The bridge design you prefer
- Thread starter Vinkula
- Start date
My favorite bridges:
- Kelvin from ST XI
- Alternate Enterprise-D from "Yesterday's Enterprise"
- Enterprise-A from ST VI
- Dauntless
- Kelvin from ST XI
- Alternate Enterprise-D from "Yesterday's Enterprise"
- Enterprise-A from ST VI
- Dauntless
YARN
Fleet Captain
I hate to admit it, but the new BSG was a better bridge design in some ways.
On Star Trek they're always sitting on their bums watching a big screen TV waiting for something interesting to happen.
On BSG there were various work stations that officers would walk to and from.
Oh. In my opinion, bridges looks stupid without executive officer and / or counselor chairs. Voyager was fine because it had Executive Officer's chair there. For Defiant, only Captain's chair was fine.
This is mostly a TNG and beyond thing in TOS, there are only three people facing the main viewer. The Defiant has only two. The Kelvin's bridge has plenty of workstations pitched in different directions.
YARN
Fleet Captain
Sure, even the TOS bridge has workstations for Spock, Uhura, and those who need not be named, but the captain, helmsman, and navigator were always watching a big screen TV. And when something really interesting happened, everybody on the bridge was watching that TV.
Key moments of tension Trek often involve us sitting on a couch watching a TV showing us a Captain sitting in a chair watching another TV.
I never liked Voyager's chair layout because it prevented the captain from being in the "center seat." With only two chairs there, the captain and the first officer were both off center, I don't like that. Either go with the single chair layout of the original Enterprise and the Defiant, or go with the three chair layout of the Enterprise-D/E. IMHO.
I like it as well... though the styling on the casework around the helm/nav area just doesn't feel Starfleet to me.
Rob+
I like the smaller bridges myself, original Constitution and Defiant class. I intensely dislike any that have numerous standing stations cluttering things up, with the exception of the Galaxy class, which at least limited it to 1. Enterprise-E was ludicrously full of these.
Enterprise-D bridge - What can I say, it the bridge I grew up with.
My favorite canon bridge is the Enterprise-D from Generations BUT I do think it would have been better with a lighting scheme somewhere between where it was and what it had been during the series.
My favorite starfleet bridge I've ever seen is from this picture I found once, I don't remember where or who made it but I loved how it looked. I'll have to try to find it again... or if I can't, put the copy I have on my photobucket or something...
My favorite starfleet bridge I've ever seen is from this picture I found once, I don't remember where or who made it but I loved how it looked. I'll have to try to find it again... or if I can't, put the copy I have on my photobucket or something...
Make that three.
For a long time, the TUC bridge was my favorite, but the fact that the ambient lighting is ordinarly low on the bridge has, over time, degraded my appreciation for it. I would probably prefer physical buttons on the TFF bridge, mainly because I think touchscreen controls will never work on a real spaceship (how many accidental keystrokes can a ship stand at the helm before it tears itself apart?!?!), but the 5 bridge is a place I'd not mind being a bit.
Rob+
1701-A Bridge from STAR TREK V TFF.
TNG Bridge is my favorite.
The Cage.
Followed by, believe it or not, the Excelsior bridge from The Search for Spock.
They seemed the most believable as starship control rooms to me.
As far as pure aesthetics go, without regard for functionality/believability? Relativity was fun, even though it felt more like a 25th century design than 29th.
Followed by, believe it or not, the Excelsior bridge from The Search for Spock.
They seemed the most believable as starship control rooms to me.
As far as pure aesthetics go, without regard for functionality/believability? Relativity was fun, even though it felt more like a 25th century design than 29th.
I've never understood the appeal of the TOS bridge.
One of the problems that I have with it was the distinct lack of monitors/displays and often not enough controls. This is not just a problem with TOS, but a general problem with vintage scifi.
Vintage scifi shows frequently depicted control stations as having lots of buttons and blinking lights. However, they usually lacked displays or dials....ie something that gives the user information.
On the TOS Bridge...look at the helm/Nav stations. The navigator has a single panel of like 8-10 buttons and one dial. That is hardly enough to pilot the ship. whats funny is that frequently the navigator would be sued a question and rattle off all sorts of information...yet I've always wondered where they got said information. The helms man had the same problem. The helmsman had the benefit of a view master that could theoretically be displaying all the information he/she might need. But in order to use it, they'd lose even more control buttons.
Enterprise, having been made in an era of PCs and designed by people who really understand how computers work...fixes all of this by having LOTS of buttons and dials but also ensures that there is a monitor at EVERY station.
This stops being a problem after Star Trek V and the arrival of the touch screen consoles. The benefit of having all of the control surfaces be computer screens is that they could theoretically change with each push of a button to show you all of the information the user might need.
How
One of the problems that I have with it was the distinct lack of monitors/displays and often not enough controls. This is not just a problem with TOS, but a general problem with vintage scifi.
Vintage scifi shows frequently depicted control stations as having lots of buttons and blinking lights. However, they usually lacked displays or dials....ie something that gives the user information.
On the TOS Bridge...look at the helm/Nav stations. The navigator has a single panel of like 8-10 buttons and one dial. That is hardly enough to pilot the ship. whats funny is that frequently the navigator would be sued a question and rattle off all sorts of information...yet I've always wondered where they got said information. The helms man had the same problem. The helmsman had the benefit of a view master that could theoretically be displaying all the information he/she might need. But in order to use it, they'd lose even more control buttons.
Enterprise, having been made in an era of PCs and designed by people who really understand how computers work...fixes all of this by having LOTS of buttons and dials but also ensures that there is a monitor at EVERY station.
This stops being a problem after Star Trek V and the arrival of the touch screen consoles. The benefit of having all of the control surfaces be computer screens is that they could theoretically change with each push of a button to show you all of the information the user might need.
How
I'm finding myself quite preferential to the Kelvin's bridge from the new movie.
It has a sort of CiC feel to it, and a really ace command chair.
It has a sort of CiC feel to it, and a really ace command chair.
“Lack of monitors/displays”? The TOS bridge was surrounded by them — eight little status display panels for each of the perimeter stations. And the overhead viewscreens, which, for budgetary reasons, weren’t used nearly as often as I would have liked.
The instrumentation and controls on the helm-nav station may look a bit sparse to modern viewers, but then we really don’t know what sort of controls are required to pilot a 23rd-century starship, do we?
The point about the TOS Enterprise bridge is that it looked busy and functional — especially compared to contemporary sci-fi fare with spaceship interiors cobbled together from Air Force ejection seats, Radio Shack electronics, fake computer consoles and meaningless blinky-lights.
Touch screens are fine for ATMs, stamp vending machines and interactive museum exhibits. I can’t buy them as controls on a military starship. Too easy to push — I mean touch — the wrong button.
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