Ready Rooms

Discussion in 'Trek Tech' started by Bry_Sinclair, May 4, 2011.

  1. Bry_Sinclair

    Bry_Sinclair Vice Admiral Admiral

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    How come Janeway's ready room is so much larger that both of Picard's? Also why does the the NX-Class have a bridge level ready room but the Constitution-Class doesn't?
     
  2. Timo

    Timo Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    Might be that on a smaller ship, the Ready Room compensates for the lack of a proper below-decks office and thus is made bigger. On a large vessel, the Ready Room is just used for temporary recuperation for the skipper, not as his second office. Except Picard for some reason chose to use his Ready Room as his principal office, inviting all sorts of guest officials there even though this meant asking them to traipse through his bridge!

    We don't know what sort of a ready room Kirk's ship had, if any. From "The Cage", it looks as if Pike might have had a spacious Ready Room (rather than a cabin?) on the deck right below the bridge, level with the big Briefing Room they use. Kirk might have considered that one superfluous, and would have either stayed on the bridge throughout alerts (we see him pull this masochist stunt a couple of times) or then gone all the way down to his regular cabin-cum-office on the lower decks.

    Timo Saloniemi
     
  3. Forbin

    Forbin Admiral Admiral

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    As a female captain, Janeway requested a larger ready room be built so she could host Tupperware parties.


    *ducks and runs*
     
  4. MatthiasRussell

    MatthiasRussell Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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    ^ Nice.

    The Intrepid deck 1 has many more accommodations than most with a couple offices a lounge in that rear portion.

    Why the different ready rooms were so different is more style than function related. Jefferies had a more spartan attitude than the later designers. From a fictional reality point of few, I'll have to think on it for a believable answer.
     
  5. Forbin

    Forbin Admiral Admiral

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    It could be just that simple - design philosophies change over the years, different designers at different contractors, that kind of thing.
     
  6. Tau Ceti III

    Tau Ceti III Lieutenant Commander Red Shirt

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    The deck was a different shape and size, which left more room for the ready room
     
  7. MatthiasRussell

    MatthiasRussell Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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    I wouldn't think it is about room. You can make deck 1 as big or small as you want at the design stage; it's on top of the saucer.

    Of course with that spacious bridge, you would think the galaxy would have an equally spacious ready room.
     
  8. bryce

    bryce Rear Admiral Rear Admiral


    Yeah, I kinda like to think that the cabin we saw in The Cage was Pike's ready room - or even his Ready Room/quarters (close to the bridge - and the conference room)...

    Kirk never seemed to have an office until TMP...so it may be that we just never saw hi office/Ready Room...or he never used it. (And Archer's Ready Room, like Picard's, *was* his office...though Picard did have an office-like space in his quarters too...something Archer didn't have on account of space...he just used his Ready Room as his office...and his conference are was in the rear of the bridge, I guess.)

    I think if *I* was designing a ship (for myself) I'd want an office (for work) and separate - but connected - Ready Room (for rest) right near the main Bridge...(and I may even make THAT my main cabin too, just so I could be close to the Bridge at all times...

    And I'd put the Conference Room nearby too -- and something I call a "Crew Readiness Room" - kinda a crew break room/rest area...tables, with replicators and a bathroom and maybe a few cots in cubby holes for long watches...and monitors to watch the bridge so people know if they are needed right away. (Sometimes in TNG you would see relief officers suddenly appear from the door on the right side of the Bridge - the one labeled "Head" in the set...implying a bathroom...but people seemed to spend a long tome in there - and in groups...so I got the idea that maybe there was more than a bathroom in there...something like a crew ready room...)

    The First Officer I'd give an Office + adjoining cabin in another part of the ship...(maybe near the Auxiliary Bridge..?) Sine they have to do a lot of administration work ("paper work"), and be in touch with the crew more directly...
     
  9. Timo

    Timo Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    But even there, the pair of rooms seemed to double as office and accommodation both. That is, the entry foyer had a bed and a shower stall, and the inner sanctum came to feature a bit more furniture in ST2 than in ST:TMP.

    We could argue that Kirk was living next to the bridge in TOS already, at least for most of the adventures. In the early ones, he is seen on Deck 12, with his yeoman apparently accommodated right next to him. Later on, we learn that McCoy's doorplate features the number 3, and even later that Captain Spock resides on Deck 3; clustering of senior officer accommodation in the superstructure would be sort of logical, and Pike's cabin could have been located on that deck as well.

    The brief mention of Kirk living on Deck 5 comes in "Journey to Babel" where the ship is hosting lots of dignitaries. Accommodating even one diplomatic party meant shooing senior officers from their quarters in "Elaan of Troyius", so Kirk might be occupying a broom closet in "Journey to Babel" and "actually" living on Deck 3.

    Perhaps both 23rd and 24th century sensibilities favor having a joint home/office even if there's space for two separate facilities...

    Timo Saloniemi
     
  10. MatthiasRussell

    MatthiasRussell Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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    In a lot of the old warships I've toured the captain had a small office with a bed near the bridge/control room. Considering Jefferies' background, I'm kind of shocked he didn't include one in the original.
     
  11. Mytran

    Mytran Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    The TOS bridge is presented as a pure command centre, nothing more. Not even a toilet or a drinks dispenser is present! This is probably a case of realism (which MJ certainly applied wherever possible) making way for dramatic presence.

    As for Pike's room in The Cage behind his office/ready room, he actually calls it his "cabin". This is the same terminology that Kirk uses for his quarters in Mudd's Women and Enemy Within, as well as Garrovick in Obsession. There are other examples of "cabin" sprinkled throughout the series too, although "quarters" is far more common.

    Incidentally, Mirror Mirror also has Kirk's quarters on Deck 5 (although it is another universe, of course!)

    As far as the ideal Trek ready room goes, it should have one exit to the bridge (for duty personel) and one for everyone else (staff meetings, visiting dignitaries, new officers etc). In the way that it was presented in all Trek, everyone had to trapse through the extremely sensitive command centre just to say hello to the captain.
    One scene which always stuck in my head was in Caretaker when Paris and Kim first check in with the captain. They've just walked through the bridge to get to her and what does she say? "Let me show you to the bridge." Well...okay! :rolleyes:
    This problem is compounded by the fact that Janewy DOES have a second exit to her ready room - the Director just decided not to use it.
    [​IMG]
     
  12. MatthiasRussell

    MatthiasRussell Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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    I'd say a toilet is pretty important on deck 1. Not a good idea to need to board the turbolift when you are on duty and nature calls.

    You can't exactly hang it out a porthole.
     
  13. Timo

    Timo Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    Well, these guys are astronauts. It's probably in their contract that they get a ten-second lunch break from a tube full of funnily colored paste, and that a tube be used for the other kind of break as well. :devil:

    To be fair, said command center was always open to inspection by anybody who placed a visual call on our hero captains. And vice versa. Presumably, nobody places any truly compromising information where it would be visible during the usual visual bridge-to-bridge communications. The bridge thus might not be particularly "sensitive" to somebody taking a walk across it, either.

    One might argue that Picard chose to utilize his Ready Room as his office exactly because it was a gesture of trust: people who were allowed into his office (rather than stalled at the Observation Lounge) were already implicitly trusted with Starfleet's secrets. Somebody like Jellico might not have accepted alien scum into his Ready Room, and an even less trusting officer might have held negotiations in some meeting room far away from Deck One in general.

    Timo Saloniemi
     
  14. Colonel Midnight

    Colonel Midnight Vice Admiral Premium Member

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    In RL, you go before you head up on watch.

    That being said, most new construction ships do have a head either just aft or on the immediate deck below the Bridge.

    In fact, I think it's now a requirement for new-builds, especially commercial shipping. There's also specific square footage/space requirements for each rank (xxx sq. ft. for the Master, plus a lounge of at least yyy sq. ft., etc.), plus accommodations for the same (i.e. Master gets a full-size bunk, etc.).

    Cheers,
    -CM-
     
  15. Saturn0660

    Saturn0660 Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    My bladder doesn't work that way.;)
     
  16. jayrath

    jayrath Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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    Kirk and Co. didn't need a ready room. They had a briefing room. Picard, by contrast, had no briefing room.

    Also, Kirk had a yeoman to help with all the paperless paperwork, so he had less need of an office, perhaps. Picard had no yeoman, apparently.
     
  17. JimCanuck

    JimCanuck Lieutenant Junior Grade Red Shirt

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    Picard had a briefing room.

    [​IMG]

    Jim
     
  18. C.E. Evans

    C.E. Evans Admiral Admiral

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    ^^^
    That's really the observation lounge, but it also served double duty as a conference room for the senior staff and visiting dignitaries too.
     
  19. Mytran

    Mytran Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    Yeah, a ship the size of a city and they have to double (triple) up on room functions?!
    That never seemed right to me.
     
  20. C.E. Evans

    C.E. Evans Admiral Admiral

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    It's more the size of a large neighborhood block. But as far as using the observation lounge as a senior conference room, it could be simply captain's choice.