Star Trek - Space: The Final Frontier

[Calandrino]

A nacelle is a streamlined enclosure, typically housing an engine, equipment, or cargo on an aircraft, but also used for components like a wind turbine's generator or even crew compartments in some vehicles, serving functions like drag reduction, protection, and housing critical machinery. While most associated with aviation (podded engines), nacelles also appear on ships (buoyancy), vehicles (headlights), and in science fiction (warp drives).

 

[Gay Sex Enjoyer]

Have they ever really explained what the nacelle's actually are? I've always assumed they were basically the engines/'propellers' of a ship.

...kinda. They're for moving at warp. They're the things that actually move at warp speed and drag the rest of the ship with it.

Regular moving around at sub-light speed is handled by the impulse engines, which are the red glowing vent thingies on the back of the ship's saucer (usually).


Imagine it like if you had a car with two rocket engines welded to the back of it. Regular driving around is handled by the car's engine and wheels, and dying going really really fast is handled by the rockets. If that makes sense.

 

[Curzon Dax-sama]

Have they ever really explained what the nacelle's actually are? I've always assumed they were basically the engines/'propellers' of a ship.

The nacelles usually house the warp coil assembly which is the second most important part of the warp engine-shenanigans. Without warp coils, no high powered subspace field/bubble forming around the ship, hence no FTL-speeds. So... propellers is pretty accurate as an analogy.

 

[Phillip Green]

Matt Jefferies was an amateur pilot and borrowed much of his starship terminology from the aviation industry. The "NCC" registrations for Starfleet ships are his imagined extension of real-world FAA aircraft registration numbers. Jet engine nacelles were very common on 1960's era aircraft, so he again pulled in the terminology. For example, the nacelles on a B-52:

Regular moving around at sub-light speed is handled by the impulse engines, which are the red glowing vent thingies on the back of the ship's saucer (usually).

Trek impulse engines are supposed to be essentially fusion rockets, which use exhaust to provide thrust like the rocket engines we have today, just much more efficiently. The exhaust from these engines was a critical plot point for Star Trek VI.

However, there's zero way hypothetical fusion rockets, as we understand them, would work the way they show on the show, so there has to be some kind of warp effect or magical inertia modification fuckery tech in play as well. The lore is inconsistent on exactly how this is supposed to work.

The nacelles usually house the warp coil assembly which is the second most important part of the warp engine-shenanigans. Without warp coils, no high powered subspace field/bubble forming around the ship, hence no FTL-speeds. So... propellers is pretty accurate as an analogy.

The TNG Season 7 episode Eye of the Beholder (the one where Troi and Worf become Starfleet's psychic gestapo to solve a crime) gives us a neat view of the inside of one of the D's warp nacelle. It's essentially a hollow tube lined with magic metal rings (the warp coils). You shoot plasma into the cavity and somehow warp bubbles are produced.




Voyager also had an episode where the ship landed so they could perform maintenance on the coils.


Edit: I'm disappointed to learn I can't rate my own post "Autistic".

 

[Curzon Dax-sama]

The TNG Season 7 episode Eye of the Beholder (the one where Troi and Worf become Starfleet's psychic gestapo to solve a crime) gives us a neat view of the inside of one of the D's warp nacelle. It's essentially a hollow tube lined with magic metal rings (the warp coils). You shoot plasma into the cavity and somehow warp bubbles are produced.

Imagine being the poor asshole who has to work there. When those things are fired up, they produce a crapload of super exotic radiation that can vaporize you in an instant.

Trek impulse engines are supposed to be essentially fusion rockets, which use exhaust to provide thrust like the rocket engines we have today, just much more efficiently. The exhaust from these engines was a critical plot point for Star Trek VI.

However, there's zero way hypothetical fusion rockets, as we understand them, would work the way they show on the show, so there has to be some kind of warp effect or magical inertia modification fuckery tech in play as well. The lore is inconsistent on exactly how this is supposed to work.

For me it never really mattered, except for two things: the impulse engines is powered by a fusion power plant, and second they have an assembly of subspace coils that reduce rest mass enough to make that viable. If they hadn't that, >98% of the ship's mass would be propellant.

 

[UnKillFill]

Geordi always pronounced it "Nay-Cell", which didn't help. Because everyone else pronounced it differently.

 

[AnOminous]

The tube thing.

Yeah I know what it looks like, but I always forget what it actually does a few minutes after looking it up.

Have they ever really explained what the nacelle's actually are? I've always assumed they were basically the engines/'propellers' of a ship.

Yes, with Trek "physics." I mean it's obvious looking at them that they do some kind of propulsion.

This AI slop explains it:

In Star Trek, nacelles house the warp coils that generate the warp field, creating a subspace bubble around the ship to allow for faster-than-light (FTL) travel by bending spacetime, with Bussard collectors at the front gathering interstellar hydrogen fuel. They receive power from the ship's warp core (which creates the plasma) but don't generate it, and their placement away from the hull manages intense heat and radiation, ensuring stable, maneuverable FTL flight, often in symmetrical pairs for balance.

The Bussard ramjet part might make it easier to remember.

 

[Curzon Dax-sama]

The TNG Season 7 episode Eye of the Beholder (the one where Troi and Worf become Starfleet's psychic gestapo to solve a crime) gives us a neat view of the inside of one of the D's warp nacelle. It's essentially a hollow tube lined with magic metal rings (the warp coils). You shoot plasma into the cavity and somehow warp bubbles are produced.

Okay, I have a question. How do you get into that control room? Don't tell me they have to crawl through tight conduits that run right next to the highly radioactive warp plasma.

 

[Calandrino]

The TNG Season 7 episode Eye of the Beholder (the one where Troi and Worf become Starfleet's psychic gestapo to solve a crime)

That's the one where at first they think there's a ghost, but then the rational explanation turns out that it was just the consciousness of a person who died traumatically persisting in our world after his death, which is literally what a ghost is. Worf had no right to give Picard a funny look in that episode where he floated a poltergeist as a possibility.

 

[teriyakiburns]

Yeah I know what it looks like, but I always forget what it actually does a few minutes after looking it up.

It makes the ship go.

Okay, I have a question. How do you get into that control room? Don't tell me they have to crawl through tight conduits that run right next to the highly radioactive warp plasma.

There's enough space inside the nacelles to house a full size deck under the coils at the rear. The supports are wide enough to walk in and tall enough in the horizontal to house a deck as well. There's even a docking port just under the nacelle at the aft end. In fact, I think the strut might be thicker than the constitution class neck in the vertical.

 

[Miller]

"Nacelle" pisses me off because I always forget what the fuck it even is.

Look at this nigga, he doesn't know who Nacelle Nichols is.

 

[XYZpdq Jr.]

That's the one where at first they think there's a ghost, but then the rational explanation turns out that it was just the consciousness of a person who died traumatically persisting in our world after his death, which is literally what a ghost is. Worf had no right to give Picard a funny look in that episode where he floated a poltergeist as a possibility.

Worf didn't frame it in bullshitrium particles. That was his failure.

 

[Post Reply]

The TNG Season 7 episode Eye of the Beholder (the one where Troi and Worf become Starfleet's psychic gestapo to solve a crime) gives us a neat view of the inside of one of the D's warp nacelle. It's essentially a hollow tube lined with magic metal rings (the warp coils). You shoot plasma into the cavity and somehow warp bubbles are produced.

In Enterprise they could just walk in and set up camp.

 

[Standardized Profile]

Geordi always pronounced it "Nay-Cell", which didn't help. Because everyone else pronounced it differently.

The universal translator makes it sound like everyone's speaking English or common loan words, but it preserves accents* and mispronunciations to help you identify speakers.

* Except for Picard, who accidentally set both the language and accent to "English."

 

[Curzon Dax-sama]

There's enough space inside the nacelles to house a full size deck under the coils at the rear. The supports are wide enough to walk in and tall enough in the horizontal to house a deck as well. There's even a docking port just under the nacelle at the aft end. In fact, I think the strut might be thicker than the constitution class neck in the vertical.

This is the worst commute imaginable. And only two thirds of the way you get to ride in the turbolifts. The rest consists of climbing and crawling. Imagine doing that every single day for 7 years. Oh, "enough space" is a relative term. Imagine being Tilly or whatever the name of that hamplanet from S5 of STD.

 

[AnOminous]

It makes the ship go.

But I meant the how does it do that part. Apparently they do actually have a semi-plausible Trek physics explanation.

 

[Miller]

View attachment 8370934
This is the worst commute imaginable. And only two thirds of the way you get to ride in the turbolifts. The rest consists of climbing and crawling. Imagine doing that every single day for 7 years. Oh, "enough space" is a relative term. Imagine being Tilly or whatever the name of that hamplanet from S5 of STD.

We saw on ENT that the space in the nacelles can be used for a short time but even then there's next to no privacy at all. Also by the time the Galaxy-class was made, the nacelles got more complex, so I doubt that there's a walk-able area.

 

[Tasty Tatty]

I hate we had to wait the final season to enter the nacelle tubes.

Geordi always pronounced it "Nay-Cell", which didn't help. Because everyone else pronounced it differently.

He's the chief engineer, he's the one doing it right, everybody else is wrong.

 

[Dragged Into Sunlight]

Is there a better example of liberal suicidal empathy than the episode "Borg" with 3 of 5? Crusher insisting that they must save the borg drone? There's a race out there that has killed and enslaved billions and they're hand-wringing over having the chance to destroy them? Come the fuck on.

 

[Captain Syrup]

Oh, "enough space" is a relative term. Imagine being Tilly or whatever the name of that hamplanet from STD.

Starfleet's greatest enemy: gravity plus mac and cheese.

Is there a better example of liberal suicidal empathy than the episode "Borg" with 3 of 5? Crusher insisting that they must save the borg drone? There's a race out there that has killed and enslaved billions and they're hand-wringing over having the chance to destroy them? Come the fuck on.

In hindsight, sparing the Borg was a cursed decision because every ship Picard commands from then on is plagued by Borg. But, at the time, he meets Hugh and he’s like, “He’s got a name. This Borg listens to me, I work with this.” And then he sends him back and it almost works! The Borg are on their way to forming a splinter cell. Then Lore shows up like a coke dealer at a rehab center.