What the heck is that?

[Praetor]

I believe Mandel and Drexler in their 'Enterprise Officers Manual' made it a control cab for the shuttlebay, complete with a little chair that looked suspiciously like Kirk's captain's chair.

Yes (though how you'd actually get up there is something of a mystery):

FalTorPan's avatar makes that remind me of Dark Star's dome:

Ah, I hadn't thought of the Dark Star dome comparison.

I'd always concluded that the dome might be able to separate as there appear to be separation lines around it, making it an independent pod which could land in the bay (though perhaps this was an emergency-only operation?)

Hmm. Why is that "landing target" on the underside of the fantail..?

Timo Saloniemi

I've often wondered that myself. It's better off as a hatch, methinks.

 

[Karnbeln]

In the TOS-R version of Court Martial, didn't they have it missing, implying it to be the "ion pod"?

Edit: Nevermind, now that I think about it, I think I got confused by an image that showed the back of Enterprise and remarked that the location of the ion pod was added for the episode.

 

[cooleddie74]

I prefer to see it as the aft phaser array. ENT sort of canonized what the white cupola/dome is even if we never saw the Enterprise herself use it that way.

 

[seigezunt]

...and why haven't I seen it before?

Looks like a diaphragm.

But seriously, my 70s-era AMT models had them, too.

 

[cooleddie74]

I think the 1976 Dinky Toys die-cast Enterprise also had the little dome, but it wasn't painted any differently from the rest of the toy.

 

[Maurice]

It's a clear, painless blister, and the Enterprise will be fine once Bones gives her 120,000ccs of penicillin.


Seriously, I don't think it lines up with the gizmo at the top of the hangar doors to allow for those little rooms people postulate. Does it?

I just took at as a sensor like on the top and bottom of the saucer, or some traffic control gizmo.

GSchnitzer: how many of those pix ya got? I love the one where you can see the guts of the nacelle cap.

 

[Captain Robert April]

It's not on the Enterprise model I put together and painted...

It was on the model prior to 1976. Its omission from later versions is one of the more inexplicable changes made to the molds (ranks right up there with those three dimples on the underside of the primary hull; no reason for them in the first place, and no reason why they weren't removed when the new molds were made).

 

[GSchnitzer]

It's a clear, painless blister, and the Enterprise will be fine once Bones gives her 120,000ccs of penicillin.


Seriously, I don't think it lines up with the gizmo at the top of the hangar doors to allow for those little rooms people postulate. Does it?

I just took at as a sensor like on the top and bottom of the saucer, or some traffic control gizmo.

GSchnitzer: how many of those pix ya got? I love the one where you can see the guts of the nacelle cap.

It gets away from the topic of the sensor dome/hanger deck control tower/bubble thing, but you can see the innards underneath the nacelle cap here:

Here's a bit of an explanation as to what you're seeing in the picture:

 

[GSchnitzer]

It's a clear, painless blister, and the Enterprise will be fine once Bones gives her 120,000ccs of penicillin.


Seriously, I don't think it lines up with the gizmo at the top of the hangar doors to allow for those little rooms people postulate. Does it?

I just took at as a sensor like on the top and bottom of the saucer, or some traffic control gizmo.

GSchnitzer: how many of those pix ya got? I love the one where you can see the guts of the nacelle cap.

Here's a shot from "The Paradise Syndrome."

You can see that the dome on top does line up directly above the cylindrical protrusion at the top front of the hangar bay doors. You can see that the window on the cylinder-thing is on the exact same plane (well, not plane since it's a curve) as the dome. They are--what's the word? Co-curvular?

Sorry about the huge picture above. I honestly don't know how to fix it.

 

[Michael]

That is an absolutely awesome image! Thank you for posting it!

 

[FalTorPan]

Ah, I hadn't thought of the Dark Star dome comparison.

I read the Officer's Manual years before I first watched Dark Star, but as soon as I saw Dark Star, I believed and still believe that Dark Star's dome was the inspiration for Drexler's drawing.

 

[TIN_MAN]

A close-up reveals its greenish-hue:

And taking it apart, you find that it's a clear dome with a greenish underlying translucent base with three plexiglass rods of varying lengths and colors

Interesting. It's like the pegs were inserted to mimic a person or some instrumentation inside.

How one would get inside there is not that much of a mystery. Beam-in and beam-out. And of course, there must be an emergency escape hatch to bail out in case the transporter system is off-line.

That wouldn't be a "Cage" pistol laser emitter would it? Or a plug from the same moulding?

 

[GSchnitzer]

That wouldn't be a "Cage" pistol laser emitter would it? Or a plug from the same moulding?

Yeah, that's been the speculation for quite a while. Certainly the three plexiglass prongs of different lengths make it look like the barrel of a Cage-era laser. I don't know if the diameter of the disc-thing is right. But it might indeed be one.

 

[Ryan Thomas Riddle]

^Didn't NV/PII portray the dome as having what Mandel/Drexler described?

 

[Ssosmcin]

LOL, so the guy that sits here gets the honor of having a duplicate of Kirk's chair? So much for Kirk being special....

 

[Nerys Myk]

Reminds me of the fold away seat in the back of the family Rambler station wagon back in the 60. For some reason us kids thought sitting back there, watching where we had been fade into the horizon was special.

 

[GSchnitzer]

^Didn't NV/PII portray the dome as having what Mandel/Drexler described?

Yes, in our episode "World Enough and Time," as the shuttlecraft Bellerophon leaves the Enterprise with Lt. Cmdr. Sulu and Dr. Chandris, we see that as the shuttlecraft makes a U-turn and heads back over the Engineering hull, that the Talby-like dome thing is indeed manned by someone (in a blue shirt), surrounded by consoles almost all the way around the inner circumference of the dome.

(The apple doesn't fall far from the tree: Doug Drexler does a great deal of work for us.)

 

[Warp14]

The first time I noticed that domed doohickey on the aft of the Enterprise, it was kind of like when I learned about how Scotty/Jimmy Doohan is missing his middle finger. How did I not notice how Scotty blatantly hides his right hand most of the time? How did I miss that big ass flashing light?

Good god, what other minute details in TOS are there that I've managed to miss for the last 40 years...?

 

[Forbin]

Reminds me of the fold away seat in the back of the family Rambler station wagon back in the 60. For some reason us kids thought sitting back there, watching where we had been fade into the horizon was special.

Facing backwards made me carsick.

 

[Classic Fan]

^Didn't NV/PII portray the dome as having what Mandel/Drexler described?

Yes, in our episode "World Enough and Time," as the shuttlecraft Bellerophon leaves the Enterprise with Lt. Cmdr. Sulu and Dr. Chandris, we see that as the shuttlecraft makes a U-turn and heads back over the Engineering hull, that the Talby-like dome thing is indeed manned by someone (in a blue shirt), surrounded by consoles almost all the way around the inner circumference of the dome.

(The apple doesn't fall far from the tree: Doug Drexler does a great deal of work for us.)

That looks so cool.

Yeah, joining the thread and back in the TOS forum for like, months.

Ive aleways assumed it was something along the lines of sensors or visual sensor etc.

Havnt seen those plan drawings in years, i forgot about the chair and look out post.


I still like the aspect of the inner detail on the original model. A lot of thought went into that, especially as it was, at the time, a lo-res tv production and the details wouldnt be seen properly. but thats the way designers and builders work, pride goes a long way.