10 Starship "Holy Grails"

I thought that as depicted onscreen, the glowing part was the scoop that absorbed the desired particles. If it is not, and the gold vents are, then where is the corresponding part of the scoop on the TOS Enterprise?

There are also circumferential vents on the TOS Enterprise nacelles.

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My feeling is that the Bussard collectors are a little inconsistently depicted on screen. In Star Trek: Insurrection and SNW: "Lost in Translation" the "glowy red bit" is specifically shown to suck up gas, which I believe to be a visual error, though in the case of SNW they have to physically open to do it, which is something we've never seen a Bussard do before. Indeed the TNG Technical Manual states that the nacelle end cap is the "largest single cast structure" of the whole ship, so it's one giant single piece, without holes, seams, perforations, or subcomponents.
 
There are also circumferential vents on the TOS Enterprise nacelles.

geh8FSr.jpeg


My feeling is that the Bussard collectors are a little inconsistently depicted on screen. In Star Trek: Insurrection and SNW: "Lost in Translation" the "glowy red bit" is specifically shown to suck up gas, which I believe to be a visual error, though in the case of SNW they have to physically open to do it, which is something we've never seen a Bussard do before. Indeed the TNG Technical Manual states that the nacelle end cap is the "largest single cast structure" of the whole ship, so it's one giant single piece, without holes, seams, perforations, or subcomponents.

After watching the part of the clip with the special effect, I'd say it looks less like the endcaps have to physically open more like they went from "less-TOS-like" to "more-TOS-like" in an attempt to explain the differences between the two shows. but, if the ship can do this, I see no reason that spikes cannot be extended from the endcaps when needed ;)

In seriousness, it looks to me like some change to place that made the endcaps able to absorb the material, not that they physically openned and then the fragments of the material were drawn into the spinning parts.

EDIT: It also occurred to me that on the TOS ship, those vents are behind the part that spins, so the spinning apparently could not be drawing whatever the material would be into the vents, but if the material were going into the endcaps, then the material of choice could be coming into the engine system that way.
 
I don't think the "pairs of nacelles" rule was being followed too closely when it was written…
That’s probably because the only reason why Roddenberry came up with those rules was to poke Franz Joseph in the eye over his odd-numbered nacelle ship designs, as well as FJ’s unique licensing agreement that prevented Roddenberry from getting his vig. Greedy bastard…
 
They're just visually retconning the bussard collectors to look like the ones from DSC, even though they never looked that way in TNG. Just like that hologram of the Discoprise in season 1.
I don’t think that’s what they were doing at all. Lots of diagrams of the ship pre-discovery have had round parts behind the nacelle caps
 
I don’t think that’s what they were doing at all. Lots of diagrams of the ship pre-discovery have had round parts behind the nacelle caps

They didn’t have three lights in a row like the DSC season 1 ships did. It’s no different than that silly off-center line between the Starfleet badges that started with DSC and carried over to the PIC commbadges despite the fact that no TOS, TNG, DS9 or VOY badges looked like that.
 
They didn’t have three lights in a row like the DSC season 1 ships did. It’s no different than that silly off-center line between the Starfleet badges that started with DSC and carried over to the PIC commbadges despite the fact that no TOS, TNG, DS9 or VOY commbadges looked like that.
Maybe those 3 Bussard Collector Lights per Warp Nacelle were a design fad for the DISCO era ships.

Kind of like how "Ball Turrets" were supposed to be a design style of the 23rd century ships and only recently came back in ST:PICARD when modern design mixes Ball Turrets & Phaser Arrays into one platform.
 
Very small update: Doug Drexler posted a reply on Facebook by Judy Elkins about the kitbashing rounds. One of the responses was from Lou Zutavern, a professional modelmaker who assisted Greg Jein with various Trek projects during his time working on Deep Space Nine. He mentioned that he had built several kitbashes for Gary Hutzel to be used in 'A Time to Stand.' I've reached out to him to see if he has any photos of the models but he has yet to reply back. I'm not holding my breath, but you never know.
Another small update: I’m still in conmunication with Mr. Zutavern. He has told me that he has about 100,000 BTS photos that he’s trying to arrange into binders, and that I should keep bugging him occasionally to see where his progress is. He could be a huge resource, so I don’t want to bug him any more than I have to. But on that note, he told me he was restoring a model he originally built for a DS9 episode that never aired, about Scotty getting help from the DS9 crew in order to find the long-lost TOS Defiant (this of course was way before ENT and its mirror universe episodes.) Apparently he finished the model and instead made it the Enterprise, because it’s now up for auction:


Also, here's the lower nacelle and pylon from Greg Jein's USS Princeton model he built for BoBW:

 
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That Defiant-turned-Enterprise model is beautiful! The saucer gridlines are a tad-bit overdone (no doubt inspired by the prior Smithsonian "restoration" of the original), but other than that, it is pristine!
 
Sounds like it would have been a cool story. As Dukhat mentioned, it would have completely messed up one of ENT’s best 2-parters, though (and, to a small extent, the MU DSC’s reference to the ship).
 
I had never heard of it either until he told me and sent me a photo of the model in-progress.

Do we know roughly when it would have taken place in the show's timeline? My immediate suspicion was that it may have been an alternate option for the 30th anniversary but they decided to go with "Trials and Tribble-ations" instead.

Sounds like it would have been a cool story. As Dukhat mentioned, it would have completely messed up one of ENT’s best 2-parters, though (and, to a small extent, the MU DSC’s reference to the ship).

Interesting thought. If they had done the DS9 Defiant episode, what alternative could ENT have gone with? Perhaps the Intrepid, and it turned out for some reason the space amoeba somehow transported it to the mirror universe rather than digesting it?
 
The Intrepid might have worked. There were 13 Connies in the fleet at the time. They could have named another somewhere along the way, listed as missing in action, then bring it up again in ENT, but it likely wouldn't have had the same dramatic narrative as an established vessel like the Defiant. But, yes, the Intrepid could have been the next logical choice (pun not intended). Exeter could have been another option. It was a fully functional vessel, so I doubt they would have left it in orbit over Omega IV and instead assigned it to someone else once recovered.
 
The Intrepid might have worked. There were 13 Connies in the fleet at the time. They could have named another somewhere along the way, listed as missing in action, then bring it up again in ENT, but it likely wouldn't have had the same dramatic narrative as an established vessel like the Defiant. But, yes, the Intrepid could have been the next logical choice (pun not intended). Exeter could have been another option. It was a fully functional vessel, so I doubt they would have left it in orbit over Omega IV and instead assigned it to someone else once recovered.

I did wonder about the Exeter too, especially as it looks as though Kirk and co just leave it in orbit for someone else to deal with. I could imagine the mirror universe getting off on renaming it the Executor!

Could have also gone with the Constellation perhaps; maybe the destruction of the Planet Killer pushed its wreckage into the mirror universe where it was slowly reconstructed over decades? Discovery could have then gone on to claim that the Planet Killer was powered by mycelial energy and that was the "fire" we could see in its throat... after all, the ISS Charon does have a vague resemblance to the Planet Killer.
 
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IIRC, I remember reading somewhere (in its corresponding Eaglemoss magazine maybe) that the Charon was, indeed, supposed to have been the repurposed husk of a defeated Doomsday Machine. They decided not to go with that (at least, not in-dialogue), but that was the original concept, which is why the hull resembles the DM’s general shape.
 
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