BLSSDWLF's TOS Enterprise WIP

[Robert Comsol]

I feel it has to have some kind of internal logic beyond 'it's on the screen, either it's there and we have to make every single engineering decision based on that one shot or we have a holographic projector there'.

Frankly, I wouldn't mind if it were possible to shift the intermix shaft all the way to the stern to the point where it matches the center of the yellow circle at the bottom of the TOS Enterprise because that's where I placed Reactor 3 in my TOS Enterprise deck plan project here at the BBS, so I'd welcome the FP blue corridor extension.

However, we have to deal with the forward and aft torpedo bay from TWOK and therefore, IMO, the spacing between the turbo shaft (presumably between the forward torpedo launchers) and the continuing intermix shaft (presumably behind these "back walls" of both torpedo bays) would somehow have to match the distance between the intermix shaft on the main engine room level and a turboshaft somewhere near the blue corridor.

I'm mostly concerned that the blue corridor with the FP extension shifts the intermix shaft beyond torpedo section docking port. As a result, the intermix shaft would have to run through the center of the aft torpedo launcher (Torpedo Bay Section 4), which it apparently does not in TWOK.

I agree that he ship has to have internal logic which always brings me back to the turbo shaft system. The TWOK torpedo bay extends so much to the bow that the remaining turbo shaft space and/or location is limited to the narrow bow of the connecting dorsal.

Thus, on the upper level of the engine room Kirk first showed up in TMP either the blue corridor is shorter (because the FP extension is a fake display) to make space for a central turbo shaft or the blue corridor is leaning towards the starboard side enough to have a turboshaft in the center axis / horizontal intermix shaft alignment. The original studio set plans could suggest that, but then - why were Kirk and Scotty running towards the starboard side?

If the turbo lifts are exclusively located to the port side and the "whole" blue corridor is separating these from the other side, there couldn't have been a turbo lift cab there to get them to the transporter room which apparently was located in the saucer.

Bob

 

[blssdwlf]

I'm also reminded of "Keep It Simple".
I'm not sure if I'd want the Thermians building the ship, I feel it has to have some kind of internal logic beyond 'it's on the screen, either it's there and we have to make every single engineering decision based on that one shot or we have a holographic projector there'. Creativity thrives on limitations...but I'm still in awe of subjecting yourself to this kind of limitation!

Funny enough, the Thermian way is the simplest way, IMO.

It takes what's on screen (in this case, TOS and the first six movies) and goes with it. It doesn't try to second guess what's on screen with artist, designer, production or writer's intent. It doesn't try to blend in different universes and timelines into one universal version. By limiting to what's on screen it keeps it simple.

Now, the areas that are not shown, that's up for Thermian imagination

What would Montgomery Scott do?

Which one?

The TOS one that was willing to General Order 24 Eminiar back to the stone age and also ?
The TNG one that survived to "Relics" and saw Kirk still alive?
Or the "Generations" one that saw Kirk die?

Not that simple

Thus, on the upper level of the engine room Kirk first showed up in TMP either the blue corridor is shorter (because the FP extension is a fake display) to make space for a central turbo shaft or the blue corridor is leaning towards the starboard side enough to have a turboshaft in the center axis / horizontal intermix shaft alignment. The original studio set plans could suggest that, but then - why were Kirk and Scotty running towards the starboard side?

If the turbo lifts are exclusively located to the port side and the "whole" blue corridor is separating these from the other side, there couldn't have been a turbo lift cab there to get them to the transporter room which apparently was located in the saucer.

The blue corridor is offset to the starboard side so there is room for the turbolift to run vertically offset to the port side and still either at the last minute slide to center to go up the neck or stay offset to the port and still fit through, IMHO.

As to where Scotty and Kirk ran off to when the transporter malfunctioned, I figured it was to the transporter in the engineering hull and thus out and to the starboard corridor. There's room on the starboard side and also if they needed to go down a ladder one level to the space between the engine room and the cargo bay for a transporter to be placed there.

 

[kennysmith]

my question to you is this?, the photo you got here do you have any idea of how far apart the decks are with the black line you got on the photo of where you have this 305M?, and what is the space is where the black line is at feet " > ' < "?, i like to know if you have any idea for that space is at?.

 

[Praetor]

It's nice to just sit back and read someone else's thread.

Philosophically I agree that the stupid blue corridor is best ignored, but I admire what blssdwlf is doing here, and in other ways moving the intermix chamber back does solve some issues. And of course the scale does help with the issue of the cargo/shuttlbays.

Regarding the torpedo bay, I always wondered about the damage Khan inflicted. Either those decks just don't burn. () or we're seeing two bays. When I was younger I thought maybe there were meant to be two forward-facing bays side by side... which would be rather impossible without ratcheting up that size even more. An aft bay seems a reasonable compromise.

 

[Mytran]

As to where Scotty and Kirk ran off to when the transporter malfunctioned, I figured it was to the transporter in the engineering hull and thus out and to the starboard corridor. There's room on the starboard side and also if they needed to go down a ladder one level to the space between the engine room and the cargo bay for a transporter to be placed there.

The issue with the timing and layout of the Engineering/Transporter Room/Corridor scenes is an interesting one. We're not given any on-screen indication of where the Transporter Rooms are, but backstage materials put them in the saucer, and presumably the Engine Room is near the top of the secondary hull. Between leaving the Engine Room and arriving at the Transporter Booth a little under 9 movie-seconds elapse. I'm willing to grant that some time may have been lost in editing, but a transporter cycle just isn't that long, even in TMP.

I doubt that there is really time for Kirk & Scotty to race down the corridor in the secondary hull, wait for some doors to open, board a turbolift, call out their destination, wait for the doors to close, ride 8 decks upwards and sideways, get out of the turbolift and run down enough corridors so that Kirk can lose his way again later.

I'm sorry to say it, but Commander Sonak & Lori would have been mush on the Transporter Room floor before Kirk and Scotty had even got to the turbolift.

So, what else might be happening on screen? It struck me that Kirk & Scotty dash out of the Engine Room set in the direction of where the Transporter Room set is, on the stage layout. I do not know whether this was a deliberate choice by the director or a casual choice by the actors, but it got me thinking:

What if the Transporter Room really is just down the corridor from the Engine Room?

There's certainly plenty of space on the stageplan layout to place the visible sections of blue corridor, silver corridor and Transporter Room. However, whether we treat the painted backdrops as actual corridors or not, we would quickly run out of room in the secondary hull for the Transporter Room corridor, even on a 1164' length vessel.

So, what about the saucer?

The corridors would need a little shuffling to make the centre of the circle the centre of the Engine Room, but it still works:

The theory of multiple engine rooms on TOS deck plans have been around for a while, but as far as I know it's never been applied to TMP. However, it would solve the problem of the extra long corridor, the timing of the dash to the Transporter Room, and the reason why the console around the intermix tube would have anything to do with basic transporter functions (this last always struck me as odd). It would also explain the dissappearance of the long corridor outside the Engine Room in TWOK - because it was never in the secondary hull in the first place! The TWOK Engine Room is clearly in the secondary hull, as shown by Khan's attack. A lot of TMP's engineering scenes took place there too (since they involved the Warp Drive) but the initial ones - they are firmly in the saucer, IMO.

I should add that I don't see the saucer's Engine Room as one that generates power. The original function of the Engine Room tube (from what I've read) was simply a "Power Transfer Conduit" of some kind - no warp core in THIS vessel, thankyou! The saucer's horizontal PTC operates in reverse, compared to the secondary hull. Instead of sending power to the V-shaped split, this is where power is delivered, either from the main M/AM reactors or the Impluse Engines (or both). The energy can then be directed to wherever it is needed in the primary hull.

The purpose of the Saucer Engine Room is to control and regulate energy transferred via the PTC for use by saucer systems. Systems like the large sensor/deflector cluster on the saucer bottom have their own direct PTC feed. The area above the Upper Engine Room would be where the PTC is split into feeds for the upper phase banks and secondary shielding for the Bridge. The saucer has a much larger surface area than the secondary hull and the deflector shield grid would need a lot of power in its own right. Plus gravity, life support and the various control systems etc would all combine to draw a great deal of energy, more than justifying the existence of a PTC in the saucer.

The Engine Room would have to be located fairly high up in the saucer to fit the 5 decks seen below when Kirk peeks over the railings. I think however that the upper part of the saucer disc would allow both the vertical and horizontal PTCs to squeeze in, even on a 1,000' long ship. The Main Engine Room may be 12' high, but the decks seen below don't appear anywhere near as tall. In fact in TNG the Lower Engine Room set was only 7' tall so it would not be unreasonable to think that TMP's were at least similar. I don't know how much sense this makes from a deck layout perspective, but 7' decks would at least allow the Saucer Engine Room to fit in a 1,000' hull.

Since the location (or quantity) of the Transporter Room(s) is never made clear in TMP, relocating it to the top of the saucer disc is not a problem. When Kirk is in the corridor after the transporter accident, he asks the way to "turboshaft 8" which might indicate that it is on Deck 8. To me however, such formal nomenclature merely reinforces Kirk's unfamiliarity with the refit vessel. The novelisation says that Kirk had studied the blueprints and plans of the refit project, and if this is true then he may well remember that turboshaft 8 is the one that runs up the starboard Bridge door, even if he can't recall specific deck layouts (or what deck number he is on).

So, the Transporter Room may be located much higher up in the saucer - indeed, TWOK shows us a "D" on the turbolift doors after Kirk & Saavik are rescued. Now, the "D" may or may not relate to a deck number...but that's a debate for another time!

 

[Robert Comsol]

I was thinking the same thing, namely that the TMP engine room might actually be in the saucer. Great visualizations to illustrate the issue!

But I'd honestly be at a loss to rationalize the space the intermix shaft going all the way down to the ventral saucer dome is apparently consuming (this way we'd have a TMP feature not too dissimilar from the JJprise ).

I'd still prefer Kirk and Scotty taking a turbo lift cab to get to the saucer. After all, we had never experienced a transporter malfunction like this one before and the attempts to fix the malfunction could have already been in progress for a longer period of time than we actually saw onscreen.

Alternately the blue corridor right in front of the TMP engine room might lead to a flight of stairs and the level above, but in such a fashion that the long corridor we saw outside of the transporter room actually aligns with the horizontal intermix shaft one deck below.

Which now also reminds me that there is a problem with Kirk's running circular corridors in TWOK.

If you take the turbo lift down from the bridge to one of the lower decks to get from there to the engineering hull, you will not encounter any circular corridors on your way to the ladders in the connecting dorsal! However, if the ladder from above arrives at the aforementioned circular corridor above the engine room the TWOK footage would make more sense, IMHO.

(Of course, I do not have any problems at all with circular corridors in the engineering hull )

Bob

 

[Mytran]

But I'd honestly be at a loss to rationalize the space the intermix shaft going all the way down to the ventral saucer dome is apparently consuming (this way we'd have a TMP feature not too dissimilar from the JJprise ).

It's a bit wasteful of space, but I am assuming that there are systems at the bottom of the saucer that require a great deal of direct power (phasers, secondary deflectors, shield grid, long range sensors). Don't forget that the sub-level monitor rooms are a bit smaller than the Main Engine Room set (and square, not rectangular) so they wouldn't take up that much space really, while allowing for neccessary monitoring and maintainence on the vertical PTC.

Plus, if you take Kirk's downward gaze to mean that the sub-levels really are 7' high, they needn't reach all the way to the bottom on a 1,164' ship, levelling out at the top of the sensor thingy there, allowing for crucial. The seemingly short deck height needn't be a problem, since there is no need to correlate to the standard decks around them - indeed, there may not even be exits on those sub-levels at all! 7' divisions seemed to be the preferred height for maintainence levels anyway, it is the same with vertical Jefferies Tubes in the 24th century. It's more of a mystery why the main room has a 12' ceiling - again a practise carried on in starship designs for the next century.

Which now also reminds me that there is a problem with Kirk's running circular corridors in TWOK.

I'm not so sure - the ladders appear to be in odd places on the refit. Earlier in TWOK, in order to access a ladder to the bridge the gang had to run to the OUTER area of the saucer and turn left. Add that to the absurd number of turboshafts on the turbolift display and it gives the impression that the refit designers did not expect the ladders to be used very much. It would not surprise me at all to see Kirk having to take a bit of a long winded route in order to reach the dorsal ladders.

The real surprise is the speed at which both and Kirk and Spock got from the Bridge to Engineering - there's a LOT of levels in between!

 

[Robert Comsol]

Which now also reminds me that there is a problem with Kirk's running circular corridors in TWOK.

I'm not so sure - the ladders appear to be in odd places on the refit. Earlier in TWOK, in order to access a ladder to the bridge the gang had to run to the OUTER area of the saucer and turn left. Add that to the absurd number of turboshafts on the turbolift display and it gives the impression that the refit designers did not expect the ladders to be used very much. It would not surprise me at all to see Kirk having to take a bit of a long winded route in order to reach the dorsal ladders.

You're right, I forgot to consider the earlier scenes.

The real surprise is the speed at which both and Kirk and Spock got from the Bridge to Engineering - there's a LOT of levels in between!

The countdown started a 999 seconds IIRC. That would leave 16 minutes of time before detonation of the device. And we only need these 16 minutes for Spock to get down and fix the main energizer.

Bob

 

[Mytran]

Watch the footage again - those are way too fast to be seconds! Also, we are explictly told how long the countdown is:

DAVID: It's the Genesis Wave!
KIRK: What?
DAVID: They're on a build up to detonation!
KIRK: How soon?
DAVID: We encoded four minutes.

Thank goodness for that incredible Vulcan physique!

 

[Robert Comsol]

Frack! There has to be a slide down at the back of the connecting dorsal (the only thing I feel certain about is that Mr. Probert put flights of stairs at the back of the dorsal for both the movie and the TNG Enterprise)

I did mention in my TOS Enterprise thread there'd probably be some kind of slide enabling Spock in "Balance of Terror" to get so quickly to the phaser control room?

Bob

 

[blssdwlf]

Back in my college days, me and my buddy would visit another bud at the school dorm and we would race him up to the 9th floor (or from the 9th floor down to the 1st) as he took the elevator and we took the stairs. You can cover alot of distance if you put your mind to it.

I have no problem seeing Spock run from the bridge to the engineering room in under 2 minutes. (That's about the time Spock entered the dilithium room as Kirk asks for it from his "mark" at 2 minutes 10 seconds, IIRC.)

 

[blssdwlf]

IIRC we never see the extended corridor again once the ship is operational (and in TWOK this corridor ended where such a display panel would be).

That's a bit misleading. Although we're not shown that corridor again in the same movie (IIRC) it doesn't validate that it's a holocorridor (which again, makes no sense as to it's existence.)

While scanning TMP again, the FP corridor does appear again in TMP as you can see the edge of it in the top right of the screencap. (The image is from Trekcore.com but for whatever reason this specific screencapture isn't there anymore and their numbering sequence is different.)

Click to make larger. Image Copyright CBS Paramount Studios/Trekcore.com

As to where Scotty and Kirk ran off to when the transporter malfunctioned, I figured it was to the transporter in the engineering hull and thus out and to the starboard corridor. There's room on the starboard side and also if they needed to go down a ladder one level to the space between the engine room and the cargo bay for a transporter to be placed there.

The issue with the timing and layout of the Engineering/Transporter Room/Corridor scenes is an interesting one. We're not given any on-screen indication of where the Transporter Rooms are, but backstage materials put them in the saucer, and presumably the Engine Room is near the top of the secondary hull. Between leaving the Engine Room and arriving at the Transporter Booth a little under 9 movie-seconds elapse. I'm willing to grant that some time may have been lost in editing, but a transporter cycle just isn't that long, even in TMP.

I doubt that there is really time for Kirk & Scotty to race down the corridor in the secondary hull, wait for some doors to open, board a turbolift, call out their destination, wait for the doors to close, ride 8 decks upwards and sideways, get out of the turbolift and run down enough corridors so that Kirk can lose his way again later.

I'm sorry to say it, but Commander Sonak & Lori would have been mush on the Transporter Room floor before Kirk and Scotty had even got to the turbolift.

So, what else might be happening on screen? It struck me that Kirk & Scotty dash out of the Engine Room set in the direction of where the Transporter Room set is, on the stage layout. I do not know whether this was a deliberate choice by the director or a casual choice by the actors, but it got me thinking:

What if the Transporter Room really is just down the corridor from the Engine Room?

There's certainly plenty of space on the stageplan layout to place the visible sections of blue corridor, silver corridor and Transporter Room. However, whether we treat the painted backdrops as actual corridors or not, we would quickly run out of room in the secondary hull for the Transporter Room corridor, even on a 1164' length vessel.

Valid points - although I was thinking of this arrangement:

(Click image to enlarge)


It puts the transporter room on the level below the engine room and only one ladder climb down.

Also, I noticed that the transporter room is very tall and thus having 12' deck heights would be rather convenient.

And having the transporter room close to engineering isn't unusual since in TOS ("Mudd's Women") there was one down there and in "The Enemy Within" we know the transporter relies on the engines for its velocity balancing.

Now, as to a copy of the setup in the saucer - I like it! But, a couple of issues come up that make it impossible for me to have a copy of it in the saucer.

1. The horizontal power conduit leads off to two points up but not down towards the neck.
2. This early view down works out for 12' decks. To make the decks shorter would require some widening of the glass opening/railings. That plays havoc with other angles on it. Even though the stage level itself might be 7' below it and there is a FP painting on the floor, it's not shown as a 7' deck in these instances. (Actually, the 7' deck is only noticeable in later scenes which would arguably be from the engineering hull and even then, the visibility of the FP floor makes it a weird optical illusion question...)

Now, with that said, I think it would work on the Reliant and other ships that lack it's own engineering hull. It would certainly explain why the warp core on the Saratoga in DS9 got hit

 

[Mytran]

Having an engine room in the saucer not only fixes the corridor issue, but (since we never see the long PTC again after the first time) allows us to imagine that the space underneath Main Engineering is very different, with numerous PTCs leading off to the various subsystems (main deflector, anyone?), bypasses, and thus some of rationalisation for putting Spock's death-room in the place it is.

While scanning TMP again, the FP corridor does appear again in TMP as you can see the edge of it in the top right of the screencap.

Oops! Is that the scene where everyone is running to their posts as they prepare to enter the cloud? Any chance that Scotty could have returned to Saucer Engineering for a moment?

One thing I did notice it the set of grey doors on the top-left. Something Shane Johnson also included on his plans, and very sensible too - now the engineers have somewhere to go to the toilet when the main doors are sealed!

Valid points - although I was thinking of this arrangement:

It puts the transporter room on the level below the engine room and only one ladder climb down.

I have to say I admire the simpler logic of your solution and it provides just as reasonable an explanation for the Turboshaft 8/Decker scene. I too have no problem with tranporter rooms in the seconday hull. I hadn't noticed the height of the Transporter Room set (odd, since they took such pains in TMP to have lower ceilings elsewhere). Is that really a 12' high T-Room set though or would 10' be enough?

1. The horizontal power conduit leads off to two points up but not down towards the neck.

Quite so - but I imagined the saucer PTC being connected directly to the Impulse Deck (which in turn is connected to the main PTC) which would justify the presence of the V-split. It's a stretch, I know.

2. This early view down works out for 12' decks. To make the decks shorter would require some widening of the glass opening/railings. That plays havoc with other angles on it. Even though the stage level itself might be 7' below it and there is a FP painting on the floor, it's not shown as a 7' deck in these instances.

This is something I wrestled with, but in the end I was unable to determine what was actually being portrayed here so just went with 9' decks, since they would fit into a 1,164' Enterprise. Have you been able to extrapolate the exact heights using your vector-software program?

Actually, the 7' deck is only noticeable in later scenes which would arguably be from the engineering hull and even then, the visibility of the FP floor makes it a weird optical illusion question...

Actually, it seems they scrapped the backdrop painting in later scenes and just went with floorboards! Or is that just the painting seen from a different angle? There don't seem to be enough details present. Either way, the shortened deck height is painfully obvious - I might say not even 7'...

 

[Robert Comsol]

It puts the transporter room on the level below the engine room and only one ladder climb down.

Also, I noticed that the transporter room is very tall and thus having 12' deck heights would be rather convenient.

Clever and elegant solution. (Now, if they could just do TMP-R and fix that awful transporter beam effect).

And having the transporter room close to engineering isn't unusual since in TOS ("Mudd's Women") there was one down there and in "The Enemy Within" we know the transporter relies on the engines for its velocity balancing.

And in "Dagger of the Mind". Now that's just great, I had originally promoted a TOS transporter room one deck below the stardrive engine room (to rationalize the Nomad evac scene in "The Changeling"), given up on that and now it comes back full turn.

I think it would work on the Reliant and other ships that lack it's own engineering hull. It would certainly explain why the warp core on the Saratoga in DS9 got hit

That's a fresh, unorthodox and new concept (can't say I dislike it but I'm still a little sceptical). The remaining question is inevitably where does the matter-antimatter reaction take place and where do we place the reactant pods?

Or - in case of the TMP Enterprise - does the main reaction occur only in the engineering hull, then the shaft goes up to the saucer, runs horizontally (to feed the impulse engines) before it finally goes down to the ventral sensor dome and feeds the phasers on the way?

That could at least partially explain Decker's phaser-power-through-main-energy statement.

The only thing that is certain is that we never got a good look at what's below the main engine room level in TWOK. And depending on how much we seriously consider the Constitution Class refit design from TUC, the area below mustn't necessarily reveal a shaft that goes down all the way to the bottom.

Bob

 

[Robert Comsol]

Having an engine room in the saucer not only fixes the corridor issue, but (since we never see the long PTC again after the first time) allows us to imagine that the space underneath Main Engineering is very different, with numerous PTCs leading off to the various subsystems (main deflector, anyone?), bypasses, and thus some of rationalisation for putting Spock's death-room in the place it is. ... Actually, it seems they scrapped the backdrop painting in later scenes and just went with floorboards!

Hope you don't mind I combined two statements of yours into one. The angle the shot is taken from would also allow the existence of the energizer room ("death-room") aboard the TMP Enterprise already - if we didn't have that shot which equally looks weird below the main room level (for the simple reason that the set didn't go further below).

One thing I did notice is the set of grey doors on the top-left. Something Shane Johnson also included on his plans, and very sensible too - now the engineers have somewhere to go to the toilet when the main doors are sealed!

But they would only get in there in pairs, the "zipper" of the radiation protection suit is on the back, so you'd need someone help you take it off.

I would have preferred rad suit lockers behind that door, but the screencap clearly shows two engineers in rad suits coming in from the blue corridor instead (which is probably where the rad suit lockers are and could explain some personnel movement in the background during the Kirk-Decker scene).

Bob

 

[Robert Comsol]

Just two more thoughts.

Kirk left the bridge in a turbo lift cab but would have had to take an almost half-circle ride to get to / exit the blue corridor near the bow.
And wouldn't the engine room be too wide to allow for two vertical bridge turbo shafts?

Would it not be possible that the long vertical intermix shaft we saw first in TMP, is actually the one running down through the connecting dorsal (whose top ends in the impulse deflection crystal) and the Y-split at the end (of a shorter horizontal shaft) actually is a backup feed to the impulse engines?
Also looks like this could work more than well for deck heights suggested by Mr. Probert compared to the levels we see (the bottom plate of the shaft would be inevitable as between the torpedo launch tubes there'd only be enough space for the shaft itself).

After all, the Reliant's impulse deflection crystal was destroyed but apparently the ship was still able to run with "full impulse power" and apparently working impulse engines, judging by their redish particle exhaust glow?

That would also salvage Mr. Probert's design intention (and would definitely make me feel a whole lot better).

This way the previously "impossible" blue corridor (add to this the one near the transporter room) would be feasible with the FP extension and we'd have an impulse engine and a stardrive engine room (just as the ship had in TOS).

Bob

 

[Mytran]

I've yet to take measurements but I have a horrible feeling you are right (about the Bridge turboshafts). I think there might be room on the starboard side where the horizontal PTC corridor is narrower, but not on the port - although maybe the shaft layout is just not that symmetrical? To be honest though, I think that a saucer engine room (in the format I proposed) is going to be creating more problems than it solves

As for your proposal - again, I only have MS Paint to hand right now, but I think it WOULD fit, even on a 1,000' vessel. The shortened horizontal PTC is not a problem, in fact the more I watch TWOK the more I think a set-accurate build may be in order!

The biggest problem is that the (Engine Room level) long corridor would have to run along the dorsal pylon through the saucer undercut, leaving very little (if any) space for the sideways doors and corridors to open up into!

 

[blssdwlf]

While scanning TMP again, the FP corridor does appear again in TMP as you can see the edge of it in the top right of the screencap.

Oops! Is that the scene where everyone is running to their posts as they prepare to enter the cloud? Any chance that Scotty could have returned to Saucer Engineering for a moment?

It's the scene as Scotty is prepping the ship to go to warp right before the wormhole accident. I would like to think that he's watching the engineering hull engine room

One thing I did notice it the set of grey doors on the top-left. Something Shane Johnson also included on his plans, and very sensible too - now the engineers have somewhere to go to the toilet when the main doors are sealed!

LOL. Didn't that door also double as a turbolift on the Excelsior TSFS set when Scotty runs into the Excelsior captain?

I hadn't noticed the height of the Transporter Room set (odd, since they took such pains in TMP to have lower ceilings elsewhere). Is that really a 12' high T-Room set though or would 10' be enough?

I think 10' would be a minimum - however you can take Kirk (5'10"-6' depending on his shoes) and he's like a 1' off the floor in that shielded room. You can stack 2 of him vertically in the main transporter room so I think the height is closer to 12'.

Quite so - but I imagined the saucer PTC being connected directly to the Impulse Deck (which in turn is connected to the main PTC) which would justify the presence of the V-split. It's a stretch, I know.

Not too much of a stretch though. It does use up alot of space that might've been for machinery near the impulse engine and turbolift space by the undercut of the saucer since it's a tall deck to start off with...

2. This early view down works out for 12' decks. To make the decks shorter would require some widening of the glass opening/railings. That plays havoc with other angles on it. Even though the stage level itself might be 7' below it and there is a FP painting on the floor, it's not shown as a 7' deck in these instances.

This is something I wrestled with, but in the end I was unable to determine what was actually being portrayed here so just went with 9' decks, since they would fit into a 1,164' Enterprise. Have you been able to extrapolate the exact heights using your vector-software program?

Yes - sort of. It fits well at 12' deck heights. Shorter deck heights can work but it does weird perspective things to the vertical shaft and the widths of the rail openings going down. The FP artist did a pretty good job on 12', IMO.

Actually, the 7' deck is only noticeable in later scenes which would arguably be from the engineering hull and even then, the visibility of the FP floor makes it a weird optical illusion question...

Actually, it seems they scrapped the backdrop painting in later scenes and just went with floorboards! Or is that just the painting seen from a different angle? There don't seem to be enough details present. Either way, the shortened deck height is painfully obvious - I might say not even 7'...

On that last one you can see the FP painting as the lines that lead away from the wall columns and it looks funky!

But, the floorboards answers a question I had a while back and that was if they could seal off the engine room vertically like how they sealed off the room horizontally in TWOK.

I'm going to just call this a containment door/floor to block off radiation from the lower vertical shaft that also happens to have a pattern when closed

(Now, if they could just do TMP-R and fix that awful transporter beam effect).

Yeah I just noticed that. Wow, the things we see when we look closely.

And having the transporter room close to engineering isn't unusual since in TOS ("Mudd's Women") there was one down there and in "The Enemy Within" we know the transporter relies on the engines for its velocity balancing.

And in "Dagger of the Mind". Now that's just great, I had originally promoted a TOS transporter room one deck below the stardrive engine room (to rationalize the Nomad evac scene in "The Changeling"), given up on that and now it comes back full turn.

Ah that's right, I forgot about "Dagger". I'll bet you can put that transporter back in. Could you imagine the turbolift ride with Nomad about to explode?

I think it would work on the Reliant and other ships that lack it's own engineering hull. It would certainly explain why the warp core on the Saratoga in DS9 got hit

That's a fresh, unorthodox and new concept (can't say I dislike it but I'm still a little sceptical). The remaining question is inevitably where does the matter-antimatter reaction take place and where do we place the reactant pods?

If it's like the TMP reactor, probably the M/AM occurs at the bottom and then is fed up the vertical shaft (if we're talking about the Reliant/Saratoga). This of course would give additional meaning to the AM pods getting shaken in "Errand of Mercy" if this setup was on the TOS E!

Or - in case of the TMP Enterprise - does the main reaction occur only in the engineering hull, then the shaft goes up to the saucer, runs horizontally (to feed the impulse engines) before it finally goes down to the ventral sensor dome and feeds the phasers on the way?

That's how I can imagine it - BUT - I'd alter the horizontal shaft significantly to portray the power coming up from the neck and narrow the horizontal rooms and vertical rooms for the saucer.

The only thing that is certain is that we never got a good look at what's below the main engine room level in TWOK. And depending on how much we seriously consider the Constitution Class refit design from TUC, the area below mustn't necessarily reveal a shaft that goes down all the way to the bottom.

For the TUC engine room I kept it where it was and I rotated my engine room 45 degrees so the glass is at the bow and the "port" horizontal power conduit runs straight aft (I omitted the starboard power conduit as it was not visible in any of the scenes, AFAIK.)

After all, the Reliant's impulse deflection crystal was destroyed but apparently the ship was still able to run with "full impulse power" and apparently working impulse engines, judging by their redish particle exhaust glow?

Unless in TWOK that's not the impulse deflection crystal and it was specifically warp-related?

 

[Robert Comsol]

Hmm...from blssdwlf's lack of response regarding the idea of the vertical shaft leading down through the dorsal, I assume he doesn't like the idea.

As for your proposal - again, I only have MS Paint to hand right now, but I think it WOULD fit, even on a 1,000' vessel. The shortened horizontal PTC is not a problem, in fact the more I watch TWOK the more I think a set-accurate build may be in order!

Although it's a poor excuse (especially since I'm not a fan of it) many Trekkers accept the literal interpretation of Franz Joseph regarding the forced perspective TOS engine room cathedral (i.e. elements getting smaller and closer together near the end).

In the case of the TMP engine room FP for the stern of the impulse section we are coming to an end of the horizontal shaft with segments getting closer together which could indicate a termination of the shaft by elements that get subsequently smaller. Of course, the short engineers could present a rationalization problem (unless they have "selected" engineers that can work more efficiently in the stern low ceiling area )

The biggest problem is that the (Engine Room level) long corridor would have to run along the dorsal pylon through the saucer undercut, leaving very little (if any) space for the sideways doors and corridors to open up into!

Thanks for reminding me about this issue. As for the sideways and corridors these could have steps / stairs leading above the saucer undercut, so I wouldn't necessarily regard these as obstacles.

The (center-offset) long blue corridor ahead of the engine room could still fit inside the dorsal pylon, I believe.

Where it could get critical is the square engine room itself and the space for the horizontal intermix shaft.

However, and unlike the TOS Enterprise, the dorsal pylon of the movie Enterprises does not have a rectangular deck layout in the dorsal but one that is more oval in nature.

Check out this screencap from TWOK: http://movies.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/twokhd/twokhd0504.jpg

We can clearly see that the red separation lines (saucer-engineering hull) in the upper dorsal are curved, therefore the dorsal is wider in the middle than it is at the bow and stern!

While I can't say at this moment how much internal space that would allow, I assume it would have sufficient interior pylon space to both accomodate the shaft and the (impulse) engine room. If it doesn't fit into a ship with an overall length of 305 meters, maybe it will with 355 meters?

Based on the Kimble blueprints and size figures, the dorsal would have the widest width of 5.4 m (305 m O.L.) or 6.3 m (355 m O.L.). Alternately, how high could an impulse engine room be elevated before it compromises the upper deflection crystal?


By the way, what's up with these three different radiation suit (body) colors?

• Grey - impulse drive section only?
• White - both impulse and warp drive section?
• Red - both sections and reactor?

Bob

P.S.

Thanks to Mytran's excellent, imaginative (and entertaining) rationalization I hope we can all agree that there was only one more level about the TMP engine room level.

P.P.S

@ blssdwlf

Is there really any good reason to doubt that the Enterprise in TWOK destroyed the Reliant's impulse deflection crystal? Destroying a sealed end of the intermix shaft also required for warp drive probably has the effect of a temporary warp drive shutdown as seen in TWOK.

 

[blssdwlf]

Hmm...from blssdwlf's lack of response regarding the idea of the vertical shaft leading down through the dorsal, I assume he doesn't like the idea.

@Bob - sorry I had to head out on some errands.

The immediate problem is that the width of the vertical shaft decks is 22'6" which is too wide to fit in the neck. Conduit, no problem but not the room surround it.

By the way, what's up with these three different radiation suit (body) colors?

• Grey - impulse drive section only?
• White - both impulse and warp drive section?
• Red - both sections and reactor?

I'm not following. The rad suits look the same body shade of white to me and the differences you might be seeing are from lighting temperature variations.

As to the red collars - those are trainees.

Thanks to Mytran's excellent, imaginative (and entertaining) rationalization I hope we can all agree that there was only one more level about the TMP engine room level.

"one more level about the TMP engine room level" ?

P.P.S

@ blssdwlf

Is there really any good reason to doubt that the Enterprise in TWOK destroyed the Reliant's impulse deflection crystal? Destroying a sealed end of the intermix shaft also required for warp drive probably has the effect of a temporary warp drive shutdown as seen in TWOK.

I'm doubting that the dome destroyed the "impulse deflection crystal" because:

1. AFAIK, it has never been identified on screen as such for the Enterprise or Reliant.
2. Destroying that dome and the area to the starboard side of it resulted in, "They've damaged the photon-control and the warp drive." Not they've damaged the impulse engine.
3. If the impulse engine was also damaged along with the warp drive, the Reliant withdrawing on battery power would never have gotten them out of visual range from the Enterprise in any reasonable amount of time, IMO.

So, based on what was said and shown in TWOK, all I know is that dome structure is related exclusively to the warp drive in some manner.