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

[yotsuya]

To put the Engine Rooming Deck 7 and have it make any sense. There would have to be 11 decks in the saucer or you start moving the Engine Room needlessly further from the Engine Room. And there physically isn't room for it at the stern of Deck 7 in that configuration. It might work if you enlarge the ship to around 1300 to 1500 feet (yes, the curve is that deep), but otherwise it has to be on the aft end of the central portion of the deck. The corridors outside Engineering are what make it truly impossible to place it where TMoST and FJ say it is. Lower the ceiling and it easily fits on deck 6. My analysis is based on the lines of the ship and the line saying it is on deck 7. There is nothing on screen placing the Engine Room except where the entity exits in The Day of the Dove. The ceiling doesn't indicate it is close to the hull because the ceiling is perfectly level front to back which could place it anywhere in the ship EXCEPT bordering the top of the secondary hull.

So if it is on deck 7 in the saucer that dictates 11 decks in the saucer and it is in the middle of the ship. Deck 7 in the secondary hull is unlikely as that doesn't fit any deck layout that matches the windows. It would be high or low in the hull, but still central. And you can't include the neck because it has 6 or 7 decks by itself which at best puts it at the top of the secondary hull where it doesn't fit what we see on screen. If you are going to be strict about details of the sets and fitting them in the ship we see on screen (at whatever scale) then you have to figure out how to change things that don't fit. Do you ignore a deck reference that doesn't fit, change the size or shape of a set or model, or something else. How Thermian do you want to be? To be as screen accurate as possible, something has to give. And TMoST is very useful because it gives insight to the layout the staff writers had in mind. While it isn't truly canon, it is close and is a nice tool to interpret episode dialog. I'm relying on it because it is the basis for the TMP layout so it links the two versions.

 

[Mres_was_framed!]

Possibly, but consider this. Deck Seven was the location in "The Doomsday Machine" from which failure in the main energizer was reported, so it's reasonable to conclude that Deck Seven is the location for one of the engine rooms, which agrees with TMOST.
Also, "Court Martial" identifies the deck on which "engineering" is located as "B" Deck, which might be interpreted as the second level down in in the Secondary Hull, and thus the "lower level of the "Engineering Deck" identified by Scotty in "The Enemy Within" which, by the way, was the same episode in which we get a good look at the ceiling of the same location, and which looks suspiciously like the ceiling of the the Shuttlecraft Bay, suggesting therefor that the "Engineering Deck" spans the top two decks (A & B) of the Secondary, or Engineering, Hull.

Interesting. I would thinking that making the Secondary Hull Engine Room in the second deck from the top would match well with its location in TMP, at the very top.

If you use only onscreen evidence then that moves the 2 floor engine room closer to the center of the saucer or somewhere at the top of the secondary hull. There is a bit of freedom to place as the number of decks in each hull are never stated or shown onscreen.

The impulse deck projects a bit behind the saucer. Would that help the Engine Room fit?

 

[blssdwlf]

To put the Engine Rooming Deck 7 and have it make any sense. There would have to be 11 decks in the saucer or you start moving the Engine Room needlessly further from the Engine Room. And there physically isn't room for it at the stern of Deck 7 in that configuration. It might work if you enlarge the ship to around 1300 to 1500 feet (yes, the curve is that deep), but otherwise it has to be on the aft end of the central portion of the deck. The corridors outside Engineering are what make it truly impossible to place it where TMoST and FJ say it is. Lower the ceiling and it easily fits on deck 6. My analysis is based on the lines of the ship and the line saying it is on deck 7. There is nothing on screen placing the Engine Room except where the entity exits in The Day of the Dove. The ceiling doesn't indicate it is close to the hull because the ceiling is perfectly level front to back which could place it anywhere in the ship EXCEPT bordering the top of the secondary hull.

So if it is on deck 7 in the saucer that dictates 11 decks in the saucer and it is in the middle of the ship. Deck 7 in the secondary hull is unlikely as that doesn't fit any deck layout that matches the windows. It would be high or low in the hull, but still central. And you can't include the neck because it has 6 or 7 decks by itself which at best puts it at the top of the secondary hull where it doesn't fit what we see on screen. If you are going to be strict about details of the sets and fitting them in the ship we see on screen (at whatever scale) then you have to figure out how to change things that don't fit. Do you ignore a deck reference that doesn't fit, change the size or shape of a set or model, or something else. How Thermian do you want to be? To be as screen accurate as possible, something has to give. And TMoST is very useful because it gives insight to the layout the staff writers had in mind. While it isn't truly canon, it is close and is a nice tool to interpret episode dialog. I'm relying on it because it is the basis for the TMP layout so it links the two versions.

I think you're missing my point. If you go with TMOST or FJ's works, you don't need to abide by or reference anything you see onscreen. They don't describe the onscreen ship so just place the engine room where it is indicated in their works.

If you want a Thermian answer then here you go: Deck 7 is where it is reported to have power failure in the ship's main energizers. Deck 7 is never said to have an engine room. This very thread illustrates that the exact locations for the engine rooms for the onscreen ship are up for debate so it's just an exercise in fitting a 2 story engine room where it can fit and agrees with the dialogue and VFX.

 

[blssdwlf]

The impulse deck projects a bit behind the saucer. Would that help the Engine Room fit?

Unfortunately, no (for 947' or 1080'). The undercut takes away too much vertical space leaving not enough room at the rim to fit a 2 story engine room in length and in height.

 

[Henoch]

I prefer the two engine room model with one in the saucer and one in the secondary hull. I'll never really addressed the saucer engine room, but I like using the season 1 stage plan as a guide. There is one off-center engine control room next to and on the port side of the impulse engines. The engine room's entry is off the main curved corridor (per the stage plan) and in on Deck 7 (yes, that's where I think it fits best). The upper part of the engine room is on Deck 6 (upper saucer edge deck). This allows center line access for the turbolift to travel down the dorsal neck. A port and starboard impulse engine/power system will flank both sides of the turbolift. (located under the grey hull panel markings). The yellow squares next to both engines are the emergency vent hatches. After season 1, both ship engine rooms gets remodeled to resemble the season 2/3 engine room. All three seasons use the "full size" pipe cathedral in both the saucer engine room and the secondary hull engine room. (I figure it is about 33-35 feet in length and ~15' 8" tall).

Are there dilithium crystals in the saucer engineering room?, sure, why not. The crystal circuits are great power converters for both M/AM and fusion systems. The dilithium crystal circuit may be the front end part of the main energizers.

Is there a M/AM reactor in the saucer? Nope, the engineering control room in the secondary hull has the M/AM reactor plus the power feeds from the two warp nacelle M/AM reactors. The engine room in the secondary hull also has the antimatter production and fuel management functions. The saucer engineering room has the impulse power management functions.

 

[yotsuya]

I think you're missing my point. If you go with TMOST or FJ's works, you don't need to abide by or reference anything you see onscreen. They don't describe the onscreen ship so just place the engine room where it is indicated in their works.

If you want a Thermian answer then here you go: Deck 7 is where it is reported to have power failure in the ship's main energizers. Deck 7 is never said to have an engine room. This very thread illustrates that the exact locations for the engine rooms for the onscreen ship are up for debate so it's just an exercise in fitting a 2 story engine room where it can fit and agrees with the dialogue and VFX.

My point is that they are NOT mutually exclusive. What is in TMoST is the guide from the writers on what is in the ship so that other writers can follow it and staff writers can revise to keep things consistent. While they didn't do a very good job and some references are all over the place, the information in TMoST is a good place to start. I don't know why you think they need to be mutually exclusive. FJ did a completely different ship and it has many flaws that I never noticed as a kid, but it is the basis, both inside and out, for the TMP Enterprise. I have a feeling he got some details from the AMT model kit. So FJ did do a completely different ship, but the ship detailed in TMoST is from the same desk as the episode rewrites so it should carry some weight when it does not conflict with what we have on screen. It never specifies that Engineering is on Deck 7, it just says at the back of the saucer by the impulse engines.

 

[BK613]

"from the desk of the episode rewrites" HA!
During the time it took to write The Making of Star Trek, Whitfield continually requested that Roddenberry edit the newly written material. But Roddenberry procrastinated and finally read the book after it was typeset, and in galleys, and spent "one long night" with Whitfield "making changes." Owing to the book's printing deadline, very few changes were incorporated, and the book was published much as Whitfield had written it. However, at the suggestion of the publisher, Roddenberry's name appeared on the book's cover along with the author Whitfield's name. Ballantine Books considered it a "marketing ploy."
--Inside Star Trek: The Real Story, page 402

 

[yotsuya]

We also don't know what sections that touches on. It is a big book and there are 21 pages of text about the internal configuration of the ship. And most of that is not specifics but anecdotes. I think I can boil down to a single page of text that really tells anything about the internal configuration. I don't think Whitfield came up with with those few specifics on his own. Much is left vague and unspecified and I think had that information not come from Gene or someone on the production team that it would not have made it into the book. TMoST includes pretty much all the information from the series bible plus a lot of history and production details. So we know that is accurate so Roddenberry's procrastination does not negate the book as a fairly reliable source of information. Probably more accurate than Roddenberry's later recollections. And it's place as a source for both FJ and the TMP designers is concrete. The places they align are Kirk's quarters and senior officers on Deck 5, Junior officers on Deck 4, general crew on Deck 6, Transporters and Sickbay on Deck 7. TMoST and FJ placed the recreation are on Deck 8 while TMP moved it first to the center of the ship and then to the edge on decks 6 and 7. They all have 11 decks in the saucer (we can assume that TMP follows that because the primary hull is a similar thickness). So in terms of details, TMoST filed in some things the series never specifies (or is inconsistent on) but leave much unspecified. So it is really just a handful of details that can be pulled from it. Most has to come from other sources. I rely on Kimble's TMP Cutaway as it is the most most complete view of the ship, either in its original or refit configuration, to come from the production team. Jefferies own work is sketchy and incomplete. Though if you want to follow it, there is enough between his TOS Cross section and his Phase II cross section to do a pretty good job. I've pulled a lot from it, especially for the secondary hull.

Remember, we are bantering about various sources and how we feel about them and people might come back to these pages a few years from now and get ideas. I don't think any one avenue of creating the internal configuration is the right one, I think they all have valid points. I think relying on such supplementary materials has great benefits in terms of the greater canon. If you want to stick to TOS only, then they don't have much to offer. But given the choice between trusting TMoST, FJ, and TMP compared to TAS, I'll take TMoST, FJ, and TMP any day. I consider the technical details of TAS to be a joke.

 

[Henoch]

"from the desk of the episode rewrites" HA!
During the time it took to write The Making of Star Trek, Whitfield continually requested that Roddenberry edit the newly written material. But Roddenberry procrastinated and finally read the book after it was typeset, and in galleys, and spent "one long night" with Whitfield "making changes." Owing to the book's printing deadline, very few changes were incorporated, and the book was published much as Whitfield had written it. However, at the suggestion of the publisher, Roddenberry's name appeared on the book's cover along with the author Whitfield's name. Ballantine Books considered it a "marketing ploy."
--Inside Star Trek: The Real Story, page 402

Do we get any insight on where Whitfield and Roddenberry disagreed on the ship details? Nope.

We also don't know what sections that touches on. It is a big book and there are 21 pages of text about the internal configuration of the ship. And most of that is not specifics but anecdotes. I think I can boil down to a single page of text that really tells anything about the internal configuration. I don't think Whitfield came up with with those few specifics on his own. Much is left vague and unspecified and I think had that information not come from Gene or someone on the production team that it would not have made it into the book. TMoST includes pretty much all the information from the series bible plus a lot of history and production details.

I also think the info is as correct as possible, and not a fabrication of Whitfield:
Solow and Justman also wrote on page 401 before the above quote:
The terms of the agreement (to write the book) gave Whitfield carte blanche access, night or day, to all the files, the set, actors, technicians, et al.

 

[BK613]

Did I object to the info? No. I objected to the statement that "but the ship detailed in TMoST is from the same desk as the episode rewrites" which implies that Roddenberry had a direct hand in writing that information. I was objecting to the idea that Roddenberry was an author of the book. The book was written by an outsider to the industry (granted with access) and not by Roddenberry or any other member of the show.
As for the book itself, it has been shown to contain factual errors by later sources, including members of this board like @Harvey. It even contradicts itself, as in the case of how the MJ cross-section does NOT have the mentioned eleven decks in the saucer. So I see no reason to elevate it above on-screen references/sources.
YMMV

 

[yotsuya]

Have you read the book recently? It contains large chunks of text that appear to be quotes from Roddenberry. The source material is from the desks of just about every writer and producer on staff. No Roddenberry did not write the main body of the text, but Whitfield's information did not come out of thin air. Just looking at the contents of the books that is obvious. The information in question came from someone besides Jefferies because it doesn't agree with his drawings. Roddenberry, Justman, Coon, and Fontana all have quotes and memos and they were the core writing and producing staff. So the information came from the writers just as I said.

And I am not elevating it above anything on screen. I'm using it to fill in the gaps and as a bridge to the larger canon.

 

[BK613]

Have you read the book recently?

Cover to cover twice since 2016. (My original copy was sold in a moving sale by my parents in the 1980s while I was "at sea." I finally found a replacement copy at a Half-Price Bookstore on a trip to Austin in Oct, 2016.)

So the information came from the writers just as I said.

No, you said "same desk as the episode rewrites", trying to evoke GR's stood-upon-until-the-rewrites-happened desk as an appeal to authority argument. Now, you are back-pedaling because GR had little to do with the book. The book was written by Whitfield and the information, quotes and memos that appears in it were curated by him. That makes TMoST a valuable resource but it is no means a complete overview to the production of Star Trek. At best it s a blurry snapshot of the show when he was there.
For example, if he had arrived earlier you might be trying to work with 20 decks.
From the earlier writer's guide:

WHAT ABOUT THE SHIP'S MAIN SAUCER-LIKE SECTION?

This is the portion of the ship in which we will be and which we will use most. It contains at the very top the ship's bridge and general operation facilities. This "saucer" is approximately twenty stories thick at its widest spot, containing also primary ship's departments, living accommodations, recreational facilities, laboratories, and is in fact a completely self-sustaining unit which can detach itself from the galaxy drive units and operate on atomic impulse power for short-range solar system exploration.​

A copy can be found here (the above is on pdf page 48 (the second page 15)):
http://leethomson.myzen.co.uk/Star_Trek/1_Original_Series/Star_Trek_TOS_Writer's_Guide.pdf

 

[yotsuya]

I'm not backpedaling - you jumped to a conclusion that I meant Roddenberry when I never said that. Roddenberry was not the only one doing rewrites. The staff writers all did rewrites as well as writing some of the episodes. I was not ever saying Roddenberry did anything (he boasted he did, but I don't trust such boasts), only that the information included in the book was the information the staff writers referenced during rewrites. Considering the substance of the book, that is not a wild conclusion. And they didn't put everything in the Bible. And interestingly on the first page 7 (this appears to be a season 2 bible followed by a season 1 bible) it says 11 decks.

But this points out how inconsistent things were when they started out and how as the series went on, they nailed more things down. Even the time setting was wild at first and settled down to sometime in the 23rd century. That is why I weight things based on later Trek. That is why I consider TMP so important because it was still based on a lot of the same ideas, just more settled into something specific. That is why I am following the engine function as laid out in That Which Survives over any previous description (which was not nearly so detailed or consistent). There is a lot to glean from TOS episodes, but for me the most important things are not every little variation, but what they settled on as the standard. For some things, having a written document that explains the thoughts behind the canon helps clear things up and provides a standard when the episodes are either inconsistent or lacking.

 

[BK613]

You expect people to believe that your phrase "but the ship detailed in TMoST is from the same desk as the episode rewrites so it should carry some weight when it does not conflict with what we have on screen" doesn't reference this from TMoST?

"In desperation, [Justman] walked into Gene Roddenberry's office, climbed up on top of his desk, and stood there loudly declaring he would not move one inch until Gene finished the rewrite on the scene. And he stood there until Gene finished. He then accepted the new scene with thanks, jumped off the desk and walked out of the office. For quite a while after that it was common site to see Bob Justman standing on top of Gene Roddenberry's desk waiting for him to finish rewriting a scene so he could hurry down to the set and give it to the director."​

You weren't talking about that desk? Horse pooey.

 

[yotsuya]

Nope. I've read enough and watched enough to know that Gene Coon did rewrites, Dorothy Fontana did rewrites, and others. I was not talking about Gene Roddenberry's desk but the generic desk of whoever might be rewriting an episode. You read far more into my statement than it contained.

 

[TIN_MAN]

Some good points all around.

First, let me apologize for the length of the following, it wasn’t my initial intention to be so long winded, but hopefully there’s some good food for thought below.

I’m not much of a thermion or of any “one way only” interpretation because that’ll only get you so far. So let me explain where I’m coming from since I speak from experience; when thinking about all of this I think it’s best to keep one foot in the real world and one foot in the fantasy world of Star Trek, and try to find the happy medium, otherwise we dig too far down one or the other rabbit hole and end up getting stuck at an impasse of our own making. But whenever this happens to me I try to examine my premises, because invariably I find one or more to be false.

There’s an old saying that to get a good answer you need to ask a good question, so with that in mind.

Why did Stephen Whitfield place the “main engineering control facilities” in the primary hull’s impulse deck, and does this mean there’s an engine room there?

First of all, if main engineering control facilities does not mean the main engineering control room seen in the series, then that means the engineering set, alone among all the standing interior sets, goes unmentioned altogether, which seems highly unlikely. Also Whitfield became good friends with Matt Jefferies, and we know the latter is on record as saying that the engine room is in the secondary hull, so it seems odd that Whitfield would not have picked Jefferies brain on this important point.

I suspect that Whitfield got caught in the middle between Roddenberry and Jefferies disagreement over this issue and diplomatically, and in true TOS fashion, decided to be somewhat vague in his wording so as to allow for either interpretation.

But whatever the case, I like to use TMOST as a guide for this sort of stuff because it’s an expansion of the writer’s guide which most of the time (but not all of the time) was used to inform the writing staff on technical matters. But I do try also to keep in mind that sometimes overall story drama trumps technical consistency, and so we occasionally get some contradictions, some of which we can explain, and some of which are best ignored, because at the end of the day, when it’s all said and done, this is just a TV show after all.

That being said, I try to be logical and consistent with my reasons for ignoring something, for example in the early writers guide, the ship was mistakenly said to have twenty decks in the primary hull, instead of twenty decks total. This led to onscreen reference to the Captain’s and crew quarters on deck 12, which really makes no sense in the correct layout, because deck 12 would be in the dorsal. Therefore I choose to ignore this mistake and move on, especially since the show itself went on in the 2nd season to correctly establish that the Captain’s quarters was on deck five, evidently following Whitfield’s layout in TMOST.

Also, during filming of the 2nd season of Star Trek, Whitfield was often at the studio writing and researching his book, and I believe -based on clues from MM, TDDM, and JTB- that his deck by deck description found in TMOST either influenced the staff writers of these episodes, or vice versa. Either way, we often get an agreement between the two sources, which I think we ought not to ignore.

Later, in the 2nd season, by which time Whitfield had almost certainly completed his chapter on the Enterprise internals, we get TUC, with its telling association of Impulse Engines and Engineering Section (and crew quarters on decks four and six). And then, in the 3rd season, after the book is published (and, if I’m not mistaken, the deck by deck description from it was added to the writers guide) we get TDOTD which more than any other episode seems to be full of clues indicating the writer based his deck references on TMOST (or the new writers guide?).

Another problem interpreting this stuff is that the production team tried to keep the location of some areas like the engine room(s) vague, so as not to contradict themselves. This is even reflected in Whitfield’s book, where he stops just short of positively saying that the engine room is in the impulse deck. But due to the fact that the engine room(s) location(s) had never been pinned down, this penchant for vaguery came back to bite them in the butt in TDOTD, because clearly one hand didn’t know what the other was doing and the writing staff and art and SFX departments ended up contradicting each other anyway. In this case, I tend put more evidentiary weight on the consistency of the dialogue across the series that the Engineering Section and the Engineering Deck are different locations, than on one SFX shot, especially since TOS was notorious for not having SFX match the dialogue in many instances.

The number of engine rooms and the number of reactors and the whereabouts of these are another area where contradictions crept in, but we can mostly smooth over these without too much wailing and gnashing of teeth, as long as we keep an open mind and don’t make too many presumptions about where things ought to be.

There’s more I wanted to touch on, but this post has already taken on a life of its own and ballooned into a monster so I’ll quit for now and save the rest for later.

 

[yotsuya]

Your post was just the right length. I quite agree. I'm probably taking things a little more real world than others care for, but that is what I'm doing. I do not see TMoST and the series and contradictory and consider even the contradictory drawings and descriptions the same ship. It is the intent to craft the ship of the series in words, drawings, sets, and models, and I'm trying to distill all that into something workable. I add in the Phase II and TMP work because it helps me create a single ship that can be refit from one to the other and have it makes sense. I can appreciate sticking to TOS only and trying to create a ship that fits what we see on screen, but so much of what we see on screen was made more for studio purposes than out strict spaceship design that I feel the need to correct for that. But one of my burning questions is how they deconstructed the TOS ship to rebuild it into the TMP ship and I have found my solution to that. I've broken the Enterprise down into 4 components - support structure, decks, framing, and hull plating. The saucer carrries over with its structure and decks intact but with altered framing and new plating. The secondary hull has to be gutted to take out old Engineering and the old pylon support structure leaving a gap for the new cargo area (other than missing a turbolift and reception room, the hanger area is virtually the same). The forward decks remain the same as do the upper and lower decks, but with new framing and hull plating. The neck, pylons, and warp engines are totally new. So for my parameters, using TMoST has worked well. I know for others it doesn't.

 

[yotsuya]

But back on topic of TOS engineering.

The ship's batteries (as in electrical) - where are they? Well, I think they are what lies behind the main engineering set wall. The walkway would be the right height to lead to some maintenance catwalks and controls for the battery system. It also answers a question for me about the TMP design. Uneven sets bug me so I need to find reason behind them.

It all ties together - main power, auxillary power, warp drive, dilithium crystals, and batteries. Thoughts?

 

[BK613]

FWIW, this is how deep into the 3rd season TMoST appeared:
56....Spectre of the Gun..................Filmed: 21 May 1968 – 29 May 1968
57....Elaan of Troyius......................Filmed: 31 May 1968 – 10 June 1968
58....Paradise Syndrome................Filmed: 11 June 1968 – 18 June 1968
59....Enterprise Incident..................Filmed: 19 June 1968 – 26 June 1968
60....And The Children Shall Lead..Filmed: 27 June 1968 – 5 July 1968
61....Spock's Brain..........................Filmed: 8 July 1968 – 15 July 1968
62....Is There in Truth No Beauty....Filmed: 16 July 1968 – 24 July 1968
63....The Empath............................Filmed: 25 July 1968 – 2 August 1968
64....The Tholian Web....................Filmed: 5 August 1968 – 12 August 1968
65....For The World Is Hollow And..Filmed: 13 August 1968 – 22 August 1968
66....Day of The Dove....................Filmed: 22 August 1968 – 29 August 1968

The Making of Star Trek, first printing, September 1968

 

[yotsuya]

I'm not sure how relevant that is. I don't think Whitfield made any of that up which means it came from the production staff. When TMoST was printed doesn't change anything. When he wrote it is more significant.