Safest in the center of the saucer, but they allegedly defeats the "peaceful" nature of Starfleet vessels.
For one thing, the tendency of starships to keep the same orientation relative to each other, which means that for most starships, the position of major engineering components (secondary hull and/or warp nacelles) reduces the line of fire to the bridge and makes that position somewhat less exposed. Likewise, placing thicker armor on the dorsal section of the ship would give them some advantages in front-aspect engagements where they're directly facing their enemy; dip the bow about 5 degrees and the saucer's armored shell is actually adding extra protection to both the warp core AND the bridge. Besides, as many people have pointed out numerous times, Starfleet vessels are not actually designed for combat. They're designed for exploration and scientific research with combat functions built in as a secondary function. Having the bridge hanging below the saucer serves the exploration purpose for a ship that likes to fly around in atmo.
[Spoilers through Episode 1x03, "Context is for Kings" - Incidentally how do I create a spoiler thread in the first place?] Thread for Episodes 1-2 found here in the Discovery Forum: https://www.trekbbs.com/threads/dsc-1x01-starships-and-technology.290074/ Back on the r.a.s.tech newsgroup and then the Flare forums I had a whale of a time posting thoughts and observations of the (mostly Starfleet) ships and tech for every episode, in the context of how Starfleet at the Federation works. Planning on continuing doing so here for Discovery. All are welcome to post their own as well! On the lookout for: - Discovery, Discovery, Discovery! Let's get to know the new hero ship by dissecting every bit we can about her, gleaning history, and probable purpose of the GNDN bits we'll see. - Inevitable comparisons abound for the "new" NCC-1031, not only to other starships in every incarnation of Trek, but especially to the USS Shenzhou as the closest in-universe ship we've seen; after all, context is king here (sic). - How the cadet life fits in here. Why is there a cadet aboard ship? YEs it's wartime, but is it THAT bad yet? Or is this cadet doing a "second year field study" like Nog once did before getting brevetted to Ensign? - Differences in command structure on Discovery, arguably a larger and more capable ship than the Shenzhou. On the latter, Georgiou-Burnham-Saru were the 1-2-3 "in" crowd of the ship. How will that work here, and how will Burnham fit in? - The preview suggests Burnham stars off on a shuttle. If it's non-Starfleet, it'll be the first civilian craft we've seen in a while. How will THAT look compared to the ships we've seen so far? More to come upon airing tonight! Mark
I’d feel much safer in battle in a Starfleet vessel "designed for exploration and scientific research" than in a Klingon/Romulan/whatever ship designed for combat. That makes as much sense as having the bridge on top/in front to observe space when exploring.
Yeah, everyone criticises Starfleet for putting he bridge on the top of their ships, but the Klingons have it right at the front of the ship at the end of a long neck.
I don't see how. Flying at low altitude means you need to be able to see the ground, or at least the terrain directly in front of and slightly below your ship. The ideal location for atmospheric flight on a starship is, therefore, closer to the ground where the field of view is unobstructed.
When the prisoners first arrive on Discovery, they're convinced it's a brand new ship based on how clean the shuttlebay is. It could just be recently refitted, given her relatively low hull number. Saru mentions the Discovery has capacity to run over three hundred simultaneous scientific investigations (does that mean 300 labs? 30 labs that can be partitioned ten ways each? 300 science officers? Some combination of sensor arrays, computers, and labs that adds up to 300?). On the more-or-less identical Glenn, Burnham knew exactly how to get from the engine room/mycology lab to the shuttle bay through the Jefferies tubes, but she also mentioned that Starfleet uses a lot of standardized designs, so it's ambiguous if she just figured the route out from principles or was specifically familiar with how a Crossfield-class ship is put together. Speaking of, we saw the Discovery's identical sister ship running the same special experiments, U.S.S. Glenn, NCC-1030 (I think, it was dark and CBS All Access uses the latest streaming video technology of 2008, so it was hard to be sure). The prison transport shuttle was the same design as the Discovery's shuttlecraft. The design is warp-capable, has an airlock at the aft. The lines are similar to the TFF shuttlecraft, with a TMP-era big circular docking ring aft. There's also a hatch at the top. There are spaceborn lifeforms which can latch on to ships and drain their electrical power as they infest the hull. They're a known hazard, and have to be manually cleared, and quickly. It's a little ambiguous how dangerous they are in reality, given the situation was a setup to get Burnham on Discovery (I do wish they'd said specifically they were able to rescue the pilot, though I don't see how they couldn't have, especially since, again, the whole accident was staged).
With sensors all over the ship, location of the bridge should not be dependent on viewing during low atmospheric flight.
I'm sort of wondering whether the bridge of the Shenzhou even offers any sort of a view down. I mean, the helm pulpit is set so far back that the windows aren't much help there - the "lower horizon" would be just as bad if the bridge were atop the ship. But the vistas for idle observation are nice, for those officers who walk all the way to the edge of the bridge. Timo Saloniemi
Looking at screencaps here, the shuttle bay on the Discovery looks to be at least five decks tall based on the rows of windows. I'm guessing the mess hall is in one of those inset rows of windows on top of the inner ring.
It's a weird bay, with no way to move those shuttles to hangars (there can't be lifts taking them down through the floor, or up through the ceiling, and the front and side walls have very prominent obstacles). Essentially, less capacity here than aboard Kirk's old ship! Nothing "out of scale" or "contradictory" about the ship yet. The secondary hull minus the ventral bulge is as thick as seen in the stern view, seven or so decks. The bulge adds at least two, one of which contains Lorca's secret menagerie. The saucer has five decks or so outside the central bulge. Not a very big ship, not even compared with Georgiou's. Timo Saloniemi
Ugh, another overly high contrast aztec pattern. They need to look back at TMP where the contrast is subtle and you barely see it except where direct light hits it. The high contrast patterns were done for crappy broadcast quality TV. They don't have that limitation anymore. Glad they kept the warmer tone overall though. I liked the subtler registry numbers in the first trailer better too. It's not like having it bigger makes it more visible in space. Makes it look cheap this way.
- No mention of the fungus trip? First thing that came to my mind: did we see the scientific explanation of the iconian gateway technology? Also, observer obelisk. Yay! what other planets did we see during Michael's trip? - Jeffries tubes - Discovery shuttle had DSC 01 written on its side, the prisoner shuttle something else. - where did they want to go? Some starbase reference. Have to watch it again. - those dead redshirt creature effects were amazing, but probably the most violent stuff since FC's assimilation scenes. No blood, but those twisted bodies can give you nightmares. - why did they destroy the other ship instead of taking her back to Federation space. I assume she would be an asset during the war, even without the drive.
Starbase 18 was contacted when the prison shuttle ran into trouble. A destination, a point of origin, a supervising third party? Hard to tell. The pilot left the shuttle to scrub the hull while the thing was at warp! What did she hope to achieve when even the resources of the Discovery ostensibly only allowed for cleaning in three days or so? And why did she die? Accident (equipment failure?)? Attack of the Lightning Bugs? Murder? The warp effect behind the windows was more severe in the prison transport than in the Discovery-to-Glenn run, with extra red effects. Due to the storm Lorca refers to? Speaking of red, all starships now have plenty of red dots on the exterior. And no, not as markers of alert status - the Shenzhou had those blinking at all times. But those on the Discovery coincide with the twin phasers on the inner saucer! Should we then assume the single dots on the outer saucer are phasers, too (while certain twin fixtures on outer ventral saucer, unlit, aren't)? Nice handoff with tractor beams. Plenty of well-marked emitters for those, for a change. Hard to tell what the other surface features might be - where are the torpedo tubes, say? A phaser rifle cuts through Engineering doors in a minute or so. Why didn't Scotty bring out one of those babies in "The Naked Time"? Too drunk (courtesy of Psi 2000, I mean)? Those Starfleet standard foot lockers are a nice touch. Also, rationale for the low lighting levels, yay! Lampshaded, even. Fitting. Timo Saloniemi
They weren't at warp though, that's the weird thing. They were travelling at impulse through that nebula. Later when they go on the away team to the Glenn, we see the real warp effect on that shuttle, what we see outside the prison bus is cloud and stationary stars. Burnham says later the shuttle changed course, Lorca gives a small smirk. He had it diverted, knowing it would hit the nebula, slow down, be infected and have to be cleaned, giving him the excuse to detain them all for 2-3 days. So he may not have personally killed the pilot but...
Is that what's going on there? Sublight travel poses certain problems - one of them being, if they're so close to something that they think it a good idea, why does Lorca choose this as his point of abduction? Also, if the storm is for real, why's it not a problem for the second shuttle sortie? Or for the mothership, if we're supposed to think she goes to warp unseen to allow the shuttle sortie to her sister ship to be launched from outside the storm? Did the storm just die down? Timo Saloniemi
On the monitors in Engineering, the outer ring of the Disco's saucer was clearly rotating. But we didn't see the saucer itself rotate in external views.
But do we know he didn't? It's very suspect...she goes outside and then her tether is broken and she goes sailing off into space. But she doesn't go "backwards" when untethered and get left behind, she flies off ahead of the shuttle. What caused that?
The shuttle said the harness was "disconnected". Not broken, not an emergency alarm, just casually announcing it was disconnecting it. Either the pilot did it deliberately, or a remote signal was sent to make the shuttle do it.