Where are those people coming from?

[Cary L. Brown]

Huh, I didn't know that! Just assumed it was a Trek thing!

Still, a small break room/"crew readiness area" makes a lot of sense to me - on any vessel, sea or space going. And especially for a starship crew that has to pull long watches the bridge. And fill it with a few extra people who can rotate with various bridge officers and give them a break.

Put in some chairs, a replicator, a small cot (like the ones on the Defiant) and some way to moniter the bridge activity.

And then the bathroom could be accessable through that.

Exactly what my thinking on the topic was, too.

Yep, I could see that being at, say, the far wall in the head.

Because on the set, that room door was labeled "head". But no reason there also couldn't be Jeffries tube access through there as well.

They would need a way to get off the bridge if the turbolifts broke down or something.

Well, consider what a "Jeffries tube" is... it's a maintenance accessway where you go (and, probably if this were real life, would find yourself getting a bit dirty or at least dusty!) to perform "dirty work" on the ship.

I'd fully expect that there is a "plumbing" accessway, providing water and air in, and "prior to processing" sewage out... and potentially having one of several redundant data network and power network connections to the bridge in it as well (with others being accessible only from within the bridge proper or from the deck below).

The "jeffries tube" accessible from the bridge head would be the equivalent of an apartment building's "wet wall," in other words.

ETA: The layout for the Enterprise-E bridge doesn't show a door for a head - maybe it's accessable from the "observation lounge"/briefing room??? http://www.ussgladiator.org/gallery/bridge.jpg I'll bet Voyager's bridge didn't have on either...

Well, in that diagram, there's ONE door leading off the bridge which isn't labeled. I'd be interested to see how it was identified on-set.

See... there are two doors to the briefing room (aft, port and starboard), two turbolift alcoves (aft, port and starboard) and one access to the Captain's office (fore, starboard). But what's that door to the fore, port?

As for Voyager... there's an alcove (main area, aft wall, port side) which curves towards center so you can't see what it connects to, and also an alcove off the aft wall of the briefing room. Either, or both, of those could be access to a "crew lounge" or to a head... or for that matter to a J-tube or anything else. As far as I'm aware, they simply lead nowhere...

 

[GodThingFormerly]

Yeah, but Roddenberry I imagine, saw a future with far less taboos and social restrictions as now - in the TMP novelization he mentioned human group marriages...

Contract marriages, actually, which were to be referenced in Phase II. OTOH, Gene Roddenberry very much wanted to depict "tasteful" public nudity on 23rd century Earth (see the two In Thy Image scripts by GR and Harold Livingston), but the G-rating demanded by the studio for ST:TMP nixed that idea in the bud.

TGT