USS PROMETHEUS...impulse drive?

[ancient]

I'm looking at ST: Communicator issue 152, with jolly Picard on the cover. In this issue is a nifty set of views for the Prometheus, both in combined mode and separated into the three little ships.

Maybe someone can help me here, but I don't see any impulse drives on either secondary hull piece. Or any manuvering thrusters on either of them. Can they manuver? Can they travel at sub-light speeds on their own? If not, it would seem a pretty huge design problem.

I see the blue glowy impulse vents on the primary hull. (Which point at the nacelle pylons in combined mode...D'oh!)
But none on the others.

Anyway, the little "Known features" box has this to say:
"All three modules are armed and warp-capable, controllable from Main Bridge (atop the Forward Module) when in separation mode"

So...
Can someone point out to me where the impulse drive is supposed to be, or do they not exist?

 

[Bill Morris]

They don't seem to show on the MSD, either, but here's some expert conjecture about the impulse engines on the main hull:

http://www.shiporama.org/prometheus1.htm

Their disappearance remains a mystery.

 

[ancient]

I see little grey trapezoids on the leading edges that might be fwd facing thrusters, but that's about it. Aside from the blue impulse drives on the main hull I don't see anything.

It seems they won't be installed until tuesday?

 

[Deks]

The blue impulse drives seem to be the only visible ones in non-separated mode.
As for the MVAM ... I would surmise the sections implement micro thrusters/micro impulse drives that wouldn't have standard configuration.

this is a brand new class of starship that is experimental as well, so it's possible SF found alternative methods for propelling the sections while separated at impulse speeds ?

 

[ancient]

I don't know if I can buy that.

Impulse engines have always been big and glowy TNG-post. Even thrusters are small...and glowy, so we should be able to see them. The ship does have impulse vents, but just not on the two engineering sections. It strikes me as odd. It's a pretty big omission, I think. If it was intentional I'd like to know why.

 

[westwords2020]

What bothers me is centralized control from the primary hull bridge. A better arrangement is to have bridges in each of the three sections manned by lower ranking officers under the CO in the primary hull command bridge, the FO in the second hull and the second officer in the third hull. Tactics would be product of three rather than one person's POV while a datalink can also be jammed.

 

[USS Mariner]

ancient said:
I don't know if I can buy that.

Impulse engines have always been big and glowy TNG-post. Even thrusters are small...and glowy, so we should be able to see them. The ship does have impulse vents, but just not on the two engineering sections. It strikes me as odd. It's a pretty big omission, I think. If it was intentional I'd like to know why.

Actually, they do (surprisingly) appear on the CG caricature of Rick's Prometheus.

They are positioned between the neck of the secondary hull and the main impulse engines of the saucer (If you look at the blueprints from the old ST:MAG, they are the dark grey slots.) Both halves of the hull have them, and they could operate when the ship is whole.

However, the animators either forgot or left out the light maps for them, as they are never turned on, even when they are separated.

In Rick's original concepts, you can clearly see them, among a myriad of other details that are hit-and-miss on the final model (like an actual bridge on the underside of the LWH, as well as a torpedo launcher, a Sovereign-derived main deflector, as well as a secondary deflector, nested into the upper surface!)

 

[ancient]

Model detailing omission then. Thanks, Mariner.

The nebula had no lighted engines either, but there were clearly details that were ment to be impulse drives, they just didn't have the time to make them as detailed on that model, I guess. I guess the same thing can happen to CGI models.

 

[darkloutre]

excuse me if my English is not good but I am French.
Is that someone has plans interior of Prometheus.

 

[Timo]

There is a fan-made "Master Systems Display" or two, and then the display that was used in the graphics of the episode.

Here's one link (unfortunately full of annoying pop-ups) to a fan MSD:

http://www.ussprometheusnx59650.0catch.com/Prometheus%20MSD%20Large.htm

Here's something that looks more like the real thing:

http://www.lcars.org.uk/lcars_aby.htm

I'm not sure where to find a faithful reproduction of the actual onscreen display, though. The CGI exteriors, as shown in ST:The Magazine, are available e.g. on this page:

http://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/scans/sfvarious1.htm

As for the dark impulse engines, it might be that Starfleet values stealth in certain applications, and that the Nebula is optimized for it, as are certain bits and pieces of the Prometheus. But the overall ship in combined flight mode is more optimized for speed, and thus has glowing bits - perhaps because it's felt that it's too big to be hidden when intact anyway.

Edit: Here's what I think is an accurate reproduction of the "real" MSD:

http://www.utopiaplanitia.info/blueprints/prom/original/msd.jpg

Timo Saloniemi

 

[SonicRanger]

From that page:

"One of the interesting details is the ventral warp core hatch, which split the main warp core in half."

What?! Doesn't the thing need three warp cores? And what good is half a warp core? One hull gets the matter tanks and injectors while the other hull gets the antimatter tanks and injectors? That's useful.

The Prometheus just gets worse and worse the more we see of it.

 

[Mark_Nguyen]

Well, we saw it near ten year ago. It was pretty well discussed to death in the first two years or so since the episode aired.

And back then, a bunch of us figured that the whole is indeed worth the sum of its parts; that linking the two cores together take advantage of the increased reaction surface on a foamed dilithium matrix (the sort that runs in Voyager, so Rick supposed) for more efficient power production in docked flight. In separated flight each core revs up for warp flight, but is not as efficient or robust as when they'd all be docked together, regardless of the mass being moved.

The caveat of course is what happens if the middle section is wrecked - can the remaining sections dock?

Mark