The windows could be narrow floor to ceiling windows, like the one in Picard's ready room.
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Engineering's curved hallways
- Thread starter jayrath
- Start date
I´m not really sure, if you´re serious about this approach. If you are, then here´s why I think this doesn´t make sense:
1. The windows aren´t evenly spaced. Meaning that deck heights would vary greatly, sometimes even sub-decks with a meter or so in height would be necessary to account for the window placement.
2. In-universe I don´t see the purpose to flip the corridor alignment as compared to the saucer, espcially since the hangar deck has the same orientation as the decks in the saucer.
3. Production-wise I think it´s safe to assume that if they had intended the decks to be arranged this way, they would also have flipped the windows by 90° to emphasize this.
4. As I understand it, the only reason for this approach is to account for circular corridors in the engineering hull. Robert Comsol has shown in his thread, that it is perfectly possible to include such corridors there without flipping the deck orientation.
So IMHO there really is no justification for this approach. But like I said, don´t know how serious you were.
Mario
1. The windows aren´t evenly spaced. Meaning that deck heights would vary greatly, sometimes even sub-decks with a meter or so in height would be necessary to account for the window placement.
2. In-universe I don´t see the purpose to flip the corridor alignment as compared to the saucer, espcially since the hangar deck has the same orientation as the decks in the saucer.
3. Production-wise I think it´s safe to assume that if they had intended the decks to be arranged this way, they would also have flipped the windows by 90° to emphasize this.
4. As I understand it, the only reason for this approach is to account for circular corridors in the engineering hull. Robert Comsol has shown in his thread, that it is perfectly possible to include such corridors there without flipping the deck orientation.
So IMHO there really is no justification for this approach. But like I said, don´t know how serious you were.
Mario
Hi Mario. Again, welcome to the BBS. Your ideas are sensible. I said basically the same thing in the "Franz Joseph Blueprints Revisited" thread! It doesn't make sense ... UNLESS you say, ironically like Franz sort of did, that all those lights aren't really 'windows' at all, but environmental system reactors (or whatever he called them --I forget exactly at the moment). That way NONE of the "windows' have to mean ANYTHING to the layout of the ship!
Cool beans.
Thanks
I´m pretty sure that when the filming model was built, they had windows in mind. Anything else they would probably have designed in such a way to make sure everyone knows that it´s NOT windows, IMHO.
... one of the most neat and interesting aspects of all of this?!?!
In other words, the Enterprise was fleshed out really well considering the time schedules they all worked under, but still to this day there's not really any ONE answer to exactly how its laid out, so IMHO it's really cool that everyone can participate in having their own interpretation of it. I can't stand Dr. Who but in some ways you could say the Enterprise is like a TARDIS- - you can never be sure how big it is or where everything really goes. The confusion about where everything 'fits" actually contributes to including more fans and more ideas and more creativity and on and on and on ...
It's like a benevalent screw-up that gives us more stuff to talk about for almost 50 years now!!!
The thing is, that AFAIK no one really, I mean REALLY, tried to find this ONE answer before. No one has made the effort to actually look at all the episodes and try to piece together all the visual (and audio) information into a coherent whole. When you look at Robert Comsol´s WIP thread and the solutions he came up with so far, it certainly looks like there actually could be ONE answer. If not for every single room on the ship, then probably for a general layout of all the decks as well as the placement of the more prominent rooms. And that would be a LOT closer, than anyone ever got to the "real" layout of the Enterprise as seen on screen.
Don´t get me wrong, I have no problem with fans "filling" the ship as they see fit (as FJ did) and have fun that way. But that does not mean, there CAN´T be a (close to) definitive answer
Mario
^^ 
This is exactly the kind of feedback I'd seriously love to see more in my deck plan thread, critical questions that deserve answers.
We all do know (
) that we are looking at an ambitioned 1960's TV production with severe budget restraints requiring our imagination to fill in some gaps or blanks, and nobody expected that all these production details would be examined by later generations with a magnifying glass as we do today.
Therefore we could / should regard a number of details with a grain of salt, but the (philosophical) question is, indeed, where you draw the line. Obviously, as in my thread this discussion just came up, there appears to be a difference in opinion between blssdwlf and myself.
My approach tries to satisfy what the interested TOS viewer expects to "find" on these deck plans (without the use of magnifying glasses or rulers and going into rationalization "overdrive") but also what a hardcore TOS fan expects to see.
IMHO, the physical studio set and its rooms had to present not only the main, inner corridor but also outer corridors with a different radius and outer rooms (I believe that the reception room in "Journey to Babel" was close to the three circular bow windows which we didn't see because of budget restraints - and therefore have to rely on our imagination but also disregard for that moment the actual curvature of the briefing room set...).
The transition from "Kirk's corridor" at the beginning of "Journey to Babel" to a more innermost one is what I regard as proof for the aforementioned theory.
But, of course, if you are allowed to extend the radius of the studio corridor why should it be forbidden to reduce it to place a narrower circular corridor into the engineering hull and wrap it around the Engineering Core?
Essentially, that's what I did and the great yellow circle marking at the bottom of the engineering hull provided the perfect excuse.
While we hardcore fans do know the actual radius of the Studio set and can find fault with this approach, the "interested" viewer would most likely not notice.
All he expects to see is a circular corridor where - as the characters proceed through it - the doors in the background eventually disappear from sight, regardless of the actual corridor configuration.
I really dislike what I had to do here, but the only other option was assuming a length of the Enterprise exceeding 1,048 or 1,080' and that's a price I wasn't willing to pay for (what I should not have done in the drafts was to fill the corridor walls around the E-Core with black paint, because now it sticks out like a sore thumb. I assume the hard job of my friend Andy and myself will be to design the blank and unseen areas surrounding the core in a fashion that it will hopefully make the whole thing look more believable and better).
Well, at least in the saucer deck plans I try to slavishly adhere to accomodate all "medical ward" corridors seen onscreen with their studio set compliant actual radius on Decks 5 thru 7.
Bob
But where does it end?!?!?
For the love of ptomaine, are you also going to make sure the walls of the corridors actually bend and move in your plans when someone slams into them ... or are you going to make every single curved corridor have exactly the same radius and degree of arc? After all, that's all we saw onscreen! The same corridor at the same curvature over and over and over again. If you're going to say that there are other corridors on other parts of the saucer that are at different curvatures, then that's not being true to the onscreen evidence. That's making a bigger pie than we were shown
This is exactly the kind of feedback I'd seriously love to see more in my deck plan thread, critical questions that deserve answers.
We all do know (
) that we are looking at an ambitioned 1960's TV production with severe budget restraints requiring our imagination to fill in some gaps or blanks, and nobody expected that all these production details would be examined by later generations with a magnifying glass as we do today.Therefore we could / should regard a number of details with a grain of salt, but the (philosophical) question is, indeed, where you draw the line. Obviously, as in my thread this discussion just came up, there appears to be a difference in opinion between blssdwlf and myself.
My approach tries to satisfy what the interested TOS viewer expects to "find" on these deck plans (without the use of magnifying glasses or rulers and going into rationalization "overdrive") but also what a hardcore TOS fan expects to see.
IMHO, the physical studio set and its rooms had to present not only the main, inner corridor but also outer corridors with a different radius and outer rooms (I believe that the reception room in "Journey to Babel" was close to the three circular bow windows which we didn't see because of budget restraints - and therefore have to rely on our imagination but also disregard for that moment the actual curvature of the briefing room set...).
The transition from "Kirk's corridor" at the beginning of "Journey to Babel" to a more innermost one is what I regard as proof for the aforementioned theory.
But, of course, if you are allowed to extend the radius of the studio corridor why should it be forbidden to reduce it to place a narrower circular corridor into the engineering hull and wrap it around the Engineering Core?
Essentially, that's what I did and the great yellow circle marking at the bottom of the engineering hull provided the perfect excuse.
While we hardcore fans do know the actual radius of the Studio set and can find fault with this approach, the "interested" viewer would most likely not notice.
All he expects to see is a circular corridor where - as the characters proceed through it - the doors in the background eventually disappear from sight, regardless of the actual corridor configuration.
I really dislike what I had to do here, but the only other option was assuming a length of the Enterprise exceeding 1,048 or 1,080' and that's a price I wasn't willing to pay for (what I should not have done in the drafts was to fill the corridor walls around the E-Core with black paint, because now it sticks out like a sore thumb. I assume the hard job of my friend Andy and myself will be to design the blank and unseen areas surrounding the core in a fashion that it will hopefully make the whole thing look more believable and better).
Well, at least in the saucer deck plans I try to slavishly adhere to accomodate all "medical ward" corridors seen onscreen with their studio set compliant actual radius on Decks 5 thru 7.
Bob
Something else to think about is that if you watch the episodes the film makers showed only portions or small bits of the curved corridor. On occasions you do have the full corridor in view but the other times there isn't enough visual information to derive the curvature. Or if there is some information you can get only a slight angle but not as curvy as the full set since the walls are straight segments that only turn at the connecting seams. It only becomes problematic (IMHO) when all one can think about is the S1 or S2 blueprint whenever a portion of the corridor is shown and let that blueprint knowledge influence how the rest of the hallway should look.
Ha, thanks! Yes, of course I know it was film on the series, I routinely use video for film even though I should technically write "film'. Probably because of growing up with videotapes of things that were all "films". I also always think about the fact that Desi came back to Desilu at around that time, even though he was doing his own thing without Lucy -- just in the same physical location.
My point stands about the production schedule though-- no matter what fine point you want to put on it, the whole post-production process is much faster and less labor intensive for shows today.
Oh I know. I was just pointing out another way that COULD make it maybe work. When you think about it anyway, actual "windows" are kind of silly. I mean, unless the hallway or room the person is in is totally dark you're not going to see much of anything --not even any stars, really. They're too far away and there's too much ambeint light around. Not to mention the light being given off by the ship on the outside -- the glow of the engines, the running lights, the light from other "windows", even the ships shields or screens lighting up the hull a little ... all those things would make it next to impossible to see any stars at all through a window like those that are shown. Though maybe they could look out and see a planet they were orbiting, I guess. But it just seems a lot easier to use big viewscreens and just ask the computer to show you a certain view outside the ship. That way you'd actually see far more detail-- AND some stars!
There are many correct observations in your post, but I can't possibly see why the idea of windows is silly.
I for one would rather book a cruise on a starship with windows than to feel boxed into a windowless submarine (but apparently many Trekkers wouldn't mind
).In my avatar I used a scene from the alternate edit of WNM showing us a long corridor which I believe to run along the row of horizontal windows of the engineering hull.
During daytime and work shifts the environmental engineers' job is not to stargaze but to make sure artificial gravity etc. works flawlessly.
During nighttime simulation it's a different subject and Pike's Enterprise was probably featured during that time of day in "The Cage", with most illumination off, so you'd get a great opportunity to stargaze which would still constitute a real thing (just as real food) in contrast to the virtual experience on a viewscreen.
That's also one of the reasons why I dislike the TOS-R "Christmas Tree" illumination of the CGI model with all corridors fully lit (including the "tail pipe socket" cover hatch near the starboard nacelle pylon that had mysteriously transformed into a window...
).Bob
The windows could be narrow floor to ceiling windows, like the one in Picard's ready room.
There are many correct observations in your post, but I can't possibly see why the idea of windows is silly.
I for one would rather book a cruise on a starship with windows than to feel boxed into a windowless submarine (but apparently many Trekkers wouldn't mind
Cool beans, but it still doesn't make a lot of sense. Unless you say that human beings' eyes (or even just the eyes of starship crews) have been genetically improved by the 23rd century.
The even sillier point is that we're supposed to conclude that the windows on the model (physical or CGI) that are "lit up" are the ones that are "open", I guess you'd call it (or are the ones that have their shades rolled up
) so that people or crewmembers inside can look out of those and "see the stars'!But in actuality, from what we know about space, it's actually the "windows" that are DARK on the model that you'd have the best chance of seeing anything out of anyway! Because whatever room the crewmember is in at the time would have to be really, really dark in order to see those stars, or anything else. All they'd see otherwise, and probably even in a dark room too, is a big field of black (or gray, since some light would still screw up the view and bounce off the "glass").
I doubt it! Stars are just too far away and too dim to show up like that. Especially on such a bright ship like a starship as depicted in Star Trek. Which BTW always seems to have a "magical light source" following it around everywhere and casting shadows on the hull -- as though it is always nearby a sun or other light source! It's not believable. You just couldn't see much of anything through those "windows" -- especially at warp speed!!!
And I really doubt that what we think of as viewscreens would be what they use on the Enterprise 300 years from now. How do you know they won't be more or less 100% identical to, actually even BETTER than, the "real" view you're saying you could see?!? A clear view with a super-detailed resolution of a starfield that you're trying to look at is a lot better than a "natural' view of . . .nothing!
That's why I think Franz Joseph did what he did- - or at least, PART of the reason: he knew that having windows on a ship like that was kind of ridiculous. You couldn't make one so that it'd work effectively. I guess you could have maybe one or two here or there for some sort of "visual emergency". But all over the ship like that? It's not believable at all. So Franz called them Environmental System Reactors (I think!?!) and let it hang out there on its own for fans to imply what he meant-- that they weren't "windows' as we understand them. . . because it wouldn't make sense.
As for your avatar, I like it -- I like seeing those long straight corridors that we never saw again. If I understand what you're saying I disagree with you again though-- I really doubt that the row of windows you mention would be located in a corridor. I think they'd be in a room or rooms instead.
Whatever source you got that from, it can't be the Franz Joseph plans. The windows aren't called out or identified by any specific name.
Hi scotpens! I never wrote that it was on the blueprints, but okay, no sweat -- then it is in the Star Fleet Technical Manual. Which makes more sense that it'd be in there anyway. I don't have my copy near me at the moment though, so hopefully someone on here can check for us?!?
Thanks.
No. I don't see any such designations in either the FJ blueprints or the tech manual.
It's here:
http://trekplace.com/fj-gallery-colorguide.html
From a little known communique by Franz Joseph. Read for details.
Regardless what Franz Joseph did or did not do, just because you discredit the idea of windows as being "silly" or "ridiculous" doesn't mean it is.
One of the oddest things about being in space is that you are technically boxed up in a sardine can amidst the incredible wastness of space. While windows aboard a starship may not make sense from a strictly technological point of view, they serve an important psychological need of the crew now and possibly, then - just to be able to look out - and serve as an antidote against claustrophobia (unless you got used to live in a basement...).
Interestingly, ever since TOS the concept of windows aboard spaceships has become popular so there is an apparent and positive psychological function, even if it's just to make the audience wish to be aboard...
If you'd take a closer look at the screencaps, you'd notice that opposite the corridor wall (you see) there has to be an open and illuminated space (judging by the shadows the actors cast against the visible corridor wall!). I believe this to be some kind of dining area along the row of windows on the engineering hull (and during nighttime is a perfect place for a candlelight dinner among the stars, planets and interstellar gas clouds
).Bob
Just noticed the pun.
Why are you fixating just on stars??
Starships spend quite a lot of time orbiting planets, giving at least half the crew a good opportunity to view the planet. That's what real astronauts talk about the most when they come back from space--how awesome it is to view earth from space.
More reasons, why they are windows and nothing else:
1. Whenever we see windows from the inside of the ship, we see the inner and the outer edge of the wall this window is embedded into, we see how thick it is and can look through it at the section of the wall. If they were not windows but displays of some sort they would just be flat rectangles like the viewscreen on the bridge and you couldn´t look "into" the wall.
2. Just because our materials today would make it problematic to look out into space that way doesn´t mean that 23rd century technolgy would face the same problems. Whatever material they use for windows (transparent aluminum?) may have optical properties that DO allow stargazing.
3. When Star trek first aired in the 1960s the audience was (obviously) not familiar with the design, it was a completely new approach to designing spaceships. So the only way for Roddenberry, Jefferies & Co. to give some kind of reference as to how big this ship was supposed to be was by putting something on the outer hull that was familiar: windows!
4. When building the filming miniature, why would they put things on the outer hull that have the shape of windows, the size of windows, are lit like windows and positioned in rows like windows but aren´t windows?????
EXACTLY! Don´t understimate the human psyche! Especially when people are embarking on such a long voyage so far from home who are mainly engineers, scientists, etc. Hell, even the (real world) Mercury capsules, where the astronauts were more passengers than pilots and their missions lasted only a few hours, had a window. And not because the designers felt it necessary but because the astronauts wanted one!
Mario
1. Whenever we see windows from the inside of the ship, we see the inner and the outer edge of the wall this window is embedded into, we see how thick it is and can look through it at the section of the wall. If they were not windows but displays of some sort they would just be flat rectangles like the viewscreen on the bridge and you couldn´t look "into" the wall.
2. Just because our materials today would make it problematic to look out into space that way doesn´t mean that 23rd century technolgy would face the same problems. Whatever material they use for windows (transparent aluminum?) may have optical properties that DO allow stargazing.
3. When Star trek first aired in the 1960s the audience was (obviously) not familiar with the design, it was a completely new approach to designing spaceships. So the only way for Roddenberry, Jefferies & Co. to give some kind of reference as to how big this ship was supposed to be was by putting something on the outer hull that was familiar: windows!
4. When building the filming miniature, why would they put things on the outer hull that have the shape of windows, the size of windows, are lit like windows and positioned in rows like windows but aren´t windows?????
EXACTLY! Don´t understimate the human psyche! Especially when people are embarking on such a long voyage so far from home who are mainly engineers, scientists, etc. Hell, even the (real world) Mercury capsules, where the astronauts were more passengers than pilots and their missions lasted only a few hours, had a window. And not because the designers felt it necessary but because the astronauts wanted one!
Mario
Thanks aridas!! That's the one-- I knew I saw it somewhere!
One of the oddest things about being in space is that you are technically boxed up in a sardine can amidst the incredible wastness of space. While windows aboard a starship may not make sense from a strictly technological point of view, they serve an important psychological need of the crew now and possibly, then - just to be able to look out - and serve as an antidote against claustrophobia (unless you got used to live in a basement...).
Interestingly, ever since TOS the concept of windows aboard spaceships has become popular so there is an apparent and positive psychological function, even if it's just to make the audience wish to be aboard…
No sweat, man. I understand all that. Claustrophobia is true, but you have to wonder why they wouldn't, you know, make the windows BIGGER then!?!?!
Of course, they wanted to suggest to TV viewers that they actually WERE windows, so they didn't make bigger ones until TMP in the gardens. And those would be a size that would actually make sense for what you're talking about. The regular smallish ones that we saw Kirk look out of with Odona really wouldn't help much with "claustrophobia" -- and that's the size of most of the "windows' on the ship!
Hi mos6507; I didn't just fixate on stars-- a few posts back I even mentioned how you might see some of the planet if you were orbiting it. Not very much, though, cuz the "windows" are pretty small. But you'd see it pass under you. Probably. Besides, I think Mario is right when he wrote:
… because that's what I was saying earlier: they aren't windows as we understand them. They HAVE to be different somehow. They have to be BETTER than "windows' we have now in order to be worthwhile. Maybe its transparent aluminum, who knows? But in a technology era with transporters and warp drive and phasers I think they'd have better windows than what we see on the model … in a real universe like shown.
And of course the human psyche is important. That's why I'd give the crew even BIGGER windows or "ports" to look through than the tiny ones they have! It's just funny that you are talking about a culture like this and they have transporters that can "beam" things right through the hull, yet the windows have to be windows as we think of them today! I'm just saying they don't have to be. And that's what FJ was getting at, at least a little bit -- "let's imply that these things have more functionality than just rolling up a shade and looking outside because that's not going to do you much good to look at tiny little stars or when you're traveling around at Warp 6!" So he called them Environmental System Reactors, implying more capabilities.
Since they can beam living beings through the hull and down to a planet, they probably also have the technology on a starship like this to do something like designate entire sections of the hull, almost whereever they want, to become transparent whenever they want -- so they could look right through and out into space. And through a much bigger "opening" than the pretty small windows they show on the side of the hull! Say, 4 feet by 8 feet high or similar. Something like what they put on the TMP Enterprise later on.
And I of course know that they're all supposed to be windows, or that was the intent. Originally I was just pointing out for jayrath, in his earlier post, another method by which he could possibly make his idea work (of decks aligned differently in the secondary hull). But not really even that way would it work, since we saw Matt's cross section drawing anyway!
So back to the original point of the thread-- forcing "curved" corridors into the support hull is probably even more "silly" than the small windows everywhere. And it wouldn't work anyway because all of a sudden the "windows" would have to be oriented in a different direction than they are on the rest of the ship (taller than wider), and that's not how they look on the exterior of the model!
Peace out, dudes.
