posted
Hi Guys I was just wondering if has been established in trek if the runabouts aft end can be reconfigured for other types of modules? I remember seeing somewhere that they could be fit with other types items like a tracker beam module for towing star ships etc etc, anybody know if this is true? Just wondering and thanks
Registered: May 2003
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posted
The DS9TM mentions this in it's Runavout section. There are modular rollbar pods and runabout sections can be custom swapped in modules for science or whatever. Picard's had that gooft dining table remember?
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
Registered: Aug 2002
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posted
Per Sternbach's design, however, (or am I miscrediting the runabout's origin?) the modular parts are in the middle, while the forward and aft sections, as well as the ship's, uh, spine, are permenant parts.
I wonder why they didn't store that aft compartment set for later use.
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
They did - they just never found a need to use it for whatever reason. Bits of it turned up here and there: for example, the bunks showed up on the USS Prometheus (DS9 "Second Sight"), and then probably in the Defiant crew quarters. People were often seen going to or coming from the aft section, so...
posted
The Runabout aft area has a tractor beam emplacement already. It was seen at the end of the series premiere when Sisko disgracefully dragged Dukat's Galor Class out of the wormhole.
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The only time we ever saw the aft section in DS9 was when Jake Sisko was leaving the station in "The Visitor", I believe. We didn't see any of the interior set.
According to the DS9TM, the aft section is indeed a fixed item along with the cockpit. It's probably that the interior stuff can be rearranged or resupplied as needed, but that's where the bunks and living area is. The middle sections are swappable and it's to the middle sections, technically, that we see crew members coming from and going to in DS9. They would have to go through the middle section to get to the aft section.
In "Timescape" TNG, we saw the crew leaving the aft section and apparently appearing immediately in the cockpit. But they did a very bad job in that episode of matching the set to the blueprints. The corridor leading from the aft section bears off to the left, IIRC, instead of going straight forward, as it should.
We've never seen the middle sections or corridor of the ship.
Registered: Oct 1999
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posted
Don't forget the inexplicable Jeffries tube seen in DS9 "Blaze of Glory". We eventually consluded that it must be directly above or directly below the central corridor.
The set doesn't match the Runabout plans mostly for practical purposes - obviously they didn't want to build a longish corridor when no action was scripted to happen in it. So there's a generic partition that the crew would presumably have to walk around before getting to the central corridor... Aterntively, the Enterprise runabout could have been specially designed with an extended aft compartment for some reason we don't know - perhaps diplomatic? In any case, the set designers probably knew of the modular nature of the Runabout, and just cheated a bit.
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Well the aft section fits the exterior shape well except for the side windows at the back. Remember too that there's a section aft of the cabin, but before the central corridor we never see. We don't see back past the doors very far and there's at least another set of windows on the side aft of the boarding hatches.
quote:Originally posted by SoundEffect: The Runabout aft area has a tractor beam emplacement already. It was seen at the end of the series premiere when Sisko disgracefully dragged Dukat's Galor Class out of the wormhole.
Quite right. Somewhat odd, then, that they didn't think they'd be able to haul the Jem'Hadar fighter to orbit in "The Ship"[DS9-5] with the runabout.
-------------------- . . . ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.
posted
Hmmm... true. I forgot about the second set of windows.
Could the Jeffries Tube be extending laterally from the fuselage out into one of the nacelle struts? I'm thinking what we saw in the episode is too long to fit in that space, but I'd have to watch it again to be sure. Under the cabin makes the most sense I suppose.
Registered: Oct 1999
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posted
Well, but they didn't really have to worry about a lot of gravity with Dukat's ship, did they? Besides, the Prophets may have been able to give that warship a "push." In any case, let's not forget that if you have captured a Jem'Hadar fighter deep in Dominion territory, what would you rather use to extract it ... a runabout? Or the Defiant?
quote:Originally posted by Malnurtured Snay: Well, but they didn't really have to worry about a lot of gravity with Dukat's ship, did they? Besides, the Prophets may have been able to give that warship a "push."
1g of acceleration isn't a lot in the Trek universe. I can only assume that the main problem(s) getting the Jem'Hadar ship out would've been that the JH bugs are absurdly massive, or else that the rock in which the ship was embedded would've taxed the runabout too severely.
Alternately, the problem might've been more about warp towing than actually hauling the thing to orbit. After all, they had to get it to the wormhole.
-------------------- . . . ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.
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