The Excelsior - uncovering the design

[yotsuya]

On with the Excelsior.

While I have nailed down the exterior of an idealized model, I have yet to fix the details inside. Not for lack of examples.

Of course the number of decks and the arrangement has a lot to do with how long the drafter thinks the ship is. Doug Drexler has an alternate to the Ent B MSD, but this one matches what we see on screen (the two side Impulse units and he has them as shuttles). And the way each of these deviate from the studio model itself.... but lots of good ideas, even including the Ingram which I posted above.

 

[RichT]

Doug Drexler has an alternate to the Ent B MSD, but this one matches what we see on screen (the two side Impulse units and he has them as shuttles)

IIRC the saucer fairings being extra shuttlebays was the original concept for the Enterprise-B. This makes more sense to me than having extra impulse engines, given that the Excelsior class already has disproportionately big impulse engines anyway, and the extra ones exhaust straight into the ship's Bussard collectors.

 

[publiusr]

“I came up with this:”

Now, to me, your side view of the nacelles are the best. The front of them taper in an elegant manner.

The perfect Excelsior (not the most accurate) would be to have your nacelles combined with the bridge treatment...torpedo design and lower hanger bay of Ingram:

—Only two torpedoes to either side though—

With everything else as here

The saucer would be as it is in this last...but with Ingrams bridge shrunk down a bit and directly above the lower sensor dome. The NX had the bridge back too much, and NCC-2000 had it a hair too far forward.

I would like to see such a combination drawn, since it would have commonality with the refit bits, have sleeker nacelles and have a real shuttle bay you can fit something in. I would have the very back sharp tip of the secondary hull be a lounge with windows—with that Ingram middle shuttlebay underneath them.

There is some dead area in the rear of the Excelsior’s neck that I can see having a Sarek dockport craft (minus its sled) from TMP.

I think this combination would have the look of a working ship, with parts that make sense...

 

[yotsuya]

IIRC the saucer fairings being extra shuttlebays was the original concept for the Enterprise-B. This makes more sense to me than having extra impulse engines, given that the Excelsior class already has disproportionately big impulse engines anyway, and the extra ones exhaust straight into the ship's Bussard collectors.

Neither one makes any sense. But in looking at possible uses, only impulse engines make any sense. Number one, that is how they were lit. Number two you risk a shuttle crashing into the nacelles. Where an impulse engine could be seen as a warp booster. At least that is how I am looking at them. And my understanding is they were added because someone thought the existing impulse engines looked too small.

 

[Mres_was_framed!]

Overall, this is post is an enjoyable look into Star Trek's technology. I do want to bring up a few points:

So somewhere between things changed. Since the TNG core set then retroactively appeared as the 1701-A warp core, we could guess that the Excelsior might be the source of some of those changes.

As far as the external appearance of the warp core this makes sense. However, something pretty important about the warp core must have been designed by Leah Brahms, according to "Booby Trap." It cannot be the nacelles she designed, assuming NCC numbers are sequential, since ships older than the Galaxy have the same nacelles. Of course, the nacelles could have been changed in refit and the NCC numbers may not be exactly sequential as I have said elsewhere. But her dialogue says "this engine," so it is probably talking about the warp core.

the only oddity is that the Voyager used the TMP warp core set.

I think there is some technical name given in Voyager to its warp core type that may help explain this one, but I can't recall the term.

That strange "bump" the Excelsior has that the nacelles attach to bugs me from a structural point of view.

I have supposed that this "bulge" was there to imply the nacelles (or engine assembly for that matter) could be jettisoned, or changed as the technology was developed, even quicker, since the ship was supposed to be experimental. I'm not sure why such a feature would be retained on duty versions of the ship.

 

[yotsuya]

I have supposed that this "bulge" was there to imply the nacelles (or engine assembly for that matter) could be jettisoned, or changed as the technology was developed, even quicker, since the ship was supposed to be experimental. I'm not sure why such a feature would be retained on duty versions of the ship.

A great many things have gone into production that were intended as temporary, so this is no big surprise. If you that is how you want to take the design.

In reality if the Excelsior were a failure, we would never have seen it again. But because it was a fully functional model that the TNG and movie production could make cheap use of, it became one of the most common ships in Starfleet for a century. So my take, unlike others, is that the Transwarp program was not a complete failure. It did not reach the hoped for speeds, but it started a revolution in warp technology that led to the new warp speed designations (with Warp 10 as infinity instead of 1000c).

I would say that there is basic warp technology and the deeper individual warp drive setups. There are changes to make in the magnetic containment, the flow, the mix, tuning each component, smaller components that can be swapped out, quality of dilithium crystals, and I'm sure there are more. So you can have ships that have systems that look identical, but are far from it when you get into the details of the system.

 

[RichT]

I have supposed that this "bulge" was there to imply the nacelles (or engine assembly for that matter) could be jettisoned, or changed as the technology was developed, even quicker, since the ship was supposed to be experimental. I'm not sure why such a feature would be retained on duty versions of the ship.

Possibly, but as nacelles are by definition large outboard modules anyway that we know can be independently swapped out that seems like an unnecessary complication.

 

[RichT]

But in looking at possible uses, only impulse engines make any sense. Number one, that is how they were lit.

Oh, certainly that's what they were on screen. I meant that when the Enterprise-B was at the concept art stage the saucer extensions were originally intended to be shuttlebays before it was decided on them being impulse engines.

Either way, the impulse engines are the additions to the Enterprise-B that I dislike the most. I'm okay with the additional deflector dish housing, though I prefer the smooth uninterrupted curve of the original Excelsior's secondary hull and larger deflector. Less is more, as the saying goes.

 

[yotsuya]

Oh, certainly that's what they were on screen. I meant that when the Enterprise-B was at the concept art stage the saucer extensions were originally intended to be shuttlebays before it was decided on them being impulse engines.

Either way, the impulse engines are the additions to the Enterprise-B that I dislike the most. I'm okay with the additional deflector dish housing, though I prefer the smooth uninterrupted curve of the original Excelsior's secondary hull and larger deflector. Less is more, as the saying goes.

I think certain FX team members may have taken them to be hangers, but John Eaves, who did the design changes, is on record saying they were impulse engines. Bill George lit them like impulse engines. That is one of many discrepancies between the model and the MSD we see on screen. Fortunately only the Impulse is seen on screen which makes that canon. And that location just makes no sense for hangers. When it comes down to it, if the person who designed the ship doesn't do the basic layout of the interior, then the drawings seen are screen are suspect.

The movie also isn't consistent in the deck numbering. Kirk was, according to dialog, on deck 15. There are no layouts where I can get that to be deck 15. It is more like deck 20, or Deck T in the TMP nomenclature. But if you take a look at the MSD, it is deck 27. Also, the main deflector is above the catalina wings instead of level with them, there is no lower hanger, quite a number of features are misplaced from where they are on the model, it has extra phasers, it has the Excelsior fins on the impulse deck that the model was lacking (Bill George took them off the original intending to reuse them, but John Eaves didn't want them on there so they didn't use them), the warp pylon mounting dome is off center (it is supposed to be centered), the supposed P/S hangers have elevators that go to a lower deck that would be outside the ship, the weapons that are on the model's secondary hull are missing, the dorsal phasers and RCS are in the wrong places. Generations would have been the ideal place for the model and graphic artists to get together so things lined up, but instead the graphic artists went with the flawed drawings they had. Not all that unusual as this type of error goes back to TOS and those flawed pressure hull drawings and the Phase II design using in TMP. So it is just kind of a normal thing, but it means the graphics are inaccurate and can't used for determining size. The only accurate drawings would be the Galaxy, Sovereign, and Intrepid classes as for those the model and the MSD were both done to design by the same designers. For the other designs, the model is at least consistent in most respects.

 

[publiusr]

I think of the bulge as the warp equivalent of the opposed piston engine...like the 1914 Simpson. I see each lobe as having hydrogen and anti hydrogen moving fowards and back...and the fierce reactions exhausting out port and starboard. The link in the nacelle supports sets the plasma in a vortex which expands into the dead area of the nacelles...........or not.

At any rate, fuel and warp core both can be blown off. I see engineering under the bulge...an inverse bridge. A torus of inward facing consoles in a circle beneath the plus sign configuration above...blinding light over their heads. This is a fresh and new approach.

 

[Maurice]

Franz Joseph licensing to Paramount (which let him use the Star Trek name) laid out this idea that the designs are copyrighted. Paramount did their research and found out they aren't so they filed patents.

Citation needed.

You'r gonna have to back that up with a primary source or I'm calling shenanigans.

 

[yotsuya]

Citation needed.

You'r gonna have to back that up with a primary source or I'm calling shenanigans.

You mean the copyright law (that anyone can lookup) that says vehicle plans cannot be copyrighted? Not ships, planes, cars, space craft, etc. They can be patented, but the plans cannot be copyrighted. The reasoning is my guess, but Desilu did nothing to protect the Star Trek IP. FJ licensed his two projects with Paramount (and the interest in the plans and the tech manual apparently sparked the process that led to Phase II and TMP). So when Paramount had a final design, they patented it. They did that for the Enterprise, Reliant, Bird of Prey, Grissom, and Excelsior. We don't have any direct reporting from anyone involved in the productions as to why, but it is a lot more reliable chain of events than what played out regarding Discovery and the reason for changing the Enterprise design. But a careful read of US Copyright law is all you need to see the reasoning of the Paramount Execs keen on protecting these new ship designs so they could control and profit from any tie-in products.

 

[Maurice]

I meant where did you get the idea that Paramount did this research and concluded that patents were the way to go. If you’re not supporting that with evidence then that’s supposition.

 

[yotsuya]

I meant where did you get the idea that Paramount did this research and concluded that patents were the way to go. If you’re not supporting that with evidence then that’s supposition.

Because I did the exact same research anyone would do. How do you protect a starship design? Copyright? Nope, covers buildings and maybe some ships, but not spaceships. Definitely not fictional space ships. Trademark? Nope, Not really what trademarks are for. Patent? Bingo, just what you need. You can do the research yourself if you care to. But a patent ensures that no one can make anything close to your design. It is the oddity of US IP laws. And they are too voluminous to cite each point that leads to this conclusion.

But the proof really lies in all the things they patented related to Star Trek. Memory Alpha has a whole page dedicated to it. https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Star_Trek_design_patents

But as for the question of why Patents, the answer lies in US IP law. That is the only way to protect some IP. Anything that would be manufactured. Case in point, there were 2 TOS Enterprises, 3 TMP Enterprises, 2 TOS D-7's, 1 larger TMP Klingon ship, at least 2 Reliants, 2 Excelsior, 3 Ent D. Many phaser props, costumes, tricorders, communicators, etc. All items that were "manufactured" for the movie and TV productions. And the TMP font. Everything post TOS was patented (except Grissom it seems). The why seems clear when you understand how US IP laws work. It really isn't a wild guess, but more like Spock's guess for that elusive piece of the time travel formula in TVH - based in the available facts.

 

[RichT]

The movie also isn't consistent in the deck numbering. Kirk was, according to dialog, on deck 15. There are no layouts where I can get that to be deck 15. It is more like deck 20, or Deck T in the TMP nomenclature. But if you take a look at the MSD, it is deck 27.

The best (well, only even vaguely plausible) explanation I've heard for this is that it's really "deck 15 of the secondary hull". Perhaps the saucer decks are A-B-C-etc, and the secondary hull decks are 1-2-3-etc?

But, yeah, the TNG movies are REALLY REALLY BAD at deck numbers.

 

[137th Gebirg]

[* Laughs in TFF *]

 

[Boris Skrbic]

We don’t know if a couple of windowless decks aren’t extra tall, perhaps in the neck?

 

[RichT]

We don’t know if a couple of windowless decks aren’t extra tall, perhaps in the neck?

Not according to the MSD.

 

[Boris Skrbic]

Not according to the MSD.

The whole MSD is dead wrong for the size, so it’s best fixed anyway by removing every other deck or so.

 

[yotsuya]

I'm assuming that like so many TOS deck references, it is just wrong and should be ignored.

And in the FX shots they have made the ship even larger and given it smaller decks. Though thanks for the reminder that in that final shot of the damage we do get to see how thick the decks are.