FalTorPan said:
Shaw, I admire what you're doing. I do want to point out that the turbolift layout -- which I understand isn't a final layout -- makes actually walking from one area of Deck 5 to another area of Deck 5 inconvenient. I would suggest that, since the deck is largely comprised of crew cabins, one could get away with fewer turbolift exits.
Actually, part of the reason for not having
more turbolift tubes was to make sure that you could get to almost any where on deck 5 by walking. Plus I wanted the outer most corridor nearly unobstructed for running (and I say "nearly" because the impulse engines are going to get into the way). I'm considering having less seeing as large equipment and the like can be moved via
anti-grav units.
But yeah, I'd be very surprised if that layout ends up in any final work. This was to illustrate one possible way to have cabins and corridors (the size of the actual sets) work with turbolifts and the Hull Pressure Compartment bulkheads. I'm not really planning on putting too much effort (beyond discussing it with you guys) into this until some time in the spring. And by that point I'll most likely be going for a regular book on the general subject of the Enterprise of TOS rather than just a set of plans here and there.
When I reach that point this project looks like it'll branch off into two different projects. The one where I see (based on general set design and other evidence from Jefferies) if there was extended thought behind the design of the Enterprise. This version would leave unexplored areas of the Enterprise from TOS open, and just see if what Jefferies gave Star Trek in general actually fit together. The second is going to be a
do-it-yourself document that will give people scaled versions of most of the rooms to attempt to organize with in deck outlines.
When this reaches that crossroads the first part (along with most of the book elements) will be done pretty much out of sight (I plan on having only
aridas sofia viewing those works in progress). The second, going to the public more directly, I'll continue to do like this, out in the open.
But in either case, I'll stop way short of drawing up fictional plans of the Enterprise from the 23rd century. Pretty much everything I do is a 21st century look at some intriguing ideas from the mid 20th century about what a future starship might be like (within the constraints of a television show budget and schedule). Without putting too much extra into this, I mainly want to show what an incredible job was done on
Star Trek at a time when shows like
Lost in Space and
Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea were getting away with massive amounts of internal inconsistencies. While Jefferies was a very pragmatic individual (saying that
Star Trek was just another job), the amount of care and passion of his workmanship would seem to show that when it came to the Enterprise... it was very well thought out.
Besides, there are tons of others who can do the fictional plans better than I. And leaving areas that are "unknown" open in the end will let fans who don't have the ability to get that far have a foundation to let their imaginations fill in the blanks.
aridas sofia said:
However, I believe there would be a lot going on in that saucer that isn't covered by the term "office space". The kind of things I mentioned above would require a great deal of square footage, and at least in my calculations, impacted the ability to allocate single accommodations for everyone, or even avoid non-hot bunked double accommodations for some.
I'm planning on leaving large areas open if for no other reason then the fact that some elements of the ship's exterior suggest that something else might need that space.
The following image is of my test layout placed over a top view of my 33" Enterprise plans.
And while many people think that the exterior of the TOS Enterprise is sparse, what details that are there most likely require something logical behind them. And without knowing what that would be, I'd most likely leave that sort of space unfinished rather than attempt to figure out what would go there (which is beyond the range of what these plans are intended for... a strictly
would-it-fit look at the Enterprise).