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Guardian2000: Actually, I think Sulu's popup tactical scanner did have a fair bit of flexibility to it. In one of the episodes where Kirk and Spock on lost on a planet surface (I think it was "Who Mourns for Adonis?" but I'm not sure) where Sulu is scanning the entire planet surface for their life signs with the scanner. I also believe that "The Lights of Zetar" show it being used for scientific purposes (in this case detecting the navigational hazard coming up: the Zetars). So... the helm/nav unit seemed to be a model for flexibility and redundancy that would come with LCARS.
CaptainMike stole my example of showing what you said as well. The bridge in The Original Series was simply a command center. Orders were giving from the bridge and sent to the crew members operating a particular part of the ship to execute the commands. Case in point, Tomlinson's phaser crew in "Balance of Terror." Plus, I believe targetemployee cited an example from another TOS episode where Spock has the nuclear engineering lab working on a problem. So, basically, every crew member on these ships has a job to do, whether it's manning a torpedo bay, monitoring antimatter pods, plotting navigational routes, or mopping up vomit in the mess hall. So, you make sense.
In many ways, the bridge of The Original Series matchs how I think the stations should be laid out. There's plenty of room for the crew members to sit and the controls and screens are all aligned for comfort. However, things aren't so spaced out that the CO (in a prime location) can't swivel around and read what the screens say (my big complaint with bridges like the Enterprise-D where it's incredibly spacey and where a lot of views are obstructed). For the good layouts also come the bad, though. I really don't like how three important stations -- Communications, Science, and Engineering -- face away from the main viewer. Indeeed, Kirk always had to swivel around a good deal to face them. Star Trek 2 corrected this by placing them more or less even with the command chair on either side. But, for effective of all possible control space, you're going to have someone facing the wrong direction.
-------------------- 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.
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I believe the "popup" display on Sulu's console was just that: a display. It was a computer monitor that could show him whatever he wanted. I'm sure he could have watched porn on it if he'd wanted to, assuming there was any in the ship's computer.
Registered: Mar 1999
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Well, with Kirk getting all the woman love on the Enterprise, I'd be willing to bet my life savings that the computer had a massive collection of pornography.
-------------------- 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.
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posted
On the good side, at least Voyager did show a (slightly larger and more voluminous than a) Constitution-sized ship running with far less crew.
Most of the time, though, it seems as if starships are overcrewed, given the constant attention on the center seat and close friends. But, that's just a matter of perspective.
I guess we're sort of in the position of someone who only knew of the United States through the television show West Wing, and was forced to wonder what the hell the other 259,999,900 people in the country were up to all the time.
G2k
-------------------- . . . ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.
quote:I guess we're sort of in the position of someone who only knew of the United States through the television show West Wing, and was forced to wonder what the hell the other 259,999,900 people in the country were up to all the time.
Porn. Lots and lots of it.
Really, though, I don't think there's really been a sci-fi series that has actually shown what the rest of the crew does. We've seen background actors playing on consoles, but for all we know they're playing FreeCell or Minesweeper. I suppose that focusing on just the senior staff is a necessary device of the medium. You need focus on a few people, otherwise story-telling gets too bogged down and goes no where.
Of course, Andromeda solved this problem by getting rid of almost all of the 4000+ crew and having a super AI do everything they did.
-------------------- 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.
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quote:Originally posted by Vogon Poet: We keep discussing whether or not to invite him on one of the UK Flareites' nights out, but always decide not to. 8)
Who? Me?
-------------------- If you cant convince them, confuse them.
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quote: Really, though, I don't think there's really been a sci-fi series that has actually shown what the rest of the crew does. We've seen background actors playing on consoles, but for all we know they're playing FreeCell or Minesweeper.
There is that B5 episode were the whole episode focuses on two maintenence crew "Bo and Mac". They do run into the main cast - but only briefly... They whole episode revolves around their day on B5. GREAT episode.
-------------------- "Bears. Beets. Battlestar Galactica." - Jim Halpert. (The Office)
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Next time, we'll think about it. 'Course, I mean the next next time, because the next time is when (hopefully) a couple of the gang might be able to make it to my wedding. There's a strict "only people we've met" rule that we even applied to my brother's new Brazilian probably-illegal-immigrant girlfriend. 8)
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