Nova class deckplans

[Boris Skrbic]

Yes, it does in a way. The MSD...

Isn't painted on the side of the ship, and isn't accurate even at face value. Nor is it INTENDED to be, for that matter.

What does the literal side of the ship have anything to do with it? You would ignore a yardstick painted on top of the ship? We make conclusions based on the available evidence.

Why isn't the MSD accurate at face value? Doug Drexler drew a reasonable layout, even if there are contradictions in the show, and why wouldn't he intend it to be accurate as far as he can make it? He could've changed a lot for the deck plans but didn't.

There are other MSDs which don't quite match the final CG model or miniature, but in this case, we don't have anything else, other than a few scattered references which can be ignored or rationalized differently for a best-fit scenario. There are no Rick Sternbach orthos where we can see that a deck line is lower or higher than on the MSD. Therefore, the MSD remains the only authority on the subject.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

Yes, it does in a way. The MSD...

Isn't painted on the side of the ship, and isn't accurate even at face value. Nor is it INTENDED to be, for that matter.

What does the literal side of the ship have anything to do with it?

Because the dimensions and scale of the physical/CG models in relation to a fictional real-world spacecraft are presently being discussed, and the size of this can be determined, or estimated, or just plain invented, based on external visual cues. The MSDs, while interesting, are intended to be used as filming props and set decoration and are barely (if at all) useful in this regard.

Neither should they be expected to be entirely accurate in engineering terms, either. Most such displays only resemble the vehicle to which they belong to make them easily recognizeable (this is the IN-UNIVERSE reason why MSDs look the way they do). But the shape and size of the display tells you nothing about the relation or physical location of those systems, because that's not the information they're supposed to convey.

Why isn't the MSD accurate at face value?

For starters, because at the scale of which it was drawn neither of the ship's shuttlecraft models would actually fit inside the hull, and neither would its escape pods.

More to the point: Dexler's MSD wasn't based on any specific knowledge of Defiant's actual design (as he wasn't involved in the design of the model at all) it was really just a reasonable guess to create a visual prop that would look good on TV.

even if there are contradictions in the show, and why wouldn't he intend it to be accurate as far as he can make it?

He DID, actually, considering how little information he actually had about the model. OTOH, I again remind you that physical accuracy as far as deck height and internal arrangement is not something you would expect to see even in REAL WORLD displays of this type, as that information would be virtually useless in a tabletop two-dimensional chart. A damage control floorplan or an electrical/plumbing diagram would be another matter entirely, but that's not what an MSD is, or even resembles, or was even meant to be interpreted.

He could've changed a lot for the deck plans but didn't.

That's kinda my point: MSDs are not deckplans.

 

[Boris Skrbic]

You are exaggerating the supposed inaccuracies beyond proportion. If you were to see such a display in the real world, you wouldn't assume that the ship is actually twice as long, because you would know that in that case, it would have to have eight decks, not four. The objects inside the drawing point to roughly 110 meters. I am not saying it is necessarily a scale drawing, but only that it is essentially accurate.

Remember, there was no refined or undisputed design for Doug Drexler to be informed about. You could sort of argue that he should've known about 560 feet, and that he should have somehow kept that figure with the four decks requested by Ira Behr according to Drexler (though this would have required a lot of the ship to remain unoccupied), but this was not an Andrew Probert or Rick Sternbach design. The key is now to develop a theory that fits the canon, not one which would require Sisko to have kept a ridiculously inaccurate MSD all those years.

I would understand it if the ship had clear rows of windows indicating more decks, but in this case, it doesn't. The MSD appeared so frequently that it became the basis for the ship's layout, even if we can refine bits and pieces in accordance with the VFX, dialogue, etc.

 

[Timo]

The four-deck interpretation is a really unsatisfactory one, considering we got two highly explicit references to a habitable, standing-height "Deck Five" in the show.

When those references already utterly disprove the various (and conflicting) MSDs, it's not really all that sensible to keep on arguing that the MSDs are accurate "because there is no reason why they wouldn't be". The inaccuracy is an established fact, and it follows that some silly reason has to be cooked up for why they are inaccurate.

In case of the Defiant, we may argue that the already once abandoned prototype was never fully fitted with appropriate software, or that Sisko always pressed the "display false MSD" button when there were potential hostiles either lurking on his bridge, or peering in through the viewscreen, or boarding the lower decks of his ship - one or the other of which happened in virtually every episode.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Boris Skrbic]

Timo, it's a matter of looking for the best fit, not developing highly creative theories with little evidence to back them up. The backbone of the Defiant layout is this MSD, which became the official layout and wasn't removed from behind Sisko all those years. Why? Well, we know that Drexler and Okuda considered it correct, that Ron Moore had a four-deck poster on his wall, presumably the MSD.

That is the layout, it is seen in a lot of episodes, and then there are outliers. Either we come up with a ridiculous reason for why the MSD has been seriously wrong all this time, even when used by the characters to point out where a torpedo had entered the ship, or we refine the MSD with a lot of missing pieces (quantum torpedo launchers, escape pods of reasonable size or with a different placement, etc.), while at the same time reinterpreting Deck 5, taking advantage of the fact that we don't know where it is located. It is a TV show and there are bound to be blooper-level issues, but they need to be fixed in the spirit of the show, not by leaving gaping holes in what we see onscreen. If the viewer sees an average episode with the MSD in the background, then looks in a tech manual, he should see something that looks like that MSD.

 

[Timo]

The big problem with that is that the MSDs never were anywhere near the "best fit" to begin with. They are at odds with virtually every aspect of artist intent, including that which never made it to the screen (Martin's original tiny boat) and that which was actively promoted on screen (the way the ship was shot as Miranda-sized). They provide an unconvincing internal layout as regards e.g. known weapons emplacements. They fail to meet dialogue criteria, or to comply with other Okudagrams such as turbolift charts. And they don't really offer much help in accommodating the known "interacting elements" such as shuttlepods, the DS9 docking port, the runabout from "By Inferno's Light" etc.

Leaving gaping holes in dialogue is IMHO the far more serious offense here, as the MSDs are irredeemable anyway.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[SicOne]

The derived deck plans would be this, seen in Engineering on the Defiant-class U.S.S. Valiant, on the wall behind Nog while he was treaking the warp system and talking to Jake:

LCARS 24, correct me if I'm wrong, but it looks like the Defiant's warp coils are misaligned and slightly offset from each other in the lower MSD. Thought you might want to examine that detail vis-a-vis your Defiant deck plans thread.

 

[Timo]

The offset part is probably an illusion stemming from the fact that the MSD top view is a hybrid of Deck 3 and Deck 2 views in the DS9 Tech manual. That is, the view is mostly Deck 2, but the original has some sort of a vent plate obscuring the foremost two coils, so those have been cut-and-pasted from Deck 3 to complete the picture. And the shadowing on the coil edges is different in the Deck 2 and Deck 3 pictures, creating (most of) the illusion...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Crazy Eddie]

You are exaggerating the supposed inaccuracies beyond proportion. If you were to see such a display in the real world, you wouldn't assume that the ship is actually twice as long, because you would know that in that case, it would have to have eight decks, not four. The objects inside the drawing point to roughly 110 meters. I am not saying it is necessarily a scale drawing, but only that it is essentially accurate.

Problem is, the objects inside the drawing are obviously not drawn TO SCALE, nor are they intended to be meant as such. It is not even established canonically that the horizontal lines dividing the ship are really meant to represent DECKS (let's face it: a longitudinal cross section on a nearly-flat saucer-shaped vessel would be worse than useless in a damage control situation).

Which doesn't change the basic point that MSDs are mainly designed to be visually pleasing, not accurate. We already heard from the man himself on this subject in another thread, and I happen to agree.

Remember, there was no refined or undisputed design for Doug Drexler to be informed about. You could sort of argue that he should've known about 560 feet

But I couldn't really argue that he should've CARED. That anyone in Trek production bothered to apply a bit of technical accuracy into their designs is a credit to them, but it's more than we would usually expect (or receive) from a TV show. The only reason it's even an issue is because Star Trek--not the producers, but the FANS--have this thing about "canon," and insist on taking literally things that are clearly just props, reuses of old props, obvious McGuffins or slabs of pressed handwavium.

I would understand it if the ship had clear rows of windows indicating more decks

It does. In a bit of circular logic you have used the MSD as evidence that the windows on the bottom of the ship aren't REALLY windows.

They clearly are, however, which is fine, because we know that the Defiant has at least one window.

The MSD appeared so frequently that it became the basis for the ship's layout

No, SET DESIGN was the basis for the ship's layout. The MSD isn't the basis for much of anything outside of fanon.

 

[Boris Skrbic]

Ok, you want to squint at the fact that the Galaxy class MSD just happens to have about 42 of these mysterious separation lines, that the Sovereign class MSD just happens to have about 23, that the Intrepid just happens to have about fifteen -- fine, but you are reaching in order to explain the fact that Doug Drexler drew four decks. I am proposing a more subtle approach. Everything we see onscreen is part of the canon, regardless of intent, and all the pieces must be analyzed so that they cause the least disruption for the viewer. Taking advantage of the fact that the rows of lights haven't been established as windows is one such decision, since the MSD tells us there is only one deck there. Taking advantage of the fact that we haven't seen Deck 5 is another, and so we keep making little fixes all over the place without disrupting the big picture. Having seen seasons 3 to 7, I don't see how this can be done other than using that omnipresent graphic as the starting point, then trying to make everything else fit that graphic, instead of deciding that just the graphic should be masked out, while everything else is so much more important. Anyway, we've been off topic for a while now.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

Ok, you want to squint at the fact that the Galaxy class MSD just happens to have about 42 of these mysterious separation lines

How do you know Galaxy has 42 decks?

that the Sovereign class MSD just happens to have about 23

When we know from dialog that Sovereign has at least 26 (and Deck 29 is mentioned in Nemesis despite the fact that the MSD never changes).

I am proposing a more subtle approach. Everything we see onscreen is part of the canon, regardless of intent, and all the pieces must be analyzed so that they cause the least disruption for the viewer.

And the MSD is barely visible to the viewer, and doesn't concretely factor into any meaningful plot points.

Taking advantage of the fact that the rows of lights haven't been established as windows is one such decision

When they are clearly and obviously meant to BE windows? That's less disruptive to you than coming up with a totally separate unsupported explanation, in defiance of the designer's obvious intent, just to be consistent with an MSD diagram that isn't even legible except in freeze frame and isn't meant to establish deck count in the first place?

Having seen seasons 3 to 7, I don't see how this can be done other than using that omnipresent graphic as the starting point

Boris, you were IN THE THREAD where we hard Rick Strenbach mention that MSDs were never meant to be used to determine the absolute scale of the space craft. And that isn't even the first time we've had people involved in the production of the show tell us this. Now you want to START with the MSD and reinterpret everything else just to fit that? That makes sense to you?

 

[Vinkula]

I asked for Nova deckplans and I don't even understand this discussion anymore.

 

[Bill Morris]

I assume you're wondering about Strategic Designs. The word on that:

Hi,

I'm the Tim Palgut that visitors to the Strategic Design site may recognize if they looked at the "About" page as the designer/researcher/proofer/quality control, website updater etc.
From 2001 until 2009 I collaborated with David Schmidt on creating the deck plans that we ended up selling on the website.
I've been putting off coming onto a forum such as this or the Cygnus X-1 site and making any kind of announcement because I was waiting on legal advice.

The site closed due to business reasons beyond my control, and I am no longer in business nor contact with Dave Schmidt.

Tim

That's from the current thread about the status of Strategic Designs in the TrekBBS art forum.

 

[Boris Skrbic]

(deleted duplicate post)

 

[Boris Skrbic]

newtype_alpha, it is one thing to question the MSD layout and a wholly another to try to present it as something it is not, by going as far as questioning whether not one, but most of them are showing deck lines in the first place. Are you trying to say it is mere accident that the Equinox in reality was designed with eight decks, or that the Sovereign was blueprinted by Rick Sternbach with 23 clearly demarcated deck lines, most of them having a window row? Is it mere accident that Tasha said the Galaxy class has 42 decks, or that we can count that many window rows?

All I care about is making the canon fit, and the MSD is often seen up-close, to the point where I can see the four decks. And I have already explained the Defiant's special case in another thread: a lot of MSDs were drawn based on Rick Sternbach's preliminary drawings, which is why they aren't fully consistent with the model, so we give precedence to the model because it is more final, because it contradicts the MSD often in terms of deck lines or weapons placement within the actual canon. But the Defiant's MSD was drawn afterwards, and there is no final layout to override it. The MSD and the deck plans are the final layout, except that there are more contradictions than usual, because they were drawn too late and almost no details were built into the miniature. Still they are as much a part of the canon as anything else, even more so since the MSD was seen in a lot of episodes.

 

[Bill Morris]

I've done MSDs of real spaceships, and in researching them I have seen all sorts of errors in existing diagrams and conflicting figures for dimensions among the various sources. In the case of Wikipedia, the dimensions given for SpaceShipOne in feet were okay, but the figures in meters in parentheses were the product of faulty unit conversion. And the original blueprints for the Apollo spacecraft are forever lost, and no copies are even known to exist, although there are some overview drawings available. I expect such problems with Trek ships, but . . .

 

[Crazy Eddie]

newtype_alpha, it is one thing to question the MSD layout and a wholly another to try to present it as something it is not

Well, let's be specific about what it is not.

It is NOT a carefully contrived deckplan intended to be 100% consistent with the ship's design. It is NOT a blueprint for the ship. It is NOT definitive in terms of establishing scale or dimensions.

What IS an MSD? It is a visual graphic designed to be used as background scenery and occasionally a prop for the introduction of vague plot devices (Defiant's MSD was never used in the latter capacity, and Enterprise's MSD only with some clever CG graphics added to it).

Are you trying to say it is mere accident that the Equinox in reality was designed with eight decks, or that the Sovereign was blueprinted by Rick Sternbach with 23 clearly demarcated deck lines, most of them having a window row? Is it mere accident that Tasha said the Galaxy class has 42 decks, or that we can count that many window rows?

If the horizontal lines are intended to depict structural braces or lines of compression for the STI fields, then it wouldn't be a coincidence at all: MOST ships would have a one-to-one or two-to-one relationship between STI field lines and deck structures.

All I care about is making the canon fit

Then choose a better starting point, because the MSD is by far the LEAST important of many contradictory elements.

 

[Boris Skrbic]

Ok, since you would prefer to discard a significant piece of the canon based on real-world considerations, that is your approach and I don't see that I can change your mind. The Defiant's MSD was used in "Starship Down" to point out where a torpedo entered the ship, and also in "Shattered Mirror" by Smiley to show Sisko what they had built. In my approach, none of these graphics are inaccurate a priori, perhaps only parts of them and only if these parts are impossible to explain based on other evidence. Your theory about the lines not representing decks is unlikely to be accepted, because they are decks, and you will find it fairly difficult to get fandom to throw out the MSD in favor of other evidence, because that is not a best fit scenario, one in which we rationalize everything to fit instead of asking the audience to ignore a fairly detailed diagram.

 

[Timo]

Why would the graphics not be inaccurate? It's their very in-universe purpose to be inaccurate, so that they can highlight the things the users find interesting. Hence, e.g. the Voyager has had her nacelle severed and moved to an all-new location...

Since the Defiant has lateral warp coil placement, there would be an obvious demand there as well for misrepresenting her in side view so that the warp coils, the powerplant and the side-mounted weaponry could all be seen at once. Perhaps the MSD shows any four decks out of the six or so, as per user preference, and the setting we sometimes happen to glimpse onscreen shows the upper pulse phasers and the warp core but fails to show the coils or the lower phasers or the torpedoes.

The Defiant's MSD was used in "Starship Down" to point out where a torpedo entered the ship

The dialogue indicates the hit did not take place on Deck 2 (since it was flooded with gas and trapped Dax and Bashir, but Odo and the Karemma suffered no ill effects on their deck), but did take place on the topside of the ship (since we see the VFX for the incoming attack from the dorsal side, and we see the curved ceiling of the set where the torpedo penetrates, a reuse of the Mess Hall). If the top deck is not Deck 2, it must be either Deck 1 or Deck 3. (The latter could be a "top deck" in the six-deck interpretation, but not in the four-deck one.)

But Deck 3 is not something our Engineering heroes would be cut off from due to the Deck 2 breach. So the torp hit likely took place on Deck 1.

Where does O'Brien point, exactly?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Crazy Eddie]

one in which we rationalize everything to fit instead of asking the audience to ignore a fairly detailed diagram.

But you don't need to ASK anyone to do that, because the overwhelming majority of the AUDIENCE isn't paying that much attention to the diagram. Hell, most of US aren't even paying that much attention to the diagram, because--as I said--it is the LEAST important of several contradictory elements.

If you want to start with the MSD, then you have to ignore or try to rationalize:
- The windows
- The shuttlebay
- The escape pods
- The "bridge module" surface feature
- Dialog references to a fifth deck
- The first MSD which is even less accurate than the second
- The lack of either lower phaser cannons or forward torpedo launchers on the MSD

Better off starting with the physical model--the windows, the outline of the bridge module, and any other recognizable features--try for a best fit scenario based on visual comparisons (these vary wildly and some would have to be ignored). Then the MSD is the ONLY thing you have to rationalize, which is alot easier, because most people aren't looking at the MSD.