1701 warp core?
- Thread starter kent
- Start date
I object to "warp core" in connection with TOS for two reasons. I think it's lazy - it's this way in TNG so it's always been this way! And it discounts any changes or advances in Trek tech. It's like calling the things on the wings of a B-17 "jets". Sure, it's propulsion and even a similar layout and position. But calling them jets is silly.
But really it's "keep your damn TNG out of my TOS".
But really it's "keep your damn TNG out of my TOS".
Plecostomus
Commodore
I've been saying this for awhile. I assume TOS warp works on a different principle than ENT or TNG warp drive. The basics are the same but the way they achieve the "warp" is different.
Physical "warp generators" as opposed to cast coils for a start.
Didn't NX-01 have a warp core, though?
^^ Well, the NX had a warp reactor with 'plasma conduits' running to/from the nacelles, but I dont think we ever saw a vertical warp core per se? Besides "Enterprise" retconed so many things, it's the main reason many do not consider it 'canon'. But here's a thought FWIW, much ado was made in ST:TMP about "the new engines" implying that they were a radical redesign and departure from past systems? So much so, that on their first attemp at warp drive they were sucked into a wormhole! If the engines were simply a variation on past designes, then Scotty and his crew (not to mention Starfleet engineers in general) should have been familiar enough with the new system to avoid this? As a result, Spock had to stick his vulcan nose in Scotty's domain and help fix the problems, something that surely wouldn't have been necessary if Scotty had been as familiar with this design, as he would have been, if this was just a new twist on an old idea?
The reason I used the jet engine analogy was because Andy Probert once said the diff between TOS and TMP was analogous to the jump from propellers to jets.
It would have been really cool if they had come up with an even earlier concept for Enterprise. Not to be, I suppose.
It would have been really cool if they had come up with an even earlier concept for Enterprise. Not to be, I suppose.
This sounds convoluted, but bizarrely it’s almost exactly the solution I arrived when I first drew up my own TOS deck plans back in college. My aim was to construct them relying SOLELY on the on-screen evidence, and they went together surprisingly well! I still have them somewhere if anyone’s interested in seeing scans.
So, you're saying it's a "bong?"Well, it was the 70's.....What's going on in TAS?
I'm voting on it being a distillery. Its hard to get good Scotch whiskey in deep space you know.
Saquist
Commodore
"Warp core" is a somewhat nonsensical term. "Main reactor" or "matter/antimatter reactor" is more accurate.
Anyway, opinions differ, and the dialog from the show is somewhat contradictory. Some episodes seem to indicate that the nacelles themselves had self-contained reactors. Others seem to indicate that one or more reactors are located in the engineering hull. The latter is what I personally believe. The nacelles are just for warping space - power generation and fuel storage are the job of the secondary hull.
Ancient drew up the best damn 1701 cutaway I've ever seen. You can see the reactor located under the deck in the main engine room:
Very reasonable.
I wanted to believe the core was in the nacelles but that's not logical. To put the ships reactor in such a vunerable location would be folly. The multiple reactors that The last movie displayed is very likely.
Well, the term warp-core is very misleading. It sounds like a reactor and the location where the warp-field is generated, but they are generally two different things.
In TOS, in multiple episodes the ship was stated to have three reactors.
Now there was one episode in which some kind of energy alien being was located near Reactor 3, which was obviously in the engineering hull (as the energy being was seen exiting the engineering hull)
There was another episode in which three reactors was mentioned but they were talking about the matter/anti-matter nacelles (the warp-engines).
With that said I tend to believe the more plausible location for the reactors would be the engineering hull. For a number of reasons, the term engineering-hull tends to include engineering components which would include power generation, but most importantly in the episode in which the energy alien-being was located near Reactor 3, when it did exit the ship, it was shown exiting the engineering-hull.
In TMP the ship only had one reactor. The reactor/intermix was on the bottom of the engineering hull. The swirling water-light tubes were simply power transfer conduits, one went vertical into the impulse-deflection crystal, the other went aft then split both ways, then up into the warp-engines (Oddly none went into the navigational-deflector which would need some hefty energy output).
In TNG they started calling it the warp-core, but it still was basically an engine-reactor. The ship had only one like in TMP, but in this case the reactor was not on the bottom, it had an upper section and a lower section, one side pumped anti-matter into the reactor, the other pumped matter into the reactor. There were two red PTC's split off on either side which transferred the power to the warp-engines.
Still the warp-generation stuff happened up in the nacelles. There was one episode at least where they were inside the warp-nacelles (surprisingly hollow in there eh?).
CuttingEdge100
In TOS, in multiple episodes the ship was stated to have three reactors.
Now there was one episode in which some kind of energy alien being was located near Reactor 3, which was obviously in the engineering hull (as the energy being was seen exiting the engineering hull)
There was another episode in which three reactors was mentioned but they were talking about the matter/anti-matter nacelles (the warp-engines).
With that said I tend to believe the more plausible location for the reactors would be the engineering hull. For a number of reasons, the term engineering-hull tends to include engineering components which would include power generation, but most importantly in the episode in which the energy alien-being was located near Reactor 3, when it did exit the ship, it was shown exiting the engineering-hull.
In TMP the ship only had one reactor. The reactor/intermix was on the bottom of the engineering hull. The swirling water-light tubes were simply power transfer conduits, one went vertical into the impulse-deflection crystal, the other went aft then split both ways, then up into the warp-engines (Oddly none went into the navigational-deflector which would need some hefty energy output).
In TNG they started calling it the warp-core, but it still was basically an engine-reactor. The ship had only one like in TMP, but in this case the reactor was not on the bottom, it had an upper section and a lower section, one side pumped anti-matter into the reactor, the other pumped matter into the reactor. There were two red PTC's split off on either side which transferred the power to the warp-engines.
Still the warp-generation stuff happened up in the nacelles. There was one episode at least where they were inside the warp-nacelles (surprisingly hollow in there eh?).
CuttingEdge100
Yes, please share. Always interested in seeing another take on things.
Something to consider: the Nu-Trek Enterprise has (I spotted, but could be wrong) at least six separate reaction chambers as part of its singular "warp core." If the dilithium chamber is not part of the actual warp core on the classic design--and it very well may not be--then those twelve individual columns behind the grillwork in the engine room might each be a seperate warp reaction chamber. In that case, the thing behind the chainlink fence might actually be the "warp core" complex: a massive array of matter-antimatter reactors hooked up in parallel.
That scene in Abrams' misbegotten movie was clearly written by hacks who haven't got even half a clue as to how these ships are supposed to work, and were spouting technobabble they aren't even close to understanding.
In these instances, it's never specified what type of reactor is being discussed. It's likely we're dealing with fusion reactors, acting as secondary power sources (with the M/AMR mainly used for the warp drive)
See above.
Okay, that one is gonna need a more specific reference, because as it is, it makes no sense at all.
Inconclusive by itself, but compelling nonetheless.
BZZZZZZZZZT!!! Only one matter/antimatter reactor, for the purpose of providing sufficient energy to operate the warp drive. Nothing to indicate that it didn't also have multiple fusion reactors to act as backups. Remember, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
We really have no idea how the power was routed, aside from the very obvious conduits leading up to the nacelles.
Basically, "warp core" is less of a mouthful than "matter/antimatter reaction chamber", although that old chestnut is also in the TNG TM.
The only live action episodes that show the interior of a nacelle are the aforementioned TNG one, the name of which escapes me, and that one Enterprise episode, "Catwalk" I think was the name. The scene in TAS' "One of Our Planets Is Missing" is still under debate, not only for technical reasons (kinda silly for Kirk and Scotty to power one nacelle and not the other, plus the nightmarish prospect of lugging a chunk of antimatter all the way up that nacelle strut without blowing up the ship in the process
), but many of us, when first viewing that episode, didn't take it to be the interior of a nacelle at all, but the other side of that big tube assembly in Engineering.
To b fair, it's a rather simple line referring to "Ejecting the warp core."
The fault here would lie with the VFX artists, who I believe have covered their asses by going "oh, well its the antimatter pods, lol."
Perhaps the Connies were a "in between" step in warp drive evolution. Might explain why that had such a low number (12) of ships.
Not the first time in trek that the FX didn't match the dialogue, as in the aforementioned 'Day of the Dove', for example.
They seemed to have a very specific idea about how those ships worked since they made a conscious decision to use more than one reactor core. I mean, anyone who knows anything about Treknology would generally assume only a single device as a warp core; a modular design implies something a bit different is going on.
Someone out there understands Treknobabble?
OK, I've retrieved and scanned the deckplans - brings back a lot of memories! Needless to say, these were made in the days before widespread internet, when using a computer to make images this size would have crashed it, pronto! Rulers, compasses and photcopiers were my tools - but enough of the nostalgia:
http://i757.photobucket.com/albums/...fullENGINEScolouredcalloutsh.gif?t=1249893537
The first image shows the flow of matter, antimatter and warp plasma. The engineering layout and principles were constructed very late in the process, the primary goal (as I mentioned in my earlier post) was to see if the sets could fit into the ship, exactly as depicted on the TV series. The process was complicated by the fact that I wanted to use the corridors shown as well - this restricted most of the rooms to the inner ring of the saucer.
However, the design more or less worked, even if some layouts were less than conventional! Here is an example of what I mean:
http://i757.photobucket.com/albums/xx214/Mytran77/Deck2highlighted.jpg?t=1249893819
The highlighted section shows where Sulu (in "The Naked Time" chased crewmen down a corridor with a sword. The deck was mentioned by Uhura a few moments later.
But back to the Uniderth's original post - about having a TMP style conduit under the saucer section's enginering room - this image I found seems to embody that idea perfectly:
http://i757.photobucket.com/albums/xx214/Mytran77/enterprise_cutaway01.jpg?t=1249894585
It was created by Jonathan Burke. I hope I've followed protocol hosting another's image - please correct me if I'm wrong. Do I quote the original website or something?
