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Originally posted by Harry:
Perhaps an obvious question, but just WHO controlled the phasers and torpedoes on the Bridge?

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Originally posted by Phoenix:

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Originally posted by Harry:
Perhaps an obvious question, but just WHO controlled the phasers and torpedoes on the Bridge?

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Wasn't it Sulu? At least that's what I always thought...

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Yeah, Sulu was the weapons guy. I recall that on "Mirror Mirror" which may or maynot have the same controls as in OUR universe, he did have access to a security console at his station.

I always thought the enterprise just had phasers and photon torpedoes and nothing was explained much in detail about them.
 

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Posted by MinutiaeMan (Member # 444) on :
 
From what I recall of the 25th Anniversary computer game, Chekov was the one to handle the weapons. But that's not necessarily the most trustworthy source...

Phaser beams...

I remember they were firing light purple-ish pulse blasts as the "phaser proximity" bursts in BoT. The only other version I remember was bright-blue steady beams at a few points, like "Elaan of Troyius." Whoops -- I also just remembered the steady bright-orange phaser beams in "The Doomsday Machine." (Both the Enterprise and the Constellation had these, though the 1701 was firing dual beams and the Constellation had only one functional.)
 

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Posted by Ryan McReynolds (Member # 28) on :
 
Yes, there were only two beams ever seen at a time, and they always fired from the region immediately around/above the lower sensor dome. Discrepancies there are probably due solely to primitive compositing techniques. The "proximity" phasers from "Balance of Terror" were often reused as photon torpedoes, but if I'm not mistaken, there was also a newer torpedo effect. In either case, it was again two apparent tubes, firing in either simultaneous bursts or alternating.

That said, there were more phasers and torpedoes in dialogue than ever seen. Offhand, in "The Paradise Syndrome," they fire phasers one and two, and then phasers three and four. After each command, the same footage of two blue beams in two consecutive volleys is seen. This might suggest that "phaser one" is the first blast of both phasers, "phaser two" the second, and so on. Or it might be a low budget requiring stock footage. There is also a reference to aft phasers in the damage control stock sound loop, I think.

I can't remember the title of the episode relevant to torpedoes, but there is one where they mention tubes "one through six." In any case, they always fired from the same place as the phasers, and there never seemed to be more than two actual tubes. The theory was that they were like revolvers, with three "tubes" per launcher that get preloaded for more rapid firing.

I could get screencaps of most of the stock shots from the DVDs I have...
 

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Posted by Shik (Member # 343) on :
 

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Originally posted by Harry:
- How many phaser-banks and torp tubes were mentioned, and where are they?

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From the E-D blueprints booklet...

Rick Sternbach: "In classic Star Trek, the ship's phaser beams didn't seem to come from anywhere in particular."

Andy Probert: "In classic Star Trek, the phasers came from the Special Effects department. They had nothing to do with any features on the outside of the original Enterprise. The pahsers came out of the photon tubes and vice versa: very confusing."
 

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Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :
 
I don't recall the special phasers from "Balance of Terror" ever being used as photon torpedoes. I always remember the photorp effect as being a tube shaped thing, rather than the big circles of Balance of Terror. I think they reused the SFX.

And I'm also sure that Sulu handled weapons. That little viewer thing he had raised whenever the ship was being attacked (Spock's Brain, Journey to Babel).

And as has been said, the SFX always showed the beams coming from around the lower saucer sensor dome thing. The blue beams were I believe always shown firing forward. The red beams were shown firing forward, or sometimes down.

As a note, the SFX of the phasers in "The Doomsday Machine" are notably worse than the normal stock shots. The phasers in that episode are really obviously drawn elements placed on and off. They appear whole, and then they vanish. The regular stock SFX are actually animated, and show the phasers with a start and end point. If you get what I mean.

I have no idea what was up with the red/blue thing, BTW. From what I remember, the first time the phasers were used was in BOT, where theywere just weird. After that, they seemed to just alternate red and blue.
 

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Posted by Futurama Guy (Member # 968) on :
 
In the wargames from the Ultimate Computer, they were again two blue beams firing in different directions (one wonders how it hit anything! )

Otherwise the phasers power was variable as apparently the lowest (used in the mock-battle) were 1/100th power. Evidently the photon torpedoes had varying power 'charges' as well.

Really nothing useful here, but thats one of the few TOS eps I have on tape that hasnt been mentioned yet
 

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Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
 
I'm sure I remember Chekov controlling the phasers from his station in at least one episode...
 

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Posted by Futurama Guy (Member # 968) on :
 
In "Balance of Terror" the Navigator, Lt. Styles, was in charge of weapons, he also messaged down to the phaser control room as well. Their foreward phasers were purple torpedoes.

Apparently weapons control alternated between stations; as it was inferred that Sulu was tactical, in the "The Ultimate Computer", where he used that pop-up goggle device.

BTW, Does anyone know the term for that bugger?
The old school ST:SF Tech Manual from '75 has pretty good details on the bridge but it doesnt show it on the Helmsman's station.

Also, what is the difference between the Helmsman, Navigator, Conn Officer; did the two positions get integrated into one? Helm+Nav=Conn?
If so why doesnt NX-01 have both a Navigator and Helmsman?

Also what is the Con (with one 'n')? Does that just mean 'in charge of the ship'? I ask, because in ST3 Kirk told Sulu he had the "Con" when Kirk left the bridge to go to Spocks quarters to find McCoy there....

Just some thoughts.

[ February 18, 2003, 03:53 AM: Message edited by: Futurama Guy ]
 

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Posted by Warped1701 (Member # 40) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Futurama Guy:
Also, what is the difference between the Helmsman, Navigator, Conn Officer; did the two positions get integrated into one? Helm+Nav=Conn?
If so why doesnt NX-01 have both a Navigator and Helmsman?

Also what is the Con (with one 'n')? Just the Captains chair? In ST3 Kirk told Sulu he had the "Con" when Kirk left the bridge to go to Spocks quarters to find McCoy there....

Just some thoughts.

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I believe that some time in between TOS and TNG the Helm and Navigation positions were combined to become the Conn station as we see it now. As for why ENT seems to have a TNG-like Conn, I dunno. My guess is they didn't want to hire someone else for the Nav billet, and didn't want to have the "Nameless Ensign of the Week" manning the post.

As for the "con", I got this definition from Hazegray.org. Conn � Has several uses, all to do with control of the ship. (1) (General Usage) When an officer announces "I have the conn," he or she is then legally responsible to give proper steering and engine orders for the safe navigation of the ship. (2) (Submarines) In submarines, the term used to refer to the conning tower, a structure built atop the hull from which periscope attacks on shipping were conducted. In more modern times, �the conn� refers to the submarine�s control center, an analogous compartment located within the pressure hull. (3) In general, the area of the ship from which conn orders are given.

I would personally attribute the missing n in con from a typo in the closed captioning.
 

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Posted by Guardian 2000 (Member # 743) on :
 
1. The Enterprise was also seen to fire red phasers and red photon torpedoes in "Arena"[TOS]. The latter were animated in to look like little more than semi-luminous gobs of Jell-o.

2. The background chatter sometimes dubbed in to the bridge noise includes a fellow mentioning aft phasers, right around the time some guy says that gravity is at "point eight".

(The first time I heard this (and thus, I presume, the best occasion to hear it) was when watching "Friday's Child"[TOS], as Scotty chased wild geese.)

Thus, we know she has phasers fore and aft, but that's all we know about. (It follows that there would be more, or that these might be steerable a la NX-01 . . . and we can easily retcon the magic moving phaser emitters by pointing to the arms the NX-01 uses, and assuming something similar was in use on the Enterprise-Prime.)
 

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Posted by MrNeutron (Member # 524) on :
 
I don't have the episode handy, but wasn't there one shot of the Enterprise from behind the ship where it was firing phasers at a planet. I believe it was in "The Alternative Factor". I don't recall what color the beam or beams are. Anyone have the episode?
 

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Posted by Guardian 2000 (Member # 743) on :
 
Blue. Apparently one beam, too.

It was a cool shot . . . would've been a nice addition to the stock footage, but for some reason it languished as a part of that Voyager-esque ep.
 

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Posted by Topher (Member # 71) on :
 
Oh my god... He posted...
 

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Posted by Timo (Member # 245) on :
 
The concept of "pop-out" phasers and of torpedo tubes that look like standard portholes is the best think to come out of the NX-01 concept. Now it is trivially easy to equip the TOS vessel with the required six torpedo tubes and "phasers 1-4", "amidship phasers", "aft phasers" and "phaser guns" and whatever other weapons one wishes to add.

I doubt it is practical to nail down the exact weapon config of NCC-1701, though. It might be best to assume that the ship was at least as flexible as NX-01, and got new stuff refitted into its weapon berths and old stuff removed between episodes. Certain primary weapons might have stayed, of course. This is very similar to what happened to large real-world gun-armed warships, too: secondary and tertiary gun mounts would change rather often.

Timo Saloniemi
 

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Posted by Harry (Member # 265) on :
 
Okay, that might work. But the basic configuration would something like:

- 2 forward ventral phaser turrets (or banks? what where they called!?), possibly with 2 generators each, to account for the phaser 1-4 references.
- probably 2 aft phasers. Perhaps on the ventral engineering hull?
- Six torp tubes... that's a lot. We know of two tubes near the forward ventral phasers. The rotating magazine theory might work. There aren't many other useful places for tubes anyway.

The quite silly concept of a Phaser Control Room in BoT might have something to do with the quite unusual proximity blast firing mode. Was the phaser control room ever used again?
 

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Posted by Wraith (Member # 779) on :
 

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The quite silly concept of a Phaser Control Room in BoT might have something to do with the quite unusual proximity blast firing mode. Was the phaser control room ever used again?

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Originally posted by Harry:
The quite silly concept of a Phaser Control Room in BoT might have something to do with the quite unusual proximity blast firing mode. Was the phaser control room ever used again?

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Originally posted by Warped1701:

quote:

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Originally posted by Futurama Guy:
Also, what is the difference between the Helmsman, Navigator, Conn Officer; did the two positions get integrated into one? Helm+Nav=Conn?
If so why doesnt NX-01 have both a Navigator and Helmsman?

Also what is the Con (with one 'n')? Just the Captains chair? In ST3 Kirk told Sulu he had the "Con" when Kirk left the bridge to go to Spocks quarters to find McCoy there....

Just some thoughts.

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I believe that some time in between TOS and TNG the Helm and Navigation positions were combined to become the Conn station as we see it now. As for why ENT seems to have a TNG-like Conn, I dunno. My guess is they didn't want to hire someone else for the Nav billet, and didn't want to have the "Nameless Ensign of the Week" manning the post.

As for the "con", I got this definition from Hazegray.org. Conn – Has several uses, all to do with control of the ship. (1) (General Usage) When an officer announces "I have the conn," he or she is then legally responsible to give proper steering and engine orders for the safe navigation of the ship. (2) (Submarines) In submarines, the term used to refer to the conning tower, a structure built atop the hull from which periscope attacks on shipping were conducted. In more modern times, ‘the conn’ refers to the submarine’s control center, an analogous compartment located within the pressure hull. (3) In general, the area of the ship from which conn orders are given.

I would personally attribute the missing n in con from a typo in the closed captioning.

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Originally posted by Futurama Guy:
Im not sure where the 'proximity blast' concept is coming from becasue this wasnt mentioned in the episode at all...

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It's at 25:30 on the "Balance of Terror" DVD, just before the Enterprise enters the comet's tail.

KIRK: "Battle status?"
SULU: "All stations manned, Captain."
STILES: "Phaser weapons energized, set for proximity blast."

Wasn't in the episode at all, indeed.
 

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Posted by Futurama Guy (Member # 968) on :
 
Indeed I stand corrected...but whether or not they fired them full phasers or proximity phasers, they all looked like purple torpedoes.
 

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Posted by CaptainMike (Member # 709) on :
 
of course, a nice way to explain it is that in ENT, the navigation is so complicated that they need several junior officers below decks plotting the courses and feeding them through the situation table and the helm, while in TOS it is slightly more advanced and an officer on the bridge operates the equipment that does the job of several ENT crew.

damn, now im helping them find excuses for ENT being just like Voyager...
 

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Posted by Timo (Member # 245) on :
 
Just like Mayweather could have a horde of underlings feeding him information, I trust Sulu or the navigator in TOS could be getting assistance in handling the weapons. The guy or gal in the phaser control room would okay all of Sulu's button-pushes, or then veto them if his or her gauges showed the finicky thing was overheating again...

Alternately, perhaps navigation tasks only become overwhelming for one person at warp 6 and beyond? Single-pilot ships in TAS could navigate just fine at warp speeds...

Timo Saloniemi
 

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Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
 
I imagine the real reason that Enterprise doesn't feature a navigation station is that during TOS having two stations was often superfluous. We saw Sulu reaching over to handle things on the navigation console more than once, as I recall. (Of course, having said that, within the show the station must have been important, since the often-incapacitated person manning it was always quickly replaced.)

As Star Trek bridges go, Enterprise's shows an unusual clarity of purpose in its design. What the guy sitting next to Scotty did the world may never know, for instance. The movie bridges, the Enterprise D, and the Defiant had extra stations for various tasks. DS9 was a mess. (A good mess! But, it seemed like there was a whole chunk of Ops that was almost never seen. What do all those stations do, I used to wonder.) Voyager was a bit tighter, but the science station is barely even seen, and I don't think Engineering had someone in it all the time. It seems that, with this new Enterprise, the design philosophy has been to boil down the bridge to its essences. So we get a station for flying the ship, one for shooting, one for keeping this fixed up, one for science, and one for talking to people. (A position that would be superfluous were it not various other criteria of the show.)

Which isn't to say that this is good or bad, though I obviously happen to think that the original helm/navigation split was, at best, not quite fully thought through. (At least, dramatically.)
 

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Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
 
Alot of DS9's "extra" stations that were never used likely were made for the stations original purpose: ore processing.
In TNG/DS9 era starships most command and bridge functions can be re-routed to any available station: Geordi and Data often re-routed Engineering or Science functions to the stations behind Worf's tactial station.
In TOS the split stations were Navigation and Helm but the stations in TNG era were for Helm and Ops.
SMaller less advanced starships likely use various department heads for shipwide functions while by TNG's era one person (or Android) can override or directly control most internal ship's functions via advanced automation.
 

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Posted by Harry (Member # 265) on :
 
An android is a person


I think Reverend mentioned the engineering colored 'hatches' as being possible locations for weaponry. I disagree. The same panels are on the refit Enterprise, yet all it's phasers and tubes are now visible.
 

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Posted by Timo (Member # 245) on :
 
I'd suggest that all the FJ phasers were there on the TOS ship, just retractable behind completely concealing panels. Two pairs flanking the bridge, one pair just ahead of the lower sensor dome, and possibly another pair further forward of that lower dome (to account both for the "phasers 1-4" reference and the fact that the VFX people sometimes fired the phasers from there in side pictures). Add plenty of ventral and aft phasers wherever you please - the TMP ship could have fewer of those "secondary guns", since there apparently are more of the mains.

That would leave *all* the visible surface features for torpedo tubes, portholes and engineering paraphernalia. Easy to fit six tubes there: two to four on the underside in "portholes", just like NX-01 does it, and two on the topside where FJ puts them.

Thus we also preserve continuity in the sense that torpedo tubes have never been completely invisible and are in fact quite prominent in TOS movie and later ships, whereas phasers in both ENT and TOS are almost perfectly hidden, and only jut out from TOS movies onwards.

Timo Saloniemi
 

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Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
 

"...and I don't think [Voyager's] Engineering [bridge station] had someone in it all the time."

Bear in mind that neither did the E-D's.
 

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Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
 
Those lazy bastards.
 

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Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
 
That is sort of my point, however, Tim. I'm just trying to point out that Voyager featured a more compact bridge in terms of features than the Enterprise D, but not one so compact as that of the Enterprise Naught.
 

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Posted by Vogon Poet (Member # 393) on :
 
In my opinion, there should be two forward helm stations. There's no real logic to why I should feel this way, I just do. Even if it had been the Tactical station up there next to the helm. ENT fans can discount my opinion as mere Berman-hating if they wish, but I just feel that the main reasons there's only one station are a) the resulting need for two cast members - which could be corrected by just putting one of the other main-castmember bridge stations up front; and b) design laziness: appealing to those more familiar with the Defiant and Voyager bridges.
 

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Posted by CaptainMike (Member # 709) on :
 
true, the cost of an extra or actor to sit in that seat on the 1701 and the 1701-D did seem to get cumbersome (after Wesley and Ro left, it even got a little violent.. the producers were so pissed at constantly having to pay an extra that they routinely gruesomely killed that person during the course of the show)
 

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Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
 
If the design of the bridge was intended to catch the interest of casual fans, that would seem to be an argument for a dual forward console, not against it. I rather doubt the bridge of the Defiant takes up much space in the memory of the general audience.
 

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Posted by Guardian 2000 (Member # 743) on :
 
I agree, VP . . . if for no other reason than the fact that Archer has to look around Travis to see anything nifty on the viewscreen, as suggested by Mim's scans of bridge pics.

If I were captain, I'd either have the guy move or replace him with the descendants of horse-racing jockeys.
 

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Posted by Timo (Member # 245) on :
 
The design philosophies of Trek bridges differ a lot despite the surface similarities. In "modern" bridges, it seems to be important that everybody sees the viewer and/or the captain. In TOS, people concentrated more on their consoles, and the captain had this swiveling chair so that HE could see everybody ELSE.

Which makes more sense? Everybody facing front and gaping at the viewscreen means they aren't concentrating on their own, presumably important consoles. OTOH, if they all face away from the captain, then he mostly gets to speak to their necks, and cannot deliver any nonverbal cues.

If people face every which way in a maneuvering starship, they get motion sickness (at least until somebody finally invents an inertial dampener that actually works right). If they face front, they get dangerous "tunnel vision" complacency in a demanding 3D environment.

Perhaps the Jem'Hadar had the right idea. People standing every which way and wearing VR goggles when needed would have a good grip of the 3D situation. Info feed wouldn't depend on where they faced. Just add some seats and seatbelts (which the ship in "The Ship" seemed to have, before Starfleet for some reason removed them) and you get good functionality.

Timo Saloniemi
 

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Posted by Anduril (Member # 654) on :
 
Harry, you still have to account for the amidships phasers that are mentioned in BoT.

I could pull the dvd out but did he not also mention port and starboard when he was going thru their ready status?
 

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