The Enterprise Engine-room Enigma: where was main engineering?

[@chardtomp]

I served as an engineering officer in the U.S. Navy back in the 80s and 90s. In watching the original series now I'm always struck by how much the main engineering space on the show resembles the engineering control room on a modern warship, essentially a lot of consoles and workstations from which the engineering systems can be controlled and monitored, and physically located separate from the actual engine rooms.

[@Idazmi7]

The original Starship Enterprise, both internal and external, was designed by Army Air Corps veteran Walter Matt Jefferies, who was an engineer for 30+ years.

[@bostonrailfan2427]

Auxiliary bridge controls, centralized weapons control(CIC), engineering linked to the bridge by communications system but controlled from the engine room itself…he definitely studied 1950s and 1960s ships, some of which you probably encountered in your time

[@bostonrailfan2427]

@@Idazmi7 plus overseen by a creator/writer who himself was an ex-USAAF pilot 😉

[@REDARROW_A_Personal]

​@@bostonrailfan2427

[@VodkaDrinker77]

I served on the Truman years ago. So I can totally relate. For everyone else here it's just like a modern warship containing more than one Main Machinery Room below decks. Only in this case, Enterprise has two main MMR's: Impulse Engineering and Warp Engineering.

[@katherineberger6329]

Of course, the real, actual, and finally correct answer to the question "Where was main engineering on the original Enterprise?" is "Stage 9 on the Desilu Studios lot." ;)

[@dalethelander3781]

Before it was moved across Melrose AV to Paramount for the 3rd season.

[@danielsweeney6742]

Maybe people are reading a little too much in a show that was put together not knowing if it made it pasted the first season.

[@Mr.Robert1]

@@danielsweeney6742 The show turned out to be beyond successful. There are new Star trek streaming made to this day. 2023. Fans look very deeply into what there fantasies are.

[@Mr.Robert1]

Don't kill the fantasy for true Believers.

[@Mr.Robert1]

Star Trek is real. Haven't you seen that spoof with Tim Allen? Can't think of the name at the moment. Take off on a civilization that was in trouble watching television from Earth they built an exact duplicate what they saw for Tim Allen's Enterprise and crew to save their world interesting.

[@Durwood71]

The correct answer is that the creators of the original series weren't greatly concerned about continuity and put the engine room wherever it needed to be for any given story.

[@tski3458]

Kinda of like Luke and his " sister" In star wars.

[@WayneKeen]

Exactly. They had trouble keeping consistent on what dilithium crystals looked like,and where they were kept. In some cases they were crystals, in some cases they were flat plates.

[@kohlrak]

Which put's Nimoy's comments on "canon" into perspective.

[@acmenipponair]

@@WayneKeenAlso: Sometimes you could regenerate them (Movie 4), and then again never (some episodes of TOS). Sometimes they had to be mined, sometimes they were simply found. Sometimes they were inside the warp core, sometimes in a special room and so on.

[@nickcharles1284]

It means less time worrying about continuity and more time thinking about plot. The audience didn't need spacial connectivity on that level. What they needed and got was familiar places, separate from each other. Not knowing how everything is connected also leaves room for the imagination to 'see'' the ship as more spacious than meets the eye. If everything isn't explained, then anything is possible.

[@killswitch1982]

I actually have a copy of Mr. Scott's Guide to the Enterprise that I've had since I was a kid. It's even signed by James Doohan who played Scotty in Star Trek. I got it signed in my early teens when I got to meet Doohan when he was the headlining guest at a local Trek convention I attended. He gave a talk onstage during the convention and even did a Q&A at the end. He was really nice and fun to listen to, had some really great stories, but he was definitely intoxicated during the whole thing.

[@emkkahn]

"What is it?" "It's green."

[@lonewolf9390]

@@emkkahn "We did it! You and me! Put him right under the table!"

[@RCAvhstape]

Alcohol and all, he could still knock the crap out of Klingons in a bar fight.

[@Rick_Cleland]

Alcohol is The Devil! *THE DEVIL!!*

[@ajclements4627]

My Mr. Scott’s Guide is signed by Doohan as well. He wore a kilt for his photo op when I saw him. He was a very entertaining speaker.

[@tomcreech4848]

I support the two engine rooms theory. The saucer on 1701 was detachable to be used as a lifeboat in the event of an emergency. . The season one engine room set was also not identical to the season two and three engine room. Season one did not have the dilithium crystal chamber in the floor or the ladder between the consoles the went up a half level. In my mind main engineering was in the secondary hull. The engine room in the saucer was an auxiliary engine room

[@RodCornholio]

Agree that there would almost HAVE to be an engineering room in the saucer - if it has a lifeboat function. Now that notion does not mean it would need to do anything other than work in an emergency; so, it may never be used other than periodically function-tested. _Some_ sort of engineering section would need to be in the saucer to be consistent with the implied logic of the propulsion systems...unless impulse engines were so advanced that engineering was unnecessary.

[@timsmith2525]

Detachable? Never heard of that outside of the TNG Enterprise.

[@tomcreech4848]

@@timsmith2525 it was supposed to be detachable although never shown. It was not supposed to be able to reattach without aid of a star base or shipyard

[@timsmith2525]

@@tomcreech4848 I'm not looking for an explanation, I'm looking for a source. I honestly don't remember an episode that mentions it.

[@kaitlyn__L]

@@timsmith2525 it’s not in any episodes. It’s in Jeffries’ design sketches from 1965

[@CaptRobertApril]

Franz Joseph's decision to cram Main Engineering right in front of the impulse engines stems from a reference in "The Making of Star Trek" (Stephen E. Whitfield, Gene Roddenberry, 1968) that states that the "headquarters for the Engineering division" was located in that area. However, just a few pages later, we have the secondary hull, "also called the Engineering Hull". In fact, Doug Drexler and Mike Okuda asked Matt Jefferies where Engineering was, and after giving them an odd look, replied, "In the Engineering Hull." Like most of the technical questions in TOS, the answers depend on what's going on in the episode, and therefore how much weight to give each answer. If the threat to the ship is external, like Landru trying to pull the ship out of orbit, and the solution involves Kirk talking the threat into self destructing, the technobabble is vague and usually makes some offhand remark about the most visible aspect of the ship's power, the nacelles, which doesn't really matter because Scotty can't do anything anyway. *BUT*, if the threat is internal, like the engines are running wild and Scotty has to actually do something, we are almost every time presented with the model of the ship's power being generated internally from a central reactor in or near Engineering, feeding power out to the warp engines in the nacelles. These examples carry much more weight, and this is the scenario Sternbach and Okuda went with when doing their version of the Enterprise's deck layout, and one I agree with. What I *don't* agree with is the idea that those glowing tubes lead directly to the nacelles. For one thing, the angle is completely wrong, even if you follow them through where they cross over, they don't match the angle of the nacelle struts. This also puts Engineering too far back in the hull to my eyes. Plus, there's that big doohickey in the middle of the room starting in the second season, which is shown to house the dilithium crystals. By necessity, this needs to be upstream from the nacelles (later ships had the dilithium right in the intermix chamber, but at this point, they were separate units, just go with it). So, my answer to these evidentiary tidbits goes thusly: The matter/antimatter reaction chamber (later known as the warp core) is located directly under that tube assembly, which is actually the main power transfer manifold, sending energy to the rest of the ship. What we don't see, though, is the conduit leading from the M/ARC directly to the dilithium crystal articulation matrix, amplifying the frequency of the plasma stream sufficiently to generate a warp field, and from there, it goes to the nacelles, through a set of transfer conduits just forward of the hangar bay. In other words, from the second season on, when you're in Engineering facing those tubes, you're actually looking forward. This also allows Engineering to be moved forward so that the warp core is directly over the yellow circle with the red outline on the underside of the secondary hull, making that the warp core ejection port.

[@WeTravelbyNight]

All very good points. On your final point, 'Day of the Dove' has the characters facing one way (port) when the entity leaves, but the POV is clearly the starboard wall behind them. So, perhaps you are right and the main engineering in the video is facing the wrong way? A subject for a future video, perhaps?

[@CaptRobertApril]

@@WeTravelbyNight Maybe. But in matters like these, like that curved corridor, you just have to yield to the restrictions of 1960's tv budgets and ignore the sniggling bits. Otherwise, you drive yourself insane reconciling the change of the ship from production version in most of that episode to second pilot version in that one shot.

[@thork6974]

Jefferies' bemused response likely stems from the very initial design philosophy of the Enterprise, in which the Primary Hull was intended for habitation and the Secondary was for power and drive systems, the idea being to keep the crew safe from all the radioactive/explodey/warpy bits (which is how we still conceive spacecraft design in real life). It follows that only the Primary would have had luxuries like full atmospheric pressure and artificial gravity. This strict division of functions was obviously abandoned early in the show's preproduction, as the model has always featured conventional viewports on the side of the Secondary hull, as well as the shuttle bay in the stern. But I can see Jefferies and others sticking to the original intent of the ship's configuration.

[@ian_b]

@@thork6974 Doesn't TWOK clearly show the Reliant's phasers targeting the secondary hull and causing devastation in engineering?

[@thork6974]

@@ian_b The "Refit", or "Constellation II" Enterprise design clarifies things considerably. It's the TOS ENT where anything goes.

[@greenaum]

Just a note, "Desilu" is pronounced "DEZZy-loo". After Desi Arnaz and Lucille Ball, who founded the studio. And starred as the married couple in I Love Lucy. And also in real life.

[@sugarnads]

How to say yr american without saying it

[@Pocketfarmer1]

@@sugarnadsWhat is inherently American in accurately describing how the creators of the studio wished its name to be pronounced? This whole video was an exercise in pedantry after all.

[@IamJustJ.]

@@sugarnads That's a bit rude and myopic, you're trying to be insulting to a person who is simply providing valid info. @greenaum is 100% right. All they're doing is attempting to tell you how Desi Arnaz and Lucille Ball pronounced the name of their joint company because it was, as pointed out, a merger of the names Desi and Lucille. Though, Lucille absolutely did her best to keep Trek on the air and that's pretty awesome of her.

[@beatrixwickson8477]

@@Pocketfarmer1 Yeah, I'm Australian and I could have written the same comment. Desilu is pronounced the same here too lol.

[@westleygress2160]

There would have been two engineering sections one in the saucer section for impulse and power to the saucer section. The second one would have been located in the lower hull for power to warp core and hanger bay. Keep in mind the turbo lift could go harazonal and vertical. This was reviled latter when the saucer was detached.

[@Belzediel]

Reviled? Not sure anyone hates it all that much.

[@louisalectube]

@@Belzediel [rim shot] revealed* later* Anywho...

[@TerentiiTaras]

It was REVEALED early on that the HANGAR Bay was at the stern of the Secondary Hull. HORIZONTAL corridors with observation ports were on both sides of the Hangar Bay.

[@MonkeyJedi99]

The most solid conclusion we can draw is that this was a show that didn't worry a whole lot about getting every single detail right from episode to episode, particularly as it applies to the ship's layout. This was a show about the story much more than it was about the technology. And thus we get GNDN pipes.

[@metatechnologist]

Every kid watching the show understood that. But the writing and acting were so good that the details didn't matter as much! Btw Stat Trek lives on because it aired in syndication in the late afternoon when kids got home from school!!

[@timsmith2525]

I've heard of GNDN, but does that indicator ever appear on screen?

[@kaitlyn__L]

@@timsmith2525 it’s written in small letters on the colourful pipes

[@acmenipponair]

We really should stop trying to fit TOS into canon. Because as you correctly say: the writers didn't cared for it then yet. They only cared for canon later, from the movies onwards (and even then not all the time, see JJ Abrams and Discovery). I would say, that when we discuss where Main engineering is we should make the position that Strange New Worlds will tell us as the canon, because the writers will have thought about the question long and then made a decision where to place main engineering.

[@MonkeyJedi99]

@@kaitlyn__L I believe those pipes were in the Jefferies tubes, named for the set designer who built them. And the name has stuck in every incarnation of Star Trek since. Now THAT'S a legacy!

[@briandrayton3835]

I would imagine that until they began using vertical warp cores that you would have 2 separate engine rooms. One near the impulse drive, the other in the secondary hull.

[@Idazmi7]

And that is what we see in the Technical Manual.

[@bostonrailfan2427]

they do, the second isn’t seen often due to storylines but it’s always there

[@TerentiiTaras]

The impulse engines apparently used some form of ion propulsion, since Enterprise-D clearly had a "deuterium fuel tank" at the root of the Access Pylon with a feed that ran straight up its spine to the Engine Room at the stern of the saucer. Which explains why they were so slow and had such limited range.

[@williammagoffin9324]

I think the two engine rooms idea makes the most sense. In 'Where No Man has Gone Before' they mention the "impulse deck".

[@brandonb1681]

That makes the most sense to me. One room for the impulse engines and one for the warp drive.

[@zacmumblethunder7466]

As a casual viewer, I always thought engineering must be in the secondary hull as Scotty was climbing up inside what looked like an inclined tube in one episode. I always thought that was inside one of the nacelle supports.

[@leerilea1709]

It is.

[@dennispersson9466]

They were called the Jeffries Tubes, and ran up the supports from main engineering, in the Lower Hull. They were basically conduit tubes to channel the Anti-Matter from the Broussard Collectors (the round red domes) at the front of the Nacelles, to Main Engineering, and channeled back up and out the back ends of the Warp Drives, and there was a lot of electrical power flowing both ways, controlling the Magnetic force-fields. How the People's bodies didn't cause Short-circuits was never dealt with, except during the episode, "The Ultimate Computer", when one crewman got VAPORIZED, and Kirk used logic to get the M-5,or6, Computer to shut down, because he made it 'realize', it had committed murder! P.S. they never explained how much power they needed to protect the ship from the Anti-Matter particles that the ship flew into, and funneled to the Engines! (Phew!)

[@kjamison5951]

@@dennispersson9466 Jeffries Tubes - named for Matt Jeffries, set designer on Star Trek. Also, Bussard Collectors, named for the theoretical propulsion system designer, Robert W Bussard.

[@phillipthorne8363]

@@dennispersson9466 The glowing translucent nacelle caps were identified as "Bussard collectors" only in TNG (both in dialogue and the 1991 technical manual), and the function has been retconned to earlier classes of Earth starship. TOS never identifies them in dialogue, and in the 1975 Franz Joseph "Star Fleet Technical Manual" they're labeled "space energy/matter sink (acquisition)." (Which, if you squint, is the same idea? maybe? although possibly acquiring something more exotic than hydrogen.) For context, the interstellar ramjet idea was proposed by physicist Robert W. Bussard in 1960.

[@blockmasterscott]

I always pictured it in the saucer section in front of the impulse engines, kinda like me picturing the Balrog with wings. Now THAT gets nerds arguing lol.

[@Idazmi7]

You wouldn't get an argument from me.

[@bostonrailfan2427]

technically true, that’s one of the secondary controls and main engineering for the saucer section when it’s separated from the secondary hull…but the sheer size of engineering doesn’t work

[@jimdavis5849]

This is an AWESOME walk down memory lane. Great renderings! It would be great to get interviews with the guys that did the original sets and special effects. I'm sure they would be blown away bey all the love their designs are getting 5 decades later. Amazing work!

[@JLange642]

I always considered Main Engineering to be in the secondary hull, as you describe. I based this on the geometry of the rooms, the layout inside the rooms, the location of the dilithium chambers, and the way "ships" have generally been laid out throughout history. BUT- you then have episodes where crew members, usually Scotty or Spock, are in the Jeffries tubes, which I assume are inside the pylons for the warp nacelles, and they are accessed from what looks like a standard deck area. Also, the curved corridor dilemma pops up. Also keep in mind that whenever a crewmember takes a turbolift from the bridge to main engineering it is a fairly long trip with the lighting behind the panels travelling both horizontally and vertically, so that tends to indicate the secondary hull. I DO like the idea, which I never really gave thought to, of a second engineering space in the saucer section ahead of the impulse drive area and it makes sense. Of course, we can debate this for ever, or at least until they actually build a functional Constitution class starship! ;-)

[@nehukybis]

It seemed like there were lots of Jeffries tubes all around the ship, though presumably there were some extra long ones leading all the way from the secondary hull to the warp engines.

[@mrz80]

Someone tried a reconciliation by stating that the earlier, simpler arrangement of the set seen in season 1 would've represented Impulse Engineering, while the larger, multi-level set seen in later episodes would have been Main Engineering down in the secondary hull forward of the bases of the pylons. The Jeffries Tube access is a bit tougher but try this: The big conduits rising up out of the deck behind the grating lean *inward* instead of outward toward the pylons, suggesting that there may be some kind of crossover/switching connectivity going on, with the conduits leading up to the pylons departing higher up and further out. Then you could imagine corridors leading aft from the catwalk one deck up to starboard and aft from the Emergency Manual Monitor compartment (briefly seen one deck up to port looking down on the high bay in at least one episode) to the Jeffries tube access points.

[@kdrapertrucker]

The tube Scotty always goes into to adjust systems ran from main engineering up through the rear of the pylon to the impulse drive at the rear of the saucer which makes a lot of sense. Turbo lifts can run diagonally, vertically, or horizontally, to allow quick access to any part of the ship.

[@annstevens6223]

I always thought it was behind the deflector dish leading up to the pylons. Kirk referred to it as the “lower levels” when looking for his evil half after the transporter malfunction. Also I know it’s just a toy, but the playmobil model has it there, they must’ve done some research of the official blue prints.

[@TheRip72]

My first thought was "the lower levels, the engine room" from "The Enemy Within".

[@bostonrailfan2427]

physically, it’s the only place that it could be by default, there’s just no space in the saucer section for it when you consider the turbo-lifts are exactly where it’s claimed to be in the saucer…

[@Jeff-cn9up]

Unfortunately, in the 1970s blueprints, it's in the main saucer in front of the impulse engines. Of course these same blueprints have an actual full 6-lane bowling alley at the bottom rear of the ship, under the shuttle bay... And it has a 16m long open pool behind the main deflector dish. Lol!

[@annstevens6223]

@@Jeff-cn9up Red Alert! Red Alert! The Klingons are attacking. Everyone out of the pool, and don’t forget to throw your towels in the throw bin as well as your speedos and bikinis. Also remove your bowling shoes and put on your standard boots. Then fight with the person in charge since your boots are missing. While you’re at it, put on a red shirt because we’re all going to die.

[@Jeff-cn9up]

​@@annstevens6223 That's funny, but I think I am the only one who can see your comment, as a reply notification. My guess is that the algorithm doesn't like the last five words. ... Oh, KZbin. All you had do do was host videos, show comments and allow people to like and dislike. You have fallen...

[@KRAFTWERK2K6]

Remember the Season 1 Episode "The Conscience of the King" where Riley was ordered to take duty at Engineering all by himself and used the Intercom to the Bridge so Uhura could sing him a song so he didn't fell all alone "down there"? That was probably a hint that this Engineering section was indeed all the way down in the secondary hull, close to the warp Pylons and not in the saucer section.

[@mahatmarandy5977]

I don't follow the logic here. The intercom goes anywhere in the ship. That includes *near* places and *Far* places, so using the intercom is no indication. The hallway outside engineering is curved, implying the saucer section.

[@mahatmarandy5977]

@@chrisienni8798 Right, right, right, but the Enterprise was designed by Matt Jeffries. The show was not written by him. I'm looking at this from a production design angle, not a writing angle. The location of things inside the ship are basically where *he* decided they were, and not where writers thought they were. I honestly don't know if he communicated this to the writing room, and I don't know if the writing room chose to pay attention to it. Continuity in the show wasn't particularly air-tight and such as their is is pretty much entirely due to DC Fontana's initiative. In other words, regardless of where the writers say it is, the engine room is where Matt said it was when he was designing the thing. Somewhat more trivially, English is really unspecific about directions. "Down South," "Up North," "Out West," "Back East." "I was down at the mall," which is acutually north of my home. Downtown and uptown have no intrinsic meaning. Hell, Riley could have been alluding to being down in the dumps, which isnt' a direction at all, but an emotion.

[@mikedicenso2778]

@@mahatmarandy5977 As someone pointed out in another video, the curved corridor was used, even when it was damn clear the section a character or characters was in was supposed to be in the engineering hull, not the saucer section. The case in point was episodes like "Journey to Babel", "The Immunity Syndrome", and "The Doomsday Machine", clearly had characters on the hanger deck or going right to the hanger bay itself, yet they traversed the curved corridor to get to a straight that lead immediately to the hanger bay access door. The real reason for this kind of error is because there was only that curved corridor and a relatively small stretch of straight corridor set. The production staff were working with what they had on the budget they had. Building a whole new set of straight or somewhat angling inwards corridor sets to represent solely the engineering hull decks would've have been too much of a budget breaker.

[@mahatmarandy5977]

@@mikedicenso2778 Ok, yeah, that's fair, that's a good point. I'm looking at my chart of the layout of the sets, and, yeah, there's less 'straight' corridor than I remembered. Good point.

[@timsmith2525]

@@mahatmarandy5977 I love your emotional interpretation of "down in engineering"!

[@MonsterHobbiesModelCarGarage]

Court Martial says engineering is in the lower decks. - There could be 2 engineering rooms as well because in the episode with Lazareth, Kirk was going to separate the saucer from the secondary hull. Both hulls have engine power. Glad you quoted all those books, including the FJ Tech Manual and the Making Of Star Trek. I also quote those in my videos.

[@IamJustJ.]

Well, anything under the bridge is technically a lower deck. So, it's not necessarily indicative of anything. But, yeah, I get your point.

[@komradewirelesscaller6716]

Kirk said in The Enemy Within that engineering was in "the lower levels." And if one wants to go by the original special fx of Day of the Dove it was located just behind the main deflector dish about half way down in the secondary hull. Right next to the Starfleet pennant. This location was changed and moved much further back in the remastered fx to be more in line with the Doug Drexler cutaways. As far as Deck 1 also being Deck A fron Star Trek TMP onward there is certainly no reason that when the Enterprise was refit at the end of Kirk's 5 year that an entirely new Deck designation scheme couldn't have been instituted for the ship.

[@metatechnologist]

That's how I always saw it. Not far behind the main deflector dish!

[@komradewirelesscaller6716]

@@metatechnologist yeah me too. That would also make it more consistent with the location of main engineering in later series!

[@MatthewCaunsfield]

Great vid and one of my favourite subjects of discussion. I will say though that the long curving corridor wasn't actually seen outside Engineering in "Day Of The Dove". It was however most definitely present in "Ultimate Computer"

[@PXCharon]

50 years later, the writers: "We had no idea you nerds would take this stuff so seriously."

[@jurassickaiju14]

I remember one fan-made cutaway that solved the problem by simply having two; the S1 engineering room was up in the primary hull near the impulse engines, while the S2-3 main engineering was down in the secondary hull close to the warp engines.

[@nowhereman1046]

Unfortunately, we see the curved corridors often in areas where they shouldn't be. In "Journey to Babel", "The Doomsday Machine", and "The Immunity Syndrome", we see characters walking through the curved corridor, then into the straight ahead one before walking right to the hanger deck doors or by a label stating "Shuttlecraft Hanger Deck", etc..

[@WeTravelbyNight]

The producers clearly loved that corridor!

[@katherineberger6329]

@@WeTravelbyNight The curved corridor had an effect of practical importance - it limited the number of extras they had to hire on any given day, which kept costs down - then as now, the largest unexpected expense in the making of any TV series was the labor cost of hiring and feeding extras.

[@TheRezro]

As such I would ignore it as production issue. Impulse Drive should not be that complicated and I don't see why it would be where main engineering room would be located. But rather offices and stuff like that. The most logical place is top section behind the deflector. Where also later room of vertical drive of refit was.

[@cdglasser]

@@katherineberger6329 I always thought the corridors looked way too crowded anyway. The ship only had a crew of 430 or so but was the size of a modern aircraft carrier. Coupled with the fact that most of the crew should have either been at their duty stations or partaking in eating, sleeping, or some sort of recreation, the corridors should have been relatively empty most of the time.

[@kaitlyn__L]

I spotted that same corridor in some Twilight Zone episodes as well

[@shoestringscifi]

Thanks very much for mentioning my Trekplace website and article! I greatly enjoyed this video!

[@davidvega1212]

As interesting as the various rooms inside the SeaView in Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea or the layout inside the Lost in Space's Jupiter 2. And to think we had a bit more consistency in TOS than in those other shows.

[@user-be2dt8eg2x]

Trek is a little more consistent. I love Voyage. The main problem Seaview had is the forward torpedo room. Where could it be. They always fired forward torpedoes after loading them in the stern-- where the missile room had to be. Then the last season where a mysterious corridor began appearing behind the radio shack. Despite all this, the Seaview was one of the most completely realized vehicles ever in sci-fi. It seemed read, even though everything couldn't fit.

[@ajb695]

I feel like imagining the turbo lift shaft depicted directly in front of the deck 7 front door entrance (in the Franz Joseph plans) a few meters forward, and putting the curved corridor there instead, solves most of the problem for me. Those plans clearly depict main engineering as being just forward of the impulse engines in the saucer hull, and that was the original intent. The idea of main engineering firmly being in the secondary hull (and the associated linear intermix chamber) are ideas that (mostly) don't come along until the Refit/Constitution II. I know that doesn't solve all the episode reference problems and other issues, but it's sure enough for me to go on. (As long as we're discussing the specifics of an imaginary spacecraft at all.) Excellent work on the animations and the conjecture about all of this. Thank you for the video!

[@MrFreesearcher]

There is indeed two engineering areas, since the ship can separate in an emergency. the Main engineering area is much like you describe, as is the impulse engineering areas. The writers presumably forgot this fact, or couldn't decide how best to set up locations. Since the budget was tighter compared to TNG. Apart from the bridge and shuttle bay, all other locations would change regularly, giving little continuity. By the time of TNG, it was decided to scrutinize main locations so that fans would not be left confused, and helps make more sense. The original show was always under threat of cancelation, and so the show was done on an episode by episode policy. By the TNG era, the networks bought the show season by season, with an intended plan to wrap the show in 7 seasons. Of course the aid of main characters, such as Q, The Borg, and more established locations, helped keep Star Trek boldly going into other series, such as Deep Space Nine, and Voyager. With Technology in the real world evolving in the film industry, the Star Trek world has been reborn, with every ship now being a Tardis, from the very open interiors of Discovery in season 4, to Enterprise's limitless support craft in Discovery's season 2. The Torpedo detonation in the front of the Enterprise During the same episodes, which left the ship with a massive hole in the front of the ship, yet Pike survives in the adjoining room from the torpedo.

[@Idazmi7]

Gotta love how Hollywood regresses things the moment they have the chance to improve. 😂😭

[@DaveMiller2]

No one anywhere ever said that the TOS Enterprise had a detachable saucer. That came from TNG.

[@cjc363636]

Ever so often you find a channel and creator with a vision right down your nerdiest interests. THIS IS IT for me. Thanks so much!!! Subscribed!!

[@johnrickard8512]

I seem to recall that on one of the other Connies Scotty had to go to the "Impulse Control Room" to jump start the engines...so the Connie definitely does have multiple engineering decks.

[@jhmcd2]

Yeah, I recall seeing a documentary on this ship. They were confused where it was supposed to be. At one point, it was in the saucer section, but it somehow migrated to what is known as the engineering hull. Eventually, a diagram that came out probably in the late 90's officially places it in the engineering hull.

[@gregnulik1975]

The area in the saucer section, that is sometimes referred to as engineering, is impulse control.

[@mattdavis9601]

If it broke then one could say that Captain Kirk lacks impulse control.

[@michaelparks6120]

Oh, I love this sort of thing ! I always thought that it must be in the secondary hull.

[@joshuacalkins]

Great video! Thank you for breaking it down! By the way, “Desilu” is pronounced “Dezzi-loo” after the owners Desi Arnez and Lucille Ball. Also, in some subsequent ships we have indicators for the top and bottom of the warp shaft. (You probably know this). The bottom, or warp ejection, is coincidentally exactly where a mounting post would go if the ship were a plastic model…. The top is sometimes intended to be beneath a glowing dome, such as the one at the back of the extended saucer of the Reliant (and other Miranda Class ships). This establishes the tallest vertical line in many ships. I believe it was Doug Drexler who spoke on those domes being part of the power distribution from the core to other parts of the ship.

[@markclason2717]

Aye! I wanted to correct his pronunciation of Desilu also. Desi Arnaz + Lucille Ball.

[@joshuacalkins]

@@markclason2717 I didn’t know that back in the ‘80’s when I saw TOS (and I Love Lucy). Lucy gave Schwarzenegger a push too, weirdly enough. Saw a video on it. Never would’ve connected a b+w sitcom to Star Trek or the Terminator!

[@michaelbenjmitchell1]

@@joshuacalkins Lucille Ball was really good friends with Majel Barret and Gene RoddenBerry before he pitched Star Trek. And there also was a certain Klingon Warrior that ended up landing the role of Baltar in the original 1978 Battlestar Galactica.

[@mattdavis9601]

@@joshuacalkins Desilu also produced "Andy Griffith" and occasionally you'll recognize that they're in Mayberry a couple of the times when they visited Earth or Earth like planets. There's one scene in "City on the Edge of Forever" where Kirk and Edith walk past Floyd's barbershop. Also; that one episode with the girl from "True Grit", I believe, was partly filmed in the Mayberry set.

[@joshuacalkins]

@@michaelbenjmitchell1 Oh yes, Koloth, right? Also cast as Trelane and seen again in DS9? I never recognized the guy was in both TOS and BSG when I was a kid.

[@brookestephen]

Beautiful work! It does stand to reason that if primary and secondary can separate, then they both need power plants, for electronics and plumbing and atmospheric systems and either warp and or impulse engines to travel the stars. We know that the primary hull has ZERO warp engines, so only the secondary hull supplies them with the necessary plasma... if the warp engines required two sources, then they wouldn't work anymore after separation. Personally, I prefer the Franz Joseph plans for the locations of primary and secondary engineering: Deck 6/7, just forward of the impulse engines themselves, and Deck 16, near the base of the warp nacelle pylons.

[@frequentflyer56]

Back in the 60's when Star Trek debuted no one care where main engineering was. Back then it was just accepted that main engineering was on the Enterprise. For that matter, no one cared where sick bay, transporter rooms or cargo bays were. being a young man when the original series aired I can tell you we just didn't give a thought to where various rooms were on the ship. It didn't matter to us, the viewers. Great renderings tho and I appreciate the time and work you put into it.

[@Idazmi7]

You don't know the Trekkie fandom: they were ALWAYS concerned about where everything was. The original Star Fleet Technical Manual (1974) has TWO engineering areas: an area marked "Main Engineering" near the Impulse Engines in the saucer, and a separate "Warp Drive Engineering" in the secondary hull right under the nacelles. Main Engineering is shown to have computers that can monitor the warp drive from there. Makes sense: the Enterprise has two different types of engines with different needs, and a crew of only 430.

[@frequentflyer56]

@@Idazmi7 True, I don't know the trekkie fandom because that sort of thing doesn't interest me. I'm just a guy who grew up with the magic and mystique of space and space flight. Movies and tv shows held my attention and fueled my imagination but i couldn't care less about all of the technical details of ships phasers photon torpedos etc. I just watch and enjoy. Thank you for responding to my comment, I appreciate that.

[@Idazmi7]

@@frequentflyer56 You're welcome.

[@danieloneal7137]

@@frequentflyer56 I have been a Trekkie since I was a kid in the 70s and I agree with you. It might be fun to try and reconcile these things, but I don’t believe in being too nitpicky. Early on, the writers were making things up as they went along and were mostly just interested in telling good sci-fi stories. The MST3K mantra comes in handy in times like these:

[@Penfolduk001]

@@danieloneal7137 Whilst I take your point about it being "just a show", people would get upset if a Police Drama ran a coach and horses over normal procedures. Or depicted ridiculous juxtapositions of locations. So why should we write-off inconsistencies in sci-fi stuff as it being "just a show"? It's like the TNG episode Brothers. When Data establishes the security code to access the computer functions, there are differences in what Data speaks and what appears on the LCARS screen. Something I painstakingly worked out on a VHS copy of the episode. I know this. But it doesn't spoil the show as it's a minor detail. Whereas I'm slightly miffed that in the same episode they have a reception committee for Data in the Transporter room. But all stand on the transporter pad. Which Data easily establishes a force field around. You'd have thought Chief O'Brien would have cut power to the force field emitters as well as blocking site to site transport. Still in subsequent episodes they did introduce command codes to make it more difficult for someone like Data to take over in future.

[@andypresby6537]

One solution to the curving corridor outside main engineering in a cigar shaped secondary hull is that the circular corridor section we see is partially wrapped around the machinery of the navigational deflector. The deflector generator is pretty small on Picard's 1701-D but it stands to reason that the system would perhaps be bigger during this time period. If you look at Doug Drexler's cutaway of the Connie the warp coils only take up part of each nacelle. A similar set would handily fit in the secondary hull...but they're big. The engineering spaces on big ships are often dominated by large pieces of equipment. The control spaces and other "people tanks" in engineering plants are put in whatever space they can fit in after your fit the gear in the hull.

[@GregsGameRoom]

In "Star Trek II" Khan hits the secondary hull and you immediately see main engineering explode. Spock says "They knew exactly where to hit us" and it's because he studied the Constitution class schematics in "Space Seed." So therefore, main engineering in TOS also has to be in the secondary hull.

[@Idazmi7]

Not so: the refit was stated by Captain Decker to be an "almost totally new" Enterprise, and Kirk couldn't move around in it by memory. Khan would have gotten the information from the Reliant's computer, not his memory.

[@ChrisRoth1972]

@@Idazmi7I’m confused so when Decker & Mr.Scott refurbished the Enterprise from the TOS,is the Engine Room in the same place/area or when the ship was rebuilt was engineering moved? I know I am a nerd & into continuity.

[@Idazmi7]

@@ChrisRoth1972 Yes, it was moved. The old main engineering was on Deck 8, the new main engineering is on "O" deck (deck 15). The new warp engines have a direct power feed into the _impulse engines,_ requiring both areas to be completely redesigned. In fact, the entire interior is different to the point where nearly any similarity is lost except the location of the Main Bridge. Unfortunately, KZbin isn't letting me link the blueprints. 😮‍💨

[@patricktilton5377]

@@Idazmi7 Also, Khan and his followers would've had to go through the entire ship in order to round up the Reliant's crew, to then beam them down to Ceti Alpha V. How much time this might have taken, well, we'd have to go by the various STARDATES given in the film, with 1,000 Stardate Units equaling 1 year, and budget in travel times from Ceti Alpha to the Regula 1 station, etc. Chekov's log entry, as the Reliant approaches Ceti Alpha V, is on Stardate 8130.3 and the ending scene is on Stardate 8141.6. That's a total of 11.3 Stardate Units, equivalent to about 4 days + 3 hours. So, part of that time would have involved Khan's people -- using the phasers Chekov and Terrell had with them on the planet -- either using Stun to knock out the Reliant's crew, or disintegrating them aboard the ship, or a bit of both. Presumably, with Terrell under his control, Khan could have had the ship's captain use voice commands oto the ship's Computer systems to further his scheme to take the ship. Regardless, Khan would have been a fool NOT to become familiar with the layout of the Reliant -- as well as to use its computer records to dig up the schematics of the refit Enterprise, so as to familiarize himself with its layout in order to hit 'em where it hurts.

[@montanausa329]

I like that you put the bridge which is the brain of the ship and the most important area right on the top surrounded by windows making it the easiest place to hit😊

[@thunderrobots1980s]

since we know the enterprise had the ability to separate the saucer, we can conclude it would need a secondary engine room for the saucer , and since scotty was third in command he needed to be close to the bridge, so he used the secondary engine room as the main engine room so he could have a shorter time to get to the bridge

[@kailahmann1823]

I guess, what we get to see are two (identical and probably linked) control rooms. The engines themselves however are in a separate room nearby.

[@bostonrailfan2427]

the impulse engines would be the secondary engineering, which are located exactly where it’s speculated…so it’s at least justified errors, but it’s definitely not the location of the main engineering

[@KRAFTWERK2K6]

Yes, we even saw different engineering rooms during the course of the show. And also the smaller Engineering sections. I think the one we saw in "Court Martial" and "Space Seed" was the one in the saucer section. While the one in "The Changeling" was the lower decks one.

[@timsmith2525]

"since we know the enterprise had the ability to separate the saucer" The "I" part of "we" doesn't know this. How does the "you" part of "we" know this?

[@thunderrobots1980s]

@@timsmith2525 from watching trek , its mentioned in tos , done in st continues and beyond

[@jasoncaldwell5627]

It makes the most sense that the primary hull gets numbers and secondary gets letters for levels.

[@nathanhale7444]

I wonder what the creators might have done differently if they knew folks would someday be picking their episodes apart like they do today looking for continuity.

[@Idazmi7]

That's why Gene had the Technical Manual created...

[@nathanhale7444]

@@Idazmi7 I didn't know when it was created. I thought it was a more recent creation.

[@Idazmi7]

@@nathanhale7444 The original _Star Trek Blueprints_ were created in 1973, and _Star Fleet Technical Manual_ was created in 1975. Both were made for the exact purpose of making continuity that the show couldn't.

[@metatechnologist]

@@Idazmi7 And besides making a buck!! That and the fake phasers were like priceless artifacts at my school lmao. I was a lucky kid though that had the Enterprise squirt gun. I got a lot of use out of that thing lol.

[@timsmith2525]

@@Idazmi7 What is your basis for making that statement? Franz Joseph has stated that he drew his blueprints based on how a starship made sense to him-not, necessarily, according to the sets or scripts.

[@jimmiegiboney2473]

Thumb Up #83! 👍. Thanks for the informative, fun digital video recording! 🎬😎✌️🖖 Notes: I subscribed!

[@SLagonia]

There would need to be a minimum of two engineering sections, and they were designed by the same people and built with the same materials, meaning they should look similar to each other as well. There are also probably plenty of ancillary rooms that would also be called "engineering" "Main" engineering is probably the one on the impulse deck, but if I were to call out for the warp engine room, it would be easy to accidently say "main" engineering, and the computer would figure out from the context clues that I meant the warp engine room. Similarly, saying something is in "engineer" cold be any engineering section.

[@Idazmi7]

Exactly. In fact, the original Star Fleet Technical Manual _does_ have two engineering areas: the area marked "Main Engineering" is near the Impulse Engines in the saucer, and a separate "Warp Drive Engineering" in the secondary hull right under the nacelles. Main Engineering is shown to have computers that can monitor the warp drive from there. Makes sense: the Enterprise has two different types of engines with different needs, and a crew of only 430.

[@cujoedaman]

Now that scene in "Galaxy Quest" makes more sense, the one where Brandon asks Jason Nesmith about the inconsistencies of a specific deck location of the Protector during the convention (and just before Jason blows up at the kid with "it's just a TV show."). I always figured it was tongue-in-cheek humor at Star Trek in how some things didn't always line up, but this makes that scene have a lot more weight in that it's a very specific area he's asking about.

[@Idazmi7]

_"Well, the first thing we ran into were the "errors," and every ST fan knows there were enough errors to fill a volume library. Some of them I could work around, but some were too glaring; they would have to be corrected. Each time one of the "glaring" errors appeared on the list, we'd have a bull session of ST fans and discuss it. If the consensus of opinion was that, regardless of the error, they wanted it that way because that was the way it appeared in the series, I discarded that item. In other cases, where they decided the correction was proper, and it didn't affect the theme of the ST series, then I made the changes and used the item."_ - Franz Joseph Schnaubelt. _"I had to document every step and maintain accurate records of everything, so that I could meet any challenge in the future without knowing exactly what that challenge might be. Wherever possible, in preparing the Manual, I checked my work with the experts at the local universities. I wanted to be certain that anything I used was correct so that the fans would be learning reality -- not some more science fiction."_ - Franz Joseph Schnaubelt. The guy who wrote the Star Fleet Technical Manual.

[@cujoedaman]

@@Idazmi7 Man, what I would give to have been a fly on the wall in on some of those debates :P

[@gregalbert4033]

Very interesting! Thank you. But I must say... I have never heard DesiLu studios pronounced that way. It's a mashing together of the founders of that studio. Desi Arnez and Lucille Ball. Hence... DesiLu.

[@WeTravelbyNight]

If you think my pronounciation is bad, you should watch my sword videos (The Blades of Beowulf, and Three Legendary Swords)!

[@Interstellar-in5wb]

@@WeTravelbyNight Just for reference: Collection of Desilu Productions logos (announcer) kzbin.info/www/bejne/pamxeJyIpLKHqNU

[@tsbrownie]

Schrodinger's Main Engineering Deck

[@metatechnologist]

You know frankly I don't need to know what happened to that cat!!

[@aztekdummy]

I'd buy the idea of two nearly identical rooms. In Doomsday Machine, Kirk asks if the warp controls could be used to run the impulse engines of the Constellation. So why not have two separate systems? With a set of master controls ( or overrides ) at his bridge station.

[@komradewirelesscaller6716]

I would say I kind of would have to agree with you!

[@thork6974]

The "A" designation on the lift doors as seen on the "Constitution II" bridge refers to the lift itself, not the deck or level. The CII bridge has two lifts, marked "A" and ":B".

[@user-be2dt8eg2x]

I like the saucer location idea, even though the corridors and Jefferies tube locations don't match sometimes. And the "lower deck" references made by Kirk in the first season, suggest it's in the lower section. It doesn't solve the mystery, but in "Day of the Dove", when the entity flees Engineering, it's clearly shown leaving the Engineering hull section. The fact TMP put Engineering squarely in the lower section has to be taken into account, as well. Anyhow, Enterprise is still pretty well laid out.

[@bostonrailfan2427]

IMHO it could be argued that the impulse engines count as engineering as they are meant to be the engineering if they separated the saucer from the secondary hull…but it’s just not possible to be primary engineering

[@Belzediel]

"Anyhow, Enterprise is still pretty well laid out." It is? How are you getting to that conclusion? What are you comparing it to? I mean, AFAIK there are only two rooms with canonical locations and one of those is absolutely in the wrong place.

[@marco5911]

Beauty of a rendering. I would love to include that engineering detail to a cutaway model of the enterprise model. Looks nice next to the impulse section despite the vagaries. Thanx for sharing.

[@chriscushman6580]

Franz was just creating fan art outside of the shows creative team and his stuff is not canon…. Clearly this question was put to bed via subsequent efforts by the Star Trek art department and scipubtech.

[@Idazmi7]

Who's Frank? _Franz,_ you mean? Franz was commissioned by Roddenberry to create a *canon* technical manual, and his manual has TWO engineering areas: an area marked "Main Engineering" near the Impulse Engines in the saucer, and a separate "Warp Drive Engineering" in the secondary hull right under the nacelles. Main Engineering is shown to have computers that can monitor the warp drive from there.

[@chriscushman6580]

@@Idazmi7 Again not completely correct… Roddenberry saw the financial potential of the manual after the success of the blueprints but the manual was never passed by licensing or any of the shows art/ design department and while Gene may have given a nod that doest make it canon… Engineering was in the secondary hull period. End of story

[@Idazmi7]

@@chriscushman6580 _Gene_ commissioned it directly. Not Paramount. Paramount did license the _Booklet of General Plans,_ which puts main engineering in the saucer. Period.

[@chriscushman6580]

Gene was most definitely not a Trek Technical expert… Matt Jeffries said main engineering was in the Engineering/ secondary hull… again end of line. Gene also got slapped by Paramount on licensing products… this was one of the reasons. Ps you can turn off my ability to reply to your last statement but it doesn’t make you right…

[@Idazmi7]

@@chriscushman6580 The Secondary hull is not an 'engineering' hull. The Engineering Section is exactly where *_Paramount_* said it is: in the Primary Hull on Deck 8.

[@johnhodgson4216]

In the Enterprise Engineering Space, the 'impulse area' you question is the location of the dilithium crystals 'errand of mercy' clearly shows the crystals in the secondary hull. and the intermix matter/antimatter 'the glowing tubes' for the warp plasma.

[@sp1dey3]

Answer: Engineering is wherever the writers chose to put it in this weeks episode, for the convenience of that episode. Period.

[@TheRip72]

Sounds about right. It is true of most TV programmes. I tried building a model of Fawlty Towers & the interior sets don't match the exterior shots at all.

[@TonboIV]

One interesting little idea: If you look at some of the early Enterprise "blueprints" that were published, they don't include a warp core at all and there seems to be no warp drive machinery in the secondary hull. I believe that early in the show, the warp engines were conceived as self contained power units, which is consistent with some of the internal production document descriptions. Rodenberry flew bombers, so it makes sense that he would conceive the warp engines as self contained power units, like the engines of a bomber. In that case, there isn't a "warp engine room" at all. I think that the "engineering deck" set was initially conceived as being connected to the impulse drive, and the "pipe room" is supposed to an impulse engine, but then the requirements of drama made it necessary for characters to directly work with the warp drive and that just had to happen in the engineering deck. The dilithium crystals get invented and just kind of stuck there for want of a better place and the location and function of engineering becomes a mess. Starting with the movies, the demands of drama mean that we get a "warp core" as something visible that characters can interact with, but they just didn't predict this dramatic requirement early on when they were developing the show.

[@Idazmi7]

Believe it or not, the original Star Fleet Technical Manual has TWO engineering areas: an area marked "Main Engineering" near the Impulse Engines in the saucer, and a separate "Warp Drive Engineering" in the secondary hull right under the nacelles. Main Engineering is shown to have computers that can monitor the warp drive from there.

[@TonboIV]

​@@Idazmi7 Franz Joseph's "Star Fleet Technical Manual" from 1975? His blueprints from 1973 show now engine room at all in the secondary hull. It's full of living space, which makes little sense, and Franz Joseph wasn't directly involved in production, but I think it does show that he wasn't even thinking about a warp core or warp engine room as a concept. The dates are probably significant because Star Trek I was in early production at the time (based on earlier work for the Star Trek Phase II show), and they built the first main engineering set with a recognizable warp. That was a big change in how warp drives were depicted. If you look at Matt Jeffries concept drawings for the Enterprise, you'll see the warp engines described as "Power Units" or "Power Pods", which sound like self-contained devices to be, not just outputs for some kind of engine core inside the hull. Gene Roddenberry was a bomber pilot, not a navy man, so it makes sense he'd imagine self-contained engines out away from the ship, like the engines on the wings of a bomber. Early on, Scotty operates the engines from the bridge, just like the flight engineer of a bomber up in the cockpit. He also calls them "engines" plural. I don't recall later engineers using such terminology or any plurals to refer to the warp drives, once they had a single reactor core deep inside the ship. I think Roddenberry initially went with his flying experience, imagining the engines as self-contained, out away from the body of the ship, and inaccessible in flight, but later the demands of storytelling required a warp drive characters could actually see and touch, and with the show's tight budget and everything being made up as they went along, we got a bunch of very inconsistent portrayals of the ships propulsion systems.

[@Idazmi7]

@@TonboIV _"Franz Joseph's "Star Fleet Technical Manual" from 1975? His blueprints from 1973 show now engine room at all in the secondary hull."_ **SIGH** Deck 16, "Medical/Warp Drive Engineering." I swear you people don't know how to read...

[@TonboIV]

@@Idazmi7 What the hell? There's no reason for you to be that rude. When have I been rude or at all hostile to you? Yes, I did fail to notice the name of the deck, because I was looking at the rooms. That's an oversight on my part, and I'll admit it, but can't we just have a nice conversation about this instead of attacking each-other? Anyway, I'll have a bit more of a think about those plans now before I say anything else.

[@Idazmi7]

@@TonboIV Also the reason there's living space: *_"4. The primary hull is separable from the secondary hull. When separated each unit is fully capable of independent operation. (...)"_* - Sheet 4, Outboard Bow and Stern Elevations.

[@marley7145]

sigh... You don't have to go through the trouble of explaining. Most Americans can manage to understand not only American English, but even (shocking!) British English.

[@jimmiegiboney2473]

Mark 2:18? Aha! That's what you're referring to! Their "series" versus our "season", right? "Most Americans", hey? I'm hopeful that you're correct, but it hasn't been my personal experience in this state. 😒

[@marley7145]

@@jimmiegiboney2473 uh oh, I think I'm in the same state. Ok, how about "most American Star Trek fans"?

[@Wildwood56]

We try to understand but most of US Americans disagree with the dimacrats all thay ever do is care for themselves not others so I kinda also agree Simi being a real American Myself

[@marley7145]

@@Wildwood56 What?

[@Wildwood56]

@@marley7145 sorry I was helping mom with the animals and I left the comment untended and wasn't done with the commit so there we go

[@brandonb1681]

I don't quite remember where I read it, but in TOS the saucer was designed to be a lifeboat and separate from the rest of the ship. It was never shown because of cost concerns. It would make sense for engineering to be in secondary hull in case of a warp core breach. The real reason for this question is that the creators never concerned themselves with it, thinking the show would never be as influential as it eventually became.

[@timsmith2525]

TNG, me thinks. I don't recall it ever being mention in TOS.

[@Starshipsforever]

@@timsmith2525 It was. In two episodes, "The Apple" and "The Savage Curtain".

[@BrianTaylor-AlwaysInTao]

The warp core was horizontal rather than vertical and largely closed off from view due to radiation - the constitution 2 was the first to have a vertical warp core - so I imagine it was beyond the grid we saw in main engineering on the secondary hull and had some sort of port for accessing the dilithium crystal. The main saucer complex did have impulse reactors but those are not connected to main engineering. A logical reason for the curved hallways in the secondary hull might have been the proximity to the neck of the ship. Ultimately there were as many rooms that could be considered "engineering" as you can guess - everything from phaser control to shuttlecraft maintenance, but only Main Engineering would have been secondary hull at the base of the neck as it needed to be in close enough proximity to deflector control etc. This is where the warp core was located and that was why the saucer wasn't part of the secondary hull - to cut down on radiation exposure.

[@kenmayes1932]

Remember too that in the few scenes we saw where the ceiling of the engineering room was shown...it was slightly curved which would be consistant with Engineering being in the secondary hull at the top of it.

[@scottb7539]

Main Engineering is in the Secondary Hull or Engineering Hull pretty much directly under the innerconnecting dorsal it stops near the main Engine pylons there was a separate but near identical engineering room in the primary Hull. The ship has two semi separate engine rooms in the event of an emergency separation. Each component of the ship is supposed to be able to be able to operate to get to safety until a rescue could arrive.

[@Cmdr1962]

I always pictured engineering at the back of the saucer, because of the big thingies behind Scotty. Meanwhile... don't even get me started about how the main sensor dish became the deflector "dish" (a parabolic shape throws rays forward, but who's counting?).

[@Idazmi7]

The deflector thing was one of TNG's many annoying retcons.

[@sparc77]

I remember reading somewhere that the angular tube array in the background of TOS was part of the impulse drive. The two circular structures in the middle of engineering in TOS is the top of the warp core which passes down through the "neck" of the ship. The main of engineering section was relocated during the refit.

[@thomasackerman5399]

Those tubes are actually the warp drive EPS power conduits. In "The Paradise Syndrome" when the warp engines fail, the sparks and flashes come from there, and in "The Ultimate Computer", when M-5 hooks in directly to the warp power, it aims at that part of engineering. Everyone gets the idea that those are the impulse engines from the mostly non-canon Franz Joseph technical manual and his later booklet of general plans. However, later plans show main engineering in the secondary hull and a smaller engineering for the impulse engines in the saucer.

[@markplott4820]

the Constitution class Starship , has MAIN engineering in the Seccondary hull w/ a LATTERAL intermix chamber , that connects Directly to the Warp nacelles. there is no Enginering connection in the neck between the Saucer section & the Seccondary hull. there is no Vertical intermix chamber , unlike the REFIT Enterprise and Enterprise II class starships. the Saucer section only has Emergency batteries and a minor Enginering that controls BOTH the Main Enginering (seccondry hull) and the Impulse Drive systems , there is also an Auxiliary Control in the Saucer Section that has a VIWESCREEN monitor. and the Chief Engineer can monitor & control MAIN engineering & the Impulse system from the BRIDGE station.

[@FredFredrickson-bip-bang]

This is an interesting subject and I'm glad you've addressed it. I think of the contradictions in the following way: Due to OpSec, details about certain specifics were obfuscated and altered so as to not give away important intelligence. An example is that the blueprints show engineering at the rear of the saucer section adjacent to the impulse drive while in Court Martial there was a reference to engineering being in the 'lower decks', where the "Heisenberg Compensator" is. The location of the area with the Heisenberg Compensator is a bit iffy due to the space constraints of how it was depicted. The blueprints also show sickbay in the secondary hull when episodic references said something like it being on deck five. Seems more likely that sickbay would be in the saucer section since it was designed to separate to be a lifeboat. The blueprints also show the Dilithium Crystals as being in the aft part of the nacelles (four each). This, of course, contradicts what was filmed as cannon. All of this leads me to a fan theory that what we're seeing when watching the episodes is not actually a fly-on-the-wall, first-person perspective of what happened, but rather a dramatic recreation, using sets and actors, based on the recorded logs of those missions.

[@FredFredrickson-bip-bang]

One more thing I'd like to mention is that this video mentioned that engineering is shown off of a curved corridor. I know of one specific episode where we are in engineering and the door is open where we can see a Jefferies Tube on the right, no curved corridor to be seen. This would comport with the reference in the video about engineering being in the secondary hull, but backwards. Otherwise it would interfere with the shuttle bay. I spent hours pouring over the plans in the context of the episodes when I was a kid and am now happy that I have a better sense of it all.

[@montylc2001]

Great little video. Love the graphics....But you got the orientation of the bridge wrong. Supposed to be offset from center a few degrees, not facing forward because of the location of the turbo lift shaft. Anyway, I always figured there were two separate engineering rooms/sections...one for the impulse engines which also operated the functions of the saucer section...and one for the warp engines which also ran the functions of the neck and the secondary hull. One good point for that....the saucer section was able to separate from the rest of the ship and fly independently, so it would gather to reason that it would have it's own separate engineering sections and the rest of the ship would have one also. Also, they would look the same for a couple of reasons...one: cheaper and easier for Starfleet to design and build a universal engineering section that would be compatible for both sections, designing two different ones would have increased the cost significantly...two: parts compatibility. I'm sure as with all spacecraft there are redundant systems installed, so that way parts and units could be interchanged between the two sections. How many times was it written in the scripts that warp controls were transferred to the impulse controls and vice versa?

[@andreewert6576]

The decoupling of the saucer wasn't there until Enterprise D, which was a magnitude larger than Enterprise A

[@montylc2001]

@@andreewert6576 the TOS NCC1701 was also meant to decouple the saucer from the rest of the ship. Is why it has landing legs on the bottom saucer.

[@HawkGTboy]

As a kid, I always wondered if there were “impulse engineering” rooms. There would have to be some kind of space for controlling and maintaining the fusion reactors and driver coil assemblies.

[@Nowhereman10]

There is, at least according to Where No Man Has Gone Before with Gary Mitchell's line to Lee Kelso about blowing up the whole impulse deck. Doug Drexler's plan even calls that area the Impulse Deck and has a smaller engineering space with Main Engineering located in the secondary hull.

[@gobbletegook]

Perhaps this is why most TV shows and feature films have continuity editors? In the case of STAR TREK TOS...they were inventing things on the fly.

[@sm5574]

Continuity was less of a thing in the 1960s. Star Trek was one of the first franchises to attract a meticulous, devoted following in later reruns; they weren't expecting anything like that at the time.

[@TwistedSisterHaratiofales]

I can't wait to start modeling the 1/200 scale Constitution. Right now I have my hands full with the Romulan Warbird. The Klingon D7 and the Daedalus in those scales. I have been modeling the parts on Blender and I just printed the first part of the Romulan Warbird today for test fit and adjustments.

[@paulpatton5994]

Designers of science fiction spaceships take note! If you series is popular, fans will be analyzing every detail of your creation 50 years later. Get it right! Fans of Lost in Space are annoyed that there is no room for the lower deck on the Jupiter 2, and that the space pod hatch would have to be in the same place as John and Maureen Robinson's quarters. Now, it appears that Star Trek fans have discovered that there are inconsistencies in the location of main engineering. Thanks for an entertaining video on a question that has bothered many of us since childhood. Knowing the real layout of the set was especially enlightening.

[@pex_the_unalivedrunk6785]

Worf would've lost his head on the TOS Enterprise... "A ship has ONE BRIDGE! ONE BRIDGE!" (Coming from a guy who serves on Enterprise D which technically had 2 bridges anyhow, LoL)

[@balrighty3523]

5:02 The "knob" at the back of the bridge module is supposed to be the turbolift, meaning the interior of the bridge is actually cattywampus to the ship itself, and its centerline isn't the ship's centerline.

[@katherineberger6329]

That's a theory (and it was certainly the intention in "The Cage") but it doesn't make sense with how the actors lean in their chairs when things happen.

[@timothyduffy8818]

Well that is the shaft to the lower decks but not the door entry to the horizontal shaft, Cars can be waiting just to the right of the proceeding car.

[@scottfirman]

As a 14 year old kid, I ordered the original blue prints for the original Enterprise( I still have them) I knew exactly where Engineering was, as did any Star Trek geek back then.

[@michaelblackwell7408]

At 13 I got the Klingon battle cruiser blueprints, and still do. Die Earther scum!!

[@scottfirman]

@@michaelblackwell7408 Oh great! another Star Trek Nurd. You forgot to call the Enterprise a garbage skow as well.

[@tysonas1]

In the 90’s there was an official cutaway poster of NCC-1701 that was revised by the design team from TOS; main engineering was relocated in front of the hangar so the warp plasma could go straight up the Jeffries pylons. Which makes far more sense than the blueprints of the 70’s.

[@pault5557]

My head hurts after all this, but still COOL IDEAS!!! 🙌 it seems the prevailing opinion here is that the writers simply placed engineering where they needed it to work in the story, which is consistent with why Star Trek is still an excellent show!!! 😎

[@RendallRen]

When it comes to American programs such as Star Trek they are seasons. When it comes to British programmes such as Doctor Who, they are series. Hope this helps.

[@metatechnologist]

Live by the technical details then die by the technical details I guess.

[@sm5574]

1:13 The refit could be called the Enterprise-A but not the Enterprise-D, which was a Galaxy-class ship and featured in TNG.

[@danaralston6688]

I haven't seen anyone mention the use of the term Engineering multiple times in "The Alternative Factor". That room, very clearly, was in the saucer section. To me, that lends credence to the theory that there are indeed two "main engineering" spaces, one in the saucer and the "real" main one in the secondary hull.

[@Idazmi7]

The Star Fleet Technical Manual does show two separate engineering areas: an area marked "Main Engineering" near the Impulse Engines in the saucer, and a separate "Warp Drive Engineering" in the secondary hull right under the nacelles. Main Engineering is shown to have computers that can monitor the warp drive from there.

[@Afterburner]

My theory is that there were two Engineering rooms - An impulse engine room located in the saucer that could serve as the warp control room and then a lower warp engineering room that had a secondary impulse drive for the lower star drive section. The lower control room held the dilithium crystals. It would make sense that the star drive would have a secondary impulse capability perhaps somewhere on the nacelles, although it would be a smaller, less capable impulse drive than the one on the saucer section. It makes sense that such an arrangement would be in place, providing redundancy, which even today's spacecraft have in place to provide options in case of failure.

[@markharrison5321]

In the second season, the Main Engineering set was modified and on the left side of the set (looking aft), there is a visible ceiling that has large supporting beams. The ceiling is curved, suggesting Main Engineering is in the top of the secondary hull between the pylon that supports the primary hull and the engine pylons. This suggests the forced perspective area behind the screen at the aft of the set is the "Warp Core" and somehow feeds into the engine pylons.

[@Mack682]

Another book from the 80’s( I don’t remember which one off hand) said the secondary hull was a deck by deck reproduction of the primary hull. The explanation was that if the saucer section failed or was severely damaged, the secondary could be used as a “Life Boat”

[@RichKronfeld]

Have always wondered about this. Thank you so much.

[@bluedotdinosaur]

Few thoughts: 1. Turbolift systems have so often been visualized as moving in 3 dimensions as opposed to only in vertical shafts, I think it's reasonable to imagine there could be turbolift routes around certain rooms or decks which would seem to block a clear vertical tube up and down the ship. 2. There's no reason angled or curving corridors can't exist outside the saucer section. There is a lot of negative space in ships to provide room for storage and machinery. It would be easier to angle or curve a crew corridor than to move a large system that absolutely needs to be in a certain location. So in-fiction, a curved corridor shouldn't necessarily look wrong in many locations. 3. Even before the reusable saucer separation experiment of the Galaxy class, there's references to the concept of a saucer section being usable as a lifeboat in case the entire warp system is destroyed or must be abandoned. The impulse engines so often being located in saucers really helps support this idea. I believe sometimes, it is imagined there are explosive systems designed to permanently detach saucers in case of emergency. It seems prudent to install a robust engineering control center in both hulls, for redundancy and backup.

[@AJB2K3]

I was going to shout its down in the engine hull between the pylon but yet now you say it, the early version of engineering didn't have the warp plasma conduits. However an unknown feature is that the saucer on the original was also separable from the engines in order to act as an emergency life boat placing main engineering down in the lower hull.

[@matthewmiller6068]

In my mind it makes perfect sense. There are probably multiple places that could be considered main engineering depending on the context of the needs (e.g. main engineering for ship power, main engineering for warp engines, main engineering for impulse) and also those may span multiple decks - separate from "engineering decks" that may link those areas to other critical parts of the ship the equipment is controlled by or supports much like a large building has many "mechanical rooms" or "electrical closets". I would write off the similarities and differences as they are all roughly based on the same plan with minor tailoring to their individual needs. And I presume turbolift can handle going in directions other than straight up and down because gravity is relative to the floor of the turbolift but the shaft may not go in a straight line so it seems plausible to me it could dodge obstacles. This could also explain why the engineers are perpetually being called to main engineering and not just stationed there all the time because they may be getting called from one main X engineering area to another main Y engineering area, and presumably they would know the correct context so they wouldn't need to explicitly asked which one as they should always be aware of what's happening on the ship as a whole.

[@TheRealInscrutable]

With "gravity plate" flooring, _down_ can be any direction so a curved hall in the secondary hull with an arbitrary down could go around the outside of the tube.

[@richardched6085]

I bet there were 2 Engineering rooms on the TOS Enterprise. Both identical, one in the primary hull, one in the secondary hull.

[@Idazmi7]

If you look at the Technical Manual, there are indeed two different Engineering rooms. However, they aren't identical.

[@Semiam1]

Suspending disbelief is part of the charm

[@LordZontar]

"Scotty, you find the engine room...?" "Just where I left it, sir." Sort of takes on a whole new meaning.

[@hartsonk]

Schrödinger's Engine Room - it is in both hulls, and neither...

[@CacheCanada]

I have always thought that engineering was in the saucer section.

[@Idazmi7]

It is.

[@PWingert1966]

One other element is that the saucer section was always capable of separating from the secondary hull. So having two separate engineering facilities. While it was never shown separating the capability was at least alluded to in some scenes including scenes featuring he backup bridge.

[@misterlau5246]

The original NCC-1701 seems to have a interior design resembling navy ships

[@montescott59]

Regarding the apparent inconsistency between "Engineering decks" and 'Engineering levels," in the US Navy, any deck below the main deck, or "deck one," is called a "deck," and any deck above the main deck is called a "level." The main deck would generally be the obvious one, and corresponded to the weather deck that ran from the foc'sle to the fantail, or it could be designated as another one. Aboard a Forrestal class carrier, the main deck was the hangar bay, and the flight deck was the "04 level." So just maybe, aboard he original starship Enterprise, Engineering decks were in the secondary hull, and Engineering levels were in the primary hull.

[@Renserin]

Here's a thought that would be interesting from a behind-the-scenes perspective. What if the location of Main Engineering's location inside the ship, changed between season one and two. What if chardtomp is right, and it started out as an Engineering Control Room, that didn't have to be anywhere near the physical engines? And then when scripts came up in season two, that needed Scotty to physically mess with the matter-antimatter drive, it became a literal Engine Room in truth. But because of budget constraints at the time, they could only do minor alterations to the set. Thus the new, freestanding console in the middle of the room.

[@phillipthorne8363]

The TOS novels by Christopher L. Bennett often allude to major and minor repairs and refits that happened between episodes -- he's the sort of detail-oriented fan-author who notices the evident inconsistencies and surmises the simplest explanation, which is "Starfleet is a large and complicated organization with conflicting priorities."

[@PatrickMersinger]

There’s an episode where Kirk and Spock are in the turbo lift after leaving engineering. Looking at the light on the wall they are going in a straight line . Then they stop and start going diagonally upward, meaning going up but they were in the neck of the Enterprise heading toward the saucer section.

[@kelvington4182]

Just FYI, it's pronounced "Dez-ee-loo" Productions. I know there are a number of words that are pronounced differently in UK, (Schedule, Aluminum, etc) but proper names (this is a combined name) need to be pronounced in the way they are in their original tongue. The name comes from Desi Arnaz's and Lucille Ball's first names combined "Desilu Productions" thus "Dez-ee-loo".

[@Wh0isTh3D0ct0r]

There was a 4-D portal (disguised as a standard Enterprise doorway) which would take a crew member from the curved hallway of the saucer section directly to main engineering in the secondary hull. There were no exterior windows in main engineering in order to conceal this fact from the crew. No crew member except the captain and chief engineer were aware of this because it was kept under wraps by Section 31, which is why the crew of the Enterprise-D were so confused when they came across this technology in the TNG episode "Where Silence Has Lease," both in the void itself as well as within the USS Yamato.

[@kencortright6799]

I always found it odd in 'Court Martial' that the 'Engineering' they fight in was devoid of that central double-triangle structure that we see the Dilithium crystals in; sure, on a practical level, it's because of how the fight was choreographed, but still sticks in your brain 'if they are in Main Engineering, where is the Dilithium Chamber (double-triangle) structure?'. It being removed there I guess could give credence to there being a similar shaped room for Impulse Control. As to the overall question, I've always had it in my mind it's in the Secondary Hull near the Nacelle pylons.

[@MatthewCaunsfield]

That double triangle thingy wasn't added to the set until the second season

[@MuzixMaker]

From an engineering standpoint, it makes much more sense for the main engine room to be forward of the shuttle bay in the vicinity of the pylons.

[@jptrostle3275]

So weird - just a couple of months ago I was having this argument (again) with my brother. It crops up every few years when one of us pulls out the old Franz Joseph blueprints. I kept looking on youtube for a decent vid on this, and this is the first. Must have been something in the water!

[@Voodoomaria]

Main Engineering was at the rear of the saucer section, the caged area at the "Back" of the set looked out into the Impulse Engines.