Deck Plans VI: The Undiscovered Bowling Alley

It is funny... if I wouldn't let Probert, Sternbach or Okuda convince me that a square peg fit in a round hole, why should I give them any more weight here?

If they want to see TOS as an Irwin Allen production... that is fine.

That said, what's with the screwed up facts being thrown about? If you guys can't argue from what is actually known then what is the point? If you have to tweak the facts, then you must not think too much of your position.

For example... the Bridge set is to scale with the bridge on both models and the original plans (finished on November 7, 1964). When was the bridge set build? First day of shooting on the Bridge set was November 30, 1964, and all the pieces were wild at that point as the studio where it was assembled wasn't where it finally ended up in the series. When was it assembled at the studio? That is most likely when the lift was moved.

So why is anyone around here talking like the 540 length was still around in November? It wasn't. The only reason markings from the earlier plans made it onto the models is that all the marks on the model came from the earlier plans... the final model construction plans had no hull markings on them!

None of this is rocket science!

So what if Jefferies wanted it forward... he wasn't in a position to argue the point. He didn't want windows on the Enterprise... he wasn't in a position to argue the point. In 1964 he was happy to have a JOB. If the people above him wanted to screw up his design work... he didn't care as long as they kept cutting him a pay check.

So what if everyone and their mother thought the Bridge faced forward... it wasn't rotated enough to matter! It isn't as if they were a full 1/4 to port, it was less than 1/10 off from forward. That is still forward enough that nothing on screen (and no amount of belief of those acting on the show) make any real difference.

If you want the turbo lift out in empty space... fine. If you want to lower the Bridge to deck 5... fine. But the history of what happen shouldn't suffer just so you guys can fight a pointless battle.

We've gotten a ton of data (data which, I might add, Probert, Sternbach or Okuda all had access to long before us to do something with and DIDN'T) which has helped fill in a ton of blanks about the Fall and Winter of 1964... lets not throw all our newly acquired data to the wind just so that you can win a religious debate.

Call each other names, name drop all you want, make it a full on knock-down, drag-out fight... but the history should not be misrepresented by either side. It has taken nearly 45 years for us (outsiders) to fill in the blanks, so please keep it as something above the fray.

 

This is what happens when you miss staff meetings.

I'd like to restate for the record that notion of the bridge being rotated didn't enter into the broader picture until FJ did his deck plans (there's no accounting for random individuals coming up to this conclusion on their own). As far as those on the show were concerned, it faced forward, and that was the end of it. If there was an apparent discrepancy between the set and the model, that was our problem, not theirs.

 

Honestly, the set has the lift to one side, and the model doesn't. I'd like to put it in straight, but it looks like it doesn't go that way.

Though what Shaw says above would seem to turn the hose on this idea, I had been under the impression that the bridge was designed while the ship was 540' to fit within the "B-C" deck area, and what eventually became the bridge dome was originally meant to be the hull surrounding the uppermost cornice level of the bridge set. In this scenario, the bridge graphics would have been made to the 540' figure as well, would seem make the "Hull Pressure Compartment" diagram and the display next to the turbolift both be displaying a true deck by deck cross-section of the ship rather than an information display of the larger regions of the ship. In that case, the lift could fit comfortably in the teardrop without needing to turn any particular direction.

--Alex

 

The bridge graphic does seem to reflect the smaller scale, with half as many decks as we know it would have to have at the larger scale. But even here, close inspection shows that the bridge dome is a distinct one level feature (in red) from the lower superstructure (in orange) which here contains only one level instead of two.

 

There is nothing "distinct" about this....

 

Helps if you are looking at the right graphic...

Click to enlarge​

 

The question is, which one is the "right one"?

For that matter, can we really say if any of them are "the right one"?

 

Sorry, sometimes I give you too much credit... I would have thought that the sentence you pulled "distinct" out of was enough...

 

The point is, none of those schematics even agree with each other, never mind either of the miniatures, so relying on them for anything but the most basic information is dicey at best, and probably a complete waste of time.

 

Actually, a square peg does fit in a round hole... if it's small enough.

I'm not sure what data you're talking about that we didn't "do something with". Could you expand on that one?

Meanwhile, it occurs to me that DECK-5 is, in TOS, where the officers' quarters are. Their (presumably) outer bulkheads are slanted outward at the overhead to (seemingly) match the saucer rim. In the F/J plans, those are labeled decks 6 & 7. However, if the bridge was lowered a bit, sandwiched between sensors above & other hardware below, and designated as "Deck-1", then Deck-5 would be the first deck in the saucer rim, matching the sets.

Yeah, it's kind of a dumb work-a-round, but one I could live with. True enough, inertia dampeners would compensate for an off-axis bridge orientation, but let's face it, whoever built that miniature just didn't think it through or the T/L housing would have been set on the port side a bit to make it all 'work',... but back then, it was "just a TV show". (Boy, if I had a nickle for every time I heard that one...)

Besides, maybe that cylindrical detail is actually the 'Ion Pod' in which Ben Finney was trapped in Season One's "Court Martial".

Andrew-

 

You have to appreciate the simple elegance of FJ's solution though. A 36º rotation to port that really doesn't contradict anything on screen and yet doesn't introduce any new contradictions.

Exactly. Heck, I didn't even know the nub existed until I owned TMOST; that kind of detail wasn't visible on my parent's TV.

 

Well, I was being facetious in the reference to deck 5, but it would solve your square peg in a round hole problem.

But I didn't think that fit mattered to you... or at least that was the impression I got from your "all bridges face forward" post.

But lets play does it fit?

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Now, assuming that these measurements are accurate, the 33 inch model's bridge (started in early November of 1964) is smaller than the 11 foot pilot bridge (started in December of 1964), and I've generally assumed that that bridge set was assembled in the middle of November 1964 (about two weeks before shooting started). It would be great if we had Jefferies original bridge floor plan to work with, and maybe someday we will. But the bridges on the models seems to have increased in size from the 33 inch model to the 11 foot one over the course of a month between their construction.

Make of all that what you will. I'm of the impression that Jefferies didn't debate this stuff too much as (like you pointed out) it was "just a show" (or more importantly not even a show, but a pilot). But at the same time, this stuff matches up nearly as nicely as your work... maybe we should extend Jefferies a little credit too.

But to be quite frank... I don't care if people want their bridges facing forward. It doesn't really matter to me, and if people like CRA need help with coming up with a solution, I'll help. I only joined in when I started seeing some elements of the history being misrepresented, and that was all I cared about.

As for the data you guys had access to... I'm assuming you knew Jefferies. I'm assuming you knew Justman. I see a lot of name dropping done saying I asked them and they said "_______" (fill in the blank). I never got that opportunity, and now with regards to many of those people who were there, I never will.

I scraped for every little bit of data I've come up with... and shared it. And I'm envious of those who had first hand access and either didn't ask or never shared those people's histories.

But don't get me wrong... if you believe the TOS bridge only works facing absolutely forward, more power to ya.

 

Please review my post #252 in this thread. And, traditionally (logically), bridges do all face forward. In fact, every Star Trek bridge does face forward with the possible exception of the TOS bridge.

Indeed, Matt was a great Futurist. I had the advantage of hindsight, the ability (and privilege) of standing on his shoulders. He was the originator of Trek's look,... I was merely one designer of several who've followed.

I did know Bob Justman but never had the honor of meeting Matt.

Your facts, figures, and logic are noteworthy but asking a Producer's history is too presumptive. Bob would, of course, reminisce and explain various production tidbits from his days on TOS and other shows but I don't have a lot of information beyond that regarding his 'history'. I share what is relevant from what I remember. It would have been nice to have learned more, but production time didn't allow for that kind of exchange.

Frankly, I never think about it when watching the show.

If you have the inclination, however, I would be interested in seeing how that TOS bridge fits in a side elevation if it were eight feet lower and three feet forward of it's current position on the FJ plans.

Anybody out there willing to put this together as a CG model?

Andrew-

 

Drat. There goes my afternoon. (I think I have a TOS bridge around here somewhere.)

Are eight feet and three feet ballpark guesses?

 

I'm sorry to hear that... I had hoped that you had some contact with Jefferies during TMP (the transition from Phase II to TMP at least).

MGagen did a nice analysis a few years ago (which included a side view) of the interior with the 11 foot pilot bridge exterior... but as I recall he used the McMaster's plans which are about 15% larger than Jefferies set plans (and the smaller plans obviously give more room for alternate arrangements).

I'll see if I can find his work... I don't think he would mind if we added it to the discussion.

Working from what we have of Jefferies' work, we have this side view of a console with call-outs clear enough to reconstruct them (I just haven't gotten around to it yet).

​

 

Ok, I found my bridge (gosh, I got further than I thought I did...) and dug up my now venerable Enterprise.

Hmmm. I'm working off the McMaster plans. 15% larger you say? I don't think I'd heard this before.

 

Well, to be fair CRA, My post on this to Albertese was only related to the early 540 ft. ship, which these diagrams seem to represent, scale wise anyway. So naturally, a comparison w/the models in this case is beside the point. And the two diagrams do match up pretty well, deck wise, with each other anyway, except the plan view of the saucer, which isn't relevant to the point that was under discussion here anyway. And since each diagram was intended to convey different information, we wouldn't expect them to be exactly the same, so complaining that they don't agree is also beside the point. What is very much the point is that both diagrams agree in the relevant cross section of the uppermost decks, and in the case of the T/L position display the dome is high-lighted in red, indicating "you are here", and so even in these early diagrams, the dome was intended to be the bridge, not the superstructure below, which at this scale, only had one deck. In any case, since all this amounts to is "the most basic information" I think we can safely assume it was time well spent, so I hope this answers your criticisms?

 

Still nothing in those diagrams to contradict the notion of the bridge being slightly lowered, especially since the deck breakdowns aren't even close to the final version of the ship.

Y'know, this might be a good time to reintroduce some of my doodles.

Basically, here's the concept of where the bridge sat at the time of the pilots...



And, with the refit prior to "The Corbomite Maneuver", it all fits together like this...



And before anyone jumps on that "turboshaft" callout, that's an earlier version of the cross-section, and that callout is an error that hadn't been corrected yet. With the loss of that computer, I'm having to cover a lot of old territory.

 

To-MAY-toe. To-MAH-toe. Let's call the whole thing off.

 

CRA, agreed on what you say above. Couple of questions though? I glanced over your cross section and didn't see a scale, is this the 947 ft. length, or slightly larger? I know these are preliminary "doodles" as you say, but the reason I ask (and maybe Shaw can help us out here ) is, that seeing this brings up the one remaining reservation I have about the "pilot dome is large enough" compromise, which is, (and I'm not just nitpicking here) since this makes it apear as if there's room for another deck (or bridge?) in the dome, and your design -to work- requires putting the bridge at the 'bottom' of the dome, how do you account for the intervening space? My point is, since "The Cage" zoom in shot is the Holy seen onscreen "proof" of how things should be in this regard, doesn't it show that the bridge is the tippy-top most deck, directly below the glowy "sensor array"? If there's room for another deck in the dome, shouldn't it be below the bridge, housing the circular briefing room, or whatever, and this would also answer your earlier question to me about why the T/L shaft would rise so far up on the dome? Like I said, I'm not trying to pick on ya, I'm just curious if you'd given this any thought?