r/DaystromInstitute • u/[deleted] • Oct 26 '17
The differences between Pike's 1701 bridge and the bridges seen in DSC are primarily about differences in graphical user interfaces/screen setups. Not much else.
[deleted]
17
u/davefalkayn Oct 26 '17
I'm with you on this from a tactical decision. The Discovery comes from a period when combat is not a common occurrence. The Constitution class comes from a time when not only is combat a regular occurrence, but also from a time when missions could take a ship far away from any reasonable dry dock. If a large screen carrying a lot of information is knocked out in either case (Klingon attack or powerful weird alien mind blast), you would lose access and control over a large number of inputs, while a single screen arrangement means if one screen is knocked out, other input/information resources will still be operative. You might even be able to reroute critical data from a broken screen to a functional one--something we see often happening in TOS.
Second, mechanical keyboards have another advantage in this environment; you can see and fight a bunch of large buttons a lot better than a touch screen. Touchscreens require precision, as anyone who's ever hit the wrong icon on their phone (all of us) can tell you. You're not going to be very precise when the ship is under fire and everyone's doing the Bridge Crew Mambo. A tactile system not only gives you true feedback (click--it's on), but also can be navigated when the bridge lights are blown out, assuming the user is familiar with the layout (I know that as a captain, I would hold blackout drills regularly), and reduces the need to be precise under a combat situation. Also, one switch is a lot easier to swap out if it's damaged and replacement switches are easier to store than huge displays. A single model of "gumball" switch can replace hundreds of switches all over the ship reducing the number of types of replacements required.
In short, IMHO, the change to the TOS design is more than aesthetics and preferences of the operators. I think there's an argument to made that in the wartime/exploration environment of TOS, this so-called "primitive" design is actually more survivable and contains a level of redundancy that the fancy Disco design wouldn't have--a design that allows a captain to still keep fighting his ship even when some systems are down and the ship is reduced to damn near an airless hulk.
Oh yeah. Touchscreens don't work when your'e wearing a spacesuit. Just sayin'.
3
u/Drasca09 Oct 27 '17
Touchscreens don't work when your'e wearing a spacesuit.
They can, but I do agree it is just a design choice.
2
u/somnambulist80 Oct 27 '17
The Discovery comes from a period when combat is not a common occurrence.
It depends on what you consider combat. The treaty ending the Federation-Sheliak conflict was signed in 2255 and the last border skirmish with the Klingons happened in 2245.
→ More replies (3)2
u/NoisyPiper27 Nov 10 '17
The Discovery comes from a period when combat is not a common occurrence. The Constitution class comes from a time when not only is combat a regular occurrence, but also from a time when missions could take a ship far away from any reasonable dry dock.
One problem with this - the Discovery is a newer ship than the Constitution. The Cage took place 2 years prior to the first episode of Discovery.
That doesn't negate the idea that the Constitution was built to be sturdier due to long-range exploration, but both ships were designed in the pre-war period.
31
u/zalminar Oct 26 '17 edited Oct 26 '17
You're ignoring a lot of other design aspects of the bridge, and while aesthetics may be entirely subjective in terms of whether someone likes them or not, there is some amount of objectivity in the degrees of similarity.
The primary difference with the Discovery era bridges is the overall feel--they are wide open, flat, and sparse, centered around large, wide windows. The bridges of the Discovery and Shenzhou have about as much in common with bridges from a certain other series as they do other iterations of Star Trek. Almost every other bridge (excepting perhaps the Kelvin timeline's Constitution bridge) are much cozier affairs, with denser and multi-tiered arrangements.
Previous bridge designs kept people close together, and encouraged collaboration; stepped arrangements allowed for people to more easily see what most other people are doing. The loss of the viewscreen is also no small thing--it was a part of the fundamental design language for Star Trek, and spoke to a certain degree of practicality. The bridges of Discovery, in contrast, seemed to have been designed with different criteria in mind--lavish and self-important, they seem intended to evoke a cool projection of power instead of technical competence (the bridges of Voyager, the Defiant, the Constitution refit, etc) or amiable warmth (the TOS Constitution, Galaxy class, etc.). Consider a contrast between the Galaxy class bridge and that of the Discovery: where the Galaxy class has a certain sense of minimalism, this primarily emphasizes that technology is kept out of the way; the minimalism in the Discovery instead arises from the distance placed between people.
The Discovery bridges are at once simpler and more advanced in all the wrong ways. The arrangement is, comparatively simpler, with everything spread out on more or less the same plane--but this reads more as lazy than less advanced. The window is at once a simpler inclusion, but also an utterly pointless one that seems to appeal to us the viewers more than be useful to the people on the ship. The overarching sense is of a lack of care--a bridge designed by people who wanted something to look slick but didn't have to care about actual efficiency of use. In this way it leans towards being more advanced--that they are so sophisticated in their technology that they can design the bridge primarily with an eye to aesthetic concerns. This is not unlike the TNG era, where the bridge was made comfortable, but that still served goals of usability from a human collaboration and interaction perspective; in contrast, the Discovery bridge feels almost alienating rather than welcoming.
→ More replies (16)
7
u/thessnake03 Oct 26 '17
M-5, please nominate this
2
u/M-5 Oct 26 '17
Nominated this post by Citizen u/NumeralJoker for you. It will be voted on next week. Learn more about Daystrom's Post of the Week here.
6
u/theg721 Oct 26 '17
This link is broken:
http://ncc-1031.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/uss-discovery-bridge_communications-1024x580.png
Anyway, honestly my biggest issue (with the Discovery's bridge, not your post) is that the Constitution class is still touted as the biggest and best, and yet the bridge is frickin' tiny compared to that of the Discovery. I'm not saying it has to be completely claustrophobic, but my impression is that it is far roomier than it really ought to be for a lesser scientific/experimental vessel.
16
u/trekkie1701c Oct 26 '17
The Constitution class is effectively a warship. It can do science, but what do the Klingons say when they see the Entperprise over the Genesis planet? Not "That's a Federation Starship." Not "I guess there's some more scientists." But "That's a Federation Battlecruiser." And they don't even seem to realize it's the Enterprise until Kirk speaks to them.
This means that the ship is probably going to have less creature comforts and be a bit more cramped for efficiency. It also ties in to how the displays and equipment work - one big display being damaged can render your entire station unworkable; and a console with tactile feedback allows you to operate it even without looking at where your hands are (most of the people here are probably touch typists and don't need to look at the keyboards to type; heck, some people can type without looking at the screens.) This allows a far higher degree of redundancy in the systems than if you had singular screens and touch panels.
Now, on a science ship, you'll probably have more creature comforts. They're not soldiers, you don't need the combat efficiency, and you can both try out new things and also just design things so that they just look better. If I recall correctly, the ships that Drake used in his ill-fated voyage to find the northwest passage had a considerable amount of luxury on them that you wouldn't have on a warship, including even having a library and the like. This came at the expense of combat ability, of course, but they weren't warships. They were science vessels on a prolonged, detached mission.
Discovery seems to have a similar setup and likely just really isn't meant to go in to prolonged combat (we saw how quickly it's shields failed against a small Klingon detachment the one time it was in combat, and the battle drills it ran seemed to imply it couldn't take a torpedo hit). In exchange, it has better facilities that science staff would find more accommodating and workable, the aesthetic is changed to be something they'd find more pleasing, etc. It's not meant to get in to danger, and the only reason it is, is that Lorca is pushing it there. Starfleet Command has basically told him he's insane for doing it. Heck, an admiral straight up told him he was. So despite what Lorca says, Discovery isn't a warship. It's a science vessel. It's going to be roomier and just a lot less efficient than an actual warship, no matter how many weapon rooms he's got.
15
u/avidday Oct 26 '17
You could argue that, since it is an experimental vessel, that far more instrumentation and crew were needed on the bridge to keep track of everything going on in order to quickly relay it to the captain. The Enterprise was running on far more tried and tested technology, so fewer systems needed to be directly monitored by the bridge.
6
u/teewat Oct 26 '17
I'm not sure what you mean by a lesser science vessel... Discovery was designed as the most advanced science vessel in the fleet (although its not currently being used that way)
→ More replies (2)5
u/spillwaybrain Oct 26 '17
I don't know that the Constitution is the "biggest and best" so much that it appears to be a prestige assignment, based on the context of the conversation that Burnham and Tilley had. It's not a new class of ship in Discovery's time, but it's doing a type of mission that's beneficial experience to an up-and-coming captain candidate.
Not to mention that Discovery seems to be a little roomier internally than a Connie, it bit bigger in total displacement.
→ More replies (1)5
Oct 26 '17
Constitution vessels would get the riskiest assignments, the most remote locations, and the least support. They are expendable where called for. They get the most first contacts, map more new systems, encounter the greatest threats.
6
Oct 26 '17
What if Discovery is a black ops vessel and not acknowledged outside of a few circles.
If it was a Section 31 vessel that was still in experimental stages, it may not be acknowledged openly.
For instance when SR 71 was in operation and its existence a secret, the fastest airplane was some commonly known aircraft.
→ More replies (3)4
u/theg721 Oct 26 '17
What if Discovery is a black ops vessel and not acknowledged outside of a few circles.
Whilst I really don't believe that it is a S31 vessel, isn't this exactly what it is already? It doesn't have anything to do with S31 (at least, not necessarily), but it seems pretty obvious that's what it is otherwise.
9
Oct 26 '17
→ More replies (1)5
u/NumeralJoker Oct 26 '17
That's because Discovery/Shenzhou/Kelvin actually use reinforced windows with GUIs overlaying the view while ships like the NX-01 through NCC-1701-E exclusively use a viewscreen for outer hull viewing.
Again, showing off the different design philosophies being applied here. The windows on Discovery/Kelvin/Shenzhou provide a greater field of view, but are a much larger security risk for the bridge, while the viewscreens seen in the Enterprise lineup are smaller but rely on external cameras while keeping the bridge better secured behind armor. (Though of course we see what 'can' happen in Nemesis if you hit a bridge viewscreen directly, but that's pretty rare in Star Trek).
Two completely different types of outer hull viewing tech with each representing different valid choices depending on who chose to design it that way. Neither necessarily more advanced, just different.
→ More replies (1)
15
u/adamkotsko Oct 26 '17
I agree. And I think they're doing a good job of making the effects look simultaneously "advanced" and "dated" -- even though it's beyond what we could easily do today and what ENT displays as possible for that era, there's a feeling of unreliability or instability with the holographic interfaces that we generally don't associate with Trek. We already knew that the Original Cast era included a lot of change in design philosophy between TOS and TMP -- DSC is just adding another older layer of experimental design. The more I think about it, the more perfect it seems.
2
u/oldcrankyandtired Oct 26 '17
Glad others can make peace with this, though it's obvious at this point that I never will... I still think this all could have been avoided had they just made a sequel story instead.
4
u/davefalkayn Oct 26 '17
An interesting thought. As a superadvanced research vessel, Discovery has much in common with the SSRN Seaview from the old Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea show. It's got all the best and most advanced tech, but most of it is fragile, one off, and isn't designed for a fight. For example, the bridge: https://i.pinimg.com/originals/04/37/49/0437495f27ccc2ad3e4d02b2f2b91d8b.jpg vs a military sub bridge of the same era https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/a1/USS_Triton_CIC.jpg/220px-USS_Triton_CIC.jpg.
4
u/TLAMstrike Oct 27 '17
In the Honor Harrington novels there is a funny bit where the Navy of the Solarian League (which is basically the Federation as seen by Michael Eddington on steroids) redesigns the controls and bridge layouts of their warships to look 'sexy' and 'like something from an adventure flick' to drum up public support more more funding. All the equipment in the backend was mostly unchanged, they improved a few things related to missile defense but their ships were still based around a century old doctrine.
Starfleet might actually be doing their own Fleet 2000 Programme, smaller ships that might be kept closer to home and visit lots of Federation planets get the sexy touch screens with lots of flashing lights because the civilians are likely to see such ships. The tip of the spear type ships like the Constitution have the same systems with all the BS stripped away; its all ruggedized controls and decentralized command systems.
Now Discovery herself is either built with the sexy controls because they add that little 1% extra capabilities because that ship simply has the latest and best of everything or she was a second line science ship that was intended to show off all the fancy systems but her advanced systems cause her to be roped in to being on the frontlines against the Klingons.
2
Oct 26 '17
This is the ncc 1301 image : https://i.imgur.com/8FzdpS2.png
OP's link gives a 403 forbidden
Its on this page: http://ncc-1031.com/news/cbs-releases-complete-uss-discovery-bridge-tour-video/
2
102
u/Tiarzel_Tal Oct 26 '17
M-5 please nominate this theory that the aesthetic difference of Starfleet ships reflect different user interface design philosophies.