Realistic vs Luxury Crew Quarters

[Mytran]

Ya know, I'd fogotten just how small that cube is in relation to the ship:

http://tos.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/1x10/corbomitemanuever026.jpg

Having it off to one side is really the only sensible conclusion, unless one believes in an even more massive Enterprise!

 

[Shawnster]

Barracks bunking is one way to go, but I have a soft spot for John M. Ford's alternative of keeping the Marines in cryosleep.

Timo Saloniemi

Hmm... barracks vs. cryosleep... which one is more luxurious? LOL

Michael McMaster was a Franz Joseph fan, and he sent FJ the Klingon plans expecting good feedback. But FJ felt like he was being ripped off, because his designs were largely just taken and transplanted into the Klingon ship.

Logically, shouldn't similar ships of similar size serving similar functions be... oh I don't know... similar?

 

[Timo]

It's a rather big leap to assume that Kirk and Koloth would be flying "similar" ships by any stretch of the term. They don't have the same mission AFAWK: Kirk explores, Koloth conquers. And even if they did have the same mission, Kirk and Koloth are of different species altogether: it's pretty unlikely their biological and psychological requirements would be similar, or that the architectural and cultural solutions to those would be.

It's so boring to think that Klingons would want to take a forest with them to the stars. Why not a big mud bath instead? Or, say, a recreational sandstorm. Sure, the onscreen role for Klingons is generic villains, but that shouldn't be an excuse for fans and backstage speculators to go generic. And even then, why not milk the villainy for its true worth? Instead of an arboretum, install a bar, a brothel and a fighting ring at the very least!

Timo Saloniemi

 

[scotpens]

. . . Sure, the onscreen role for Klingons is generic villains, but that shouldn't be an excuse for fans and backstage speculators to go generic. And even then, why not milk the villainy for its true worth? Instead of an arboretum, install a bar, a brothel and a fighting ring at the very least!

The McMaster blueprints for the D-7 do show a few uniquely Klingon touches -- like an interrogation room with mind scanner booths, an "inspirational media room," and a weapons proficiency range -- complete with target animal cages. What appears to be an arboretum is called out as a "jungle tactics room."

 

[jayrath]

Kirk's tiny quarters are "luxurious"? Check over on the fan art board, where modellers often complain that the scale of the model was far too generous, and that the ship had a fantastic amount of wasted space.

It isn't canon, but in TMOS Roddenberry said that every crew member was an astronaut: an officer. There was no such thing as enlisted crew, and hence no crew quarters. We've strayed far. ("Crewman" is, however, a canon TOS term.)

 

[The Old Mixer]

What appears to be an arboretum is called out as a "jungle tactics room."

Great shades of Elvis!

 

[Shawnster]

It's so boring to think that Klingons would want to take a forest with them to the stars.

Timo Saloniemi

Carbon based life forms from class M worlds would have similar wants and needs based on biology. Water and oxygen for starters. Apparently, according to at least one source, 1 mature tree can provide enough oxygen for 2 humans (or Klingons, it appears). Having green space on a starship would seem to be a benefit to the life support system.

 

[Shawnster]

But hey, Ensign Garrovick had his own quarters, so I don't know what to think.

Garrovick was a red shirt. If he shared with another red shirt, then maybe he had a roommate last week.

 

[Timo]

Having green space on a starship would seem to be a benefit to the life support system.

Sounds awfully pennywise for something that's supposed to make the difference between life and death... What next, solar sails for that slight extra boost for propulsion?

Anyway, my objection to these blueprints isn't really the inclusion of trees or movie theaters - it's the lack of anything really starshippy in there. I can accept the Enterprise saucer being nothing but crew quarters, sofa groups and the like, because it's a simple shape, essentially a flying barracks. But the Klingon battle cruiser is a very complex shape, supposedly intended to do something - except here it is nothing but a shell for yet more crew cabins...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Shawnster]

Sounds awfully pennywise for something that's supposed to make the difference between life and death... What next, solar sails for that slight extra boost for propulsion?

Not a bad idea!

STARFLEET AIDE: Thank you, sir.
FEDERATION PRESIDENT: Status report, Admiral!
CARTWRIGHT: Mister President, the Probe is headed directly for us, The signal is damaging everything in its path. The Klingons have lost two vessels. Two starships and three smaller vessels have been neutralised.
FEDERATION PRESIDENT: Neutralised? How?
CARTWRIGHT: We don't know. Get me the Yorktown.
YORKTOWN CAPTAIN: (on viewscreen) Emergency channel zero one three zero. Code red. It has been three hours since our contact with the alien Probe. All attempts at regaining power have failed.
CARTWRIGHT: It's using forms of energy we do not understand.
FEDERATION PRESIDENT: Can you protect us?
CARTWRIGHT: We are launching everything we have.
YORKTOWN CAPTAIN: (on viewscreen) Our systems engineers are trying to deploy a makeshift solar-sail. We have high hopes that this will, if successful, generate power to keep us alive.

Such equipment would have come in hand for poor Yorktown. Maybe those Klingons wouldn't have been neutralized.

 

[scotpens]

It isn't canon, but in TMOS Roddenberry said that every crew member was an astronaut: an officer. There was no such thing as enlisted crew, and hence no crew quarters.

Except the "astronaut" thing doesn't really make sense. Early astronauts were commissioned military officers because they were selected from the ranks of military test pilots. But the Enterprise isn't crewed by "astronauts" as we thought of them in the 1960s; it's more analogous to an 18th or 19th-century naval vessel.

I can accept the Enterprise saucer being nothing but crew quarters, sofa groups and the like, because it's a simple shape, essentially a flying barracks. But the Klingon battle cruiser is a very complex shape, supposedly intended to do something - except here it is nothing but a shell for yet more crew cabins...

The shape of the Klingon ship does do what it's intended to do, which is to look badass!

 

[Timo]

But the Enterprise isn't crewed by "astronauts" as we though of them in the 1960s; it's more analogous to an 18th or 19th-century naval vessel.

Indeed, the crew we get introduced to in "Man Trap" is of the good old British tar variant, rowdy, poorly disciplined, likely to wander off to their deaths against explicit orders...

Although the same could be said of some early astronauts.

Timo Saloniemi