My understanding is that FJ went exclusively from "The Making of Star Trek", some still photos, what he gleaned from reruns, and whatever material his daughter provided. Roddenberry and Jefferies didn't see the work until it was almost finished.
The 22-Man Transporter
- Thread starter Wingsley
- Start date
The transporter pads are arranged in a hexagonal pattern in the transport chamber, yet there isn't a pad in the center of the hexagon. (The pads form a ring like some kind of carbon chain molecule.) In FJ's 22-man transporter arrangement, he gets 22-pads in the chamber, but he places pads in the center of each hexagon.
I speculate that 22 pads were arrived at by putting five transporter chambers together, keeping a pad out of the center spot (just like on the "real" transporter), but in stringing the five transporter chambers together, each chamber of six pads would overlap by two pads. Forgive my crude drawing and crappy hexagons:
Alternatively, of course, these five chambers could overlap in this way (in a linear fashion), but they could also be arranged in a hexagon pattern (well, five sixths of a hexagon), with, each chamber making up one of the nodes of the hexagon and perhaps the transporter controls/console over towards the missing sixth node.
I do not totally buy the FJ design; I think the transport pads should still be in an enclosed chamber, a little like the way the alcove and six-man stations are partially enclosed. I don't like how you can walk through a door and directly onto the materializer platform. Looks like a safety problem.
So with some minor changes, FJ's design could fit in nicely with TOS.
So with some minor changes, FJ's design could fit in nicely with TOS.
In one of my abortive attempts at making deck plans of the Enterprise, I included 22-man units. And I did enclose the back wall, though I think in any future iteration I do I would set the pads a bit farther back and have the enclosure reach up to about the middle row of pads at least. And probably have a broader deck area in front of the platform to allow some more room for people to get in order as they queue up to beam out.
I had three in the saucer, this was the Starboard unit.
--Alex
I had three in the saucer, this was the Starboard unit.
--Alex
Whether this is a pure evacuation system or also an assault transporter, I'd think it would indeed need a much larger staging area around it. Not just in absolute terms, but also when proportionally compared to the six-pad units.
Possibly also some physical channeling arrangements, so that people queuing for pads 1 through 4 are well separated from the people queuing for pads 5 through 8. If transporters really work on the 1 pad = 1 transportee principle, then an evacuation would call for something radically different from a single broad 22-pad platform!
(My personal favorite would be a set of horizontal tubes, into which you dive head first. Easy to shove stretcher patients in, impossible to bring luggage with you, impossible for two people to be fighting over the same resource when the system activates, and intuitively clear: this hole leads out of the emergency!)
Timo Saloniemi
Possibly also some physical channeling arrangements, so that people queuing for pads 1 through 4 are well separated from the people queuing for pads 5 through 8. If transporters really work on the 1 pad = 1 transportee principle, then an evacuation would call for something radically different from a single broad 22-pad platform!
(My personal favorite would be a set of horizontal tubes, into which you dive head first. Easy to shove stretcher patients in, impossible to bring luggage with you, impossible for two people to be fighting over the same resource when the system activates, and intuitively clear: this hole leads out of the emergency!)
Timo Saloniemi
Hmmm....assault transporter....
I like it!
I like it!
Well, a 22-man transporter would have more routine uses than just military assault team delivery. If a ship like the Enterprise can haul over a hundred passengers as seen in "Journey to Babel", I don't see why they couldn't haul teams of specialists to far-off destinations on the frontier. Take your pick: assault teams, intel/recon expeditions, starship/space station repair crews, scientific expeditions, starship/space station relief crews, planetary embassy relief teams, security teams, etc. It seems logical that any starship on duty could be expected, from time to time, to deliver limited numbers of personnel, supplies and equipment to a planet, ship or space station. And a starship would logically not be limited to just 6 or 12 team members.
Let's consider the possibility of a Constellation-like scenario, this time with Starbase 11 receiving an S.O.S. from the disabled Starship Eagle on the frontier. Commodore Stone decides to dispatch the Starship Constitution to the scene with needed supplies, equipment, and a specialized repair team of 60 to 100 engineers to quickly restore the Eagle to resume her mission; the Constitution would deliver the engineering team to repair the damage and possibly recover any injured crewmembers from from the damaged Eagle. In this scenario, six-man transporters would be inefficient in a tight time frame. However, one or two 22-man stations would make the operation a snap.
Let's consider the possibility of a Constellation-like scenario, this time with Starbase 11 receiving an S.O.S. from the disabled Starship Eagle on the frontier. Commodore Stone decides to dispatch the Starship Constitution to the scene with needed supplies, equipment, and a specialized repair team of 60 to 100 engineers to quickly restore the Eagle to resume her mission; the Constitution would deliver the engineering team to repair the damage and possibly recover any injured crewmembers from from the damaged Eagle. In this scenario, six-man transporters would be inefficient in a tight time frame. However, one or two 22-man stations would make the operation a snap.
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These alternate uses come with the slight problem that we never witnessed such use. As mentioned, at least "This Side of Paradise" with its mass transports ought to have featured the system if it was capable of non-emergency ops.
Although considering the situation, the undisciplined crew might well have exploited an emergency resource anyway, regardless of risks or limitations. In which case absence of evidence there must have some other explanation, and the system could indeed feature non-emergency use, if you follow my teeter-totter logic.
Timo Saloniemi
Although considering the situation, the undisciplined crew might well have exploited an emergency resource anyway, regardless of risks or limitations. In which case absence of evidence there must have some other explanation, and the system could indeed feature non-emergency use, if you follow my teeter-totter logic.
Timo Saloniemi
According to the quote from "The Making of Star Trek" that I posted in the O.P., there are supposedly five 22-man stations aboard the Enterprise and supposedly all other similar starships. If, as was suggested upthread, some or all of these 22-man stations were to be stowed away on a regular basis (perhaps concealed beneath deckplates), then maybe the spore-influenced evacuees were lazy and just didn't want to bother opening up these concealed stations for operation.
I'd like to think there are actually seven such stations; perhaps the cargo transporters and the evac stations are essentially the same.
I'd like to think there are actually seven such stations; perhaps the cargo transporters and the evac stations are essentially the same.
Here's a question - why not just use the 22-man stations all the time instead of the 6-man station? When we see the 6 man station in use, many times it is just to beam 1 or 2 people down or up. I don't see a down-side if the 22-man was used since they could beam small parties as well as large ones without having to wait...
It probably has to do with energy consumption and safety considerations. The 6 person TOS transporter was tempermental at best. 22 person transporter, with up to 22 annular confinement beams, one or multiple huge-ass pattern buffers and more than likely maxed-out Heisenberg Compensators it like a nightmare for the engineering staff. Like Scotty said in ST III "The more they overthink the pumbing, the easier it is to stop up the drain".
Well, I'm sure it could be scalable. I suppose it is possible to use a 22-man station for a small number of people without alot of overhead to be concerned about.
Most of the transporter traffic we saw in TOS was just small personnel embrakation/disembarkations and cargo transfers. In most routine cases, a six-man unit is probably more than enough for that. Add to this that landing parties probably have equipment stowage better suited to their needs at the 6-man stations. FJ's blueprints of the 6-man stations seem to make it look like there's more ample closet space there for expeditionary gear stowage, so the transporter room itself would make a better staging area. The 22-man stations seem to be built more for evacuation: get people through the doors and onto the pads for transport out as quickly as possible. So if a detachment of "Federation Marines" were stationed aboard a starship and called up for transport to a planet via 22-man station, they would probably debrief and do their staging in a separate room (or rooms) nearby, reporting to the 22-man station only for beam out after already having been prepared.
Most of the transporter traffic we saw in TOS was just small personnel embrakation/disembarkations and cargo transfers. In most routine cases, a six-man unit is probably more than enough for that. Add to this that landing parties probably have equipment stowage better suited to their needs at the 6-man stations. FJ's blueprints of the 6-man stations seem to make it look like there's more ample closet space there for expeditionary gear stowage, so the transporter room itself would make a better staging area. The 22-man stations seem to be built more for evacuation: get people through the doors and onto the pads for transport out as quickly as possible. So if a detachment of "Federation Marines" were stationed aboard a starship and called up for transport to a planet via 22-man station, they would probably debrief and do their staging in a separate room (or rooms) nearby, reporting to the 22-man station only for beam out after already having been prepared.
As far as "This Side of Paradise" goes, how do we know that both types of transporters were not used? We just happen to see the standard six person one, while they were also using the 22 person ones as well?
Also, shouldn't there be spacesuit lockers and other survival gear storage in or near the 22 person transporters, even if they're just for emergencies?
Also, shouldn't there be spacesuit lockers and other survival gear storage in or near the 22 person transporters, even if they're just for emergencies?
If the purpose of the 22-man units is to get people off the ship and onto a habitable world as soon as possible, I would assume the thinking is there isn't going to be any time to transport gear down as well. OTOH, perhaps there are emergency cargo transporters specifically designated for that duty.
You mean besides the fact that the set budget, not to mention the available soundstage space, wouldn't allow for a transporter set that big?
Perhaps the 22-man evac transporters are just for evacuation and therefore lack any mechanism to locate a target and dematerialize it remotely, and therefore may not be used for beam-up...? In fact, suppose they lacked even the ability to materialize on the pads, they are strictly a one-way service. That would explain why they're not used generally; if something goes wrong and you need to abort the transport process and re-materialize the transportee, you can't on the evac units. So better off using the more fully featured six-man units if you're not in a desperate life-or-death hurry. Such stripped down units might be desirable given that fact that they would probably involve a more compact volume of equipment per single pad then the usual six-pad devices and might be cheaper to fabricate. Both are pluses on equipment that will more than likely never be used. I'm not suggesting they're death-traps, just that they are sketchier means to get around and you'd rather use the other units we always see used if given the choice.
--Alex
--Alex
Good points. I guess I was thinking that a 22-person unit would take up fewer equivalent 6-person unit rooms and they would just turn on sets of 6-person pads as needed. It would use the same equipment and thus take up less room.
But, if it was meant as a "one-way" system, then it could be much more compact I suppose. The 6-person room takes up a tremendous amount of vertical space so perhaps the TOS 22-person (or heck, 24-person) emergency unit is fairly flat and only needs the height of a say the briefing rooms... Under normal conditions, the pads are covered over with removable plates and pulled up as needed in emergencies
But, if it was meant as a "one-way" system, then it could be much more compact I suppose. The 6-person room takes up a tremendous amount of vertical space so perhaps the TOS 22-person (or heck, 24-person) emergency unit is fairly flat and only needs the height of a say the briefing rooms... Under normal conditions, the pads are covered over with removable plates and pulled up as needed in emergencies
I'm assuming that at least one of the 22-man stations is operational on a full-time basis (although probably used less frequently than the six-man stations) while the others may be stowed. I also like to think that there is no difference between a "cargo transporter" and either the 6- or the 22-man stations; they're all cargo transporters. ("Dagger of the Mind" seems to bear this out.)
Regarding the "Dagger of the Mind" cargo beam-up, perhaps they used the normal six-pad unit because the cargo being transferred to Enterprise was small enough not to warrant the activation of the cargo transporter. One could presume that such a unit would not be kept on all the time and that activating it and "warming it up" is too much trouble for such small items. Therefore, use the transporter you always have on standby. As for a cargo transporter not being able to beam living matter due to "resolution issues," I think there are certainly enough on-screen references that don't bear out any such restriction. So Van Gelder would have been fine if they did use the cargo transporter, but they just happened to use the usual six-pad, unit.
I do not have my 36-year-old FJ Constitution-class blueprints on-hand at the moment. If anyone in this forum does, I would really appreciate it if you could look a few things up.
The Cygnus-X-1 site doesn't allow those prints to be viewed at full scan resolution, so I can't look things up there now. I need to find a few things out.
Other fan blueprints seem to suggest that transporter rooms are placed on only 2 or 3 decks within a starship; 4 at most. From these other prints, or from FJ's Tech Manual, it seems like 6-man transporter rooms invariably are placed on or about Deck 7 in the saucer section. It also seems that there are three of the 22-man stations on Deck 8 of the saucer.
Are there any transporter rooms on any other decks in the Constitution-class saucer in FJ's Connie plans?
Are there any other transporter rooms in the Connie's secondary hull, according to FJ? If so, where and how many?
The New Paradigm Studios' 2009 Saladin-class Battlescout blueprints suggest a special Isolation Ward transporter for Sickbay on Deck 7. This is a very unique and thoughtful idea. I don't think I've seen it used anywhere else. FJ never placed any transporters in or near Sickbay, did he?
The Cygnus-X-1 site doesn't allow those prints to be viewed at full scan resolution, so I can't look things up there now. I need to find a few things out.
Other fan blueprints seem to suggest that transporter rooms are placed on only 2 or 3 decks within a starship; 4 at most. From these other prints, or from FJ's Tech Manual, it seems like 6-man transporter rooms invariably are placed on or about Deck 7 in the saucer section. It also seems that there are three of the 22-man stations on Deck 8 of the saucer.
Are there any transporter rooms on any other decks in the Constitution-class saucer in FJ's Connie plans?
Are there any other transporter rooms in the Connie's secondary hull, according to FJ? If so, where and how many?
The New Paradigm Studios' 2009 Saladin-class Battlescout blueprints suggest a special Isolation Ward transporter for Sickbay on Deck 7. This is a very unique and thoughtful idea. I don't think I've seen it used anywhere else. FJ never placed any transporters in or near Sickbay, did he?
