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(Above) TNG borrowed the runabout, establishing the layout of the aft compartment of the vessel, seen in this cutaway. Note the warp core situated in the spine of the ship, and the deuterium and anti-matter pods in the aft part of the assembly.
Wow! The DS9 Tech Manual Illustrations were a real hit with everyone, so we’ll keep them coming!
Until the Defiant came along, the Danube class runabout was the only real piece of starfleet hardware we had on Deep Space Nine. It was designed by Rick Sternbach before he turned his attention back to TNG. Jim Martin’s main contribution to this design was suggesting the idea that the runabout carry detachable cargo pods under wing, like the Space: 1999 Eagle Transporter.
(Below) I put my own spin on the idea by suggesting that these containers could also be special duty modules coming in a variety of flavors… science, medical, cargo, or even crew cabins.
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(Below) “Visible V-8″ style, the Runabout’s total warp propulsion system pared down to it’s basic components.
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Strangely enough I was working thru a bookshelf and came across my own copy of the DS9 Manual.
I’d completely forgotten about all the vessel details and the wonderful A3 foldout pages in the back.
One of my favorite Ships, thanks Doug.
Wow, those are really cool! I always wondered about that warp design though; one well placed Phaser or Disruptor hit to the top and its bye bye Danube!
Wow, these answer so many questions I’ve had about the Danube. I’d never even considered that the warp core could be in that spine. Rather ingenious.
Most of the Starfleet shuttles that had warp capability had reactor chambers that were considered “pancake motors,” akin to very flat electric motors. The shuttle had them under the floor, bigger craft had them in the roof. Either location was vulnerable, which is why it’s good to have adequate shielding.
Small craft rarely had enough internal volume to house the engines in a more protected place, and the reactors had to fit somewhere, so there you go.
I’m always sorry the original series didn’t have a runabout if for no other reason that to hear Shatner say that someone was “going to ‘sabotaaj’ the ‘runaboot’!”
I’m really impressed by how much work has been put into the detailing of the ships: everything’s worked out! Great work ^_^
The runabouts were really an ingenious design! I knew the warp core sat on the top there, but I’ve never seen a diagram for how all those components worked until now. So cool! Also like the idea of the modularity! Seems to make sense as the runabout seemed to be a sort of all-purpose vehicle. Why not make it customizable based on the type of mission you would be engaged in?
Jim Martin really did come up with a nice idea for making it modular, after we spent some time looking at single shape models like the feature film executive shuttle (similar to the Jenolan, etc.)and the previous starfleet shuttles. I did a few doodles of a double-length runabout with a longer spine and two cargo pods, and a slightly different set of pylons and nacelles. Fun to play with it once the basics were nailed down.
I can only imagine how much fun you ugys had with it! I liked the sensor roll bar that we sometimes saw as well. It seemed though that we really only saw it a few times. The runabouts seemed a little bulkier then and I suppose if you’re setting up a scene where the principles are running from the bad guys, sleeker and faster is the desired look.
This design is just so cool. The modularity was a great idea and it makes me smile that Derek Meddings’ fantastic body of work had an influence on you guys.
I was always hoping for a Thunderbird 2 style shot of all the modules moving along on a conveyor belt before one was selected and loaded. I guess the cost of showing such a sequence couldn’t really be justified.
From what I remember, the only on-screen hint at the modular design on the show was when a runabout was destroyed and the cockpit section could be seen largely intact in the explosion.
Thanks for posting more DS9 Tech Manual stuff. I took great pleasure in revisiting my copy the other day. It never ceases to amaze me how much thought and attention to detail goes into these designs.
I thought that having the warp drive in the spine was a work of inspiration. I have to admit that I was kind of disappointed that the Defiant didn’t go the same way. A hot-rodded horizontal warp core would really have given the borg-buster that overpowered look!
I always wanted a closer look at these little devils. They’ve always been a favorite non-hero design of mine. I unfortunately didn’t realize or appreciate all of the material that was available, so the DrexFiles is opening a whole new world for me. Now, watching the shows is like they are brand new, what with all the little details that I notice and appreciate more.
I liked the river names for these runabouts, which represented all parts of Earth. They don’t always use the same one (like, say, Shuttlepod 1 mostly was used) and it was just a fun little aside to make note that the runabout they were using was Rio Grand or Yukon or Ganges…they weren’t just “a runabout”.
I love the runabouts as an example of the many ways the explorations of ships like the Enterprise could be followed up by dedicated, mission specific researchers.
I’m wondering though, could the runabout be a follow up to the Maquis raider, which I’m assuming is much older due to the 23rd century style control panels. Do you have anything on the raider, which I’ve heared called the Ju’Day class?
These were done in Illustrator, I think? I was never able to figure out how to do nice projections in Illustrator. I love these renderings, and would love to know how they were done.
Though I strongly approve of this concept of the runabout (and would’ve loved to have seen deposited modules somewhere), it would have been great if the interior and exterior design had matched up better with it. (But it was only TV yet so much matched up so well.)
As it stands, both “Timescape”[TNG6] and of course all the DS9 episodes show a big wall with doodads instead of the central hallway. And, the underside of the ship does not appear to have any connection of the underwing impulse and end-of-wing warp drive system to the ship, save for at the very top of the wings. That both seems unusual and runs contrary to Sisko’s impulse drive modifications in “Blaze of Glory”[DSN5], when he enters a Jefferies tube out of a small hallway or closet of some kind (all we see, once again, is a doodad-covered wall).
I don’t know what the solution here would be. Two hallways along the exterior around a central open space seems odd, especially given the strap-thing on the outside of the runabout hull. And if there were such a large central space, one might be tempted to assume it was engineering, and place the warp reactor there and upright, barring contradictory Okudagrams.
But then you have a ship that’s “hard coded”, if you will, with only the rollbar allowing mission-specific modules. That’s fine, but not as satisfying a design.
(Personally, I always fancied the idea of the rear section being capable of swap-out, too, up to and including the crazy notion of a shuttlebay-esque module for vehicle/probe launch and recovery.)
It’s little. But it’s among my very favorite Trek ships.
I wonder how many of these things the fleet has. I wonder if most starbases keep several around to do whatever needs doing, like Deep Space Nine did.
I really liked when runabouts went on the mission through the wormhole alongside the starship Odyssey and flew in formation with her. (…Okay, that mission didn’t end so well, but I’m trying to focus on the positive.)
I always thought it ironic that although it was probably the most oft-seen Starfleet ship in DS9, it was left to TNG to reveal the aft compartment.
Do you know why we never got to see that set again on DS9? I realise some of the set pieces were utilised in the Defiant (the bunkbeds) and other Starfleet ships & Starfleet headquarters – But I would have loved them to explore the ship more fully. If they had done so, they probably wouldn’t have felt the need to introduce the Defiant. These little ships were capable of so much more than we ever got to see!
Though they never seemed to be able to marry up the interior set with the exterior entrance hatch I noticed.
I always loved the 3D cutaway illustration you did however. Probably my favourite part of the Tech manual.
I think it was explained that it was budget sharing. TNG could use some of Timescape’s budget to build the aft set, and use what DS9 contributed in the cockpit set and model.
But I have the same question as you do. Why wasn’t the aft set ever reused? It seems like the type of thing would at least go into storage, and when an episode came along that could use it, they’d set it up again. What happened?
It’s a pity the modules were never represented on screen, but at least through these illustrations we get to see the idea. I always assumed the cockpit and aft sections could be swapped as well, since the cockpit changed quite a bit over the years. And of course, there’s the rollbar attachment as well. The runabout’s got to be Starfleet’s most versatile ship of all.
The question is, ‘Just how long could the runabout stay out by itself?’ We know from “Timescape” that one antimatter unit was depleted in 47 days(?) of its time. But how much longer berfore that was it in use?
With a top speed of warp 4.7, it wouldn’t have much range…
The one thing I always wondered about runabouts (which are my favorite Star Trek ships)… when they landed, how were the crew supposed to get down from the door to the ground – and back up again? When in their bays in D|S 9 or docking to one of the normal docking ports, mating the docking port to the height of the door wasn’t a problem; and when they crashed, as they did several times, they tended to plough into the gound so that the cabin doors ended up close to ground level. But there were many occasions when they landed normally, and the crew would have had to get down from the door and back up again, which is something we never saw. The doors appear high enough that it would be a very inelegant jump down, and quite an exercise to get back up again. Was any thought given when designing the runabouts as to how it was supposed to be done? Doesn’t seem very Starfleet to get a ladder out of the mid compartment and drop it down after opening the hatch.
In a couple of my early sketches, I had a slot for a ramp that would scoot out from just under the door, and then pivot down to the ground. With a few non-skid strips, it would have made it fairly easy to egress/ingress. On one sketch with an extended chine heading for the nose area, I cut in an extendable set of steps, but they weren’t as elegant. In a third sketch, where the nose was rather high off the ground, I actually imagined a ramp that dropped down from the floor. Would have been ever so slightly impractical on stage.
“You know, the rate we go through runabouts, it’s a good thing the Earth has so many rivers.” – Kira Nerys, “Family Business”
I wonder if some of these modules had dedicated replicators in them, for those times when the runabout might need a rollbar. The upgraded runabout U.S.S. Yellowstone (which looked exactly like a Danube class runabout) was seen both with and without the rollbar while in flight. A replicator is the best solution for that inconsistency that I can think of.
I also have a question for other readers of this blog. Have any of you used any of the material Mr. Drexler’s provided here to build your own models, be they physical or digital?
Nice idea. Kind of like the self-replicating mine field around DS9 or the Exocomp’s ability to replicate a tool for whatever job they were performing in TNG.
From what I remember, the Yellowstone appeared in a dream sequence so you could also put it down to Harry Kim’s inattentive subconscious
I’d agree with you, but it wasn’t a dream sequence. In “Non Sequitur”, some aliens had rescued Kim from a shuttle explosion by putting him in an alternate timeline in which he had chosen not to ship out on Voyager. Instead, he had been a major contributor for the Yellowstone development project (including designing the tetryon warp engines) on Earth. As it had been roughly a year since the two realities diverged, the technology seen in the “what-if” realities would need to be possible in the main reality.
It probably needed the pod in order to use its new warp engines, but couldn’t use the pod at other times. Because the Danube class isn’t designed for a retracting pod, Starfleet engineers came up with the replicating pod until a new spaceframe could be built. It’s likely, without Kim’s genius advancing the project by months or years, the “real” Yellowstone looks a lot different.
(By the way, thanks for the in-universe precedents.
)
I always did like these little ships. They’re a logical step between a tiny shuttle and a huge starship. I really like how practical the whole thing is, right down to the exchangeable living modules and optional upper equipment pod. Plus, it’s a sweet design.
I just watched that TNG episode with the Runabout in it. Very coincidental, eh? An awesomely designed little ship; from the small transporter to the modulated compartments, rear ‘living space’, and interior architecture. Thanks for continuing to post the DS9 Tech Manual images.
I always wondered if the bunks in the rear of the runabout in that episode inspired the bunks in the Defiant or if they were completely re-used?
I know the bunks made at least one other appearance redressed as Romulan or Cardassian in the DS9 episode where Garak and Odo join with Tain and the Romulans on an attack mission to the Gamma quadrant. Can’t remember the name of that episode off the top of my head.
I wish diagrams like these had been made available long ago. There are a lot of early DS9 novels that treat the runabout interior as a single big space, like a giant shuttlecraft, with people in the fore and aft sections having conversations and the like. Though to be fair, a lot of those were probably written before the show even aired (due to the long lead time a novel requires).
And I wish there had been some runabouts named after rivers on planets other than Earth. Sure, the viewers wouldn’t recognize those names, but still, realistically they’d be using the names of rivers from Alpha Centauri and Tellar and Deneva and Betazed and so on as well. (In the novels, there is one runabout named after a Bajoran river, Yolja, I believe.)
Amen to that non-Terran rivers complaint!
I agree it’s a shame they didn’t use rivers from worlds other than Earth, but the reasoning behind not using said rivers on the show is sound (considering how much Federation there is, there could reasonably be runabouts elsewhere with non-Earth river names. Who knows? Maybe some of the unnamed runabouts seen on TNG and DS9 were named after non-Earth rivers.
I think naming some of DS9′s later runabouts after Bajoran rivers (four were named onscreen, including the Yolja) would have been appropriate, but I wouldn’t retcon any of the unnamed runabouts into using those names, in deference to Pocket Books.
Maybe the Earth rivers were chosen for names as a nice gesture for the predominantly human crew who might be missing home while posted out in the “wilderness” (as Bashir put it). I agree, it would have be nice to see a river from another planet get namechecked, though.
I really like these. I’d love to know how it is done.
Would you please a post on the process of creating this type of illustration? A step by step breakdown of the process. Not a button-for-button outline of each piece of software, but an overview of the basic steps.
I used to do cutaways on velum and color them with cell paint. It was a very tedious manual process. David Kimble is one of my cutaway gods.
I love the Danube Class. If it was possible I’d just own one.
My question would be how many would Starfleet be able to produce in say a year?
And, does it fit inside a Galaxy and Sovereign Class Main Shuttlebay? May it it inside an Excelsior Class? I don’t recall if in “Timescape” it was ever said that the runabout went into a shuttlebay.
Thanks for sharing your stuff, Doug!
I’ve always thought if I could have any starship I’d pick a runabout! The Defiant is a close second but I don’t want to be greedy and I think the runabout would be easier to park
I think the Enterprise dropped off several runabouts at DS9 in the pilot, so guess they would have had to have been transported within the main shuttlebay, although I don’t think it’s ever been explicitly stated or shown that they will fit inside another starship. The Enterprise D’s main shuttlebay is huge. I didn’t realise how big until I got my hands on Rick Sternbach’s incredible blueprints of the Enterprise D.
From what I remember (is it really 11 years ago? yikes), the DS9 tech manual gives the length of the runabouts at about 20 m, so not sure they would fit in the smaller shuttlebays.
Pretty safe to assume that Galaxy, Nebula and Sovereign classes can handle at least three, possibly more in the first two starship classes’ instances. Maybe the Luna class ships could handle at least one in addition to their standard support craft loadout. Other classes? No idea.
All of the above is conjecture by yours truly and subject to clarfication/correction.
I always liked the Runabouts, they were appropriate for long-distance travel. Not sure how anyone could stay in those little shuttlepods while traveling.
And I liked the modular idea. Too bad we really didn’t get to see an episode where they were switching out modules for a particular mission.
BTW, Doug, Rick. Where is that one Jefferies Tube that supposed to be on the Runabout? Because of that, I always thought the warp core was on the ventral side of the hull.
http://members.cox.net/amberwolf/
At that link you will find these pictures of a model runabout built with the center section missing (including hallway, but still):
http://members.cox.net/amberwolf/PropsAndModels/Runabout_top.JPG
http://members.cox.net/amberwolf/PropsAndModels/Runabout_bottom.JPG
Keep these pictures coming! Thank you, thank you, thank you!
I remember being very skeptical about the whole idea of the runabouts before DS9. “Give them a real ship,” a much younger Syd cried!
Well, I still kinda am, but man, this is cool! Was the interior layout like that always the general idea, from concept to filming model, or was the model styled and built and then the interior design figured out later for the Tech Manual?
I think I’m going to go grab a DS9TM off Amazon.
The interior, particularly the cockpit, was driven by craft like the executive movie shuttle, in that there were to be some big forward windows, a couple of entry hatches, and some side windows. As the interior took shape, the exterior blueprints worked around the windows. TNG was responsible for the aft living area, IIRC, seen for the first time in the TNG episode about the Romulans and the weird time flashes. Same basic thing happened with the windows for that set, too, I believe. Anyhow, once the sets were done, the miniature was completed and filmed.
Oh yes, the Runabout. The modular design coupled with the AMT kit in 1:72 scale and those wonderfull graphics in the DS9:TM make this craft my favorite “non-Starship” ship in Star Trek (what a sentence). I too wondered about an aft section used with a rear cargo hatch unloading vehicles, troops or parajumpers…. but hey, years later they did realised this in ST:Nemesis with the Argo(?). Nonetheless, despite that scene, I still prefer the Danube class.
And yes – that missing, never seen on screen central hallway, always blocked by that wall with lights and graphics. My personal “in-universe” explaination would be that they had
a) a special, full width cargopod midsection installed which actually has two hallways left and right the the supposed central hallway
b) that this wall actually lead to some sort of airlock which itself lead to the central hallway.
And boy, was I surprised when we got to see the aft department in Timescape. Always wondered if Picard was compfortable to sleep with his senior officers in the same room, albeit in different bunks. Imagine this, “The Waltons-esque” dialoge sometime during the travel
[scene - Runabout exterior, rear view, viewports dark or at least only dim lights]
“Good night, Jean-Luc”
“Good night, Deanne”
“Good night Geordie”
“Good night, Data”
“Sir, may I remind you that technically speaking, there is no such thing as night and day while traveling in space…”
[klicking sound follow by what sounds like a switched off androids body dropping to the floor]
Cheers
Thorsten
See now, that’s just cool, IMO. I always LOVED the RA. Built the prac kit. Did not know that was your design, Rick. Nice goin’ there, eh. Great drawing as usual, Doug, thanks. See ya managed to work in the #5 pod, eh.
LLP,
deg
deg – With able assist by Jim Martin. Aside from the modularity of it, he did up some nifty little details on the tops of the pylons. And then I did the orthos for Brazil Fabrication. I don’t know many illustrator/designers who like doing orthos, but I’ll do ‘em anytime. Brazil made up the miniature to within 1/8″ of the blueprints. Sweet.
Indeed, sweet, Rick. And thanks for the follow-up on that, eh. Nice to see you sharing credit where credit is due. I respect and very much admire that honor-based character-trait in a person.
LLP,
deg
lol, Thorsten. I too loved the runabout and it was also my favorite Starfleet auxiliary craft. My second favorite was the Type 6 Shuttlecraft.
Thanks Doug for posting these excellent hi-quality schematics online.
Great work, as always, Mr. Sternbach. A truly great design.
Regarding the external warp core, top for the runabouts and bottom for smaller shuttlecrafts, it is, indeed, a touch of genius. If you take into account the possible need of dumping the core in an emergency, those locations couldn’t make it more simple. Very effective. This also gives the chance of making the core bigger, more powerful, without sacrificing inner space.
It may be a fragility, but no more than the thin nacelle pylons or the “necks” joining the primary and secondary hulls.
Not to mention the fact that the bridge, the brain of the ship, is usually in the most exposed place possible. As Rick said, it’s all in the shielding.
Some time ago I took this idea for a ship that would have warp capability in the saucer when separated from the secondary hull, the U.S.S. ARROGANT. The saucer must have its own warp core and engine room. To avoid exposing the living accommodations of the crew to the core emanations, I placed it at the bottom of the primary hull, where the captain’s yacht is in the Galaxy class.
Safe to use and easy to dump.
It is amazing how you guys design this stuff for real, making them truly operational, from the more humble hypospray to the most sophisticated propulsion system.
Given that we would have such technologies, everything seems functional, believable.
The modular nature of the runabout is another inspired idea.
I’m not sure if other franchises treat their universes with such level of “reality”.
Thank you for the ingenuity of your creations and the respect toward us fans.
In fact, now that a lot of you moved to those other universes, we begin to see more and more of that here and there.
I haven’t seen much of that philosophy in the new movie, unfortunately.
The propulsion system of the runabout bears some resemblance to the skeletal, incomplete frame of the Precursor Vessel in Star Control II
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_X8xhQQ6W1tk/SMDgwlck3pI/AAAAAAAAADA/tqNeAv89eAg/s320/1mage1b.jpg
Which is interesting, because the Precursor Vessel was designed as a cargo hauler and multi-purpose vessel.
The designs for the Precursor Vessel and Earthling Cruiser* were obviously lifted from Star Trek, but it is cool how the layout of the small craft Runabout kind of resembles that of the larger capital ships in the Star Control universe.
Star Control obviously reworked the Reliant and basic Starfleet design philosophy into a long skinny cruiser, and the Precursor Vessel follows the same logic. Doug, I imagine, was looking for a way to explore the Starfleet internals inside a long vessel like the Runabout. So two separate approaches based on similar principles can lead to a similar layout.
*
http://wiki.uqm.stack.nl/script/images/thumb/d/d5/Star_control_i_earthling_cruiser_databank.png/306px-Star_control_i_earthling_cruiser_databank.png
Thanks for all your great work on Star Trek over the years Mr Sternbach.