posted
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.
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posted
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).
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posted
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.
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posted
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."
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posted
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.
posted
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
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).
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posted
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.
posted
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....
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posted
Don�t know about touching, but Sheridan in B5 used that.
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And it was rather silly. You don't want a pretty 3d hologram. You want lots and lots of tactical diplays.
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posted
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....
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posted
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.
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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.
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