If the bridge is modular,it is a big change from The Cage and WNMHGB.
As far as we know, Starfleet ships' bridges have always been modular. They can be easily replaced with new ones at any time without damaging the rest of the ship.
Just to keep everything in perspective here, we should note that this was always an
ad hoc,
post hoc rationalization that Okuda and Sternbach came up with to account for the fact that the
Enterprise-A bridge kept getting redesigned between films, and that TNG kept using different set redresses for various bridges across vessels of (apparently) the same class:
The concept of the replaceable bridge module originated during Star Trek V, when we were working with Herman Zimmerman on a new Enterprise bridge that was quite a bit different from the one seen in Star Trek IV. We rationalized that this was because the bridge, located at the top of the saucer, was a plug-in module designed for easy replacement. This would permit the ship's control systems to be upgraded, thereby extending the useful lifetime of a starship, and would make it easier to customize a particular ship for a specific type of mission. This concept also fits the fact that we've seen the main bridges of at least four different Miranda class starships, the Reliant (Star Trek II), the Saratoga (Star Trek IV), the Lantree ("Unnatural Selection"), and the Brattain ("Night Terrors"), each of which had a different bridge module.
-Star Trek: The Next Generation Technical Manual, 1991, pg. 32
Of course, it's a perfectly sensible and serviceble one. And it followed on in the long tradition of considering the
Enterprise to be comprised of modular components that could be disassembled and swapped out, which had been in place since the very beginning...
Matt Jefferies'
original reasoning for placing the nacelles outboard, beyond the potential that
"they might be dangerous to be around," was that such placement
"would also make them what, in aviation circles, we call the QCU—quick change units—where you could easily take one off and put another on." Initial iterations of the
Star Trek Writers/Directors' Guide explained that the saucer section was intended as
"a completely self-sustaining unit which can detach itself from the galaxy drive units and operate on atomic impulse power for short-range solar system exploration." (Mind you, it was also intended to be
"twenty decks thick" at that point, too! And the shuttle bay was likewise
"large enough to hangar a whole fleet of today's jet liners"! Such capability is at least
vaguely alluded to onscreen, though, in episodes like "The Apple" [TOS].)
Well, it's so obviously of different size that plugging the DSC bridge into the hole left by the "The Cage" one would require a big mallet...
...Or perhaps the cutting off of some hull ahead of the bridge?
Go big or go home, say I! However we ultimately treat "The Cage," per the "original intent" above, the
Enterprise could at the very
least quite conceivably find herself in receipt of a
completely new saucer (why not lengthen the neck while we're at it), a full new set of nacelles and pylons (with their angle of arrangement adjusted to re-balance the warp field geometry or whatever),
and a new main deflector/primary sensor array to go along with the package, all between Pike and Kirk (or perhaps rather
under Kirk, in those first several
"years" he'd evidently already had command of her by the outset of TOS, per dialogue in "Where No Man Has Gone Before" and "Amok Time" and character notes in
The Making Of Star Trek). Oh, and speaking of the hangar deck, doesn't that protruding lip that's caused so much consternation for some here look ripe for being covered over to accommodate extended hangar space? (And with the bowling alley installed below, no doubt, just as in Franz Joseph's plans!)
As for those of you folks out there who view this as contorted fanwankery...well, ok, guilty as charged. But, I'll just point out that—all quibbles over this or that hull detail or calendar year notwithstanding—it
would be more or less right in line with what the Okudas always conjectured would come next for the old girl in their
Star Trek Chronology:
"U.S.S. Enterprise
, under command of Captain Christopher Pike, completes its second five-year mission of exploration. The ship enters spacedock for a major refit. During this refit, the ship's crew capacity is boosted from 203 to 430."
-
MMoM
