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GNDN? Really?

I’m pretty sure I heard about GNDN long before TNG came along. I swear I read about it back in the 1970s. If it wasn’t in TMoST it might have been in one of David Gerrold’s books, The World Of Star Trek or The Trouble With Tribbles.

I think that too, and I don't have the citation either. But it makes sense to label decorative pipes GNDN, so when it's time to redress the set or tear it down, nobody will worry about busting open a real water pipe or something. And the label was probably on the ends of phony pipes, back where the set is never photographed because it's all plywood and two by fours.
 
True, but some film sets are connected to water so that, say, a character can run the tap in the show and it actually works. Not so much in Trek - I don't recall offhand TOS characters running water, but sets/props get repurposed sometimes.

Did any other shows have pipes labelled thusly?
 
And if a non-SF show wouldn't have a GNDN code on a pipe. It would be marked off set on the other side of the wall. I'm sure there are all sorts of union shop provided placards hanging on pipes behind the scenes, just like in any building. They wouldn't need an in-joke code on the set.
 
I suspect GNDN was on a pipe or pipes on the set only it just wasn’t easily visible to the camera.
 
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I don't see how the Jefferies quote relates to TNG at all. The reference to DS9 and Trials and Tribble-ations (building the old Enterprise) make it quite clear he is talking about TOS. He didn't even work on TNG, I don't think.
 
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I only recall one episode, the 2nd pilot, where there was water coming from a tap:
https://tos.trekcore.com/hd/albums/1x03hd/wherenomanhasgonebeforehd397.jpg

I wonder whether anyone has ever gotten a clearer idea of the graphic on that cup. It isn’t the same as the one on Boyce’s jumpsuit. The wreath is much more elaborate.

On the question of GNDN, I normally would bow to the considerable expertise of my friend feek61, but if it can be shown that John Jefferies said it was there, then it was there. It might not have made it to any episode, but I swear I can recall it. I just can’t remember where. This is the shot I thought it appeared in, but it’s not there. So

https://tos.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/1x16/The_Galileo_Seven_155.JPG

Is it possible it was on the pipes framing the moire panels in the corridors? If so, it would have been in almost every episode but never visible.

https://tos.trekcore.com/hd/albums/1x03hd-alt/wherenomanhasgonebeforehdalt0079.jpg
 
If the mention of GNDN comes directly from John Jefferies, I guess I'll have to find the interview to see if there is additional context. As far as I know he only worked on TOS and none of the other Trek spinoffs, movies, or what have you.

Kor

Well, it's definitely a John Jefferies joke, since I've just seen the GNDN notation on a power station panel in several scenes of The Greatest American Hero's episode "The Shock Will Kill You," and Jefferies was that show's art director.
 
Someone should either canonize it - say it's an engineer's joke - or give GNDN some other in-universe meaning.

GNDN hereby stands for, at least in-universe, "General Nodal Data Network". It's a largely redundant and auxiliary backup system on Constitution-class starships, mainly in place to preserve artificial gravity, inertial dampers and life support in case of an emergency where primary power is out and secondary systems are failing. It's the reason why no one on the ship ever worries about losing gravity; it's such an ingrained and basic system that it is oft taken for granted, hence Scotty's later lament that the nodes "go nowhere and do nothing" when trying to find ways to restore primary power.
 
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