Why does everyone love the original TOS Enterprise so much?

[IanKennedy]

I take a new multi-vitamin with 120% RDA of whateverthehellium. I've never felt better.

It's good for what ails you.

Except an excess of whateverthehellium.

[Graham Kennedy]

I don't know how well I can put this into words, but... one thing about the TOS Enterprise, and indeed all Starfleet ships to one extent or another, is that you can look at them and get a real sense of it as a machine, as something that was built. On every scale... at the big end you have nacelles for engines, areas where crew live, where power and fuel is. And on a smaller scale you see windows, and entry points for shuttles, and airlocks, and engines. You can see the seams on the hull where they welded the skin together! They even painted the name and registry number on the hull!

All the details, from big to small, just work together to say "this is real, this is a whopping great big object that was manufactured, that was put together by people, to fulfill a function."

You don't get that sense when you look at a UFO. It's too different, too unlike the familiar. But I can really look at the TOS Enterprise and see it as a descendant of a present day Navy ship, not in the details of the design but in the feel of it as a craft for people to live and work in.

[Mark]

I wholeheartedly agree. The level of the attention to detail makes it "real" for me. You can "see" how it was built, and that provides a link between us today, and the future.

[Sionnach Glic]

Aye, agreed. It, at the time, looked more realisticaly human than anything that had come before it.

[Mikey]

Wow, GK. I never really defined what I appreciated about 'Trek ship design, but I think you've hit it on the head. The Eagle from Space: 1999 also had an "industrial" feel to it, but the actual design was pretty vanilla.

[Ivan Ivanovich]

I'd really have to second GK; the E-Nil really always has struck me as a fascinating, really tangible and mechanical vessel. It's realistic-looking. As a matter of fact, that's one of things that really drew me to Star Trek as a (little) kid; it looked to me like something which represented a 'working' (for lack of a better term) future.

I guess that's a heck of a first post , but, hey, at least I'm being agreeable!

[Mikey]

I'm being agreeable!

Which is certainly not a prerequisite here.

Welcome to the forum!

[Tsukiyumi]

Indeed it isn't.

Welcome, Ivan.

"They've gone to plaid!"

[Graham Kennedy]

I guess that's a heck of a first post , but, hey, at least I'm being agreeable!

Agreeing with me is definitely the best possible way to start!

[Ivan Ivanovich]

"They've gone to plaid!"

Tartan, technically. You see, I can be nit-picky and argumentative, too!

[Captain Seafort]

You see, I can be nit-picky and argumentative, too!

Then you'll probably fit in exceptionally well here.

Welcome to DITL.

[RK_Striker_JK_5]

Welcome, Ivan.

And wow, a great post there. Perfectly sums up what's good about the E-nil. It looks real, like human hands built it.

[Mark]

Indeed. Welcome aboard Ivan. Now, can you send me several yards of cloth in that very pattern?

[Ivan Ivanovich]

Thanks, everybody!

Now, can you send me several yards of cloth in that very pattern?

Alas, I only wish that I could afford that much of it! Then I'd have enough for a kilt; c'est la vie, n'est-ce pas? That stuff really does cost money, believe it or not. A good few yards goes up into the hundreds of dollars.

[Mikey]

"kilt" and a phrase in French is a bit of an odd juxtaposition. You sure you don't just mean "skirt?"