Why the distinct shape?

[Arpy]

The Enterprise is a distinct saucer and cylinders shape - why?

I used to think the saucer had to do with warp field geometry. That is, in-universe. In the real world, probably just because saucer = spacemen. And that the secondary hull was separate to be detachable, of course, but also due to the space requirements of the deflector array - a part of the ship integral to warp travel, and necessarily just that big in relation to the rest of the ship, for it to reach those speeds. Also, I thought the nacelles were apart (unlike the Saber and Steamrunner Classes) because they were hazardous in some way.

But none of that seems to fit all the different forms of ships we've seen. Alien ships you can discount to a degree because aliens will think of alien ways to do things, but it seems like most of them also don't follow my guesses as the why the Enterprise looks the way it does.

And if it doesn't need to look that way, it's a pretty silly, if intriguing, way to design a ship.

 

[Wingsley]

Perhaps is all goes back to Matt Jefferies' concept and conception of industrial design.

I look at the saucer-and-cigars arrangement (and its derivatives) as being Jefferies characterization of how the Federation could efficiently mass produce and maintain a useful (and possibly upgradeable) design for a warp-speed-capable starship. This concept of industrial design would change for the TMP, TNG, and post-TNG eras, naturally.

 

[ngc7293]

From what I remember from Star Trek the Magazine, artists would throw in several drawings for what ever was wanted until TPTB decided the shape was right. My guess is that several drawings were made of Saucer and the rest of the ship until everyone was satisfied with the way it looked.
I remember the E-D bridge had several different designs before the final decision was made

By the way, I can think of an in-universe reason why all the Fed ships look different. There are so many Aliens working together, there are bound to be different ideas on how Tab A is to fit into Slob B

 

[scotpens]

Matt Jefferies did dozens of sketches for what would become the U.S.S. Enterprise. He probably took the idea of placing the engines on pylons, away from the crew spaces, from his aviation experience.

For a while, he wanted to get away from the cliché of a flying saucer. Some of his designs had a sphere up front.

http://images.wikia.com/memoryalpha...erprise_design_concepts_by_Matt_Jefferies.jpg

But he kept coming back to the saucer because, well, it just looked more graceful and powerful than a big ball.

http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lgeaf7QjX41qae6exo1_400.jpg

Ultimately, the ship was designed more for its visual impact than out of any practical engineering sense.

http://www.calormen.com/Star_Trek/declaration/Jefferies.jpg

 

[Captain Robert April]

The main determining factor was the ability to immediately recognize the shape from a distance, i.e., on a smallish tv screen. A big indicator of how well they did on that score is in that high speed flyby in the opening credits; not only is that blur still recognizable as the Enterprise, it doesn't take a whole lot of digging to figure out it's the three foot model and not the eleven footer. It's a very distinctive shape.

 

[Wingsley]

The final shape that Jefferies arrived at, and that we all now recognize as the original Starship Enterprise, has an additional visual advantage. Placing the ship's various components, habitats and so forth, in distinct hulls that are inter-connected by thin pylons, makes it easier to photograph through the ship to show a striking background or other body (a planet or a ship). This gives the show's producers a visual advantage, in that they can show both the Enterprise and the object of the crew's attention in a single shot.

 

[Bill Morris]

Maybe the nacelles are set on pylons to keep gamma radiation associated with matter-antimatter reactions away from the inhabited spaces and directed mainly outward and where the ship has been rather than where it's going. Plus, there later came a rule about line of sight between the inner warp-field grilles.

 

[scotpens]

. . .Plus, there later came a rule about line of sight between the inner warp-field grilles.

A fan-created bit of Treknology, of course, like the illuminated domes with the spinny thingies being “bussard collectors.” What about single-nacelle or triple-nacelle ships?

 

[Bill Morris]

You can read about Gene Roddenberry's rules of starship design here:

http://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/articles/design.htm

And, besides being nailed down in dialog in two TNG episodes, the Bussard collectors were labled on the MSDs used in various Trek series and movies.

 

[Albertese]

The Roddenberry Rules are not followed in plenty of actual canon ships and were basically only made to discount the FJ tech manual, which previously had GR's blessing. As for Bussard collectors, the E-D structures are essentially confirmed, but such was never the case for the TOS E. Though as they are corresponding structures, they may as well be.

--Alex

 

[backstept]

The final shape that Jefferies arrived at, and that we all now recognize as the original Starship Enterprise, has an additional visual advantage. Placing the ship's various components, habitats and so forth, in distinct hulls that are inter-connected by thin pylons, makes it easier to photograph through the ship to show a striking background or other body (a planet or a ship). This gives the show's producers a visual advantage, in that they can show both the Enterprise and the object of the crew's attention in a single shot.

403

 

[scotpens]

^^ The links aren't working for me either.

 

[Wingsley]

I just tried them, and they work for all but the first one.

I have no idea why it's acting up.

 

[Christopher]

The final shape that Jefferies arrived at, and that we all now recognize as the original Starship Enterprise, has an additional visual advantage. Placing the ship's various components, habitats and so forth, in distinct hulls that are inter-connected by thin pylons, makes it easier to photograph through the ship to show a striking background or other body (a planet or a ship). This gives the show's producers a visual advantage, in that they can show both the Enterprise and the object of the crew's attention in a single shot.

That's an intriguing explanation. I never thought of it that way. But it does help give more interesting angles, not just in terms of showing things "through" the ship, using it as a frame for other objects, but in terms of making the ship itself visually distinctive from different angles, with the various components combining in different ways.

The use of distinct modules connected by thin struts in a 3-dimensional structure was also probably done to suggest a ship designed for weightless space rather than a gravity-bound environment like a planet surface.

 

[Wingsley]

That aft angle is my favorite from TOS. Other starships shown in other series/movies tend to be thicker in the neck, making that angle far less effective.

 

[scotpens]

^^ It’s all part of Matt Jefferies’ calculated “Hornblower effect.”

 

[Christopher]

That's only part of it. The fantail evokes a ship, yes, but to me, the angle of the nacelle pylons evokes a bird's wings raised for takeoff, and the dorsal suggest the neck of a horse rearing its head proudly. It's a richly evocative design.

(Hmm, I guess that basically makes it evocative of Pegasus overall. Never thought to add it up like that before.)

 

[Arpy]

I think of it has a sort of subliminal space man's body. The saucer is the head and, being a flying saucer, very spacey. There's the neck/dorsal, the secondary hull/torso, nacelles/extremities. Different ships have different configurations/poses. The Enterprise has the most humanistic with it's arms raised in flight - or to "swim" through space, if that works better for you. The Reliant is more compact - more a laborer or fighter, with its neck held in and arms to the side.

TOS Enterprise at the same time is a masted sailing ship and a curvy gray steel-hulled WWII battleship, or submarine. It also has hammer-like nacelles, with the ball-peen Bussard Collectors, and the nail-prying curvy parts in the back. If it takes the gods to warp the fabric of spacetime, I can imagine the pylons being arms holding up Hephaestus's hammers.

EDIT: And then there's the private parts! The nipple at the bottom of the saucer, the poopshoot of the rear shuttlebay, the penises of TOS nacelles (especially apparent on the Saladin/Paladin Classes) or even the main deflector array. Though, those could be seen as vaginas from the concave Refit Ent deflectors on. ...I'm sorry. I've gone too far.

 

[Brutal Strudel]

You wanna talk poopchutes? Whenever a K'T'Inga Class battlecruiser or a Galaxy Class starship fires an aft torpedo, I feel like I've wandered into a Teutonic porn theatre.

 

[erifah]

...I'm sorry. I've gone too far.

Yes. yes, you have.

But don't stop NOW.