Poor Andy. It was painful watching him being asked to clarify trek technobabble. Roddenberry wants ships designed a certain way, the designer went with his boss' instructions.
I liked the discussion itself, but I found it painful watching him being questioned by the younger interviewer whom I thought was smug, flippant, extremely impertinent, and very irritating, with very fast speech and poor diction.
This reminds me of the scene in Galaxy Quest when Justin Long's character is asking some seriously technical questions and Tim Allen's character snaps. I kept waiting for the "snap."
As Gene explained to an Executive at NBC. The warp engines are not rockets that expel gas. Each cell generates a warp field. Because there are two cells the warp field exerts a force against each other, not unlike pinching a watermelon seed between your thumb and forefinger. When you pinch the watermelon seed and it shoots out from between your fingers. The same principle applies to the Enterprise. The ship is propelled forward as the two warp fields exert force against one another.
I think that the design rules are primarily aesthetic. It seems that Roddenberry wanted to establish rules that would make a ship be immediately recognized as existing in the Star Trek universe.
Exactly. Functional that happens to be aesthetic. Some want an excuse to abandon the rule. The shape of the enterprise is exactly the way it needs to be to be efficient. If it weren't you'd put the bridge deep inside and eliminate the neck.
Because at the tail end of TNG they made up this allegory for climate change and the ozone layer where excessive warp flights were slowly tearing up subspace, so a speed limit had to be enforced. Realizing how stupid that was, the Voyager's movable nacelles are meant to handwave that problem away.
@@BlueSatoshi that is a problem with Star Trek as a whole. Trying to mirror some modern day politics into situations where it makes exactly zero sense to do so, just to check a box. On the whole, they do great with allegory - the Xindi attack on earth being one of them, or Bone's "country attitude" with Spock. But the whole "subspace is being ripped apart", only to show there being actual corridors that warp travelers use to get even faster velocities makes zero sense. As does Trip's quips about "we eradicated war, poverty, racism, etc in 50 years." - only to show for hundreds of years, their racism and penchant for war toward aliens. Not to mention poverty still being very much a thing within the Federation. ENT would have done a huge service to themselves if they spent the first season exploring mankind dealing with the politics of getting that first NX built and crewed like they wanted to.
No matter what we the fans may or may not want, what you don't do is roll your eyes at THE design expert when he is telling you "THE RULES." That was a low class move.
Rules are good in this case and I wish that they'd been followed all these years. I don't seen any problem with saying that nacelles must be in pairs, without any obstructions in the front and have line of sight between them. Now design around that
Designers are not infallible. Dialogue with other production entities, directors, etc. is necessary to hash things out. That's how the final product makes it into production in whatever shape it has...
If I write a book, others may critique it, but they may not re-write it. It is not about whether the designer is fallible or not, it's about what Rodenberry carved in stone. Others have had and will continue to have input, but as I said, arguing with the guy who followed THE directions and rolling your eyes at him because you don't agree is pretty low class.
"but...but...the P-51!" I completely agree with your assessment of how Foley acted during this episode. I thought this episode would be more informational as to why the ships were designed the way they were, as opposed to this confrontational stance from the hosts.
Gene Roddenberry specifically wrote the rules to exclude Franz Joseph's ships from canon because he was mad about not getting a cut of the Star Fleet Technical Manual's royalties. That is literally the only reason they exist.
David Landon well then personally I think that's a good enough reason! This guy made a lot of money off of something you created and refined over many years why would they think they could use it and expand on it without at least cutting you in for a piece of the pie? So he did because he could with four short Strokes completely delegitimise his designs I think that actually was a smart move!
Andrew Probert Sir, you are genius and you are an inspiration. The refit is my (hands down) favourite Enterprise. To take the Jeffreys design and better it while keeping it aesthetically similar was perfect. Thank you so much for your contribution to the greatest ship of all time
There's a huge number of canon ships that do not follow these rules. At this point they are kind of like strong suggestions rather than obligatory guidelines. Similarly to the Ferengi rules of acquisition.
I've heard that Gene Roddenberry had a falling out with Franz Joseph, so he made the starship design rules to invalidate everything Joseph created for the Star Fleet Technical Manual.
I LOVE Andrew Probert. Love all his designs. Love how passionate he is about his creation. Love how seriously he takes his job, and how seriously he takes the lore of Trek. I love how deferential, respectful and defensive he is of Gene Roddenberry. I love that he hates _Eye of the Beholder._ Love that he called it "the most ridiculous episode they've ever filmed," suggesting he's likely watched every episode with vested interest. I just love his attitude and love this man! Unlike modern TV producers, he "gets" the spirit of Trek. I'm very grateful for this interview, though frankly I was not keen on the younger interviewer. I found his style of questioning to be smug, flippant, extremely impertinent, and very irritating, and I'm sure Mr Probert did too. Another big problem is that this fellow speaks very quickly and not very clearly, so I struggled to understand him (and I'm British). Another annoyance is that this video has _so much_ wasted screen space! Over 50% of the screen is taken up by meaningless LCARS nonsense, while Mr Probert - the star of this video - only occupies about 4% of the screen. I love LCARS, but such a design is simply not relevant to this video and should be limited to a small border. Sorry to be so critical but hopefully feedback is helpful.
I think the reasoning behind the TNG nacelles having the glow on both sides is a production line one - in TOS, you needed to produce a left-handed and a right-handed nacelle for each ship. By TNG , they only make one nacelle and fit it to whichever side of the side you need to, allowing you to reduce costs and increase production.
I can see the Galaxy engines being designed to be symmetrical so that in case one is destroyed you don't have to worry about not having any Starboard Nacelles left; they both are interchangeable in the event of damage.
I am a electrician and i see a warp system and energy field being an electromagnetic field. if you only have one coil you produce a field but that's all but in a transformer you have at least 2 coils one to put energy into field and the other to pull out of the field in transformed form there are systems like neon sign transformer that have to primary coils putting into field and the third pulling energy out and this design as far as i can see would be like the dreadnaught class. they always talk about warp plasma and plasma is basically lightning which is electricity its more dynamic and complicated but this simple analogy fits the rules laid down by Mr Roddenberry. as far as visibility is concerned there are the bussard collectors in front and if you take the name literally collector then you wouldn't want any thing obstructing them from collecting whatever it is they collect if any body knows please let me know. this is all just sort of a hunch the only fields we have today and when show was conceived is electromagnetic so as Spock would say this is the most Logical conclusion.
The bussard collectors collect hydrogen, deuterium, and various other particles and gasses to turn into the matter and anti-matter needed to fuel the warp core.
If we're going to go that deep into the weeds of technobabble on fictional things and technologies that don't exist, why can't we say we can have 2 warp coils in 1 housing/nacelle instead of 1 in 2 housings? Also wasn't there a plot point in Enterprise S3 where T'Pol slammed an enemy vessel docked to the ship into another one and they lost the entire port nacelle? Trip said they could only go at a much slower speed so 1 clearly works if you normally have 2, just not very well.
Watching this... they do seemed to be trying to draw out info from this guy, when all he really had to go on was "Gene said so." And wasn't really told or cared 'why'.
Yeah, that's the risk when fans talk to the 'creators' since they eventually realize that the fans 'care' more about the fake science than any of the creators did.
There was a book about Star Trek tech, back in the late 1960's -early 1970's, that stated the reason you could not have 3 (or multiples of 3) because of subspace wave interference that shook a prototype ship to pieces.
I surmise the "surround" grills on the Excelsior and the Galaxy class could be so that warp nacelles could be swapped back and forth between port and starboard if needed!
These rules mostly seem to relate to Federation ships, but quite a few other designs still clearly follow most if not all of them. Many klingon and romulan ships do, at least. And the D'deridex warbird might look quite different to a federation ship in some ways, but with that huge interior hole and other design elements it still follows the same rules...
Capt Foley, I love your series. But you just need to face facts on this one. As we have always all known, one and three engine starships are noncanonical in the ST universe. (But four seems okay since it could be explained within canonical treknology canon). Keep on Trekkin' PS I've been a hardcore fan since the 1970s, so I think I've achieved admiral status by now. But then again, I guess I also would have retired from Star Fleet by now.
In addition, the energy field between the engine pods also served to keep the two units synchronized, preventing one engine from running at a different speed from the other (which could cause the whole starship to become nearly uncontrollable and potentially go off course...).
The real reason there needed to be pairs of engines was so the single and triple engine designs set out by Franz Joseph couldn't be used. Gene didn't want to have to PAY him for the designs, so he made the rule up and rationalized it with the business of the engines needing to generate a field between them. That said, I do like that logic.
Probert is my favorite designer, second only to Jefferies of course. Hopefully the new show will take heed to this special and bring logic and reason back into the design language of the ships. Another thing I'd like to see leveled back out is Jefferies registry number method: 17 = seventeenth model, 01 = first deployed build of that design. Of course that goes to mean that the D shouldn't have been 1701, which seems to upset a lot of people.
The Audition Girl that method wasn't canon, merely fan canon, or fanon, just as there is not an official explanation for NCC. It could mean Naval Construction Contract, or just NC which is a real designation with an extra C.
I always understood that it was Naval Construction Contract, and probably in blocks for ease of reference. Sort of like Audition Girl's Fanon. the 1700-block being assigned to the Constitution-class Heavy Crusiers. USS Constitution, the lead ship, was 1700, and the Constitution-class Enterprise was the first build of series production. As for the 'Prises all being 1701, that's just because the Enterprise is a special snowflake. (There's a reasonable discussion at www.reddit.com/r/DaystromInstitute/comments/3rnrhi/why_is_the_enterprise_the_only_ship_with_a/, with bonus points for an Honor Harrington reference.)
The Enterprise refit from Star Trek the motion picture .Has always been my fav Enterprise from the Star Trek Universe ,And was sad to see go in Star Trek 3 the Search for Spock But I was glad it came as the Enterprise NCC-1701-A in Star Trek 4 the Voyage Home ,And is my other fav Kirk Era Enterprise .But the Enterprise E is another one like and is Picard best ship .I don't like the new Enterprise from J.J Abrams Universe ,Since the bridge is not were it should be ,And every time I see it bugs me .And did like Archer ship NX-01 it was cool looking ship,Which it had new and old elements of Star Trek in the ship .
I think the entire reason Gene made those rules was because he had an issue with Franz Joseph. However, as much as you try to say that one or three warp nacelles can't exist, the graphics of the movies included Franz Joseph's single engine design and the audio called out the registry and names of two single engine ships and one three engine ship, so like many things that the production team had intended, the reality of how things turned out does not match and sets out different rules than the rules that came from the top. I would say those 3 rules of starship design are the ones that work best, but that other configurations can exist. And Rule 3 is often more of a suggestion than demanded. And Defiant breaks rule 4.
"It's true because it's his universe" sort of sums up why I couldn't care less about certain aspects of Roddenberry. I get it's his brainchild, I get the rules essentially ensure our ability to visually identify Federation ships at the first glance but dear god are they stupid as a second coat of paint. Also, I like how Cohrane's Phoenix seems to violate at least nr. 2 and still somehow works just fine.
To be fair Starfleet ships rely A LOT on systems like Structural Integrity Fields and their Shields; with the firepower thrown around in Star Trek it doesn't really matter where the Bridge is located; once your shields are down the weapons are going to carve into you like a bored Borg cube. In that regard it might actually make some sense to put the Bridge on top: if it was in the middle of the ship it'd be protected, yes, but it'd also be equally far away from the enemy no matter how you position yourself. If the Bridge is on top you can show them your bow and maybe aim slightly upwards in relation to your enemy; the classic "TNG Battle Position"-shot.
@ Commander Rotal. - Did not work out too well then the Reliant's shields dropped. why would the Bridge be near the enemy ? the Viewscreen and sensors are all that matter. the ship could have sideways rotated bridges and the battle effevtiveness not changed. besides Klingon warships had rotating platforms to fire torpedoes.
I would LOVE to have seen that energy ribbon between the nacelles and that original lounge brought to life. I think a cool energy effects and the original TMP pearlescent hull would have been spectacular. I'n neither here nor there about the rules, per se. I think I'd like to see more ships following them because I'd like to see more creative designs, but I also like ships like the Grissom and would be sad to see it go. Also, the grills on the Refit and the D are present on both sides or light up all around the nacelles so I don't know that I see the warp effect acting the same way, at least not by the D's time. I'm not a fan of the one-nacelle ships so much because of the lack of deflector - I mean why have it on the Ent at all? Or a secondary hull?
I must admit I do think the navigational deflector is a 'must have' so if ships like the Reliant can get away without having one, so why can't other ships?
You know, maybe if the Grissom raised the saucer just *above the nacelles; it'd still be close, but juuust get by? Maybe the tech is more advanced by that era and they can get away wit it, rather than earlier ships that needed nacelles well away from living spaces. Also, if you like three nacelles, what if they're all in line-of-sight with each other?? Oh, and when I used to draw my childhood Daedalus scribbles, I made it a long spindly thing with sphere, 2001-like, well away from body and with bulky nacelles well away too - both warp reactor and nacelle radiations needing space and jettison clearance.
That's another set of "rules." If you say that's what a deflector does, then really every ship should have one. If impulse engines have matter exhaust, why aren't they incinerating the nacelles? If Bussard Collectors are sucking in space dust, why are they blocked by the saucer? It really doesn't take much to fix this stuff at the design stage, and I always see it, no different than if I'm looking at a crooked wig on an actor or a bad edit in a scene. And I like the rules; I'm not going to ignore them (completely) cause bad work.
@ Evan Green: actually, if you look at a model of the Grissom, the grills do have complete line of sight. They are set further back on the nacelles, well back from the saucer. So, Roddenberry laws of warp are still maintained! @Nicholas Dickens: I wanted to scream at the Commander that protecting the line of sight between the nacelles would be a big reason for having navigational deflectors. I still think there must be some sort of deflector tech going on with ships like the reliant, either in the torpedo pod or worked into those space sensor thingies to the left and right of the bridge. Wow, I love geeking out abut stuff like this. Even though I want to yell at my screen sometimes, I love it all!! :-)
DarthAgamemnon Is it just me, or doe those "space sensor thingies" look like small clamshell doors for crew (rather than larger ones for shuttles) to conduct spacewalks? They even have little sets of steps to the saucer. For me, I pretend ships without deflectors clear a way with their warp fields, but in doing so sacrifice maneuverability or speed or something.
I have to wonder why was the Galaxy X Enterprise D from All good things not brought up during the always in pairs and while i kinda understand why Andrew is so inflexible when it comes to these rules something he said makes me think that they are only for ships Pre Excelsior or at least dont apply as strongly to everything post Excelsior even then i wish he had at least tried to come up with something to explain the Defiant she is one of my favorite ships as well as just about anything Doug Drexler touches :P but good video anyway
In previous videos, Probert has made his hatred regarding the Galaxy X upgrades very well known; I'm sure they didn't want to agitate the man considering how much he contributes to this channel :)
I do! I'm not too fond of the little horns or the Phaser Lance or the little fins on the pylons but if there's one single tiny thing about the Galaxy that i would like to change it'd be the enormous empty space in the area between and above the warp nacelles, the part that makes her look so top-heavy. I like the arrangedment of the third nacelle there to fill up that space. (There's also fan-versions with a Nebula-style Sensor Pod that look even better!)
I thought the rule was nacelles in pairs OR in tandem? Thus, my head-canon explanation for ships with odd numbers of nacelles was that they simply reprogrammed the computer controlling the plasma injectors so that instead of firing - in, say, a nacelle with 10 coils - in sequence from 1 to 10, they would fire them in pairs of 1&6 -> 2&7 -> 3&8 -> 4&9 -> 5&10; meaning you effectively had two "nacelles" of half the size in-line with each-other. Such a reprogramming could be akin to a lower gear in a car, and could even be used by ships with even numbers of nacelles in emergencies requiring greater acceleration. The Federation class dreadnought could even use both at once; with the paired nacelles working the normal "single fire" configuration for a high top speed, and the third nacelle working in the "double fire" configuration for a boost to acceleration despite the increased mass...
I was thinking something similar that the coils might be able to be programmed in the way they work in a similar way LED light patterns are done. If the warp field is pushing backwards then some sort of sequential overlapping pulse in a single nacelle might work. iI however you think the nacelle is generating a bubble then a smaller coil either side should be fine too. Doesn't the Kelvin have multiple coils in it's single engine nacelle and some sort of weird ill defined booster on the back as well. it also has windows & rooms in the front portion of the nacelle too.
Interesting theory. It makes three-engine ships behave more like a fire engine's Cummins diesel versus a two-nacelle Chrysler Hemi...not sure I'm ready to adopt it, but it might be a good compromise solution to get other fans on board.
Extending this logic, call the Ptolemy-class a box truck, but a tri-engine variant would be more like a freight train, meant to cruise very long hauls with very heavy loads...
The Tritium prototype was a failed 3 nacelle design due to extreme difficulties in synchronizing the warp field. That was in the Space Flight Chronology. I like the way he had a sense of limitations for the technology.
interesting episode I ca't wait for the next part. What if the t3rd nacelle was inactive during normal operations and only became active if of of the main nacelles was damaged, that way its always still operating in pairs. I think this would actually make a lot of sense for the dreadnoughts considering the types of missions they would be used for. in heaven battle have a back up nacelle so you can still warp out of there when things get bad.
I wouldn't stand next to the warp engines, but as i understand it it's a design that warps subspace to create a bubble around the ship. So while they are codependant, later designs don't need a clear lign of sight in N-Space (normal space) ...Even if I do actually prefer the clear lign of sign concept as much as I prefer the nacelles being above the saucer.
I'm surprised no one has mentioned this, but whenever anyone asks Rick Sternbach about the articulating engines of Voyager and their practicality it's always just 'it's what they wanted'. When the engines are 'up', they have line of sight with each other. Sure, the blue glowies don't meet- but maybe there's some kind of explanation of why this isn't an issue.
Finally bit the bullet and bought a pen tablet today, looking foward to sketching some cool stuff! I know all the old design rules but I'm trying to find some other tips..
I would have liked to know Roddenberry's thoughts on engine design (obvs based on his own experience) in the wake of later real-world designs such as the DC-10. Foley brought up the idea of a nacelle containing dual coils internally, which kind of evokes the miniaturization of technology, the way we tend to cram more into smaller spaces. I wonder how exploration thereof would influence future designs.
I like the rules because foremost they exist to make ships which are aesthetically pleasing to look at from most angles. If a ship design breaks the rules there ought to be a very specific and narratively compelling reason for it to do so, and design rule breaks should not just be done frivolously "because wouldn't it be cool to have more kinds of ships". No, no it isn't always more cool, if someone loves their own design aesthetic more than the core Star Trek aesthetic, they ought to place their ship into it's own setting where it contextually fits.
I know that I'm late to the party, but if the rule holds that something is canon if it appears on screen. During the Kobayashi Maru Scenario opening scene had both a pre-refit design of a Dreadnaught Class and one of the single warp nacelle classes of ships appeared as screen displays. I highly doubt that any in universe "Fictional" displays would have been created for a test scenario where everything was made to be as real as possible.
one nacelle is tuned to sub space, the other nacelle is tuned to space normal, a third adjustable nacelle is a spare if one is lost in combat. if the two(normal and sub space) are to close to each other the fields destabilize and the fields collapse and/or cause a temporal displacement
sixgun75 I think more the latter than the former. It's all meant to be in good fun and I've never heard him say anything about having actually held rank nor the commander outside of the Trek universe. but they've definitely deserved that rank here with their knowledge and achievements to the Trek fandom.
the nacelles control the warp drive, so technically its performance isn't so demanding since the standard for them was warp factor 3 to 7 which was fast enough without destroying the reactor, the deflector controls the shield and scanners, while the saucer houses the impulse engines which control sub-light maneuvers, so if you want good combat performance you dont need more nacelles, you actually need more or better impulse engines. (i'm actually not too technical on startrek stuff but i have studied multiple theoretical engineering technologies)
Something getting between the nacelles at warp would drop the ship out of warp, and probably create a lot of work for engineering. The energy would have to circulate somehow so the external glowy things might be the other pole of the warp magnet?
With current experiments with interferometers the warp field will be created with a ring and the current concept that NASA has needs two of the rings to have a bubble large enough for a ship that size. If the ship was smaller only one ring will be needed. I am just stating that one does not need two warp engines in less one does not create a large enough bubble for the ships size.
i think the comparison of warp nacelles to propellers is wrong, to me a propeller is a power plant, like a warp core. the nacelles seem more like the wings of an airplane, which always operate in pairs.
8:35 Hold on a minute, according to the TNG Technical Manual the Federation-class Dreadnoughts did exist but the three nacelle-design was deemed flawed. Very sad to hear to that we could have had some additions to Starfleet's lineup but didn't. I would have settled for the Ptolemy-class. That class doesn't violate any of the rules, does it?
I think that was their attempt to rationalise the existence of the Franz Joseph designs without denying their existence. It basically makes a Rick Rule where engines work _best_ in pairs. If also paves the way for quad engine ships like the Constellation and even the Prometheus as they work in sets of 2. The Galaxy dreadnought is an odd duck here- but it suggests that the ship exists in the future, when such obstacles are overcome with engineering.
The Ptolemy breaks the line of sight rule in a most heinous way. The cargo tank is directly between the nacelles. Not only would this make a warp field impossible under the rules... That cargo tank would also be subjected to an absurd amount of energy and radiation, in my book, if the rules were as inflexible as Probert believes them to be.
Not only that but having that massive cargo pod locked in at only one end the the naccelles on either side and the pylon mounted deflector dish to by in front of it is a very careless design. I would endorse a tug design that has the deflector mounted at their front of the saucer (or mounted temporarily to the pod) and have the naccelles on the top of the saucer.... I would also endorse smaller diameter cargo pods that would attach to the bottom and sides of the neck in sets of 1,2,or 2
I would move the cargo attachment to the rear of the saucer, separate the impulse engines and move them to both edge of the rear. The cargo pod wouldn't be right on center, maybe sightly off center to top or bottom and allow for the warp nacelles to be angled downward or upward for clear LOS.
One of the other aspects of the Franz Joesph dreadnaught design is that in the event of a saucer separation, each half of the ship would still have warp power (something the _Dauntless_ design from ST:Voy followed). The placement of the 3rd nacelle on Galaxy-X negated that advantage.
This is funny, they're talking like it's a real functioning system. Now I love Star Trek but come on here. The rules have changed so many times I would think you could do whatever the hell looks good.
The only issue that I have is that other races have other warp capable ships that did not need to have nacelles. The federation could have borrowed these designs in stead of using just the human design
Re: the Dreadnought - maybe the third nacelle is not used for motive power, just for energy to power weapons. Or do the nacelles not produce power? I'm thinking in Star Fleet Battles terms here...
Nacelles don't generate power that's the warp cores job. From what I understand the warp core energizes plasma that is pumped through the coils which then warp space for the go fast. I think the third nacelle is just a spare tire. They should put a black faux leather cover on it just like my Jeep.
I'm a bit iffy about that idea if you are creating a super luminal effect between the engines only what keeps the engines attached to the ship ? It come back to the idea of the whole area of the ship needing to be effected to move at all - which then makes line of sight a bit iffy too when so many ships break the rule - probably dozens of them. Let alone Vulcan Ring ships sort of cr*p on the idea too.
Im sure that visual effect was purely considered as an artistic visual treat. I know that Andrew got annoyed anytime he saw non-warp shot and the engines were light blue (eg. on the D), which was ofc 90% of the time. He said that producers were like "they looks cool, so make them light all the time". However his reasoning behind it was that the engines were only on while in warp, thats why they shine blue. But when the ship is in sublight speed, warp engines are off and thus now visible blue light should be present. From scifi tech perspective those two codependent engines form warp field bubble. From more realistic perspective those two -engines- could be seen as cathode-anode coils which generate electric field that could propel vessel faster than barrier of light.
Captain Foley trying to justify the three-nacelle design (which is what his favorite ship, the Dreadnought, has) is kinda funny and reminds me of a fat lady at a milkshake shop... he's grasping at straws. Okay, all kidding aside, in my personal head canon, I am a strict adherent to Roddenberry's two-nacelle rule. I don't like ("hate" is a good word) single-nacelle ships like the Hermes or Saladin at all... HOWEVER, I can justify the three-nacelle designs for the same reason I can justify my own personal favorite design, the Constellation... the idea that only two nacelles are "on service" at any given time while the third (or third and fourth one when it comes to the Constellation) are on standby/cooldown. It would seem Andrew Probert agrees with me for the most part, albeit for slightly different reasons. Personally, I like the Dreadnought even though it's not my favorite and I think it sorta detracts from the TOS Enterprise's position as being in the "top dog" class. The "nothing in-between the nacelles" rule IS a little hard to justify for me since one of my other favorites is the Defiant from Deep Space Nine. Personal head canon tells me that things change a bit in the decades following the TOS era and a ship like the Defiant, which is purpose-built NOT for speed, can get away with it.
***** Roddenberry said they work in pairs, so I disagree with #2 and #3 and I don't know what to think about #1 since it doesn't really provide a reason.
What if you double stack the Warp nacelle, and instead of creating a work field that span the length of the ship, you instead turned the nacelles vertically to create a field between the stack?
"B-17 reference" Not the same. A plane can fly with with enough forward momentum given any amount engines. They glide given proper airspeed per mass and wingspan. There have been occasions where completely destroyed 17's glide to relative safety. Furthermore, a WW2 bomber/fighter in atmosphere cannot be compared to something floating in space.
You really want two smaller warp engines on either side of your hull and not one giant one in the middle as you don't want your crew exposed unduly to a warp field, and having only one engine pushed down would have produced a really lopsided field that may have been really unstable... that said, I never understood Roddenberry's hatred of the idea of having a third warp engine, that seemed a bit arbitrary to me. Maybe it was a bit of an overreaction to the Federation Class, which Gene had excellent ideological reasons to object to (I have to admit I still dig the design though)
Canonical objections to three-engined ships have nothing to do with technobabble explanations of Treknology, but are rooted in intellectual-property/copyright disputes between Paramount (and the licensed FASA Combat Simulation Game) and the original-era Technical Manual designers (which StarFleet Battles drew from). The Great Bird naturally had to side with the studio. I don't see why trilateral balance (in 3-dimensional space!) is so impossible. If you can only envision balancing two warpfield generators on a virtual fulcrum, _you are guilty of two-dimensional thinking_...
Here's another "two-dimensional" way to look at three-engine versus two: Phase relationships in electrical power. Compare graphs of the sine wave for single-phase versus three-phase. Three-phase provides steadier, less "interrupted" delivery of power. By this metaphor, single-nacelle equals single-phase 110VAC, two-nacelle equals single-phase 220VAC, and three-engine equals 3-phase 208VAC...
If if if. Forward thrust is a linear vector, which means that's what the engines MUST ultimately provide. Are you suggesting that warp nacelles are _space propellers_? What is the medium that these "space screws" are digging into to acquire traction? It's a fascinating spacedrive theory, but that doesn't sound like Trek to me. Especially not when Trek technobabble tend to involve the words "modulation" and "in phase" and "out of phase".
Just to amplify on Cliven's comment, "reactionless" in this context is with respect to Newtonian physics, the "equal and opposite reaction" that happens when you, for example, kick off from the wall of a swimming pool and float centerward. Warp drives do not directly funnel the product of the M/AM reaction out the tail of the ship (except in certain early TOS production art -_^ ). Impulse (sublight) drive appears to be reaction-type.
Not arguing danger. We agree that it was artistic license (which hearkens back to my point elsewhere about artists/designers not being infallible) ^_^ Remember, lightspeed is a literal physical barrier, and that accelerating a physical object larger than a subatomic particle to lightspeed requires infinite energy (Einstein's Law). Just because a ship transited from point A to point B in a sufficiently short time that conventional calculation of "X" distance in "Y" time is greater than 186,000 km/sec doesn't mean it actually went superluminal. Just about every scifi/spaceopera universe invents its own dodge for apparent FTL transits; Treknology usually invokes the word "subspace". Saying that a warp bubble imparts actual velocity is therefore a misperception. Trek starship motion routinely violates two of Newton's Three Laws, in that forward velocity magically orients in whatever direction the ship's nose is pointing (and have to bank like airplanes when turning). Babylon 5 and RDM's Galactica came closer to the likely reality of what space maneuvering will be like (but still routinely violates one of the same physical laws that Trek does).
***** Did you read the wikipedia article you cited? A reaction drive would be something like a big honking fusion torch that opens out the back. A modulated spherical (or ovoid) warpfield, however it imparts motion (if it can be said to impart motion), is not Newtonian, and therefore not a "reaction" drive. This inexpensive ebook www.adastragames.com/products/the-hot-equations will help you understand a great deal about stardrives in general, and my specific standpoint.
Regarding the 50% line-of-sight rule: Just looking at TOS, the nacelles on the Class F shuttlecraft don't appear to follow this rule, do they? Are even part of those nacelles exposed to each other?
The rules are always something I thought interesting. The rumours for years were that he 'came up with them' to invalidate Franz Joseph's designs such as the Saladin and Dreadnought. Joseph's designs nonetheless worked their way into canon as far back as the movies... and the rules have been broken so many times over the years that they're basically moot. This next part controversial opinion, I'm sure, but I wonder what modern Trek would look like had Gene remained at the helm. Certainly many of the designs we know and love would be different. DS9 would for the most part not exist, as the whole thought of a large scale war in Trek stood against everything he believed in. There wouldn't even be warships, I'm quite sure. Additionally, he was against anything that wasn't official. There may not even be the tolerance for fan designs we have now. I don't want to take anything away from the Great Bird of the Galaxy, without him we wouldn't have any of this! It's an interesting conundrum though. Is Gene Trek the best Trek? Story and character wise I certainly think so. Technology wise? Hmm... I think for a bonus episode you should get the opinion of the rules from some of the other designers like Rick Sternbach, Doug Drexler, et al. I think it'd be for some fascinating stuff.
That is the big rumor... that Big Bird came up with these rules just to invalidate all of FJ`s designs.....the whole piston and spark plug concept seems week because those are two different components. As loyal as AP is to big Bird I prefer to look a genes rules as these are the we're the most cost effective concepts...concepts that were later no required to adhere so religiously to as advancement in power output and efficiency came about... The four rules will still give you the most balanced ship but can be ignored in favor of a more specialized vessel. The most reliable airplane may have all the characteristics of say DC10 or 747 but that doesn't mean you can't have planes without a tail, or have an odd number of engines, no fuselage, or even have the cockpit somewhere else other than the up side of the nose.
+steven heckert I think this is reasonable and follows my own line of thinking. A lot of time passed between TOS and TNG+ and to paraphrase Geordi in Relics, a lot has changed. The core precepts going back to Matt Jeffries (I don't have a source, but I'm sure I've seen a similar interview with him regarding the nacelle rules which suggests they go back much further than TMP era, invalidating the FJ theory if true). One thing that we do have and still enjoy is a distinct look for most Starfleet ships making then immediately recognizable and that's fantastic.
