How big was the Enterprise?

[Mytran]

i.e. Was there an unseen main engineering in TOS that we just never saw?

Perhaps we saw it in TAS? The episode calls this room the Engine Core.

Apparently "Neutral Zone Studios" has a TOS Main Engineering set.

That's what they've called it but it's just the same engine room set which went by a variety of names in the TV show. It could be Impulse Engineering, it could be the equivalent of the TMP Engine Room (the one with the big vertical power conduit), it was never clarified onscreen.

Apparently they're asking for donations to help move their studios to Sandusky Ohio.

They moved on 11th November 2024, according to another of their posts.

 

[Tallguy]

Apparently they're asking for donations to help move their studios to Sandusky Ohio.

Roller coasters AND Star Trek? Sign me up!

 

[cooleddie74]

Even TAS had enormous rooms that looked way too big for a 289-meter-long starship. Main Engineering. The holographic Recreation Room.

 

[DSG2k]

i.e. Was there an unseen main engineering in TOS that we just never saw?

At the start of TMP when he's still getting his bearings, Kirk arrives a deck above where the main engineering area is. This, perhaps, is telling, if the TOS control room area and ancillary equipment were above the actual more dangerous core guts. The separated area to the rear past the grate also supports this.

If true, only the new TMP core was thought safe enough for a shirtsleeve environment with direct access and control panels directly alongside. Even then, however, there was a separate area (at least in ST2 and after the area was shot up) that was unsafe.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

If there was why would Scotty spend so much time in not-main engineering?

Have you seen Tucker in "In a Mirror, Darkly"?!?

 

[cooleddie74]

Yep. The delta radiation.

 

[DSG2k]

I used to think only a part of a spaceframe from the original ship remained in the TMP ship. I have come to believe in recent years, in acknowledgement of the close relationship between original and Phase II, and Phase II and TMP, that the TMP and original ship might be substantially the same, with only superficial upgrades but substantial technological improvements. In other words, we saw certain sets in TOS most of which are there in TMP though styled like TMP. And we saw certain sets in TMP most of which are there in TOS though styled like TOS. These just went unseen, as did most of both ships.

This, but harder and more of it.

With only certain exceptions of required rerouting (e.g. what caught Kirk) I figure even the corridors are the same. GNDN stuff and similar previously exposed (added-on?) systems in corridors are now contained neatly behind the new (removable) corridor panels.

 

[Cicero]

My theory is that the Enterprise-B type is actually the short-lived original production version following the prototype. Then the original Excelsior was rebuilt into the TUC version with a new drive system which which somehow negates the need for the additional impulse exhaust units, and this becomes the standard Excelsior for the next century.

The Lakota can simply be a reactivated mothballed ship, which could be implied in Paradise Lost anyway.

To me, the Enterprise-B type looks like a subclass with a different mission profile from the standard Excelsior, like the Kidd-class destroyer's relationship to the Spruance-class.

Yes, they are. That's established in canon.

You don't have to like it, of course. But claiming that it's not true within Star Trek continuity is simple error. It's false.

I think it might be more accurate to say that it's true within the continuity of Strange New Worlds. The producers of a show have control over that, but what's canonical is ultimately a matter of consensus opinion, rather than authorial fiat.

The non-satirical idea of canon in this literary sense dates to Conan Doyle's publication of his last Sherlock Holmes story, and was invoked by fans to decide which material "counted." To this day, not all of Doyle's writing is included.

We're just following in the footsteps of the Game.

 

[Mudd]

I think it might be more accurate to say that it's true within the continuity of Strange New Worlds. The producers of a show have control over that, but what's canonical is ultimately a matter of consensus opinion, rather than authorial fiat.

There's no such thing as "canon." It's a shorthand term, even though it's used by people who work on the shows. But it's meaningless.

There are events and "facts" that have been established in the TV shows and movies. Then there is material created by licensees, including writers, which is not part of studio continuity. And finally, there are the theories and opinions of engaged viewers that have no direct bearing on studio continuity.

Finally, there's no real stipulation or ongoing established process at the studio to maintain consistency in Trek continuity. There never has been. At any given time there either are or are not employees of a given production who maintain an effort to keep their production in line with past work to the extent possible.

"The extent possible" is important, because Star Trek is consistent in being inconsistent, even within a given production.

The consensus of fans has nothing to do with what's part of official lore. Nor does the consensus of producers over decades. If it's onscreen, it's part of official Trek continuity.

Anything that is done on SNW is as fully part of Star Trek continuity as anything done on TOS or TNG. And it can be contradicted just as easily.

Oh, fans have something of their own that they call "canon?"

That's nice. What's in it?

Answer: no one knows, because fans don't agree and there are no arbiters.

 

[cooleddie74]

Star Trek being as remarkably consistent and internally coherent as it is after 60 years is something of a minor miracle. 1,000 hours of episodes and films and it holds together remarkably well for a creation written by hundreds of different people and managed by multiple different producers over more than half a century.

 

[Mudd]

And it's full of massive inconsistencies and contradictions.

 

[Ray Hardgrit]

Star Trek being as remarkably consistent and internally coherent as it is after 60 years is something of a minor miracle. 1,000 hours of episodes and films and it holds together remarkably well for a creation written by hundreds of different people and managed by multiple different producers over more than half a century.

It didn't happen by accident though. They had a lot of talented people putting in the effort.

 

[cooleddie74]

Oh, I never implied it was by accident. It took hard work and at least attempting from decade to decade and new series and film to new show and movie to keep things consistent, but there are still big flubs.

But it's easy to head canon away or ignore most of them. So I rarely go ballistic these days when a show gets little details or callbacks wrong.

 

[Maurice]

At the start of TMP when he's still getting his bearings, Kirk arrives a deck above where the main engineering area is. This, perhaps, is telling, if the TOS control room area and ancillary equipment were above the actual more dangerous core guts. The separated area to the rear past the grate also supports this.

I realize this is eight months old, but I missed it before. But I don't think anything about the TMP engine room layout is "telling" about anything in TOS.

 

[Tomalak]

"Canon" does not equal "consistency".

Canon is simply everything depicted in official Star Trek productions, including all the contradictory things.

 

[Cicero]

There's no such thing as "canon." It's a shorthand term, even though it's used by people who work on the shows. But it's meaningless.

I think you're missing my point, though. The term originated with Sherlock Holmes fans to characterize the subset of official works that were agreed upon as being relevant to the Game.

In another fandom, for example, it's not uncommon to treat Batman: The Animated Series as canonical to the DCAU (The New Batman Adventures, Justice League, etc.), but not vice-versa.

The usefulness of that is in setting limits on which works "count" when sifting through the narrative recreationally. It's a player contrivance, not a matter of authorial intent.

Canon is simply everything depicted in official Star Trek productions, including all the contradictory things.

Even from an official standpoint, "The Cage" and most of TAS have been considered out of continuity for almost forty years.

 

[Firebird]

Even from an official standpoint, "The Cage" and most of TAS have been considered out of continuity for almost forty years.

That falls apart when considering the use of the majority of The Cage's footage in The Menagerie and If Memory Serves.

 

[Ray Hardgrit]

That falls apart when considering the use of the majority of The Cage's footage in The Menagerie and If Memory Serves.

That's why it's The Menagerie that's in continuity.

 

[David cgc]

That's why it's The Menagerie that's in continuity.

It does neatly solve the "Can't get used to a woman on the bridge" line. Deleted scene, never happened!

 

[Tomalak]

Even from an official standpoint, "The Cage" and most of TAS have been considered out of continuity for almost forty years.

They haven't though?

There was only a brief period in the nineties when TAS was in limbo, being left out of certain official publications. But even the writers of then-current shows referenced it.

It's been fully back in the official continuity since the mid-2000s.