@Metryq: I love the idea of shit falling off the Constellation as she groans to life!

Patrick Lynch :

When the Constellation fires up her impulse engines, please don’t forget my suggestion that her initial movements be unsteady with the bow dipping down and the stern up with a bit of rocking motion to match everyone flailing around inside until Kirk and Scotty get more stable control of the ship.

I don’t think “rocking” would be visible on that scale. A dip, certainly. What might look better, as well as enhance the size of the ship, would be loose debris breaking off and trailing from the blasted sections. A properly functioning starship would have to include some kind of inertial damping field even with impulse engines. Assuming that is gone, or only partially working, Kirk and company would get tossed about, and a hail of loose debris would trail behind as many thousands of metric tons of mass groaned into motion. (Not a continuous trail, just an initial rain of small bits and girders.)

Is the ship’s artificial gravity and the inertial damping system one in the same, or separate systems? If separate, does the artificial gravity end at the deck plates and the outer hull of the ship, or does it extend outward in a uniform bubble? If a bubble, some debris might “fall” in a strange fashion before crossing the boundary into open space. Given the choice, I’d do a Roddenberry and give the audience what it expects — debris trailing openly from the wrecked areas.