• Welcome! The TrekBBS is the number one place to chat about Star Trek with like-minded fans.
    If you are not already a member then please register an account and join in the discussion!

Unseen TOS....

You can just make your original point again or address my rebuttal. The fact is, no giant alien ship in TOS or TAS was ever portrayed with nacelles. Size was used to show advanced technology. Every ship similar in size to Enterprise was shown with nacelles. Similar size was shown to infer similar technology. You can choose to conflate the two, but you are then debating yourself and not what I wrote. :)

Fesarius' cube probe was of similar size to Enterprise but had no nacelles. Fesarius' small ship had no nacelles. Same size or smaller ships having advanced technology and no nacelles. Why does size need to equate technology?

Again, Botany Bay was designed without nacelles for Space Seed because it was meant to fulfill the requirements of a script saying it was launched from a launch pad 25 years after the show was being broadcast and when the United States was using rockets and not ships with nacelles. The SFX from Space Seed were reused for economy’s sake, not because they fulfilled the needs of the script. How do we know this? Because we are told as much, and that even the DY-500 is considered ancient and barely recognizable by the time of TOS, while the ship in Ultimate Computer is described as an ore freighter that has been fully automated with modern technology. Even if we are to believe the original ore ship was a 1996 Earth-launched, pre-Zefram Cochrane transport, nothing was done to portray the changes stated in the script. It by all appearances is still a simple, atomic powered, transport capable of travel within the inner Solar System. So, it doesn’t have nacelles because the SFX were reused, and/or the needs of the script - portraying it as utterly helpless and incapable of escaping - wouldn’t have demanded it have warp drive. :)

Again, I agreed that Botany Bay didn't need nacelles because it was primitive ship according to the script. And since a descendant of it is in operation in "The Ultimate Computer" without nacelles it would tell us that not all ships need nacelles in TOS.

I put the image there for people to decide for themselves whether it is a definite shape as you claim, or a blob that can be read any number of ways. Your eyes may see it as a definite shape, but if it were meant to be a definite shape, I’m pretty sure a model would have been built and not a knife scratching some film stock. :)

Even blobs can be recreated in detail, if you're willing to pay attention. :)

“Why must ships have nacelles?” Since I am discussing Jefferies opinions, I will let the man speak for himself.

“I felt that if he was going to get this sort of fantastic performance out of the thing, there would have to be very powerful engines of some kind or other, even to the point they might be dangerous to be around. I said, "Well, we better get ‘em away from the main hull." The other thing is what we called during war a Quick Change Unit. By having the engines out there, if anything is wrong, you can just quickly unhook it and put another in its place.”

This was his thinking. There was an aircraft logic to why the ships were designed the way they were, and if an alien was being shown to be on an even keel with Starfleet - and not so powerful it could destroy the Enterprise with a mere nod and a breath - it would be portrayed with similar logic. If it wasn’t, unnecessary questions about capability would be raised in a viewer’s mind, and the job of a production designer is to help visualize the story being told. This might not comport with your thinking, but you have the luxury of not having to visualize the story for others. You just have to imagine it for yourself, in anyway that makes sense to you. I don’t think that is what Warped9 is trying to achieve here - to make a story make sense to you. He is, if I understand him correctly, trying to visualize what Matt Jefferies, with his job description, would have done had he had more time and money.

Which is excellent thinking for Jefferies regarding non-alien ships like the Enterprise. What does he say for alien ships since alien ships in season 1 have no nacelles unless the script required it?

Why do you keep insisting on substituting your own preferences for what he is trying to do, when he has already said what he is trying to do? :)

Probably the same reason why you're responding to my observations about the Season 1 ships. If Warped9 really was trying to not be influenced by future stuff then it should be a simple and honest assessment of what shown up to that point in Season 1 of TOS rather than making up excuses for why almost every alien ship had no nacelles up that point. Still, I've said many times before, just design for the future battlecruiser as we already have thoughts from Jefferies regarding this and don't pretend to arrive to where MJ was thinking. YMMV :)
 
The Romulan was an alien ship built for humanoid aliens and it had nacelles. Why should the Klingons be different?

If Jefferies was thinking of nacelles when he designed the D7 a year or two later then it’s not a stretch to envision him doing something similar when “Errand of Mercy” was made.
 
“Fesarius' cube probe was of similar size to Enterprise but had no nacelles. Fesarius' small ship had no nacelles. Same size or smaller ships having advanced technology and no nacelles. Why does size need to equate technology?”

Clearly shown and stated to have advanced technology.

“Even blobs can be recreated in detail, if you're willing to pay attention.”

Your eyes may see it as a definite shape, but if it were meant to be a definite shape, I’m pretty sure a model would have been built and not a knife scratching some film stock.

“What does he say for alien ships since alien ships in season 1 have no nacelles unless the script required it?”

He is describing the principles behind why he designed it the way he did, which would apply to anything using similar technology.

“…rather than making up excuses for why almost every alien ship had no nacelles up that point.”

No need for anybody to make up any excuses. Jefferies was following the scripts.


:)
 
The Romulan was an alien ship built for humanoid aliens and it had nacelles. Why should the Klingons be different?

Shouldn't the Fesarius, Fesarius' small ship and Lazarus' ship also have nacelles as they were alien ships built for humanoid aliens? Aridas already pointed out that the Romulans had nacelles because the script originally had them stealing or copying Starfleet tech. Why should the Klingons be the same as the Romulans?

If Jefferies was thinking of nacelles when he designed the D7 a year or two later then it’s not a stretch to envision him doing something similar when “Errand of Mercy” was made.

As I said before, lean into his future thinking with the D7 since you already have it. So yes! Envision what he would've done 2 seasons earlier with that future knowledge because without that it would be just as easy an in-line with TOS to have no nacelles when you look at all the other ships that were produced for Season 1. :techman:
 
Debatable whether they were FLT or not in The Tholian Web, but the Tholian ships didn't have nacelles (until they did when reused in The Way To Eden...). :)
 
Debatable whether they were FLT or not in The Tholian Web, but the Tholian ships didn't have nacelles (until they did when reused in The Way To Eden...). :)

Right. Season 3 gave us the nacelle-less Tholian ship, the nacelled Aurora, the nacelle-less Eymorg ship, the nacelled Klingon Battlecruiser and the "Romulans using Klingon design" nacelled battlecruiser. A 40% chance for a nacelle-less ship appearance.
 
Actually if you really look at the original Eyemorg ship it does have nacelles, or what could be interpreted as nacelles. The original design for the Eyemorg ship is actually rather cool as it plays with the iconic sci-fi rocketship shape. And it’s perfectly in keeping with the TOS look whereas the TOS-R looks nothing like what they would have designed back in the day.

When I eventually get to the third season I plan on only tweaking the original Eyemorg design.
 
Actually if you really look at the original Eyemorg ship it does have nacelles, or what could be interpreted as nacelles. The original design for the Eyemorg ship is actually rather cool as it plays with the iconic sci-fi rocketship shape. And it’s perfectly in keeping with the TOS look whereas the TOS-R looks nothing like what they would have designed back in the day.

When Kirk calls for a magnification of the Eymorg ship we can clearly see that those 4 protrusions are part of the fuselage and not external to it so by definition they are not nacelles. I do agree that it is a cool, old-school style ship.

PkKZ9Cx.png
 
I think the Eymorg (sp?) ship could be said to have warp pods or warp drive units, even though by strict definition they may not qualify as "nacelles". DS9's Defiant also had WD pods built into the hull, even though it's generally accepted that these were intended to be the warp drive units. As for what MJ might have been thinking when using the design for the Eymorg ship, his Leif Ericson design has similar features -as far as the "pods" being close to the body go- and these were in all probability what inspired the DS9 Defiant design. Apparently, the Eymorg have FTL technology slightly ahead of the Federation/Star Fleet.
 
Last edited:
Looks like they could be nacelles to me.


Your drawing of the Eymorg ship has a clear separation from the fuselage and those would be nacelles. But for what was built and show in the episode they are not nacelles because the front portion is very much a part of the fuselage.

PkKZ9Cx.png
 
@BK613 - Yeah, they are more like Fairings than Nacelles on the actual vehicle. I would've agreed with Nacelles from the side view if it were not for the close-up from the front showing that they are actually part of the fuselage like a fairing.
 
It has to be beautiful...the one for TOS-R...ehhh.

Cosmostrator or Declaration type ringship for the Eymorg would have been great.

A small ringship just for one...she being in the sphere to the side of the nose...it becoming transparent as she approached---and BAM!

How'd she get...##!
 
Starting to work out the warp “power pods” last night just as the sniffles and nasal drip started. Joy… I can’t recall having had a cold in at least two years.
 
Last edited:
I don’t think there is any episode of TOS where the script makes it clearer Kirk is dealing with more technologically advanced beings. The whole awe and wonder about the Eymorg ion propulsion is as specific as anyone could get that these are not engines like Enterprise’s. Why in the world anyone would expect to see nacelles on such a model baffles me. As I have said over and over and over, nacelles portray a similar level of technology. People can go on half cock, trying to prove some misguided point about there being no nacelles on ships, by mentioning ships on which nacelles would make no sense in the context of the story. I hope anyone reading this thread sees that for what it is - pointless argumentativeness. This conversation was about whether Klingons - who were portrayed from the start as being a technologically similar and thus viable adversary for the Enterprise - should have had nacelles on any ship designed for “Errand of Mercy”. Klingons were not said to be far more advanced. They were strongly inferred to be of similar capabilities. That is totally different than the Eymorg, who baffled Kirk et al with their capabilities.

The design should follow the script. It should visualize what the writers wrote, to help the viewer understand the story.
 
If you are not already a member then please register an account and join in the discussion!

Sign up / Register


Back
Top