Oh, don't start. As Mike pointed out, going down that route means there was one toilet on the Enterprise, and there was an aeroplane on board the ship. And a giant duck.

When we saw these things, they glowed red, in the style of impulse engines. When impulse activity took place, they flared up, in the style of impulse engines. They are in the same place as the Ent-D's saucer impulse engines. The person who designed the ship said they were impulse engines. The SFX guys treated them as impulse engines.

The MSD guys, who managed to produce a diagram showing a differently-shaped ship than the one we saw said they were shuttlebays.

I'm going with impulse engines.

I doubt that what's known as "ramscoops" now was part of Jeffries' original design, either - the red domes probably had some sort of indeterminate propulsive function until FJ decided to call them the "sink" ends of some sort of a huge dipole (the aft end was the "source"), and later generations interpreted that as them being some sort of "sucking devices", ignoring both Jeffries and FJ.

I for one cannot accept the E-B boxes as impulse engines, since they cannot operate in a plausible manner when the saucer is attached to the rest of the ship. They can just *barely* operate in a plausible manner as shuttlebays, however. But they would probably best serve as some sort of cooling devices for internal machinery, so that only some heat would need to come out of the big red surfaces, not physical objects or deuterium-helium jets.

quote:

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When we saw these things, they glowed red, in the style of impulse
engines. When impulse activity took place, they flared up, in the style
of impulse engines. They are in the same place as the Ent-D's saucer
impulse engines. The person who designed the ship said they were impulse
engines. The SFX guys treated them as impulse engines.

---

So what? The good shots of the E-C's impulse engines show them glowing blue. The stern shots of the Reliant from TWOK show the landing bays glowing blue. Are you going to try to convince us that they're actually impulse engines, simply because both glowed blue? Particularly since the Reliant's bays weren't specifically stated to be landing bays?

And if we're going to argue about what the designers originally intended, then the Yamato is 71807, and modern warp engines shouldn't glow blue when they're not at warp, because that's what Okuda and Probert originally intended.

My point is that having the bays as impulse engines doesn't make much sense in either flight mode. In docked form, the exhaust fires into the warp nacelles. In separate flight mode, the "auxiliary engines" are WAY overpowered for the load they have to move, especially when compared to much greater mass of the E-D saucer and its smaller auxiliary engines. Each one of the B's saucer modules are at least as large as the main engine on the D. What do you need that much power for?

BTW, Eaves seems to like having his impulse engines toasting his warp drive. Check out the plan view from the blueprints of the E-E; the main line out of the impulse housings leads straight at the nacelles. Pretty strange thinking, at least to me.

[ November 16, 2001: Message edited by: Woodside Kid ]

quote:

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modern warp engines shouldn't glow blue when they're not at warp, because that's what Okuda and Probert originally intended

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Probert and Okuda arent in charge of other ships. .their design intentions dont go beyond the ship they designed. A lot of Proberts intentions were vetoed during the first season, like the Sphinx and the Shuttle Front Door and the Velara III base. If Eaves or Mojo or whoever designs a new ship with blue red or purple glow tomorrow and Berman oks it and it gets on screen then thats the way it should be. Besides, once a ship has moved out of the designers hands and is run by new producers/advisors, their intentions are law.

quote:

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My point is that having the bays as impulse engines doesn't make much sense in either flight mode. In docked form, the exhaust fires into the warp nacelles. In separate flight mode, the "auxiliary engines" are WAY overpowered for the load they have to move, especially when compared to much greater mass of the E-D saucer and its smaller auxiliary engines. Each one of the B's saucer modules are at least as large as the main engine on the D. What do you need that much power for?

---

"The good shots of the E-C's impulse engines show them glowing blue. The stern shots of the Reliant from TWOK show the landing bays glowing blue. Are you going to try to convince us that they're actually impulse engines, simply because both glowed blue? Particularly since the Reliant's bays weren't specifically stated to be landing bays?"

What? Going by that logic, I should be stating that warp drives are actually impulse, because they are blue.

Your logic:

One set of impulse engines shown to be blue = glowey blue things are impulse engines

My logic:

Almost all impulse engines are red.
Some things were designed as impulse engines, and 99.9999% of the people involved with the design and contruction of the ship (model and CGI) treated them as impulse engines.

"And if we're going to argue about what the designers originally intended, then the Yamato is 71807, and modern warp engines shouldn't glow blue when they're not at warp, because that's what Okuda and Probert originally intended."

I think the Yamoto is 71807.

The warp thing is a non-issue, because it was never, ever, ever used in the show, at any point. The Enterprise-D was originally going to be NCC 1701-7.

Nearly every episode of modern Star Trek has shown that warp drive engines glow blue all the time. And modern Star Trek has also continuously shown that big rectangular reg glowy things are Impulse Engines. Espeically if the designer and builders think so.

"But they would probably best serve as some sort of cooling devices for internal machinery, so that only some heat would need to come out of the big red surfaces, not physical objects or deuterium-helium jets."

Now, that makes more sense than the Shuttlebay argument, because there's at least an attampt at explanation as to why these "shuttlebays" glowed red.

If the MSD (which has been proven to be wrong on at least a couple of things) had never labelled them as shuttlebays, can you really see people standing up saying "Hang on! You know those red glowy thingies that everyone thinks are impulse engines? I think they've shuttlebays"? It's as likely as someone trying to claim the Enterprise-D's main shuttle bay is actually a giant toaster.

[ November 17, 2001: Message edited by: PsyLiam ]

quote:

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Do you know the mass of the 1701-B?

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No, particularly since the only "modern" source I've seen for that is the DS9 TM, and we all know how accurate that is. However, think about this:

• The D's saucer is roughly 75% longer, 78% thicker, and nearly 2 1/3 times as wide as the B's saucer.
• Starships in the 24th Century are generally made of more massive materials than those in the 23rd. Witness Voyager at 750,000 tons versus the TOS E at 190,000.

Given those two points, I think I'm on pretty solid ground to assume that the D's saucer is more massive than the B's.

quote:

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Maybe the Excelsior-refits mission profile specifically
requires more impulse thrust.

---

Really? Since saucer separation wasn't intended to be a routine maneuver in the TOS/Movie era, then the new engine pods (which, if you believe Eaves' statement about being for use after separation) are essentially useless for most of the ship's operational life. At any rate, why would you need more impulse thrust for the saucer alone than you would need when the ship is in one piece?

quote:

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The 1701-C and 1701-D impulse engines both
use subspace field coils to lighten the ships mass to propel it. Maybe
the E-B didnt have that, so it needed bigger engines. Maybe it was using
a different type of fusion reactor.

---

Uh-huh. Remember Geordi's line to Scotty in "Relics" ? "Impulse engine design hasn't changed much in 200 years." Since Geordi was still using an impulse design specification that Scotty wrote more than 75 years earlier, I seriously doubt that there was enough difference in engine operations for it to effect a substantial design change.

The point I was trying to make with the Reliant/E-C blue glow thing is that we shouldn't assume that two things are the same simply because they both have a similar-looking visual effect. I know that most impulse drives we've seen had a red glow. However, the E-C and the NX-01's engines glow blue, the TMP E's engine glow was nearly yellow in the original theatrical issue, and the TOS impulse engines had no glow at all.

quote:

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Probert and Okuda arent in charge of other ships. .their design
intentions dont go beyond the ship they designed. A lot of Proberts
intentions were vetoed during the first season, like the Sphinx and the
Shuttle Front Door and the Velara III base. If Eaves or Mojo or whoever
designs a new ship with blue red or purple glow tomorrow and Berman oks
it and it gets on screen then thats the way it should be. Besides, once
a ship has moved out of the designers hands and is run by new
producers/advisors, their intentions are law.

---

Oooookay. Let me see if I've got this straight. I'm supposed to accept Eaves' intention about the new modules and ignore the later art department input because I'm supposed to go with the designer's original intentions. But I'm also supposed to ignore Probert's idea for the warp engine glow and go with the later VFX input even though it's not the designer's original intention. Hmmmm. As Nomad would say, "Non sequitur. Your facts are uncoordinated."

Well, considering how amazingly wrong the MSD is, I think it's fair enough to ignore it, especially considering that you're ignoring the DS9 technical manual for the same reason.

The art department didn't even have the correct design handy when they came up with that MSD, so it could very easily be (and is) wrong.

And it's not just the designer that said those were impulse engines. The SFX people also went with that, since they glowed. In this case, the designer and SFX agree. In the Probert case, they disagree, and we've had 12 years of warp engines only glowing at warp to disprove him.

And didn't someone say the shuttlebay label isn't even pointing towards the Impulse engines? Scan please!

"Since saucer separation wasn't intended to be a routine maneuver in the TOS/Movie era..."

Generations took place at the end of the movie era. How do you know that the new lot of 2290 onwards starships weren't designed to seperate more easily?

'Remember Geordi's line to Scotty in "Relics" ? "Impulse engine design hasn't changed much in 200 years." '