TOS Nacelles

[CorporalCaptain]

^ Yeah, and notice that when I said that was the "right approach" I was also agreeing with the idea that there would still be room for reasonable disagreement on whether the call of something being a mistake is the right one.

And this is exactly why production notes might be important, as they might [if they exist] shed light on why the number changed from 12 to 5.

My guess is that it's just one of the things that fell through the cracks. I'm perfectly comfortable with the idea that the Enterprise from the early episodes just ends up existing in a slightly different reality than she was in all later episodes. This is a far more realistic approach than proposing convoluted explanations for all the inconsistencies.

Yeah, it was actually 12. http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Constitution_class_decks. TMoST does not mention deck 12.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

What about Yeoman Rand's cabin then? (Seems a bit far away for his personal assistant.)

They used to be next door, but Rand caught Kirk phasering peepholes into the walls.

I copied this from my earlier notes that I referenced at the beginning of the thread. In the notes below, there is evidence for antimatter in the nacelles and a central reactor. I try to use the least amount of Retcons to tie it all together and borrow heavily from ideas that Tin_Man, Mytran and Albertese have put forth. As always, YMMV

Personal Theory (updated with regeneration theory):

The TOS Enterprise is mainly powered by dilithium crystals that are re-charged by it's matter/antimatter reactor system containing 3 reactor cores. The central M/AM reactor core charges the dilithium crystals which generates ("regenerates") antimatter fuel and simultaneously stores energy to be used to power ship's systems through the energizers. The regenerated AM is pumped to fuel the M/AM engines in the nacelles to generate the space warp. Unused M/AM fuel in the nacelles are stored there in temporary fuel pods and excess fuel is pumped back to the main fuel areas in the engineering hull.

It can be explained that all three reactor cores aren't involved in every episode. In "That Which Survives", Losira's sabotage of the engineering hull's M/AM core was enough to have a runaway ship. In "The Savage Curtain", the "red zone" alert could be something that only can happen in the nacelles since the aliens only needed to target something that was vulnerable.

I still can't get away from the idea that the dilithium crystals don't directly produce any energy themselves and are mainly a sort of highly important "catalyst" component that allows the engines to operate at all. All the references to the crystals being "charged" or "regenerated" either refer to the crystals' main function of producing antimatter (maybe a voltage drop required across the crystal?) or to the antimatter the crystals actually produce.

 

[Timo]

Since on (reduced) battery power they could hang in orbit for 3 days but on less than full crystal power they could only hang in orbit for 10 hours I suspect that there is something different about the planet in "The Alternative Factor" that can pull down the ship faster or requires more power to maintain orbit.

One possibility is that the orbit will decay very slowly in both cases (or even not decay at all if precautions are taken), but that in "Mudd's Women" they discuss the actual crash, while in "The Alternative Factor" they speak of when the orbital decay will start (10 hours), not when it will conclude in a crash (3 days).

And for the record, I wasn't suggesting that author intent should outweigh the revisions that GR and the story editors routinely made on submitted scripts to keep them consistent with the intended vision of the show.

On my part, I wasn't suggesting that author intent is uninteresting in any absolute sense. It's just that I'm personally solely oriented towards analyzing the end result that is Star Trek, the fictional universe that is the result of author effort - and more often than not, said effort is not particularly visible in said end result, nor should it be (for what good is fiction if the seams are showing?). I certainly cannot accept the idea that, after the visible part of the fictional universe is taken in, various invisible elements of author intent should be added merely because they are not contradicted by what we see. This would seriously limit our options in interpreting the fictional universe - just like it would seriously limit the options of people intent on creating new elements into the universe, such as future screenplay writers.

Or alternatively, Kirk's cabin was on Deck 12 in "Mudd's Women" and his yeoman's cabin, Rand's, was also on Deck 12 in "The Enemy Within" suggesting that in the early days Kirk's cabin was on Deck 12 and he didn't relocate to Deck 5 until later.

Which is a good take on continuity, since the mention of Deck 5 was associated with a situation that in the Star Trek universe does involve cabin reshuffling. There was a diplomatic party onboard, and in "Elaan of Troyius" such an occurrence meant a top officer had to swap cabins. "Journey to Babel" just happens to be a hundred times worse than "Elaan of Troyius" for our officers, because there are a hundred times more delegates!

Writer intent would not allow for this sort of thing, as "Babel" precedes "Troyius". But in-universe facts are in harmony here, regardless of and perhaps even against writer intent.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Cary L. Brown]

I still can't get away from the idea that the dilithium crystals don't directly produce any energy themselves and are mainly a sort of highly important "catalyst" component that allows the engines to operate at all. All the references to the crystals being "charged" or "regenerated" either refer to the crystals' main function of producing antimatter (maybe a voltage drop required across the crystal?) or to the antimatter the crystals actually produce.

Yeah, I agree.

It is common to "recondition" various devices, and I get the impression that what we see with the dilithium crystals is not "storing energy into them" as much as it's something akin to annealing.

Example (and one which is close to home for me, as I've worked in this field for several years now)... lithium batteries degrade over time, but they can "degrade" excessively fast, by becoming "imbalanced" and you can recondition them to be "mostly like new" again, but not in the field. You have to put them in a specific setup designed to recondition them... involving specific temperatures, and specific charge/discharge cycles, among other things.

On the other hand, there are negative materials changes which occur to many engineering materials through use. One common one is what we call "work-hardening" which can be good, or bad, depending on the situation. You've seen this when you take a piece of flexible metal and just bend it back and forth, repeatedly. It starts out flexible but becomes brittle soon. This is caused by distortion of the metallic grain structure.

To eliminate work-hardening, you put the metal bit through a process called "annealing," which involves heating it up (well below melting temperature) to allow the internal grain structure of the material to recrystalize. New grains form along the high-energy (due to mechanical stress) grain boundaries. Eventually, the old ("high-energy") crystaline grains dissolve and recrystalize completely.

I see the process to which dilithium crystals are treated to be, from a materials/chemistry basis, very much akin to annealing... a necessary periodic process required to prevent the crystals from failing. Once "re-energized" they'd be able to process and produce useable energy again, but they'd eventually be overworked and would fracture, rendering them useless.

But this process is FUNCTIONALLY quite a bit more like what we do with lithium-ion battery systems... rather than just sitting in an oven like is done for annealing.

 

[Timo]

One fun idea on how TOS dilithium might get "reamplified" or "reenergized":

Note how unlike the paddles of "Alternative Factor" are from the crystal lumps of "Mudd's Women" and "Elaan of Troyius"? Perhaps dilithium in the TOS era is so rare that the lumps are virtually never available, or tend to be so full of faults that only small parts of them serve any practical purpose. So for the most part, Starfleet uses arrays of very small dilithium shards or microcrystals, embedded in those ping-pong paddles; the arrays need to be aligned in a specific way to best mimic the effect of a single, paddle-sized crystal. Yet the microcrystals easily lose their alignment, and energy has to be inserted to restore it, lest the amplifying function of the array alignment be lost and a mere useless collection of dilithium shards be left.

A natural crystal behaves differently: you don't get much effect on one of those with an energizer, but you can tilt a natural crystal to find a good, unused facet. It's a demanding process even for Scotty, as shown by "Elaan", but it can be done. It's still demanding in TNG "Skin of Evil", but by that time, in situ recrystallizing can correct the faults that develop in a natural crystal, reducing the need for facet adjustment and prolonging the life of a crystal.

With the main energizer out in ST2, Spock's only option would be to find a good facet out of the strained dilithium in the reactor; he'd access it via a dumbwaiter system similar to the TOS one, manually tilt it to the required position, and reinsert...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Captain Robert April]

Since on (reduced) battery power they could hang in orbit for 3 days but on less than full crystal power they could only hang in orbit for 10 hours I suspect that there is something different about the planet in "The Alternative Factor" that can pull down the ship faster or requires more power to maintain orbit.

One possibility is that the orbit will decay very slowly in both cases (or even not decay at all if precautions are taken), but that in "Mudd's Women" they discuss the actual crash, while in "The Alternative Factor" they speak of when the orbital decay will start (10 hours), not when it will conclude in a crash (3 days).

And for the record, I wasn't suggesting that author intent should outweigh the revisions that GR and the story editors routinely made on submitted scripts to keep them consistent with the intended vision of the show.

On my part, I wasn't suggesting that author intent is uninteresting in any absolute sense. It's just that I'm personally solely oriented towards analyzing the end result that is Star Trek, the fictional universe that is the result of author effort - and more often than not, said effort is not particularly visible in said end result, nor should it be (for what good is fiction if the seams are showing?). I certainly cannot accept the idea that, after the visible part of the fictional universe is taken in, various invisible elements of author intent should be added merely because they are not contradicted by what we see. This would seriously limit our options in interpreting the fictional universe - just like it would seriously limit the options of people intent on creating new elements into the universe, such as future screenplay writers.

Or alternatively, Kirk's cabin was on Deck 12 in "Mudd's Women" and his yeoman's cabin, Rand's, was also on Deck 12 in "The Enemy Within" suggesting that in the early days Kirk's cabin was on Deck 12 and he didn't relocate to Deck 5 until later.

Which is a good take on continuity, since the mention of Deck 5 was associated with a situation that in the Star Trek universe does involve cabin reshuffling. There was a diplomatic party onboard, and in "Elaan of Troyius" such an occurrence meant a top officer had to swap cabins. "Journey to Babel" just happens to be a hundred times worse than "Elaan of Troyius" for our officers, because there are a hundred times more delegates!

Writer intent would not allow for this sort of thing, as "Babel" precedes "Troyius". But in-universe facts are in harmony here, regardless of and perhaps even against writer intent.

Timo Saloniemi

How about maybe somebody did a little checking and noticed that Deck 12 is right smack dab in the middle of the neck, which is a rather silly place to put the captain's cabin?

Or, probably more likely, maybe a fan wrote to them asking why Kirk's cabin was in the neck when it would make a lot more sense to move it up in the saucer, like say Deck 5.

 

[TIN_MAN]

^^Yeah, I basically agree. It's fair to say that at the time the deck 12 reference was used, it was not technically a "mistake" as at the time TPTB had not worked any of this out, but by the second season they had pinned things down a bit better and deck 5 was chosen as a logical location, making the deck 12 location obsolete?

 

[blssdwlf]

A relocation makes far more sense from an in-universe POV

 

[TIN_MAN]

^^Agreed.

 

[Captain Robert April]

In universe, I'd rather chalk it up to a change in nomenclature, i.e., the room never moved, only what they called the deck it was on.

As for how the fifth level down came to be called "deck twelve", I'll leave others to figure out.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Counting up from the bottom, relative to--something?

The idea that the deck got renumbered makes more sense in universe than Kirk's quarters moving, in the same way that a 2% likelihood is twice as likely as a 1% likelihood, but not really much sense either, as both ideas are really unlikely.

This isn't anything we're going to agree on, probably, but it is a good example of the sort of problem we face on topic.

Now, back to nacelles.....

 

[Timo]

Counting up from the bottom, relative to--something?

As late as "Day of the Dove", it seems that some writers counted from bottom to top. Kirk and pals hold the bridge of the ship, and supposedly the other top decks as well - "All sections above". Klingons in turn are said to be holding Deck 6 and half of Deck 7 - and it would make rather limited sense for the Klingons and the heroes to be contesting a deck that's below a totally Klingon-controlled deck!

Timo Saloniemi

 

[CorporalCaptain]

And let's not forget the very loooooooooooong turbolift ride from the bridge to Deck 2 at the end of The Enterprise Incident.

 

[Timo]

To be fair, there was no turbolift "ride" as such. There was merely a long scene inside a turbolift - without any visual or auditory indication that the lift was moving. Basically a repeat of the Kirk/Saavik scene of ST2, then...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Mytran]

Counting up from the bottom, relative to--something?

As late as "Day of the Dove", it seems that some writers counted from bottom to top. Kirk and pals hold the bridge of the ship, and supposedly the other top decks as well - "All sections above". Klingons in turn are said to be holding Deck 6 and half of Deck 7 - and it would make rather limited sense for the Klingons and the heroes to be contesting a deck that's below a totally Klingon-controlled deck!
Timo Saloniemi

However, 90% of the crew were sealed off "below decks" as well. If the Klingons occupied the lower parts of the ship and Kirk's gang all levels above, where on earth were the missing crew?

 

[Captain Robert April]

Trapped in their quarters by the nefarious PLOT DEVICE!!!

 

[blssdwlf]

Counting up from the bottom, relative to--something?

As late as "Day of the Dove", it seems that some writers counted from bottom to top. Kirk and pals hold the bridge of the ship, and supposedly the other top decks as well - "All sections above". Klingons in turn are said to be holding Deck 6 and half of Deck 7 - and it would make rather limited sense for the Klingons and the heroes to be contesting a deck that's below a totally Klingon-controlled deck!
Timo Saloniemi

However, 90% of the crew were sealed off "below decks" as well. If the Klingons occupied the lower parts of the ship and Kirk's gang all levels above, where on earth were the missing crew?

Good question. If we assume Deck 1 was top then:

KIRK: What the blazes is going on?

SPOCK: Scans indicate that our forces and those of the Klingons are exactly equal at thirty eight each. The Klingons control deck six and starboard deck seven, while we control all sections above.
​

could be interpreted that the uncontrolled decks below deck 7 (and port deck seven) contain trapped Enterprise crewmembers.

Now, if Deck 6 and parts of Deck 7 are the lower parts of the saucer then that would indicate uncontrolled passages going down the neck to the engineering hull and that would be where the main fighting is occurring for strategic control of the ship, IMHO. Also, it's pretty easy to have 390+ crewmen trapped below deck 7 spread across 12-13 decks.

The final fight in the engineering hull would indicate that both sides could get to the engine room uncontested.

 

[Albertese]

...


The final fight in the engineering hull would indicate that both sides could get to the engine room uncontested.

Or...

It could mean that someone involved behind the scenes thought the Engineering set lived in the saucer right in front of the impulse engines. In which case we might go ahead and speculate there is an engineering-like area right about there.

OTOH, at the end of the episode, we see the pinwheel of doom fly away into space from roughly the middle of the ship's second hull, which would seem to indicate that someone involved behind the scenes did indeed think the engineering set was down there after all.

I figure the majority of the hull's pressure compartments were rendered inescapable by the evil pinwheel but the ship's vital areas were still connected by unaffected areas. This way, a path can indeed be traced from the bridge to the Engineering Room down in the Engineering Section, and the 300+ other Enterprise crew were indeed trapped in the sense that they were trapped in whatever pressure compartment they happened to be in when this whole pinwheel affair began.

That's my take on it anyway.

--Alex

 

[CorporalCaptain]

To be fair, there was no turbolift "ride" as such. There was merely a long scene inside a turbolift - without any visual or auditory indication that the lift was moving. Basically a repeat of the Kirk/Saavik scene of ST2, then...

Timo Saloniemi

Wrong.

See The Enterprise Incident online at the official location, at http://www.startrek.com/watch_episode/3l4pJ5yoMbSZP6wJ8oq4YtPa3oAVhwuc. (You will have to endure some commercials to do so.) The turbo lift is in motion for a whole minute, beginning around 47:15. Spock says "Deck Two." The "turbolift in motion" sound cranks up, remains on for a full minute, and then winds down at the end of the ride. You can see the deck markers scrolling by when they are in the camera's field of view, for the first part of that minute. Only the most elaborate gesticulations of handwaving can make it seem otherwise. This was something I noticed over 30 years ago.

 

[Timo]

Trust me, I've been through it, too.

The visual indications of movement disappear almost immediately, thanks to the framing choices. Whether the audio of the lift really is audible really depends on your volume settings... (And it could be very simply handwaved by saying that the lift hums regardless of motion state, perhaps because of other lifts passing. But it's even simpler to just ignore the sound, which my old VHS doesn't reproduce anyway.)

Timo Saloniemi