TOS Enterprise Internals

[JesseM]

Judging from the old "Mr. Scott's Guide to the Enterprise" The matter/antimatter storage is at the bottom of the shaft. The reactor is there, at the bottom. The rest is plasma conduit for the impulse and warp drives.

The question here is, why is the dilithium crystal chamber six decks above the reactor?

Does Mr. Scott's Guide say anywhere that the reactor is the same place as the matter/antimatter storage? On p. 108 they describe the matter/antimatter containment system at the bottom of the vertical intermix shaft but don't mention a reactor, and the cutaway diagram of the Enterprise on p. 20 just labels the thing at the bottom the "Matter/Antimatter Storage Facility". Given that the dilithium reactor room was shown in The Wrath of Khan to be right next to the junction between the vertical and horizontal intermix shafts, and Scotty in The Motion Picture also monitors the matter/antimatter intermix from a control panel right next to the junction (where he says the line 'intermix set, bridge' as they're getting ready to leave Earth orbit), it would make more sense to me that this is the vicinity where the matter/antimatter reaction actually happens, unless some semi-canon source like Mr. Scott's Guide clearly says otherwise.

This would also maintain better continuity with the TNG era warp core, where the tall columns between the matter and antimatter injectors and the central reaction chamber were said in the TNG technical manual to be "magnetic constriction coils" which "compress each stream" and also "add between 200 and 300 m/sec velocity", maybe suggesting that the two streams need to travel some distance getting continually more compressed and accelerated before they can react properly in the dilithium crystal.

 

[Mres_was_framed!]

but don't mention a reactor

I'm not sure if this is said outright, but I understood that that it is called "intermix shaft" to imply that matter and antimatter swirl together throughout it. There would not be one place where the reaction occurs discreetly. That's not exactly like what we see on other shows, but it seems to be what the book is claiming. It seems that the room where Spock is killed is where the crystals are, from behind the scenes footage, but their role might still be to energize and control the reaction, just not from within the long sections of the actual shaft itself.

This is all what I think the book is saying, not what I actually think about how this particular version of the starship "actually" works, lol.

 

[yotsuya]

Does Mr. Scott's Guide say anywhere that the reactor is the same place as the matter/antimatter storage? On p. 108 they describe the matter/antimatter containment system at the bottom of the vertical intermix shaft but don't mention a reactor, and the cutaway diagram of the Enterprise on p. 20 just labels the thing at the bottom the "Matter/Antimatter Storage Facility". Given that the dilithium reactor room was shown in The Wrath of Khan to be right next to the junction between the vertical and horizontal intermix shafts, and Scotty in The Motion Picture also monitors the matter/antimatter intermix from a control panel right next to the junction (where he says the line 'intermix set, bridge' as they're getting ready to leave Earth orbit), it would make more sense to me that this is the vicinity where the matter/antimatter reaction actually happens, unless some semi-canon source like Mr. Scott's Guide clearly says otherwise.

This would also maintain better continuity with the TNG era warp core, where the tall columns between the matter and antimatter injectors and the central reaction chamber were said in the TNG technical manual to be "magnetic constriction coils" which "compress each stream" and also "add between 200 and 300 m/sec velocity", maybe suggesting that the two streams need to travel some distance getting continually more compressed and accelerated before they can react properly in the dilithium crystal.

I spent a lot of time examining the TMP setup. In the journey from TOS to TNG style cores, the TMP is visually closer to the TNG, but in function it is closer to the TOS. TOS has matter and anti-matter feed into a reactor. From That Which Survives (which shows rather than tells - so more of Jefferies work than the writers), the anti-matter is housed in the hull and is fed into the reactor. Scotty talks about rigging it to eject. The David Kimble cutaway poster (a major source for Mr. Scott's Guide) has the anti-matter pods around a structure it labels as the Mix Chamber which is at the base of the vertical shaft. So in the TMP refit, the reation is at the base of the shaft and what is in the shaft is the plasma that is fed to the impulse deck (deflection crystal) and the warp nacelles. That cutaway is very detailed and shows a lot of features. Then in Generations we get to see the warp core shown on a display behind Kirk and it is the TNG era one. Which matches the Hathaway. For Excelsior we see the edge of the TMP Refit shaft. My assumption is that the Excelsior has a TMP style core where Ent B has an Ent D style core. So the change occurred somewhere in that time frame and the core went from a mix chamber at the base, to the mix chamber in the middle.

 

[JesseM]

I spent a lot of time examining the TMP setup. In the journey from TOS to TNG style cores, the TMP is visually closer to the TNG, but in function it is closer to the TOS. TOS has matter and anti-matter feed into a reactor. From That Which Survives (which shows rather than tells - so more of Jefferies work than the writers), the anti-matter is housed in the hull and is fed into the reactor. Scotty talks about rigging it to eject. The David Kimble cutaway poster (a major source for Mr. Scott's Guide) has the anti-matter pods around a structure it labels as the Mix Chamber which is at the base of the vertical shaft. So in the TMP refit, the reation is at the base of the shaft and what is in the shaft is the plasma that is fed to the impulse deck (deflection crystal) and the warp nacelles.

When you mention "plasma", does that mean you're trying to retroactively make the imaginary physics of the reactor in TOS and TMP fit with what was established in the TNG era, where the matter and antimatter react to create "warp plasma", and it's the plasma that feeds to various ship systems including the nacelles? As Mres_was_framed! said in the post above, Mr. Scott's Guide to the Enterprise makes it sound like the matter and antimatter are just mixing continuously along the "intermix shafts", there's no reference to a separate plasma. For example p. 88 says:

Located in the center of the room, and extending for many levels both above and below the deck, is the vertical linear intermix chamber. This complex, radically new design in intermix technology provides operational power for the impulse drive system and furnishes enough additional energy to power all other shipboard systems. Both matter and antimatter for the chamber are contained in a series of magnetic bottles, which are housed in pods at the base of the intermix shaft. ... Extending aftward from the vertical shaft is a horizontal chamber which draws its matter/antimatter fuel from the same source. This shaft provides source energy for the warp field nacelles and phaser banks.

If are trying to retroactively make the physics fit with what Sternbach and Okuda imagined for TNG, would that also include the TNG era idea that matter and antimatter have to be channeled through dilithium crystals to create the warp plasma?

 

[yotsuya]

When you mention "plasma", does that mean you're trying to retroactively make the imaginary physics of the reactor in TOS and TMP fit with what was established in the TNG era, where the matter and antimatter react to create "warp plasma", and it's the plasma that feeds to various ship systems including the nacelles? As Mres_was_framed! said in the post above, Mr. Scott's Guide to the Enterprise makes it sound like the matter and antimatter are just mixing continuously along the "intermix shafts", there's no reference to a separate plasma. For example p. 88 says:

If are trying to retroactively make the physics fit with what Sternbach and Okuda imagined for TNG, would that also include the TNG era idea that matter and antimatter have to be channeled through dilithium crystals to create the warp plasma?

Well, I have approached this by ignoring most of Mr. Scott's Guide. There is a lot of information in it that is not canon. The section of the 1701-A gives it Transwarp, and Mr. Okuda has stated that is not what they graphics say.

I'm going by the 1979 cutaway poster by David Kimble.

40 labels the mix chamber. It calls the glowing vertical and horizontal structures, Engine Shafts. Their specific function is not labeled, but with the mix chamber called out so specifically, the mixing cannot be taking place in the shafts. The shafts lead from the mix chamber to the impulse crystal and to each warp nacelle. Kimble worked with Andrew Probert on this. Probert designed virtually all of the interior and how they fit with the exterior. The only corrections to Kimble's work are in aligning the exterior to the interior. And a lot of the terms were lifted from Franz Joseph.

This fits with the only indication visually (again, the sets were almost all done by Jefferies) that the matter/anti-matter mix was done within the engineering hull. There is a short crawl space next to the anti-matter feed to the matter/anti-matter reaction chamber. Going back to Jefferies cross section, there is a structure in the engineering hull that is likely part of that system. I took the external markings of the model, tied one of them to the anti-matter storage, and theorized a horizontal reaction system (the fuel feed Scotty accesses is horizontal) on the deck below Engineering (which makes the access to the set seen in That Which Survives make sense.

For Enterprise they made a similar extrapolation, which encouraged the way I looked at it.

So from the beginning, Starfleet ships use have a reaction chamber/mix chamber inside the ship. Antimatter is stored nearby and so is the matter supply. The difference between the system we see through the 1701 movies and what we see in TNG is where the reaction chamber is. 1701-B and the Hathaway (and by extrapolation all the Constellation Class) have a longer anti-matter feed and the reaction occurrs in the presence of dilithium (the way I laid out the system has that island in main engineering where they access the dlithium in Elaan of Troyious serve the same function, but for a horizontal system on the deck below). Between TMP and TWOK there was a change to the configuration and that pedestal that Spock messes with to save the ship was added or moved from another location. In my evaluation of what it is, it s the same as the season 1 use of dilithium for converting power from the main reactor chamber into energy for the ship to use and not part of the actual reaction. Dilthium as part of the reaction is post 1701 refit (1701-A is shown to have a TNG era core as well, though we see it from the other side and can't make out the details in front).

So I am making the TOS design fit with what we see in TOS and also what we see in the refit and in the NX-01. TNG only gives us some terminology. Warp plasma is what goes from the reaction to the nacelles to create the warp field in TNG and that fits going back to TOS and Enterprise.

My goal has never been to work on the TOS design in isolation, but as part of a design lineage. A great many of the concepts taken from the dialog (which Jefferies had little to do with) just don't make any sense in that light. But what we see when they use dilithium fits with it both being part of the reactor chamber and part of the plasma to energy conversion that powers the ship's system. So I am quite willing to ignore other ideas that don't fit nicely with the design lineage from NX-01 to 1701-D.

TOS had many ideas that don't always mesh well. I have stuck to the ones that agree with the technobabble description and depiction of the system. For those who don't like how I've ignored some things, an alternate that I have toyed with is that the NX-01 to 1701 refit system does not fully mix the fuels so the shafts carry charged plasma to the nacelles where they are mixed with additional fuel to finish the reaction and create the warp field. But the reaction inside the engineering hull is what powers all the ship's systems.

 

[Vale]

"I'm ignoring the non-canon source X you like, I'm basing everything instead on non-canon source Y that I like"

It's okay to say that you prefer one non-canon source over another, Yotsuya, and even to explain why – but stop beating people over the head with your self-appointed headcanon as though it's somehow more important. You are not the keeper of the secret flame.

 

[danellis]

No, but surely they are the keeper of their project, and hence this thread?

dJE

 

[yotsuya]

"I'm ignoring the non-canon source X you like, I'm basing everything instead on non-canon source Y that I like"

It's okay to say that you prefer one non-canon source over another, Yotsuya, and even to explain why – but stop beating people over the head with your self-appointed headcanon as though it's somehow more important. You are not the keeper of the secret flame.

Kimble was involved in the TMP production and did the exterior plans and the cutaway poster, which is based on production sketches and drawing by Probert and Taylor. Johnson was not involved in the production of any film and did not follow the production material available. So one source is closer to the source material than the other. It is really a no-brainer. Johnson did list the 1701-A as a new ship and I plan on using that name, but when Johnson didn't accurately depict the 1701-A Okudagrams when they were available, that reduces the book's reliability and trust. It is a good fan resource, but still a fan resource, not a production based resource.

And this is my project so I get to say what sources I find more accurate and what gets demoted. Mr. Scott's, as much as I love it, is inferior and is demoted below Kimble's work on TMP. Anyone else can start a project based on whatever sources they find accurate. I'm doing things my way and am more than willing to discuss things, but I've spent a considerable amount of time studying many of these sources over the last 40 years and have a good feeling what fits together in a workable progression from 2150 to 2364 in the Star Trek chronology.

And while this thread is on the TOS Enterprise, my design choices are based on TMOST and TMP and how they fit together to be the same ship refit over 18 months as the film very clearly states. So my choices are based on what fits canon the best.

 

[yotsuya]

Here is a refresher on the sources I'm considering.

The canon live action episodes, from The Cage through the finale of Enterprise.
The Studio Models, by order of size and quality.
Actual production sources such as sketches and drawing by the original designers.
Those involved with the production and secondary materials. TMOST and Kimble fit in here.
Fan sources. Franz Joseph and Johnson fit here.

For instance,the original intended name of the 1701-A. While Roddenberry was technically involved in the production, his theory that it was the Yorktown disagrees with the canon sources because Scotty calls it a newly built ship. So the next source down is Johnson who called it the Tai-Ho. So Tai-Ho it is. And since the 1701 and 1701 refit are the same ship, the internal layout should have a good deal of carryover. So the decks have to match, except where they removed sections and rebuilt.

And one of most controversial decisions has been that I don't consider everything we see on screen as 100% accurate. I always assume what we see has some Hollywood interpretation and how it would look in a real ship is close, but not exact. So the 10 foot set height is out, replaced by a height that fits the particular deck, with the crew decks being 8.25 feet and some others 9.25 feet. I consider the one screen scale of the ship more important. So TOS S is 947 feet long, the TMP refit is 1000 feet long, and the Excelsior is 1531 feet long. Everything else has to fit that. And those are points I won't budge on.

 

[JesseM]

Well, I have approached this by ignoring most of Mr. Scott's Guide. There is a lot of information in it that is not canon. The section of the 1701-A gives it Transwarp, and Mr. Okuda has stated that is not what they graphics say.

I agree it shouldn't all be treated as canon, but the author did have access to plenty of behind the scenes production info so I would expect a lot of the most basic info, like the name of the two big shafts with energy flowing through them, to likely come from there.

40 labels the mix chamber. It calls the glowing vertical and horizontal structures, Engine Shafts. Their specific function is not labeled, but with the mix chamber called out so specifically, the mixing cannot be taking place in the shafts.

I don't think that follows--the "mix chamber" could be called that because that's where matter and antimatter begin some sort of initial mixing phase, but they could continue to intermix as they flow up the shaft.

The shafts lead from the mix chamber to the impulse crystal and to each warp nacelle. Kimble worked with Andrew Probert on this. Probert designed virtually all of the interior and how they fit with the exterior. The only corrections to Kimble's work are in aligning the exterior to the interior. And a lot of the terms were lifted from Franz Joseph.

If your main reason for favoring Kimble's work is that he was involved in production, I did a little searching and found other people involved in production who say that at least the vertical shaft is part of an "intermix chamber" or "reactor". First is Gene Roddenberry himself, who wrote the novelization of the movie, which on p. 91-92 (viewable on google books here) describes Mr. Scott in the engine room:

Scott could see a familiar flicker of power barely visible in the great intermix chamber—he was also aware of a low, throbbing sound like tightly leashed thunder. At this power setting, only microscopic amounts of anti-matter and matter were entering the intermix chamber, but the annihilation of even a pinhead of matter was sufficient for the impulse power which the captain would soon request—and which Scotty would grant.

And later on p. 125, after Spock provides the correct intermix formula:

Just past Scott's console, the great intermix chamber was showing the almost blinding flash patterns which meant the almost blinding flash patterns which meant that the engine anti-matter bleeders were beginning to work smoothly and properly.

I also searched the book Return to Tomorrow - The Filming of Star Trek: The Motion Picture for some keywords and found a comment from Sam Nicholson, who was responsible for "kinetic lighting effects" (including the flickery lights along the shafts in the engine room) along with Brian Longbotham, he said at one point:

The reactor was the vertical Plexiglas tower and the induction tube was the horizontal cylinder. Theoretically, it was supposed to be the off-draw of the energy created in the intermix chamber; it was to draw gamma radiation off from the matter/antimatter reaction.

He doesn't say the source but presumably he got this from other people involved in production, I don't think a lighting engineer would make this idea up himself.

I guess from your answer that you're assuming the role of dilithium fundamentally changed between TOS/TMP and the TNG era, so that while it was necessary to channel matter and antimatter through a dilithium crystal to create warp plasma in the TNG era, this wasn't what dilithium was for in the TMP ship? But I think Nicholson's quote above, suggesting matter and antimatter were reacting in the vertical shaft but the horizontal shaft was carrying some other kind of energy to the nacelles, could actually be made to fit pretty well with the TNG idea--we know in The Wrath of Khan that the dilithium reactor was just off to the side of the place where the vertical and horizontal shafts meet, so you could imagine some of the intermixing matter and antimatter was siphoned off from the vertical shaft at that point, passed through the dilithium, and then the resulting warp plasma was passed to the horizontal shaft. Meanwhile, at the top of the vertical shaft in the Kimble cutaway is the mysterious "impulse engine deflection crystal" whose function doesn't seem to be explained anywhere (at least no one on this thread knew). Andrew Probert's original production sketch here also includes it, just calling it the "deflector crystal." (also note that his sketch matches Mr. Scott's guide in saying the horizontal shaft fed the warp engines while the vertical one fed the impulse engines, and it calls the room where the two shafts intersect the 'main engine room', which to me would suggest he imagined some reaction happening there, rather than it just being a conduit for energy generated entirely from below)

So we could imagine there's a second set of dilithium crystals at the top of the vertical shaft, and that this is another place where the intermixing matter and antimatter was turned to plasma or some other type of energy that can feed ship system other than the warp drives and the phasers. (maybe 'impulse deflection crystal' implies it feeds both the impulse drive and the deflectors?) This sort of thing would allow for a little more technological continuity with the TNG era since dilithium would always be needed to get the final form of useful energy, but there could still be a major difference in that in earlier eras there's some kind of pre-mixing of the matter and antimatter before the resulting particles are sent to the dilithium crystals.

BTW, if you're not interested in continuity with the TNG era, this post assembled a nice collection of TOS quotes that suggest how the writers were thinking of the matter/antimatter engines, and the function of the dilithium crystals. Makes a good case that in the TOS era, there may have been separate matter/antimatter reactors in the nacelles in addition to the one we saw near engineering in "That Which Survives", and that dilithium may have functioned more like a capacitor that could store a bunch of energy and release large bursts as needed.

 

[yotsuya]

@JesseM , That sketch by Probert of warp system is one of the sources Kimble used and agrees with how he labled the cutaway. He added the mix chamber. The way I have interpreted it would make sense with those descriptions form the TMP novel. Though Roddenberry may have gone a different direction creatively than Probert intended.

I have listened, watched, studied, and tried to make sense of all the various descriptions of the warp system as described in the various TOS episodes. They are not all compatible or consistent. It is clear the writing staff were not sure of how it should work and did not nail that down for certain. That Which Survives is the clearest depiction of the fuel that powers the warp engines and how it flows and where the reaction takes place. it is also the closest to how the TMP system appears to work.

As for the dilithium part of the system, the third season depictions fit with the Mudd's Women depiction. Some of the other uses appear to be a different use. So I have the crystals used in 2 different systems. They can be used in the mix chamber to control the mix (the raw crystal in Mudd's Women and Elaan of Troyius) and in the power conversion system (a processed flat panel seen in several other episodes). Exactly which of those we see in TWOK is not explained. That would be an odd place for a crystal in the mix chamber but not for one in the power conversion system.

As for the various descriptions applied to the nacelles containing the words matter or anti-matter, I have ignored those as a questionable use by the writers. They don't fit with how the ships systems are visually depicted in TOS and definitely not how they are in TMP.

That the Enterprise team came to a similar conclusion when they designed their warp core just solidifies my choices. I picture the 2nd/3rd season engine room sitting on top of a similar structure that is hidden from view. I decided that the first season engine room is about where Franz Joseph placed it and that both have that cathedral structure because the matter/anti-matter plasma is fed to both to create power for the ship. Main power is in the secondary hull on the hanger deck and auxiliary power is on deck 7 at the aft of the saucer. Aux power can also be supplied independently by the impulse engines or a reactor that also drives the impulse engines when main power is out or the saucer separates.

As for the TNG system, I see this as a more advanced warp core system that was developed around the movie era. The first class we know it was used in was the Constellation Class (the long decomissioned Hathaway) and then in Enterprise A and B (A because they filmed on the TNG Engineering set (originally the Phase II/TMP set and B because that is how the diagram depicts it). It is similar to the TOS system, but with a longer anti-matter feed and a separate mix chamber. The TNG set has 3 tubes coming off it. Two go port and starboard to the warp engines and the vertical shaft is not labeled, but I would say it feeds the main impulse engine at the back of the neck with the saucer impulse engines independently powered. So All 4 systems (including what we see in Enterprise) function in a nearly identical manner, but the parts are organized differently.

This also agrees with most of the dialog in TOS. Not all, but most. The dialog seems to describe multiple different warp drive configurations, not all of them match the visual depictions which I hold as more significant as they would involve Matt Jefferies designing the sets where the dialog would not involve him directly. they likely would consult him if they had a question, but most of the descriptions seem to be the writers fumbling to stick in the word anti-matter places rather than accurate descriptions of any thought out engine system. There are other instances of the writers doing that with other technology like the transporter. Or the inconsistent used of firing phasers vs. photon torpedoes in terms of sounds and special FX. Or the early reference to UESPA instead of Starfleet. Or the time setting that varied by hundreds of years. To pull out what agrees with later canon seems to have been agreed on in these other areas. Always Starfleet and always set in the mid 23rd century, 300 years after the episodes were shot (except the pilots). so TWOK was set in 2286 making Khan sleeping for 200 year incorrect because it was 290 years. If we aren't going to bat an eye about that sort of thing, I don't see why we fret so much about ignoring the warp nacelles being called anti-matter pods. I look at it as all the same, the writers figuring things out as they went along. Where they ended up is not where they started but where they ended up in closer to what followed than where they started.

 

[Vale]

Got to admire someone who says "I'll go with what fits canon best" while simultaneously championing a source they've previously rubbished over something Roddenberry himself stated

Yotsuya, you're a tiresome know-it-all, and you really need to stop talking to everyone as though you're the only one who knows or cares anything about this sort of thing.

 

[yotsuya]

Got to admire someone who says "I'll go with what fits canon best" while simultaneously championing a source they've previously rubbished over something Roddenberry himself stated

Yotsuya, you're a tiresome know-it-all, and you really need to stop talking to everyone as though you're the only one who knows or cares anything about this sort of thing.

This is about ships. I am going with the designers intent. The studio model, what we see in canon, what they drew or said in the production process, etc. Roddenberry was creator and writer. His goal was drama and sometimes accuracy suffered. And as I stated above, it is canon that the 1701-A is a new ship and Roddenberry suggested it was not. The ship he suggested was seen (at least its bridge and captain) in Star Trek IV. So his suggestion carries no weight because he was not involved in the production at that point and it directly disagrees with a canon source (Scotty's dialog in Star Trek V). So what Roddenberry said goes against canon where what Johnson suggested agrees with canon. There are a couple of other sources for what the ship might have been originally called, but they fall much further down the rungs of the ladder from production sources. At least Johnson made a good effort. But Mr. Scott's uses the same inaccurate David Kimble exterior (based on Richard Taylor's preliminary drawings) and the cross section does not line up with the studio model exterior or some things seen in later films.

And I am not a know-it-all, but this is a description of my project (laying out the interior of the TOS Enterprise) and so in this thread I get to speak with great authority for what MY process is in determining how to rank the importance of sources. My goal is not to create an interior that is 100% accurate to the what we see in TOS, but is accurate to the intent of the production. The Making of Star Trek is full of intent including the deck layout of the Enterprise. Franz Joseph used that for his general plans and his plans were very much the basis for Probert and Kimble's internal layout for TMP. If you don't like how I am conducting my project, you can start your own and use whatever sources you see fit. Before the Okuda's got involved, Star Trek was notorious for its inconsistencies in terms of technobabble and timeline. The writers had nothing to go on for most of this and were making it up and the staff writers corrected some errors, but their focus was on making episodic TV drama and so their focus was not always on technical consistency. In sifting through what we are given as canon, I have chosen what I find to be the most consistent. You may chose other things on any project you are working on.

I am more than willing to listen if you have some constructive comments, but trying to tell me what sources I have to go by because that is what you would do is rather rude. I have been clear that what I am writing about is what I am using for MY project. There is plenty of room for discussion about why other things might be useful, but if you expect me to change my project because you don't agree, you are being very childish. Other projects exist and they have taken other avenues that I don't agree with and I don't go in and tell them they are know-it-alls. I go in and make suggestions in case they are helpful or in case anyone reading is looking for other ideas. What I have written are the parameters for my project. Instead of whining that I am not listening to you and changing my project, why don't you actually suggest what you would do. Try filtering through this huge body of canon and supporting sources to figure out what system you would chose. It is not easy. There is an engine room thread here that went through all the variations in the TOS engine room with various people making suggestions as to what the design should be, including having multiple engine rooms. I think one person settled on 4 or 5 engine rooms. It was a great thread because we were all throwing out our theories and discussing them. I learned a lot and my take on the engine room in my design is based very much on those discussions as well as my own research since.

If you don't like how I am doing things, stop complaining about me and do it yourself. I'm not the only one working on the TOS interior layout. There is room for many ideas and several other project exist. Each one has picked parameters to start with like I have. Each one has been open to discussion on things that they have not settled on. But once you start a project with certain parameters, it is difficult to change them. I have plenty of room for other ideas in my drawings. I am just explaining the system I envisioned when I drew it. I don't intend to label my drawings excessively (and perhaps not at all) so anyone looking at them is free to reinterpret them as they like.

I have great respect for Matt Jefferes, Franz Joseph Schnaubelt, Richard Taylor, Andrew Probert, Rick Sternbach, Doug Drexler, and John Eaves. I think more attention needs to be paid to their intention in their designs. A few of Jefferies intentions I've had to ignore because they didn't agree with the production notes in TMOST or where they went with the refit, but I have tried to follow his intentions within those parameters. His cross section has been key for my decisions. So that is the lens I look at everything through. If you'd rather take another approach, that is great, but that is not what I am interested in or what I am working on. My Excelsior topic recently went down a rabbit hole on the Miranda class. I found it very interesting. I didn't agree with some of the opinions, but an interesting fact is that agreement is not always necessary. So in the end, you can look at Matt Jefferies cross section, Franz Joseph Schnaubelt's general plans, Doug Drexler's cross section, David Shaw's cross section and layout, and my cross section and they don't have to agree. Different approaches yield different results and there is room for them all. Personally I like David Shaw's the best, but they don't agree with TMP and that agreement with a large portion of the interior layout unchanged is a major factor for me. So rather than make someone else conform to my ideas, I have made my own project.

I have taken the time to lay out the basic decks with turbo shafts. I have spent a lot of time researching sets and drawing the floor plans of the sets. I have studied the few episodes where the ceiling was shown. I have interpreted the sets through the lens of the day and my knowledge of how movie and TV series productions worked. So I have no problem cutting off the sets at 8.25 feet for a ceiling that never existed. The only time we really see a ceiling is in The Day of the Dove and that can easily be in the secondary hull where the decks are taller (per the windows on the 11 foot model) and a 9 foot ceiling would make sense. I've been studying the TOS and TMP Enterprises for 40 years. I've been studying this site and others for many years as well. I do have very specific opinions and I am not telling people working on their own projects that they are doing it wrong. There is room for many opinions. I started this thread to share my project and my research and my methods of arriving at my results. That is not unusual on this site. The threads on Donny's fabulous work on CG interiors is all about his work. I suggest you try joining the conversation and contribute. I have not problem with you using this thread to post what you would do or what sources you would like to see. Just don't expect me to agree or use them. I am old and set in my ways and the only thing I have left to do is draw a few set cross sections and some random equipment to throw in my cross section. I recently finished my Excelsior cross section and my TOS, Phase II, and TMP cross sections will look similar.

 

[Vale]

This is about ships. I am going with the designers intent. The studio model, what we see in canon, what they drew or said in the production process, etc. Roddenberry was creator and writer. His goal was drama and sometimes accuracy suffered. And as I stated above, it is canon that the 1701-A is a new ship and Roddenberry suggested it was not. The ship he suggested was seen (at least its bridge and captain) in Star Trek IV. So his suggestion carries no weight because he was not involved in the production at that point and it directly disagrees with a canon source (Scotty's dialog in Star Trek V). So what Roddenberry said goes against canon where what Johnson suggested agrees with canon. There are a couple of other sources for what the ship might have been originally called, but they fall much further down the rungs of the ladder from production sources. At least Johnson made a good effort. But Mr. Scott's uses the same inaccurate David Kimble exterior (based on Richard Taylor's preliminary drawings) and the cross section does not line up with the studio model exterior or some things seen in later films.

And I am not a know-it-all, but this is a description of my project (laying out the interior of the TOS Enterprise) and so in this thread I get to speak with great authority for what MY process is in determining how to rank the importance of sources. My goal is not to create an interior that is 100% accurate to the what we see in TOS, but is accurate to the intent of the production. The Making of Star Trek is full of intent including the deck layout of the Enterprise. Franz Joseph used that for his general plans and his plans were very much the basis for Probert and Kimble's internal layout for TMP. If you don't like how I am conducting my project, you can start your own and use whatever sources you see fit. Before the Okuda's got involved, Star Trek was notorious for its inconsistencies in terms of technobabble and timeline. The writers had nothing to go on for most of this and were making it up and the staff writers corrected some errors, but their focus was on making episodic TV drama and so their focus was not always on technical consistency. In sifting through what we are given as canon, I have chosen what I find to be the most consistent. You may chose other things on any project you are working on.

I am more than willing to listen if you have some constructive comments, but trying to tell me what sources I have to go by because that is what you would do is rather rude. I have been clear that what I am writing about is what I am using for MY project. There is plenty of room for discussion about why other things might be useful, but if you expect me to change my project because you don't agree, you are being very childish. Other projects exist and they have taken other avenues that I don't agree with and I don't go in and tell them they are know-it-alls. I go in and make suggestions in case they are helpful or in case anyone reading is looking for other ideas. What I have written are the parameters for my project. Instead of whining that I am not listening to you and changing my project, why don't you actually suggest what you would do. Try filtering through this huge body of canon and supporting sources to figure out what system you would chose. It is not easy. There is an engine room thread here that went through all the variations in the TOS engine room with various people making suggestions as to what the design should be, including having multiple engine rooms. I think one person settled on 4 or 5 engine rooms. It was a great thread because we were all throwing out our theories and discussing them. I learned a lot and my take on the engine room in my design is based very much on those discussions as well as my own research since.

If you don't like how I am doing things, stop complaining about me and do it yourself. I'm not the only one working on the TOS interior layout. There is room for many ideas and several other project exist. Each one has picked parameters to start with like I have. Each one has been open to discussion on things that they have not settled on. But once you start a project with certain parameters, it is difficult to change them. I have plenty of room for other ideas in my drawings. I am just explaining the system I envisioned when I drew it. I don't intend to label my drawings excessively (and perhaps not at all) so anyone looking at them is free to reinterpret them as they like.

I have great respect for Matt Jefferes, Franz Joseph Schnaubelt, Richard Taylor, Andrew Probert, Rick Sternbach, Doug Drexler, and John Eaves. I think more attention needs to be paid to their intention in their designs. A few of Jefferies intentions I've had to ignore because they didn't agree with the production notes in TMOST or where they went with the refit, but I have tried to follow his intentions within those parameters. His cross section has been key for my decisions. So that is the lens I look at everything through. If you'd rather take another approach, that is great, but that is not what I am interested in or what I am working on. My Excelsior topic recently went down a rabbit hole on the Miranda class. I found it very interesting. I didn't agree with some of the opinions, but an interesting fact is that agreement is not always necessary. So in the end, you can look at Matt Jefferies cross section, Franz Joseph Schnaubelt's general plans, Doug Drexler's cross section, David Shaw's cross section and layout, and my cross section and they don't have to agree. Different approaches yield different results and there is room for them all. Personally I like David Shaw's the best, but they don't agree with TMP and that agreement with a large portion of the interior layout unchanged is a major factor for me. So rather than make someone else conform to my ideas, I have made my own project.

I have taken the time to lay out the basic decks with turbo shafts. I have spent a lot of time researching sets and drawing the floor plans of the sets. I have studied the few episodes where the ceiling was shown. I have interpreted the sets through the lens of the day and my knowledge of how movie and TV series productions worked. So I have no problem cutting off the sets at 8.25 feet for a ceiling that never existed. The only time we really see a ceiling is in The Day of the Dove and that can easily be in the secondary hull where the decks are taller (per the windows on the 11 foot model) and a 9 foot ceiling would make sense. I've been studying the TOS and TMP Enterprises for 40 years. I've been studying this site and others for many years as well. I do have very specific opinions and I am not telling people working on their own projects that they are doing it wrong. There is room for many opinions. I started this thread to share my project and my research and my methods of arriving at my results. That is not unusual on this site. The threads on Donny's fabulous work on CG interiors is all about his work. I suggest you try joining the conversation and contribute. I have not problem with you using this thread to post what you would do or what sources you would like to see. Just don't expect me to agree or use them. I am old and set in my ways and the only thing I have left to do is draw a few set cross sections and some random equipment to throw in my cross section. I recently finished my Excelsior cross section and my TOS, Phase II, and TMP cross sections will look similar.

Well done on conclusively disproving "you're a tiresome know-it-all, and you really need to stop talking to everyone as though you're the only one who knows or cares anything about this sort of thing" there

Nobody's telling you what sources you may or may not use for your own projects. Use whatever sources you want. Hell, invent something completely new, I don't care. The issue comes that when people say "I like X or believe Y because of Z source", you immediately come in with "that's wrong because I choose to believe A, B, and C instead", seemingly with no consistency beyond what appeals to you in the moment. You come across as rude and arrogant, and immediately stifle any discussion or alternate viewpoint that comes along rather than actually discuss it because you always, always believe you know better. This is behaviour I've seen from you across multiple threads. God knows you've done it to me enough times, though I suppose I should take comfort in that I've not been singled out. Saying "I didn't agree with some of the opinions, but an interesting fact is that agreement is not always necessary" is very much an understatement – in that specific case you were rude and condescending to anyone who didn't immediately yield to your point of view. In fact you saying "I found it very interesting" is itself interesting to me, because you gave every indication at the time that you regarded it as a unnecessary distraction and wanted to get back to whatever you wanted the thread to be about as soon as possible. You might well have enormous respect for Matt Jefferies, Franz Joseph Schnaubelt, Richard Taylor, Andrew Probert, Rick Sternbach, Doug Drexler, and John Eaves – but you clearly have no respect for anyone who disagrees with you, or chooses to interpret those same sources differently. That's my point.

 

[yotsuya]

Well done on conclusively disproving "you're a tiresome know-it-all, and you really need to stop talking to everyone as though you're the only one who knows or cares anything about this sort of thing" there

Nobody's telling you what sources you may or may not use for your own projects. Use whatever sources you want. Hell, invent something completely new, I don't care. The issue comes that when people say "I like X or believe Y because of Z source", you immediately come in with "that's wrong because I choose to believe A, B, and C instead", seemingly with no consistency beyond what appeals to you in the moment. You come across as rude and arrogant, and immediately stifle any discussion or alternate viewpoint that comes along rather than actually discuss it because you always, always believe you know better. This is behaviour I've seen from you across multiple threads. God knows you've done it to me enough times, though I suppose I should take comfort in that I've not been singled out. Saying "I didn't agree with some of the opinions, but an interesting fact is that agreement is not always necessary" is very much an understatement – in that specific case you were rude and condescending to anyone who didn't immediately yield to your point of view. In fact you saying "I found it very interesting" is itself interesting to me, because you gave every indication at the time that you regarded it as a unnecessary distraction and wanted to get back to whatever you wanted the thread to be about as soon as possible. You might well have enormous respect for Matt Jefferies, Franz Joseph Schnaubelt, Richard Taylor, Andrew Probert, Rick Sternbach, Doug Drexler, and John Eaves – but you clearly have no respect for anyone who disagrees with you, or chooses to interpret those same sources differently. That's my point.

Sometimes I lack tact, but I always post it as my opinion. That I don't endlessly emphasize that is not my style. That you don't pick up on that is not my problem. You are the one getting upset that I don't accept Roddenberry's theory that 1701-A was the Yorktown. Even when I clearly said why. Multiple times. I guess you don't like people being firmly set in opinions you don't agree with.

And to anyone, if I have not been clear that most of my posts are my opinion and my head canon, my apologies. I keep wondering if I should put a disclaimer in my signature, but I don't think I'm the only one with that problem around here. It kind of goes with geeking out on Trek tech.

 

[Mres_was_framed!]

Andrew Probert's original production sketch here also includes it, just calling it the "deflector crystal.

In that interview at Trekayrds that I have mentioned, it comes up that the Impulse Deflection crystal "deflects" energy from the shaft to other places in the ship. That is very different from the way that deflector is usually used on Star Trek,

because the matter/anti-matter plasma is fed to both to create power for the ship.

warp nacelles being called anti-matter pods.

It occurs to me that we have been debating if the swirl chamber is the location of the reaction, or if the reaction has occurred somewhere else, and that it is full of warp plasma. Maybe the reaction is such that there is magnetism that prevents immediate annihilation, and that matter and antimatter are fed at different rates, (They have to react at a ratio of 1:1, per TNG, but they don't have to be injected at 1:1), and with all this going on, the swirl of matter, anti-matter, and magnetic force, is CALLED warp plasma!

I have to admit, even with the chart you gave, I sometimes get confused on your priority of sources. It seems like sometimes you take what is seen onscreen as canon, but other times you refer to effects as being wrong (which undoubtedly does happen sometimes); other times you mention what is explicitly stated onscreen as canon, but later call dialogue errors (which also probably happens). Where I get confused is how you decided which is an error. I think that your essentially "scholarly" approach is intriguing, and I think that is why it is easy to be surprised when a suggestion we make does not match your project.

To clarify, you are making this project based on artistic intent, and on how that would apply to a constructed ship, correct? In other words, you would take Jefferies or Probert's intended technical ideas above what is actually built on the set? For example, then, would you have to concede that the blue markings on the TMP ship are "protection," of some kind, because Probert said so?

 

[yotsuya]

In that interview at Trekayrds that I have mentioned, it comes up that the Impulse Deflection crystal "deflects" energy from the shaft to other places in the ship. That is very different from the way that deflector is usually used on Star Trek,





It occurs to me that we have been debating if the swirl chamber is the location of the reaction, or if the reaction has occurred somewhere else, and that it is full of warp plasma. Maybe the reaction is such that there is magnetism that prevents immediate annihilation, and that matter and antimatter are fed at different rates, (They have to react at a ratio of 1:1, per TNG, but they don't have to be injected at 1:1), and with all this going on, the swirl of matter, anti-matter, and magnetic force, is CALLED warp plasma!

I have to admit, even with the chart you gave, I sometimes get confused on your priority of sources. It seems like sometimes you take what is seen onscreen as canon, but other times you refer to effects as being wrong (which undoubtedly does happen sometimes); other times you mention what is explicitly stated onscreen as canon, but later call dialogue errors (which also probably happens). Where I get confused is how you decided which is an error. I think that your essentially "scholarly" approach is intriguing, and I think that is why it is easy to be surprised when a suggestion we make does not match your project.

To clarify, you are making this project based on artistic intent, and on how that would apply to a constructed ship, correct? In other words, you would take Jefferies or Probert's intended technical ideas above what is actually built on the set? For example, then, would you have to concede that the blue markings on the TMP ship are "protection," of some kind, because Probert said so?

There is the Deflector and the Deflection crystal. Totally different functions. The deflection crystal is only on movie era ships and I take to be a function of that particular design of the warp core. I would consider it part of the system that Decker talked about that channels main power directly in to the phasers. But that is kind of beyond the scope of what I am looking at. I based my Deflector dish hardware on the location of the turboshaft and warp core. That means it is considerably shorter than the TNG drawings show. It came in handy with the Excelsior drawings as well.

I would say my main goal, the one the governs all my choices, is a logical technology progression from the NX-01, to TOS, to TMP, to Excelsior, to Constellation Class, to Enterprise B. TOS had so much where they were literally exploring options of the world, from the time period, to the warp drive, to the transporter, so the food replicators, that there are so many ways of looking at where they were at that time. So I am looking at canon to see if there is consistency. If not, is there something that fits that technology progression?

For instance, the use of pods. What is that. In some instances it is the nacelles, in others, it is clearly a storage vessel of some kind. It is rather hit or miss. And it is never clear where the the matter and anti-matter mixed until That Which Survives. And since that is both seen (sets by Jefferies) and described in some detail and since it agrees with the technological progression, that is the canon piece I landed on to go with. Some others have stuck to the dialog and come up with a variety of possible systems that are ingenious but don't fit the technological progression. To me canon is more than just TOS. Sure you need to use TOS sources to describe the ship, but when they disagree, what do you keep and what do you toss? I toss what doesn't fit the rest of canon. So I'm not trying to make TOS agree with a TNG system. I'm trying to make TOS fit as a pre-refit design that could logically be refit to what we see in TMP. For me that means keeping as much of the ship intact as possible and changing as little as possible. That means the same deck layout in the saucer, that means a compatible technology. Sure the phasers, photon torpedoes, bridge, sickbay, engineering, cargo bay, and hanger were redone, with a new rec deck and refurbished corridors and cabins, but other key systems like life support, ship's laundry, and some of those other systems might remain from the TOS period. That could also make Admiral Morrow's comments make some sense. We know the Enterprise was refit between WNMHGB and The Corbomite maneuver, so if they did not replace a lot of the systems from that refit those could be where his 20 years old comment came from.

Anyway. What I have selected is what I consider canon, a logical technology progression, and something that makes the refit time of 18 months make sense. And the canon is TOS to Enterprise. So that is not going to agree with everyone else. Some only look at TOS sources when laying out the TOS ship. And I am not just drafting the TOS Enterprise. I'm working on the Phase II, Taylor Refit and TMP Refit and 1701-A as well. That is why it is vital to make the design progression and technology progression work. If I get time and find a good design, I also want to go back to include a couple of intermediate designs between the NX and Daedelus and the TOS Enterprise. But first the Constellation Class needs a little love (after all these others are done).

 

[publiusr]

This is about ships. I have great respect for Matt Jefferes, Franz Joseph Schnaubelt, Richard Taylor, Andrew Probert, Rick Sternbach, Doug Drexler, and John Eaves.

I recently finished my Excelsior cross section and my TOS, Phase II, and TMP cross sections will look similar.

Your work is right up there with those other names you list. I could never have done so well.

 

[JesseM]

@JesseM , That sketch by Probert of warp system is one of the sources Kimble used and agrees with how he labled the cutaway. He added the mix chamber. The way I have interpreted it would make sense with those descriptions form the TMP novel. Though Roddenberry may have gone a different direction creatively than Probert intended.

Are you suggesting that Probert clearly had the idea all along that the shafts were just pipes for carrying plasma that had been generated down in a mix chamber at the bottom, and that no reaction was occurring in the shafts, so that when Roddenberry called the shafts "intermix chambers" and suggested matter/antimatter "annihilation" was happening inside them, that was just him going in a different creative direction than Probert? I don't think this is very plausible in terms of the production history (though of course you're free to use whatever headcanon you want for your project)--why would Probert call the place where the two shafts meet the "engine room" if the shafts were merely carrying energetic plasma that had been generated far below? In any modern vessel the "engine room" will be the place where the actual reactions generating kinetic energy are happening. And what about the quote from the lighting engineer Sam Nicholson that I posted (which was from a 1979 interview), are you supposing he made up the idea of the vertical shaft as a "reactor" himself, or got it exclusively from talking to Roddenberry?

I did a little more searching and found a 2005 interview with Probert where he makes clear he didn't have any very fixed idea about where the reactions were happening since he didn't know where the matter was actually coming from (he thought the 'keel at the bottom of the engineering hull' was just sending up antimatter through the shaft). He also says that the shaft leading upward from the engine room to the saucer was "trying to bring power up from the main engine room", which again seems to suggest the idea that power was being generated in the engine room (and in the question right before that he had been asked about the 'impulse deflection crystal', and said that the vertical shaft was supposed to 'channel energy from the main reactor, if you will, up into the crystal, which would deflect that energy into the impulse engine units', which combined with his next comment about how the shaft was meant to 'bring power up from the main engine room' seems to suggest he thought of the engine room as containing the 'main reactor').

Tyler: Was there a notion of how the warp drive shaft or warp core of the ship was supposed to work during the movie era?

Probert: The details of that were not known. I was sort of fumbling for a way of showing how the power would work, and it didn't occur to me that the impulse engine would have its own reactor and its own independent systems. I was trying to bring power up from the main engine room. In light of the fact that I think we nailed it with Rick's help, of course, in The Next Generation. The movie stuff now seems kind of lame, because, while my thinking was that the antimatter would be in magnetic containment, centered around the keel at the bottom of the engineering hull, sending antimatter up into the chamber in the engine room, the shaft above the engine room really doesn't make sense, because I wasn't combining the antimatter with any particular matter. So I just didn't have a handle on where the "matter" was coming from. In Next Generation, Rick said, well, the matter would be deuterium to combine with antimatter in order to get your reaction. So the Motion Picture version, my attempt at making sense out of all that, was only half-baked, in that I knew exactly where the antimatter would be, even drawing a diagram to that effect. My thinking wasn't complete until Sternbach came along.

He also says that the engine room was a mix of his own ideas and those of production designer Hal Michelson, it wasn't like he came up with a complete design for all the internal structure of the refit Enterprise that would be shown on camera and Michelson just built the sets to match those. But he does include a sketch he passed along showing roughly how he imagined the layout at one point in production (probably earlier than the previous drawing I posted since it doesn't match the movie as well), which has a "main deck" with the horizontal shafts (here a pair of them), an "intermix level" one deck below, and a "reactor level" one deck below that, all still in the top half of the secondary hull.

Probert: Yeah, Mike Minor had rendered out a horizontal component and I think it was built for Phase II, but I'm not sure. Hal Michelson, the production designer, whom I really admire, just didn't have a full understanding of high-tech hardware, science-fiction in particular, so we, at the Abel's special effects group, were trying to feed him ideas and sort of bring him up to speed technologically. I think he resented that, whether he admitted it or not, because he was a big-name production designer -- rightly so. But again, we could see in some of his thinking... I mean they were using toggle switches in the bridge controls, and they had push-buttons and dials for the living quarters entryways. So we suggested that, since microwave ovens had touch panels, by then, that they could at least come up to that level, which they did, and they changed all those entries -- I wish I had gotten a picture of those, because they were so... unbelievable. Nevertheless, I did do a drawing... it's sort of a three-quarter see-through view of the engineering hull, which I don't think has been published, but it sort of roughly lays out my idea of the engine room, and I think my art director, Richard Taylor, took that over to Paramount during a meeting. That may have influenced them... but I have no idea.

On the subject of Hal Michelson, the 1980 interview with him here adds further support to the idea that multiple people in the production besides Roddenberry were thinking of the thing we saw onscreen as "the engine", not just conduits carrying plasma generated in an engine far below. On p. 13 of the interview he says:

A set had been built before I became involved with the picture. It was quite an impressive looking, three-story thing in chrome. But Bob Wise didn't like the ornamentation on it, he just didn't like the engine. So, we would up with a transparent engine tube with aluminum details. We wanted to create within this a tremendous illusion of power.

He likewise refers to the two shafts as "a new kind of engine" of "limitless power" on p. 42 of this 1980 Starlog article.

That the Enterprise team came to a similar conclusion when they designed their warp core just solidifies my choices. I picture the 2nd/3rd season engine room sitting on top of a similar structure that is hidden from view. I decided that the first season engine room is about where Franz Joseph placed it and that both have that cathedral structure because the matter/anti-matter plasma is fed to both to create power for the ship. Main power is in the secondary hull on the hanger deck and auxiliary power is on deck 7 at the aft of the saucer. Aux power can also be supplied independently by the impulse engines or a reactor that also drives the impulse engines when main power is out or the saucer separates.

As for the TNG system, I see this as a more advanced warp core system that was developed around the movie era. The first class we know it was used in was the Constellation Class (the long decomissioned Hathaway) and then in Enterprise A and B (A because they filmed on the TNG Engineering set (originally the Phase II/TMP set and B because that is how the diagram depicts it). It is similar to the TOS system, but with a longer anti-matter feed and a separate mix chamber. The TNG set has 3 tubes coming off it. Two go port and starboard to the warp engines and the vertical shaft is not labeled, but I would say it feeds the main impulse engine at the back of the neck with the saucer impulse engines independently powered. So All 4 systems (including what we see in Enterprise) function in a nearly identical manner, but the parts are organized differently.

But the TNG technical manual makes clear that Sternbach and Okuda imagined the matter and antimatter streams were channeled into the dilithium crystal to react inside it (see the top left diagram on this page, which comes from the manual), is their intent not enough for you to treat this as canon, or are you assuming dilithium was also used this way on the TOS and TMP Enterprise?

Even if you don't treat their idea of how the reactor works as canon, there was some onscreen dialogue that at least suggested that the matter and antimatter reacted within the chamber that housed the dilithium, and that the dilithium controlled the reaction in some way. The clearest onscreen statement I've found in TNG os in the episode "Peak Performance". Here they are planning to take part in simulated combat exercises and Riker's team has to try to salvage an old ship, the U.S.S. Hathaway, which Wesley says has a few "dilithium fragments" left (in the original script the line was "dilithium chips"). Wesley sneaks on board a science experiment he was doing involving "high energy plasma reactions with anti-matter", which they plan to use to restore a brief burst of warp flight to the ship, and Riker asks "can you regulate the reaction?" to which Wesley replies "There's just enough crystal to do it. We plan to channel the reaction through the chips." So here we do have onscreen dialogue indicating that, at least in this case, the matter/antimatter reaction was regulated with dilithium, and that the reaction was channeled through the dilithium in some way.

The Enterprise episode "Bound" also retconned this basic idea to be what dilithium was always used for in Starfleet ships. Here Commander Kelby, who was serving as chief engineer at the time, was showing the engines to a visitor named D'Nesh, and there was this dialogue:

KELBY: The injectors feed into the dilithium chamber.

D'NESH: That's where the matter and antimatter mix.

KELBY: That's right.

D'NESH: The crystals let you control the reaction.

KELBY: That's right.

 

[Unicron]

The formatting should be fixed now. There's a toolbox in the upper left that will let you do effects like bold or italic over a selected body of text. I think you had used a manual tag to add bold and that simply caused the setting to be turned "on" for the rest of the post.