The Star Trek Star Fleet Technical Manual
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| The Star Trek Star Fleet Technical Manual | |
| Author | Franz Joseph Schnaubelt |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Subject(s) | Star Trek:TOS |
| Genre(s) | Fiction |
| Publisher | Ballantine Books |
| Publication date | 1975 |
| Media type | |
| ISBN | ISBN 0345340744 |
The Star Trek Star Fleet Technical Manual (ISBN 0345340744, Ballantine Books 1975, reprinted 1986, 1996, 2006) is a fiction reference book by Franz Joseph Schnaubelt about the workings of Starfleet, a military, exploratory, and diplomatic organization featured in the television series Star Trek.
Although it is fiction, the book is presented as a collection of factual documents sent from the future to the 20th century which describe the 23rd-century Starfleet.
Contents |
[edit] Contents
The manual features noncanonical, detailed technical information about Starfleet's organization, vessels, and founding member states, and informed the strategy game Star Fleet Battles. When first published, the book's status as canon appeared beyond question[citation needed], despite its depiction of starship details which contradicted those seen on the television series; some of these included a second bridge exit; the briefing room's location and internal arrangement; and the expansion of starship transporter capability to encompass not only the established 6-pad rooms but also a 22-pad emergency and a high-capacity cargo transporter.
It provides some detail on the workings of technology used in the original series, including its ships, phasers, tricorders, universal translators, and medical equipment, and even diagrams a working communicator built using 20th-century electronics. It also contains plans for 3-dimensional chess, and lays out some basic game rules.
The manual presents a number of different starship designs beyond the Constitution class of the show's iconic flagship Enterprise. It diagrams the following classes.
- Federation-class dreadnought
- Constitution-class heavy cruiser
- Bonhomme Richard subtype
- Achernar subtype
- Saladin-class destroyer
- Hermes-class scout
- Ptolemy-class tug
Series creator Gene Roddenberry approved these ship plans, proclaiming them to be 'completely accurate', then recanting such statements a decade or so later, saying the book had 'always' violated his rules for the Trek universe -- despite supervising its use in the first three motion pictures.[citation needed]
[edit] History
In 1973, Schnaubelt and his daughter joined a San Diego Trek appreciation society called STAR, members of which spent time making their own Trek props and costumes. Using his aerospace design talents, he began making technical drawings of phasers and tricorders. He quickly amassed a large collection and sent copies to a very impressed Roddenberry, whose wife Majel Barrett's company Lincoln Enterprises was producing Trek memorabilia at the time. Though he considered the franchise dead, Roddenberry encouraged Joseph to seek Barrett's help in creating a manual, a project blessed with privileged access to original props and carpenter blueprints.
The book, published by Ballantine, took the number-one spot on the New York Times trade paperback list, breaking the existing record for profitability. Its success hinted at the brand's great potential, and within a year of its publication Paramount and Roddenberry contracted to begin work on a Star Trek movie.
[edit] Use as reference material
The book was culled for background imagery in the first three Trek films. Elements from the manual that appear on screen include
- its listings of starship names, adapted for opening-scene backgrounds at the communications outpost in Star Trek: The Motion Picture;
- its starship-class schematics, seen in background bridge displays in the Kobayashi Maru test in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan; and
- its Enterprise plans, used in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock in a monitor display when the seal on Spock's living quarters is broken.
[edit] The Federation seal
The seal seen in the first movie echoed Schnaubelt's design but framed its starfield in laurels, and not the faces in profile of his original. (His UFP situated Earth as only one part of a vast alliance of sentient races, but the studio's use of laurels countered that -- their association as symbols of peace holding meaning for Earth alone -- and may have reflected Paramount's, and Roddenberry's, more terracentric take on the Federation; in a similar vein, they placed the Federation HQ and Starfleet Academy in San Francisco, while Schnaubelt put them in neutral space aboard the mammoth Starbase One space station.)
[edit] Legacy
As an unexpected legacy, the book spawned a subgenre -- blueprints and schematics of fictional vehicles and locales, which later science-fiction projects would move to exploit. These have included
- The Star Wars Sketchbook;
- The Moonbase Alpha Technical Manual from Space 1999;
- Mr. Scott's Guide to the Enterprise;
- Star Trek: The Next Generation Technical Manual;
- Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Technical Manual;
- related Star Trek technical manuals;
- Battlestar Galactica blueprints;
and any number of fan fiction publications.
The Star Fleet Technical Manual was a major source for Amarillo Design Bureau's line of Star Fleet Universe gaming products.
