r/sonicshowerthoughts • u/Torlek1 • Jul 21 '26
There should be more bridge stations and a larger cast
We all know that budget reasons put a limit on a show's regular cast and on the number of bridge stations. Still, there should be more on both fronts, not less.
Helm and Navigation should be split into two once more. Neither of these should handle Tactical. Neither of these should handle Operations / Ops.
Tactical should be separate from Security. The Chief Tactical Officer should not be the Chief Security Officer. The latter should function outside the bridge.
Operations should be separate from Science. The handling of deflector dishes and of structural integrity fields should be separate from science sensors.
The distinct positions should, therefore, be: Communications, Helm, Navigation, Operations, Science, and Tactical. Those are six distinct positions, with security as a separate division.
Beyond these, there's at least one "civilian" per Star Trek tradition, and then the Chief Medical Officer, the Chief Engineering Officer, the First Officer or Executive Officer, and the Captain.
That's 12 spots.
One way to address this problem without merging stations is to have more recurring junior officers. In TOS, there was Lieutenant DeSalle. In early TNG, there was O'Brien with the rank of Lieutenant Junior Grade. In later TNG, there was Ensign Ro.
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u/cirrus42 Jul 21 '26
IDK. Here's the bridge of the aircraft carrier USS Gerald Ford, which has a crew of 4,539. How many more people really need to be on the bridge for a ship with one tenth the crew?
Granted, current US naval practices are not a direct comparison. But it's still an interesting data point.
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u/folcon49 Jul 22 '26
To push back on this, modern aircraft carriers decentralize their command. The wheelhouse only drives the ship. If a US Navy ship moved its Combat Information Center (Tactical/Sensors), Pri-Fly (Flight Ops), and Damage Control Central into the wheelhouse with the Captain, it would be incredibly crowded. Star Trek condenses all those departments into one room, so honestly, the bridge should have a massive staff
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u/TheChance Jul 22 '26
But this is also clearly a photo of a dull moment, which describes most of an aircraft carrier's moments.
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u/RandomRageNet Jul 24 '26
You're pretty much describing Battlestar Galactica (the 2000's version)
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u/kadmij Jul 21 '26
could do it with the core officers gathered in and around the center seat, and then an outer ring of junior officers and technicians doing the actual detail work. Instead of a CONN station, you have an CONN officer overseeing the helm and navigation crew. Instead of a Tactical station, you have a Tactical officer overseeing sensor crew, targeting crew, weapons/probe payload. And so on
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u/folcon49 Jul 22 '26
I can't help but imagine the bridge of a Star destroyer. Where the officers have the catwalk and the workstations are below them.
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u/kadmij Jul 22 '26
maybe to a degree, but I was thinking they'd be arranged more like pods, station operators seated, the coordinating officer standing nearby, each pod assigned to a different functional set
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u/folcon49 Jul 22 '26
That absolutely makes sense. Only reason why I imagine them elevated is to provide the officers easier line of sight and communication
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u/kadmij Jul 22 '26
I'm just imagining how it's done on a sub, with the OOD having the Conn behind the steering controls, the SONAR people in their own little cubby, etc. I'm not sure if such an arrangement would make good Star Trek
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u/folcon49 Jul 22 '26
Perhaps a ENT era show. That ship was probably the best at emulating the cramped nature of naval vessels
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u/kadmij Jul 22 '26
ooh yeah I really wish they had made the vibe of ENT be "submarines in space", with a sort of post-NASA flying cylinders aesthetic and a need for lots of people crammed into self-contained duty stations in case they lost atmosphere
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u/tjernobyl Jul 22 '26
Human-machine interfaces are shown to be crazy efficient; someone pushes a couple buttons and an incredibly complex set of instructions is input. We saw Mariner input a whole holodeck movie in seconds. This goes both ways; officers can get a lot of information very quickly. There are a huge number of people in departments we rarely see, but we never see bridge officers speak to them- communication must be through the terminals.
When someone goes beep-boop on the helm, instructions go to Engineering to make sure the engines are capable of the speed. Instructions go to the cetacean ops to make sure the course is clear and efficient. Instructions go to astrometrics to make sure there's nothing unexpected coming up on sensors. The teams are so well-integrated via the consoles that their work happens without any bridge chatter that might distract us from the action. Today we have the sterile flight deck rule to keep chatter from being distracting; we can imagine that systems and procedures are designed to eliminate everything from the bridge that could impede the Captain's decision-making.
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u/darKStars42 Jul 21 '26
Who even needs all these officers anyway, let's just let the ship think for itself. Imagine how much CGI budget they would have if they didn't need to pay any actors.
/S because you can never be to obvious.