Was 'Ten Forward' always on the ship?

[C.E. Evans]

Therin of Andor wrote:

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Sure, but "Ten-Forward" was also the official deck plans' designation, ie. front of the ship on the tenth level.

Which may not have mattered much on other Galaxy-class ships. In comparison to more personable names other vessels may have used for the area, the name "Ten-Forward" could seem unimaginative, if not boring.

[King Daniel Into Darkness]

I'm not 100% sure, but didn't it take a bit of fudging for that location to become deck 10? IIRC on the earliest cutaway diagrams of the Enterprise-D, it wasn't.

[Trekker4747]

Robert Comsol wrote:

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"Ten Forward" wasn't considered to be on the ship before the end of Season One and Andrew Probert's departure.

Here is a link how he felt about the addition of "Ten Forward" on the ship that's essentially his design and creation (however, read the answer to question # 23 at your own risk! I wasn't aware of the "problem" before I read his interview, one of the rare cases where I'd agree that ignorance would have been bliss).

Bob

Sure what Probert's plans were don't line up with what we know but what goes on behind the camera is different than what is going on "in" the camera. Just because Probert didn't intend for 10-Fwd to be there doesn't mean it wasn't there before it was there.

[Timo]

...And essentially we're left to mix and match the "onscreen" and "backstage" elements as we please. We know from "All Good Things.." that there was a place called Ten-Forward on the ship at the time of "Encounter at Farpoint" already - but we can also accept that the windows we see from the second season onwards were not there yet, and we can choose to believe that the Ten-Forward of late 2363 and early 2364 was a different facility with different windows.

Perhaps the bow took some damage in an unseen adventure, and the repair work allowed Picard (or Guinan or whomever) to have the Ten-Forward windows redone without extra cost? Perhaps Starfleet introduced new and better sensors on the saucer rim, and the windows were redone for that reason? All sorts of explanations can be whipped up and the visual evidence interpreted to our personal liking.

What is a bit difficult to retroactively throw into the mix would be Guinan being aboard during the first season. She eagerly engages our heroes in conversation in the early episodes of season two; her failure to have done so before would need some pretty imaginative explanation unless we accept she wasn't aboard at all back then.

Timo Saloniemi

[Trekker4747]

It's pretty established Guinan was not around in Season 1 since she didn't know Tasha Yar. Picard says as much in "Redemption" upon seeing Sela and talking with Guinan, who convinces Picard Sela and possibly the whole deal with the Klingons/Romulans was his fault. Picard says Tasha died a year before Guinan came onto the ship.