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The “Plane” Truth About Those View Screen Graphics
tribblesgaphic
Over the years, many fans have wondered about the origin and meaning of the graphic shown on the page of Scotty’s technical journal inStar Trek’s second season episode, "The Trouble with Tribbles." You know the graphic – it shows up in the recreation room scene towards the beginning of Act II, right as Kirk and Spock enter. In that scene, Scotty can be seen staring intently at a small monitor that’s displaying some fascinating graphic about the inner workings of the Enterprise. For us home viewers, unfortunately, the display in his monitor is small and angled in the shot, and even grabbing a screen from a Blu-ray disc and enlarging it to the size of a wall doesn’t help make it legible. Notwithstanding that fact though, theories that have been offered as to what Scotty is gazing at range from “parts from a Desilu water heater” to a couple of “California towers.”

old diagramSay what? Parts from a water heater or a Left-Coast tower? Really? Hmmm, those are unimaginative for Star Trek and hard to believe. So, what does that graphic really show?

Those of us Trek fans who are old enough may remember this view screen image from the 1975 fanzine "T-Negative", edited by Ruth Berman. It was featured in Greg Jein’s article “The Case of Jonathan Doe Starship". In his article, Jein made use of a small portion of that graphic – which he obtained from a Lincoln Enterprises film clip – to assist him in hypothesizing the classification numbers for the Constitution Class starships. Unfortunately, Jein focused his exercise exclusively on a very small part of the picture (a few lines of text in the upper left corner) and bypassed the rest.  And even though the fanzine reproduced the image, it wasn’t of high quality so parts of it are missing or smeared. Thus, the figure in that article isn’t too helpful today in solving the mystery of what’s on that technical page.

And that brings us to the subject of this article: What does that graphic in “The Trouble with Tribbles” show and what is its origin?  Well, keep reading if you’re interested in the answers to these questions because we take a look at that drawing in more detail – as well as a few others you may not have seen before – once again courtesy of Lincoln Enterprises and their film clips.

To begin though, let’s go back to Star Trek’s first season, to the episode "Space Seed…"

Time Warp:1966
Imagine yourself as an Art Director for the relatively new television show called Star Trek. Now, imagine you get a script for the series entitled “Space Seed” and read the following scene from Act II that takes place on the sickbay set:

KHAN
I was once an engineer of sorts.  I would be most interested in
studying the tech manual on your vessel.

(smile)

After all, I have two hundred years of catching up to do.

Kirk eyes him for a moment, then nods, indicates the bedside viewing screen.

KIRK
They are available on your viewing screen there.
Dr. McCoy will show you how to hook into our library tapes.

KHAN
Thank you, captain.  You’re very cooperative.

And then later in this act, you read another scene that occurs immediately before one of Kirk's crew, a Lt. Marla McGivers, enters the sickbay to visit Khan:

44  ANGLE ON SICK BAY VIEWING SCREEN

It is covered with mathematical symbols and diagrams.  CAMERA PULLS BACK to show Khan studying with great concentration.  He pushes a button.  Another transparency appears: a chapter heading, reading:  BASIC SPECIFICATIONS, CONSTITUTION CLASS STAR SHIP.

And still later in this act, there’s another scene that makes you take notes in the margins.  It takes place after Lt. McGivers exits:

At the door, she turns and looks back at him.  He gives her a strong, masculine, confident smile.  She is about to say something, but turns and exits.  Khan turns back to his studying. 
He pushes a button, stares back up at his screen.

48  INSERT – SCREEN

A chapter heading:  Basic Propulsion Systems, Constitution Class Star Ship.

When you finish reading these portions of the script, you underline the words “Symbols," “Diagrams," and “Basic Propulsion Systems” along with the words “Viewing Screen” and “Insert – Screen” because, as an Art Director, it will be your job to create these graphics for that viewing screen.   

Hmm, you wonder, what’s the fastest and most frugal way to create this material? Up until this point in the series, the technical details of the Enterprise have been vague and rather unimportant concepts, as far as the action and adventure elements of the show have been concerned. But now, these concepts will have to be represented in more concrete form using drawings of… what? 

Well, if you’re Matt Jefferies, one of Star Trek’s two Art Directors in the first season, you’ll have no problem finding a solution to this graphics problem. You’ll do what you often do – you’ll turn to what you have laying around, apply your imagination, and get it done. 


Matt Jefferies’ Muse
MJPerhaps unsurprisingly to most of you, it was indeed *Matt Jefferies who crafted the viewing screen graphics for these sickbay scenes in"Space Seed." As you’ll see shortly, he ultimately created at least three different ones. Although they were all filmed, only one of them made it to the final print for "Space Seed."

So, what was Jefferies’ inspiration for these diagrams?  As most people reading this probably know, Matt had a lifelong passion with aviation and often drew his inspiration from it. Its influence on him, and through him, its influence on Star Trek, is both profound and well-documented. So, it shouldn’t be a shock to anyone that he based the graphics for the sickbay view screen on airplane parts and diagrams. 

Yes, airplane parts and diagrams, not water heater parts or California towers.

Jefferies had easy access to a wealth of aviation material since his personal library was extensive, and as will be demonstrated later in this article, the diagrams on the view screen were likely obtained from the pages of aircraft manuals or parts catalogs that he kept in his office. Unfortunately, at this late date, finding the exact drawings he used may be impossible. And too, as will be shown, some were subtly altered to make them a bit more modern (at least for 1966). Even so, the artwork on the screens can easily be traced to aircraft drawings.

 

Winging It
Sickbay Graphic

OK, wheels up. Let’s start with the only graphic that survived to the final print in that episode – the one showing on the viewing screen as Marla McGivers walks into sickbay for her visit with the awakened Khan.

This graphic on Kahn's screen is fairly easy to attribute to an aircraft. It shows an exploded drawing of a portion of a wing complete with the spar, access panels, and miscellaneous hardware. Note the similarity of the wing in the drawing to the graphic that Khan was viewing. The drawing that Jefferies used likely came from an illustrated parts catalog, and a page from one showing something similar for a Piper aircraft is shown on the inset graphic.

As an editorial aside:  Would the television viewers of the time have recognized that diagram as a section of a wing if that graphic had been shown in close-up? Just wondering. 

 

 

 

 

 


 

Ignition!
As mentioned previously, there were at least two additional illustrations that were prepared for the sickbay monitor in "Space Seed" and not used in the episode. One of these was filmed for scene 48, where Khan is studying the Enterprise’s propulsion system. Take a look at the portion of the graphic that’s visible below the slate–it shows a section of an aircraft electrical circuit commonly referred to as a low-tension retard breaker magneto and starting vibrator. This circuit is designed to start and operate engines, and the one deleted from "Space Seed" is for a twin engine, six-cylinder aircraft. 

unused graphic

By the way, it’s amusing that the graphic in the unused close-up shows a schematic symbol for a spark plug. How often do you think the plugs need changing on the Enterprise? Also, note that the schematic on the unused graphic shows breaker points (they've been circled in red). Are these the points of the impulse packs that Kelso was referring to as being decayed to lead in the episode, "Where No Man Has Gone Before"?

 

Storage Compartments
Finally, let's take a look at the last graphic that was put together for "Space Seed" but not used in it. It's shown below. Does it look familiar? It should – it’s the one that ultimately made it to "The Trouble with Tribbles" as a page of Scotty’s technical journal. In other words, the phaser transparency that was crafted and unused for "Space Seed" found a home in "Tribbles." And with this recognition, we can now provide answers to the two questions posed at the beginning.

Like the other two view screen graphics drawn for "Space Seed", this one also has its origins in avionics: it shows two varieties of hydraulic reservoirs – devices used to store hydraulic fluid. Compare the graphic with the photos of similarly designed reservoirs. They’re still used today, and modern versions of them are shown in the drawing to the right, courtesy of the US Army.

compare.

Jefferies made a negative of the phaser graphic to provide some visual contrast against the other two “black on whites" for "Space Seed". He also added a few additional details to it in the form of text and symbols to make it look a bit more futuristic.For example, the words “Overexcitation” and “Regulation and Reactive” can be read on the bottom, words used to describe certain electrical circuits. Additionally, notice that some of the arrows have no item numbers associated with them and that the nomenclature table is missing a few entries. Jefferies likely wasn’t too worried about these omissions because of the short time the graphic would be seen on television.

phaser graphic

Behind the Screens
The original series used three approaches to display pictures on viewing screens: rear screen projection, optical compositing, and transparency backlighting. The graphics discussed here were designed to be displayed using the latter method, and the process started with the transference of the artwork provided by Jefferies to high contrast black-and-white transparencies (color was added to their reverse sides, if needed, using an adhesive sheet product similar to Zip-a-Tone.). Then, once the transparencies were fabricated, they were affixed to the front of the translucent glass of the monitor. When the transparencies needed to be illuminated for filming, the internal light of the monitor was switched on so that, in theory, the translucent glass would diffuse the lamp's radiation to make it uniform across the transparency for the camera.

how it was done

Unfortunately, the proximity of the lamp to the glass often caused an uneven distribution of the backlight flux making the center area appear overexposed. This effect can be seen easily on the monitor displays in other episodes that use the same approach such as those shown in "The Corbomite Maneuver" and "The Enterprise Incident." Of course, in those episodes, the monitors were not the center of attention so they were shown only in wide shots and away from the camera.

rear screen viewscreen examples

Wheels Down
As this article comes to a close, we offer a conjecture as to why none of the "Space Seed" graphics were shown in close-ups.  

We think it’s likely that the majority of the graphics footage wound up on the cutting room floor because the backlight used in the sickbay monitor was too bright causing the transparency images to appear overexposed or unevenly exposed. Below is an example of the sickbay scene in the original (non-remastered) version. Notice how overexposed the graphic is as Khan tries to read it. Interestingly enough, it’s more readable when the backlight is off, and the scene was probably not reshot because of lack of time and the relevance of the graphic to the story line.

before after

With today's image manipulation software, the scene is easily corrected to look as originally conceived for the remastered version.

And with that, this article rolls to a complete stop. We hope you’ve enjoyed the flight!

The author would like to thank Mike Okuda for providing insight on how transparencies were fabricated for the original series.

*Jefferies picture has been enhanced to support the article assets.
The graphic used for The Trouble with Tribbles was restored from a scan of a very faded film clip. As part of that restoration the drawings and text on the graphic were traced and then recreated in order to enhance clarity. 


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