Engine Room(s) on the TOS Enterprise (revisited)

I'm not a fan of it tripping down an empty elevator shaft. But, its exit point does not line up with any engine room placement we've discussed so far, either; it's very far forward. The room would have to be reversed, and jammed up to the deflector dish with a FP pipe cathedral extending into the dish guts. We've seen this before: Kirk's Television Enterprise Deck Plans WIP
For this thread, I'm a non-FP pipe advocate, so, I'm not a fan of this placement, either. So, the Pin Wheel needed to have wandered around a little before deciding to leave for good. Option 1: It popped out of the engine room in the secondary hull, moved through some of the corridors/walls then left. Option 2: It popped out the engine room in the saucer, moved through some corridors/walls, tripped down the elevator shaft, moved through more corridors/walls then left.

 

Hmmmm, I took the nacelles just to be the two. I mean, in an emergency, why get rid of Engineering, the shuttle bay and shuttlecraft (which might be useful now that the ship doesn't have warp capability), everything in the secondary hull rather than just get rid of the two nacelles?

 

And in my search for ideas for the TOS warp core I came across quite a number of iterations.

Doug Drexler:


Monte R. Johnjulio:


A cropped image that I don't have an attribute for:


But the one I found the most informative was the original - by Matt Jefferies himself. I've annotated it.


The area in blue appears to be something vertical. The area in orange fits the orange pipes and the area in red fits main engineering. I put a box highlighting the area in the saucer that some have put main engineering to show that there is nothing there that fits in any way.

 

I prefer to think they FX team got the deck right (per Matt Jefferies) but got the placement wrong. I can see the entity exiting out of main engineering and then exiting the side of the ship just forward and a little lower along the hull. The remastered version moved the effect. They left it on the same deck, but moved it further back closer the pylons in a location that very much matches Doug Drexler's warp core layout.

 

Yeah, I think a variation of this idea was being thrown around last year in @TIN_MAN's thread on the Antimatter Converter Assembly. TOS leaned heavily on the power of lithium/dilithium crystals.

Maybe, maybe not... the small side room made dramatic sense in TWOK to go into and fix the mains. The status of the crystals were dramatically important to the ship's capability in "Mudd's Women", "The Alternative Factor", "The Paradise Syndrome", and "Elaan of Troyus". Yes, the warp drive and it's related systems are huge but the magic is with the dilithium crystals.

I think there was partial agreement. (And that's okay since we don't have to agree as long as it's a good discussion ) There isn't any evidence as to what the swirly energy shaft thing is called but we can try to describe it based on some definitions:

"Energizer" - a device that supplies energy + connection with dilithium crystals
"Intermix" - to become mixed together (as in matter and antimatter)
"Conduit" - a channel through which something is conveyed
"Circuit" - a complete path of an electric current or energy, including usually the source of electrical energy

Does the swirly shaft thing supply energy and is it connected to the dilithium crystals? Partially as I think it does since it appears to run energy from the bottom upwards and back towards the warp nacelles but the crystals aren't visible in TMP and are in a side room in TWOK.
Does the swirly shaft thing contain matter and antimatter mixed together? Doubtful - this is because if they are *mixed together* the matter and antimatter will have annihilated each other. Intermix really belongs to the Matter-Antimatter Reaction Chamber ("That Which Survives")
Does the swirly shaft thing appear to be channeling something? Yes, swirly energy
Does the swirly shaft thing appear to be a path of energy, including the source of it? Yes, if we count what appears to be the source at the bottom of the shaft.

Is there any reason you can't use the curved corridor or the DOTD exit as cues for where the engine rooms are?

The problem with using books like "Mr Scott's Guide to the Enterprise", "FJ's Technical Manual", and cutaways like Kimble's Enterprise is that rarely do they match up to anything seen on screen which is problematic. If they are not adhering to the source material they just only serve to muddy up the waters even more, IMHO.

If a "syncrotron" accelerates *particles* and dilithium crystals charge and discharge *energy* then that just doesn't sound right. Particles contain energy but dilithium crystals don't deal with particles - at least not the TOS crystals. Only the TNG dilithium crystals do that when they *regulate* matter and antimatter reactions. "Syncotron" isn't a good fit, IMHO. That's probably why I like the vague "DTD"

The DTD is probably the top or somehow connected to an energizer since crystals are later contained in it (Season 3).

 

Inconsistencies unfortunately are a part of Star Trek. We each deal with that in our own way. I prefer to keep things simple by treating each series as it's own universe. It's way simpler to deal with TOS by itself than try to make it fit into TNG+DS9+VOY+ENT.

Dilithium appeared in 7 TOS episodes and I don't see how their use was inconsistent in TOS. Do you have some examples?

I love Andrew Probert's designs and David Kimble's cutaways of the TMP Enterprise. But they are only accurate to Probert's designs. Can they be relevant to TOS? Absolutely - I referenced them when fiddling around with the interiors of the TOS Enterprise years ago. But they do diverge from what's shown onscreen so it does complicate things when thinking about fitment and locations. YMMV

 

Well in TOS (and TOS-only), Impulse was FTL-capable. That's how we got "Where No Man Has Gone Before" and long but not impossible emergency flights back home on impulse power. But that's a fair point that the "main section" could include the secondary/engineering hull.

 

Impulse was FTL? Since when?
JB

 

I analyzed speeds and distances in Balance of Terror to death, and started as a strong proponent for impulse not FTL, but every angle I could take (shrank the map scale down, slowed the Enterprise down) concluded that impulse had to be low-FTL, ~warp 2 or all the Fed border stations, the entire RNZ and the space battle was inside the Romulan solar system, and the Enterprise's speed at maximum warp was a crawl. The Romulans

 

Mudd'd Women, The Alternative Factor, Elaan of Troyus. In all three the crystals are different and placed in different locations, but all vital to main power.

The design is different, but the recent conversation has included wondering if the movies had anything and both those drawings pertain to that as even in those they don't use the word intermix. It is labeled the mix chamber in Kimble's cutaway and that piece isn't even in Probert's sketch.

 

Well, the crystals are only ever placed anywhere functional in "Elaan of Troyius"; in "The Alternative Factor", they are instead taking time off in a recuperation facility of some sort, and their piecemeal theft from there doesn't have any direct impact on the ship's performance. And both "Mudd's Women" and "Elaan of Troyius" involve a jury-rig with "raw" crystals (explicitly exceptional in the latter case), suggesting the paddles of "The Alternative Factor" are the "regular" (if seldom seen) version.

So seeing inconsistency there is a choice. The situations themselves aren't directly comparable, after all.

Timo Saloniemi

 

In both Mudd's Women and Elaan of Troyus we see the remains of previously functional crystals. In both warp drive relies on the crystals and the crystals are somewhat consistent (the one seen in Elaan of Troyus is larger and seen in place). What we see in The Alternative Factor is totally different and in no way compatible with the other two episodes. The inconsistency is not a choice.

 

You're assuming that the Enterprise's systems are static and never changing. Have you ever considered that the Enterprise is being constantly updated and tinkered with? "Mudd's Women", "The Alternative Factor" and "Elaan of Troyius" do not take place at the same time and there appears to be some time between episodes.

How do you feel about the bridge of the Enterprise then? It's different between "The Cage", "Where No Man Has Gone Before", and "The Corbomite Maneuver". Are they inconsistent as well? Or (back on topic) the Engine Rooms? They're different between S1, S2 and S3.

 

Since TOS. But only in TOS

There are episodes like "Balance of Terror", "Where No Man Has Gone Before", "Mudd's Women", "Doomsday Machine", "The Deadly Years" and "Elaan of Troyius" that make impulse "competitive" with warp in the sense that yeah it's slower and you wallow, but it's not standing-still slow. However, "Is There In Truth No Beauty" we get the line about the galactic barrier that the Enterprise and the SS Valiant crossed. Enterprise crossed it at warp while the Valiant crossed it twice (going out and then coming back) at impulse.

SPOCK: Unfortunately, we lack reference points on which to plot a return course. We experienced extreme sensory distortion,and we shall do so again if we attempt to use warp speed. And we cannot re-cross the barrier using sub light speed.
​

 

Well, in the case of bridge, there are some oddities to the pilot version, but then, there are a lot of changes to all the sets, inside, outside, costumes, props, so any changes from the pilots to the series make sense due to when they take place and that they represent the Enterprise before a refit that resulted in what we see in the series. (and to think of it that way you have to ignore all uses of the pilots version of the ship that appear later in the series as stock footage)

The engine room either saw a renovation or there are two and Scotty started using the other one more after season one.

But in the case of the episodes I mentioned and the differences in the dilithium crystals, you have a change from season one to season two and then back to something close to season one in season three. So what we see in The Alternative Factor does not fit. TOS is full of things like that. I've noticed them for years but I take the more frequent or later use as the definitive one and ignore the others.

And to do this right, you have to view the series in production order otherwise the first part of season one is really bonkers.

TOS followed 60's TV standards and didn't worry too much about consistency from episode to episode. As fans we have to decide if we are going to explain away or ignore the inconsistencies. I ignore most of them and stick to what I feel the standard was and how later Star Trek carried the idea forward. We don't see another dilithium crystal until TNG and then it is smaller and a critical component of the matter/anti-matter reaction. The room that is so pivotal to TWOK isn't there in TMP and it isn't seen again. The engine room is only seen in TSFS standing in for the Excelsior engine room and then the set was redesigned for TNG before it appeared again in TUC. Star Trek has always played loose with the sets and props. The cloaking device in The Enterprise Incident was recycled from props from 3 previous episodes. Rooms were reused, refitted, rearranged. About the only sets that didn't go through this were the Bridge and the transporter room. Even the engine room set was redressed to be both the theater and the gym.

 

I'm going to disagree on the canonicity of saucer separation for the NCC-1701. All this dialogue indicates is that the nacelles could be jettisoned, NOT the secondary hull. I think that while it is technically correct to consider the secondary hull a nacelle. I don't think that is what is being referred to here. Especially since I don't think we have any instance in all of the Star Trek franchise of the engineering hull being referred to as a nacelle. The closest we get is having references to the "engineering section" which sometimes may or may not be used to refer to the secondary hull.

I think the hypothesis that takes the least amount of stretch is that the "main section" refers to both the primary and secondary hull. I will note however, that this doesn't necessarily preclude a saucer separation.

 

I've got to agree with Timo here (Are pigs flying? It just seems like I'm always disagreeing with you. Haha). I don't see any inconsistency in these references to dilithium crystals. We can throw Mudd's Women out of this discussion because those are specifically lithium crystals NOT dilithium. And even then they are referred to as having power fed through them, as opposed to being the source of power. All the other references refer to dilithium crystals as being a sources of power and show them being used as such. All Alternative Factor does is add a cute little reamplification station.

 

...The point sort of being that every single bit of dialogue in "The Alternative Factor" indicates the dilithium is having a holiday, meaning it's actually a good thing it's in no way compatible with the ordinary working week for the crystals.

The other point that can generally be made here is that the role of dilithium in TOS is so ill defined that nothing prevents us from saying it's the same role as in ENT and TNG. Absolutely nothing requires us to say that, though, and diversity is good. But if we embrace the "general Trek take" on dilithium, we also get a hugful of diversity, including a range of shapes and sizes for dilithium and the devices required for handling it.

Whether we let that affect the way we think about the TOS engine rooms is a different issue. No matter our choice on the nature of dilithium, we are still free to dream up a large number of engineering setups that best match our concepts of how the sets ought to go together. And our absolute worst choice would be to ape TNG or ENT here, considering that those two spinoffs with similar takes on the role of dilithium have completely different makeups of the related sets!

Timo Saloniemi

 

You're willing to allow for changes under the guise of a refit between pilots and series but not within the series? Isn't that a bit... inconsistent? Why not during the series? Did you ever notice that Sulu's helm station in S1 is different in S2?

Or you can embrace it and think of the Enterprise as a ship that has movable parts.

That's a pretty reasonable approach

You say it went back to something close to season one in season three but there isn't any change. Can you elaborate more on this?
Season 1: "Mudd's Women" = crystal, no location of crystal converter assembly given or shown
Season 1, 17 episodes later: "The Alternative Factor" = paddle, energizer with paddle shown in a room
Season 2: Not shown
Season 3: "Elaan of Troyius" = paddle, with paddle shown in DTD in engine room. Raw crystals temporarily used.
Season 3: "The Paradise Syndrome" = paddle, with paddle shown in DTD in engine room

Watching *any* series not in production order will yield head scratching results.

How is that any different from TNG or any modern day series? All series have time pressures. That's how we get re-used ship models, sets and props. These "TV standards" or workarounds and shortcuts are not exclusive to TOS.

Yes, we all have our own approaches to this. And I don't think you have only the options "explain away" or "ignore". There is also "allow for changes", etc.

IIRC, we saw dilithium crystals in TWOK and TVH and they are back to the chunky crystal form but located in a separate room/chamber away from the M/AM reaction. We see in TNG "Skin of Evil" that they are also using a chunky crystal form but now placed directly in the matter/antimatter chamber. All further TNG showings indicate the crystals regulate in the M/AM chamber.

Notice a pattern there? TOS = crystals away from M/AM chamber and TNG and related series crystals in the M/AM chamber.

TSFS didn't have a scene in the engine room so how can you say either way what the disposition of that room is? And then the Enterprise was destroyed in the same movie. Excelsior's engine room and TUC's engine room are different ships entirely...

The bridge has had minor changes during the series run - most notably on the helm console. The transporter room has also changed appearances (food slots, changing back wall, additional scanner) from when it started out.

 

The way I see it is that Impulse is not FTL and also not warp speed of any kind! The only time it's used is in the episodes that you've quoted I agree but on Impulse the Enterprise is years away from Starbases as opposed to days in WNMHGB and stated in Kirk's logs! Does anyone else on here think that Impulse is faster than light technology as well as warp speed?
JB