FalTorPan,
The "Day of the Dove", at the least, is the nail in the coffin that at least a particular version of "Engineering" and the tube room are in the primary hull...
Not necessarily.
I did say a
particular version of Engineering. To me this was a simple, canon, counter-argument to several somewhat overly definitive statements from different sources. As to the article, its a highly valuable reference that I've read several times before [did you want me to review the whole thing and posts my conclusions here or where you just jogging my memory?]. I do notice that neither Engineering article seems to have a photo of the curved ceiling off to the side near the entrance to the set.
My position is that there are inconsistencies with all the suggested locations for the "Engineering Set". Secondly, there are inconsistencies between the canon references that would give us clues, spoken or visual to its location. The supplemental materials that we each study also point us in very different directions. Further, whether or not the M/AM reactor is present in the Engineering Set at all times during the series, is to me at least, still an open matter of debate yet to be definitively resolved. As of course you already know, Engineering is the most chameleon-like and therefore problematical of all the standing TOS sets, changing every few episodes, sometimes radically (
http://trekplace.com/article14.html -- please, I beg you, continue the article!!!). Whether it is ever meant to be a single room or not is an open question, and one that if answered in the negative would solve a number of high-level discrepancies.
Or, to put it another way: On Monday and Tuesday I believe Main Engineering is on the impulse engine deck, on Wednesday and Thursday I believe its behind the hanger bay, on Friday and Saturday I believe its roughly in the TMP location, and on Sunday I believe that they keep using the transporter to move it to an undisclosed location.
+++++++++
Dave,
Actually in that episode you can absolutely take the script's included lines (like lower decks) as hyperbole because we were provided with a diagram of what areas of the ship were cut off from what other areas... and areas of the secondary hull were shown to be accessible.
For the most part (seeing the thread on the mass of 1701) we agree on Canonicity. We reject the George Lucas "Golden Rule" model (whoever owns the franchise currently makes the rules) that allows retconning the past on a whim. I think we both believe that Star Trek Canonicity should be based on precedence (what came first) not novelty (who showed up today, and how much damage can they do before they move on to another show). And we both agree that for the initial episodes of Trek, when they hadn't yet gotten their sea-legs, need to be handled with special care... and the occasional grain of salt.
This isn't one of these shows. They have their sea legs. The Engineering set has been built. The writer's guide seems to indicate its probably in the primary hull (the alternative being that we never, ever, see Scotty where the main engineering controls and engineering headquarters really are). My golden rule of Trek Canonicity is overall consistency. I'm not going to say, "the diagram contradicts the script, so the script is wrong" or vice-versa. If in a given show there are contradictory answers given to a technical question I'm going to try to compare across shows, and any other supplemental materials, and try to determine what is the consistent answer. And yes, my response in this case was blunt, a definitive contradiction to a definitive statement. I was just demonstrating its not always as simple as it would seem.
Besides, Jefferies' pressure compartments are the skeleton around which the meat of my deck plans are based. So that is one third season episode I'm for keeping!
As to the diagram. Its very interesting. My first question would be, "Is it made specifically for this episode, or is it a stock Jefferiesogram (to coin a phrase)?" Secondly, the diagram doesn't seem to make much sense to me (being topologically challenged), in terms of how pressure compartments would be organized, is what it is depicting a logical way that most of the ship would/could be sealed off by emergency bulkheads? The next issue does the diagram realistically depict a condition where 90% of the crew would be locked out of the core pressure areas? My final question would be if Jefferies knew the script was going to say Deck X is the last accessible one, why would he come up with this diagram showing Deck Y instead?
Overall, my own research has been heading in the direction that Jefferies has different answers to a given question at different points in time. This continuum begins before the series was filmed, occurs during its production run, and seems to last at least until Phase II. Readers of my thread will find this topic being explored in the near future. This is not an expected or welcome discovery on my part, I prefer my Trek to be highly consistent, preferably agreeing with the work of other Treknologists. I have no interest in defending any particular answer except in terms of overal consistency with The Original Series. I'll be glad to supplement any answers derived from the televised episodes with compatible alternative sources (TAS, Phase II, TMP, etc.) but I personally am interested in minimizing retconning, and not doing it backwards in time, or based solely on external sources. But that's just me.
+++++++++
Praetor,
We might want to creatively reinterpret 'TMoST's references to engineering headquarters at the rear of the saucer meaning engineering headquarters for the saucer only.
I'm all for creative projects, but not in the middle of trying to figure the Canon out from raw data -- i.e., I'm not there yet. But that's just me.
But I think FJ's configuration for engineering just doesn't work. There isn't enough room for it to stretch as far as it does, with the saucer undercurve taken into account. If we pretend engineering is narrow, it might barely fit in the neck, but I really doubt it. I have never tried it, but I wonder how well the engineering set would fit if moved upward to allow ceiling clearance in the radiator-type element atop the saucer? Somehow, I don't think it wold work any better.
Perhaps the issue is Photobucket resizing my images (which I've yet had time to correct), but I've dealt with that AFAIK, and made a reference for people to check it out. If I'm in error, please let me know, but this seems to be indicating that my work is wrong but not giving a basis for that conclusion. By "my work" I of course mean my mangling of Alan Sinclair's work and FJ. To my eyeball, it appears that FJ's version of "Impulse" Engineering fits, and that the undercut gets somewhat "happy" with the corridor outside (the scan of FJ isn't exactly easy to read, especially after correcting the orientation). Since the corridor was curved outside the Engineering set, that's equally a problem for a secondary hull arrangement, so neither has the "right" corridor. [Don't even get me started on TMP Engineering.] In any case, I have a strong hunch that there is some sort of engineering facility located in close proximity to the impulse engines. If the issue is that the Engineering Set is larger than FJ's depiction, I'm willing to accept that, but it would be nice to have a plan of the set with actual measurements or estimates from plans. If (hypothetically speaking) our sources lead us to believe that the Engineering Set is located there -- but we don't have quite enough room for it -- it would make more sense to me to slightly decrease the undercut (freeing the needed space) than it would be to move an entire two story room to another part of the set because of the undercut's interference. Others may disagree.
'I've never trusted Engineers, and I never will. I could never forgive them for the death of my Spock.'
+++++++++
Cary,
Whether the power GENERATION occurs there or not is debatable, but that's almost trivial, I think. This facility isn't where you perform the main repairs on broken hardware, it's where you CONTROL the propulsion systems from and monitor their condition. So technically, this COULD be anywhere.
Which, I believe, was the basis of the depiction given in the text of the writer's guide, as handed down to us by TMoST, whatever its origin. Whether it was from MJ or not, and whether it was right or wrong.
[Imagine a Federal Express commercial clone:]
"Communications are down, you're running the ship by courier through those ladder tubes and gangways, how far away do you want the main engineering controls from the bridge? What are you going to do? WHAT are you going to do?"
And, yes, there would be backup command and engineering controls in the secondary hull, as TMoST depicts the "stardrive" section as being capable of independent operation.
+++++++++
Maybe your thinking of 'The Best of Trek #7' and the article 'Bi-axial warp pods-The "New" Warp Drive' by Philip Davies? He speculated that the Primary hull had a small "double helix" warp coil running around the perimeter of the primary hull and tied into the impulse engines via the dilithium crystal chamber, synchronized (hence FJ's "synchrotron unit") with the main warp drives' "circumfrential" coils in the nacelles?
FJ meant this to be part of the impulse engine, not a warp feature. Kind of like grabbing on to "Space/Matter Sink" and ending up with a Bussard Collector.
^^ I'm puting a plug in here for Whorfin's thread over in the tech forum, hes doing some really cool stuff over there, but nobody has seemed to notice?
Thank you for your kind words. You are now hired as my
PR man, you earn one credit a day for pitches, and 100 credits gets you a Tribble (40 some years of inflation man, sorry). Quatloos can be arranged, but the exchange rate will kill you.
+++++++++
33" long winded post:
http://www.trekbbs.com/showpost.php?p=2698949&postcount=7