What is inside the ship's neck?

[Gingerbread Demon]

Anyone know what the dimensions of the ship's neck part is in the TOS, and Refit Enterprise?

I ask because it's always bugged me why they have rows of windows in the neck when it doesn't appear at first glance to be that wide to hold actual rooms...

The AMT models don't help any as the cutaway Enterprise shows you a few decks of small rooms in there and lift shafts.

So what stuff is in the neck?

 

[ZapBrannigan]

The Franz Joseph TOS plans show the neck full of little rooms that people can walk around in, along with a turboshaft that runs a short horizontal distance on Deck 8 and then straight down to the secondary hull. I love FJ as fan art and nostalgia, but this is one of his decisions that I have to break with.

The saucer and secondary hull each need their own independent life support, power, and water systems, obviously, and I think the setup would also ensure that if one hull's systems failed, the other hull could pipe support over to it.

This means that the neck would be stuffed with piping and plumbing, power cables, wiring conduits, air shafts, and whatnot, leaving barely enough room for the turboshaft and a manhole shaft.

The windows on the neck could be something else, like ports for various kinds of sensors and instruments looking outward. Some of them could be connector ports at which a "starship tender" or space dock could hook up umbilicals and pipe water and power into to the Enterprise.

OTOH, a huge ship like the Enterprise-D might have room in the neck for all kinds of walking around in.

Regarding dimensions, FJ shows a deck inside the TOS neck to be about 5 meters abeam (wide) and 36 meters long.

 

[C.E. Evans]

Aside from massive latches that keep the saucer section in place, I figured it was the location of the auxiliary control room (or battle bridge for TNG folks), a general maintenance/janitorial center, some science labs, a mess room, and maybe even the brig/security center. It's even possible that there could be a number of lifeboats and airlocks there (although being flush with the hull, they'd be impossible to see from any distance).

 

[Ithekro]

Didn't the "Mr. Scott's Guide to the Enterprise" have in there the quarters that were more adjustible for exotic alien species?

 

[F. King Daniel]

Anyone know what the dimensions of the ship's neck part is in the TOS, and Refit Enterprise?

Not sure exactly, but I know it's too narrow to fit two of the WoK torpedo bay set side by side.

I ask because it's always bugged me why they have rows of windows in the neck when it doesn't appear at first glance to be that wide to hold actual rooms...

The AMT models don't help any as the cutaway Enterprise shows you a few decks of small rooms in there and lift shafts.

So what stuff is in the neck?

I always figured observation galleries. Or possibly toilets with a view.

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

Anyone know what the dimensions of the ship's neck part is in the TOS, and Refit Enterprise?

Not sure exactly, but I know it's too narrow to fit two of the WoK torpedo bay set side by side.

I ask because it's always bugged me why they have rows of windows in the neck when it doesn't appear at first glance to be that wide to hold actual rooms...

The AMT models don't help any as the cutaway Enterprise shows you a few decks of small rooms in there and lift shafts.

So what stuff is in the neck?

I always figured observation galleries. Or possibly toilets with a view.

Ah so that's where the mythical bathrooms are located....

 

[T'Girl]

Not sure exactly, but I know it's too narrow to fit two of the WoK torpedo bay set side by side.

I figure there's only one bay and when the torpedo goes through that forward hatch it's loaded either to the left or right into one of the two firing chambers.

Hopefully that arrangement is is solely present in the training vessel, and it's missing in ships that don't train academy cadets. It seems unnecessarily cumbersome.

Like today where some countries cadets train aboard sailing vessels, but are later assign to a modern warship.

 

[Albertese]

Well, a wide-body passenger jet, like a Boeing 747 for example, has a fuselage width of 6 meters or so. (6.5 I think). That's comparable to the width of the TOS E's neck. There would really be quite a bit of space in there even allowing for utility piping to transfer various and sundry fluids between hulls and keep a turboshaft in situ.

Now, the refit might be different giving that the big central power core runs up the neck. That occupies a lot more space on every neck deck, but, we also see this represented on the exterior as the remaining windows are just a few scattered little round portholes. Probably breakrooms. I think I recall something someone involved with TMP said that maybe they were private rooms to be used by crewmen who need some alone time.

In any event, I'm not sure there has ever been anything officially stated about what's in the neck on the TOS ship, and nothing about the TMP ship except the torpedo bay and the reactor core.

--Alex

 

[Nebusj]

Well, there's the ship's larynx, of course, and the official mission uvula.

 

[137th Gebirg]

In TWOK, they showed people going up and down a ladder in a tall narrow room with a hatch in the ceiling and floor. This looked like something that one would expect to see in the neck, but I don't think the location that the set in question was supposed to represent was ever officially recognized as such.

 

[Timo]

FWIW, a deck count of the TOS ship that relies on conventional assumptions on size would put Kirk's early-seasons quarters, on Deck 12, smack in the middle of the neck.

We see the corridor leading to those quarters in "Mudd's Women" (assuming Spock didn't first take the girls to decontamination and associated close observation at the special-environment facilities of Deck 12, and only then back up to Kirk's quarters on Deck 3 or 5). What we see is a curved corridor... Is it following the exterior curve of the neck, with rooms to one side only? Or does it only look like that in a shot where the camera is concentrating on following curves to begin with?

As for windows, we see in "Mark of Gideon" that at least some of them are shuttered, while the rest of TOS shows that none of the usual interior spaces have any! Should we perhaps argue that windows are in fact always associated with utility spaces rather than quarters? That would explain their numbers in the neck area...

Now, the refit might be different giving that the big central power core runs up the neck.

...Although it's actually a bit unlikely that it does. We never see more than a couple of decks' worth of it going up from Main Engineering, but this is at a position that's way back in the secondary hull (as evidenced by the rest of the set, including that matted-in corridor!), while the part of the neck that could theoretically hold a vertical core is at the very front. Perhaps the porthole-free vertical swath is actually just a bunch of conduits running on both sides of the main turboshaft?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Sector 7]

Bathrooms with toilets.

 

[T'Girl]

^ And bidets too.

 

[Ithekro]

^ And bidets too.

A proper Klingon toilet that fights back.

 

[Sector 7]

^ And bidets too.

A proper Klingon toilet that fights back.

Toilets are fine.
Bidets are fine.
Fighting back is fine.
Toilets fighting back are verboten. In fact, anything fighting my private bits are absolutely forbidden!

 

[Captain Rob]

Part of the neck is probably the enlisted berthing area. Just cram it full of bunkbeds. And one toilet.

 

[Sector 7]

Part of the neck is probably the enlisted berthing area. Just cram it full of bunkbeds. And one toilet.

Sounds like a formula for mutiny!

 

[Starborn Dragon]

Theaters to make interspecies porn.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Theaters to make interspecies porn.

They do live shows?

 

[Richard Baker]

^ And bidets too.

A proper Klingon toilet that fights back.

Toilets are fine.
Bidets are fine.
Fighting back is fine.
Toilets fighting back are verboten. In fact, anything fighting my private bits are absolutely forbidden!

Unless it is either by someone you love or have negotiated with prior...

I think most of the neck pylon is equipment conduits with observation rooms scattered around.

The ship looks better (and bigger) with windows there, photoshop them out and the whole look changes...