Mark
Posted by Malnurtured Snay (Member # 411) on :
You can show by telling.
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
I bet it has lost of blinking, beeping lights... blinking and beeping....beeping and blinking! Posted by Wes (Member # 212) on :
Why not contribute to your own challenge before posting, sport.
Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :
I say it's at least large and round.
Posted by Timo (Member # 245) on :
Umm, in "11001001", it was small and square and crammed full of consoles. And had a nice window.
...Seriously speaking, I think that room was just Commander Quinteros' personal kingdom, and that Quinteros was WAY down the totem pole in the command hierarchy of the station, being Chief of Computer Refitting or something. He's never identified as the station commander, after all. (But admittedly, Picard's general call to "SB 74" is routed specifically to him...)
I gather the nature of the Ops Deck would depend on what sort of ops a starbase performs. Is servicing of starships an important part of the job, or just something they do out of pity when the visiting captains whine loudly enough? Does a starbase command a star system or a sector, or is it (as perhaps in the case of those moon-sized SB 74 lookalikes) satisfied with running itself?
I rather think there'd be separate rooms for each function, each of them conveniently sized for TV budget limits.
Timo Saloniemi
Posted by Aban Rune (Member # 226) on :
Well, the room our heros were in as the big E backed out of spacedock was apparently inside the mushroom, yes? Because they could see the docking bay. The ops deck for the entire station would logically be at the top of the mushroom, given Federation design sense.
My guess is that there's a docking bay control center and a station control center, neither of which we saw in the episode. It could have a been a room specifically devoted to the work being done on the Enterprise. Anyone got a cappy of that set?
Posted by Mark Nguyen (Member # 469) on :
The thing with the spacedock launch control center, is that the inside is so huge that one room can't can't be positioned with windows to oversee the WHOLE thing. Quinteros' cramped booth was probably in charge of the whole inside of the mushroom, with window placed to see as muchof it as possible.
Remember we saw another control booth, a two-person desk seen in the third and fourth movies. The odd thing is that in the second appearance, when the Probe take the mushroom out, it's that little booth that contacts Starfleet Command, saying "This is spacedock on emergency channel". Is it because they were the designated launch control booth, or because they were actually IN charge?
I once designed a launch control station, with windows looking in to the cavity of the mushroom. It would be supplemented by three more two-man booths at corresponding points on the outer rim, just over each of the doors. In any case, they wouldn't control the station... Hence why I'm asking.
Mark
Posted by Malnurtured Snay (Member # 411) on :
Well, there's probably some sort of "traffic control" for the mushroom interior. "Hey, Yorktown, I didn't clear you yet. If you back up, you're going to hit the Intrepid. Tripoli, you are cleared for Gate Three, proceed at half thrusters and watch out for that tug to your port. Hey - hey! Who said Enterprise could go to full impulse for gate two? Damn you Kirk!"
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
Spacedock sized structures would likely be command centers for everything from sector fleets to commerce shipping to border patrols.
And starship repairs nad resupply, of course.
Posted by Aban Rune (Member # 226) on :
You'd also have office space, living space, commerce centers, rec centers, the red light district in the lower core, etc. All kinds of stuff that would have to managed independently of the launch and dock facility.
Many of the functions we saw managed from Ops on DS9 really should have handled from the docking booths on each pylon. Of course, with DS9 and it's broken-downedness, who knows if those booths were operational.
So first, let's identify a structure on the mushroom model that could conceiveably be an operations center. Isn't there a cluster of antenae at the top that might have a bridge type structure with it?
Posted by Mark Nguyen (Member # 469) on :
The upper part of the mushroom may as well be the downtown of any medium-sized city in the current day... It could be in any of the spires, of one of the lower, offset "dome" structures.
Rmember though, we're not talking just the mushrooms. There are various sizes of the "Regula" station model we've seen as different starbases too.
Mark
Posted by Hobbes (Member # 138) on :
I imagine their command center would look something like the large NASA control room in Armaggedon. Or perhaps DS9's Ops.
The closest reference I can think of is how the Navy breaks up it's fleets. Third Fleet (headquartered at Pearl Harbor) being the eastern Pacific, Fifth Fleet (headquartered in Bahrain) is Persian Gulf area, etc...
In this case, the starbases would command all fleet operations in a large area of space, while an outpost would command a more localized area.
Posted by Mark Nguyen (Member # 469) on :
And I guess we're forgetting the ACTUAL Starfleet Command centre seen in STIV. Wasn't too much to it (heck, it wasn't even a complete set), but it's a minor prrecedent if nothing else.
quote:Originally posted by Hobbes: I imagine their command center would look something like the large NASA control room in Armaggedon. Or perhaps DS9's Ops.
The closest reference I can think of is how the Navy breaks up it's fleets. Third Fleet (headquartered at Pearl Harbor) being the eastern Pacific, Fifth Fleet (headquartered in Bahrain) is Persian Gulf area, etc...
In this case, the starbases would command all fleet operations in a large area of space, while an outpost would command a more localized area.
I figure there's a large (heavily shielded) command center like the White House Situation Room for military/tactical oversight and another for starbase ops.
Each starbase probably has extensive training facilities, crew quarters and recreation facilities for visiting starships assuming the starbase is not orbiting some Fed planet.
The starbase would also serve as a massive communications relay for the sector.
Posted by SoundEffect (Member # 926) on :
Huh, the Enterprise is 'flopped'. The registry on the nacelle pylon is reversed...hadn't noticed before.
The screen Quinteros is looking at on the table is cool. A half cutaway showing the interior of the dock part of Spacedock.
BTW, the Quinteros actor was in the TOS episode with the crowded planet of people who gave Scotty the conflicting Transporter coordinates!
Posted by Malnurtured Snay (Member # 411) on :
Yeah, but Hobbes, as we've seen, Starfleet doesn't neccessarily assign starships to a starbase. The Enterprise-D was always going to different starbases, so I think it might be safe to say that Starfleet has some sort of modular way of tracking its fleet - or, that a central command authority may include numerous starbases within its field of command.
Posted by Harry (Member # 265) on :
So.. what the hell do all these people do on a starbase as large as Spacedock or SB 74. Do they live there? Is it just a 'storage facility' for Starfleet crew/reserves? Or is the mushroom-type station actually mostly empty?
And if there are a lot of people on a station, I would like there to be some sort of civilian administration too.
Posted by Timo (Member # 245) on :
For SB74 specifically, I gather repairing is an important task. The station in "11001001" only held three starships, all of which were badly broken down (as it would have taken 18 hours to get even one of them moving). Clearly, there were no "visiting" starships that weren't utterly disabled, since the heroes contemplated diverting a slow vessel 66 hours distant for an intercept, before even *mentioning* the ships at the base.
It could even be that SB74 handles no other Fleet tasks besides computer refitting, and only does that because it's so conveniently situated near Beta Magellan/Bynaus. If the station had other Fleet obligations, surely there would be pursuit-capable ships in the vicinity! (No doubt the station had thousands of runabout-category craft, but those can't pursue a starship, Kirk's suicidal stubbornness in "The Menagerie" notwithstanding.)
I rather fancy the idea that the mushrooms (the "small" Earth one, and the at least three huge TNG ones) are principally civilian facilities, with the "starbase" just a bunch of rooms somewhere within. The relationship of the base to the station would be much like that of a TOS surface starbase to the respective planet.
So in "11001001", Quinteros (if he was the SF boss) would have been in charge of perhaps a few thousand people running the Starfleet piers and docks, while the station held closer to a million people dedicated to other things (commerce, industry, research, entertainment, or just plain living there). The civilian adminstrator would in fact be a much bigger boss than Quinteros, perhaps even have some direct authority over him.
...Which, in terms of this thread, probably means the civilian leadership has much plusher facilities than the Starfleet one.
Timo Saloniemi
Posted by Harry (Member # 265) on :
I really don't like the "SB 74 is bigger than Spacedock" theory. Spacedock is already huge to begin with. And the interior shots are clearly meant to convey a 'cramped' look, with the D taking up a lot more space than the Nil and A in the movies. And the preliminary sketches by Sternbach show that they actually pondered about a different way of docking the huge Galaxy class ship to SB 74. It makes more sense to claim the doors on SB 74 are just larger than on Spacedock.
Posted by Topher (Member # 71) on :
I think there's a scaling error there, too. As in, the E-D is the same size as the E-nil was to the doors and whole dock.
Posted by Dat (Member # 302) on :
Explaining that error away would mean that SB 74 was larger than Spacedock. Can't say anything about the doors in relation to the station simply because it was the same FX shot of Spacedock, just reused to represent SB 74
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
While it's an obvious scaling error, I agree with Harry: it would be one standard size design for those facilities: not some idiotic "bloated" later versions with the exact same window counts (windows 20-30 meters tall by the TNG scaling error!), same proportional egress doors.... it's silly.
Better by far to squint and assume that Starbase 74's egress doors are far larger than those on the STI(I Spacedock (though those would have been widened to accomidate larger ships by TNG's era (assuming it was not somehow towed to another location in-system: as we never saw it again after STV).
Posted by Timo (Member # 245) on :
Actually, we did, in the 2370s of "Non Sequitur" (but admittedly in an alternate universe).
As an alternate to headache-inducing squinting, we could probably say that the doors of SB 74 were bigger than the doorway - that is, opening them to their full width would involve moving some of the wall sections that looked immovable from a distance... We just missed that part of the opening sequence when the camera angle changed. Or something.
Timo Saloniemi
Posted by Aban Rune (Member # 226) on :
Man... Quinteros looks hella like Picard with a goatee in a couple of those shots.
Well, the door sign says "Starfleet Operational Support Services" right? I would feel comfortable saying that the room we see them in is simply the room dedicated to the refit operations of the Enterprise. There are probably similar rooms for every major repair operation going on in the dock. Perhaps since this room already had a direct link to the Enterprise's systems, they had taken command of the situation. The station ops deck called down to Quinteros and said, "Get that bloody ship outta here."
Posted by Mark Nguyen (Member # 469) on :
Okay, so what have we decided here? That a larger Starbase ops centre would likely not have any stations dedicated to ship traffic, docking or repair operations? I guess a smaller one would have one, or at least a dediacted segment on an ops station to summarize what's going on down there.
Interesting DS9 observation: in "Way of the Warrior", it clearly took several people to man all the weapons systems. Yet in "Call to Arms", it seemed only Work handled everything. Hmm.
Mark
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
quote:Originally posted by Mark Nguyen: Interesting DS9 observation: in "Way of the Warrior", it clearly took several people to man all the weapons systems. Yet in "Call to Arms", it seemed only Work handled everything. Hmm.
Mark
Probably de-centralized weapons stations instead of having everything centered in Ops: that way if Ops was destroyed, the weapons crews on-site could continue fighting.
Worf was probably only in direct control of a few key systems or overriding manned weapons stations as needed.
Posted by Mark Nguyen (Member # 469) on :
Indeed, it may have been a modification made to the station after the Klingon attack; when the Klingons disabled the shields and started beaming in, everyone in Ops stopped what they were doing and started working on the intruders. We do see that DS9 doesn't seem to fire a shot after this.
Mark
Posted by Dat (Member # 302) on :
Huh? Worf was handling everything in "ACtA" not on "TWotW" Mark you're talking about a modification that could have have happened in which Worf would later do everything as opposed to before where he wasn't (where no one was firing after the Klingons beamed aboard)
Posted by Mark Nguyen (Member # 469) on :
Well, Worf could still be one gunner among many - just that the other guys were elsewhere and would therefore not have to stop shooting if one place were compromised, like Ops.
Mark
Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :
We saw Mushroom Starbases after ST:V (equal to season 2 TNG in production time) - in Season 4's "Remember Me" for one example.
Posted by Dat (Member # 302) on :
Though the model was never brought out again until Mojo made a cgi of it and tried to use that cgi in a Voyager episode but was ordered to use the "double-ended mushroom" station design instead.
Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :
Which was a new design, so we should be grateful.
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
BUt the design really reeks so I'm only "half grateful".
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