But we know better now, don't we? 
Another fan attempt at TOS deck plans
- Thread starter Shaw
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Well, not to belabor the point too far (I hope), but it could be argued that FJ's plans based on Whitfield's book aren't so much in "error", but rather the "error", if you choose to call it that, was on the part of the script writers and editors being unable or unwilling to follow T.M.O.S.T. as the guide for them it was intended to be. We're all accustomed now to the long standing "canon" idea that what was seen or heard onscreen is "official", and that's fine as far as it goes, but consider this, Whitfield's interior arrangement was very logical and practical and may have been (and probably was) based on discussions with GR and MJ? Of course we'll never know for sure, since there's no one left to ask (is Whitfield still alive?) and I know this doesn't change the fact that the filmed elements are as they are, but they do contradict themselves as well as T.M.O.S.T. and one can still pick and choose, since there never was a "real" starship for comparison. So, I doubt FJ would have changed much that he did, even if he had at his disposal, all the info we have at ours? My own take on this is to disregard "throwaway lines" as to what's where or on what deck, for the most part, since I've been able to "retro fit" all the sets seen in TOS into FJ's plans without too much difficulty, and seeing is believing and a picture is worth a thousand words etc. etc. So I'm satisfied FJ's plans work just fine, even while I still enjoy others ideas on the subject, such as Shaw's excellent work here.
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Well, as long as it is understood that I'm not attempting to replace FJ's work. But it should be pointed out that he most likely wouldn't have spent too much time hunting through the shows even if he had video taped versions... he didn't like Star Trek (he was a Lost in Space fan), and all this was done both for his daughter and to show the quality that could be done (but wasn't being done) by Trek fans of the earlier 70s.
The main argument that has been put forward since the FJ plans and manual came out was that the show was wrong, FJ was right. And as a kid studying the plans and manual, I sat through episode after episode correcting what I saw on screen. But why?
As I said before, I'm not taking this project to be in any way, shape or form to be an Irwin Allen Production. This is a test to see if what we saw on screen will actually work. If you built the Enterprise to these plans and re-filmed all of the episodes, could you do it without having to change much of what we saw?
For most of my life I was under the impression that the first real attempt to figure this stuff out was done by FJ... now, I'm pretty sure that a lot of that work was done by MJ during the extended preproduction that Star Trek had because the first pilot wasn't picked up.
Star Trek was truly unique and the fact that people lump it in with other 60s series from Irwin Allen makes it easy to dismiss a ton of thought and hard work that went into making this show internally consistent enough that even technically advanced audiences of today can enjoy the stories.
But the point is internal consistency. And I think that there is a lot more than a Lost in Space fan like FJ had given Trek credit for. FJ had some great ideas, but I really do question how much respect he actually had for MJ and the rest of the Trek staff throughout his life. Both the technical manual and the blueprints were more to show off his abilities (and they are amazing) than to accurately document the show.
While I'm glad that you guys all like my abilities, the goal here is to document Star Trek with as little compromised as possible.
The main argument that has been put forward since the FJ plans and manual came out was that the show was wrong, FJ was right. And as a kid studying the plans and manual, I sat through episode after episode correcting what I saw on screen. But why?
As I said before, I'm not taking this project to be in any way, shape or form to be an Irwin Allen Production. This is a test to see if what we saw on screen will actually work. If you built the Enterprise to these plans and re-filmed all of the episodes, could you do it without having to change much of what we saw?
For most of my life I was under the impression that the first real attempt to figure this stuff out was done by FJ... now, I'm pretty sure that a lot of that work was done by MJ during the extended preproduction that Star Trek had because the first pilot wasn't picked up.
Star Trek was truly unique and the fact that people lump it in with other 60s series from Irwin Allen makes it easy to dismiss a ton of thought and hard work that went into making this show internally consistent enough that even technically advanced audiences of today can enjoy the stories.
But the point is internal consistency. And I think that there is a lot more than a Lost in Space fan like FJ had given Trek credit for. FJ had some great ideas, but I really do question how much respect he actually had for MJ and the rest of the Trek staff throughout his life. Both the technical manual and the blueprints were more to show off his abilities (and they are amazing) than to accurately document the show.
While I'm glad that you guys all like my abilities, the goal here is to document Star Trek with as little compromised as possible.
I know he said he didn't like Star Trek in the interviews, but that was never my impression. I think he was sensitive to the way the work would be taken, and particularly to its potential to stimulate young minds to think about the implications of some of the things raised in his work or in the shows, if what he did was dismissed as the prattling of some fan of a TV show.
After all, he obtained hundreds of film clips from the show. Having done the same, I can say that is the way we used to do what we later did with video tape, and now do with screencaps, etc.
After all, he obtained hundreds of film clips from the show. Having done the same, I can say that is the way we used to do what we later did with video tape, and now do with screencaps, etc.
Well, there's always going to be the matter of the bridge...
I wanted to share this next set of images as it is how I'm looking at the primary hull. It is rather quick and dirty, but I think it conveys a lot of information.
What is shown here are the outer hull curves of each deck (generally both the top and bottom curves of the deck), the hull pressure compartments, and a gradient running from a dark gray to white to point out decreasing head room (with white areas generally being the height of the average sets seen on the series). I think that I've provided enough additional references of how large the sets are in relation to all of these decks, so to keep this image as clear as possible I've omitted any reference to them.
So the idea is to take what we know we've seen, and within the general spaces shown above and any references from the show, fit it all together.
I know I've said this before, but I consider cross sections to be quite deceptive in visualizing the actual space available. So to help with that, a lot of floor plans can better illustrate the amount of space we are talking about.
For people who must have a forward facing bridge (or the world collapses around them), they are free to pull their view of Trek into the Irwin Allen Universe. The solution to that issue sits right next to the third deck of the Jupiter 2 along side the Pod and the Chariot.
But in this thread... if it fits, it works. And the bridge as built fits in the model as built, so it works for me.
What is shown here are the outer hull curves of each deck (generally both the top and bottom curves of the deck), the hull pressure compartments, and a gradient running from a dark gray to white to point out decreasing head room (with white areas generally being the height of the average sets seen on the series). I think that I've provided enough additional references of how large the sets are in relation to all of these decks, so to keep this image as clear as possible I've omitted any reference to them.
So the idea is to take what we know we've seen, and within the general spaces shown above and any references from the show, fit it all together.
I know I've said this before, but I consider cross sections to be quite deceptive in visualizing the actual space available. So to help with that, a lot of floor plans can better illustrate the amount of space we are talking about.
Well, not in these plans.
For people who must have a forward facing bridge (or the world collapses around them), they are free to pull their view of Trek into the Irwin Allen Universe. The solution to that issue sits right next to the third deck of the Jupiter 2 along side the Pod and the Chariot.
But in this thread... if it fits, it works. And the bridge as built fits in the model as built, so it works for me.
I just noticed this, and I have to demur. I have made my reputation on this BBS, such as it is, as a proponent of the "Matt Jefferies thought this stuff out reeeaaal well" school of thinking. And yet, I know fully well that Franz Joseph had no such lack of respect for Jefferies. He met the man, and they shared a love of aviation. I think that he believed that the deck-by-deck description in TMoST was gospel and that he needed to fit those decks in a ship shaped like the one seen on the show. He did it by being a little loose with the outward configuration. Jefferies himself was much, much looser with his own work when confronting a similar task in Phase II.
The right way to do this is to go back, as I did and Shaw is now doing, and retrace the mental process Jefferies went through to come to the description of the ship he ended up with. He calls small spaces "decks" in order to get the number of decks he ends up with, and has an offset bridge to get a filmable set to mesh with a symmetrical model. And it works. It might not have been a process immediately understandable to FJ, who no doubt had been told by Jefferies that the latter would do it differently if given the chance. (And who might have taken Jefferies' comments as carte blanche to be a little loose with things.) But that in no way should be taken to mean he disrespected Jefferies. In fact, everything I know would indicate quite, quite the opposite.
I think it's also helpful to keep in mind that, while MJ might have thought things through quite well at the begining, the show moved on in ways that he had no control over. much of the techno-babble about what was in the ship and where may not reflect how he would have prefered it to be. I see the big 'E' as a mosaic of many different artists and authors ideas, and if documentation is the name of the game, then document it all controdictions and mistakes included. As for FJ's work, while Star Trek may not have beeen his personal cup of tea, I think he did respect the technical aspects of it, as he said as much in interviews, and I think he wanted his work to honor what MJ had done previously. As for the idea that FJ was "right" and the show was "wrong", I don't think so, I never got that impression, there really is no right or wrong in situations like this. The most that could be said is that FJ's plans probably represent the way the ship would really have been built, whereas the show had to capitulate to the demands of a dramatic production, such as budget, lighting, available space etc. Look at it this way, as was mentioned a few posts up, when we see a Polaris sub or the aircraft carrier Enterprise in movies or TV, they don't acually look like they do in real life, many things are changed for many reasons, so even if there were a "real" starship Enterprise, the show couldn't duplicate the real thing in every detail.
FJ's plans represent Constitution, not Enterprise. Any discrepancies can be dismissed as the variations that invariably arise during the construction of such ships as well as modifications between the prototype and the production models.
Or something like that.
Or something like that.
If you think I've overlooked something... point it out. What we saw gets used, what we didn't gets dropped... including the forth wall missing from three wall sets and the like. And yeah, I'll be putting together all the different versions of the engine room, which you can mix and match at will.
But there is nothing stopping anyone from doing this type of thing on their own... and better than I.
I happen to think that a lot of stuff has been overlooked because we have assumed others have already weeded that information out for us. I looked that the Trek Encyclopedia and see that they deferred to FJ on a lot of stuff (including much of the deck layout for the original Enterprise). What I don't see is people asking the questions that we would have asked had people not attempted to fill in blanks that weren't really blank.
For example, what Star Fleet ships were we exposed to in TOS? There are a bunch of lists going around, but they all seem to reference someone else's list.
What did we see? What did we hear?
Known ships:
U.S.S. Constellation NCC-1017 (Doomsday Machine)
U.S.S. Carolina (Friday's Child)
U.S.S. Defiant (Tholian Web)
U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701
U.S.S. Excalibur (Ultimate Computer)
U.S.S. Exeter (Omega Glory)
U.S.S. Farragut (Obsession)
U.S.S. Hood (Ultimate Computer)
U.S.S. Intrepid (Court Martial, Immunity Syndrome)
U.S.S. Lexington (Ultimate Computer)
U.S.S. Potemkin (Ultimate Computer)
U.S.S. Republic NCC-1371 (Court Martial)
U.S.S. Valiant (A Taste of Armageddon)
U.S.S. Yorktown (Obsession)
And we had some additional NCC numbers which have been creatively matched up with ship names (some of which never made it to screen). Now why is it that this type of information isn't just presented raw? What we usually get is information interpreted for us, but it would be nice if we could make the interpretations ourselves.U.S.S. Carolina (Friday's Child)
U.S.S. Defiant (Tholian Web)
U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701
U.S.S. Excalibur (Ultimate Computer)
U.S.S. Exeter (Omega Glory)
U.S.S. Farragut (Obsession)
U.S.S. Hood (Ultimate Computer)
U.S.S. Intrepid (Court Martial, Immunity Syndrome)
U.S.S. Lexington (Ultimate Computer)
U.S.S. Potemkin (Ultimate Computer)
U.S.S. Republic NCC-1371 (Court Martial)
U.S.S. Valiant (A Taste of Armageddon)
U.S.S. Yorktown (Obsession)
On the subject of what FJ felt or didn't feel about Trek and it's creators, he made public statements and that is the best I can go on as most of the parties are no longer with us. Most of what I've talked about was during the period of FJ making the blueprints and manual and are based on his own accounts. What did he feel at other times? I don't know, a lot of time past between about 1975 and when these people left us. Just about anything could have happened... none of which makes all that much difference here as this is about the set plans, diagrams, stuff seen on screen, and the model (the 11 foot model).
I'm not writing the biography of any of these people, just seeing if the pieces we have fit together... And so far they seem to.
Most of your cutaways seem to be based on the pressure comp. diagram, are you going to use MJ's cutaway from T.M.O.S.T.? I know it was never seen onscreen but it is the masters original work after all, and it was seen in a TAS ep. which gives it at least semi-canonicity.
Good point... but I couldn't remember off hand if those were actually U.S.S. ships... I would assume Archon and Horizon are though.
And here I thought I had made it clear that it was one of the foundations of my cross section back on page one of this thread.
But as I've pointed out (many times now) a cross section actually reveals very little about the nature of the rest of the deck layout. Even on the most accurate cross sections, you only get information about what is along the center line of the ship... and the original Jefferies TOS cross section isn't even that accurate.
So yeah, I've used it to back up the Phase II cross section for deck heights, approximate placement of vertical turboshafts, size of the hangar deck... but I'm not sure that much else can be used than what I've taken already, and I only used what could be matched up nice with the very accurate Phase II cross section (which wasn't prettied up for the writers).
Is there some information there that you think I've missed? And how does anything along the center line effect my use of the hull pressure compartments in arranging anything off center?
I'll post this image (again) for anyone else who may have forgotten it (or not seen it) from more than a month ago...
Yeah, I vaguely recalled seeing T.M.O.S.T.'s diagram, but my point is, it seems you're going more with the phase two variant than the orginal? And come on, it isn't that difficult to extrapolate the rest of the decks from a centerline cutaway, it seems you've set yourself a much harder task in extrapolating from the pressure compartment diagram which is even more inacurate in terms of scale, being based on a ship half the size, with half as many decks as the Enterprise we've come to know? It would make just as much sense to say the ship is really that small and we've all been wrong lo these many years? It seems you're still 'filling in the blanks' to account for the Press. Comps. on those decks not included in the original diagram, it seems far less extrapolation is required to simply go with the T.M.O.S.T. diagram as a starting point? Don't get me wrong, as I've said many times, I like what your doing here, there's much food for thought, but I just don't see how you can say the T.M.O.S.T. diagram is one of the foundations of your cross section, when virtually nothing from it is used? So again, I think it's fair to ask, are you going to include any other elements from T.M.O.S.T.'s diagam such as placement/spaceing of hallways, 'A' frame doors, sensor/deflector machinary, stair cases, etc.?
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The hull pressure compartment diagram is only inaccurate if we assume that every deck is a single compartment... I don't (I generally consider each compartment to be two levels high). In fact I would go as far to say that each compartment would have been built as a unit and later assembled into the final sections of the ship (this is how ships are assembled today, and seems efficient enough to think it would be the same going forward in time).
But as for using anything else of that cross section beyond what I have listed to date... no. Now if what I am using is by your definition virtually nothing, there isn't much I can do about that. I considered what I was using as most of what was there. And think that rather than arguing semantics, you could provide us with a clear illustration of what you think is virtually everything that I missed.
As for the 'A' frame doorways... I'm assuming that that is what it looks like when crossing from one pressure hull to the next. So for any corridors that cross the center line of the ship and a pressure compartment boundary, yes, there will be an associated 'A' frame doorway on the final cross section.
Now if we look at a very early example of layout ideas I had for decks 1-6...
... if you look along the center of each, any time a corridor crosses both the center line and compartment boundary, put an 'A' frame doorway on the cross section.
And remember, no one is stopping anyone (even you) from attempting this your way. This, after all, is in the end my way.
Assuming for the sake of this thread that these ships would be Constitution Class Starships, USS Valiant (A Taste Of Armageddon) should not be on the list. (It was lost at Eminiar 7 over 50 years before the TOS episode, and therefore most probably not a Constitution Class Starship.) USS Archon (The Return Of The Archons) should be discounted for a similar reason. (It was lost at Beta 3 about 100 years before the TOS episode.) USS Archon and USS Valiant were indeed Federation Starships (and would have the USS prefix), but they would have been older designs than the Constitution.
The Antares (Charlie X) was not a Starship. In his log (at the beginning of the episode), Captain Kirk called it "Cargo Vessel Antares."
In the TNG episode "Relics" the TOS Enterprise was actually confirmed as Constitution Class, therefore USS Constitution should be on the list.
In the TOS episode "Tomorrow Is Yesterday" Captain Kirk and Captain Christopher were discussing the Enterprise in the turbolift. Captain Kirk stated, "There are only twelve like it in the Fleet." Since no Starships had yet been listed as lost or destroyed (in the series), this indicates that there were 13 Constitution Class Starships.
The ships that are confirmed as Constitution Class...
USS Constellation NCC-1017 (The Doomsday Machine)
USS Constitution - Class Ship
USS Defiant (The Tholian Web)
USS Enterprise NCC-1701
USS Excalibur (The Ultimate Computer)
USS Exeter (The Omega Glory)
USS Hood (The Ultimate Computer)
USS Lexington (The Ultimate Computer)
USS Potemkin (The Ultimate Computer)
The ships that are only mentioned in TOS episodes...
USS Carolina (Friday's Child)
USS Farragut (Obsession)
USS Intrepid (Court Martial, The Immunity Syndrome)
USS Republic NCC-1371 (Court Martial)
USS Yorktown (Obsession)
If one of these needs to be eliminated from the list, the most likely candidate is USS Carolina. If the Klingons were using it for a fake distress signal, I believe it would be more effective to select a vessel that was smaller and less capable than a Constitution Class Starship.
If we go by the remastered version of "The Doomsday Machine", yeah, Constellation appears to be a Constitution class ship, and we're back to trying to wrap our heads around the wacky registry number.
Go by the original version, with the AMT model, then we have a case for an earlier, albeit similar, unnamed starship class, which most likely includes the Valiant and the Republic (and if you go by Riker's recitation of the Yamato's registry of NCC-1305-E, a USS Yamato NCC-1305 in that early ship class).
Go by the original version, with the AMT model, then we have a case for an earlier, albeit similar, unnamed starship class, which most likely includes the Valiant and the Republic (and if you go by Riker's recitation of the Yamato's registry of NCC-1305-E, a USS Yamato NCC-1305 in that early ship class).
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Not to veer too far off topic, but was anything other than an "Enterprise-like-ship" (including variations like the Constellation) ever referred to as a "Starship"? On the show that word had a very specific connotation as to what the Enterprise was (Bread and Circuses, Enterprise Incident, Ultimate Computer to name a few). Just curious if anyone has done an exhaustive and fan-like list of ships called and NOT called Starships. Not sure which list Republic is on.
BTW, the idea that Stone's ship chart in Court Martial was ALL Starships still makes my skin crawl. CRAWL, I tell you!
BTW, the idea that Stone's ship chart in Court Martial was ALL Starships still makes my skin crawl. CRAWL, I tell you!
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