How big were TWOK's "cargo bays" Khan spoke of?

[Xerxes1979]

Terrel originally thought that structures were remains of a crashed ship, implying that the structure was not fabricated on the surface of the planet.

These modules must have been atleast the size of a bus. What I want to know is did the Enterprise have sufficient internal volume to account for these cargo bays?

I rather like the look of the cargo pallet system in TMP, but those box shaped containers where much smaller than the freight car sized containers in TWOK.

Was the Khan encampment built on site or floated down from the original Enterprise via anti-grav?

 

[F. King Daniel]

I thought they were the Botany Bay's cargo containers - hence "SS Botany Bay" being written on the seat belt (?) strap.

 

[Dukhat]

I thought they were the Botany Bay's cargo containers - hence "SS Botany Bay" being written on the seat belt (?) strap.

Mike Okuda specifically stated that they were cargo containers from the Enterprise. They were just filled with the Botany Bay's stuff.

Now granted, the internal volume of the containers we saw in the movie seems to be a bit larger than your average cargo container:

http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/_...en/images/c/cf/Work_Bee_with_cargo_crates.jpg

...but that was probably fudged for the movie's sake. I remember a picture in Starlog magazine showing the cast and crew in front of the exterior of the cargo containers on Ceti Alpha V, and they looked like the above pic.

 

[F. King Daniel]

IIRC, Mike Okuda didn't have a thing to do with STII. And more to the point, why would they go back to the Bontany Bay and fit the seatbelts/cargo straps from that ship to an Enterprise cargo container?

The Botany Bay was designed with detachable cargo modules. I always assumed it was one of them.

 

[Dukhat]

IIRC, Mike Okuda didn't have a thing to do with STII.

He might have possessed background information that you and I don't have. I'm sure he can correct me if I'm wrong. Quite frankly, if anyone has that Starlog pic I referenced, you'd be able to tell right away that they're cargo containers as seen in TMP.

*EDIT* Here's a pic I found from a trading card (sorry it's so small):

http://www.wixiban.com/images/roddenberry/11-16.jpg

Compare this pic to the pic from my previous post. You can clearly see the clamps on the tops of the containers, and the port in front where a workbee would go.

And more to the point, why would they go back to the Bontany Bay and fit the seatbelts/cargo straps from that ship to an Enterprise cargo container?

So that Chekov could conveniently find something with the ship's name written on it?

The Botany Bay was designed with detachable cargo modules. I always assumed it was one of them.

Was it ever canonically stated that that wrap-around piece underneath that submarine hull were cargo containers?

 

[DrBashir]

According to this screencap they had a maximum capcity of 42.5 cubic meters.

http://db.tt/CsfF2xjn

 

[22 Stars]

Why would a cargo container have seatbelts at all? Who is riding around in a cargo container?

As has been stated, the cargo containers built for ST II were designed from the miniature linked to above from TMP.

 

[Dukhat]

Why would a cargo container have seatbelts at all? Who is riding around in a cargo container?

The seatbelts were not from the cargo containers. They were from the Botany Bay. And who knows why they were taken from that ship? Souvenirs?

 

[UssGlenn]

Logically, they recovered the Botany Bay and took it apart to give Khan and his followers the maximum amount of raw material to use to survive. This was supplemented by supplies and cargo from the Enterprise. There would be lots of crossover of material as they built stuff.

 

[22 Stars]

Why would a cargo container have seatbelts at all? Who is riding around in a cargo container?

The seatbelts were not from the cargo containers. They were from the Botany Bay. And who knows why they were taken from that ship? Souvenirs?

Oh I agree, i was speaking to people who thought they were Botany Bay cargo containers with built in seatbelts

 

[Timo]

TOS-R sort of puts this to rest by explicitly showing how the Botany Bay is abandoned in space, cargo containers (or whatever those five remaining wedges out of an apparent maximum of 16 are - fuel tanks, perhaps?) and all, long before the action moves to Ceti Alpha.

Kirk probably wouldn't bother to go back to that ship just to get Khan some survival goods that the Enterprise could easily provide herself. And Khan doesn't appear to have all that much stuff down on the planet anyway. Quite possibly, just a few crates of Khan's personal belongings, books and the like, were beamed from Botany Bay to Enterprise while the two ships were flying in formation, either by Kirk or then later by Khan. And perhaps a few of those were strapped together with belts containing the originating ship's name.

Alternately, those containers being hauled around by workbees in ST:TMP are in fact an old model, its standardization going back all the way to the 1990s, and thus the Botany Bay happened to have some aboard, too. Many of the cargo straps inside the containers seem to serve no function other than hanging from appropriate fixtures - sort of suggesting they are scenery coming with the rusty walls, rather than vital items carefully removed from the Botany Bay and installed here for a purpose.

The size issue is IMHO easily fudged. The containers offer standing height here:

http://movies.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/tmp2/tmphd0391.jpg

And the ones in which Khan lives are obviously "double-enders", with two curved walls, as per the above picture featuring the wall stenciling. If the interior height is still a tad too much to be plausible (it's about twice the ST:TMP height!), we can argue that Khan removed the bottoms of the containers and placed the tops on solid stone foundations, and the floor we (fail to) see is actually in a pit.

Or then the containers simply come in a variety of sizes. Added height wouldn't inconvenience the workbees hauling these things, nor would it affect the stacking of the containers on the floor of a starship cargo hold, or on assorted other flatbeds. It would simply make the higher containers incompatible with the fancy wall sockets, but that may be of little concern overall.

Also, at least some bits of the containers did explicitly come from Starfleet, as per this pic...

http://movies.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/twokhd/twokhd0214.jpg

But the piece Khan is using as a door here need not necessarily be related to the containers themselves; apparently, the piece is a later add-on.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Timo]

Oh, and forgot about this...

Was the Khan encampment built on site or floated down from the original Enterprise via anti-grav?

Let's look at this one again (thanks, Dukhat, it's a gem!):

http://www.wixiban.com/images/roddenberry/11-16.jpg

We appear to be looking at three double-ender containers here, with the workbee "train" backbone still attached. If the containers were brought down via cargo transporter, the backbone probably wouldn't be there. So apparently we are to assume that a workbee with the cargo train can land on a Class M planet to deliver its load.

It need not have been a particularly soft landing - the aftmost container appears to have broken off and sits at an angle. Still, the ability to get down is a surprising one, as both the bees and the cargo clusters have the appearance of strict zero-gee hardware. Even the flimsy-looking shuttlecraft have more elements we can interpret as powerful lifting engines or other gravity-defying devices. And the workbee itself would apparently have been capable of lifting off again, as it's missing here (and if it did have that capacity, Kirk would surely have insisted on taking it away from Khan!).

...Perhaps the cargo train backbone was just a convenient place for fixing a big parachute? Those are still used in STXI, despite the existence of antigrav tech, so they might be a valid way of deploying Khan's huts, too. The less high tech he gets, the better.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Dukhat]

Oh, and forgot about this...

Was the Khan encampment built on site or floated down from the original Enterprise via anti-grav?

Let's look at this one again (thanks, Dukhat, it's a gem!):

http://www.wixiban.com/images/roddenberry/11-16.jpg

We appear to be looking at three double-ender containers here, with the workbee "train" backbone still attached. If the containers were brought down via cargo transporter, the backbone probably wouldn't be there. So apparently we are to assume that a workbee with the cargo train can land on a Class M planet to deliver its load.

It need not have been a particularly soft landing - the aftmost container appears to have broken off and sits at an angle. Still, the ability to get down is a surprising one, as both the bees and the cargo clusters have the appearance of strict zero-gee hardware. Even the flimsy-looking shuttlecraft have more elements we can interpret as powerful lifting engines or other gravity-defying devices. And the workbee itself would apparently have been capable of lifting off again, as it's missing here (and if it did have that capacity, Kirk would surely have insisted on taking it away from Khan!).

...Perhaps the cargo train backbone was just a convenient place for fixing a big parachute? Those are still used in STXI, despite the existence of antigrav tech, so they might be a valid way of deploying Khan's huts, too. The less high tech he gets, the better.

Timo Saloniemi

Thanks Timo. As you well know, I'm pretty good at finding pics of obscure ships

However, I'm still trying to find a bigger pic, and so far no luck. I distinctly remember a photograph in Starlog showing the containers; although I originally thought it was the backdrop of a cast/crew photo, but the only pic like that has the Genesis cave in the background. Maybe someone has this trading card they could scan?

 

[SeerSGB]

We know what Khans says: That all they had were the cargo pods, but it is possible that Kirk dropped a full pre-fab "starter kit" (tents, the 23rd version of a Quonset huts, basic tools) and when things went to shit the cargo pods were all that survived to provide protection.

As for a reason to go grab the Botany Bay: Brig. Having Khan on board is risky, he nearly took the ship and killed Kirk. He swings back, grabs the Botany, beams Khan and co over to the ship (after knocking out the engines) and impulse tows the ship back to Ceti Alpha V.

 

[Dukhat]

I'm pretty sure the Botany Bay was not on Ceti Alpha V. If it was, don't you think everyone would be living in it instead of some small cargo containers?

 

[SeerSGB]

I'm pretty sure the Botany Bay was not on Ceti Alpha V. If it was, don't you think everyone would be living in it instead of some small cargo containers?

Depends on how much of the ship Kirk let 'em keep. He'd probably strip the hull of engines and communications tech. Figure they get to keep any personal effects that wouldn't help them arrange a rescue. So most likely any parts of the Botany would be limited to a few bits and pieces here and there with the rest of the bulk burned up in the planet's atmo or torpedoed. In the end there would probably be next to nothing of the ship left.

 

[Timo]

As for a reason to go grab the Botany Bay: Brig. Having Khan on board is risky, he nearly took the ship and killed Kirk. He swings back, grabs the Botany, beams Khan and co over to the ship (after knocking out the engines) and impulse tows the ship back to Ceti Alpha V.

OTOH, depending on the astrography of the situation, going back for the Botany Bay might merely add to the time Kirk has to keep Khan and his eighty-something cohorts in the brigs of the Enterprise!

Generally speaking, giving a power-hungry villain his own hardware back is not a smart move. It's a bit like capturing a Klingon assassin and deciding his convict coveralls and cuffs aren't secure enough - and putting him back in his old clothes after removing the holster for the obvious sidearm. There's bound to be at least seventeen concealed weapons there!

Timo Saloniemi

 

[SeerSGB]

As for a reason to go grab the Botany Bay: Brig. Having Khan on board is risky, he nearly took the ship and killed Kirk. He swings back, grabs the Botany, beams Khan and co over to the ship (after knocking out the engines) and impulse tows the ship back to Ceti Alpha V.

OTOH, depending on the astrography of the situation, going back for the Botany Bay might merely add to the time Kirk has to keep Khan and his eighty-something cohorts in the brigs of the Enterprise!

Generally speaking, giving a power-hungry villain his own hardware back is not a smart move. It's a bit like capturing a Klingon assassin and deciding his convict coveralls and cuffs aren't secure enough - and putting him back in his old clothes after removing the holster for the obvious sidearm. There's bound to be at least seventeen concealed weapons there!

Timo Saloniemi

This is true. But I didn't get the impression that the Botany was much more than a cargo ship, not much of a threat. If nothing else, there was probably equipment or surplus that they could scavenge to keep from depleting the Enterprise's stores.

 

[DrBashir]

Botany Bay must have had some sort of supplies onboard. Even Khan would need materials to build a home on a new planet. He just got supplemented by the Enterprise. Cargo carriers instead of tents, etc.

I'd imagine that only Starfleet personnel went back aboard the Botany Bay and everything was throughly checked before it was sent down to Ceti Alpha V. The rest of the ship was probably towed to a Starfleet facility and the historians went over it with a fine toothed comb. It's probably in a museum now that Khan and his followers are dead.

 

[jayrath]

IIRC, Mike Okuda didn't have a thing to do with STII. And more to the point, why would they go back to the Bontany Bay and fit the seatbelts/cargo straps from that ship to an Enterprise cargo container?

The Botany Bay was designed with detachable cargo modules. I always assumed it was one of them.

Agreed. Strongly.