Flare Sci-Fi Forums: Jettison WHAT pod?

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Posted by Montgomery (Member # 23) on :

Old problem, never solved.
"Court martial" TOS

They jettisoned the "ion pod", where Finney was meant to be taking a reading on the "ion plates". At Red Alert it was jettisoned. So just what was this strange "pod"?????

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An unborn scream burst in my stomach,
and spread like cold mercury through my chest.
I covered my face with my hands, but kept looking through my fingers.
"Write that down!", he told the stick.
"Is visibly destroyed, yet unable to turn away".

- Blue Jam

Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :

I'm guessing, and have always guessed this to be a n eva vehicle - maybe even similar to a workbee? if not something for maintainence - and at least on the exterior of the ship...

also, it could have also been a quarentined, hazardous area, separated from the rest of the ship...

it COULD also have been an alternate name for the bussard collectors - i.e. ION pods

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Alamaraine, count to four...

Posted by The First One (Member # 35) on :

I think it was a small add-on pod containing equipment that needed clear access to outside the ship that couldn't be provided ny the Enterprise's usual sensor inputs. However, it might have needed to be fitted over an airlock that would then remain open while it was there - say, the outer doors especially. The ion storm hits, the more-heavily armoured outer airlock door needs to be closed, but can't with the pod in the way, and the pod wasn't strong enough to stand up to the storm in the same way the airlock door could. Therefore it was jettisoned (with its own door, and the ship's inner airlock door, closed and retaining the integrity of each) and the outer door sclosed.

Posted by Bernd (Member # 6) on :

It was a "Ionenschirm" (= "ion screen") in the German translation. The translators obviously didn't figure it out either and made it sound like some kind of deflector screen or shield, although this doesn't make sense at all.

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Early bird catches the gagh. (The Doctor to B'Elanna at 06:00, "Drone")
www.uni-siegen.de/~ihe/bs/startrek/

Posted by Montgomery (Member # 23) on :

Always struck me as curious, and certainly there never seems to have been any mention of it since.

But I can never decide if it meant some kind of sensor pod, or an engine component that would have become dangerously unstable in an ion storm.....

- Blue Jam

Posted by Baloo (Member # 5) on :

Ya learn something new every day.

In my case, I just discovered that I had always misunderstood what was jettisoned. I always thought it was a warp nacelle and pylon, and assumed that "(mumblemumble)" was a technical term used to refer to it.

I really haven't seen that episode since it was first aired (well, not in it's entirety, anyhow). So "ion pod" was probably misinterpreted my my 10-year-old (or therabouts) mind as that long pod (one of two) that looked like a rocket but wasn't really.

--Baloo

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Warning:
There has been an alarming increase in the
number of things you know nothing about.

Posted by Montgomery (Member # 23) on :

Y'know Baloo, If it were a nacelle jettison, then it would have been TWO pods wouldn't it..

I'm moving away from the idea of an engine component like some kind of impulse reactor core. Without it they'd have been well and truly stranded in mid-space.

A sensor apparatus seems more likely. Maybe even the base of the ventral saucer "bump". Shields could be weak there, and the ion flux hitting its sensitive plates may have made it likely to blow up or something. TNG explanation: Since that decade shielding has improved , as have external sensors to the point where ion-measuring "pods" are obsolete.

Yeah, I like the sound of that.

- Blue Jam