Popular Mechanics article

[sunnyside]

I'm unsure of site policies with regard to scanned copywritten "exclusive" material, so I'm not linking anything, but you all know how to use search engines if you choose.

Anyway in the July issue I'm holding they've got cutaways of the Enterprise, the USS Franklin, and the Krall Swarm ships.

As an aside they also mention that the movie will be coming out in a relatively new projection method called "Barco Escape" which has extra angled screens on either side of the center one to create a panoramic "wraparound" experience. Apparently Beyond was shot extra wide, maybe just to give the editors more to work with, but it makes it very compatible with the Escape. Our British friends could head across the chunnel to Belgium for that.

Anyway,regarding the cut aways:

It seems they're settling into the "large" size of the Enterprise, you can see why in terms of them having wanted to use the NIF as the warp core. You just need the space for that (well and the engineering and shuttlebay scenes ). There are at least fourteen decks in the saucer, and it seems like they may have an answer to the issue of doubling the height of the ship without adding twice as many rows of windows by adding decks that are largely composed of "special instruments" without walkable hallways, presumably just with Jeffires tubes for access. If they're sensors, it would make sense that they'd just want a cowling over them instead of a window. The walkable decks then end up with much larger windows, but that seems to fit the "set brightness to lens flair!" theme of the design.

They've also added Sustainable food stores. I guess there's bound to be extra space if you want to maintain the old Trek saucer to engineering hull ratio while accommodating that big warp core ( for warp field/shield dynamics?) .

[Black Jesus]

I find it interesting that the USS Franklin is stated to be an early prototype and the first Warp 4 ship, yet it has the nacelles of the alt. reality Enterprise. You can see some NX-class influence, but I'm also seeing a bit of the reboot Constitution mixed in, which "shouldn't be."

[IanKennedy]

Link to anything you want to. The copyright issue lies with the offending site, if indeed they are offending. You linking to it isn't a problem so long as you don't put their text here. Discussion of the text on their site isn't an issue, again, so long as you copy significant proportions of the text. Quoting small relevant sections is allowed if it's for the purpose of discussion.

[sunnyside]

Hey, it turns out that popular mechanics posted the image on their site

http://www.popularmechanics.com/culture ... e-cutaway/

(Scroll down a bit).

I find it interesting that the USS Franklin is stated to be an early prototype and the first Warp 4 ship, yet it has the nacelles of the alt. reality Enterprise. You can see some NX-class influence, but I'm also seeing a bit of the reboot Constitution mixed in, which "shouldn't be."

I'll admit it does look like they crossed an NX with some design elements from their Armstrong class (notably the wedge taken out of the back of the saucer).

You know, it would probably make it easier on them and easier to take for everyone involved if the Abramsverse genuinely represented a different dimension than the prime, rather more like the mirror universe, such that it would have differences predating and beyond the scope of what Nero caused.


Also on the note of the cutaways, they've abandoned the concept of Bussard collectors in favor of frontal field nodes. Although to be fair, I rather suspect the original TOS designers weren't thinking that was a Bussard collector at the front of the nacelle when they designed it, especially with the spinning and all that. I've occasionally seen TOS schematics that label them things like "field impellers." Of course by TNG there seems to be huge support for those being Bussard collectors, but the Galaxy class nacelle fronts look rather more like slits meant to collect stuff.

[Teaos]

What's with the tube in the middle? Is it supposed to be a turbo lift? If so its huge, bigger than the bridge.

[Captain Seafort]

I assume it's that huge central atrium we saw in STID.

[Graham Kennedy]

Because if there's one thing you want on a Starship, it's giant wide open spaces that aren't used for anything. With the special added bonus that crew members can fall down them and die.

[Mikey]

Because if there's one thing you want on a Starship, it's giant wide open spaces that aren't used for anything. With the special added bonus that crew members can fall down them and die.

Saves the hassle of dressing them in red and assigning them to a landing party.

*EDIT* In all honesty, it appears that a) the label pointer referring to "turbolift" is an area just fore of that huge hollow cylinder; and b) a crewman couldn't fall all that far, as that cylinder is intersected by decks. Here's my question, though: what is that weird ridge on the dorsal surface running abaft from the dome to the rear of the saucer? Can't really have a crewman pay the devil or haul him over the keel in space...

[Graham Kennedy]

The one with the blue glowing thing under it?

I think it's inspired by the whatever it was the Enterprise had there :

[Mikey]

I guess I'm still used to the "old school" TOS. I guess that could be a radiator or heat sink, or something.

[sunnyside]

What's with the tube in the middle? Is it supposed to be a turbo lift? If so its huge, bigger than the bridge.

Here's my theory on that. So a seemingly increasingly common feature on cruise ships is what at least some of them call a centrum. I suppose that term comes from "central atrium" as Seafort called it. You actually might know them better than the rest of us.

Anyway, I'm guessing that someone involved in the writing/production was on a cruise ship staring up and down the centrum, maybe watching some acrobatic show there or something, and thought this was an awe inspiring thing to put on a ship, and boy could you have an interesting action scene in one of these, and thus was the feature added.

I'm not sure about the in world practical applictions. I suppose a psychologist might have claimed it would make the ship less claustrophobic, and might help people's mental state, especially with the big observation domes on the top and bottom.

I guess it might also serve some practical purpose if you've lost power and want to see what's out there. Presumably if you lost power and were out in space it would become a zero g environment and you'd be able to rapidly move between decks. And maybe the crossing paths and domes can swing out of the way to allow for moving large objects in and out of the internal spaces of the saucer section. But all that feels like a stretch.

[Graham Kennedy]

I suspect the big central atrium had something to do with Abrams' love of Star Wars. They seem to like peppering their sets with enormous shafts for characters to fall down/be thrown down. I think JJ probably just decided he wanted some of that in the Enterprise.

[sunnyside]

The one with the blue glowing thing under it?

I think it's inspired by the whatever it was the Enterprise had there :

I can't think of anything indicating what that thing was. However what it reminds me of is something I know as a "power bulge" which you see on the hood of some cars.



So I'm wondering if it isn't a power bulge for the impulse engine. That structure does connect with the impulse engine plasma exhaust, and the ship is otherwise rather narrow in that part of the saucer.

On the TMP Enterprise refit there's something back there that's glowing blue and seems to be even more specifically associated with the impulse system.



However my impression, from into darkness and the relays indicated in the popular mechanics cutaway, is that the Abramsverse Enterprise's impulse engine(s) don't have their own reactor that can generate power entirely aside from the warp core the way we're used to, but rather the coils and such required for traveling at impulse tap off of the main warp core in a similar way to how the warp nacelles are powered. Actually it seemed like the thrusters required the warp core to be active in Into Darkness.

Though the ship had taken a lot of damage. Maybe they have a proper fusion reactor under that bulge or somewhere and it's just that it was shot up. Or maybe the bulges are something else entirely, maybe the main plasma conduit so that it can blow without cooking the saucer like it might if it ran through the inside of the thing?

[Graham Kennedy]

That pipe in TOS always puzzled me, too. Whenever I see it, I can't help but wonder if it's some kind of access shaft. It seems big enough for a person to walk down, or perhaps crawl down. But... the thing it accesses seems to be accessible from within the ship, so what would be the point?

The blue glowing thing on top of the TMP impulse section is the "Impulse Deflection Crystal". TMP actually had a well thought out idea for the drive system - that glowing warp core shaft you saw in Engineering goes right the way from the matter/antimatter pods at the bottom of the ship, up through main engineering, right up through the neck, through the saucer, and reaches the deflection crystal at the top. A horizontal branch off that tower in main engineering goes back through the engineering hull, and then splits and angles up the struts to the nacelles.

The implication seems to be that the M/AM reactor powers the impulse engines. Which makes more sense to me than making them fusion rockets, even if boosted by magic mass-lightening. Using fusion for power in the age of M/AM is like having a nuclear powered aircraft carrier with steam stoves to warm the crew.

[Mikey]

Well, obviously it can't be directly analagous to an IC engine's power-dome hood, which is there to accomodate increased intake. Whether powered by insular fusion plants or by the M/AM reactor, there would be no such "intakes" for the impulse engines. Likewise, there would be no need for a method to bleed excess power since both motive systems were gradable. I even doubt my own hypothesis of the structure being a heat sink, since it's not placed in a position even remotely approaching ideal for that purpose. Control systems? Secondary access? Tunnel of Love?