Station Chat; Nor Type／Deep Space Nine | Venom Geek Media

[Kamen Rider Blade]

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A good general discussion/analysis of DS9/Nor-Type space station design.

According to Venom Geek Media, the internal Volume of DS9 / Nor Type Space Station is HUGE, despite all the negative space that we see.

DS9 is stated to have a upper capacity of housing 7,000 people with only 300-2,000 regular crew.

But the VGM crew calculated the internal volume and it's well in excess of Wembly Stadium, which can support 90,000 people. They were only calculating the outter Docking Ring & Inner Habitat ring.
They weren't counting the corridor arms, the Vertical Pylons, or the main core either.

Is it me, or do designers not have a good sense of scale when they designed it.

Claiming it can only house 7,000 people when you have a volume in excess of Wembly Stadium, how much of your floor plan is dedicated to non Living Accomodations to only support 7,000 people? It must be a huge % of that floor plan / volume dedicated to support so little people living on board, especially given how much internal volume is available.

Any thoughts as to the general design of DS9?

I find it to be a very simple, efficient, effective design.

One that can be copied easily, modified, and mass produced to be easily deployed in new Star Systems by the UFP.

 

[Farscape One]

I would imagine 7,000 is based on life support functioning well enough to hold people for a protracted length of time and not choke people because it's too crowded.

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

I would imagine 7,000 is based on life support functioning well enough to hold people for a protracted length of time and not choke people because it's too crowded.

But DS9 regularly has visitors / guests as well. I'm sure by the 24th century, their Life Support Systems are vastly superior and can handle a far larger station capacity.

 

[Tosk]

But the VGM crew calculated the internal volume and it's well in excess of Wembly Stadium, which can support 90,000 people.

Notice that the DS9 number is housing. When people fill up Wembley Stadium, they're all up against each other. DS9 has rooms for living in, space laid out for each person/family to be able to live their lives. As well as a lot of space dedicated to things other than just people.

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

Notice that the DS9 number is housing. When people fill up Wembley Stadium, they're all up against each other. DS9 has rooms for living in, space laid out for each person/family to be able to live their lives. As well as a lot of space dedicated to things other than just people.

While that's true, how much personal space should your personal quarters afford you?

Just looking at Mile's O'Brien's quarters, it looks kinda small and crampt.

 

[Orphalesion]

Yeah, as Tosk said, those 90.000 people don't live in Wembley Stadium they sit in tightly packed seats and watch a game for...uh...however long the games last you watch at Wembley Stadium.
On Deep Space 9 you have to factor in living space, including whole families and such.
Though it makes me wonder whether there were recreational facilities we never got to see...like where did the kids get their exercise and room to play? Quark's Holosuites are probably both too expensive for that and not the appropriate place for minors.

They really should have had an Arboretum at the very least!

 

[kkt]

While that's true, how much personal space should your personal quarters afford you?

Just looking at Mile's O'Brien's quarters, it looks kinda small and crampt.

They had a medium sized living room, a master bedroom that was implied by a door but rarely seen (probably a redress of another set), a child's bedroom, and a kitchen big enough for Keiko to cook elaborate dishes.

It's certainly a whole lot bigger than four seats in a stadium would be.

Ben and Jake share a 2-bedroom quarters with a kitchen also.

Quarters weren't huge but plenty of people in our time have smaller apartments, or houses with smaller floor space.

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

They had a medium sized living room, a master bedroom that was implied by a door but rarely seen (probably a redress of another set), a child's bedroom, and a kitchen big enough for Keiko to cook elaborate dishes.

It's certainly a whole lot bigger than four seats in a stadium would be.

Ben and Jake share a 2-bedroom quarters with a kitchen also.

Quarters weren't huge but plenty of people in our time have smaller apartments, or houses with smaller floor space.

If you were to guesstimate the Area of their quarters, what would you think it would be?

 

[kkt]

They look like 900 to 1200 sq. ft., roughly. Of course we didn't get a good enough look at the bedrooms to estimate their size. But in The Assignment, in the party scene, it looked like they had a dozen people there without it seeming overcrowded.

 

[publiusr]

Though having the arms bow inward helps with field bubble formation…having them bow out avoids collisions. The Cardi shipyard is my favorite.

 

[Timo]

We still don't really know how the station is supposed to work.

But while it appears to always have doubled as an intimidation fortress for the Prefect of Bajor, it was still supposed to be primarily a refinery for exploiting the mines on Bajor. Hosting a fleet of ships, or a horde of people, would appear unlikely: there would be streamlined logistics for the flow of ore and whatever they extract from it, and then some logistics for the labor involved, and then incidental amenities, plus a central core of intimidation functions (guns, sensors, communications, barracks, offices, dungeons).

Sure, there would be internal volume. But making it habitable would call for both resources and a rationale, both of which would be originally lacking. There could be beds and lavatories for a couple of thousand, not for tens of thousands.

Sure, building new beds and toilets wouldn't be totally impossible. After all, for some reason, the Cardassians chose to build chicken wire fencing and install it on the Promenade as an obvious afterthought, presumably to handle the logistics of collaborator commuting (because slave labor commuting amenities would certainly have been built in already, and would not have involved the Promenade in any fashion). But why do such a thing? Who would want to house people aboard Terok Nor? Aboard a ship or a station, "passengers" or "troops" might be a capacity - but "crew" is a liability, something you want to minimize so that you don't need to pay for them (be it salaries or just chow for the slaves).

Now, more people might want to live on DS9 than on Terok Nor: not only would the function of the place be different, and the hosts perhaps less repulsive, but commuting would become a chore outside transporter range. I doubt any cargo bays or ore silos were converted, though: just giving the junior officers' accommodations a new look should have sufficed, or perhaps some crew barracks would have been partitioned and redecorated.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[publiusr]

If I didn’t know what the Borg were and saw a Cube…I’d think: THAT’s a mining platform/refinery.

DS9 just doesn’t look mining related…but it is bigger than it looks as you say.