What purpose does the big picture window on the bridge serve?

[Char Aznable]

Yeah. It was. Some things are not meant to be messed with. The Enterprise is one of them.

Wow, I have no words.

 

[Ryan Thomas Riddle]

Yeah. It was. Some things are not meant to be messed with. The Enterprise is one of them.

And yet the Enterprise was always the first thing to be messed with in every incarnation of Star Trek that followed TOS, even those under the auspices of the Great Bird of the Galaxy, Gene Roddenberry.

 

[The Wormhole]

There was only one reason for the window, and that was to make the position of the bridge make sense. If you didn't have a window, why not make the bridge in the center of the ship? It would be tactically advantageous.

Roddenberry's Rules of Starship Design dictate that the bridge has to be top centre of the saucer.

Meanwhile, I was very surprised that they dared to alter the viewscreen. When they introduced the holographic viewscreen in First Contact, there wasn't there a backlash over breaking tradition, that they had to return to a traditional viewscreen for Insurrection.

For that matter, didn't the holographic communicator on DS9 lead to so much scorn that it was only used twice before communications via the viewscreen were brought back.

 

[urbandk]

What is the problem with holographic technology? It's around. They use it all the time anyways. Why not use it for communication?

 

[The Wormhole]

What is the problem with holographic technology? It's around. They use it all the time anyways. Why not use it for communication?

I remember the DS9 Companion said there was some sort of controversy surrounding it, which is why we only saw it twice.

 

[urbandk]

Just seems like an odd technology to take issue with

 

[The Wormhole]

I don't think the issue is so much the holographic portion of it, but rather that the traditional viewscreen is being messed with.

 

[Char Aznable]

I don't think the issue is so much the holographic portion of it, but rather that the traditional viewscreen is being messed with.

That is odd because I really liked the holographic view screen in FC because it really showed just how advanced this ship was compared to the D. I was bummed that they replaced it with a generic viewscreen.

 

[M'Sharak]

What is the problem with holographic technology? It's around. They use it all the time anyways. Why not use it for communication?

I remember the DS9 Companion said there was some sort of controversy surrounding it, which is why we only saw it twice.

Memory Alpha has this to say on the holographic communicator (from the Background information on 'For the Uniform':

This episode marks the first use (and mention) of the holo-communicator. The idea to use this device was Ronald D. Moore's. According to Moore, "That's something I had been pushing for because I just think it's so absurd that in the twenty-fourth century they have holodeck technology that allows them to recreate Ancient Rome, but everybody talks to each other on television monitors. It's just so lame. The viewscreens have been around for over thirty years. Can't we move to something a little more interesting? But it's like pulling teeth." Ira Steven Behr was completely behind Moore's idea; "Viewscreen scenes are always difficult to pull off. The longer they are, the more boring they are, and having a character talk to someone on a viewscreen is very distancing. And it did work in this episode. We never could have had Eddington on the viewscreen for all of his scenes. It would have been dramatic death." Despite this however, the holo-communicator was not seen as successful in this episode, something alluded to by Gary Hutzel, "It was a terrible idea from the get-go. The idea was to create this amazing 3-D image, but TV's a 2-D medium, so it's hard to show that it's 3-D. So you have to move the camera around so that audience can see that it's 3-D, but then it could look to them like the guy beamed in. So you have to find a way to deal with that. It created all these problems that the writers hadn't thought about, and it missed the whole point of why Gene Roddenberry wanted a viewscreen: so you could avoid unnecessary expense." The holo-communicator would be seen only once more, in Sisko's office on Deep Space 9 in the episode "Doctor Bashir, I Presume".

The underlined passage is where the down side is addressed. It wasn't so much controversial as it was a production and cost headache.

 

[Char Aznable]

^ Its a shame they couldn't work something out to make it work. If they were afraid people would think the image was someone beamed in or whatever they could have had the hologram flicker or something, perhaps modulate the audio?

 

[The Wormhole]

What is the problem with holographic technology? It's around. They use it all the time anyways. Why not use it for communication?

I remember the DS9 Companion said there was some sort of controversy surrounding it, which is why we only saw it twice.

Memory Alpha has this to say on the holographic communicator (from the Background information on 'For the Uniform':

This episode marks the first use (and mention) of the holo-communicator. The idea to use this device was Ronald D. Moore's. According to Moore, "That's something I had been pushing for because I just think it's so absurd that in the twenty-fourth century they have holodeck technology that allows them to recreate Ancient Rome, but everybody talks to each other on television monitors. It's just so lame. The viewscreens have been around for over thirty years. Can't we move to something a little more interesting? But it's like pulling teeth." Ira Steven Behr was completely behind Moore's idea; "Viewscreen scenes are always difficult to pull off. The longer they are, the more boring they are, and having a character talk to someone on a viewscreen is very distancing. And it did work in this episode. We never could have had Eddington on the viewscreen for all of his scenes. It would have been dramatic death." Despite this however, the holo-communicator was not seen as successful in this episode, something alluded to by Gary Hutzel, "It was a terrible idea from the get-go. The idea was to create this amazing 3-D image, but TV's a 2-D medium, so it's hard to show that it's 3-D. So you have to move the camera around so that audience can see that it's 3-D, but then it could look to them like the guy beamed in. So you have to find a way to deal with that. It created all these problems that the writers hadn't thought about, and it missed the whole point of why Gene Roddenberry wanted a viewscreen: so you could avoid unnecessary expense." The holo-communicator would be seen only once more, in Sisko's office on Deep Space 9 in the episode "Doctor Bashir, I Presume".

The underlined passage is where the down side is addressed. It wasn't so much controversial as it was a production and cost headache.

It is interesting to note: Ron Moore seems to have a hate-on for the viewscreen. Aside from the holographic communicator, he also introduced the holographic viewscreen in First Contact. And, I remember in him saying with BSG, one of the first rules he laid down before Galactica's CIC was designed was that there was to be no viewscreen whatsoever.

 

[mattburgess]

Quoted from Char Aznable:
If they were afraid people would think the image was someone beamed in or whatever they could have had the hologram flicker or something, perhaps modulate the audio?

Or perhaps they could just stop thinking of people who watch tv as being total idiots.

Quoted from The Wormhole:
he also introduced the holographic viewscreen in First Contact

That was holographic? I always thought it looked like the screen was just made to blend in with the wall - a bit like a "screensaver".

Kind of makes my first point bite me on the ass!

 

[Sabataage]

I remember the DS9 Companion said there was some sort of controversy surrounding it, which is why we only saw it twice.

Memory Alpha has this to say on the holographic communicator (from the Background information on 'For the Uniform':

This episode marks the first use (and mention) of the holo-communicator. The idea to use this device was Ronald D. Moore's. According to Moore, "That's something I had been pushing for because I just think it's so absurd that in the twenty-fourth century they have holodeck technology that allows them to recreate Ancient Rome, but everybody talks to each other on television monitors. It's just so lame. The viewscreens have been around for over thirty years. Can't we move to something a little more interesting? But it's like pulling teeth." Ira Steven Behr was completely behind Moore's idea; "Viewscreen scenes are always difficult to pull off. The longer they are, the more boring they are, and having a character talk to someone on a viewscreen is very distancing. And it did work in this episode. We never could have had Eddington on the viewscreen for all of his scenes. It would have been dramatic death." Despite this however, the holo-communicator was not seen as successful in this episode, something alluded to by Gary Hutzel, "It was a terrible idea from the get-go. The idea was to create this amazing 3-D image, but TV's a 2-D medium, so it's hard to show that it's 3-D. So you have to move the camera around so that audience can see that it's 3-D, but then it could look to them like the guy beamed in. So you have to find a way to deal with that. It created all these problems that the writers hadn't thought about, and it missed the whole point of why Gene Roddenberry wanted a viewscreen: so you could avoid unnecessary expense." The holo-communicator would be seen only once more, in Sisko's office on Deep Space 9 in the episode "Doctor Bashir, I Presume".

The underlined passage is where the down side is addressed. It wasn't so much controversial as it was a production and cost headache.

It is interesting to note: Ron Moore seems to have a hate-on for the viewscreen. Aside from the holographic communicator, he also introduced the holographic viewscreen in First Contact. And, I remember in him saying with BSG, one of the first rules he laid down before Galactica's CIC was designed was that there was to be no viewscreen whatsoever.

On BSG, it was a hell of a lot more dramatic when you could only hear a voice from the other ship. And then Adama or Tigh would have to pick up the handset in order to say something back. Stuff like that they could milk for dramtaic suspense in a way ST never really could (except maybe in TWOK, when Kirk says "here it comes..").

 

[I-Am-Zim]

Yeah. It was. Some things are not meant to be messed with. The Enterprise is one of them.

Why didn't you make the movie then?

Because, unfortunately, nobody asked me to.

 

[therealfoxbat]

What purpose does the big picture window on the bridge serve?

So Sulu can see where he's going...

 

[The Wormhole]

Quoted from Char Aznable:
If they were afraid people would think the image was someone beamed in or whatever they could have had the hologram flicker or something, perhaps modulate the audio?

Or perhaps they could just stop thinking of people who watch tv as being total idiots.

Quoted from The Wormhole:
he also introduced the holographic viewscreen in First Contact

That was holographic? I always thought it looked like the screen was just made to blend in with the wall - a bit like a "screensaver".

Kind of makes my first point bite me on the ass!

It was holographic, as confirmed by the old Star Trek The Magazine. It got replaced by a traditional viewscreen in Insurrection.

Memory Alpha has this to say on the holographic communicator (from the Background information on 'For the Uniform':
The underlined passage is where the down side is addressed. It wasn't so much controversial as it was a production and cost headache.

It is interesting to note: Ron Moore seems to have a hate-on for the viewscreen. Aside from the holographic communicator, he also introduced the holographic viewscreen in First Contact. And, I remember in him saying with BSG, one of the first rules he laid down before Galactica's CIC was designed was that there was to be no viewscreen whatsoever.

On BSG, it was a hell of a lot more dramatic when you could only hear a voice from the other ship. And then Adama or Tigh would have to pick up the handset in order to say something back. Stuff like that they could milk for dramtaic suspense in a way ST never really could (except maybe in TWOK, when Kirk says "here it comes..").

Actually, Moore says in the commentary for the mini series that he didn't want a viewscreen, window or anything in CIC that showed the outside, saying someting like "these people know they're in space, they don't need to stare at a giant image showing them this when they're working."

 

[RAMA]

why not make the bridge in the center of the ship? It would be tactically advantageous.

No, it wouldn't.

It makes no difference where the bridge is. If it was in the middle of the hull, for example, that wouldn't be any more protected than if it was way up top. It's not the job of the hull to protect the bridge. That's what SHIELDS are for.

Any attack powerful enough to punch through a ship's shields will get to the bridge no matter where it is.

THIS is exactly right!!! What I was waiting to see if anybody else pointed this out on this thread!! Its the same reasoning behind warships not being armored today...they can't stop missles, so why bother making them out of steel instead of aluminum. It saves expense, weight, etc.

RAMA

 

[SilentP]

What about damage from navigational hazards? We've seen the fact that shields in this timeline/era don't stop physical objects actually hitting the hull (the nacelle getting scraped by saucer debris when the Enterprise warped into Vulcan's orbit), so having the bridge within the saucer would be advantageous in such instances.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

We've seen the fact that shields in this timeline/era don't stop physical objects actually hitting the hull (the nacelle getting scraped by saucer debris when the Enterprise warped into Vulcan's orbit)

Were the Enterprise's shields up when that happened?

 

[Alrik]

^

I'm pretty sure they were. IIRC, and its been a little while since I have seen it (don't get my copy 'till x-mas). I think once Kirk convinced Pike that it was probably a trap, Pike said something like, "Go to Red Alert, raise shields.", just before they dropped out of warp near Vulcan.