Is Starfleet a military or not?

[Richard Baker]

I do like the idea of two ships in tandem- Voyager/Equinox and Galactica/Pegasus combos both had great scenes and good interplay between Captains.
Having a larger exploration vessel with all the labs and resources and a smaller escort ship with firepower and maneuverability makes sense.
Before the Galaxy Class design was finalized Probert had been told about the separation ability and a battle section. One of his fist sketches of this showed the ship as we know wit, but with an arc shaped vessel lifting away from the front-top of the saucer as the battle module.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Part of the pacing issue is the fact that there's a different Bridge set for when the ship separates, which our heroes have to spend precious time transferring to (which also means that in a crisis, the entire command crew could be caught in an elevator, unable to do their jobs!)

There's ways around that:

- (out-of-universe) Use the same set for both bridges, just different lighting.

- Have the transporter move the crew from one bridge to another.

OR

- Make the bridge itself transportable. Bridge units are already made to be swapped out and replaced easily, after all.

 

[Hartzilla2007]

I've used the analogy before of the saucer being a Western fort to shelter the settlers

Except Star Trek already had one of those, it was called a Starbase.

and the battle section being the cavalry force sent out to defend them.

And that position would already be held by the Starship.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

I've used the analogy before of the saucer being a Western fort to shelter the settlers

Except Star Trek already had one of those, it was called a Starbase.

and the battle section being the cavalry force sent out to defend them.

And that position would already be held by the Starship.

What's that maneuver in westerns, when the wagon train unyokes the horse teams and tips their wagons over to build a defensible position? Maybe that's what saucer sep is more like.

 

[T'Girl]

- (out-of-universe) Use the same set for both bridges, just different lighting.

Or (in universe) have the main bridge located in the secondary hull to start with, and then have a alternate bridge located in the saucer.

That way in the event of a saucer separation, the command crew stays where they were.

Oh, and don't have the main bridge on top of the corba neck, too exposed by far.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

- (out-of-universe) Use the same set for both bridges, just different lighting.

Or (in universe) have the main bridge located in the secondary hull to start with, and then have a alternate bridge located in the saucer.

That way in the event of a saucer separation, the command crew stays where they were.

So in a very real sense:

There will be no more isolation
In our Saucer Separation.

(pause, while anyone born after about 1985 looks that up. )

 

[J.T.B.]

^ And many older, I'm sure; that track's not exactly a household name.

Made me laugh, though!

 

[fireproof78]

- (out-of-universe) Use the same set for both bridges, just different lighting.

Or (in universe) have the main bridge located in the secondary hull to start with, and then have a alternate bridge located in the saucer.

That way in the event of a saucer separation, the command crew stays where they were.

Oh, and don't have the main bridge on top of the corba neck, too exposed by far.

I think the funny aspect about Starfleet vessel design is the fact that the Bridge is right on the top, because it was a different design from the traditional rocket ship of science fiction at the time. Of course, now, we look at it with that reaction, of "That's too exposed." For the time, it made more sense.

A more modern style of starship will likely be a blend of rocketship, battlestar and enterprise-esque style, with the command center well protected and armored, towards the center of the ship.
Click for link, due to image size.

http://th09.deviantart.net/fs50/PRE/f/2009/294/c/9/Battlestar_Enterprise_pt__2_by_IcarusTyler.png

Obviously, this takes a more military look, but I think you could build a starship from the keel up with and create modules for different tasks, i.e. like a runabout but much larger,

Say what you want about Abrams Enterprise, but he understood the idea that in Starfleet bigger=better.

 

[Mytran]

- (out-of-universe) Use the same set for both bridges, just different lighting.

Would that be the standard "danger" lighting used so much throughout Voyager? Makes for some very dingy scenes!

- Make the bridge itself transportable. Bridge units are already made to be swapped out and replaced easily, after all.

Funnily enough I was going to mention this, but it made my post overly long! It's just the system I used to use with the Lego Enterprise I made as a child. In practical terms it feels very "Thunderbirdsy" but hey, what's wrong with that?

Or (in universe) have the main bridge located in the secondary hull to start with, and then have a alternate bridge located in the saucer.

Massive moving bridge-elevator shafts aside, the "main bridge" would pretty much have to be in the Secondary Hull. But then again, why not? The Secondary Hull is the "business" section of the ship, the Saucer is where the families, living quarters and recreational facilities exist. In essence, it's a mobile starbase.

As for the equivalent control centre in the saucer, it would really only be needed to pilot and navigate the craft, perhaps just a few consoles adjacent to one other (think an updated version of TOS's Auxillary Control).

Oh, and don't have the main bridge on top of the corba neck, too exposed by far.

No argument here. The TOS Enterprise's design meant that most parts of the ship were more or less equally exposed to danger from phaser fire, so why not put the Bridge up there? By TNG, there's really no justification for such absurdity.

Actually, the justification is that the original design of the Enterprise-D model was not done with saucer separation in mind at all, and the Bridge itself (according to the early sketches) was a massive multi-storey facility not unlike the Rec Deck of TMP. A Bridge like this would be the main Bridge without question, so the saucer (AKA main section) would be the only fitting location for it.

As it turned out, the E-D Bridge was not a great deal larger than the Battle Bridge (also TMP, of course).

 

[starburst]

Starfleet ship design aside, I think todays announcement that the USA are sending 3000 troops to help with the Ebola epidemic again underlines that current Militaries do conduct peaceful operations similar to Starfleet.

This could be compared to sending 3 Galaxy Class (or less with equivalent personnel) Starships to offer assistance to an outbreak on a remote planet while the rest of the Fleet were battling the Dominon or the Cardassians or even the Klingons.

Afterall we still do not know what the 'Primary' fleet were off doing in the Laurentian system, whatever it was doing the were 'engaged' with that task leaving a small number of ships to conduct humanitarian support missions.

 

[Timo]

In a realistic space combat vessel, why have a command center at all? Do the Borg thing and distribute everything. If you need special personnel for commanding, distribute them, too - they can talk to each other via this interweb thing. And if that's down, those folks still would be no better off if crammed into the same room, because they can achieve nothing by just talking to each other anyway.

"Realistic Trek" could also do this: by the in-universe rules, there are no obstacles. Out-universe, drama obviously doesn't allow for distribution.

That aside, why would it be a problem if the bridge were exposed? Engineering-wise, it's not a particularly important part of the ship - it's just fancier quarters for some personnel who like to make decisions. In a fight, there is no time for decision-making, and after the fight, other personnel can take the place of those who perished in the surface-mounted shoot-me bubble.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[nightwind1]

Uhura's [pride in her non-American background] WAS non-existent.

Literally nonexistent? That's untrue. Uhura decorated her quarters with specifically African motifs, as shown in "Elaan of Troyius" and "The Tholian Web".

If anything, I would say it became less apparent during the movies....but she did have some expression of her heritage in TOS.

IIRC, she also spoke Swahili in "Man Trap". Or her "ideal man" that the salt vampire became did, anyway, which would have come from Uhura.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Literally nonexistent? That's untrue. Uhura decorated her quarters with specifically African motifs, as shown in "Elaan of Troyius" and "The Tholian Web".

If anything, I would say it became less apparent during the movies....but she did have some expression of her heritage in TOS.

IIRC, she also spoke Swahili in "Man Trap". Or her "ideal man" that the salt vampire became did, anyway, which would have come from Uhura.

Yeah, both Uhura and the dream-guy lure form spoke Swahili. I considered mentioning this example originally, but I didn't consider it an example of cultural pride, since I'd agree that the salt vampire had accessed some private desires to form the lure.

 

[Richard Baker]

Roddenberry wanted the Bridge to be on top of the Saucer/Primary hull simply because it would provide viewers with a feeling of scale to the ship. You know how big that room is, there it is on top of this really big thing. Later it was justified as a tech choice because they could unplug the entire bridge module and insert an new one for upgrades (which was also supposed to explain why each TMP era bridge looked different from movie to movie).
When they designed the Galaxy class the main bridge was inside the center of the saucer, Gene had it moved back on top for the above viewer reason and also because the newest Enterprise was so well protected that any location on the vessel was equal to another in safety.
I did wonder about the windows in Ten Forward withstood a direct impact with the landscape in 'Generations', but the little glass dome on top of the bridge broke so easily.
'Nemesis' also showed how an enemy could target and blow the front of it off and Voyager's 'Year of Hell' showed that a vessel impact could take the bridge out. Yes both had force fields, but 'Nemesis' lost a member of the crew through that hole until it was plugged.

Putting the bridge inside the hull makes good sense from a design standpoint, but I am afraid it is a tradition to keep it on top still.

 

[starburst]

At least Defiant and Equinox went some way to address this by having each at the centre of an enlarged Deck 1, still vulnerable but more protected than other ships.

 

[Richard Baker]

At least Defiant and Equinox went some way to address this by having each at the centre of an enlarged Deck 1, still vulnerable but more protected than other ships.

The Akira class also protected the bridge with the two raised pontoons on each side...

 

[C.E. Evans]

At least Defiant and Equinox went some way to address this by having each at the centre of an enlarged Deck 1, still vulnerable but more protected than other ships.

It always seemed that if a ship's shields were down, it didn't matter that much if you were on deck 1 or deck 10. There might be a compelling argument about having all the senior staff in one location--regardless of where it is on the ship--but if the whole ship goes ka-boom all at once, then even that might not matter...

 

[Ithekro]

In Star Trek VI, once the shields on Enterprise were down, a single torpedo goes right through the saucer section.

In DS9 battles, ships that aren't the hero ship tend to just explode with only a few hits.

So where the bridge it doesn't see to matter much when combat tends to just blow up the entire ship.

 

[Christopher]

In Star Trek VI, once the shields on Enterprise were down, a single torpedo goes right through the saucer section.

In DS9 battles, ships that aren't the hero ship tend to just explode with only a few hits.

So where the bridge it doesn't see to matter much when combat tends to just blow up the entire ship.

The makers of Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda consulted with a JPL engineer to develop a realistic approach to space combat, and one of the more significant principles they used is that there is no armor that can prevent a ship from being penetrated by a projectile moving at a fair percentage of the speed of light. It would just tear right through the entire ship, vaporizing on impact and leaving a narrow cone-shaped path through the body of the ship as the cloud of plasma expanded from impact point to exit point. So it wouldn't matter where you put the command center -- it could still be destroyed even if it were in the deepest core of the ship. The defense strategy revolved mainly around intercepting incoming projectiles and missiles before they hit, but some impacts were inevitable, so vital stations and personnel were distributed widely throughout the volume of the ship and all had redundant backups, so that if one were taken out by an impact, the rest would survive. Also, those parts of the ship that weren't in use during combat would be opened to vacuum, so that the internal atmosphere wouldn't propagate the shock and heat of impact to other parts of the ship and the damage would be lessened.

Of course, it's somewhat different in Trek when you have deflector shields (which were too fanciful a concept for Andromeda), but once the shields go down, it really wouldn't matter where you are in the ship.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

In a realistic space combat vessel, why have a command center at all?

Because it's most efficient that way. If the comm system goes down, for example, how is the captain supposed to issue orders and receive reports if all of the officers are scattered who knows where?