posted
I may have missed this being discussed in another thread - in that case sorry for reasking an old question - , but I was wondering whether the E-E actually had a battle bridge. And if so, why it was never used, as there were so many battles in all of the movies featuring the E-E.
-------------------- Lister: Don't give me the "Star Trek" crap! It's too early in the morning. - Red Dwarf "The Last Day"
Registered: Nov 1999
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posted
Well... there was never anything official. We certainly never saw the room or anything. There's been rumors that the ship was designed to seperate. If it does in fact, then there would probably be a battle bridge. But how many times did the crew move to the battle bridge in TNG? Not very many.
This kind of goes back to the discussion about whether or not the Odyssey bridge we saw in "The Jem'Hadar" (DS9) was that ship's battle or main bridge.
posted
Why would any ship that doesn't seperate need a Battle Bridge? The whole point of seperating was that the Galaxy-Class had two sections: one which could retreat, while the other, the "Battle" section, could confront the threat. The notion that all ships have a "Battle Bridge" in addition to a "Command Bridge" is, in my opinion, just slightly fanboyish. Given how quickly hostile events can arise, switching command from one bridge to another, just "because" doesn't make a lot of sense. What advantages would a Battle Bridge have that a Command Bridge wouldn't?
Now, I'm not saying all ships have only one Bridge. I'm fairly certain all (or, most) Starfleet ships have a backup Auxillary Bridge in case the primary is knocked out.
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posted
Yeah, but when the main bridge bites the big one, the command crew is probably spaced along with it, so what would be the point of a backup?
Registered: Nov 1999
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posted
For the non-important people to feel relatively secure as they vainly try to survive.
Well, having a backup command centre always makes sense. Joseph and Johnson incorporated backup or aux bridges in their non-reintegrating E-nil blueprints... They never see the battle bridge because it'd be too expensive to tread out and set up only for the odd episode.
Given that Eaves did do a sketch or two with separated flight mode, I'd expect a full battle bridge somewhere for MVAM operations. Personally, I'd have hoped that a pair of nacelles would deploy from the saucer cavity undercut, thus making a LITTLE more sense...
posted
And of course, we did see the original Enterprise's auxillary control room, or some of it, though as I recall it was distinctly unimpressive.
Registered: Mar 1999
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posted
That'd be the USS Constellation's aux control room. And it wasn't THAT bad, with a niftyly-shaped three-person control console facing a small screen, with access to the Jeffries tubes or something off to one side. Small, but functional.
I once designed a battle bridge for the Sovvie, and distinctly remeber not liking it. Trying to incorporate all the pointy, sharp edges from the primary bridge into a smaller set was quite lethal to the test crews.
posted
That'd be the USS Constellation's aux control room. And it wasn't THAT bad, with a niftyly-shaped three-person control console facing a small screen, with access to the Jeffries tubes or something off to one side. Small, but functional.
I once designed a battle bridge for the Sovvie, and distinctly remeber not liking it. Trying to incorporate all the pointy, sharp edges from the primary bridge into a smaller set was quite lethal to the test crews.
posted
If the Sovereign class can separate, and does it like in Eaves' drawings, it would mean it's a non-reintegration separation (except at a major ship support facility). It would not be used in combat situations, but only evacuation/abandon ship situations. The drive section has no impulse engines and would not be capable to propel or manuever itself. Because of that, it's likely there is no battle bridge. I do agree with the existence of an Auxiliary Control Center.
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Registered: Feb 2000
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No, not the Constellation's, though that was seen too, now that you mention it. I'm talking about the Space Hippy episode. Or was that only from the Blish novelization? HMM.
Registered: Mar 1999
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quote:Originally posted by Mark Nguyen: That'd be the USS Constellation's aux control room. And it wasn't THAT bad, with a niftyly-shaped three-person control console facing a small screen, with access to the Jeffries tubes or something off to one side. Small, but functional.
Mark
The Enterprise Aux Room was seen in the episode, "The Way To Eden." Same set, though.
I'd like to see your design for the Sovie battle bridge.
By and by, if the E-E didn't have a battle bridge it still need an Aux Control or back-up bridge... just in case. Of course, they could all just go to Main Engineering like in "Brother (TNG, S4).
Registered: Dec 2002
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posted
FWIW, the loss of the main bridge should be an issue regardless of the fact that the main command staff is lost with it. Realistically, the ship should have a secondary command staff, too, standing by to take over when (not if) the primaries bite it. And for ease of operations, that secondary staff should operate from a facility similar to the primary bridge, not from improvised facilities.
In Trek and in reality, since these guys, gals and BEMs would be just a backup, they should be #6-10 in the chain of command, after #1-5 on the main bridge - it's "dramatically logical" to have #1-5 working together for maximum efficiency, instead of doing a #1,3,5,7,9 / #2,4,6,8,10 mix for maximum survivability.
A tertiary backup could be more improvised in nature, possibly distributing the functions a bit more. But a big ship like the E-E looks like she could survive a few "oops, we lost a chunk of hull" type hits and still fight ("Nemesis"!), so multiple bridges make sense. A bridge buried deep within the hull might not and need not be better protected than one on the outer shell, as long as it exists, so that at least TWO chunks of hull have to be lost before the ship dies for good.
Then again, since when has any Trek adventure made drama out of the loss of the primary bridge? "Doomsday Machine" and "Way to Eden" failed to do so - e.g. Decker's staff wasn't lost on the bridge, AFAWK, but down on the planet. "Disaster" and "Starship Down" did, but they didn't use the "battle bridge" concept. By dramatic necessity, the main bridge cannot be lost for good, since the main heroes cannot be lost for good - so the dramatic element of a backup command staff never really comes to play.
I came to think about the question in the first place when I saw the battle in Nemesis. After all, the bridge gets blown to smithereens, mainly because of it's open location. Had they been commanding the ship from a secondary bridge (named battle bridge or SCC or whatever) deep inside the hull - where any sensible starship designer would put it - , this would have been avoided. Of course we know why it wasn't, but it's still an interesting concept.
I always preferred the E-D with its proper separation capability. Think of episodes like BOBW, where the concept really worked nicely, story- as well as effects-wise.
-------------------- Lister: Don't give me the "Star Trek" crap! It's too early in the morning. - Red Dwarf "The Last Day"
Registered: Nov 1999
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posted
I have a comic where scotty takes a 'commando' type crew to rescue a Connie Class engineering section that had separated in an emergency. It was quite good where it showed a Romulan base (they had captured it) the 'desaucered' Connie and when they were escaping - you saw the aux control bridge on top of the 'neck' and above them (the Romulan base was in an Asteroid - presumably so they could hold the 'mass' of the Engineering hull) were all these BOP's circling.
Was quite a good little story.
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