an extra door there or not.
Also, there's a couple of busted pipes outside the (presumably) sliding mesh screen which may have made access difficult, so Scotty just took the easier route

A final possibility is that there used to be a side-room access door on both the Constellation AND the Enterprise, but a Starfleet security audit which was done some time prior to TWTE identified this as a weakness and had it boarded over.
I'm sure Kirk had a few choice words for the auditor after they got locked out in TWTE!

 

[blssdwlf]

Well the whole repair crew came into AC via the corridor so they would have seen beforehand if there was an extra door there or not.
Also, there's a couple of busted pipes outside the (presumably) sliding mesh screen which may have made access difficult, so Scotty just took the easier route

A final possibility is that there used to be a side-room access door on both the Constellation AND the Enterprise, but a Starfleet security audit which was done some time prior to TWTE identified this as a weakness and had it boarded over.
I'm sure Kirk had a few choice words for the auditor after they got locked out in TWTE!

Hmm... the Constellation's side room must be different than the floorplan you have as there is no wall that sticks out next to the console.

 

[Mytran]

Hmm... the Constellation's side room must be different than the floorplan you have as there is no wall that sticks out next to the console.

You are correct in that during the ACR's first appearances, the wall behind the console was clearly depicted as flat on both sides:

The wall to the right extends a fair distance which I think would clash with the corridor set which was built for TWTE.
Accordingly, by the time the side room appeared in TWTE this wall had been modified, presumably to better fit. This is what I think @feek61 based his diagrams on:

All this will require me to redraw my proposed secondary entrance, assuming the two versions of the set are even compatible(!)

 

[yotsuya]

Based on the security and based on the screen wall not always being there, a sliding screen is the simplest and most logical solution. The Constellation can have a different layout. What we see on Enterprise seems to not have a door in that location either inside Aux Control or outside in the corridor. And the one portion of the screen is occasionally absent.

Here is my season 2/3 set plan with Aux Control drawn as I see it.

 

[Mytran]

Based on the security and based on the screen wall not always being there, a sliding screen is the simplest and most logical solution. The Constellation can have a different layout. What we see on Enterprise seems to not have a door in that location either inside Aux Control or outside in the corridor. And the one portion of the screen is occasionally absent.

Given that the only time we see someone entering the side room from the corridor is on the USS Constellation, I think that's probably the fairest compromise (without massively rebuilding the corridor in between episodes!)
Starships are allowed to have internal differences after all.

In The Changeling we don't see the wall to the right of the large console at all.
However, in ATCSL we do and it is flat just like TDM, not the angled form which would turn up in TWTE

Given that there's more than half a season between the two episodes, I am happy to theorise that a new hi-energy conduit got installed in the side room, requiring some wall panels to cover it up

 

[Koloth TOS]

Based on the security and based on the screen wall not always being there, a sliding screen is the simplest and most logical solution. The Constellation can have a different layout. What we see on Enterprise seems to not have a door in that location either inside Aux Control or outside in the corridor. And the one portion of the screen is occasionally absent.

Here is my season 2/3 set plan with Aux Control drawn as I see it.

Interesting theory, however, does it explain the appearance of the child in the side room in ATCSL?

 

[Koloth TOS]

You are correct in that during the ACR's first appearances, the wall behind the console was clearly depicted as flat on both sides:

The wall to the right extends a fair distance which I think would clash with the corridor set which was built for TWTE.
Accordingly, by the time the side room appeared in TWTE this wall had been modified, presumably to better fit. This is what I think TOSGRAPHICS based his diagrams on:

All this will require me to redraw my proposed secondary entrance, assuming the two versions of the set are even compatible(!)

The first photo (top left) from what episode is it?

 

[publiusr]

Auxiliary Control Room

Anyone know what that gizmo on the wall is meant to be? Looks like an egg box.
It only appears once in TOS S3 "And The Children Shall Lead".

Photo Courtesy of Trekcore.com

They ever have a Leggs egg box? too early?

 

[Mytran]

The first photo (top left) from what episode is it?

The one with the missing mesh screen? The Changeling

 

[Koloth TOS]

The one with the missing mesh screen? The Changeling

Oh yes! I forgot, Kirk was in the "gold" command shirt, not in the green wrap around.