Enterprise E Saucer Separation

[USS Valkyrie]

I know that it is said that since the shuttle bay goes so far down into the ship that it's inconcievable that the Enterprise E could separate. I think that's a little short sighted since by then they relied so heavily on force field technology. I think that since the separation line is still visible on the model in Nemesis, that the shuttle bay could easily be evacuated and opened to the vacuum of space. I also find it likely that retractable bulk heads could be moved into place to protect the shuttles and other valuable equipment from potential harm. Not to mention that, as I stated earlier, there are also several heavy duty force fields that could be activated to protect other areas.
I am still in the camp that the Enterprise E can separate.

 

[Jack Bauer]

It's a shame it wasn't confirmed in canon either way. Now we'll never know for sure.

 

[Akiraprise]

It would make sense for it to separate. Might give the ship a tactical advantage when outnumbered, as the sovereign saucer isn't nearly as weak as a galaxy class saucer.

However, as the model currently stands, I don't think it can separate for two reasons off the top of my head:
1. The aforementioned shuttle bay. Too putzy to be closing bulkheads, activating forcefields, and protecting equipment in an emergency situation. What if they're doing maintenance on a shuttle and need to separate in a hurry? Say goodbye to that ship.
2. There don't appear to be any sublight engines on the stardrive section, other then maneuvering thrusters. Without any impulse engines the stardrive would be pretty useless in combat, especially with the saucer taking the quantum torpedoes and main phaser array.

 

[nx1701g]

^ Maybe the Saucer module is the combat module of the Sovereign Class and the Stardrive is the escape vehicle? Remember prerefit to Nemesis specifications there was only one phaser array on the Stardrive.

 

[Akiraprise]

Actually the whole idea of separating to escape isn't that good. For any ship. If you're right whats to keep your enemy sticking around fighting the saucer and not chasing after the stardrive? Once the stardrive is knocked out of warp it would be easy pickings.

The only time separation is useful is if you're planning to go into battle. Then nonessential personnel can be off loaded to whatever non combat module you have before taking the battle section into combat. Once in combat separating to escape doesn't make sense. If you're getting your butt kicked both sections are likely to be destroyed.

 

[kv1at3485]

Any variation of MVAM is never a good idea. Unless you're literally at the bottom of the barrel, at which point enacting any hare-brained scheme is better than doing nothing at all.

 

[SubwayJones]

The Star Trek universe has put an end to this topic with "The Q Continuum" book 3 of 3 " Q-Stike. In this book the senior bridge crew is facing a dire situation ( as usual ) and Barclay suggests saucer seperation. The captain considers it as a last resort.

Then in " Resistance " published in September 2007, the Enterprise E not only seperates but also cloaks. As it turns out, all new federation ships can cloak but only in an extreme emergencey and only with the authorization of an admiral. In this case Kathryn Janeway.

 

[Christopher]

Why would the shuttlebay preclude separation? Is this based on the MSD cutaway diagram?

Someone here once posted a John Eaves sketch of the E-E in separated mode. The line of separation was pretty much along the border between the saucer and the "hump" just behind it -- pretty much a straight line just behind the impulse engines -- and then dropping down and following the seam where that long protruding "spear" section at the front of the engineering hull connects to the saucer underside. I think the forward shuttlebay as shown in the cutaway Okudagram would be fully on the saucer side of the separation plane, based on that -- with maybe a little allowance for artistic license in the Okudagram. After all, the E-D master cutaway included a giant rubber ducky and other such in-jokes, so I don't think we need to treat them as absolute gospel.

 

[ancient]

Akiraprise said:

2. There don't appear to be any sublight engines on the stardrive section, other then maneuvering thrusters. Without any impulse engines the stardrive would be pretty useless in combat, especially with the saucer taking the quantum torpedoes and main phaser array.

I noticed this too. The ENT-D had impulse drives on both, but the Sovereign does not.

I've seen the concept drawings of it separating, but it doesn't really look feasible. Remember the only reason given for the ENT-D having the separation ability was because there were civilians on board. The ENT-E has no such concerns.

The cutaway of the E does clearly show the hangar bay extending down quite a bit, I agree that it could be awkward to seal off.

EDIT: Also, if they could separate, I don't see why they wouldn't have done so in FC. Lock out the Borg from the computer, separate, use the saucer weapons to slice & dice, use the aux deflector to return home with any wreckage in tow.

 

[syc]

ancient said:

EDIT: Also, if they could separate, I don't see why they wouldn't have done so in FC. Lock out the Borg from the computer, separate, use the saucer weapons to slice & dice, use the aux deflector to return home with any wreckage in tow.

^ Unless of course the Borg had locked them out of that capability? Or disabled it, mechanically? They didn't notice the Borg on board until well after the landing party's transport to the surface. Most dangerous systems like that, such as one that would blow the ship into two pieces, would have fail-safe devices. Just like the detachment of the Navigational Deflector Dish; If the Borg had removed the computer control to the Saucer Sep, then the only way would have been a Dead Man's Switch. Access to which may have been difficult to access... hypothetically.

In one of my old Star Trek Magazines they had a series of John Eaves concepts for the Enterprise E and one showed the Saucer Separation concept. So at the very least it was a considerable possibility

 

[USS KG5]

syc said:

ancient said:

EDIT: Also, if they could separate, I don't see why they wouldn't have done so in FC. Lock out the Borg from the computer, separate, use the saucer weapons to slice & dice, use the aux deflector to return home with any wreckage in tow.

^ Unless of course the Borg had locked them out of that capability? Or disabled it, mechanically?

Or, more logically - the computers were locked out - so they could not do it - period.

 

[Squiggy]

SubwayJones said:
The Star Trek universe has put an end to this topic with "The Q Continuum" book 3 of 3 " Q-Stike.

Books can't put an end to any topic, ever. Not canon.

SubwayJones said:
Then in " Resistance " published in September 2007, the Enterprise E not only seperates but also cloaks. As it turns out, all new federation ships can cloak but only in an extreme emergencey and only with the authorization of an admiral. In this case Kathryn Janeway.

Since when were fanboys writing the books?

 

[Christopher]

ancient said:
EDIT: Also, if they could separate, I don't see why they wouldn't have done so in FC. Lock out the Borg from the computer, separate, use the saucer weapons to slice & dice, use the aux deflector to return home with any wreckage in tow.

And what makes you think the saucer, which has only impulse power, would be able to outgun the engineering hull, which has warp power? Surrender the more powerful half of your ship to the enemy? I don't think so.

 

[ancient]

The borg were locked out, they couldn't manuver, or fire weapons.

I'm sure there's some manual way to unlock the hulls even without power, as with the deflector.

 

[Plecostomus]

A simple way to give the engineering hull impulse power would be to vent the plasma from the nacelles through a driver-coil assembly and thrust-vector system. Possibly even some kind of technobabble scrubber to make the warp-plasma less explosive.

You could fit a set of wee engines fed off the plasma stream in the rear of the nacelles, or you could put engine somewhere else and cover it with a blowoff or retractable panel.

 

[Christopher]

Heck, I don't see any reason why you couldn't just use the warp engines to generate a warp field of less than 1000 millicochranes. There's no theoretical reason why warp propulsion can't propel a ship at less than the speed of light. Presumably the only reason they have impulse engines at all is because they're more efficient for sublight travel than an "undercranked" warp engine would be.

 

[Praetor]

Yeah, I don't see why subwarp generation on the E-E isn't possible... that seemed to be what was happening during the departure sequence in TMP on the 1701nil with Sulu's babble about "warp .8" etc. And I think the E-E should still logically be designed to separate from the engineering hull in the event of a catastrophe. It still makes sense to me.

The cloaking ability... that I'm not so sure about making sense. But Kathy IS involved...

 

[Plecostomus]

Perhaps this very ability is what the Romulans feared when they demanded the Federation not work with cloaking technology.

Keeping in mind that the Federation doesn't need to sneak around most of the time it makes sense to keep a cloaking device plan under lock and key. Handy thing to have for extreme situations... like stumbling into a huge-arse Borg Cube out of nowhere.

 

[Christopher]

Praetor said:
And I think the E-E should still logically be designed to separate from the engineering hull in the event of a catastrophe. It still makes sense to me.

You're quite right. What people often forget in saucer-sep discussions is that the original concept behind saucer separation in TOS was that it was a last-ditch emergency maneuver for turning the saucer into a "lifeboat" in the event that the engines underwent catastrophic failure. So it stands to reason that any Starfleet vessel should have the capacity to separate the engineering section from the rest of the ship. (Although I guess the warp core ejection system is sort of the "modern" equivalent of that.)

 

[Plecostomus]

Yeah, but what happens if the warp-core ejection fails?

Saucer-separation.

And if you can't do that, escape-pods and shuttles.