Areas on ships we never got to see

[Gotham Central]

Star Trek is a fairly vast and imaginative universe full of wonderful ships and technology. However, the reality is that it is a show/movie made on a budget. Thus we have often been teased with places that, due to budget constraints, we never got to see.

For instance, the Enterprise D was always depicted as an enormous starship with more than 1000 people living aboard her. Encounter at Farpoint hints that the ship is full of amenities for starfleet and civilians both. Yet that vastness always seemed rather limited...especially when compared to say the Refit Enterprise. The Refit had a huge arboretum that was supposed to be park like inside (which we never really got to see up close). The refit also had an enormous RecDeck which served as the main community gathering point for the entire crew. To date we've never seen a room as large and comfortable that creates the sense of a shipboard community as the Rec Deck. The Enterprise D should have spaces at least as large. I think Rick Sternbach suggested that he envisioned the ship as having spaces that large for use by the everyone on board. That's why the ship model has several areas with large clusters of windows. The closest we ever get to any of that is Ten Forward...and even that seems somewhat limited.

Are there any spaces that you wish we had seen on any of the ships?

 

[JoeZhang]

The toilet.

 

[T'Girl]

We got to see Deanna's bathroom, but as the name implies it contained only a bath tub. In FC we saw Picard's "sink room."

Even if it were mostly CGI, I would have liked to have seen some of the characters enter the main shuttle deck, walk to a shuttle while having a conversation and climb in. All in one take.

The torpedo room would have been nice too.

 

[USS Triumphant]

I would imagine a ship the size of the Enterprise-D would have auxilliary bridges for both the saucer and the drive section. Agreed about the Rec Deck, and it would've been nice to see that bowling alley on Kirk's Enterprise, too.

And of course, we never did see Cetacean Ops, either.

 

[F. King Daniel]

TNG could have used their bigger sets ("Farpoint" mall, Klingon Great Hall etc) to represent big areas of the ship. From the sets alone, the ship comes across as being smaller than the TMP ship. Voyager seemed roomier to me.


As for parts of ships we never got to see, more of engineering in STV. What we saw was the lower level corridor set with an angled glowing pipe at the end to suggest it was parallel to a just-off-camera TMP-style horizontal warp core. When I first saw it as a kid, I didn't realize they only built the parts of the sets we saw, and was frustrated that they never gave us a good look around the Enterprise-A's shiny new engine room.

 

[The Wormhole]

I would imagine a ship the size of the Enterprise-D would have auxilliary bridges for both the saucer and the drive section. Agreed about the Rec Deck, and it would've been nice to see that bowling alley on Kirk's Enterprise, too.

And of course, we never did see Cetacean Ops, either.

I never did get why the other shows never had auxiliary control rooms like we saw on TOS. In all the other shows, when the bridge was out of commission, the ship was always controlled from engineering. I don't argue that it would be possible to control the ship from engineering, just that there should be a dedicated back up control room for emergencies. I suppose most of the time it was a cost cutting thing, use the standing set instead of building a new set that might only be used in that one episode. But then you have TNG's Brothers, where after the bridge crew are forced to evacuate the bridge they set up command in engineering, even though the battle bridge set should still have been available having only just been used two or three episodes earlier.

And yeah, I would have loved to have seen Cetacean Ops too.

 

[Gotham Central]

I would imagine a ship the size of the Enterprise-D would have auxilliary bridges for both the saucer and the drive section. Agreed about the Rec Deck, and it would've been nice to see that bowling alley on Kirk's Enterprise, too.

And of course, we never did see Cetacean Ops, either.

I never did get why the other shows never had auxiliary control rooms like we saw on TOS. In all the other shows, when the bridge was out of commission, the ship was always controlled from engineering. I don't argue that it would be possible to control the ship from engineering, just that there should be a dedicated back up control room for emergencies. I suppose most of the time it was a cost cutting thing, use the standing set instead of building a new set that might only be used in that one episode. But then you have TNG's Brothers, where after the bridge crew are forced to evacuate the bridge they set up command in engineering, even though the battle bridge set should still have been available having only just been used two or three episodes earlier.

And yeah, I would have loved to have seen Cetacean Ops too.

The Battle Bridge set was just a redress of the refit bridge. It's possible that the set simply was not available. Remember that at some point that set was extensively redone for TFF and TUC.

 

[The Wormhole]

I would imagine a ship the size of the Enterprise-D would have auxilliary bridges for both the saucer and the drive section. Agreed about the Rec Deck, and it would've been nice to see that bowling alley on Kirk's Enterprise, too.

And of course, we never did see Cetacean Ops, either.

I never did get why the other shows never had auxiliary control rooms like we saw on TOS. In all the other shows, when the bridge was out of commission, the ship was always controlled from engineering. I don't argue that it would be possible to control the ship from engineering, just that there should be a dedicated back up control room for emergencies. I suppose most of the time it was a cost cutting thing, use the standing set instead of building a new set that might only be used in that one episode. But then you have TNG's Brothers, where after the bridge crew are forced to evacuate the bridge they set up command in engineering, even though the battle bridge set should still have been available having only just been used two or three episodes earlier.

And yeah, I would have loved to have seen Cetacean Ops too.

The Battle Bridge set was just a redress of the refit bridge. It's possible that the set simply was not available. Remember that at some point that set was extensively redone for TFF and TUC.

The battle bridge set should have been available for Brothers, given it was only just used two or three episodes earlier in The Best of Both Worlds.

 

[Mr Pointy Ears]

the captain's yacht on the D,would of been interestin to see,voyager's aeroshuttle.

 

[HIjol]

D had a Swimming Pool...that would have been cool...

 

[Captain Rob]

John Eaves did some artwork of what the main shuttlebay of the Enterprise-E would look like. Complete with several Argo-class shuttles suspended from the ceiling in storage. There was work bays around the perimeter with an observation level above like the TOS Enterprise.
I also would have liked to see a proper rec room that could double as a ship's mess. Like they did on TOS.

 

[Gotham Central]

TNG could have used their bigger sets ("Farpoint" mall, Klingon Great Hall etc) to represent big areas of the ship. From the sets alone, the ship comes across as being smaller than the TMP ship. Voyager seemed roomier to me.


As for parts of ships we never got to see, more of engineering in STV. What we saw was the lower level corridor set with an angled glowing pipe at the end to suggest it was parallel to a just-off-camera TMP-style horizontal warp core. When I first saw it as a kid, I didn't realize they only built the parts of the sets we saw, and was frustrated that they never gave us a good look around the Enterprise-A's shiny new engine room.

The problem with Voyager was that it never actually felt smaller than the Enterprise. In fact, in comparison, some of the rooms are actually larger. Janeway's office was huge compared to Picard's on both the D and the E.

 

[Gotham Central]

John Eaves did some artwork of what the main shuttlebay of the Enterprise-E would look like. Complete with several Argo-class shuttles suspended from the ceiling in storage. There was work bays around the perimeter with an observation level above like the TOS Enterprise.
I also would have liked to see a proper rec room that could double as a ship's mess. Like they did on TOS.

Why would the Enterprise E have a mess hall? In fact I never understood why Voyager left DS9 with one. A lounge with places where you can sit and eat is one thing, but a room dedicated to meals seemed unnecessary on a ship where crew quarters have replicators.

Even odder is the fact that in Caretake, Janeway says that she had a small private dining room next to the mess hall which Neelix turned into the kitchen. The question is why would she need such a thing? These spaces make sense in TOS and Enterprise because food is generally not available in quarters and is made in the galley. This is not the case in the 24th century.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Probably for formal dinners with alien guests, like Archer would do in Enterprise.

 

[USS Triumphant]

Or, you know, some people like to eat in a social environment at least part of the time. And breaking bread together builds crew unity - at least it works that way for humans.

 

[T'Girl]

but a room dedicated to meals seemed unnecessary on a ship where crew quarters have replicators

Great if you want to eat by yourself.

 

[Robert Comsol]

D had a Swimming Pool...that would have been cool...

I still wonder how tall that holodeck must have been where this female crew member at the beginning of "Conundrum" did her Acapulco cliff-diving...

Bob

 

[Richard Baker]

Hands down- the Main Shuttlebay on the D. A massive open space with a tower in the center and the edges lines with shuttle storage niches.

The original Ed Whitefire blueprints showed another large space in the front of the saucer, 4 decks high with a park and elevated walkways, forward windows framing an orchestra stage. While not official, it would have been amazing to see. Ed also said the interior volume of the D was so huge that even with a crew of a thousand you could wander around for days without seeing someone- the equivalent of one person per football field of space.
Voyager had some interesting details never shown on screen- those hex-shaped hatches on the saucer underside were bottle-suit EVA ports and the back of the spine had some cool door you could exit the ship from.
The NX had those large dorsal/ventral cargo doors on the sides of the Saucer- those were supposed to open up into empty storage areas for cargo.
DS9- docking pylon control station on the tips- just wanted to see the view of the station from that point of view.

 

[T'Girl]

[I still wonder how tall that holodeck must have been where this female crew member at the beginning of "Conundrum" did her Acapulco cliff-diving

As I understand the way the holodeck supposedly works, the actual ceiling of that holodeck would only have to be out of the reach of her raised hands while she stood on her tip-toes.

 

[Alrik]

[I still wonder how tall that holodeck must have been where this female crew member at the beginning of "Conundrum" did her Acapulco cliff-diving

As I understand the way the holodeck supposedly works, the actual ceiling of that holodeck would only have to be out of the reach of her raised hands while she stood on her tip-toes.

Exactly. The Holodeck, as shown in TNG was more than sufficient for a dive like that. As the Tech Manual explains, you could make a dive from 2 meters, 20, or 200 if you wanted to. Once you jump, you'll travel the same distance, but due to the force fields and emitters, you will perceive it differently.