I would expect there are*some* quarters available for guests. But it seems reasonable that in JTB many of the officers were displaced as there are over 100 passengers. I doubt there's room for that many extra rooms. For EOT, I assume that it was considered a gesture of respect in that culture for a dignitary to be given somebody else's room rather than a new one. Weirder things have happened. At least she didn't need a hot mud bath...
--Alex
Yeah, I tend to agree.
It's also very likely that the Dohlman of Elaas was repulsed by being placed anywhere near the Troian contingent and required the nicest quarters as far as possible from them.
In my build-up, I put two VIP cabins on Deck 2. These are, for all practical purposes, "next door" to each other. Very likely, Uhura giving up her quarters was "concession" for the Dohlman not getting one of the VIP cabins.
This ESPECIALLY makes sense if, as one would expect, the Chief Communications Officer would be the person on the ship, under normal circumstances, most likely to be involved in the minutiae of diplomacy, wouldn't it? Uhura, perhaps in a moment of frustration, would have offered to give up her very own cabin if that would make the Dohlman happy!
For Journey to Babel, it strikes me (for numerous reasons) that the ship likely had offloaded many of the crew (Marla McGivers woudl have been left at Starbase, for example!) and they'd have been working on the "Pike-era" complement... which is the actual working crew for a "non-explorer" Heavy Cruiser, after all. Further, most of the officer (except senior staff) probably gave up their own cabins, and were bunked in shared cabins temporarily. This is not unheard of, even today.
For that matter, it's highly likely that the various cabins had their contents offloaded at Starbase and each diplomatic mission would have special fit-outs for their cabins, with beds, chairs, etc, and even decorations appropriate to their unique needs, don't you think?
The Babel Conference was a BIG DEAL, after all... it would be ridiculous NOT to devote the resources to a temporary modification to the ship... if you were going to use a Heavy Cruiser in the first place.
Which, of course, raises another question... why use a Heavy Cruiser instead of private liners? Why not let each government bring their own ambassadorial staff independently? Why not hire a big "cruise liner?"
There's only one reason... the show of putting these guys on a powerful warship. Which, as it turned out, was a good idea, wasn't it?
So, they stripped out (temporarily) the "full complement of a science vessel" normally carried by the twelve "explorer-refit" Constitution-class ships, and that opened up about 226 empty beds on the ship. MORE than enough to allow the transport of the ambassadors.
The ship likely was in-port for the several weeks prior to and after the Babel mission, but we didn't see that part because watching standard-issue beds being carried out of and into the ship wouldn't have made for good TV, would it?
