Everything we know about USS Discovery's interior

[Noah_23]

So I've noticed a slight uptick in discussion about room and set design on Discovery, and specifically where such rooms are located within the ship. So I figured it's time for a more general discussion about the ship interior as a whole, and not limited to specific areas.

I'll begin with the crew quarters. The triangular "rabbits tooth" windows, as I've seen them referred to, are the windows to the quarters. They are located within wedged cut-outs cut into the hull (similar to what is seen on Voyager). I suspect these were a late addition to the ship design, added to accommodate the physical sets which were built. There are eight of these window row cut-outs around the edge of the inner saucer. In most cases, there are two rooms per cut-out, each room taking up half the row of windows. However, one of them contains the mess hall, which spans the full width of the cut-out (second picture) and another contains the guest quarters that Emperor Georgiou is put in, also spanning the full width.

Quarters:

Mess hall:

At this point, I don't know the exterior location of every character's quarters. I have figured out that the quarters that belonged to Tyler in season one are located in the port-aft-8 o' clock window cut-out as seen in the following pictures. I suspect Emperor Georgiou's guest quarters are in the same location, but on the starboard side (based on the star movement seen from her windows). We know Michael and Tilly live in one of these rooms, Stamets and Culber shared one, and Lorca has one as well. The season one conference room i also implied to be in one of these cut-outs. However I have yet to figure out exactly where the rest are located. Hopefully, we will get a nice zoom into one of them to confirm exact locations.

Tyler's Quarters:

To be clear, I'm not implying these are the only quarters on the ship. There are most certainly internal rooms with no windows, not only on this deck, but also the decks below. I'm reasonably certain all the crew quarters on the ship are contained entirely within the inner saucer. There's no evidence for this, but it just makes sense to me. The inner saucer is already close to the size of the TOS Ent saucer, and with the small crew compliment, it would be no trouble fitting the whole crew in there. The outer saucer is likely filled fully with labs and spore tech, while the secondary hull is all labs, vast engineering spaces, and the shuttlebay.

So that's about everything I have on the crew quarters. I have ideas for other room locations on the ship, but I'll save those for if the discussion leads to it. Hopefully this is an interesting topic for those who like deck plans and technical schematics, something Discovery has been lacking save for a few blurry screens in the background! So if anyone else has ideas or conclusions they've come to, I'd love to hear!

 

[Tuskin38]

We know where lorca’s Lab is thanks to the dramatic pull out in episode 3 (or was it 4?)

 

[Noah_23]

We know where lorca’s Lab is thanks to the dramatic pull out in episode 3 (or was it 4?)

Yup, bottom of the secondary hull box on the starboard side. Weirdly, that's the only time that window has been shown on the ship. It's missing every other time. I can only assume they added it for that one scene when they realized there was nowhere on the ship for that window to exist, and then just never kept it on the model afterward.

 

[Tuskin38]

Side note in the tooth windows, they added them to the Mirror universe Shenzhou model because of the sets as well.

We never saw any quarters on the Prime shenzhou, so in the pilot it doesn’t have them

 

[F. King Daniel]

I really want to know how and where the Discovery Turbolift Funhouse™ fits in.

Along with the turbolift tracks were worker bees flying around. We know there are corridors along the bottom of this area ("Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's starship")

I've not been this fascinated with figuring out how things fit inside since the Kelvin timeline ships.

 

[thribs]

Seems to apply “Time Lord science” in some areas.

 

[Midquest]

This is great! So, the crew quarters must be slightly elevated above the plane of the outer saucer, or we'd see the ship rather than a starfield through the windows of a number of crew quarters, no? I'm looking at screenshots, but it's a little hard to judge the flatness or curve of the saucers.

 

[DaveyNY]

This is great! So, the crew quarters must be slightly elevated above the plane of the outer saucer, or we'd see the ship rather than a starfield through the windows of a number of crew quarters, no? I'm looking at screenshots, but it's a little hard to judge the flatness or curve of the saucers.

Most of them seem to be slightly angled back at the top to provide a more upward facing view?

 

[Timo]

The exact location of the roller coaster may elude us, but the rationale for its existence is easy to whip up.

The ship was, and to a degree probably still is, an explicitly exceptional collection of scientific experiments. Whatever she was built for, it wasn't the Spore Drive - the mush-room is indicative enough, featuring odd kinks in the walls, which themselves show zigzagging "floor lines" and window rows, as if somebody tore out major chunks of the interior to make room for the mushrooms. It would be simple enough to assume such tearing down and constructing is constantly going on inside the vessel, and indeed the vessel was either built or then chosen for this very capacity.

The mushroomroom is gone now, as evidenced by the "reopening" of a doorway to a different facility in that direction. A smaller spore conservatory may exist, or then Stamets has gone Straal and gets his spores canned. But some rearranging is verified; more might be in progress elsewhere.

My pet theory remains that, just like so many clever fans deduced decades in advance, the triangle-hulled ship is a shuttlecarrier, chosen as the "science gambit" ship for her ample free interior spaces. In this, she echoes those aircraft carriers that the USN adopted as command ships or repair ships for the very same reason. Much of the secondary hull is empty, devoid even of turboshafts, and these lightweight rails are used instead, being twisted and turned like Hogwarts staircases whenever a new facility needs to be plugged in. Which is what the workbees are busily doing there.

What to make of Engineering? When the camera pulls back and up in "Context", it emerges from the port side of the connecting neck. The area highlighted in yellow in the Glenn MSD is located around there, too, and is asymmetric with a layout that might be the exact copy of the supposed portside-engineering-plus-starboard-mushroomroomroom (even though Straal chose canned spores). Fairly far forward, leaving most of the aft secondary hull free for carrying of shuttles, fightercraft or weird experiments...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Noah_23]

This is great! So, the crew quarters must be slightly elevated above the plane of the outer saucer, or we'd see the ship rather than a starfield through the windows of a number of crew quarters, no? I'm looking at screenshots, but it's a little hard to judge the flatness or curve of the saucers.

Thanks! Yeah, the ones we see on the show are high enough up that you wouldn't see any other parts of the ship unless you went right up to the window and really craned your neck. There are the same style of windows on the decks that face between the rings. I suspect these are also quarters, but lower ranking ones as they would have a view of the outer saucer instead of outer space. Now why Michael and Tilly, two of the lowest ranking people on the ship (in season one at least) would be given one of the higher up quarters with an open view I have no idea haha.

 

[Timo]

Burnham is getting special treatment from Day One because she's Lorca's special other. Tilly... might have been somebody Lorca wanted to keep close, because you know what they say about your enemies, and out of all the Decaf Universe people, her True Universe alter ego must have been the most unnerving.

Transporter rooms... Have we had dialogue so far with that old classic "The transporter room" in evidence? The ship ought to have space for dozens, but we don't have a pressing reason to believe in the existence of more than one so far, do we?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[AplerEngima]

In reguards of Discovery herself, you have to see her as a refit of the original Crossfield class starship line, intentionally brought back into service to function as test bed ships of newer technologies that due to onthreat of war (that ended up happening), they needed to test on the fly. this likely included a complete refit of the saucer to include the spore drive spinning function, as well as other core areas completely redone for said system.
Certain rooms however are just impossible, like the turbo fun house. That exceeds the max dimentions of several points of the ship, it literally cannot fit within the hull. This room was more or less design to be "for effect" rather than an actual functional part of the ship.
The best way in ship design is to allocate all space accordingly, only having corridors, lifts, service corridors, etc.. where absolutely necessary, any and all wasted space in a ship be highly concerning to ship functionality. Expansion space or space in expansion shouldn't be in a ship currently in service as it would need as much as as possible to ensure the ship has space and requirements for all profiles it may encounter.
Starship construction usually functions of the 2 Hulls having set profiles, Saucer the more residential and living area of the ship, and stardrive being the more technical and functional side of the ship. However, the saucer would require its own systems, and stardrive may include some quarters, with only a handful of ships actually have both units of the ship function as independent vessels.

Transporter rooms on the discovery, she wouldn't have many, max of maybe 8-10. we shall see. there would also be various untilities such as heads, storage, EMG lockers and Damage control storage on every point, as well as medical resources on hand thoughout the whole ship. This is to ensure that if access to sick bay is restricted, medical services can be provided, and all crew would have very basic training in medical treatment.

Windows on a starship are... headaches they usually don't line up or just done work for anything. so do take window placements on these ships (that the designers did not design the interior layout for in full detailed structure and ensuring the structure was to engineering intregity) with a pinch of salt.

 

[drt]

Burnham is getting special treatment from Day One because she's Lorca's special other. Tilly... might have been somebody Lorca wanted to keep close, because you know what they say about your enemies, and out of all the Decaf Universe people, her True Universe alter ego must have been the most unnerving.

Lorca needed Tilly for his planned ruse since Killy was the captain of ISS Discovery. (Although, I can’t remember if in “Context” she says Lorca requested her or not...)

 

[Noah_23]

Burnham is getting special treatment from Day One because she's Lorca's special other. Tilly... might have been somebody Lorca wanted to keep close, because you know what they say about your enemies, and out of all the Decaf Universe people, her True Universe alter ego must have been the most unnerving.

Transporter rooms... Have we had dialogue so far with that old classic "The transporter room" in evidence? The ship ought to have space for dozens, but we don't have a pressing reason to believe in the existence of more than one so far, do we?

Timo Saloniemi

That's a great point about Michael, and certainly answers my question about her and Tilly's room placement. And I suppose there isn't evidence to suggest there's more than one transporter, other than the common sense that there should be more than one on a ship (especially a state of the art science ship) of this size. I'd guess a few are spread throughout both saucers, and a few more down in the secondary hull. "Brother" also implies one is in the lowest deck of the neck too.

 

[Timo]

Lorca needed Tilly for his planned ruse since Killy was the captain of ISS Discovery.

D'oh! The clever writers, they had it all figured out after all...

I'd guess a few are spread throughout both saucers, and a few more down in the secondary hull. "Brother" also implies one is in the lowest deck of the neck too.

This is sort of what I was wondering about - is there a pressing reason to accept that the room we usually see is in the saucer?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Tuskin38]

According to BTS info the mess hall is in a different deck this season to explain the set changes.

Now whether that will be mentioned in dialogue, who knows.

 

[Noah_23]

D'oh! The clever writers, they had it all figured out after all...



This is sort of what I was wondering about - is there a pressing reason to accept that the room we usually see is in the saucer?

Timo Saloniemi

Other than the fact the physical filming set is built on a curved corridor, no. I think if we don't directly see them walk down a curved corridor to enter the transporter, we can pretend it's anywhere in the ship that makes sense. And even then, we don't know the layout of the secondary hull, so there very well could be curved corridors. But with it's shape, I find this unlikely. This is also assuming we take the shape of the set as canon. With this kind of thing, we always have to remember that the sets don't usually equal what the deck shape would really be. If that makes any sense, hopefully it does

 

[Noah_23]

According to BTS info the mess hall is in a different deck this season to explain the set changes.

Now whether that will be mentioned in dialogue, who knows.

Yeah I heard that too...very interesting. We haven't seen the Discovery mess hall proper yet this season, except for a set redress for the Hiawatha, and I didn't notice any changes. I sincerely hope if the new version of the mess hall set still has the rabbit tooth windows, they remember to show the outer saucer out of them to signify we're on a lower deck than before. If all we see from them is open space, that wouldn't make sense as the only place where those windows would show unobstructed space is on the same deck as the previous mess hall.

 

[Tuskin38]

Yeah I heard that too...very interesting. We haven't seen the Discovery mess hall proper yet this season, except for a set redress for the Hiawatha, and I didn't notice any changes. I sincerely hope if the new version of the mess hall set still has the rabbit tooth windows, they remember to show the outer saucer out of them to signify we're on a lower deck than before. If all we see from them is open space, that wouldn't make sense as the only place where those windows would show unobstructed space is on the same deck as the previous mess hall.

Depending on when Tilly's Short Trek was shot, that might be the new set.

The set changes were done so the Quarters and Mess Hall were no longer the same set.

 

[Noah_23]

Depending on when Tilly's Short Trek was shot, that might be the new set.

The set changes were done so the Quarters and Mess Hall were no longer the same set.

Very true. I didn't notice anything different about the set that would require it to be on a new deck though. Not even sure why the set builders felt the need to give us that explanation either. Both the bridge and engineering have been changed in a significant way, but we don't assume they're also now on different decks lol. I figure any set changes are just a retcon and we pretend it was always that way.