Hey all,
I could SWEAR the first saucer seperation was NOT on the Next Generation but on the cartoon. Haven't been able to find the episode though. But I don't see why it couldn't have happened here. The first halodeck was on THIS show afterall!
I remember the animated series well, and don't recall a saucer sep in it.
I seem to recall in the original series, there were references in the writers guide that there could be a saucer separation, but this obviously wasn't done in the original series due to the budget. I'm not sure, but I had a feeling a saucer sep of the NCC-1701 Enterprise would have been on a truly emergency basis, because I think it wasn't designed to be reattached!!!
From what I read back in the day when I was more of a Star Trek nerd, a saucer seperation on the original Enterprise was an emergency-only event, for exactly the reason above: that it wasn't intended to be reattached.
sharebut didnt they use some sorta balloon to trick someone , i can not remember the eps
sharei rememeber reading the saucer sep on the old ship, that as far as it being reattched, it had to be done at a starbase or drydock. and that might have been the enterprise a that it was taling about.
shareI believe this to be correct. The original Enterprise could, though never seen on screen, separate the saucer, but the reattachment had to be done in drydock or starbase.
Kirk made a reference to this in a TOS episode, to Scotty. Something like, "if you don't hear back from me, separate the saucer and get to starbase" (I'm sure that's not a verbatim quote)
If you look closely at the TOS model you can actually see the hatch markings from where the "landing legs" were meant to appear, post-separation.
shareThere is a mention in one TOS episode (or perhaps it was in one of the novelizations of the series) of blowing the ship apart - the saucer section contains the impulse engines and would still be maneuverable, but it was clearly not deemed a normal funtion of the ship.
shareThere was no saucer-sep in TAS.
shareI can't remember which book it was, but I read several Star Trek novels back in the 80's (prior to the Next Generation), and one had a scene where the Enterprise's saucer section separated from the rest of the ship. It involved the firing of countless explosive bolts to break the two sections apart. I think it took either being towed to space-dock, or the help of other starships to put the Enterprise back together. I remember being surprised that the ship could do that.
as i recall the original ending for star trek the motion picture was to feature the enterprise seperating after the klingons attacked her and destroyed the star drive section
shareI'm afraid you're confusing Star Trek: The Motion Picture with Star Trek Generations. The saucer sep and subsequent spectacular crash-landing was something they had wanted to do for a long time. The Klingons didn't attack the Enterprise in ST:TMP. The saucer sep was no doubt discussed for ST:TMP, but they were not convinced the FX of the time would do it justice. During the course of Star Trek: The Next Generation the seperation was discussed as a season ender at least twice I think. However, the FX boys told them they would not be at all happy with the quality of a sep & crash on a series budget; so they shelved it again. When the green light was given for Generations,
the seperation & crash were the first thing they said was a definite go; followed by Data getting emotions if I'm not mistaken. I just wish Mr. Roddenberry could have seen it.
"Think about it. If you were observing this planet,would you make contact?"
i read it in a book. i wish i could remember what it was called. it was a prposed ending for the movie. i wish i could recall the name of the book. but there were concept art for it, showing the klingon kicking the *beep* out of the enterprise. there was also text saying basically the idea was droped, and brought back up for star trek generations.
shareheres a link to the story board art for it
http://www.memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Image:Probert_seperation_2.jpg and http://www.memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Image:Probert_seperation_1.jpg
The book was Prime Directive. The EMERGENCY seperation was due to the need to warp out of a planet's atmosphere, which warped one of the nacells. Thus the need to seperate the ship. Kirk was then relieved of command, I forget about Spock & McCoy, but Scotty was busted to ensign or Lt. and had to report to then Lt. Styles who later became Captain of the Excelsior in ST III.
shareThey separated the saucer before generations. They seperated it before gene died on TNG. And I'm prety sure they did it a couple of times.
How on earth can history get past people like me?share
I never said the saucer wasn't seperated in the series. I was answering a general question about the crash. They WANTED to do a saucer CRASH for a long time.
"Think about it. If you were observing this planet,would you make contact?"
as i recall the original ending for star trek the motion picture was to feature the enterprise seperating after the klingons attacked her and destroyed the star drive sectionWrong. There was never going to be a battle with Klingons in ST:TMP. Haven't ANY of you people seen Star Trek?
I seen to recall the enterprise landing on a planet in one of the comics.
shareKirk made a reference to this in a TOS episode, to Scotty. Something like, "if you don't hear back from me, separate the saucer and get to starbase" (I'm sure that's not a verbatim quote)That never happened either.
A "balloon Enterprise" was used to trick the Romulans, BY the ship itself, in "The Practical Joker" (also the "holodeck" episode).
shareOf course a saucer sep in TOS would be an emergency LOL. Even though I think I remember reading that they thought briefly about making the TOS saucer section detachable, and of having a holodeck.
shareThe episode of TOS that you guys are all thinking of is "The Apple." While Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Chekov, and some red-shirts are down on the planet, an unknown energy field is draining the Enterprise of power. When Scotty tells this to Kirk, this line is spoken:
Kirk: Scotty, discard the warp drive nacelles if you have to and crack out of there with the main section, but get that ship out of there!
Both the original series and the animated series were novelised, the former by famed SF writer James Blish (they were called simply Star Trek 1, Star Trek 2, to about Star Trek 12 or so), the latter by the almost-unknown-at-the-time Alan Dean Foster (called the Star Trek Log series). The Blish stories were faithful to the original episodes, and about ten or so fit in each book. Foster started the same way (three episodes per book) but then had a good idea. He would start out with a retelling of an animated episode, which was about half a book, then tell an entirely new story that he had made up in the second half. I have very fond memories of these; they were remarkable stories, very well written. The one that was paired with Eye of the Beholder sticks in my mind as particularly impressive.
It is one of these Foster originals that the saucer separation took place. However, I cannot remember which one.
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As someone has said, the first mention of saucer separation was in The Apple, Original Series Season 2. The Animated Series was the first incarnation of Trek to feature a holodeck (the 'Rec Room'), and also introduced a second turbolift on the Enterprise bridge. The latter may sound like anal-retentive who-cares trainspotting, but the second lift was a very deliberate move on Roddenberry's part. Always sensitive to what TOS fans thought, he agreed with their complaints running along the lines of: "What if the turbolift gets stuck? How do they get off the bridge?". Hence, the #2 lift.
As someone has said, the first mention of saucer separation was in The Apple
Lemme just "tweak" your description of the novelizations (i.e. be really picky about it), 4 1/2 years later. The TOS volumes by Blish had SEVEN stories per book, generally, for the first 5, and SIX per book from #6 onward. The earliest volumes tended to have somewhat "abbreviated" stories (to where #2 contained EIGHT), and sometimes alternate titles ("Man Trap" became "The Unreal McCoy", "Charlie X" became "Charlie's Law", "Spectre of the Gun" was "The Last Gunfight"). Volume 4 had only six stories, but one was the "double episode" "Menagerie" — except it wasn't really the two-part "Menagerie", but merely "The Cage". Later volumes of the series became more meticulously faithful to the televised episodes (I suspect, as a result of reader complaints about discrepancies. Reading Blish's "preface" at the beginning of each volume certainly gave this impression). Incidentally, after 12 volumes covered every episode except the two involving Harry Mudd, a special 13th volume came out entitled Mudd's Angels (Charlie's Angels having come to TV by this time), adapting the two Mudd episodes, and also having an extended NEW "Mudd" story, "Business, As Usual, During Altercations".
Foster's "Log" books, had, as you said, 3 episode-stories per volume, in #1 to #6. Even THESE were heavily "padded", with whole new scenes added to each story. By this measure, one episode was 1/3 of a volume. Logs 7-10 adapted only one episode each, but, following very closely on their predecessors, the actual episode adaptations took up ONE THIRD of the book. The other TWO thirds were one completely new story, that did not have a separate title. One of these volumes contained "The Counter-Clock Incident", and I remember that Foster was apparently very dissatisfied with the original story's premise (firstly, he changed the ending so that April and his wife did NOT "re-age" themselves). The extended story in that volume concerned an encounter with Klingons (featuring Kor, I believe) that culminated with Spock ascertaining that the ENTIRE set of events had been "staged" by aliens, and that the whole "Counter-Clock" incident had been FAKE (Spock apparently "agreeing" with Foster that it hadn't made any sense), with the story even stating that the "rejuvenation" of April and his wife was a special "gift" from the aliens.
The reference is from The Original (live action) Series, 2nd season ep. "The Apple." The ship is spiraling down to the planet. Kirk, down on the planet tells Scotty via communicator
SCOTT: Sir, we're doing everything within engineering reason.
KIRK: Then use your imagination. Tie every ounce of power into the impulse engines. Discard the warp drive nacelles if you have to, and crack out of there with the main section, but get that ship out of there!
In addition to the Animated Series episode "The Practical Joker", with the ship itself inflating a giant balloon to trick a Romulan ship, previously mentioned in this thread...
You could be thinking of "Time Trap". That's the one where the Enterprise and a Klingon ship under Commander Kor travel from an area of space like the Bermuda Triangle, into another dimension where many travelers missing in the past have wound up. To escape, both the Klothos (Kor's ship) and the Enterprise were maneuvered *very* close together and physically connected with cables and other stuff. It was after they returned to our universe that the ships separated.
Another episode that you could be thinking of is "The Magicks of Megas-Tu". That's the episode with the devil-like character named Lucien who lives in another dimension accessed via a 'white hole' at the core of our galaxy (long before astronomers realized there actually is a massive black hole there). Some of the characters learn to do magic, but then the natives, who are afraid of humans from how they were treated when they visited Earth, capture the crew of the Enterprise and puts them on trial. In the process, they literally split the Enterprise in half, right down the middle, with the port and starboard halves peeling off each other. It is an amazing image.
One more, very slight, possibility where you could have confused it was David Gerrold's episode from the second season, "Bem" (the old acronym for Bug-Eyed-Monster). That had an alien species who, unknown to the Federation until this episode, could separate into three parts, each of which could exist and move on its own: head, torso, legs. They could link together or separate much easier than even Picard's Enterprise-D could. Ari bn Bem, an exchange officer from the planet Pandro, caused a lot of trouble for Kirk in the episode, leading our heroes to get captured... He is described as a colony creature (like coral), but frankly, I can't imagine how anything like this could really exist. But the most outrageousness is that the head could separate from the torso, or the torso from the legs, and still stay at the same height--ie, floating. You can see his picture underneath Pandronian at Memory Alpha.
A saucer separation was intended for the refit Enterprise in the aborted Phase 2 series (dropped in favor of TMP). In fact, much of TNG is taken from the concepts for Phase 2.
But take heart: the holodeck made it's first appearance in TAS.
"Live long and suck it, Zachary Quinto!"
I could SWEAR the first saucer seperation was NOT on the Next Generation but on the cartoon. Haven't been able to find the episode though.You can't find it because it never happened. Your memory is faulty.
"faulty...examine...must..sterilize..."
"Lovey-dovey. Bonk bonk on the head!"
Closest I can find is this line from The Save Curtain:
KIRK: "Scotty, inform Starfleet Command. Disengage nacelles, Jettison if possible. Mister Spock, assist them. Advise and analyse. Scotty? Scotty?"
The inference is that the warp nacelles could be jettisoned and the saucer/engineering sections could travel on impulse.
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