DS9 Turbolifts

[Sam_I_Am]

Hello,

I have my DS9 technical manual open at page 110, where it explains the station turbolift system.

What it doesn't explain in the text is the diagram underneath. In the diagram parts of the turbolift system are in different colours. Most of it is red, then four orange rings, and three green shafts in the three outer crossover bridges. Does anyone know what the colour difference signifies.

As well as this there are many small yellow dots throughout the turbolift system. I imagine they are either turbolift entrances or are the points where the horizontal network meets the vertical network, but does anyone know for sure.

Thanks

 

[Timo]

The first chapter mentions a "larger-capacity cargo transfer system" accessing the docking ring and various cargo holds; the red lines would appear to comply with this, while the orange lines might represent those stretches that are served by the implied lower-capacity personnel transfer system. The green lines simply mark the docking pylon shafts, going above and below the level of the route map.

However, does orange mean cargo plus passengers, meaning red is cargo only (which means there are no personnel paths from one ring to another), or does red mean cargo plus passengers, meaning orange is passenger only (which means the docking ring cargo shafts aren't connected to the rest of the system)? I think the authors intended one or the other, and simply didn't have the time to think it through.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[DEWLine]

I suspect that red is probably "passengers only".

 

[Timo]

The thing speaking against that is that it's the red line that is snaking through all the cargo holds in the Docking Ring...

Plus, all the orange lines are concentric circles that aren't connected to each other. If red is passengers only, then cargo cannot move from the Docking Ring to the inner areas. Then again, perhaps it doesn't need to... Indeed, why would any cargo have to move in circles around the middle or inner rings? Why would there be any cargo in the core module at any time?

I still think the two colors were supposed to represent cargo, passengers and mixing thereof, but the authors and artists never figured out how to do that logically.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Tomalak]

I don't see why they'd need to bring cargo from the docking ring to the habitat ring/central core. Terok Nor was a mining station, and all the ore processing stuff happened in that outer docking ring and the pylons. If any cargo needed to be brought in, I imagine it could be beamed in via those large cargo transporters.

 

[Timo]

Ore and cargo are probably two different things. One role of the station would be to turn ore into minerals to be shipped to Cardassia; this supposedly involved the pylons. Another would be to supply the occupation forces; this might involve bringing in cargo to the Docking Ring bays by interstellar vessels, then shuffling it a bit, and shipping it down by surface-to-orbit vessels. But the station itself would also need to be supplied, and it would seem odd not to have the internal lift capacity for that.

The argument "it could be done by transporters" should completely negate the need for any sort of a lift system...

Timo Saloniemi