Given that we often saw crewmen not only in the recreation rooms but the hallways as well I'm inclined to think that most people had very little personal space of their own.
Good point, even though the first season (or half of it anyway) also tried to portray these people as
working in the hallways (repairing, installing, tearing down etc) and running important errands and whatnot...
It might also be an in-universe reason to justify the unusually wide corridors - a feature that starship designers found essential as the hallways themselves became multi-use spaces.
Fair enough. Although it might be that there existed cargo elevators or ramps that were wider than the standard turbolift doors, and anything being moved on those would call for the wider corridors, too. We did see bulky furniture and machinery on occasion...
Doubtless some new Admiral found all this type of behaviour from the "lower orders" not to his liking and instituted fleet-wide reforms which ultimately led to the large Recreation Deck we saw in TMP: the working man is now neatly corralled away from the officer class.
I still insist the TMP deck was there all along, spanning Decks 3 through 5 during that thrilling chase scene that kept us all glued to our sets during "Let That Be Your Last Act, Please"...
Regarding Rand, I agree that her position would have necessitated a single cabin and office. McGivers is a Lieutenant and although not a department head like Uhura is nonetheless a specialist. However, unknown and largely ignored by the captain, I would imagine she has few facilities assigned to her aboard ship and may in fact do most of her studies and research from her own cabin.
I support any efforts to turn the use of one and the same set for multiple facilities into a virtue! It would make sense for Starfleet to build standard cabins and then accommodate a variety of functions inside those walls: pure accommodation, combined accommodation and office or study spaces, workshops devoid of accommodation, etc.
When we first meet Ensign Garrovick he has just been promoting to "The New Security Officer" (AKA Security Chief I assume) so it is not unreasonable that he has already asked a NCO to move his stuff into the appropriate cabin (he does give a quick look around when he walks through the door later, perhaps double checking)
(Or then he checks for gaseous anomalies...)
In other episodes, Chiefs of Security were high-ranking officers, essentially the commanders of an onboard Marine company, and one or two redshirts always wore Lieutenant braid. "Obsession" thus marks a major departure in only showing braidless Security personnel. Are we assume that each and every one of them was enlisted, thus allowing the "new guy" to be their boss? What killed all the other officers, and I mean
all?
We might do better assuming that Garrovick wasn't a department head or even a particularly highly positioned underling; his in-universe significance would come purely from the fact that he was his father's son.
If it was his original cabin that he shared with another Ensign (with the second bed just off camera) then it does raise the question of why there is only one cylinder wardrobe and no additional storage facilities - or do they share EVERYTHING when they share - hot-uniforming maybe?
I'd argue we just missed the door connecting the two mirrored cabins at the wall opposite the wardrobe (the set does have a door that goes nowhere on that wall). There could be a Shane Johnson -style bathroom between the cabins, or then not; corridor showers might be standard for juniors.
Timo Saloniemi
What makes the official description in TMoST somewhat difficult, is that we do not know whether the original text had been written for the Pike / pilot version of the ship or for the regular series.
