Skip to main content

star trek - Why are quarters on the Enterprise-D so spacious?


Watching TNG I noticed that nearly every crew member has very spacious quarters, which is something that does not seem practical on a space vessel.


Today's aircraft carriers house 3 officers to a room and 8 or more enlisted men to a room.


Why are quarters on the Enterprise-D so spacious and is there evidence that lesser crew members had more confined/shared living quarters?



Answer



Why the quarters are so spacious;





  • Ship space isn't at much of a premium. The ship can readily hold ten times the present crew when the need arises (for evacuation missions and emergencies) which means that for most of the time, the ship is 90% empty.




  • The Enterprise is not a military vessel. Their primary mission is one of peaceful exploration. In addition to there being a considerable number of civilians on board, the crew are not expected to maintain military discipline in their quarters. Providing them with spacious accommodation would obviously lead to less stress and a happier and more productive crew.




The TNG Technical Manual has this to say on the subject;




Starfleet believes that providing comfortable living quarters to all crew and attached personnel to be of primary importance. Indeed, living accommodations are one of the most visible displays of Starfleet's commitment to caring for its single most important "system," its people.


...


The living areas of the starship have been designed for maximum comfort and safety while the crew is conducting a mission. Long-term studies of humanoid cultures have confirmed that as each race embarked upon permanent occupation of space, large personal living spaces had to be established, especially on early sublight expeditions. The Enterprise allows for some 110 square meters of living space per person, in addition to community space and the areas allocated to purely working functions.


While some engineers on the Galaxy Class Project questioned the relatively large size of the vessel, opting for a smaller, more efficient design, it was conceded that the large size provided a greater number of mission options, given the changing social, political, and economic conditions in the Milky Way.




Do lesser crew members have less space?


Yes, crew quarters aboard the Enterprise-D (at least for Starfleet personnel) are assigned and sized according to rank. In the episode TNG : Lower Decks, we learn that enlisted crewpersons are required to share quarters until they reach the rank of Lieutenant.



LAVELLE : Promote me, please -- so I can make Lieutenant and have my own room.



TAURIK : If you aren't happy sharing quarters with me, then you should put in for a new room assignment. Just in case you're not promoted.



Above the junior ranks, Senior officers are provided with staterooms and at least one extra room for work/study. Picard and Riker use this extra space as separated visiting areas, Data uses his extra room as a private workspace and Troi uses hers as an informal workroom with her famously messy desk. The ship also contains "apartments" for officers who choose to bring their families on board, comprised of two normal sets of quarters combined into a single living area.


Picard's quarters


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Did the gatekeeper and the keymaster get intimate in Ghostbusters?

According to TVTropes ( usual warning, don't follow the link or you'll waste half your life in a twisty maze of content ): In Ghostbusters, it's strongly implied that Dana Barret, while possessed by Zuul the Gatekeeper, had sex with Louis Tully, who was possessed by Vinz Clortho the Keymaster (key, gate, get it?), in order to free Big Bad Gozer. In fact, a deleted scene from the movie has Venkman explicitly asking Dana if she and Louis "did it". I turned the quote into a spoiler since it contains really poor-taste joke, but the gist of it is that it's implied that as part of freeing Gozer , the two characters possessed by the Keymaster and the Gatekeeper had sex. Is there any canon confirmation or denial of this theory (canon meaning something from creators' interviews, DVD commentary, script, delete scenes etc...)? Answer The Richard Mueller novelisation and both versions of the script strongly suggest that they didn't have sex (or at the very l...
1 comment
Read more

Why didn't The Doctor or Clara recognize Missy right away?

So after it was established that Missy is actually both the Master, and the "woman in the shop" who gave Clara the TARDIS number... ...why didn't The Doctor or Clara recognize her right away? I remember the Tenth Doctor in The Sound of Drums stating that Timelords had a way of recognizing other Timelords no matter if they had regenerated. And Clara should have recognized her as well... I'm hoping for a better explanation than "Moffat screwed up", and that I actually missed something after two watchthroughs of the episode. Answer There seems to be a lot of in-canon uncertainty as to the extent to which Time Lords can recognise one another which far pre-dates Moffat's tenure. From the Time Lords page on Wikipedia : Whether or not Time Lords can recognise each other across regenerations is not made entirely clear: In The War Games, the War Chief recognises the Second Doctor despite his regeneration and it is implied that the Doctor knows him when they fir...
Post a Comment
Read more

story identification - Animation: floating island, flying pests

At least 20 years ago I watched a short animated film which stuck in my mind. The whole thing was wordless, possibly European, and I'm pretty sure I didn't imagine it... It featured a flying island which was inhabited by some creatures who (in my memory) reminded me of the Moomins. The island was frequently bothered by large winged animals who swooped around, although I don't think they did any actual damage. At the end one of the moomin creatures suddenly gets a weird feeling, feels forced to climb to the top of the island and then plunges down a shaft right through the centre - only to emerge at the bottom as one of the flyers. Answer Skywhales from 1983. The story begins with a man warning the tribe of approaching skywhales. The drummers then warn everybody of the hunt as everyone get prepared to set "sail". Except one man is found in his home sleeping as the noise wake him up. He then gets ready and is about to take his weapon as he hesitates then decides ...
Post a Comment
Read more

warhammer40k - What evidence supposedly supports Tau as related to the Necrontyr?

I've heard of rumours saying that the Tau from Warhammer 40K are in fact the Necrontyr. Is there anything that supports this statement, in WH40K canon? I just found this, on 1d4 chan 1 : Helping Necrons? Or are they Necrontyr descendants? An often overlooked issue is that Tau have no warp signatures, just like Necrons, hate Warpspawns and Warp in general, just like Necrons, have the exact same skull shape,stature and short lives, and the overwhelming need for Technology and beam weapons, JUST LIKE NECRONS. GW may have planned a race that simply prepares a pacified, multiracial galaxy for Necrons to feast upon, supported by Ethereals that have a C'tan phase blade. Then there is a reference of "dark seed in east" by the Deceiver, so the tricky C'tan might give Tzeentch the finger in the JUST AS PLANNED competition. Or maybe GW just has so little creativity that they simply made a new civ conforming to an Old One's standards without knowing it. Is this the connec...
Post a Comment
Read more