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Can you imagine Magellan carrying families with him on his circumnavigation, with it's staggering death toll? Oh, the humanity!

The Enterprise-D's bridge ended up looking like a hotel lounge anyway.

The basic layout is not exceptionally awful. But the tactical station Worf occupies could have easily been a seated position with a standard console off to the side of the main COM area. The First Officer and Ship's Councellor/Second Officer's positions are totally redundant, and the basic placement of the Captain's chair in what amounts to a conversation pit is just plain goofy. The whole rationale for placing the Captain on an elevated platform at the centre of the bridge in the first place was so that he could turn to any station and see display readouts or speak directly to the officer manning the position —enjoying a fully unobstructed 360° view of everything going on around him. As it was, Picard had only the foward view unobstructed, and the bulkheads on either side of his chair didn't even have information screens for him to refer to. His information flow was far more limited than Capt. Kirk's ever was, and the "horseshoe rail" essentially blocked security personnel in their movement across the bridge.

Overall, the defects with the layout of the E-D's bridge are in the details of its design, which hindered efficency. Considerations which neither Gene Roddenberry or Andrew Probert particularly thought important since their imperative was to show a ship the crew would be comfortable with.

Patrick Degan wrote:The Enterprise-D's bridge ended up looking like a hotel lounge anyway.

Overall, the defects with the layout of the E-D's bridge are in the details of its design, which hindered efficency. Considerations which neither Gene Roddenberry or Andrew Probert particularly thought important since their imperative was to show a ship the crew would be comfortable with.

Then go and look at the Defiants bridge. Now THATS a logical bridge design for a warship. Sisko can see everything everyone is doing with a slight turn of his head, he can see the main viewscreen easily and weapons, tactical and communications were split into clear individual stations. The stations all ring the bridge so theone person who has a need for the main viewscreen appart from Sisko (the helmsman) can use it, everyone else is tucked out of the way.

And there is a small confrence area at the back of the bridge so you don't waste time walking back and forawrd from that confrence room. And if you do need a larger space in a non emergency with more then a senior offivers, then you just use the mess hall. So preaty much every square meter of the bridge is used as opposed to the horrible E-D design.

Why am I not surprised that neither Reddenberry or B&B had anything to do with that design....

Chris OFarrell wrote:

Patrick Degan wrote:The Enterprise-D's bridge ended up looking like a hotel lounge anyway.

Overall, the defects with the layout of the E-D's bridge are in the details of its design, which hindered efficency. Considerations which neither Gene Roddenberry or Andrew Probert particularly thought important since their imperative was to show a ship the crew would be comfortable with.

Then go and look at the Defiants bridge. Now THATS a logical bridge design for a warship. Sisko can see everything everyone is doing with a slight turn of his head, he can see the main viewscreen easily and weapons, tactical and communications were split into clear individual stations. The stations all ring the bridge so theone person who has a need for the main viewscreen appart from Sisko (the helmsman) can use it, everyone else is tucked out of the way.

And there is a small confrence area at the back of the bridge so you don't waste time walking back and forawrd from that confrence room. And if you do need a larger space in a non emergency with more then a senior offivers, then you just use the mess hall. So preaty much every square meter of the bridge is used as opposed to the horrible E-D design.

Why am I not surprised that neither Reddenberry or B&B had anything to do with that design....

Yes. Essentially a cut-down version of the original Enterprise bridge. Herman Zimmerman designed the Defiant for the series, as well as the present incarnation of the Enterprise.