And the whole franchise.
What are your controversial Star Trek opinions?
- Thread starter Amasov
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LOL! Point taken!Trying to shoot someone in the head… with a weapon of mass-destruction aided by pinpoint accurate computer assistance.
Starfleet saucer sections are shaped like a giant bullseye normally. I know what you’re saying, but I do think they are very vulnerable.
Probably the real explanation.
In the classic space operas, the Lensman series by E.E. Smith, space battleships had their control rooms buried deep inside. If enemies wanted to destroy the control room they would have to blast deep inside the ship through layer after layer. And if enemies wanted to capture the bridge crew to read their minds their boarding parties had to fight their way deep into the ship against opposition.
On the other hand, in A.E. Van Vogt's Mission to the Stars/The Mixed Men the grand bridge of the Grand Captain of the Star Cluster was not in any specific location. The Grand captain had a suite which included her office, the grand bridge, with a lot of communications equipment for her to give orders to people anywhere on the ship. and a teleportion unit to travel instantly to any part of the ship. If anything happened to the Grand Captain and her office, the next in command could use their office, wherever it was, as the new grand bridge.
Remember that movie and tv space operas are a small minority compared to those in print.
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More like the rule of setting up aesthetically pleasing camera shots. Design-wise, the door belongs at the back of the room, so Kirk can see all the display screens at a glance.
Maybe he feels happier being able to see who just came into the room at a glance as well.
And the Watsonian explanation?
I was joking about it's placement on the top of the saucer. But the rule of cool applies to aesthetically pleasing camera shots as well.
But now that "Exceptions" have been historically proven to happen, even with "Mysticism" like situations.
Future Captains who want to rescue their friends should get an option to do so.
Like anything else in life, it depends on the circumstances.
And if you completed the right forms.
In my Head Canon for the 26th century, the very Top/Dorsal section of the Saucer and Bot/Ventral section of the saucer have giant Mess Halls with Panoramic Window Views around the saucer into local space.
It's the new common gathering place to eat, have fun, play games, enjoy social life on the ship, have drinks of any sort, etc.
It's the social / food / entertainment place, and there are two of them on each Saucer Section.
I've moved my Bridge to be "Buried Deep within" the Saucer section somewhere. It's location changes slightly, but the Bridge Unit is HEAVILY armored.
I did the same thing with my Bridge Rooms in my 26th century Head Canon, replaced the Very Top/Old Bridge location with what would be a combination of "The Mess Hall, Ten Forward, Quarks, Promenade".
My Bridge Room / CIC has special Armor Plating around the unit to make it "VERY HARD TO KILL"
Good question. There isn't one as far as I'm aware; even the TNG and DS9 Technical Manuals skirt around it.
We might assume that the idea that the bridge was a removable/replaceable module certainly mattered for the NX-class and other 22nd century ships when transporters were still new and somewhat untested. By the 23rd and 24th century... a combination of tradition and, perhaps also giving the bridge the ability to be ejected as a giant escape pod?
I've seen that idea in various technical documents and it's always horrified me. It's the opposite of "The Captain goes down with the ship" isn't it?
In Wrath of Khan, when they go to "Yellow Alert" while approaching the Reliant, they don't raise the shields, BUT Saavik does "energize defense fields" and you see some sort of field go up around the area where the bridge is.
So maybe the bridge is reinforced in certain ways that make it harder to breach the hull and transport something out in and around it?
I do remember thinking, when watching DS9's "The Way of the Warrior," why don't the Klingons just beam Sisko and the command staff out of Ops into space, instead of sending boarding party after boarding party in repeated attempts to capture the station?
This is also true in "Best of Both Worlds." The Borg can't just beam Picard out when they breach the shields and they're attempting to capture him in order to assimilate him. They have to send boarding parties onto the bridge in order to get a firm lock to beam him out.
I do wonder whether or not that traces back to "The Cage" and the opening shot where they zoom in to the bridge from the intro?
I've been surprised that no other iteration of Trek has ever tried to duplicate that shot, since they could probably do it really well and smoothly in a way that wasn't possible in the 1960s.
I would expect so.
I wonder if that's mixing a couple of stories. I'm pretty sure the "lobby of the Hilton" was in reference to The Next Generation. If not then the only person who thought the TMP bridge was LESS military than TOS was Jefferies. It was a common complaint in 1979 that the movie looked too naval. Then Nick Meyer came along and you never heard that complaint ever again.
Didn't they do that zoom in shot all the time in DSC season 1?
Captains are not, and have never been, actually required to go down with their ship. It's an saying deriving from the maritime tradition that the captain, being master of their vessel, has final authority and responsibility for their ship, crew, passengers, and cargo; the expectation is that the captain will do everything in their power to ensure the safety of everyone else aboard, even at the expense of their own life. Tradition is that the captain will be the last person to leave a ship in distress, and if there is anyone left aboard or unaccounted for the captain should as a matter of honour refuse to self-rescue even in the event that they have the opportunity.
We've seen captains fail to go down with their ships in Star Trek many times. Kirk abandoned the original 1701 in both Star Trek III: The Undiscovered Country and Star Trek Beyond, being last to leave the ship in each case; and Sisko abandoned the Defiant after ensuring everyone else had reached the escape pods. Arguably this also applies to Sisko abandoning the Saratoga in the Battle of Wolf 359 since the Saratoga's captain was killed early in the battle and as first officer he'd have automatically assumed command.
Lastly, it's important to consider that starship command crew are valuable officers with decades of training and experience. Starships are replaceable; crews are not. Just because you're on the bridge doesn't mean you don't get to leave a doomed ship.
This is a great point. Mr Scott's Guide to the Enterprise states that the "command superstructure" on top of the Enterprise's saucer, covering decks A through C, had separate shields of its own, presumably in reference to that scene in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. Whether it would need such shields if it were instead buried deep within the ship is another argument of course, but you make a good point about it providing a transporter block to the ship's most sensitive areas without having to raise the main shields.
Also, we see that DS9's Ops has its own separate shield generators too (those structures that are arranged in a "Y" shape between the Ops dome and the Promenade); certainly they don't seem large enough to provide shields for the entire station on their own. The DS9 Technical Manual confirms that the docking ring has a separate set of shield generators for encompassing the full station and that the emitters on the Ops tower are the "primary generators".
Ironically this scene shows the Enterprise to be much smaller than it should because the scale of the ship hadn't been finalised when "The Cage" was made. And also there's no window on top of the TOS Enterprise bridge for that shot to have been "real" from an in-universe perspective...
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