Hey, I never noticed that before....

[Warped9]

Different transporter room?

Although TOS always referred to "the" transporter room we have seen various drawings and references denoting more than one transporter room and of different size and configuration. Seeing these variations in the one set would be a cheap way to get that idea across onscreen even if they neglected to make those distinctions in the dialogue.

 

[johnnybear]

Was there more than one transporter room? That's news to me!
JB

 

[Warped9]

Was there more than one transporter room? That's news to me!
JB

According to the ship's description in The Making Of Star Trek and all blueprints done of the ship afterward by Franz Joseph and fans alike several transporter rooms were shown to exist.

 

[JonnyQuest037]

According to the ship's description in The Making Of Star Trek and all blueprints done of the ship afterward by Franz Joseph and fans alike several transporter rooms were shown to exist.

Although I agree that more than one transporter room makes perfect sense from an in-universe standpoint, it's tough to get around all those references to "the transporter room" on the show.

You also think that with multiple transporter rooms, there wouldn't have been such a long line out the door when everyone was beaming down in "This Side of Paradise."

 

[Warped9]

Although I agree that more than one transporter room makes perfect sense from an in-universe standpoint, it's tough to get around all those references to "the transporter room" on the show.

You also think that with multiple transporter rooms, there wouldn't have been such a long line out the door when everyone was beaming down in "This Side of Paradise."

Well if the ship was being evacuated then there would likely have been lines at every transporter room.

 

[JonnyQuest037]

Well if the ship was being evacuated then there would likely have been lines at every transporter room.

Yeah, probably. I just think the implication in that scene is that there was only one. You'd think that if there were more, someone would've mentioned it (and it strikes me that I just made this same argument in another thread regarding if there were more aliens on the Enterprise than Spock).

But you know, if someone insists that there just had to be multiple transporter rooms on the TOS Enterprise, I wouldn't argue with them that much. I can't deny that that'd be logical for a ship with over 400 crewmembers.

 

[Poltargyst]

I'm agreeing that the references to "the" transporter room make me think there's only one. Or Kirk would say "Meet me in Transporter Room 6."

 

[Warped9]

I'm agreeing that the references to "the" transporter room make me think there's only one. Or Kirk would say "Meet me in Transporter Room 6."

One could rationalize there was a main transporter room that was the most commonly used while the others were backups. It makes more sense to have more than one given the 400 plus crew. In an emergency a single transporter room able to handle only six people would be next to useless.

 

[The Old Mixer]

Or a single transporter room is designated as the active one at any time, while the others are dormant. If that's the case, they probably had them all going for the mass exodus in "This Side of Paradise".

I'd tend to go with TMOST in a case like this.

 

[Nebusj]

One could rationalize there was a main transporter room that was the most commonly used while the others were backups. It makes more sense to have more than one given the 400 plus crew. In an emergency a single transporter room able to handle only six people would be next to useless.

One can infer the existence of multiple transporter rooms going across episodes. ``Dagger of the Mind'' has Dr Gelder escaping from a transporter room, attempting to make his way up to the bridge, and getting to deck 14 before he's detected. ``Day of the Dove'' has everything below deck 6 inaccessible to Our Heroes, but there's a transporter room they can get to.

That's not airtight, of course. But between that and the evidence of backstage intent, I'm comfortable declaring there's multiple transporter rooms, with a primary one that gets denoted as ``the transporter room'' under normal circumstances.

 

[johnnybear]

According to the ship's description in The Making Of Star Trek and all blueprints done of the ship afterward by Franz Joseph and fans alike several transporter rooms were shown to exist.

But surely that contradicts Day of the Dove?
JB

 

[Warped9]

Part of the problem on TOS is that they fell into a sort of conceptual trap where they simply didn't think some things through all the way. Even though they had only the one transporter room set all they had to do when making references to it was occasionally say, "Transporter Room 1" or "2" or "3" or whatever. It wouldn't have cost a dime extra. Just an added word of dialogue. But because they thought in terms of having only the one set they forgot that fictionally/conceptually they could infer as many as they could want.

Surprising because they mad occasional references to other parts of the that were never seen. So why not other transporter rooms?

 

[Mytran]

Some versions of the Writers' Bible do refer to the onscreen set as the "main" transporter room, assuming that there are other ones scattered throughout the ship.

 

[Drone]

One could rationalize there was a main transporter room that was the most commonly used while the others were backups. It makes more sense to have more than one given the 400 plus crew. In an emergency a single transporter room able to handle only six people would be next to useless.

Somewhat off the thread, but all this talk about the appropriate number of transporters for ships of a certain size crew complement, make me wonder; what is the greatest number of pads that one sees for a single transporter in any of the series iterations?

 

[JonnyQuest037]

Somewhat off the thread, but all this talk about the appropriate number of transporters for ships of a certain size crew complement, make me wonder; what is the greatest number of pads that one sees for a single transporter in any of the series iterations?

Tough to judge, since the TNG transporter room had a ring instead of individual pads.

 

[Drone]

As chagrined as I'll readily admit to being in not remembering that, is the sense than that the capacity for the TNG transporter was basically however many people could fit in the configuration, with an appropriate distance between them one would presume, or was there ever anything actually said about a maximum number of humanoids that would constitute an acceptable tolerance?

 

[JonnyQuest037]

As chagrined as I'll readily admit to being in not remembering that, is the sense than that the capacity for the TNG transporter was basically however many people could fit in the configuration, with an appropriate distance between them one would presume, or was there ever anything actually said about a maximum number of humanoids that would constitute an acceptable tolerance?

Not that I can recall.

But it's very possible that the TNG transporter had the same maximum capacity as the TOS one. IIRC, the original pads from the floor of the TOS set were moved to the ceiling on the TNG transporter room set, so I'd wager that the actors still centered themselves underneath those.

 

[Mytran]

There was a segmented area marked out on the TNG platform, corresponding to 6 standard pads around a larger central pad, which tended to be used for cargo, prone bodies etc. So, maybe a maximum of 8?

 

[JonnyQuest037]

There was a segmented area marked out on the TNG platform, corresponding to 6 standard pads around a larger central pad, which tended to be used for cargo, prone bodies etc. So, maybe a maximum of 8?

In the later seasons, yes. In the early seasons, there was no divider on the platform:

http://tinyurl.com/zvz4jor

Like a lot of the TNG sets, they fiddled with it as time went on. That was when the dividers came in:

http://tinyurl.com/jpqqcs5

 

[Avro Arrow]

In the later seasons, yes. In the early seasons, there was no divider on the platform:

http://tinyurl.com/zvz4jor

But you can actually see the six individual circles in the ring in that image, plus the one circle in the centre. So even without the dividers, there still seems to be discrete pads.