Hell, the silly GR "rules" didn't even exist in Gene's mind until after the show was cancelled and Franz Joseph came up with the Saladin/Hermes/Federation odd-number engine designs in the SF Technical Manual. It was more of an FU to FJ to de-legitimize his work from a licensing POV than anything actually tied to the technology within the franchise. It was all a licensing pissing contest, from start to finish and, somewhere along the way, it became canon.
Edit: Ex Astris has an article about it with nice example illustrations and TrekPlace has an article at how the "rules" were specifically tailored to go after FJ's work.
Edit: Ex Astris has an article about it with nice example illustrations and TrekPlace has an article at how the "rules" were specifically tailored to go after FJ's work.
Yes, since TMP was pretty much Gene's baby and was deep in the production's guts, the fact that anything even remotely tied to FJ's work in that movie actually making it to the final cut smacks of a bit of hypocrisy on GR's part. I wonder if FJ ever actually got any royalties for that specific usage in the film. I'd have demanded it, if I were him, just as a little FU back to Gene after being treated so horribly.