What are your controversial Star Trek opinions?

[ananta]

This is even more controversial. I love TNG but I feel it peaked with “Best of Both Worlds”. When I get to season four in my rewatch I begin to feel a little bored. There are still many great episodes but overall the show begins to feel a little too…safe. The ambition is gone. Sure, they did things like the Klingon arc, but I never found the Klingons particularly enjoyable on TNG. even though the first couple of seasons were wildly uneven, they and had a freshness and boldness that was almost totally gone by the fifth and sixth seasons. By the seventh season they were running on fumes.

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

The La Serina of Star Trek: Picard had six warp cores...

Where'd you get that it had 6x Warp Cores?

It looked like it had 6x Combustion Chambers.

Similar to larger Warp Cores like the Enterprise-D

 

[TREK_GOD_1]

Regardless of View-Screen Window or Moon Roof, having the Bridge on top central area of the Saucer section is a general bad idea.

Major sci-fi franchises tend to design ships that way; Star Destroyer bridges rest on top of the "neck" of the ship, making it an easy target, as seen when the Falcon used it as a diversionary tactic in TESB, and successfully as a lone A-Wing brought down the Super Star Destroyer Executor by crashing into its easily accessible bridge in ROTJ. That's a design leaning apparently popular, or making sense to those behind ST and SW ships.

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

Major sci-fi franchises tend to design ships that way; Star Destroyer bridges rest on top of the "neck" of the ship, making it an easy target, as seen when the Falcon used it as a diversionary tactic in TESB, and successfully as a lone A-Wing brought down the Super Star Destroyer Executor by crashing into its easily accessible bridge in ROTJ. That's a design leaning apparently popular, or making sense to those behind ST and SW ships.

I know, because they borrow our Earth's Maritime history / trope of designing Bridges like you were on a traditional ship on the high seas / open ocean.

But that doesn't make "logical sense" in the vacuum of space unless you're a Auxilliary Vessel like a Shuttle Craft or Star Fighter where you need the most optimum solution for "Minimum Latency + Maximum Responsive-ness" in manueverability & you can Min/Max it from the Pilots Observation through the window, to feeding back the inputs into the controls on a vessel to make use of that level of manueverability.

Something as large as a StarShip can easily get by on hiding it's Bridge by burying it and rely on EO (Electro Optical) Sensors fed into the Bridge through countless networks of sensors placed all around the hull.

The Enterprise-(A-J) isn't turning on a dime, while it's manueverable for it's relative size, it still pales in comparison to Auxilliary Craft in manueverability.

Different size class of vessels needs different solutions IMO.

 

[HotRod]

Something as large as a StarShip can easily get by on hiding it's Bridge by burying it and rely on EO (Electro Optical) Sensors fed into the Bridge through countless networks of sensors placed all around the hull.

Until the power goes out or you're in a nebula that renders the viewscreen almost useless. Suddenly a window seems like a pretty good idea.

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

Until the power goes out or you're in a nebula that renders the viewscreen almost useless. Suddenly a window seems like a pretty good idea.

If your power goes out, regardless of ViewScreen or Window, you'd have no real manueverability left since you have no power to control the Computer Systems that Controls the propulsion system.

At that point, you're in far bigger trouble.

 

[kkt]

But are they Sisko routers? *rimshot*

I'll see myself out...

(Where's that Facepalm reaction?)

 

[HotRod]

If your power goes out, regardless of ViewScreen or Window, you'd have no real manueverability left since you have no power to control the Computer Systems that Controls the propulsion system.

At that point, you're in far bigger trouble.

Sure you're in trouble, but wouldn't it be great if you could still see what's immediately infront on you? There's also multiple ways to maneuver a Starship without computer control.

 

[fireproof78]

Until the power goes out or you're in a nebula that renders the viewscreen almost useless. Suddenly a window seems like a pretty good idea.

Indeed. And with Starfleet's policy on secondary backups I think that it is good to have fail safes.

And it's not like the power needs to go out. In "Justice" Geordi is sent to look out the window.

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

Sure you're in trouble, but wouldn't it be great if you could still see what's immediately infront on you?

It's a nice to have, not necessary.

There's also multiple ways to maneuver a Starship without computer control.

Short of having Manual Physical/Mechanical Over-Rides & Battery Backup to run the computer, most things are directly computer controlled for a reason.

Even in modern Aircraft & Ship design, most of the Mechanical linkages are going away in the name of efficiency & fuel savings.
Everything is going full digital for control interfaces.

Heck many Combat Fighter Aircrafts are designed to be Naturally UnStable and requires a computer to constantly adjust the control surfaces hundreds of times per second.
Something humans couldn't possibly do.

The calculations for basic manueverability of a space craft would require some form of computer just to make it practical for Humans to do the basic inputs to get the end results in manuevering that we want.
Especially given the "Time Sensitive" nature of space flight, much less regular Aerial Flight in Atmosphere.

Even NASA's STS Space Shuttle was completely "Fly by Wire", no mechanical linkages inside.

The Space Shuttle's fly-by-wire control system was entirely reliant on its main computer, the Data Processing System (DPS). The DPS controlled the flight controls and thrusters on the orbiter, as well as the ET and SRBs during launch. The DPS consisted of five general-purpose computers (GPC), two magnetic tape mass memory units (MMUs), and the associated sensors to monitor the Space Shuttle components.[3]: 232–233  The original GPC used was the IBM AP-101B, which used a separate central processing unit (CPU) and input/output processor (IOP), and non-volatile solid-state memory.

Imagine the computers necessary to run one of StarFleet's StarShip, just for basic Manuevering.
It would be many orders of magnitude more powerful & complex than anything we have today.

 

[HotRod]

It's a nice to have, not necessary.

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I'm reminded of this scene from The Right Stuff.

 

[Bad Thoughts]

Sure you're in trouble, but wouldn't it be great if you could still see what's immediately infront on you? There's also multiple ways to maneuver a Starship without computer control.

See what? Things would be moving so fast, your five senses would be useless. If the ship could move, the best thing would be to move fast and erratically. There would be no predicting or tracking what an opponent would do.

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

I'm reminded of this scene from The Right Stuff.

That's cute.

TOS, TNG, DS9, VOY all managed to operate their StarShips w/o a direct "Window View Screen" to look out of into space.

I concur that you don't really need it on those types of vessels.

The creative staff was right.

If for some reason that you need to see out of a window, we can literally bring a PADD with Pilot Controls routed to it and have the Pilot sit at a position at one of the windows to manuever the vessel as a backup.

But that would be rare & unnecessary in 99.999% of the time for operating the vessel.

 

[fireproof78]

People like to be able to see.

Starfleet likes back ups.

Windows makes sense.

 

[HotRod]

See what? Things would be moving so fast, your five senses would be useless. If the ship could move, the best thing would be to move fast and erratically. There would be no predicting or tracking what an opponent would do.

Who said anything about combat?

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

People like to be able to see.

Starfleet likes back ups.

Windows makes sense.

TOS, TNG, DS9, VOY managed w/o Windows directly into space short of a Domed Moon Roof.

A Domed moon roof that was almost never focused on in show.

It's only since the Abrams-verse brought the idea of Direct Window Bridge that it became popular.

And the one time that a AR Glass Window would be really useful, they don't place it in the Shuttles or Star Fighters that people pilot which would be REALLY useful.

Something that Macross Plus even got right in 1994 in portraying it's usefulness in that type of vehicle.

 

[HotRod]

The creative staff was right.

They made a choice. Whether or not they were right is entirely subjective.

 

[fireproof78]

TOS, TNG, DS9, VOY managed w/o Windows directly into space short of a Moon Roof.

A moon roof that was almost never focused on in show.

It's only since the Abrams-verse brought the idea of Direct Window Bridge that it became popular.

And?

Call it personal preference but I see no downside and ways to appeal to human psychology while incorporating evidence that Starfleet's back ups need back ups.

I just don't see the issue.

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

And?

Call it personal preference but I see no downside and ways to appeal to human psychology while incorporating evidence that Starfleet's back ups need back ups.

I just don't see the issue.

To have a Direct Window into Space for "Psychology's Sake" or "Personal Preference" is not "Logical"

When safety of the Bridge Crew is more paramount in space than "Your Feelings".

Call it "Cold Vulcan Logic" or "Basic Pragmatism".

If you need to see outside, I'm sure we can turn on the Holo-Emitters and replicate the view outside for your station.

How's that?

They made a choice. Whether or not they were right is entirely subjective.

On the usefulness of View-Screen vs Window.
I'd prefer View-Screen, it's multi-function, and doesn't distract.

 

[HotRod]

To have a Direct Window into Space for "Psychology's Sake" or "Personal Preference" is not "Logical"

How is wanting to maintain positive psychological state for your crew considered illogical? The ships are filled with creature comforts and amenities to make the crew feel more at ease. Clearly Starfleet cares about the mental states of their crews.

When safety of the Bridge Crew is more paramount in space than "Your Feelings".

How is placing a window on the bridge unsafe? The Enterprise-D has a window, plus I'm pretty sure Voyager does as well. Are they unsafe?

If you need to see outside, I'm sure we can turn on the Holo-Emitters and replicate the view outside for your station.

And what happens when they inevitably go down like every other system on a Starship seems to go down every other week?

On the usefulness of View-Screen vs Window.
I'd prefer View-Screen, it's multi-function, and doesn't distract.

The windows seen on the bridge of the modern shows and movies have never been depicted as purely windows. You know that. They're multifunctional, with heads up displays that can convey any sort of information, same as a viewscreen. They are literally The Best of Both Worlds.