just wondering; has there ever been a time on trek when a flag bridge has been mentioned or used, same for an Admiral's staff? I realise that we haven't really seen much of a flagship at all but we have seen plenty of Admirals around and I'm fairly sure they couldn't command a flet without these things. This could explain why many Admirals use Excelciors; some could have been built with or refitted to act as fleet flagship, with appropriate facilities.
Posted by Topher (Member # 71) on :
Well, the E-D's bridge was a flag bridge, seeing as where it was the Federation's flagship. That could explain why the other Galaxy's we saw didn't have the same kind of bridge (except for Nagilum's Yamato).
Posted by MinutiaeMan (Member # 444) on :
Well, we always saw the Admirals on TNG running things from the Enterprise's bridge. In "Redemption, Part II," Picard still used the regular bridge to command his fleet -- and O'Brien at Tactical doubled as fleet liason. Or something like that.
Then there's the fact that Sisko commanded battles like "The Sacrifice of Angels" and "Tears of the Prophets" from the bridge of the Defiant -- which arguably has even less-well-equipped facilities for managing an entire fleet.
Which means that any Starfleet bridge can likely handle such overall management along with the standard ship operations.
Posted by Vogon Poet (Member # 393) on :
It always seemed nonsensical to me to have an Admiral, seemingly sitting in the Captain's chair, directing a battle while around him his own ship is fighting for its survival. Of course, we don't know whether that was what was happening, but it appeared so with Hansen in "BoBW2", and Ross in "WYLB."
Posted by Captain... Mike (Member # 709) on :
i believe that in the US Navy, a captain of a ship and the admiral of a fleet do their business from two different bridges, one equipped to control the ship, and the other equipped for transmissions and observation.
am i right?
Posted by Matrix (Member # 376) on :
You are correct. The conning tower and the bridge.
Posted by Vogon Poet (Member # 393) on :
I thought the bridge was in the conning tower. . ?
Or there's the Ticonderoga-class cruisers, with the Aegis radar, I gather they have one large control room with a huge display showing what's happening for about a hundred miles all round, enabling the captain and the admiral to sit side-by-side yet concentrate on thier own tasks.
Posted by Siegfried (Member # 29) on :
I think Mark Nguyen has mentioned this in a lot of his bridge design threads, but many (if not most) US Naval ships have bridges and combat information centers (I believe that's the correct term). The bridge is for controlling the ship and is staffed with a lot fewer people than the CIC, which runs the engagements. I hope Mark's by in a bit to clarify.
As far as flag bridges go... nothing really expressly for that purpose has been seen. In "The Best of Both Worlds," Hansen appeared to be commanding from a later TOS movie era bridge. And of the monitors we could see, all that was shown was the red alert signal (as if they didn't already know it).
Sisko controlled all of the fleet movements from the Defiant's bridge during the Dominion War. In "What You Leave Behind," the admiral from Starbase 375 (I can't remember his name, darn it) seemed to be at the battle field. Can anyone remember if Sisko still led the fleet movements or if the admiral appeared to be speaking from a standard bridge?
Other than that, we don't have much to go on. Picard led the fleet from the Enterprise's bridge in "Redemption," but that was hardly a battle. Picard also took command of the fleet in First Contact and gave orders from his bridge. And, going all the way back to The Original Series, the fleet's engagements against the M-5 were run from the Lexington's bridge (I think I have the right ship).
Posted by Timo (Member # 245) on :
Ross in the final battles of DS9 was always seen against a generic Starfleet monitor wall (part of the Defiant set, really).
I'm not sure if Sisko actually led any of the battles from aboard the Defiant. He was credited with planning them, yes. And he gave a number of "now do as we planned" cue marks. But in the battle to retake the wormhole, he fled the battlefield at a crucial moment. And in the final battles on the way to Cardassia, he only "requested assistance" (asking for the support of tactical wings) instead of actually "directing the fleet".
I'd be inclined to interpret the E-D main bridge as a flag bridge like suggested. Just flying the ship around could have been done with a bridge one third the size... The extra room may have been for many purposes, including diplomatic intimidation, but fleet coordination capacity could well be one of those purposes.
And if Starfleet ever had dedicated flag bridges, those would most probably be found in the older starships, for two reasons. One, the less versatile tech of the era would have necessitated originally constructing them. And two, if a ship were to be needed by a flag officer for managing a battle, I'd expect him or her to take a rear-echelon second-rate ship instead of a frontline combatant. To do otherwise would mean sending the admiral to the thick of the battle, or then withholding a valuable primary combatant from the front lines - both very undesirable things.
Timo Saloniemi
Posted by Toadkiller (Member # 425) on :
A holodeck, or room with extensive holo-projectors, would be a great advantage. Allowing the Admiral and staff to see the entire battle, reach out and "touch" ships for status reports, etc.
Didn't I get that from a (most likely non-trek) book? Can't recall....
Posted by Starship Freak (Member # 293) on :
Don�t know about touching, but Sheridan in B5 used that.
Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :
In "Shadow Dancing".
And it was rather silly. You don't want a pretty 3d hologram. You want lots and lots of tactical diplays.
Posted by Mucus (Member # 24) on :
E:FC was big on the interactive 3D images too....in retrospective they did rather well, even taking into account the big budget Minority Report version.
One thing I did find annoying about B5 and E:FC was their paper...yep their paper. See, its futuristic.....its transparent. Oouuuu.
Anyways, the big 3D display was probably more reflective of Minbari sensibilities and aesthetics than what would be useful for a human. Then again, minimalism might actually be useful to avoid sensory overload.
Still, that would be a real nice way of playing Homeworld....
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
Actually, Homeworld is a good example. The close-in, widescreen, panoramic shots are nice. But you can't get anything done in them, and need to pull back and have overlays and graphs and so on.
Posted by Wraith (Member # 779) on :
quote:Originally posted by Toadkiller: A holodeck, or room with extensive holo-projectors, would be a great advantage. Allowing the Admiral and staff to see the entire battle, reach out and "touch" ships for status reports, etc.
Didn't I get that from a (most likely non-trek) book? Can't recall....
I'm sure i read something like this also; can't remember where though. The reason I asked was that i've recently been reading the Honor Harrington books (which are excellent BTW) and the ships in those have flag bridges from which the flag officer controls his or her fleet or sqadron, then there's the bridge from which the ship itself is commanded by her officers and finally the CIC which (I think) sorts out sensor data and classifies it in order of importance and that sort of thing.
I agree with Timo about the likelihood of flag facilities being fitted on older designs.
Posted by MinutiaeMan (Member # 444) on :
Yes, the Minbari in B5 had those 3D holographic displays. I imagine that the idea was originally included for dramatic effect. So we could see Sheridan and Delenn commanding the fleet, and see the action at the same time. For a TV series, that was perfect.
The first thing, though, is that readouts for each ship would probably be very beneficial -- status reports on all friendly craft, and combat intelligence on the enemy attackers.
However, it seems to me that a fleet commander would probably want to have more of an overview of the fighting, rather than a view right from the middle of the battle. Because when you're right in the middle, that means a pretty skewed perspective, and you can easily miss some enemy maneuvers -- especially if they're out of your line of sight.
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
I didn't get the impression that the Minbari chamber was holographic. I thought it was like the 360 degree theater at Disneyland.
Posted by Topher (Member # 71) on :
No? Not even when that weird floaty stuff came down from the ceiling?
Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :
That was just the screen that the images were projected onto. Delenn was showing off.
Posted by Mark Nguyen (Member # 469) on :
There isn't much I can add to this that hasn't already been said by this point, but in short - you STEER the ship from the bridge, but you OPERATE the ship from the CIC. In general, Trek ships would not have such a distinction, since driving a starship typically requires only one station, and no above-decks location.
And on a tangent, here's something really neat I found about naval lingo.
Mark
Posted by J (Member # 608) on :
Something has just occured to me and correct me if I'm wrong--- are you guys saying that there were no readouts in the command area [which was no different than the grey council room] in B5? I do beg to differ, I remember there being some small writing at times. Wasn't there some writing when they zoomed in on the Soul Hunters during first contact with Humans? Didn't some of the ships have writing near them in the Battle of the Line scenes during "In The Beginning" and wasn't there some during the first battle that Sheridan brought together a fleet?
Maybe I'm just imagining things.
Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
I think there was some writing on one of those displays in "War without End" when Delenn shows them the video of B4 being used in the First Shadow War.
Posted by Intruder1701 (Member # 880) on :
Actually in the US Navy there are two bridges on an aircraft carrier, the bridge where the Captain controls the ship and then there is the Flag Bridge where the Admiral and his staff work out of to control the ship. In the event of a battle the Captain moves down to CIC to handle things and the XO is free to move about the ship, the CO and the XO are never in the same place at once and the Admiral stays in the Flag bridge.
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- A holodeck, or room with extensive holo-projectors, would be a great advantage. Allowing the Admiral and staff to see the entire battle, reach out and "touch" ships for status reports, etc.
Didn't I get that from a (most likely non-trek) book? Can't recall....
That scene was in the recent "gateways" books where Admiral Ross has a staff meeting via several ships holodecks with the commanding officers of those ships, in order to personally communicate with everyone at once. a good idea, really, but in the actual tactical situation, Picard led the fleet the old tried and true way. The premise was decent and the DS9 books were quite good, but the rest suckd hard: the New Frontier instalments were particularly disappointing. ...and they stuck everybody for buying a hardcover as the final part for $25.00 while the other parts were only avaliable in paperback! A nasty trend with the Trek Pocket books lately.
As for a "situation room" for an admiral, in a recent crossover (with the Genesis device this time) Nachaev uses the Enterprise's huge stellar cartography facility to coordinate both the Klingon and Federation/Romulan fleets. Makes sense to me!
Posted by Timo (Member # 245) on :
Me too. That's a pretty good way to set up a flag bridge aboard a Galaxy class or comparable ship. It's not likely that the facility would be otherwise engaged during combat. And like Nechayev in "Genesis Wave" or Sheridan in B5, the big brass of the future can probably best lead the battle if standing all alone in a room with a good info feed. Having lots and lots of consoles for assisting personnel would just distract them, when all that info can be directly fed to the kingpin officer. Stellar Cartography / Astrometrics projection rooms would indeed be ideal for this use.
IMHO, New Frontier either sucks as a whole or not at all - it's a one-man show with PAD running everything, after all. Don't go looking for practical technologies in there, though. The writers who know their naval tech stuff are pretty much limited to Diane Carey and those who listen to her advice. The ones who have a good grasp of general technology and Trek AND have the imagination and practical sense to invent useful new devices out of that are more numerous - Vornholt, Oltion, DeCandido, the Graf... They also know when they don't have to invent a gadget because it was already invented in this episode or that movie.
And as long as I'm that far off-topic, a hint: sooner or later, Pocket Books will be forced to release a softcover edition of any book they really want to sell. There will be one for the Gateways conclusion, too. It's just a matter of waiting them out.
Timo Saloniemi
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
Yeah, the conclusion did finally come out in paperback.....six months later than the other parts! Who can remember all the details of several books you real 8-10 months prior and still hope to enjoy the story? Regarding New Frontier: the stories are either hit or miss, but in general they are as silly as any of the hokey stuff from TOS. The first three books can be read as one story and are great unto themselves, however.
If you guys want to read fantastic books, I'd reccomend the Mellennium books (Deep Space Nine), the story arc covers from just prior the first episode through after the final episode. The current Deep Space Nine series (after the last episode, with new characters) is very well written and thought out.
Posted by Captain-class, Mike-variant (Member # 709) on :
i still like NF, even though i recognize the basic flaws in PAD's premise and the fact that he is no longer being editted. Its a fun little show he puts on and he does manage to say alot, even while tripping over himself.
BTW, the holoconference was a great beginning to what turned out to be a shite crossover. i thought that if it was that interconnecter to begin with, we'd be cool, but in the end they explained nothing. two or three parts actually had nothing to do with it. i doubt any of the writers actually talked, it was more like a loose collection of similar stories, not a crossover.
after that, though, PAD did impress me by establishing some fancy fanboy-style tech for the new Excalibur.. its a Galaxy-class, but the battle bridge had holocommunicators so that Calhoun could command both halves of the ship at once when it separated. and they used up some of the GCS infamous wasted laboratory/classroom/family space and put in a warp sled so that the saucer could be a valid multi-vector combatant. im thinking about blueprinting this variant.. its fun.
Posted by Magnus de Pym (Member # 239) on :
Star Trek books are the best books ever and should preclude the reading of anything else ever. I enjoy how they continue the adventures of our favorite crews well after the show. I mean, are 178 episodes really enough for anyone? Especially since they're continually consistent with the show and written well.
That being said, I did read "Millenium" and I still own both my lungs, so I cannot complain. About Peter David, I do however.
Posted by Wraith (Member # 779) on :
I was thinking about something along the lines of using the Stellar Cartography room for this a few days ago; the only problem with just having the Admiral on his own is the possibility of him missing something. Even an admiral is only human (or Vulcan. Or Andorian. Or... well, you get the idea); I think it's more likely he'd have a small staff with him in a battle to moniter other views of the battle and draw his attention to any enemy movements or activities that may be important. He can then make a decision based on that.
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
I can see several Admirals or Commadores (have'nt seen one of them sence TOS!)monitoring a situation from the back lines. That way, if the Admiral's ship is destroyed, another commanding officer can continue the attack plan. Hmmmm....kind of a Starfleet collective! Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
quote: Who can remember all the details of several books you real 8-10 months prior and still hope to enjoy the story?
A thorny problem in the Homo line, to be sure. We thought we had the problem solved with H. Habilus, but the product never enjoyed the recall ability the designers had planned.
However, we are introducing a new line quite soon, H. Sapiens. We have high hopes that these will prove able to process events into a "long-term" form of memory, which should remain available throughout much of the product's expected thirty-five year lifespan.
Look for H. Sapiens coming to a grassy plain near you.
Posted by Magnus de Pym (Member # 239) on :
You, for the sake of the World and any babies delivered to it, need to be frozen, and enjoyed for millenia. Last best hope and all that.
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
Do bite my ass, you talking monkeys. ..some of us read several books in an eight month span.
Posted by Captain-class, Mike-variant (Member # 709) on :
a ha! hes starting to crack!
Posted by Topher (Member # 71) on :
Now someone answer me this: Why is it that all newbies must be chased away? Might I remind you all (Mike, Magnus) that you were newbies in the exact same way? Simon is part of the original group that founded Flare. I myself happened to stumble across the fora when they were new, but I was still a newbie. So why is it that you have to drive them away constantly?
Posted by E. Cartman (Member # 256) on :
You're not the only one this act is starting to wear thin on.
Anyway, it started out as a relatively innocent rite of passage gag in the early days, which had largely passed when I registered, but -(judging from what I've read in the archives, as well as from what I remember of my own extensive lurking period)- it was all meant in jest, though over the years I've seen the practice degenerate into, well, a pissing match to determine which newbie can take the most verbal flak without throwing a fit, before they're deemed worthy of acceptance. And that's putting it mildly.
'Tis a tradition apparently held in high regard by Flare's local funny farm contingent.
[ September 01, 2002, 14:21: Message edited by: E. Cartman ]
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
Not to go crazy with the ego thing, but surely there is some minor difference between suggesting that someone like DARKSTAR or Red Quacker or KING LEROY THE MIGHTY! (whom I have made up for illustration purposes) is a poorly-educated, undernourished mental defective of questionable evolutionary history, and gently pointing out a bit of silliness with a bit of countersilliness.
There is no Flare tradition of newbie-hazing. Anyone who thinks there is and that they can hide behind it is sorely mistaken.
What does exist is nearly five years of forum continuity. I'm not saying we're the WELL of Star Trek or something, but we're fairly long in the tooth as members of our species go, and, I think, exceptionally so for ones not connected to some newsreporting or otherwise "themed" website. Now to be sure that can breed a sense of insularity at worst, but it also allows actual personalities to shine through all this UBB code.
We are not a Trekweb or a TrekBBS, and we never will be. We will never have their high profiles, or their visits from, you know, pseudo-famous people. But, personally, I think our strengths outweigh such concerns, or at least balance them.
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