From: loren@bluemoon.use.com (Loren Sims)
Subject: Enterprises
Organization: Blue Moon BBS ((614) 868-998[024])
Date: Thu, 28 Jan 93 08:33:39 EST

Colin J. Wynne, in responding to Jason Cherry concerning the old 
Constitution class starships' ability to seperate the ship, not unlike the
way the Galaxy class can, is exactly right in his reference to the old 
series (can't get much more canonical than that!).
  I'm afraid I don't recall the episode either, but the situation has 
Scotty up a Jeffries tube with his hand in the energy stream (as 
usual...).  The engines have been tampered with (either by Nomad or the 
M-5 or Frank Gorshin or somebody) and the ship is running out of control
and the engines are about to overload and blow up.  Spock )or perhaps 
Sulu, with his penchant for such statistics) is counting down the seconds 
until the ship blows, and Spock is urging Scotty to hurry up.  Scotty says 
that he's doing the best he can, but he doesn't think he'll make it in 
time.  He urges Spock to not wait until the very last minute, but to 
seperate the ship, or eject the nacells or some such (i wish I could 
remember the exact phrase) to save the ship.
  I know I was surprized the first time I realized what he was suggesting
(I'd seen the episode a dozen times before but somehow just missed that 
line), and cheered, recalling reading about that capability in (I believe)
White's "The Making or Star Trek" (or was it "The World of Star Trek"?
I don't think it was the Gerrold book, but the White book, where he's
talking about the background of the ship's design).  It was described as
an emergency maneuver, which would leave the ship crippled, dependant on 
only the impulse engines for power.  That's why the impulse engines are
mounted on the disk, after all.
  
  There are *lots* of little goodies in those throw-away lines from the 
old series...unfortunately, an awful lot of them end up on the cutting 
room floor these days.  *sigh* 
  
  
Concerning newer series', in the pilot for ST:DS9, when Chief O'Brien 
leaves the Enterprise for the last time, the captain *beams* him down to
the station.  
  *Why?*  The Enterprise has been docked to the station for some time, and
when Commander Sisko went to meet with Captain Picard there was no talk of
'beaming'.  There, likewise, was no indication that the airlocks were out
of commision *before* that big attack on the station by the Cardassians.
  
  Was it simply poetic license, the transporter chief leaving through the
transporter, and to save us the more ambiguous scene of the captain 
'showing O'Brien to the door'?
  
  As the episode faded off for the last time, Sisko and O'Brien were 
discussing how all the airlocks were out of comission for one reason and 
another (the attack by the Cardassians being a big reason--you don't
suggest that the Enterprise would be docked at a non-functional airlock
when functional ones were available, do you?), and that O'Brien would have
to 'beam' the occupants of the ships to the station, so there goes the
idea that the Cardassian transporters aren't up to the task.
  
  Also, the 'docking ring' would be more vulnerable to attack because, I 
assume, it's the outer ring of the station, with the docking pylons on it,
and, as O'Brien explained to Major Kira, he was only able to rig a 
'partial' shield set-up to protect the (I assume more centrally located)
living quarters ("What shields?").  Makes sense to me, anyway...
                                                                 -Loren

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