TAS Armored Shuttle Reimagined

[Henoch]

^^ The shuttlecraft in “Mudd’s Passion” was known as a heavy lander. The shuttlecraft in “Slaver Weapon” was known as a long range craft.

Thanks for the correction. "Heavy Lander" implies is can land a heavy load of something, such as a large number of crew or equipment/cargo. The side hatches are too small for cargo, so, perhaps there is a large, unseen hatch on the bottom of the ship to unload cargo containers? I does sit high off the ground. Additionally, it might tractor beam containers down through the open cargo hatch as the shuttle hovers above. The two side landing struts could also double as phasers for protection.

The ship concept appears as an early TNG Runabout.

 

[Warped9]

It must be noted that nowhere in the TAS episodes are the different craft referred to as anything unusual or specific other than as shuttlecraft. The exception is the aquashuttle. It is in Alan Dean Foster’s adaptations of the TAS episodes that he referred to them as something specific or specialized. What is unknown is whether ADF added those specific designations himself out of creative licence or he got them from something in the original scripts that never made it onscreen.

 

[Henoch]

Correct, nothing on screen but "Shuttlecraft". Whipping out my new reference book, Star Trek The Animated Series, the page 81 pencil artwork labels the ship as "Armored Shuttlecraft". Two pages later, the authors title the ship as "Heavy Shuttle". On screen canon: there are three of them in the Enterprise "Shuttlebay".

 

[Warped9]

Sadly I find myself forced to dismiss or heavily rationalize much of what we see in TAS. We know there is absolutely no way whatsoever that multiple shuttles of the size we see in TAS could be berthed simultaneously in the Enterprise’s hangar. That visual is simply flat out impossible.