Engine Room(s) on the TOS Enterprise (revisited)

Did they? The vast majority of the technical knowledge in the series can be found in the first draft of the series bible, much of it compiled before the show even aired!

 

Roddenberry was not on TAS. He is listed as creator and executive consultant. He was not involved in the production of it. Dorothy was and she did a damn good job with the stories. She couldn't save the questionable production values after that (typical of Filmation). They made great use of stock shots and reused things from other series (they also did Tarzan and Flash Gordon among many others). I have never had any confidence that anything from TAS should be taken as canon. Some are very strongly in line with canon and some are way out in left field.. Where it fits, great, but trusting it as a source is questionable. As much as I love TOS, the movies, and TNG, I find TAS hard to watch except for a handful of episodes. I can see why Roddenberry exiled it from canon.

 

The information the writers needed (with many notes that the scripts would be fixed after the fact - which they did). But there was no Matt Jefferies or Wah Chang. No Roddenberry, Bob Justman, etc. It was really only Dorothy Fontana. One out of how many who worked to make TOS a success?

 

That's just self-contradictory right there. The fact is, he did have input, so, that's that.

Head-canon ≠ canon.

It was exiled because of rights issues, which have since been ironed out. Canon ≠ continuity, by the way.

---

But let's keep our eye on the ball. This whole side bar grew out of:

The idea, that if anti-matter was in the nacelles then it couldn't be accessed, has literally no support in either canon or any known behind-the-scenes information compiled during the production of TOS. If it has support in any of those places, please cite it.

On the other hand, we know that there are places aboard the ship that we've never seen where the crew needs to wear protective suits. How did we know this? Because we've seen crewmen wearing such things in the corridors and elsewhere. Are any of these places up the nacelle support pylons? We literally do not know. Could be no, but it could be yes.

The only data point I'm aware of in addition to what's in TAS about whether nacelles can be accessed is that, for some reason, Franz Joseph (FJ) decided to place the Jefferies tubes at the base of the nacelle support pylons, and the steps went all the way up the pylons to the nacelles, which Roddenberry signed off on. You need anti-radiation suits to go higher than a certain point, and the whole system has to be shut down to go higher than the second safety lock, beyond which full environmental suits are also required. (By the way, Geoffrey Mandel executed a warp nacelle blueprint in 1978 clearly inspired by TAS&FJ. Neither that or what FJ did are canonical of course, beyond the limited usage of the FJ material in the films, as has been discussed elsewhere; in any case, obviously, none of this material existed when TOS was produced.)

But none of that would imply that it's not possible to siphon antimatter from a nacelle down the pylon.

 

I don't think TAS necessarily depicts entering a nacelle. If I recall, he mentions putting the antimatter in a nacelle, but the walk past a bunch of pipes and leave it behind a door. It could have been moved through a system to somewhere else on the ship, so they were not necessarily in a nacelle, unless someone has stronger evidence.

I don't see much contradiction in this case, or many other cases.

Not sure on that. "engines" or "main engines" get said a lot, but I cannot think of any time they were directly referenced as being the same thing in dialogue. "power nacelles" or "pods" might refer to nacelles directly.

From "Tomorrow is Yesterday" Scotty: "Engines are on full reverse. They're buckling!"
Assuming that he means that the nacelles are about to break the struts (which is not necesssairly what he means) this could just the only example of even calling the nacelles just "engines."

As far as I know, it would be hard or impossible to prove anyone entered a nacelle in TOS, at least while the ship was moving and in service. Is there evidence one way or another?

I had not heard of this, but it makes sense quite well. Add to that a tube running up through the neck, and you have it pretty much covered.

 

Roddenberry was listed in the credits but I have never heard he was in any way involved with the production. I recall Dorothy Fontana saying he wasn't. He definitely was not involved in any of the day to day production. And the reason he removed it from canon had nothing to do with rights issues. The same reason FJ's work was exiled. It was about control and quality. TAS does not have the production care or quality he associated with his baby and he was not involved. As he is no longer around to tell us whether something might have changed his mind in the intervening years, I respect and agree with his decision. So it isn't my head canon, it is Gene's canon.

 

It's a nacelle.

They literally say they're going to insert the antimatter into a chamber in one of the nacelles, and then they enter a never-before-seen part of the ship that looks like it's in a long cylinder and insert the antimatter into a chamber. What else could it be, except a nacelle?

Mandel's nacelle blueprint that I referred to with its "hall of tubes" is clearly inspired by the scene in question, so clearly he thought so, too. Memory Alpha agrees as well.

Here are TrekCore screencaps. Notice how the gangway through the "hall of tubes" is down the center-line of a long cylinder.

http://tas.trekcore.com/gallery/thumbnails.php?album=44&page=15
http://tas.trekcore.com/gallery/thumbnails.php?album=3&page=7

 

Seemed like it was more engine equipment in the secondary hull. The blueprint would still be non-canon, correct?

 

Well, again, they said they were going into a nacelle, so....

Yep, Mandel's blueprint is non-canonical, as I said. It's only evidence that he interpreted the episode the same way.

 

So let's go back to That Which Survives:

The emergency bypass control of the matter anti-matter integrator is fused causing the engines to run wild. There is no way to get at them. According to Spock's memory of the fuel flow, there is an access tube leading to the matter/anti-matter reaction chamber. Scott confirms there is a service crawl way, but it is not meant to be used while the integrator operates. He's not even sure a man can live in the crawl way in the energy stream that bottles up the anti-matter. Scotty knows every millimeter of that system. He agrees to use a magnetic probe to try to cut off the flow of anti-matter as Spock suggests. Scotty walks in from a corridor with two men into a room (it looks like a redress of the shuttle observation bay from season 1). He opens the hatch and the two men help him into the horizontal tube. He crawls through the tube (it seems to be between 15-20 feet long). He informs Spock that he has rigged the section he is in to be ejected should he make a mistake messing with the magnetic bottle. He's so close to the flow that it feels like ants crawling all over him. He managed to set the charges for the ejection is less than 4 minutes so it seems to be a system that was already in place. As Scotty starts to work he reminds Spock that if he disrupts the magnetic field, there is a 2 second safety window that Spock has to eject him. Spock has Uhura monitor the readings and he has the woman at the helm arm the jettison system. Due to how Losira transported them, Scotty has to reverse polarity on the magnetic probe for it to work.

So, according to that episode, the matter/anti-matter reaction takes place in the engineering hull. Scotty is able to directly access the system from a crawl way that appears to be parallel to the anti-matter flow.

In Obsession, Spock says they can siphon an ounce of anti-matter from the engines and beam it down to the surface. When they beam down, the container is a sphere of about 12 inches in diameter. Spock indicates no difficulty in getting the anti-matter. If the crew regularly refer to the "engines" as the entire reaction/power/warp system then "engines" does not refer to the specific component in the nacelles. That is the way Decker refers to it in TMP - phaser power is now channeled through the main engines.

I see no logical reason to store the anti-matter or the matter used in the warp reaction anywhere very far from the reaction chamber. It makes no sense according to that detailed description of the location of the matter/anti-matter reaction chamber to get more complex than the simple design that episode indicates. That is exactly the episode I was thinking of when I planned out my design for the core engineering system. I picture the crawl way Scotty uses in this as being on the port side of the center line just below main engineering. I think it is pretty clear from this and TMOST that the fuel for the main engines is stored in the engineering hull, not in the nacelles. I see the nacelles as only serving to produce the warp field that propels the ship, not the power for the rest of the ship's systems.

 

Except The Making of Star Trek explicitly says otherwise. I'm glad you brought up TMoST, so we can add in what it says as well.

From page 191:

The two long nacelles, atop the ship and attached to the engineering hull by slender pylons, house the main starship engines. The engines are each 504 feet long, 60 feet in diameter, operate via controlled fusion of matter and anti-matter, creating the fantastic power required to run the Enterprise and drive it at faster-than-light speeds.​

I mean, it could hardly be clearer. The matter/antimatter reaction occurs in the engines that are housed inside the nacelles to create the fantastic power that drives the ship.

Granted, it's not a Roddenberry quote IN ALL CAPS, but it's as good as it gets in TMoST.

Really? What is the line of dialog that says this? Let's activate Chrissie's transcripts now and see what dialog we have to work with.

http://www.chakoteya.net/StarTrek/69.htm

So, first of all I searched for the word "hull". Zero hits.

Next, "engine". (That also gets "engineer", "engineering", etc.) 17 hits, but none are directly relevant (you can see for yourself).

So, no reference at all to "engineering hull", "secondary hull", etc.

Next, "crawl". 21 hits altogether.

Here is the dialog that introduces the service crawlway.

SPOCK: As I recall the pattern of our fuel flow, there is an access tube leading to the matter-antimatter reaction chamber.
SCOTT: There's a service crawlway, but it's not meant to be used while the integrator operates.
SPOCK: Still, it is there, and it might be possible to shut off the fuel at that point.
SCOTT: What with? Bare hands?
SPOCK: A magnetic probe.
SCOTT: Any matter that comes in contact with antimatter triggers the explosion. And I'm not even sure a man can live in the crawlway in the energy stream of the magnetic field that bottles up the antimatter.
SPOCK: I shall try.
SCOTT: You'll be killed, man!
SPOCK: Unless a solution is found quickly, that fate awaits all of us.
SCOTT: Aye. You're right. What have we got to lose? But I'll do it, Mister Spock. I know every millimetre of that system. I'll do whatever has to be done.
SPOCK: Very well, Mister Scott. You spoke of the feel of the ship being wrong.
SCOTT: Aye. It was an emotional statement. I don't expect you to understand it.
SPOCK: I note it, Mister Scott, without necessarily understanding it. I propose to run an analysis through the ship's computers, comparing the present condition of the Enterprise with her ideal condition.
SCOTT: Mister Spock, we don't have time for that.
SPOCK: We have twelve minutes and twenty seven seconds. I suggest you do whatever you can in the service crawlway, while I make the computer study.​

There's absolutely no reference at all to where it is in the ship, except that it leads to the matter-antimatter reaction chamber that is a part of the fuel flow. The suggestion upthread by @TIN_MAN that this is inside a nacelle is therefore reasonable.

https://www.trekbbs.com/threads/eng...rprise-revisited.297971/page-20#post-12853412

The remaining hits of "crawl" just mention the crawlway and are not helpful (you can see for yourself).

"nacelle" gets zero hits.

In any case, it's reasonable that wherever the crawlway is, it's where it can be jettisoned. Things that can be jettisoned canonically include, besides nacelles, the ion pod.

 

I just watched the episode. Read what I posted. I included the set descriptions. The matter/anti-matter reaction takes place in a chamber within the ship. It is not in the nacells. And TMOST doesn't explicitly place the reaction, only that the reaction powers the warp engines. I've been reading that chapter for the last month analyzing what is has to say about the ship layout. It is very vague on many details and only covers the overview. It does nail down what deck the senior offices quarters are on, but there is no clue where the briefing room is or even the transporter. And the series didn't always follow what is in there. I think FJ and the TMP team followed it better than the series did. The funny thing is TMOST emphasizes how large the secondary hull is and then only talks about the hanger.

 

Since my description wasn't sufficient, here are stills showing the hallway, Scotty being helped into the crawl way, and Scotty with the access panel to the anti-matter stream open.





And if you look carefully, you can see the edge of the open hatch behind Scotty in the last picture, so he didn't crawl any distance. Just a few feet to the hatch that gives him access to the anti-matter magnetic containment field. He is just a few feet from a hallway that runs perpendicular to the crawl way (just the other side of the wall behind him). So absolutely not in the nacelle. You need to go to the episode, not rely on a transcript. So much is given in the visual detail, not the dialog.

 

^^Actually, if you look carefully at the detailing on the sides of the tube, you'll notice that Scotty's head is the closest thing to the hatch he entered. IOW, they just moved the camera over a bit and shot down the tube with some wild pieces on the other end.

 

No, the greebles at the far end match the greebles when Scott entered. Also the bars on the ceiling go all the way to the far end and match up with where he entered while they look completely different on this end. I didn't post the in between images because I wanted to keep it to 3, but I have them.

 

What @BK613 is correct as far as behind the scenes info goes. If you look at the top right side there is a ribbed gray bar that runs the length of the tube. Use that as your reference point. You see that when Scotty climbs in. When the shot changes, Doohan is re-positioned at the deep end of the tube and the camera is shooting down the opening where Scotty initially climbs in. The gray bar is still on the right side of the tube.

However, that is just behind the scenes stuff. What a viewer sees is Scotty climbing in, camera change and then crawling up a section of the tube. When the camera changes Scotty is assumed to have crawled to a different part of the crawlway because he now has a red grill blocking the path behind him and the gray bar is on the "opposite side" of the tube suggesting it is a different section than where he has entered in from.

Back to "That Which Survives"...
Regarding TAS...

In TAS, the ship has a matter nacelle and an antimatter nacelle and they entered the antimatter nacelle. No debate about that. Two issues though: First the TAS ship exists in an animated universe with differences in technology. And second, if the fuel are in opposite nacelles then logically they should not have a matter-antimatter reactor in each of them. The TAS episode only speaks of a regeneration chamber in the antimatter nacelle. Having the fuel in the opposite nacelles leaves secondary hull (the middle) as the best choice for where the M/AM Reactor would be. So in the TAS version of "That Which Survives", Scotty would be in the secondary hull to be near the M/AM Reactor.

But looking at TOS...

Even though we know that there are M/AM reactors in the warp engines in the warp nacelles, it doesn't sound like they generate energy for the ship to use and only are used to propel the ship. "That Which Survives" points to a single main source of energy and "The Paradise Syndrome" have the engines disconnected from the full power being generated. This suggests that there is a central M/AM reactor generating power and it's most likely in the secondary hull. Since the single main energy source is sabotaged then it's probably the same M/AM reactor. That leaves us (or just me) to imagine an antimatter fuel pod in the secondary hull feeding this M/AM reactor and that it is in a place where explosive separator charges can be used blow it clear of the ship.

"That Which Survives"

SPOCK: A force that could hurl us nine hundred and ninety point seven light years away and at that distance still be able to sabotage our main source of energy will not be waiting around to be taken into custody.​

and in "The Paradise Syndrome"

CHEKOV: Deflection point minus four.
SPOCK: All engines stop. Hold position here.
SCOTT: All engines stop, sir.
SPOCK: Prepare to activate deflectors.
...
SPOCK: Engineering, maintain full power. Full power.
...
SULU: Not enough, Mister Spock. It's only point zero zero one three degrees.
SPOCK: Recircuit power to engines. Maximum speed heading three seven mark zero one zero.
​

Of course, YMMV

 

Scotty outside tube pix:
http://tos.trekcore.com/hd/albums/3x17hd/thatwhichsurviveshd1012.jpg
You can see the gray bar @blssdwlf is referencing near Scotty's eyeline (with red endcap). Also notice there is only one red pipe line just below it.

Scotty in the tube pix:
http://tos.trekcore.com/hd/albums/3x17hd/thatwhichsurviveshd1017.jpg
Notice the gray bar by Scotty's right hand and two red pipe lines by his left hand.
Finally, the doors do not open wider than the tube so they should be very visible, even when open

And as you might have guessed by now, the tube orientation has come up in conversation here before and I was trying to offer up the results of that previous discussion. Now back to your regularly scheduled programming

 

Yes, I was focused on the greebles at the bottom. I missed that gray strip at the top and that the lighting inside didn't change.

But elsewhere, in The Doomsday Machine, Scotty said the Constellation's warp drive (singular) is a hopeless pile of junk.

In The Apple, Scotty similarly refers to the Enterprise warp drive (singular). Then Kirk tells him to discard the warp drive and nacelles if he has to and get the main section out of there.

In Elaan of Troyus, after the sabotage destorys the dilithium circuts, Scotty references the matter/anti-matter reactor (singular). Kirk does then refer to the warp engines (plural).

In The Paradise Syndrome Scotty calls it the Star Drive when he reports to Spock that it is burned out.

When I put all that together, I get that the Enterprise has a single warp drive system powered by a single matter-anti-matter reactor that drives the two warp nacelles. When the crew refer to engines, they are referring to a system. There is a lot of inconsistency in how it is referred to in dialog, but when we actually have an episode that digs into the system, it is always a single system with two nacelles. The references to engines is generic. There is no indication that the anti-matter is stored anywhere other than in the engineering hull. TMOST even specified that the fuel is in the engineering hull. The Enterprise has thrusters, impusle engines, the warp drive (meaning the main m/am reactor) and the nacelles. With that at their disposal, any command to stop or go would naturally refer to engines in the plural. The way they handle the restart in The Naked Time indicates a single reactor, not two. The way they deal with the 4 lithium/dilithium circuts in Mudd's Women indicates those are part of the power system and those circuts also seem crucial to having warp capability. The sabotage in Elaan of Troyus happens in main engineering indicating to me that the sabotaged system is right there, not in the distance nacelles. The nacelles seem to work by providing the right input and the main m/am reactor in the engineering hull is the finicky system that keeps getting sabotaged or damaged.

There are a lot of general terms that could indicate two separate reactors, but when they do get specific it is always a single m/am reaction and from the placement in That Which Survives, it is definitely within the ship and not in the nacelles. If they wanted to indicate Scotty was entering he nacelles, he would not climb into a horizontal tube on his back. That scene clearly indicates that the m/am reactor is right there. Calling that specific device the integrator just means that is the point of the reaction. Where you want to put that in the ship is up to you, but that episode makes it crystal clear it is NOT in the nacelles. And fuel is not stored in the nacelles. This system is further defined in the movies and TNG, but it is already fully fleshed out by how it is referenced in TOS. Matter and anti-matter are mixed in the integrator and the reactor produces power for the ship and the warp drive. The ship can be powered by the impulse engines/auxiliary power systems, but warp drive requires that m/am reactor. How the system powers the nacelles is never referenced until much later, after TOS, but the core of the system is right there in TOS. I think the exposed warp core we see in TMP is the same system, just exposed because they had a bigger budget to do so. The glowing, pulsing energy is the same as we see when Scotty opens the panel to access the magnetic containment of the anti-matter stream. It is obvious TOS has a much different system, but I think we can assume just from what we see in TOS that it is similar and the TMP system was taken from what we see in TOS. I can't say how much Jefferies was behind in that episode, but he was the one designing the engine room for Phase II and the TMP engine room we see takes that design a step farther.

And when Spock overloads the systems in The Paradise Syndrome, the pipe structure goes from glowing golden to flashing blue at the back and then going dark when the systems are overloaded. They are not traveling at warp speeds so that would have to be something to do with the main power systems. It seems they blew that rather than the dilithium circuits that blew in Mudd's Women.

 

A hallway (especially one that could be short) could be literally anywhere on the ship.

That's a common interpretation that I've seen on the board, but that's never stated. The phrase "matter nacelle" is never used. Only "antimatter nacelle" is used. It could easily be the case that both nacelles are "antimatter nacelles" and "antimatter nacelle" is just shorthand for "matter/antimatter nacelle."

Assuming that both nacelles are "matter/antimatter nacelles," the fact that antimatter needs to be loaded into only one nacelle to get the system going implies either that the engines are linked or that the Enterprise is temporarily flying on only one nacelle for the rest of the episode.

If they're linked, then that lends support to the idea that antimatter can be siphoned out of the engines without actually going up into the nacelles (addressing the question about "Obsession"), and it would open the possibility for antimatter to be used in certain capacities the secondary hull (reactors, even intermix, etc.). But, of course, any of those consequences could also happen without the nacelles being physically linked through the secondary hull. Just sayin' it can all work either way.

Scotty refers to the Enterprise nacelles as "matter/antimatter nacelles" in "By Any Other Name."

There is support for the idea that both nacelles are "antimatter nacelles" on TOS. In "Bread and Circuses," wreckage of the Beagle was said to include "portions of the antimatter nacelles" in the plural. Either that ship had more than two nacelles, i.e. at least 4 nacelles (at least 2 matter nacelles to balance at least 2 antimatter nacelles), or it had exactly two warp nacelles, and "antimatter nacelle" is just shorthand for "matter/antimatter nacelle" and another name for "warp nacelle."

 

I'm sorry, I can't take anything used in TAS as authoritive. And taking that over the other mentions in TOS of the m/am reactor makes no sense to me. Plus I just figured out how the system works together to make sense of all the parts. I think the only fuel in the nacelles is what the bussard collectors pick up and store.

Per the two references to a single matter/anti-matter reactor, the system starts there somewhere in the engineering hull (locating it in the saucer makes no sense and a single reactor would not be housed in either nacelle). The reaction produces power and plasma. They channel the power through the dilithium crystals (they might act to boost the power or to purify it, maybe both). That power is used for all ship's systems as main power. The nacelles run on the highly radioactive plasma and the mechanism is activated by main power. We don't see the plasma in TOS, but even for Phase II, the vertical warp core appeared. Actually the set was built for Phase II, but the core (originally two big squished spheres) was replaced with the TMP version. I think that set housed 5 different cores before it was dismantled following Voyager and the TNG movies. The term warp plasma doesn't come up until TNG, and to get it I've assumed that the matter/anti-matter reaction is matter heavy (to be sure a complete reaction and to get a left over product) so it requires a lot more matter than anti-matter (hard to make). The Enterprise is supposed to be able to run for 18 years without refueling according to the writer's guide. But I see power plus plasma as vital to the warp drive system.