The same as with the intrepid class
Troi's Chair
- Thread starter EyalM
- Start date
The same as with the intrepid class
Yeah I was going to say there are actually 5 seats.
The third chair is basically just a mission specialist chair. Picard happened to have Troi on board who was useful in various capacities so she spent a good amount of time there.
There are probably some practical considerations with this. The very fact that we DON'T see Betazoids all over the place would lead to me believe that there is some kind of issue with this. I've always theorized that it somewhat mirrors other sci-fi in that telepaths aren't generally looked kindly on by non-telepaths and can cause some significant stress amongst people just by being present. On the flip side, Betazoids may not be entirely comfortable stuck in an enclosed space with a thousand or so non-telepaths, who aren't used to controlling their thoughts at all and are subject to a constant and persistent chorus that never stops.
Even Troi occasionally has issues existing on the ship in times of particularly flared emotional states by the crew.
Betazoids appear to largely stick to their own, because they might not be able to handle being around so many others and the others aren't particularly fond of having them around anyway. We really know of surprisingly few Betazoids serving on ships. A quick look at Memory Alpha I counted... 5? Troi, Stadi, Pierce, Jurot and Suder. Out of those, Troi and Pierce are half-Betazoids and Suder was specifically noted as not having telepathic ability. I suspect Stadi and Jurot are also in the boat, as at not point in Voyager is Jurot ever called upon for assistance... in the cases that telepathy happens, it's Tuvok or Kes... and while Stadi is killed in the pilot, she doesn't display any sort of telepathy.
It makes me think Betazoids aren't quite as outright telepathic as we are generally told, with most of them probably having abilities more similar to Deanna Troi. Actual, full-fledged telepath Betazoids we see tend to be in fairly high ranking or specialist positions, indicating that full-telepath Betazoids are on the rare side and sought after.
Actually given that a good deal of Betazoid backstory comes from the Troi family... who are Betazoid nobility... it also makes me wonder if telepathic Betazoids are the upper class, noble Betazoids. (Also I find it odd that the Enterprise-D senior staff includes two alien nobles... Deanna and Worf... and the Picard family were at the very least aristocracy back in the day.)
The third chair is basically just a mission specialist chair. Picard happened to have Troi on board who was useful in various capacities so she spent a good amount of time there.
There are probably some practical considerations with this. The very fact that we DON'T see Betazoids all over the place would lead to me believe that there is some kind of issue with this. I've always theorized that it somewhat mirrors other sci-fi in that telepaths aren't generally looked kindly on by non-telepaths and can cause some significant stress amongst people just by being present. On the flip side, Betazoids may not be entirely comfortable stuck in an enclosed space with a thousand or so non-telepaths, who aren't used to controlling their thoughts at all and are subject to a constant and persistent chorus that never stops.
Even Troi occasionally has issues existing on the ship in times of particularly flared emotional states by the crew.
Betazoids appear to largely stick to their own, because they might not be able to handle being around so many others and the others aren't particularly fond of having them around anyway. We really know of surprisingly few Betazoids serving on ships. A quick look at Memory Alpha I counted... 5? Troi, Stadi, Pierce, Jurot and Suder. Out of those, Troi and Pierce are half-Betazoids and Suder was specifically noted as not having telepathic ability. I suspect Stadi and Jurot are also in the boat, as at not point in Voyager is Jurot ever called upon for assistance... in the cases that telepathy happens, it's Tuvok or Kes... and while Stadi is killed in the pilot, she doesn't display any sort of telepathy.
It makes me think Betazoids aren't quite as outright telepathic as we are generally told, with most of them probably having abilities more similar to Deanna Troi. Actual, full-fledged telepath Betazoids we see tend to be in fairly high ranking or specialist positions, indicating that full-telepath Betazoids are on the rare side and sought after.
Actually given that a good deal of Betazoid backstory comes from the Troi family... who are Betazoid nobility... it also makes me wonder if telepathic Betazoids are the upper class, noble Betazoids. (Also I find it odd that the Enterprise-D senior staff includes two alien nobles... Deanna and Worf... and the Picard family were at the very least aristocracy back in the day.)
Wait, is this proof of mirror universe???
Probably depends who's needed on the mission. It wasn't always Deanna sitting there.
I guess other Galaxy starship captains emploi full Betazoid telepaths in those chairs. Much more useful.
Also, the chair comes in handy for Guest Star of the Week / Crisis Expert of the Week.
Also, the chair comes in handy for Guest Star of the Week / Crisis Expert of the Week.
Bridge of the (fake) Yamato in "Where Silence Has Lease":
They obviously re-used the Enterprise-D set.
Ye it's kinda strange, there are more important officers than the counselor...So I've been wondering...
On the D, the ship's counselor is probably sitting next to the captain because she can sense emotions and it can be useful.
But on other Galaxy class ships, what is the purpose of the chair to the captain's left? Was is supposed to be used by a different bridge office who had to move?
Or maybe every Galaxy class ship has a telepath\empath sitting on the bridge for when hostile aliens phone in?
When that counselor can sense emotions from possibly devious aliens it's nice to have her on the bridge.
Poor Decker. First he loses his command of the ship. Then he loses his captain's rank. And then the last indignity, he loses his seat on the bridge.
Rank usually has its privileges, but for executive officer Decker, not so much in his case, for he was the man left standing.
Unfortunately for Decker, he wasn't serving on the Enterprise D, where there was a chair reserved for the XO.
As for "Troi's" chair, I suppose the person who had Picard's ear would sit there, and that usually was Troi.
Troi was also a featured character on the show. It made sense, in that regard, for her to be on the bridge where a lot of scenes took place.
Besides where else would the counselor be when not on the bridge, probably psychobabbling on the psychiatrist couch in her therapy room. That would be boring to the viewer, unless a viewer likes that. IIRC, there may have been a few scenes during the series where she was in her therapy room. But it was too boring for me to remember with any certainty.
For off bridge characters like Crusher, in sickbay, or Geordi, in engineering, at least they could be shown doing interesting stuff in those places.
I've pondered this as well, but I always assume there is a reason. Like, in-universe, someone has thought of this too... a theory based on an observation, we don't see/know of many Betazoids in Starfleet. They also didn't have any colonies by the 24th century. My conjecture is just... there's just not many Betazoids in Starfleet. They generally stay close to home.
I always just assumed that the chairs on either side of the captain likely had twin consoles, plus those little bench seats on either side, allowing up to four people to sit with the captain. Two people on either side having access to a command console. I just assumed Riker could sit on either side of Picard and just preferred being to Picard's right. Troi needed somewhere to be, so she naturally got the available chair that would just be available to whoever didn't feel like standing and needed access to a console.
The extra chairs (five originally) were vestiges of the original concept that had a conference table in the middle of the horseshoe.
You can see that in a lot of Probert's concept art.
You can see that in a lot of Probert's concept art.
Designing the Next Generation Bridge — Forgotten Trek
The Enterprise-D bridge was less mechanic in order to show that a century had passed since The Original Series.
www.forgottentrek.com
I just took this to be a nod to Voyager which Prodigy is effectively a sequel to.
The above drawing looks like it could be the office space of a tech company.I would have been fine with this.
Btw, in the drawing, sitting on the left end of the conference table is a crew member with hooves. What species is that crew member?
It's been ages since I read that comic, but i believe he was a Tellarite.
Artistic license, I guess. For what it's worth, the old 70s fanon leaned pretty heavily into Tellarites being anthropomorphic pigs, maybe the comic artist took his inspiration from there.
