posted
Ships and submarines have tables to use for navigating on the surface of the planet. A two-dimensional surface for navigating in space is a very very very stupid idea. Hopefully they've figured that out by now...
Registered: Mar 1999
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Yeah, there didn't seem to be a tactical or security station on the Enterprise's bridge at all in TOS. Sulu and Chekov (or navihelm person of the week) fired the weapons. In "Mirror, Mirror," one of Sulu's consoles is referred to as a security board. Of course, there are two or three stations on the bridge that we don't know what purpose they served. But weapons control didn't seem to be any of their functions.
We didn't actually get a real tactical station on the Enterprise's bridge until she was refit in The Motion Picture. But in The Final Frontier, the station seemed to get demoted to just a set of wall monitors next to the Master Situation station behind Kirk's chair. Then that was broken in two and flanked the Master Situation station in The Undiscovered Control. In both of those movies, they weren't manned (hell, didn't even look like they could accommodate anything more than quick checks).
Add to that, in TOS, it doesn't seem like chief of security was a bridge-level or senior staff-level position at all. But I guess that could be all right since the chief engineer wasn't a bridge-level or senior-staff level position in the first season of The Next Generation.
-------------------- The philosopher's stone. Those who possess it are no longer bound by the laws of equivalent exchange in alchemy. They gain without sacrifice and create without equal exchange. We searched for it, and we found it.
quote: But I guess that could be all right since the chief engineer wasn't a bridge-level or senior-staff level position in the first season of The Next Generation.
Well, Scotty was third in command...and the Engineering bridge station seemed pretty important...
posted
I'm not saying that Scotty or his bridge station were unimportant. I was just using that example in the context of that series to show that there seems to be some flexibility in what is considered a senior staff or bridge-level position. On Kirk's tenure in TOS, the chief of security wasn't deemed important enough. In TNG, the chief engineer wasn't deemed important enough until LaForge took over that job.
-------------------- The philosopher's stone. Those who possess it are no longer bound by the laws of equivalent exchange in alchemy. They gain without sacrifice and create without equal exchange. We searched for it, and we found it.
Registered: Mar 1999
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TSN: Yeah, it'd be neat if they had something like Gune's, uh, thingy in Titan AE.
-------------------- I haul cardboard and cardboard accessories
Registered: Mar 1999
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capped
I WAS IN THE FUTURE, IT WAS TOO LATE TO RSVP
Member # 709
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Actually the implication was, that based on all the early episodes, the nav/helm guy hit the buttons to fire phasers, then the guys downstairs at the actual banks did the firing. I assume this means they recieved the navigators speed figures, distance, telemetry and desired target from his board, fired and then sent confirmation back up.
Thats why we saw Martine and Tomlinson (surrounded by crewman keeping very busy at equipment) firing phasers in 'Balance of Terror'
And when the guy at the helm hits the button and theres no one down there, nothing happens ('Balance of Terror' again.. Spock had to go to the room and fire the weapons before he saved the phaser crew when Stiles and Tomlinson were down there)
I realize they didnt show this every time phasers fired later , but i dont think they radically changed their weapons between 'Balance' and later episodes. If they did then what would all those phaser specialists do during battle? maybe hide from coolant leaks. But the ship's complement would have gone down without requiring phaser specialists.
This is certainly a good explanation for why the Constitutions staffed 430, then by Star Trek VI (when weapons were refit and more automated) they staffed 300. In ST VI they need less people to fire torpedos too.. notice they didnt have a dozen duys all over the torpedo bay like in ST II on the 1701-no suffix. By TNG phasers were almost all automated so thats why a ship like Voyager wouldnt need as many people as the similarly sized Connies
To back up my point, i think we should listen to the recorded chatter usually present on the bridge and listen for when they page phaser crews. ill see if i have time
-------------------- "Are you worried that your thoughts are not quite.. clear?"
posted
It's a minor point, but surely the reason it took so many to prep the torpedoes in the Wrath of Khan was the not insignificant amount of damage to the launcher?
Registered: Mar 1999
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The torpedo system might also have been intentionally "dumbed down" for training use - every man-serviceable part exposed to scrutiny, every manual override turned into a primary control system. The system seen in TMP could have been more extensively automated (although of course we only saw the user end of it, namely Chekov's console).
As for phaser systems, the performance and reaction time of "phaser crews" was a concern to Kirk back in "The Corbomite Maneuver" already. Presumably there was a long cascade from Kirk's "Fire!" through Sulu's keypress through some unknown steps to the moment a phaser team leader says "Firing!" and presses the actual trigger. Why?
Well, phasers appeared to be really finicky machines back in "Balance of Terror", breaking down after just a few shots. Perhaps a large repair team had to tend to the prissy thing, and a man-in-the-loop would wait until this team told the phaser was safely powered up before deciding whether to fire or abort.
Phasers would grow more reliable by the movie era, yet they need not be completely automated at that time, either. We never saw the Enterprise fire phasers when she was rigged for "a monkey and two trainees"...
Incidentally, where did that 300 crew figure for ST6 come from?
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I WAS IN THE FUTURE, IT WAS TOO LATE TO RSVP
Member # 709
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Valeris: 'We have a crew of 300 searching their quarters, but the conspirators may be among them'
Granted this is a rounded figure im assuming, just like the commonly used 'crew of over four hundred' on TOS, but it is never really clear whether the Enterprise is fully staffed at that point. But it is clear that it takes significantly less officers to run ships by the 24th century
-------------------- "Are you worried that your thoughts are not quite.. clear?"
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