A random surf through the Internet today led me to looking at modern day ship bridge layouts, which are definitely heading a Star Trek direction: https://www.nyk.com/english/news/2018/20180927_01.html, https://www.beyondships.com/Explorer-Tour-4.html
These for me thinking: what kind of improvements or changes would you make to the traditional Star Trek Bridge, especially to bring it more in line with what bridges in the real world are like now? What changes might you make to the traditional console roles on the bridge?
I for one would want to make the helm the traditional elevated standing station it still is on real world ships, basically placing the helm in the spot where the tactical controls are on many Star Trek bridges. I think it’s a nice nod to Trek’s clearly naval inspirations, and with the late 24th century tech I think it makes a lot of sense. Having that on the same plane or slightly above the Captains chair is I think a good idea under the logic that if having the captain being able to look over peoples shoulders is good then having the guy who’s manning the conn have a view of the whole bridge is even better.
Some might object that standing at the helm for hours would be uncomfortable, and I think that is true, but it doesn’t seem to matter much on real ships so I don’t think it would have an impact in Trek, either. Except I suppose the whole “crewmen falling over” issue, but then people fall out of their chairs all the time on Star Trek!
The Next Gen era had some interesting ideas about combining stations functions, and it was really neat that different stations could sort of take over different tasks as needed. However, I’ve lately felt that from a practical, narrative perspective it would have been nice if the stations had more clear and dedicated roles: Ops and Conn particularly seemed to “blur the lines”, and whilst Tactical is a good addition I wish there had been a dedicated science station to sort of balance it out thematically.
I really like some of the recent designs by Rekkert and other fans that give the XO & Captain something to do at their chairs rather than just sit around contemplating space. The little chair arm displays of Next Gen were neat, and the emergency joysticks were ironically prescient if I understand the one website I linked above. I actually feel that the communications role is something that the Captain or XO ought to be handling, in line with naval tradition. Come to think of it, this is actually done quite well with the holocommunicator on DS9.
So what do you all think? What bridge stations functions would you add, subtract, split or merge? Which do you think ought to be standing stations and which ought to be sitting?
These for me thinking: what kind of improvements or changes would you make to the traditional Star Trek Bridge, especially to bring it more in line with what bridges in the real world are like now? What changes might you make to the traditional console roles on the bridge?
I for one would want to make the helm the traditional elevated standing station it still is on real world ships, basically placing the helm in the spot where the tactical controls are on many Star Trek bridges. I think it’s a nice nod to Trek’s clearly naval inspirations, and with the late 24th century tech I think it makes a lot of sense. Having that on the same plane or slightly above the Captains chair is I think a good idea under the logic that if having the captain being able to look over peoples shoulders is good then having the guy who’s manning the conn have a view of the whole bridge is even better.
Some might object that standing at the helm for hours would be uncomfortable, and I think that is true, but it doesn’t seem to matter much on real ships so I don’t think it would have an impact in Trek, either. Except I suppose the whole “crewmen falling over” issue, but then people fall out of their chairs all the time on Star Trek!
The Next Gen era had some interesting ideas about combining stations functions, and it was really neat that different stations could sort of take over different tasks as needed. However, I’ve lately felt that from a practical, narrative perspective it would have been nice if the stations had more clear and dedicated roles: Ops and Conn particularly seemed to “blur the lines”, and whilst Tactical is a good addition I wish there had been a dedicated science station to sort of balance it out thematically.
I really like some of the recent designs by Rekkert and other fans that give the XO & Captain something to do at their chairs rather than just sit around contemplating space. The little chair arm displays of Next Gen were neat, and the emergency joysticks were ironically prescient if I understand the one website I linked above. I actually feel that the communications role is something that the Captain or XO ought to be handling, in line with naval tradition. Come to think of it, this is actually done quite well with the holocommunicator on DS9.
So what do you all think? What bridge stations functions would you add, subtract, split or merge? Which do you think ought to be standing stations and which ought to be sitting?
