Another fan attempt at TOS deck plans

Discussion in 'Fan Art' started by Shaw, Feb 11, 2008.

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  1. FalTorPan

    FalTorPan Vice Admiral Admiral

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    "The Enterprise Incident" suggested that the brig or some other holding facility was located on Deck 2. On the other hand, that turbolift ride from the bridge (traditionally Deck 1) and Deck 2 was awfully lengthy.
     
  2. TIN_MAN

    TIN_MAN Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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    Well, the "real" question, of course, is whether anybody in the producion design for ST:TMP gave much thought to things like this, or were they simply coming up with futuristic designs without much thought to the history of the material? (That is, that it was suppused to be a refit and therefore might exibit certain peculiarites in appearance that would be the tell-tale signs of just such a refiting?)
     
    Last edited: May 1, 2008
  3. Captain Robert April

    Captain Robert April Vice Admiral Admiral

    The Romulan Commander offered to take her rightful place in the brig. Kirk, on the other hand, had Spock escort her to her "quarters", which tells me that they put her up in the VIP quarters; the two poor shlubs, one of whom was still in his Romulan skivvies when the Enterprise went warping thataway from the Romulan ships, they were in the brig.

    I take Kirk's gesture as 1) a token of respect from one commander to another, and 2) a good way to keep the good commander away from a couple of rather cheesed off troops, who might just convince her to join them in an illadvised attempt to escape and seize the ship.

    As for the length of time it took for the turbolift to drop one measley deck, maybe Spock was taking the scenic route, while the aforementioned quarters were being prepared. OR, once she came on board, certain protocols were put in place, whereas it was required to give specially coded, and therefore misleading, commands to any turbolift that any of the aforementioned Romulans happened to be in, thereby at least frustrating any attempts by the commander, or those two other Romulans for that matter, of figuring out the internal arrangement of the ship. "Deck Two" in this case could actually be instructing the turbolift to head to Deck 7, by way of the secondary hull, pausing briefly by the impulse engines.

    :D
     
    Last edited: May 2, 2008
  4. Shaw

    Shaw Commodore Commodore

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    Thanks again for the encouragement from everyone!

    Yeah, I pretty much see the deck 2 reference as being dignitaries' staterooms. I would guest that Kirk had Uhura sent the turbolift down to the loop in a holding pattern so that a room could be prepared by the time she got there. Plus there isn't a lot of places to go on deck 2, so there wouldn't really be much of a point for Spock to walk her all the way to the room, specially if her escort would have been waiting for her anyways.
     
  5. FalTorPan

    FalTorPan Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Another possibility is that the Deck 2 reference was intended to be the second-lowest deck within the ship, or the second-lowest deck within the primary hull (since TOS occasionally distinguished between "decks" and "engineering levels"). Although it's likely that the more militarily minded writers and producers of the original series ascribed to the "Deck 1 is at the top" assumption, as hinted in The Making of Star Trek, going by on-screen references alone, a starship's bridge was never explicitly shown to be on Deck 1 until ST:TNG. (Yes, there's a big "A" on a bridge turbolift decal in the early films, but that need not be a deck identifier, and even if it were, "A" and "Deck 1" need not be synonymous.)

    I would imagine that most writers and/or producers not familiar with naval parlance might assume that Deck 1 is at the bottom of the ship, unless told otherwise, following the convention used in many terrestrial buildings.

    (For more Deck 1 at the top or bottom fun, check out the first scene of DS9's "Emissary," when the Saratoga is hit at Deck 1 -- shown to contain the bridge according to interior shots, but seemingly being the bottom of the ship according to exterior shots!)
     
  6. Shaw

    Shaw Commodore Commodore

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    Well, one could come up with almost an endless series of arguments against anything in TOS... but in this case (and most of the deck references I plan on using), there are no direct contradictions with what was said and any other aspects of TOS.

    To date the only deck level reference from TOS I'm considering dropping would be Rand's quarters being on deck 11. Otherwise, the show was surprisingly consistent with what they said. And in fact what I've been noticing is that the production team in TOS did a much better job than the later series at being consistent with the ship's internal arrangement.

    At this point I'm starting to get the distinct feeling that the movies and later series are actually tarnishing the perceived production quality of TOS. And while the nearly two year lead in that Jefferies had on thinking through the arrangement of the Enterprise is massive compared to what nearly any of the later series had, the consistency of much of TOS lasted through all the seasons. And yes an argument can be made that with just short of three seasons, TOS didn't have a lot of itself to trip over, it has to be remembered that TOS existed in the era of Lost in Space, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea and other SciFi series that didn't consider consistency to be an important factor.
     
  7. Captain Robert April

    Captain Robert April Vice Admiral Admiral

    Another factor to keep in mind when thinking about Star Trek's preproduction period is that Jefferies had a lot more to worry about than just the innards of the Enterprise.

    I suspect that the process was sort of stop-n-start in the preproduction phase, since we first had the pilot, so some general work was done to get everything to an acceptable level at the pilot stage, then the waiting for the decision from the network, during which probably little to nothing was done (remember, most pilots never even see the light of day, even those few that actually sell, and especially back on those days, so why waste time working on the thing until you know the network's actually gonna buy the thing?), then we had the unpredented second pilot order, which enabled everyone to build upon what came before, then another down period while waiting to see if the show was gonna sell this time, then full blown preproduction from late '65 through early '66 to try and flesh things out to a point where they could live with it, with the understanding that, like any other show, it's still a work in progress (a nice way of saying they were making it up as they went along).

    As stated, we're talking the era of Irwin Allen, so the consistency bar was set pretty low to begin with. Any level of consistency was noteworthy, and the fact that Star Trek holds up as well as it does after all this time is nothing short of miraculous.
     
  8. Shaw

    Shaw Commodore Commodore

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    Okay, this isn't exactly anything that is anywhere close to complete (and the size also doesn't make it all that readable either), but I thought I would share it anyways just to let you guys know I haven't forgotten about this project.

    [​IMG]
     
  9. Captain Robert April

    Captain Robert April Vice Admiral Admiral

    Another factor everyone forgets: Star Trek wasn't the only pilot they were working on, Roddenberry included. "The Long Hunt of April Savage" and "Police Story" are two examples of other pilots that Roddenberry produced during that same period, in case Star Trek didn't sell.
     
  10. number6

    number6 Vice Admiral

    Actually April Savage was produced during Season 3 of TOS, according to Inside Star Trek anyway.
     
  11. Bernard Guignard

    Bernard Guignard Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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    Thanks Shaw for all the great work.
     
  12. Captain Robert April

    Captain Robert April Vice Admiral Admiral

    I'll have to check that out, but my impression was that it was before the first season got underway (I seem to recall Matt Jefferies being given a choice between Savage and Star Trek, and he picked Star Trek).
     
  13. Shaw

    Shaw Commodore Commodore

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    Thanks!


    It should be pointed out that what I was alluding to before was the fact that Jefferies had a lot of time to think about this subject.

    And if my experiences here are any measure, if I were Jefferies, I would have had a pretty clear view of how the Enterprise was laid out within a couple months. As it stands right now, I have a very good mental image of what the inside of the Enterprise looks like, where many of the different places we saw on screen would be and how to move around within the ship to get from place to place.

    Jefferies most likely had a similar mental image of the interior of the Enterprise (though most likely not the exact same image as I have), and for what he needed for Star Trek, that was more than enough. He didn't feel any compulsion to share that vision with others beyond what was needed for the production of the show, so other than hints of these ideas, we don't have much else.

    I, on the other hand, am attempting to share my mental image with others... which in turn requires putting this into a form that communicates a ton of little details. Putting all those little details down on the page is certainly a lot harder than just having them as part of a complete mental image of the Enterprise. But in the end I'm hoping that everyone here will have the same ability to sit down, close your eyes and explore this version of the Enterprise (in the same way that I'm sure most of us can still do with the Joseph's version).

    ... And one should remember that Jefferies was getting paid (for at least some of his efforts), while I'm doing this in my spare time. I would guess that a majority of his mental image of the interior was set within weeks of the final resizing of the Enterprise.
     
  14. Captain Robert April

    Captain Robert April Vice Admiral Admiral

    Depends on how full his inbasket was at the time.
     
  15. number6

    number6 Vice Admiral

    I did check it out and I was mistaken. The April Savage pilot was filmed before the first season. Duh. My bad.
     
  16. Captain Robert April

    Captain Robert April Vice Admiral Admiral

    The fall of '65. They were finding stuff for Roddenberry to do while waiting for word on whether NBC was gonna buy Star Trek, after the second pilot.
     
  17. number6

    number6 Vice Admiral

    As I said, i went back and checked it out. Interestingly enough, Solow was kinda pissed about how GR phoned it in.
     
  18. Captain Robert April

    Captain Robert April Vice Admiral Admiral

    Everyone was pissed. That pilot was also where Roddenberry, apparently as a demonstration that he was large and in charge, had the network guy, Harve Bennett (yes, that Harve Bennett) thrown off the set for no good reason.

    Doncha just love irony sometimes?
     
  19. Cary L. Brown

    Cary L. Brown Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    That's a new one... where'd you get that tidbit of info? If it's really true... damn, that does put matters into perspective. You'd have to wonder if PPC chose Bennett to helm ST-II with that in mind?
     
  20. number6

    number6 Vice Admiral

    Irony is just so....so.... so.. ironic.
     
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