the ready room...
- Thread starter stew58
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Kirk had briefing rooms to use. His own quarters were small, so he could hardly invite the entire senior staff there!
Basically, what we're asking here is, why wasn't Kirk's office right next to his bridge, like everybody else's? And the answer might be, it was, until it was taken from him.
Picard had various conference rooms available, too, and frequently used his cabin as an office of sorts. That didn't negate his need for a private room from which he could dash to the bridge in a matter of seconds - indeed, his big negotiation table was on a room that was likewise right next to the bridge. This is quite practical, as a starship performing a mission would be doing the good old "ninety-nine minutes of boredom and one of sheer terror" routine, and you could never tell where that one terrifying minute would fall.
Now, space on ships like Kirk's was no doubt at a premium. All the more reason, then, to put Kirk's office where it can double as his ready room.
Perhaps that's where it was? In "The Cage", Pike appeared to have a cabin of an unusual shape right next to the big circular briefing room, or a short corridor length from it; the walls and shapes rather suggest that both were directly beneath the bridge, in the superstructure of the ship. Kirk supposedly flew the very same ship, and quite possibly was supposed to use these facilities like Picard used the Observation Lounge (*) and the Ready Room. But something happened; perhaps the ship was refitted and these spaces had to be sacrificed, or perhaps there was damage to these decks that Kirk never had the time to get repaired. When we next see him, his cabin is down on Deck 12, then perhaps on Deck 3, and once on Deck 5.
So the answer might be, any Constitution skipper other than Kirk the wandering gypsy had a Ready Room and a Conference Room right next to the Main Bridge (one deck down).
Timo Saloniemi
(*) That facility was actually supposed to be called the Conference Room or Conference Lounge; Observation Lounges were random sets decorated with 1980s lounge stuff, as seen in "Justice". But at some point, the room next to the bridge was incorrectly addressed in dialogue, and the terminology stuck. Other designations suggested for the facility in preproduction included Ready Room (when Picard's private nook supposedly went by the name Away Cabin)...
Picard had various conference rooms available, too, and frequently used his cabin as an office of sorts. That didn't negate his need for a private room from which he could dash to the bridge in a matter of seconds - indeed, his big negotiation table was on a room that was likewise right next to the bridge. This is quite practical, as a starship performing a mission would be doing the good old "ninety-nine minutes of boredom and one of sheer terror" routine, and you could never tell where that one terrifying minute would fall.
Now, space on ships like Kirk's was no doubt at a premium. All the more reason, then, to put Kirk's office where it can double as his ready room.
Perhaps that's where it was? In "The Cage", Pike appeared to have a cabin of an unusual shape right next to the big circular briefing room, or a short corridor length from it; the walls and shapes rather suggest that both were directly beneath the bridge, in the superstructure of the ship. Kirk supposedly flew the very same ship, and quite possibly was supposed to use these facilities like Picard used the Observation Lounge (*) and the Ready Room. But something happened; perhaps the ship was refitted and these spaces had to be sacrificed, or perhaps there was damage to these decks that Kirk never had the time to get repaired. When we next see him, his cabin is down on Deck 12, then perhaps on Deck 3, and once on Deck 5.
So the answer might be, any Constitution skipper other than Kirk the wandering gypsy had a Ready Room and a Conference Room right next to the Main Bridge (one deck down).
Timo Saloniemi
(*) That facility was actually supposed to be called the Conference Room or Conference Lounge; Observation Lounges were random sets decorated with 1980s lounge stuff, as seen in "Justice". But at some point, the room next to the bridge was incorrectly addressed in dialogue, and the terminology stuck. Other designations suggested for the facility in preproduction included Ready Room (when Picard's private nook supposedly went by the name Away Cabin)...
...What we don't know is whether he had a more proper office somewhere else. All we saw belowdecks was his living quarters, which he didn't normally use for office purposes or meetings and negotiations with non-crew.
We never quite hear whether Kirk has a separate office, either. He doesn't seem to do any more office work in his cabin than Archer does, but there aren't sets or even dialogue references to suggest a Captain's Office.
Timo Saloniemi
We never quite hear whether Kirk has a separate office, either. He doesn't seem to do any more office work in his cabin than Archer does, but there aren't sets or even dialogue references to suggest a Captain's Office.
Timo Saloniemi
I think the real-world reason is that the producers were just used to having a ready room on TNG, VOY, and (although it was named differently) DS9 and wanted one on ENT too.
"In-universe," I think it just be a case that it was a shipboard feature that was discontinued by the time of TOS and then reinstated by the time of TNG--in other words, Kirk was robbed...
"In-universe," I think it just be a case that it was a shipboard feature that was discontinued by the time of TOS and then reinstated by the time of TNG--in other words, Kirk was robbed...
Just another symptom of the '24th century Think' that ruined Enterprise.
That's not all that solid an argument, because Ready Rooms are a real-world phenomenon rather than a TNG-invented one. Skippers have bunked next to their command centers during alerts since time immemorial, in the Chart Room if nothing else was available, and in the centers back when no separate bunking existed yet.
TOS was free to ignore Ready Rooms like it was free to ignore Sails or Gun Decks as shipboard fiction elements; TNG was free to include such things (with the appropriate futuristic twist, hopefully). Beyond this, it becomes a matter of continuity - but one that has to take into account the real past that supposedly precedes the fictional future of Trek. Thus, anything missing from TOS but present both here and now and in TNG calls for an explanation of some sort...
Timo Saloniemi
TOS was free to ignore Ready Rooms like it was free to ignore Sails or Gun Decks as shipboard fiction elements; TNG was free to include such things (with the appropriate futuristic twist, hopefully). Beyond this, it becomes a matter of continuity - but one that has to take into account the real past that supposedly precedes the fictional future of Trek. Thus, anything missing from TOS but present both here and now and in TNG calls for an explanation of some sort...
Timo Saloniemi
IMO there is a lot of things they simply did not think of when creating the entire ship and universe from scratch. When they revisited it later the ideas that came up since (Away Teams were the idea of David Gerrold, he had an entire book about what did not make sense in the TOS), the Ready Room was a logical addition. Having a place set aside for the captain to decompress but still be immediately available by the Bridge is a great idea, but I think they just did not think of it in the first show. All the later shows benefited from the expereinces and ideas of the prior ones, tuning the concepts and giving each show a special twist. The NX ready room was a must because everyone had seen them before, seen the scenes in them and expected to have it in the stories.
Which is exactly why the show sunk like a stone. It was indicative of a larger pattern of being unable to let go of the 24th century. From the 'ready room' to phase pistols to photonic torpedoes to hull plating that acted exactly like shields to the proto-Prime Directive to the Klingons to the Borg to the Ferengi and so on...
The Gypsy Captain came onto the Bridge,
Up from the planet so shady,
He whistled and he sang 'til the corridors rang,
'Cuz he won the heart of a lady...
Why is it called a "ready" room, anyway? Ready for what?
Another misapplication of naval terminology. A ready room is a room on an aircraft carrier where on-duty pilots stand by, ready to go to their planes. It's really his office of his sea (space) cabin, since it does feature a bed, even if he was never shown using it.
Likewise, the Captain's Yacht should have been the Captain's Gig.
At some point, the crew compliment of the Enterprise more than doubled, Dax spoke of how the crew was "really packed in."
