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[Rekkert]

What Gerrold's describing there is hard science fiction, and its something that Trek (for better or worse) never wanted to be.

The question of how to build a starship and making each individual deck make sense is something that we spent quite a lot of time arguing about back when we were recreating the Ent-D on Stage 9. At the end of the day, you just can't make sense of every detail on the ship if you look at it from a "realistic point of view" like hard scifi does, you have to assume that some sort of futuristic tech which we couldn't even understand takes care of stuff.

Waste disposal, power management, air vents, and a lot of other details are usually never addressed in canon, and even "soft-canon" references such as the Technical Manual are understandably vague. No matter how much the authors cared, these resources were made on a schedule and with the limited resources of their time (I bet both Franz Joseph and Rick Sternbach would have loved to sketch out rooms or concepts in 3D when trying to write about these ships), so properly understanding every nook and cranny and translating that into 2D back then would've been impossible (heck, it's a herculean task even today).

 

[Donnewtype]

I don't know. I don't think Gerrold was looking at Star Trek from the Hard Sci-Fi point of view but from the good story telling point of view and good sci-fi balances the two. Getting an occasional glimpse of what was going on around and beyond the Enterprise ( Their connection and place in the Federation that they kept talking about) may have added that missing flavor that might have hooked enough viewers to get a fourth season or more. But then would we have gotten the movies and Next Gen and everything that came after it? Who knows.

As it is reading that piece got me thinking of what internal logic I could apply to my interpretation of the FJ plans. But I am going to hate getting rid of the bowling ally. The pool? That can go, but I'm going to try and fit that bowling ally in. After getting past World War 3, the Eugenics Wars and what ever else occurred in Trek's future history, its good to see bowling shoes still made it.

 

[Donnewtype]

Good day all
So I've progressed a lot in working out the deck placement and have divided them into three sections, Primary Hull, Dorsal or Interconnect and the Secondary Hull. I managed to fit 23 Decks into the ship and with storage for 4 Shuttles as well.

So starting with the Primary Hull we have 11 decks as shown here:

Now I merged the rear section of Deck 2 and 3 to create the larger Physics Lab. Here is what it looks like with the decks sectioned:

You can see how I've been installing gangways to move between decks and how Engineering extends down into Deck 7 as well.

Main Engineering and the Impulse Engines took a lot of thought to get something that fit into Decks 6 and 7 and I think I came up with a good solution. I was even able to incorporate a few of the details that are seen on the TV. Here is Main Engineering:

and here it is with Deck 6

Looking in, showing the side screen panel and the larger screen that covers the engine core behind it.

I took some elements from the two different sets and although it's not as high, its a more practical layout I think. One thing I added though was a second set of doors just before you walk into Engineering. They're emergency blast doors to seal off Main Engineering in the event that something goes very wrong.
Shown here behind our Captain:

Now the Interconnect was a little easier as I made the decks shorter.

Shown in section:

My thinking here is that the Interconnect is utilitarian, the Observation decks are there as a secondary purpose. In this and all the other views, the open spaces would be where the structure, conduits, piping and equipment would go.

Now here is the Secondary Hull:

And in section:

Now you can see that I made room for 3 shuttles in a lower hanger with a 4'th shuttle positioned in the Bay. Here is a close up of the lower hanger:

Another area that I've detailed is Secondary Engineering. Seen here:

Here is the view looking into Engineering from the elevator:

and in the main control room:

Again I tried to use the elements that we saw on the TV. Once the Decks are blocked out with rooms and corridors, I plan on detailing the walls and such later.

Now with the shuttle bay I worked deck 18 around it so you have the doors on the side wall of the bay.

What I want to work out in these plans are a more hard science arrangement to the ship if that makes sense. For example where does the air go when they are opening the hanger bay doors?
Here:

The storage tanks sit just above the bay ceiling
A lot to absorb, but more to come.

 

[137th Gebirg]

Beautiful! Always liked the FJ internal configuration.

 

[publiusr]

The teardrop secondary hull is also nice.

 

[Bernard Guignard]

Well done

 

[Donnewtype]

Good day.
So I've worked on refining the position of the decks with in the Secondary Hull and adding blocks of detail as I go. First up is the Secondary Hull showing the two turbolift shafts, Shuttle Bay and lower hanger, Tractor Beam Housing and what I'm calling the Deflector Generator housing.

Here is a close up of Deck 21,22,23 with the tractor Beam extended.

And most important of all the Bowling Ally. I fit it into Deck 21 along with a large rec, mess area around it.

Two close up shots

and

Now I've spent some time on getting the Shuttle Bay and Deck 17 and 18 to work together. Here is a shot of the rear wall of the Shuttle Bay. The 1/350 scale model has two doors and a larger cargo? door at the rear of the bay so I added them. I also created the windows that are part of the Observation Gallery as well.

Now here is a shot that gives you an idea of the view of the bay when looking from the rear Gallery windows.

Here is the Shuttle Bay and Deck 18, 17, 16 in section showing the small set of steps need to enter the Observation Gallery.

I know that the FJ deck plans show the Secondary Hull with more crew cabins, but to me with the Shuttle Bay right there, maybe the Secondary Hull should have been used for Diplomatic quarters or Passenger quarters. With one or two board rooms and specialized food and beverage prep.

 

[Bernard Guignard]

I'm really liking this keep up the great work.

 

[Soran77]

I have created the 1701 several times in sketchup, this is impressive, I usually go back to an old model I have, since I had a catastrophic data loss late last year, I have to redo the model again! This my friend is on par the best sketchup version I've ever seen, way better than mine, I got compliments, but I really like the panel lines in this one, though for me I won't do them on the 1701. Great job!

 

[Soran77]

Question, are the main outside parts of the ship imported?

 

[BorgMan]

I've tought it over several times, but really, having the reactor core as exposed as it is now seems like a terribly bad idea. If a fusion reactor gets blown up, there will be some collateral damage but that's it. If you blow up a warp reactor, antimatter isn't contained anymore and that results in much more than collateral damage. I'm in the "keep engineering in the engineering hull" camp on this one. Don't get me wrong; it's a great model. But the placing feels wrong...

 

[Soran77]

I've tought it over several times, but really, having the reactor core as exposed as it is now seems like a terribly bad idea. If a fusion reactor gets blown up, there will be some collateral damage but that's it. If you blow up a warp reactor, antimatter isn't contained anymore and that results in much more than collateral damage. I'm in the "keep engineering in the engineering hull" camp on this one. Don't get me wrong; it's a great model. But the placing feels wrong...

I always wondered in ST 3 why the saucer blew but not the rest of the ship, and there wasn't ever a clear answer that I got, not canon anyway, it could be that in keeping with this idea the main reactor is in the saucer.. Kinda dumb if you ask me, but it's plausible

 

[137th Gebirg]

^^^ I’ve speculated in the past that it’s likely a secondary-level explosion using the chemical thruster fuel for the RCS modules. Since an antimatter explosion would have certainly taken out the nearby Bird of Prey (and their only means of escape) along with, most likely, the Genesis planet itself (defeating the whole mission’s purpose of being there to rescue Spock), a more conventional scuttling option was employed. I can’t imagine that Starfleet wouldn’t provide for some kind of lesser-yield self destruct capability for situations like this.

 

[ashleytinger]

Exactly. Just because you're scuttling the ship and wrecking it doesn't mean you want your starship to completely decimate everything in the vicinity with the explosive force of 10,000,000,000 little boy atomic bombs. (not my math, I googled that)

 

[Soran77]

^^^ I’ve speculated in the past that it’s likely a secondary-level explosion using the chemical thruster fuel for the RCS modules. Since an antimatter explosion would have certainly taken out the nearby Bird of Prey (and their only means of escape) along with, most likely, the Genesis planet itself (defeating the whole mission’s purpose of being there to rescue Spock), a more conventional scuttling option was employed. I can’t imagine that Starfleet wouldn’t provide for some kind of lesser-yield self destruct capability for situations like this.

The problem with that is Scotty actually mentions it being a matter anti-matter explosion in the movie

 

[Soran77]

Like splitting an atom

 

[137th Gebirg]

The problem with that is Scotty actually mentions it being a matter anti-matter explosion in the movie

I think you’re getting TSFS mixed up with TMP, where they did consider turning off the antimatter magnetic containment bottles to vaporize V’ger. I don’t believe they ever mentioned an A/M reaction in TSFS.

 

[Soran77]

I think you’re getting TSFS mixed up with TMP, where they did consider turning off the antimatter magnetic containment bottles to vaporize V’ger. I don’t believe they ever mentioned an A/M reaction in TSFS.

You might be right, could be the Mandela effect, but I swear it was mentioned in The search for Spock. I haven't actually seen the movie in a few years either. It could be that my brain put that in there because it would actually be sensible conversation during a self destruct event. lol Honestly now I'm not sure

 

[ashleytinger]

You might be right, could be the Mandela effect, but I swear it was mentioned in The search for Spock. I haven't actually seen the movie in a few years either. It could be that my brain put that in there because it would actually be sensible conversation during a self destruct event. lol Honestly now I'm not sure

The only ting Scotty does in the scene when Kirk starts issuing the command codes for self-destruct is look as shocked as Chekov does and then follow through.

 

[137th Gebirg]

My only complaint with the scene was that there wasn’t anything said to the computer to indicate that it wasn’t supposed to be an A/M explosion, leading to the understandable question as to what exactly happened during the destruct sequence. I gather the only way to do that was to have Scotty go down to the containment bottles personally and flip the switch (as was implied in TMP).

Tangentially, I remember reading, in both the TSFS comic and novelization, that Kruge begrudgingly admired Kirk for scuttling Enterprise, preventing it from being taken, adding to Kirk’s renown and infamy amongst the Klingons. This was very minimally touched upon in the Federation Council testimony scenes in TVH.