I don't think they ever showed the back section of the Runabout in DS9, is there a reason for this?
Runabout question?
- Thread starter GalaxyClass1701
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It is funny that the runabout, a primarily DS9 craft, only had its rear compartment glimpsed in its sole TNG appearance (Timescape)! 
Yea I was watching that TNG episode the other night and it just seems weird that they never showed it.
There did seem to be the oppurtunity to see the rear section, and the middle section, as there were plenty of episodes that had the crew spend a good deal on them and going back and forward in them especially for the long scenes where little was happening but instead they would have the crew converse in the cockpit.
I seem to recall someone in the TNG Companion mentioning it was expensive to build the set for "Timescape".
It's a little odd, but it never really bothered me. From a production point of view, I guess it was easier to simply include a line of dialog than to build a set featuring the back. Worf practicing his Worf-fu techniques in the cockpit because he didn't want to disturb Kor sleeping in the aft section comes to mind in The Sword of Kahless.
Still, if you look at the runabout in Timescape, and knowing that the runabouts were modular and could conceivably look like anything, it wouldn't have been hard to utilize some of the existing sets, either from TNG in the early seasons or from the Defiant/Voyager sets in the later seasons.
Interesting to note: Are those little bunk pods with privacy curtains behind Troi? Makes the Defiant look like a luxury hotel!
Still, if you look at the runabout in Timescape, and knowing that the runabouts were modular and could conceivably look like anything, it wouldn't have been hard to utilize some of the existing sets, either from TNG in the early seasons or from the Defiant/Voyager sets in the later seasons.
Interesting to note: Are those little bunk pods with privacy curtains behind Troi? Makes the Defiant look like a luxury hotel!
I always thought it was weird, too, but there was probably no need to show it on DS9 once they got the Defiant in season three.
This is true but I wonder if after that episode if they scrapped the set for some reason.
Which is an odd statement, considering that they look like the exact same set piece used for the Defiant sleep alcoves. At least they do to me.
Indeed, when the runabout set was expanded in late DS9 (with doors ahead of, rather than behind, the transporters), this set piece was already serving as the Defiant crew quarters and couldn't have been easily reused as a runabout component...
Fans have come up with innovative ways by which to fit the various suggested innards inside the shell of the runabout. Both the forward and aft sets truncate in a door that has a solid wall behind it, as is often necessary when building sets. How does that agree with the idea of access from front to back? And why does it sometimes appear that the forward section has no aft door whatsoever, merely a central computer panel behind the transporter alcove?
A clever solution has been to postulate an "in-between" chamber just aft of the cockpit/transporter area, with a giant bulky computer console on rails on the centerline; this is pushed against the forward wall of the chamber in those episodes where we see no aft access, but is pushed aft in other eps, with our heroes going past it left or right to access the aft parts of the craft. In the aft chamber, the presence of the truncating wall just behind the front door can be explained by the central module in that episode not having a centerline corridor, but rather being a full-width module where the corridor goes along one side and leaves maximal room for a row of cabins on the other side...
The "refit" of the forward set for late DS9 would then basically consist of uprooting the transporter from the cockpit and installing it in the "in-between" chamber instead, so that the supposed tactical console could be placed in the cockpit instead.
Timo Saloniemi
Fans have come up with innovative ways by which to fit the various suggested innards inside the shell of the runabout. Both the forward and aft sets truncate in a door that has a solid wall behind it, as is often necessary when building sets. How does that agree with the idea of access from front to back? And why does it sometimes appear that the forward section has no aft door whatsoever, merely a central computer panel behind the transporter alcove?
A clever solution has been to postulate an "in-between" chamber just aft of the cockpit/transporter area, with a giant bulky computer console on rails on the centerline; this is pushed against the forward wall of the chamber in those episodes where we see no aft access, but is pushed aft in other eps, with our heroes going past it left or right to access the aft parts of the craft. In the aft chamber, the presence of the truncating wall just behind the front door can be explained by the central module in that episode not having a centerline corridor, but rather being a full-width module where the corridor goes along one side and leaves maximal room for a row of cabins on the other side...
The "refit" of the forward set for late DS9 would then basically consist of uprooting the transporter from the cockpit and installing it in the "in-between" chamber instead, so that the supposed tactical console could be placed in the cockpit instead.
Timo Saloniemi
Why couldn't they just reuse the set from Timescape (TNG), then?
You'll find the answer in the posts before yours.
I watched DS9 from the very first episode in 1993 and to this day Feb 2010 I still watch it on DVD and it's never occured to me we never saw this part of The Runabout. However, DS9 did have a pretty subtle running gag where they mention something really odd and never attempt to show it. Kind of like Morn talking a lot, Captain Boday and his transparent skull or the kids that Jake was babysitting that had little wings that got tangled up.
I don't know if the Runabout thing is a part of that running joke but it wouldn't surprise me.
I don't know if the Runabout thing is a part of that running joke but it wouldn't surprise me.
maybe all the runabouts had their cargo space taken up by photon launchers and associated equipment.
There was kind of a running joke about Runabouts being deathtraps. I think the Rio Grande was the only one that survived the entire length of the series, from 'Emissary' to 'What You Leave Behind'!
There was kind of a running joke about Runabouts being deathtraps. I think the Rio Grande was the only one that survived the entire length of the series, from 'Emissary' to 'What You Leave Behind'!
I thought the Rio Grande finally bought it sometime around season 7.
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