Proof that TOS Enterprise could undergo saucer separation/reconnection too!
- Thread starter Skipper
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I will find my way out...
Great video about the restoration by the way
That reminds me, I need to buy a new frisbee and gigantic doggie to fetch it with.
Meanwhile, here's a Junkball video discussing the Enterprise's neck:
Gotta wonder how the neck handles the pressures of warp travel.
Yeah. In "The Apple", which would be worse than "The Alternative Factor" except there's more eye candy trundling around in cheap bath towels to distract audiences with, can't blame them...
Rather well, it seems!
From what I've read, it seems to have been a bit of a visual homage to the "tall ships" from the Age of Exploration, with their slender masts and so forth.
It also communicates to the audience that Starfleet science must be way beyond ours if they can fabricate structures that look fragile whilst maintaining full structural integrity. Unfortunately this subtlety was lost on later designs which had increasingly fatter necks and pylons to accommodate the perceptions of what Doug Drexler calls our "monkey brains"
Nah. "The Apple" is at least coherent even if it's silly. "The Alternative Factor" makes no sense at all.
I never noticed the bath towels before...
Interesting about the neck. What do the various blueprints indicate is located there?
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Guest
In the FASA plans for STTRPG it is just equipment/engineering bays fore and aft a turbolift shaft and emergency stairs. All of which I agree with. But then the largest part are crew lounges (which I dont!).
In my mind such a thin structure should be purely structural and interhull services. But then why the windows??
In my mind such a thin structure should be purely structural and interhull services. But then why the windows??
Combining random dialogue references with the modern understanding of the ship having twenty-odd decks and a length in the thousand feet ballpark, we discover that Kirk himself lived in the neck in the early eps such as "Mudd's Women" (Deck 12)...
Most other decks could be in the saucer or the cigar instead (say, Deck 11 for the antimatter pods in "Errand of Mercy", the saucer bottom appropriately being where the Klingon blasts are shown connecting). A lone luxury cabin with a view could well fit in the neck, though. Not that we would see a view with Mudd...
Timo Saloniemi
Most other decks could be in the saucer or the cigar instead (say, Deck 11 for the antimatter pods in "Errand of Mercy", the saucer bottom appropriately being where the Klingon blasts are shown connecting). A lone luxury cabin with a view could well fit in the neck, though. Not that we would see a view with Mudd...
Timo Saloniemi
The "windows" in the neck may be nothing more than ports for an elaborate planetary sensor array. After all, the side of the neck always faces the planet they are orbiting, what better place to mount it?
If this is the case then the neck is probably considered a "deck" by itself or maybe not included in the deck count at all (if it is just girders and supporting infrastructure). This would place Kirk's Deck 12 cabin at the top of the secondary hull instead (and allow room for the corridors which we observed in MW and EW)
We see shuttered windows in "Mark of Gideon", and perhaps in "Conscience of the King", and zero unshuttered windows from the inside in the rest of TOS. Perhaps the whole exterior is full of windows, most of which are shuttered most of the time, and most of which have utility spaces such as that from "Mark of Gideon" behind them, rather than "more logical" cabins or whatnot - sort of "just in case", to allow for reshuffling of interiors, as happens explicitly in DSC?
In "Mudd's Women", there are no corridor scenes adjoining the action that supposedly involves Deck 12 - that is, the bit where Spock and the guests arrive in a turbolift and immediately move onto Kirk's apparent quarters. The corridor we see is next to the transporters on an unknown deck instead, preceding the turbolift ride. The Mudd action then moves into a briefing room on another (the same?) unknown deck.
Beyond this, we can argue what lies on Deck 12. Did Spock take his guests directly to Kirk, or did they make a pit stop at Deck 12 for a much-needed frisking of the arrivals by the Security detachment? Or perhaps Spock kept the annoying quartet on hold in the elevator while checking out the Deck 12 power relays that Mudd had wrecked by his actions?
"Enemy Within" is a slightly different beast: we see a door sign saying "3C 46" to mark the very deck where the poor Fisher utters "Deck 12, Section-". Both the 3 and the C could be taken to place the action in the superstructure of the saucer, a more logical place for the Captain and his secretary to reside in. My preference there is for the 3, a number shared by another top officer McCoy whose letter is F (as such acceptable for a man whose action stations probably are on the sixth deck or thereabouts anyway, but still).
Perhaps Fisher was duty-bound to specify that he's the one from Deck 12, Section 31, rather than the other Fisher from Deck 15, Section 47? Uhura should have his location down pat anyway, without verbal clarification!
Regardless, the photo on top showcases the neck is not utterly impractically slim: there could be a corridor running along one side to provide access to useful rooms on the other (much like NCC-1031 has corridors flush with the neck surface). Or then two rooms per deck, ahead and aft of a central turboshaft. (Indeed we see there the dark, round hole of the turboshaft right atop the part of the neck where there's a vertical streak of windowless hull!
)
Timo Saloniemi
In "Mudd's Women", there are no corridor scenes adjoining the action that supposedly involves Deck 12 - that is, the bit where Spock and the guests arrive in a turbolift and immediately move onto Kirk's apparent quarters. The corridor we see is next to the transporters on an unknown deck instead, preceding the turbolift ride. The Mudd action then moves into a briefing room on another (the same?) unknown deck.
Beyond this, we can argue what lies on Deck 12. Did Spock take his guests directly to Kirk, or did they make a pit stop at Deck 12 for a much-needed frisking of the arrivals by the Security detachment? Or perhaps Spock kept the annoying quartet on hold in the elevator while checking out the Deck 12 power relays that Mudd had wrecked by his actions?
"Enemy Within" is a slightly different beast: we see a door sign saying "3C 46" to mark the very deck where the poor Fisher utters "Deck 12, Section-". Both the 3 and the C could be taken to place the action in the superstructure of the saucer, a more logical place for the Captain and his secretary to reside in. My preference there is for the 3, a number shared by another top officer McCoy whose letter is F (as such acceptable for a man whose action stations probably are on the sixth deck or thereabouts anyway, but still).
Perhaps Fisher was duty-bound to specify that he's the one from Deck 12, Section 31, rather than the other Fisher from Deck 15, Section 47? Uhura should have his location down pat anyway, without verbal clarification!
Regardless, the photo on top showcases the neck is not utterly impractically slim: there could be a corridor running along one side to provide access to useful rooms on the other (much like NCC-1031 has corridors flush with the neck surface). Or then two rooms per deck, ahead and aft of a central turboshaft. (Indeed we see there the dark, round hole of the turboshaft right atop the part of the neck where there's a vertical streak of windowless hull!
)Timo Saloniemi
Spock leaving them in the turbolift is not borne out by the footage though - in fact he is the last to leave once they arrive at "Deck 12". Your theory about them having a frisking by security (even if it was in direct contravention to the captain's explicit orders to bring them straight to his cabin) probably has more mileage here.
That depends on how much weight we assign to those door numbers - heck, even Kirk's chair sported such a sign in WNMHGB!
http://tos.trekcore.com/hd/albums/1x03hd/wherenomanhasgonebeforehd873.jpg
It would be the one and only instance of such a duty though and it isn't supported anywhere else; Mr Scott in the same episode specifies to the captain where he is (in the lower level of the engineering deck) and Kirk, struggling for his life in Journey To Babel takes time to tell the Bridge that he is on "Deck 5, near his quarters". The natural conclusion is that it is standard practise for callers to verbalise their locations.
The neck has barely 16' wide at best (assuming no girders). A short section of the standard 8' corridor would fit but it's hardly a practical usage of the available real estate. A non-wedge shaped version of the cabin set might fit facing forward but it would be much more cramped than the normal type, hardly fitting for a captain. And the full width corridor seen outside Kirk's cabin door would run port-starboard on the neck, leaving little room for a destination except into outer space!
I must admit I've not seen that (assuming the vertical shaft is where I think you think it is):(Indeed we see there the dark, round hole of the turboshaft right atop the part of the neck where there's a vertical streak of windowless hull!
Dare we venture into how Deck 14 would fit into the neck? That's a whole lot of explicit corridor in there!
I wish the producers had done two things differently:
- Change the Jefferies drawings to scale the ship up about 10-15 percent, allowing more room inside to put the stuff they'd need.
- Make sure the dialogue reflected a proper study of the drawings, especially regarding what deck a given set should be on, and be consistent about it.
Way cool, and one of those "never noticed before" things. Is this perhaps a "return address" in case of sudden incapacitation?
Granted that, despite the seeming redundancy; this is the military, after all.
It's just that I feel we need an excuse to get rid of the Deck 12 thing no matter what. The nerve center of the ship being on the top deck is a Trek must; why would the skipper spend his nights (and his apparent office hours, such as in this very case) far away from that? Naval precedent, albeit due to a dozen factors probably not applicable here, would have the officers close to the bridge-equivalent, and Trek reality bows to naval precedent for a dozen reasons both in- and out-universe.
Beyond this, this is tech forum stuff, but I gather the mods will deal with me soon enough. Sorree!
I wouldn't postulate a standard corridor, given that the material doesn't call for one. I just suggest that asymmetry would be more likely here than centerline symmetry, also taking the opportunity to point out the modern trend of explicit corridors-with-outside-view.
Also remember that the port side "in reality" has no portholes (except in the Mirror Universe)! Although of course we can postulate it does, in any pattern we desire.
That's just it, though: we don't see such a corridor outside the room in which Kirk first interviews Mudd. Instead, the walk from the turbolift to the cabin involves a unique straight short stretch of corridor shot from behind a side grille. All we ever observe of the actual, studio-reality transverse corridor through the doorway is a bit of wall partially blocked by a security goon, happily enough.
Also fortunately, the room does not yet have the full set of paraphernalia we associate with Kirk's living quarters: the doodads we see might be what Kirk takes with him when moving to his regular quarters, in a number of scenarios, or then generic stuff found on many shelves.
Kirk does specify the room as his cabin, precluding the idea of multiple ones of that description at the time. So a Deck 12 cabin would need to be a temporary but total relocation in any scenario trying to deal with the overall "Deck 12 is a poor fit" thing.
I must admit I've not seen that (assuming the vertical shaft is where I think you think it is):
Yup, either ahead of or aft of that vertical stack of portholes. In the saucer separation pic, you can see a dark round hole aft of the stack, either for a mounting rod or for a wire trunk of some sort. Not an in-universe feature, of course - unless we decide it is!
The vertical porthole stack would by that conjecture probably be a stairwell, then... The neck needs to be all about connections, first and foremost, even if there's something else there as well.
I'd put anything below Deck 13 firmly in the secondary hull, seeing/hearing how Deck 13 is the refit's torpedo henhouse. Counting the neck porthole rows, the lowermost would be Kirk's Deck 12, making the uppermost Deck 8 and the saucer bottom thus Deck 7, much as in the assorted semi-visible cutaways since Probert and SJ.
Deck 13 in TOS would then be the bottom neck deck lacking any portholes, while the refit would put the torpedo box right there. Also, this and Deck 12 would be the only ones that exist exclusively in the neck, rather than also being part of the two hulls...
Timo Saloniemi
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To a certain degree they were, just in relation to a different set of data points. Remember that in the earliest drafts of the Writers' Guide the saucer was described as being 20 decks tall: This would put Deck 12 and even Deck 14 firmly in the saucer - which also explains the crewman's odd remark to Van Gelder (Dagger Of The Mind) that because he was from Engineering, he was in the wrong part of the ship. The comment makes little sense if Deck 14 is in the engineering hull (or at least requires more justification) but fits perfectly a ship that keeps the engineers firmly locked away in the secondary hull and leaves the saucer to the "proper" officers
Once the size and layout of the ship was more firmly nailed down, scripts would routinely have locations in the saucer being on decks 4, 5 & 6.
Glad I can still surprise you with new nuggets in the ST universeWay cool, and one of those "never noticed before" things. Is this perhaps a "return address" in case of sudden incapacitation?
I don't think I explained myself properly - I'm only talking about the small section of corridor that we see through the door when Mudd's women enter and leave - the full 8' width of the standard corridor is visible, making a fore-aft direction impossible in the neck.
Using the refit as a point of comparison can be problematic, not least because its neck is shorter than the original and so even if Deck 14 on the refit is just squeezed into the top part of the engineering hull, that corresponding location in TOS will be in the base of the neck (as per Franz Joseph's and Matt Jefferies' cutaways).
Going with the neck being a single, amorphous structural support section on the hand would force Decks 12 and 14 into the secondary hull, where there is plenty of room for the small array of corridors seen in EW and DOTM.
I agree, that explicit Deck 12 statement sticks out like a sore thumb!
I'd like to propose another solution though - it may be that in early Season One the horizontal turbolift system was damaged (or even not present) in places and the Mudd posse had to physically leave one lift and board another in order to reach Kirk's cabin. This transfer point is Deck 12.
There's a kind of precedent for this in WNMHGB, which also suggests a lack of fully connecting turbolifts: Spock and Kirk hurry out of the Transporter Room yet take such a long time to reach a lift that Mitchell has enough time to overhear the conversation on comms, decide to cut his break short to go to the Bridge, stroll down the corridor making grasping motions at passing women and still catch the same ride as Kirk to their destination. Given how ubiquitous turbolift stops are around the ship, this only makes sense if Kirk was delayed in some manner (such as catching a separate lift up from the secondary hull).
Having Rand's cabin on Deck 12 is less egregious than the captain being down in the secondary hull though. The notion of Deck 12 as a secondary hull transfer point also fits with the onscreen footage - EvilKirk is seen wandering the hallways with his bottle of booze and almost stumbles upon Rand's cabin by accident, after all (suggesting it's not the only room there).
Good point, even if it still detracts from the idea that this would be a seagoing ship where the boss lives in the superstructure.
He is wearing the uniform of the guy who beamed him aboard. So did he already wander a great distance from the transporter room where that garb in valid?
This would then be another case of an oddly interrupted or piecemeal journey of great length, since we later learn van Gelder is quite capable of using a turbolift!
The "modern" interpretation probably would be that the transporters of both "Dagger" and "Women" are on Deck 14, and one can take a turbolift from there to the saucer (which Spock does at once and van Gelder only after changing clothes), but a pit stop on Deck 12 may be necessary even if the skipper's orders are to proceed to Deck 5 or 3 or whatever ASAP.
(Or then Spock reports that yes, he is already passing Deck 12, so that Kirk doesn't get too anxious!)
What I rather postulate here is that what we see is not a corridor at all, but an anteroom or side branch. That is, the door of Kirk's cabin faces aft, them there's this anteroom, and through its far wall the corridorlet with the grille extends even further aft to the turbolift. Or then the cabin faces aft and its door forward, for a better placement of the lift.
That is, I am pretending the cabin is not as wide as its set is, and so can fit in there transversely. This being just barely possible because, with so many people in there, the crowd obscures the bed half of the cabin and "allows it to be a foot deep".
The far superior thing still would be to relocate the cabin, of course.
We can revert to counting the window rows, then, which still puts Deck 14 in the top deck of the secondary hull if the two wide decks of the saucer are 6 and 7 as commonly assumed...
...But deciding that at least the lowermost, windowless stretch is something other han a "standard deck" of course gives more flexibility.
Transfer points are an odd but also confirmed part of the system - every trip involves a walk around a corner and many involve two (nice spotting there!). It may well be that the shafts are a compromise between giving the lifts access and stopping the shafts from completely blocking walking access, and the seasoned user picks his turbolines (marked with "Turbolift 2" or "7", say) wisely...
Well, the Evil Captain got his booze from the Captain's cabin, supposedly. And his wanderings would arouse the least suspicion in the immediate vicinity of that cabin.
Fisher being there is the anomaly - if coveralls are suspicious on Deck 14, then surely all the more so on Deck 12 (let alone 3 or 5 if Rand really lives next to her boss). But perhaps Fisher was there on official business, to be debriefed about the big incident?
(He also got attacked by Evil Jim, to his great shock, possibly even already receiving a blow or three between the shot of the doors closing and that if him reaching the comm panel. Perhaps he lost his bearings? Or was saying "Deck threeh-h-hlhf, section-" instead of "Deck twelve, section-"?
)Timo Saloniemi
Since Van Gelder can use (or later figures out) the turbolift, the Transporter Room could in fact be below Deck 14. Perhaps he only went as far as boarding one and said "up" (so it deposited him on at the top of the next vertical shaft) or he might have merely climbed a ladder (there's usually one round the corner of the Transporter Room).
But as for the goldshirt that spots Van Gelder, I just see him as a particularly fastidious pencil pusher (perhaps even the notorious "personnel director") who really had a thing for staff keeping within their assigned department areas.
Not as tidy reason as Deck 14 being on the saucer unfortunately, but given Fisher's presence in EW it makes just as much sense to blame the anomaly on human ego.
The only person Spock is talking to at that moment is Mudd and that is to tell him to shut up so that the Vulcan can instruct the turbolift of their destination!
That is something I never considered even possible until this week!
However, I still think the "Deck 12" from MW is far easier to handwave away (be that via a security station or a transfer corridor) than the one in EW, which has a character explicitly stating where he is on a large and well populated corridor.
Actually, we know exactly where he got it from - McCoy! He barged in there while Fisher was being treated and demanded Saurian Brandy, remember? Because of that, I would rather that Rand's cabin be on the same Deck as Sickbay TBH (which would still be possible on a 20 deck saucer) but that's not the way the series shaped out.
It might not be clear from a transcript but the actor delivers the line very clearly and succinctly - I can't interpret it any way other than Fisher is giving his shipboard location: "Deck 12, section-" {WHACK!!!}(He also got attacked by Evil Jim, to his great shock, possibly even already receiving a blow or three between the shot of the doors closing and that if him reaching the comm panel. Perhaps he lost his bearings? Or was saying "Deck threeh-h-hlhf, section-" instead of "Deck twelve, section-"?
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