How big was the Enterprise?

[DSG2k]

Since I am just finding this Trek tech thread over here, I'll just point out that I think Maurice discovered the fix to much of the size confusion years ago.

Many folks try to squeeze too many damn decks into the ship, and naturally end up with inadequate headroom when trying to work out the ship's innards versus the canonical length shown in "The Enterprise Incident" diagram of (roughly) 289 meters. Along with some other dubious claims often based on ignoring basic production realities and imperfections, some folks argue for rescaling the ship well beyond that canonical size.

(The rescalers have also tended to latch on to the explicitly intentional "cheat" rescaling of the Discoprise from her originally shown 289 meters to a larger 442 to match the other big ships of Discovery, though even that 442 doesn't leave adequate room for the vast turbolift track caverns we're repeatedly shown.)

Besides the _current vigorous discussion of sizes for the TOS and TMP Enterprise going on in a thread about how one goes from the Cage Enterprise -> Discoprise -> TOS Enterprise_, I started a _thread about the "CONDITION: RED" diagram from Star Trek II wherein the decks are shown_ . . . all 20 of them, no more. If you backport this information to the TOS version of the ship, you find that it works remarkably well there, too, with nine decks in both saucers.

This largely solves the deck height problem that so bothers so many. Instead of hideous deck heights like the Botaitis 2.4 meter (7'10”) Balok-friendly decks, every one of the nine saucer decks of TMP reaches an average of 3.167 meters (10'4" and change), and this applies to TOS also (but for deck two's portion beneath the sunken bridge).

Naturally, there are odds and ends (e.g. Michelson's Folly, the intentional building of the TMP Rec Deck with no consideration of scale and ship fit, or quick-we-need-a-corridor-ceiling-for-this-low-angle-shot slap-up jobs, or decisions to make the shuttle comfortable to film in, et cetera), and minor other hiccups here and there, but considering the massive failures of scale in the CGI era when there's far less excuse than in the slide-rule-and-paper era, I think it should be quite easy to live with the canonical scalings for TOS and TMP.

That said, 442 meters is canon for the Discoprise -- after they chose to changed from showing 289, and only if you ignore the caverns -- so do with that seeming contradiction what you will.

 

[HotRod]

That said, 442 meters is canon for the Discoprise Enterprise.

FTFY.

You see, the folks who own and control the intellectual property have made it pretty clear that the Enterprise in SNW is simply a different visual interpretation of the ship from TOS. They’ve also stated that, regardless of whatever numbers have been thrown around in the past, the Enterprise is 442 meters long. Call it a retcon or whatever you like, but they own it, so they get to determine its size. It’s really pretty simple: story continuity remains intact, while the visuals, including ship sizes, have been updated for a modern audience.

 

[knightgrace]

The original Enterprise?

Thirty-four inches thereabouts.

It is very easy to fit into...you don't.

 

[Tallguy]

have been updated for a modern audience.

This makes total sense. A thousand foot starship probably seemed pretty big in the 1960's. But now that we have real spaceships that are at least as big as... Wait. I hear it now.

 

[korblborp]

a thousand feet doesn't stop being big just because someone decided theirs had to be bigger

 

[DSG2k]

the Enterprise in SNW is simply a different visual interpretation of the ship from TOS.

So, Discoprise. We also use terms like "Cage Enterprise" or "First Pilot Enterprise" or "Series/Production Enterprise" to refer to visually distinct variations but those don't combine with "Enterprise" as well.

May wanna hold on to that jerky knee. ;-)

 

[DSG2k]

regardless of whatever numbers have been thrown around in the past, the Enterprise is 442 meters long.

The Discoprise is 442 meters long. The producers of this new production era have made no statement about the length of the ship in other eras, to my knowledge. Moreover, I am rather fond of this old chestnut from page three:

The thread was started in TOS forum—and not the GenTrek forum—so it would seem the question pertains to the Original Series E so I fail to see how SNW or the JJverse has any bearing on how big the Enterprise is being portrayed in TOS. Retcons are irrelevant to this discussion. Only the data points presented in TOS or created by the makers of that show matter.
IMO.

 

[DSG2k]

This makes total sense. A thousand foot starship probably seemed pretty big in the 1960's. But now that we have real spaceships that are at least as big as... Wait. I hear it now.

I'm still working my way through the thread, so pardon me for asking, but:

Has someone posted a pic of the Enterprise and "SCALE IN FEET" from "The Enterprise Incident" with a meme-text "YOUR MOM THOUGHT I WAS BIG ENOUGH" yet?

 

[UssGlenn]

though even that 442 doesn't leave adequate room for the vast turbolift track caverns we're repeatedly shown.)

The turbolift caverns have never been shown on SNW. The only time they were ever seen in relation to the Enterprise was on that Short Trek.

 

[DSG2k]

The turbolift caverns have never been shown on SNW. The only time they were ever seen in relation to the Enterprise was on that Short Trek.

... forgive me for asking, but so? It matches a contemporaneous vessel, and there is nothing to suggest those are of lesser rank. Ergo:

 

[Tomalak]

You can really pick your own preferred answer to this question. There are lots of breadcrumbs you can follow.

The TOS ship's size was never explicitly stated on screen. The design length was pretty well-established in secondary sources, but fans have spent literally decades debating inconsistencies like the hangar deck, the bridge orientation etc, and whether they could fit into the ship.

The TMP Enterprise had a very well-defined design length, but again never stated on screen, and the sets mostly don't fit within a ship of that size, from the Rec Deck to the torpedo bay and the hangar/cargo complex. I'll ignore Deck 78.

There's some evidence that Drexler upscaled the Defiant in ENT by about 50%. That was twenty years ago, which shows that this dilemma isn't new.

So, as the producer of a 21st century sci-fi TV series, with competing audience expectations to balance, what do you do? The films went into a parallel universe to avoid all the trouble. Good call. But it didn't stop the fans trying to fit it into what they knew anyway, hence Bernd Schneider's infamous meltdown over the size of the new Enterprise.

The SNW producers had to try to balance that it's ostensibly a prequel to TOS, but that it looks very different. They chose to bite the bullet and state that the ship is larger than 70s fanon size, and they've been consistent with that, aside from that one bridge display in DSC. They gave themselves the freedom to design impressive sets that a modern audience would expect of a futuristic starship, and that helps tell the stories that want to tell.

So as a fan who cares about this stuff, you've got a few options:

• SNW's ship is a just a visual recasting like Hunter>Mount, Nimoy>Peck. This is what the producers seem to go with. It's the most rational answer because it's the truth. But it's not satisfying to fans who need an in-universe explanation.

• The TOS-E was always 442m too. This is the option most relevant to the TOS forum, and this thread suggests that some fans have thought about this for years. There are few disadvantages to this IMO, except that it means mentally jettisoning 50+ years of baggage.

• If you can't accept the visual recasting, but you can accept a larger TOS ship, then maybe it's an in-universe refit. Some secondary sources seem to go with this.

• If you don't like those options, they gave you the 'Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow' explanation that the timeline constantly changes as a result of temporal incursions. So you've got a cast-iron, in-universe rationale: the ship has simply been Gabriel Bell'd at some point.

• Or, if you prefer you can say it's a completely separate timeline. I'm old enough to remember when people said this about ENT. It has the same advantages of the Kelvin timeline films - it's a clean slate and you can just enjoy the show without worrying how it fits into TOS. But this is something the producers have categorically rejected.

I guess this is what some fans don't like. There isn't a single, 'canon', in-universe reason. You have to pick your own preferred option and therefore you can't be right or wrong. Hence the interminable internet arguments after eight years.

There are plenty of options but they all depend on some level of suspension of disbelief or admission that this is all fiction. That is anathema to the way a large segment of fandom has seen the franchise since its earliest days. So I get why this debate rages on. But there will never be an answer that satisfies everyone.

 

[HotRod]

You can really pick your own preferred answer to this question. There are lots of breadcrumbs you can follow.

The TOS ship's size was never explicitly stated on screen. The design length was pretty well-established in secondary sources, but fans have spent literally decades debating inconsistencies like the hangar deck, the bridge orientation etc, and whether they could fit into the ship.

The TMP Enterprise had a very well-defined design length, but again never stated on screen, and the sets mostly don't fit within a ship of that size, from the Rec Deck to the torpedo bay and the hangar/cargo complex. I'll ignore Deck 78.

There's some evidence that Drexler upscaled the Defiant in ENT by about 50%. That was twenty years ago, which shows that this dilemma isn't new.

So, as the producer of a 21st century sci-fi TV series, with competing audience expectations to balance, what do you do? The films went into a parallel universe to avoid all the trouble. Good call. But it didn't stop the fans trying to fit it into what they knew anyway, hence Bernd Schneider's infamous meltdown over the size of the new Enterprise.

The SNW producers had to try to balance that it's ostensibly a prequel to TOS, but that it looks very different. They chose to bite the bullet and state that the ship is larger than 70s fanon size, and they've been consistent with that, aside from that one bridge display in DSC. They gave themselves the freedom to design impressive sets that a modern audience would expect of a futuristic starship, and that helps tell the stories that want to tell.

So as a fan who cares about this stuff, you've got a few options:

• SNW's ship is a just a visual recasting like Hunter>Mount, Nimoy>Peck. This is what the producers seem to go with. It's the most rational answer because it's the truth. But it's not satisfying to fans who need an in-universe explanation.

• The TOS-E was always 442m too. This is the option most relevant to the TOS forum, and this thread suggests that some fans have thought about this for years. There are few disadvantages to this IMO, except that it means mentally jettisoning 50+ years of baggage.

• If you can't accept the visual recasting, but you can accept a larger TOS ship, then maybe it's an in-universe refit. Some secondary sources seem to go with this.

• If you don't like those options, they gave you the 'Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow' explanation that the timeline constantly changes as a result of temporal incursions. So you've got a cast-iron, in-universe rationale: the ship has simply been Gabriel Bell'd at some point.

• Or, if you prefer you can say it's a completely separate timeline. I'm old enough to remember when people said this about ENT. It has the same advantages of the Kelvin timeline films - it's a clean slate and you can just enjoy the show without worrying how it fits into TOS. But this is something the producers have categorically rejected.

I guess this is what some fans don't like. There isn't a single, 'canon', in-universe reason. You have to pick your own preferred option and therefore you can't be right or wrong. Hence the interminable internet arguments after eight years.

There are plenty of options but they all depend on some level of suspension of disbelief or admission that this is all fiction. That is anathema to the way a large segment of fandom has seen the franchise since its earliest days. So I get why this debate rages on. But there will never be an answer that satisfies everyone.

Can we pin this at the top of the page for the next 20 years? I feel it would save us a great many headaches.

 

[Tallguy]

So I had started to buy into "The original series never stated the length of the ship on screen." Then I looked at the screen shot from The Enterprise Incident.

I'd say that there are far shakier statements in "canon" than the length of the good old NCC-1701 as stated on screen.

There is a drawing with a scale right there. Hard to read? No problem, we have a copy. And really it's not THAT hard to read.

Was it just made up on the spot, a shoot from the hip "It might be something like this?" drawing? No, it's the same dimensions the art department has been saying since the show (re) started. They were remarkably consistent.

We don't have an exact measure. Fair. Except I don't think you can come up with a measurement that is TOO far off from that drawing. You might get 280. 270? 305? If you run up to 442 you're not doing a very good job. And curiously all of this lines up with the stated length of 289.

And finally, the argument that 1450 ft makes more sense than 950ish ft: Why? I mean, maybe for TOS. Maybe for SNW? Can't be for both.

We've seen people take detailed measurements over the years of the window spacing, the size of the sets, etc., etc., etc. to come up with the "real" size of the Enterprise. Has anyone done this with the SNW ship?

 

[valkyrie013]

the ONLY show that had consistant and real ship sizes was Enterprise. You would think since then 25 years ago, that the digital age would show nice and consistant ship sizes.. Nope. Matter of fact its even worse now than pre 2000.
Doug Drexler cared.. the rest of the people? not so much.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Remember, even 442m doesn't fit the SNW Enterprise engineering section or shuttlebay. There will be no magical, fixes everything number. All we have is, the TOS ship is one size, the Disco/SNW one another size and while parts of them (specifically, the bridge deck and window) fit those desired sizes, it's a TV show and they'll put mammoth too-big internals if their story needs it.

 

[blssdwlf]

In case anyone was curious or wanted to check their memory, here are photos of the "The Enterprise Incident" being played from a DVD player on a Commodore 1084S monitor. IMHO, there would have been no way back then to discern what the scale was if you were relying on what was aired. And if you were today to look at HD screencaps or pull up a copy of TMOST then the illustrated Enterprise doesn't have the right B-C structure, nacelle placement or engineering hull shape to match the TOS Enterprise depicted on screen. This only proves the illustrated Enterprise was 950' in length but the TOS Enterprise that was flying around in the series is unknown, IMHO. YMMV.

 

[DSG2k]

In case anyone was curious or wanted to check their memory, here are photos of the "The Enterprise Incident" being played from a DVD player on a Commodore 1084S monitor.

That's a 13 inch screen, which is what I had in my college dorm TV/VCR combo unit. I also didn't have cable or good over-the-air reception so literally only had bootleg VHS copies of the Original Series on VHS as entertainment.

Trust me, I have a pretty good idea of the limitations of standard def back then. I also remember how disappointed I was when my first LCD TV didn't play standard def stuff as well as the big CRT I got rid of (and which would now be weirdly valuable) because the pixels were too 'crisp'.

(Incidentallt, circa 1990, on a similar TV to my 13 inch but with better VCR, there was a shot of the Enterprise approaching and some sort of splotch was on the big pilot bridge for a sec . . . I rewound that and did frame-by-frame because I was thinking it was a second deflector dish. I was pleased that it wasn't because that struck me as silly and ugly.

You can imagine, then, how I felt about Voyager, Equinox, and friends.)

Also, it was often easier with 480i to read something when it was being played rather than trying to freeze frame, due to interpolation. _I have a primer about what "480i" means for the youngsters_.

IMHO, there would have been no way back then to discern what the scale was if you were relying on what was aired.

The numbers are comprehensible. The first splotch, second double-splotch, third 2.5 splotches, and the last triple-splotch don't require a wizard to divine.

As for readong text, he moire pattern of your pics (which wasn't visible when you were standing there) doesn't help, but I do have to say one thing. In each close-up of the scale diagram, you have dark interpolation lines right over the part of interest.

Notice the brighter center of the Klingon ship at the bottom:

... and the whole area in the center of this, including all letters and numbers:

I'm not saying you're wrong, but those pics don't fully support your contention. Of course we can't read it with half the pic missing!

 

[DSG2k]

Oh, and also:

And if you were today to look at HD screencaps or pull up a copy of TMOST then the illustrated Enterprise doesn't have the right B-C structure, nacelle placement or engineering hull shape to match the TOS Enterprise depicted on screen. This only proves the illustrated Enterprise was 950' in length but the TOS Enterprise that was flying around in the series is unknown, IMHO.

Shaw nailed this argument rather nicely months ago:

On the question of why the diagrams weren't accurate to the 11 foot model... the first reasonably accurate plans of the 11 foot model didn't exist until the mid 1990s. It wasn't as if Jefferies could just scan the 11 foot model to make a 3D representation and use that to make illustrations for the show back in 1968.

And as for the readability of illustrations from "The Enterprise Incident", the episode aired on September 27, 1968... the same month that those same illustrations were published in TMoST. That was the 1960s equivalent to HD screen caps or other behind the scenes details published on the internet today.

I would only add that trying to disregard the image because its depiction of the ship is imprecise versus the eleven foot model is . . . well, we can politely refer to it as unconvincing.

("I'm not in a shrinking warp bubble universe, look at that crappy blocky computer-generated Enterprise!" says Crusher.)

If a crewmember was struck mute and, when asked what occurred, they instantly painted a marvelous scene of a battle, are we to disregard it if they didn't get their own features just so? "Oh, so you're just not talking and nothing happened to you" is . . . well, the afflicted crewmember could be forgiven for responding quite, quite poorly.

 

[blssdwlf]

That's a 13 inch screen, which is what I had in my college dorm TV/VCR combo unit. I also didn't have cable or good over-the-air reception so literally only had bootleg VHS copies of the Original Series on VHS as entertainment.

Trust me, I have a pretty good idea of the limitations of standard def back then. I also remember how disappointed I was when my first LCD TV didn't play standard def stuff as well as the big CRT I got rid of (and which would now be weirdly valuable) because the pixels were too 'crisp'.

(Incidentallt, circa 1990, on a similar TV to my 13 inch but with better VCR, there was a shot of the Enterprise approaching and some sort of splotch was on the big pilot bridge for a sec . . . I rewound that and did frame-by-frame because I was thinking it was a second deflector dish. I was pleased that it wasn't because that struck me as silly and ugly.

You can imagine, then, how I felt about Voyager, Equinox, and friends.)

Also, it was often easier with 480i to read something when it was being played rather than trying to freeze frame, due to interpolation. _I have a primer about what "480i" means for the youngsters_.

The numbers are comprehensible. The first splotch, second double-splotch, third 2.5 splotches, and the last triple-splotch don't require a wizard to divine.

You should show us with some photos of a CRT monitor or CRT TV displaying comprehensible numbers from that scene in "The Enterprise Incident". I'd be very interested in seeing that!

As for readong text, he moire pattern of your pics (which wasn't visible when you were standing there) doesn't help, but I do have to say one thing. In each close-up of the scale diagram, you have dark interpolation lines right over the part of interest.

Notice the brighter center of the Klingon ship at the bottom:


... and the whole area in the center of this, including all letters and numbers:

I'm not saying you're wrong, but those pics don't fully support your contention. Of course we can't read it with half the pic missing!

I'm not saying you're grasping for straws but even with a perfect photo of the image on a CRT monitor it won't magically produce legible text.

Oh, and also:



Shaw nailed this argument rather nicely months ago:



I would only add that trying to disregard the image because its depiction of the ship is imprecise versus the eleven foot model is . . . well, we can politely refer to it as unconvincing.

("I'm not in a shrinking warp bubble universe, look at that crappy blocky computer-generated Enterprise!" says Crusher.)

If a crewmember was struck mute and, when asked what occurred, they instantly painted a marvelous scene of a battle, are we to disregard it if they didn't get their own features just so? "Oh, so you're just not talking and nothing happened to you" is . . . well, the afflicted crewmember could be forgiven for responding quite, quite poorly.

If you don't care to build what you are seeing in the illustration then sure it is close enough to cling to for the size of the Enterprise.

 

[Tomalak]

"James R. Kirk" was plainly visible. It's explicit in dialogue that Space Seed takes place in the 22nd century. And The Squire of Gothos is the 28th century.

There are dozens of things that fans can choose to ignore when they don't mesh with what later continuity established.

I'm not saying you have to accept that. The design intent for the ship at the time is clear and no one should pretend otherwise. As I said above, you've got options for how you want to handle it within the continuity of the show if you want to.