... and forgot the arboretum.
"Why the Enterprise-D Was Badly Designed"
- Thread starter Danja
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i don't recall FOM offhand, but I'd imagine with the others it was meant to be the same room, just with the furniture moved. If they'd wanted us to believe it was a different set altogether they'd have to do some significant redressing and different camera angles.
... and forgot the arboretum.
There's a lot missing from Sternbach's original blueprints. The arboretum is the most famous thing of course, but other things notable by their absence include: all transporters in the stardrive section; the secondary hull's deck nine; and the nacelle tubes/control rooms. I was also not wild about things like the "fake computer core". Sternbach's worked on an updated set with corrections but nobody seems to be interested in publishing it.
That's good to know! I'll need to fix that in the story.
Also, the official blueprints have no brigs IIRC. There are legal issues regarding the updated blueprints, not to mention that they were never completed. I've seen some of it (unrelated with my current work at the Roddenberry Archive, otherwise I wouldn't be talking about it) and it's a great improvement over the old ones, several areas were heavily reworked. Unfortunately even if they were ever released, they wouldn't be official.
As for why the Ed Whitefire blueprints got canceled, it was due to unbelievably bad timing. FASA was going to be the publisher, and between the time when he finished the blueprints and they were supposed to be printed, FASA's license for Star Trek expired, without them renewing it. Pocket Books approached Sternbach to create his blueprints afterwards, and as they say, the rest is history.
You can still buy the Ed Whitefire plans, they are actual rolled up blueprints (I have the set).
Of course they cannot be sold as such, you are buying a mailing tube with special "packing material"
Of course they cannot be sold as such, you are buying a mailing tube with special "packing material"
It's clearly the same set, but without the bar. We do see Riker tearing down the set at the end, but I find it very hard to believe they stop serving food and drinks for a play in Ten Forward.
Ten Forward was just a room behind a small cluster of windows on the rim. The saucer's rim has identical window clusters covering it, you could have dozens of rooms identical to Ten Forward.
I have no problem with one being set up as a crew lounge/bar, another as an art studio, yet another as a theater. If a scene is being held on the redressed set of Ten Forward, I just consider it to be in one of the other rim rooms...
I have no problem with one being set up as a crew lounge/bar, another as an art studio, yet another as a theater. If a scene is being held on the redressed set of Ten Forward, I just consider it to be in one of the other rim rooms...
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I prefer to think of it that way too, even if there are some issues matching up the windows.
After all, the alternative is that you have this facility which is "the centre of the ship's social activity" whilst simultaneously being available to anyone on the crew who fancies putting on a concert, hosting an art class, rehearsing a play for several weeks etc. On a ship the size of the Ent-D, there really ought to be an abundance of such rooms across the vessel.
If some room looks a lot like Ten Forward and it has identical windows could it be possible the exterior space is just a hologram?
Those windows could be display screens. Those other rooms don't even have to be on the outside of the ship.
When I was a kid and first heard the term "holodeck" I thought it was literally an entire deck of the ship that had this holographic capability. The Enterprise-D was certainly big enough to have the space for that, and it would get around the issue of them never walking into the holodeck walls and having environments that seemed to go on forever. (I know about the "treadmill forcefields" and all the other "tricks of perspective" etc per the TNG Tech Manual now of course, this is back when I was about 8 years old.)
IIRC Voyager had a holographic bar/pool hall they went to from time to time and DS9 had a holographic retro night club whose featured performer offered sage advice...
VOY tended to change its featured holodeck locale every 1-2 seasons or so. I believe the bar/pool hall was the first, but they later had a Tiki bar.
DS9 added Vic Fontaine (YMMV) in season six and didn't really have a holo-hangout prior to that point.
THAT'S exactly how I describe 1701-E and every ship design after Intrepid Class.
I was recently chatting with Ed Whitefire about his blueprints, and there were things I noticed that many might not have spotted.
-Along the neck of the Galaxy-class at the aft (above the central impulse engine) There was supposed to be a multi-storey bar with a waterfall/fountain that rose 3-4 decks high.
-He deliberately designed the Tursiops (Dolphin/Cetacean) tanks to wrap around the Cargo Bays 9 and 10 to provide incidental radiation shielding for these cargo bays.
-The Grotto was supposed to be unique to every Galaxy-class starship. It could range from more of a promenade/mall, or other environments. According to Ed:
Also, he confirmed that the Tactical areas below the Battle Bridge, and towards the front of the Bridge Module were the equivalent of the CICs in modern warships.
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