Wow…. To be honest, I never even considered this… but I have to say, it’s a very convincing argument. I grew up with the FJD blueprints and just sort of assumed he had inside knowledge. My tiny little mind is blown!
Some great camera tricks
- Thread starter ZapBrannigan
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Yeah, he made up a ton of stuff out of the blue. I cherish the TM my parents bought me half a century ago, and FJ's works are fun -- a lot of fun -- but they are no more authoritative than a novel or comic book or video game or squirt gun. Trek merch had apallingly low standards for its licensees back then, although the TM and blueprints were certainly better than the average cash grab.
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Well, Franz Joseph made up some things (his flag designs were so good, some were later screen-used). But he followed The Making of Star Trek (1968) for every decision that the text would touch upon. He devoured that book.
One example is on page 171 (first page of Chapter 2), which says that headquarters for the engineering division, plus main engineering control facilities, are located at the aft end of the primary hull, by the impulse engines. This page also mentions that the saucer is eleven decks thick through the middle, which FJ followed.
The book was at least canon-adjacent, coming straight from the source. But I do see this mismatch between it and the arched "ceiling" of the Engine Room set.
Still better than bright white lens flares everywhere you look, because the JJ bridge lights seemed to be mounted on the consoles and aimed sideways into people's faces.
dozens, just aimed straight at the crewmen. the little ball lights, the gooseneck lamps which are maybe intended to be a reference to the monitors in early tos, the lights between the screens that look like they are meant to be controls, plus the lighting in the actual controls... would be a pain to do normal operations.
not actually too bad of a bridge, if you tone all of that down (this pic the ball lights aren't on, and it's instantly more tolerable), and then also don't film in such a way as to deliberately add distracting visual aberrations...
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I am guessing that the “powers that be” didn’t facilitate him chatting to any of the production team as they were just looking to capitalize on the fan desire for content. If my assumption is correct, it’s amazing that he tried to do the most accurate job he could given the limitations.
The original Tech Manual was published in 1975, so it was begun after the series ended. There was no "production team" to chat with anymore and no "powers that be" to allow him the access. Everyone went off to other jobs. FJ used TMoST as his authority and I can imagine if anyone talked to him, it was Roddenberry. And probably for a cut of the book sales 
Yep, Christmas 1975; I had just turned 12 and the TM was my favorite gift. I devoured it, and loved it for the most part, although I was weirded out by some things I knew were just plain wrong or so wildly speculative that they didn't feel in-universe.
But oh man, that terrific cover! Unlike the majority of fandom merchandise that has to splash the property name and trademark symbols everywhere, the TM tried its darnedest to look in-universe once you removed the cardboard slipsheet. They even made it feel like a contemporary of the Table of Comets seen in Balance of Terror. I still appreciate that detail to this day, and this book continues to look great on my shelf right next to my TOS props.
Thanks Mom and Dad; rest in peace.
But oh man, that terrific cover! Unlike the majority of fandom merchandise that has to splash the property name and trademark symbols everywhere, the TM tried its darnedest to look in-universe once you removed the cardboard slipsheet. They even made it feel like a contemporary of the Table of Comets seen in Balance of Terror. I still appreciate that detail to this day, and this book continues to look great on my shelf right next to my TOS props.
Thanks Mom and Dad; rest in peace.
And I believe the curvature radius of the partial ceiling was meant to fit the smaller, 500-foot-length "real" Enterprise, before the ship's size and crew complement were roughly doubled.
The ship was scaled up by the time they put windows on the models, and the engine room set wasn't built until the series was well into production.
I maintain that there were two engine rooms.
I see the mismatch, too, but there are just too many clues in the plotting of various episodes for me to ignore. Perhaps in "The Ultimate Computer," it made more sense for the M5 to be installed in the secondary hull engine room, although IIRC the ep itself doesn’t show the ceiling so we can't be sure.
Wasn't that intended to be a forced perspective set (much like the TMP engine room)? They just stopped shooting it that way, right?
Ackshyually, it does!
Images courtesy of TrekCore.
Cool! I sorta had a feeling I was going to be insta-corrected on that, but let the record reflect that I had the absolute, sterling, Karagite Order of Heroism-level amount of bravery to post anyway.
The record so reflects. And thanks ... you gave me an excuse to go spelunking for more ceiling shots.
So, if it looks like photos above (arched ceiling), then it is in the secondary hull. Right?
I also note that the engine room (labelled: engineering section) is off a long curved corridor with access to this deck thru a turbolift door that is on the sidewall of the corridor (not on the end of the corridor). Could this engine room be in the saucer?
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So, if it looks like photos above (arched ceiling), then it is in the secondary hull. Right?
I also note that the engine room (labelled: engineering section) is off a long curved corridor with access to this deck thru a turbolift door that is on the sidewall of the corridor (not on the end of the corridor). Could this engine room be in the saucer?
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My other prediction, now showing (absolutely nothing like) Grankite Order of Tactics-level ability for knowing your own limitations as well as claiming predictions after the things allegedly foreseen already to came to pass, was that another far more diligent poster would come along with photographic evidence to support my theory on the one hand while providing an internal contradiction on the other.
Perhaps you or one of our modelers will confirm that you can have the arched ceiling in a saucer-based engine room! (Not assigning homework, just guessing!) Most of my clues on the topic come from plotting and dialogue—to take a few examples from memory only, the two Exeter engine room shots in "The Omega Glory"; the strong suggestion that both Evil Kirk and Finney knew to go to (warp/secondary hull) Engineering to elude a mass search, which really doesn’t work with a saucer-based room; "Day of the Dove" painstakingly (and awesomely) laying out the tactical situation and implying that the Klingons seized something in the saucer, not the secondary hull; Scotty not seeming to climb alllll the way up from the secondary hull to the area near Auxiliary Control on the Constellation in "The Doomsday Machine"; and (one of my favorite ideas that I came up with long ago, not to say that others didn't too) the lack of incapacitated Khan followers lying around engineering when Khan and Kirk have their battle in "Space Seed," suggesting to me that Spock flooded the saucer room where they were (and where Khan tried to hail them unsuccessfully) but Khan closed the line to secondary hull engineering, then headed there to sabotage the warp engines.
Like more than one transporter room, two engine rooms is a concept I took first from FJ (I believe) that dovetailed with what I always assumed as a kid when watching initially/early, so I went with it. There are always solid counterarguments and anyone else's MMV.
I have previously suggested as many as 5 engine rooms.
One in the saucer, which would make sense for some FJSTM ships that don't have a secondary hull.
Two in the secondary hull (One connecting the orange pipes to the deflector dish, the other connecting the pipes to the nacelles)
One in each nacelle (because the Nacelle Control Room in TNG looks more like the TOS room than the main engineering set does in that show)
This goes to my idea that the secondary hull is a "glorified nacelle," being much like an engine nacelle, but with much more facilities and better equipment. I think I may have gotten the idea from the fact that the pipe structure and deflector dish were all orange like the ends of the nacelles, and that in some versions of the ship, the ends of the nacelles could have communications devices in the nacelle spikes. Since many of the orange parts are later blue in the movies, and still match it seemed to make sense to me.
One in the saucer, which would make sense for some FJSTM ships that don't have a secondary hull.
Two in the secondary hull (One connecting the orange pipes to the deflector dish, the other connecting the pipes to the nacelles)
One in each nacelle (because the Nacelle Control Room in TNG looks more like the TOS room than the main engineering set does in that show)
This goes to my idea that the secondary hull is a "glorified nacelle," being much like an engine nacelle, but with much more facilities and better equipment. I think I may have gotten the idea from the fact that the pipe structure and deflector dish were all orange like the ends of the nacelles, and that in some versions of the ship, the ends of the nacelles could have communications devices in the nacelle spikes. Since many of the orange parts are later blue in the movies, and still match it seemed to make sense to me.
In "The Apple," when the ship is being dragged down by Vaal's tractor beam, Kirk tells Scotty "Jettison the nacelles and crack out of there with the main section if you have to."
This line makes sense only if the secondary hull can be referred to, at least loosely, as a nacelle. If Scotty just jettisons the overhead warp engines, then the sec. hull would be dead weight for the impulse engines to haul, and the ship would have shed only its biggest propulsion units.
Whatever you name the secondary hull, it is a tubular casing attached to the saucer by a pylon, and that's what a nacelle is. The only difference is, there are people in this casing.
This is interesting. Although I assumed that the phrase "discard/jettison the warp drive nacelles," would have to refer to what is later called a "saucer separation," and thus include the secondary hull, I was not thinking about the fact that it means the secondary hull would be included in "the warp drive nacelles."
This may have been discussed before, but is the term "nacelle" used in "The Savage Curtain" or "By Any Other Name," one where separation is discussed and the other where catastrophic explosion is discussed when positive energy is suggested to be combined with anti-matter? In that episode, the idea that the Kelvan's find tampering within the ship would help support the idea the engineering hull is a "glorified nacelle."
I was thinking of the fact that CPT Christopher refers to ship ship as having "two cylindrical projections on top, one below." Apparently he was only describing the additional modules, and his superiors just assumed it was a flying saucer?
