Marcus The Impudite's List Of Preposterously Dangerous Design Flaws Starfleet Vessels Should Never Have Been Allowed To Leave Spacedock With

[Old Man]

Yeah, I'm not sure it's possible to be overpowergunned with the Borg and Dominion on your doorstep.  It was so ineffective against the former that Worf ordered it into a kamikaze attack in a hopeless attempt to inflict some damage.  (Which is why Worf is not on my list of "Trek captains I'd like to work for".)

 

@Spence: I've read those tech manuals, but they still don't really explain the ship's form factor.  I get that bits can separate, but why a saucer?  Even if the warp drive is in the secondary hull, why is it hung way below the ship?  Things like that.  I know the real answer is "because Roddenberry thought it looked cool", but the Enterprise is so weird that you have to ask for an in-universe justification.

[Spence]

@Spence: I've read those tech manuals, but they still don't really explain the ship's form factor.  I get that bits can separate, but why a saucer?  Even if the warp drive is in the secondary hull, why is it hung way below the ship?  Things like that.  I know the real answer is "because Roddenberry thought it looked cool", but the Enterprise is so weird that you have to ask for an in-universe justification.

 

You're digging too deep.  The real answer is the flying saucer of the 50's and 60's ruled science fiction in that era. 

 

Studio Guy:  We need a ship for a science fiction series.  It needs to be futuristic and exciting!

 

Concept Artist #1:  {scribble scribble sketch sketch}  Like this?

 

Studio Guy:  No! No!  Not a rocket.  We're have rockets.

 

Concept Artist #2:  {scribble scribble sketch sketch} How about this.

 

Studio Guy:  Ooohhhhh.... A flying saucer.... great!   Flying Saucers just say "futuristic".  But it is missing something, and there are some other shows that used flying saucers.  Can we give it some pizzazz?

 

Concept Artist #1:  {scribble scribble sketch sketch...adds tube shapes}  How about that!

 

Studio Guy:  Beautiful.  That is perfect. 

 

And so the NCC-1701 was born......

 

Well, maybe not really, but you get the idea....

[Clonus]

Yeah, I'm not sure it's possible to be overpowergunned with the Borg and Dominion on your doorstep.  It was so ineffective against the former that Worf ordered it into a kamikaze attack in a hopeless attempt to inflict some damage.  (Which is why Worf is not on my list of "Trek captains I'd like to work for".)

 

@Spence: I've read those tech manuals, but they still don't really explain the ship's form factor.  I get that bits can separate, but why a saucer?  Even if the warp drive is in the secondary hull, why is it hung way below the ship?  Things like that.  I know the real answer is "because Roddenberry thought it looked cool", but the Enterprise is so weird that you have to ask for an in-universe justification.

 

The in-universe justification is that they want to keep the non-engineering crew away from the parts of it that are particularly prone to explosions and bursts of radiation.  

[sinanju]

Ahem.  What they meant by "overpowered and overgunned" was that if you turned the engines on full power, they would proceed to repel each other and end up tearing the ship in half.  Until of course Miles O'Brien managed to do one of those impossible fixes that Star Trek engineers do.  

 

...and which Star Trek Admirals ought to expect by now. (See Kirk and Scotty for examples of this.) So the ship was not, in fact, overpowered. I stand by my theory.

[Clonus]

To be fair it was a technical problem that could not be solved by a mook engineer.  It required a protagonist.  

[DShomshak]

Some of these design flaws come from the limits of television. Like, it makes sense that starships would have manual overrides that are actually manual – but every set and every shot takes time and costs money, both of which are tightly budgeted. So when the plot requires the computer to crash or the normal controls to be blocked by an alien force, it makes sense for Captain Kirk to call for manual override -- but are they going to spend five seconds of precious broadcast time showing an extra somewhere throwing a switch or turning a big wheel, wait a beat, and then say, “It’s not working, sir”? Not when they can spend two seconds showing Sulu, still on the bridge, punch a button and deliver the line.

 

No seatbelts on the bridge is less excusable. People staggering and lurching around the bridge as the camera shakes looks more exciting on screen than people swaying in their seats, but after a while it does start to seem silly. (If you need to show people lurching about as the ship is hit, do a quick cut to stock footage of extras staggering about the halls while they hurry to their posts -- as they did several times, so there’s even less excuse for bridge crew falling about.)

 

But not having an emergency exit from the bridge when the turboshaft is out of ourder is just sloppy storytelling. It’s one thing if a powerful, enigmatic alien force traps the bridge in a force field, but a broken elevator? That’s just ridiculous.

 

And some design flaws would be okay if the circumstance happened only once, but lazy writers keep using it over again. This is how the holodeck became silly. One story in which the holodeck goes out of control can be exciting and, after all, no technology is perfect. When it happens once or twice every season, you start to wonder why a supposedly competent government wouldn’t ban such a dangerously erratic technology.

 

Then again, in J. J. Abrams’ recent movies, it’s clear that the entire Federation is run by drooling idiots. Star Trek: Into Darkness repeatedly relies on large institutions picking up the Idiot Ball and not letting go. Like, how does the rogue admiral in charge of Star Fleet acquire the Botany Bay and thaw out Khan without anyone else knowing? And then build a whole prototype dreadnaught without anyone knowing? Doesn’t Star Fleet have civilian oversight and basic accounting? Later in the movie, a starship is falling out of the sky onto San Francisco. Doesn’t Earth have deflector screens and tractor beams to protect major cities?

 

I know, you can come up with explanations. But these issues are too big, and too central to the story, to be brushed aside. At least, I found them so. In drama, sometimes you can get away with shortcuts if they don’t materially affect the plot. (Like, the alien force that takes over the ship can also block the manual override. Though it would be nice now and then to show a manual override that worked.) But if you need to swallow huge gaps in common sense and basic information to make the story work, you are telling the wrong story.

 

(This is also why I have become deeply impatient with Steven Moffat’s stewardship of Doctor Who, btw. Moffat has said flat-out that he doesn’t do science fiction: He’s telling fables. But even fables must observe certain constraints of story logic if they are to be meaningful, and Moffat’s fables don’t.)

 

Dean Shomshak

[JmOz]

Anything by Bay is "Take something loved for 20+ years,  change it so it LOOKS like it did, but with more dark edges and bigger explosions, throw on silver screen for mindless entertainment" not saying there is anything wrong with that per say...

[Xavier Onassiss]

What are we up to, ten? I like 10. We should go for 20.

 

10. The Bridge (or "Command Center") with all the upper echelon officers on duty at the same time, is located on the upper deck of the ship where it's most vulnerable to getting blown to bits along with most of the ship's chain of command. Wouldn't it make more sense to put it in the middle of the hull where it's safest?

 

This is as much a policy problem as a design flaw. The ship's CO, XO, 3rd, 4th and 5th in command should never all be on duty in the same highly vulnerable area, especially during combat. And if they weren't in the starring roles of a poorly written space opera, they wouldn't be.

 

 

You just knew I'd de-lurk to poke fun at Trek, didn't you? Well, now you do!

[Badger]

Another list I'm compiling, figured it would be right at home here on the Star HERO forums:

 

Marcus The Impudite's List Of Preposterously Dangerous Design Flaws Starfleet Vessels Should Never Have Been Allowed To Leave Spacedock With:

 

1) Lack Of Seatbelts: Yes, Starfleet ships come equipped with Inertia Dampeners; but if I has a nickel for every damned time they've been knocked offline and the crew has been jostled around like the balls in a Bingo hopper, I'd be independently wealthy. Cars have seatbelts. Airplanes and helicopters have seatbelts. The frickin' space shuttle had seatbelts. It's a tried and true safety technology, so it's highly illogical for starships to not have them.

 

2) Holodecks And Holodeck Characters That Can Go Lethally Haywire: As cool as the concept of a Holodeck is, who in their right mind would put such technology on the market knowing it was possible for it to kill someone? In real life, it would be a class action lawsuit waiting to happen, and the manufacturer's CEO would be doing the perp walk shortly after the first time a child gets eaten by Barney The Dinosaur. Honestly, you'd be better off just buying every member of the crew their own Play Station.

 

3) An Astonishing Lack Of Surge Protection: Some remote part of the ship takes a hit during combat and immediately a console on the bridge erupts into a fountain of sparks and the person manning said console is blown backwards about 2 meters. That makes about as much sense as your laptop violently exploding whenever someone hits your WiFi hotspot with a tack hammer.

 

4) Holding Cells In The Brig Only Have Force Fields To Keep Prisoners Contained: Brilliant idea, now every power outage we might have in that part of the ship is a potential jailbreak (the Thin Lizzy song of the same name, entirely optional).

 

 

COurse, for #2, there are countless anime characters that would love this for their training from hell episodes.

[Badger]

8) Wear a G%^!@#$ environment suit when you beam down to a completely unexplored planet: Sure, its bulkier and more uncomfortable than going in your pajamas, but how many times have away teams been jeopardized  by exposure to previously undetected alien spores, viruses, gasses, and what have you?

 

It doesn't matter you'll just have that dumb guy from Naked Time on your away team and he'll take his glove off anyway.

[Badger]

neither are capable of going high-impulse, much less warp speeds

 

Depends on whose driving.

[Badger]

With the result that the Defiant is a shockingly ugly ship.

 

I've always wondered what the technobabble explanation for Federation ship layouts is supposed to be. I can buy that the nacelles have to be hung out on struts because warp field, but why the saucer section? Why are the secondary hull and main deflector slung under the ship? And why are the ships of other races shaped the way they are?

 

Simple.

 

Federation=style

Everybody else=substance.

[Old Man]

...Not sure that pencil necked Klingon battlecruisers count as 'substance' either.

[Zeropoint]

The classic Matt Jeffries Klingon D-7 Battlecruiser, IMO, actually exhibits a trait of many proposed "real-world" ships: having a habitat section separated from the engineering section by a long and lightweight spar, to minimize crew exposure to radiation.

 

Of course, such a rationalization assumes that the forward bulb IS "the habitat section" and no crew are routinely in the aft section, which is probably not the case in the Trek universe.

 

In any case, I'm not too bothered by the widely different look of the various species' ships. Yes, they're all trying to solve the same engineering problems, but they are alien species, not merely different human cultures, and it's not surprising that they'd come up with different solutions to the same problems. Even then, most ships hold to the rules about warp nacelles coming in even numbers and having a clear path forward.

[Badger]

8) Wear a G%^!@#$ environment suit when you beam down to a completely unexplored planet: Sure, its bulkier and more uncomfortable than going in your pajamas, but how many times have away teams been jeopardized  by exposure to previously undetected alien spores, viruses, gasses, and what have you?

 

Of course, on the other hand, if your ship crash lands in water during the 40th century with water rapidly seeping in, don't bother to check the damn air, just blow the hatch and take your chances. 

 

Now get your stinking paws off me.

[Tasha]

The whole Klingon style ships with Romulan crews and the Bird of Prey (movie Version) being a Klingon ship come from the economics of physical models being in the show and having to be created. In Search for Spock, the antagonists were originally supposed to be Romulans and the ship model was created for that purpose. It was decided that the antagonist was better if they were Klingons, so they had the model built and so it became a Klingon ship. TOS did something similar with an encounter with Plasma Torpedo firing Romulans in a D7. Budgets are tight, so they use and reuse what models they have on hand.

 

Now that we have computer modeling and can use Computer Generated Effects, the model problem pretty much goes away once the ship models are created on the computer.

 

Most of the things listed in the OP are really an artifact of Star Trek being a Weekly Television show. One that always had a limited budget and producers that weren't wedded that closely to continuity and causality.

[Badger]

...Not sure that pencil necked Klingon battlecruisers count as 'substance' either.

 

Maybe, the Klingons were *cough* "overcompensating?

 

 

Ehh, I don't know.

[Major Tom 2009]

Another list I'm compiling, figured it would be right at home here on the Star HERO forums:

 

Marcus The Impudite's List Of Preposterously Dangerous Design Flaws Starfleet Vessels Should Never Have Been Allowed To Leave Spacedock With:

 

1) Lack Of Seatbelts: Yes, Starfleet ships come equipped with Inertia Dampeners; but if I has a nickel for every damned time they've been knocked offline and the crew has been jostled around like the balls in a Bingo hopper, I'd be independently wealthy. Cars have seatbelts. Airplanes and helicopters have seatbelts. The frickin' space shuttle had seatbelts. It's a tried and true safety technology, so it's highly illogical for starships to not have them.

 

2) Holodecks And Holodeck Characters That Can Go Lethally Haywire: As cool as the concept of a Holodeck is, who in their right mind would put such technology on the market knowing it was possible for it to kill someone? In real life, it would be a class action lawsuit waiting to happen, and the manufacturer's CEO would be doing the perp walk shortly after the first time a child gets eaten by Barney The Dinosaur. Honestly, you'd be better off just buying every member of the crew their own Play Station.

 

3) An Astonishing Lack Of Surge Protection: Some remote part of the ship takes a hit during combat and immediately a console on the bridge erupts into a fountain of sparks and the person manning said console is blown backwards about 2 meters. That makes about as much sense as your laptop violently exploding whenever someone hits your WiFi hotspot with a tack hammer.

 

4) Holding Cells In The Brig Only Have Force Fields To Keep Prisoners Contained: Brilliant idea, now every power outage we might have in that part of the ship is a potential jailbreak (the Thin Lizzy song of the same name, entirely optional).

 

With regards to #1, they did address this design flaw in the first movie, when (during the wormhole scene) the armrests of the Captain's chair

(as well as those of certain other Bridge personnel) flipped over the upper legs of those sitting in them, thus acting as a seatbelt of sorts. It

wasn't until Star Trek: Into Darkness that the chairs had "actual" seatbelts (I use the term "actual" in the sense that the chairs had technology

similar to that used in the Lost In Space movie, in that the seatbelts appeared around the chairs' occupants).

 

As for #2 through #3, one phrase pretty much explains them: Scriptwriters and the Need to Create Drama for any given TV episode.

 

 

Major Tom 2009

[Major Tom 2009]

5) All weapons systems control runs are bundled and vulnerable to point failure: HOW many times were the Galaxy-class Enterprise's weapons systems knocked out by the first volley of an engagement? Where was the secondary control system? Why couldn't they be operated by weapons techs in on-mount controls?

 

6) Where are the Transporter-delivered nukes? Why does ANY ship survive more than one second after it's shields go down?

 

#5: You have to remember that (as shown in the early seasons of ST: TNG) the Galaxy was a fairly peaceful place, with the Federation-Klingon

alliance in place and the Romulans (for whatever reason) keeping to themselves, and not stirring up the kind of trouble that Kirk and Spock had

to deal with in their day. There's also the fact that Federation/Starfleet vessels were designed primarily as exploration vessels, not warships. Oh,

yes, they did have weapons, but these were more for self-defense than actual combat, and therefore not as robustly-built as the weapons of

Ships-of-the-Line (those vessels designed from the very start with ship-to-ship combat in mind, and thus less likely to lose their offensive capa-

bilities from a single enemy volley). This shortcoming of Starfleet ship design would come back to bite them in the posterior in the years to come,

with the Borg Invasion, the Klingon Civil War, and the Dominion War all waiting in the wings.

 

As for manned on-mount weapons stations, the ships of Kirk and Spock's time (at least during the TOS era) did have such stations. One can

only assume, however (based on the events depicted in the episode Balance of Terror), that personnel losses from circuitry explosions and

phaser coolant leaks were reason enough to switch from manned phaser stations to remotely-controlled fire from either the Main Bridge or

the Auxiliary/Battle Bridge. Indeed, the only manned weapons area on a Federation ship appears to be the Photon Torpedo loading/launch

bay, with personnel needing to remove safety panels from the photorp conveyor assembly before the weapons can be loaded and prepared

for launch.

 

#6: There's a simple reason why there aren't any transporter-delivered nukes or photorps (at least during the mid- to late-23rd Century):

Deflector Shields. During the time period covered in the original series and the later movies, no object or person could be transported

aboard a ship which had its shields up; AFIAIK, the first time that someone managed to beam aboard a shielded vessel was when the

Enterprise-D encountered the Aldean civilization in the 24th Century.

 

As for why a ship which has lost its shields survives for more than a second once that's happened, there are a couple of good reasons:

 

1.) If said shield loss was due to Starfleet weapons fire, the Starfleet captain (not being a bloodthirsty butcher) would give his or her

opponent a chance to surrender without further loss of life.

 

2.) If it's a Starfleet vessel which has suffered the loss of its shields, its continued survival is usually due to the fact that it's notoriously

difficult to interrogate a ship's crew and officer complement (or access its main computer) when they've been turned into a cloud of

mixed air and water vapor, as well as metallic particles.

 

 

Major Tom 2009

[Major Tom 2009]

7) Lack Of Ladders From The Bridge: How many times have we seen the bridge crew trapped because the turbolifts lose power or are overridden?

 

I have to disagree about the holodecks, though. Children are allowed to ride roller coasters, go white-water rafting, and engage in other entertainment activities with dangerous or even lethal potential, on the assumption that the equipment and the training of its crews have made them as safe as possible. Many people continue to do these things despite the occasional serious accidents that have occurred.

 

I'm not sure if I'm remembering this correctly, but I think that, when the Star Trek Technical Manual was originally published (back in

the late '70s or early '80s), there were deck plans showing that the Bridges of the Constitution-class ships (such as the Enter-

prise) did have access ladders leading from it to lower decks; it's been literally decades since I had access to that particular

book, however, so it's entirely possible that I'm mistaken.

 

 

Major Tom 2009

[Major Tom 2009]

With the result that the Defiant is a shockingly ugly ship.

 

I've always wondered what the technobabble explanation for Federation ship layouts is supposed to be. I can buy that the nacelles have to be hung out on struts because warp field, but why the saucer section? Why are the secondary hull and main deflector slung under the ship? And why are the ships of other races shaped the way they are?

 

1.) Saucer Section: the primary habitat section for the ship's crew, it also houses the various research labs that can be found upon

a ship of the Constitution class; prior to its redesign into the Enterprise class, it also housed the photon torpedo launchers (once

they entered the Starfleet inventory). Also houses the Impulse Engines and Engineering section.

2.) Secondary Hull: houses the Navigational Deflector array, cargo holds, shuttlecraft hangar bay, and Warp Engineering (with

secondary control systems in the Saucer Section's Engineering section and Main Bridge.

 

(The Warp Engineering section is the main reason why the Secondary Hull is beneath the Saucer Section, as it's where the ship's Matter

and Antimatter power source is located [although there are also transfer lines which allow photorp crews to prime torpedo housings with

a Matter/Antimatter charge prior to firing, at least on the Constitution class Heavy Cruisers and the later Enterprise class ships]. As for

the Navigational Deflector, its positioning on the fore area of the Secondary Hull allows its cone-shaped field to provide the ship with the

greatest amount of protection available from space debris, such as micrometeoroids or slightly larger asteroidal or meteorite fragments

in the ship's direction of travel.*)

 

Back in the early '80s, there was a Star Trek publication which had an article about the warp nacelles of Federation ships (TOS era), and

how they were mostly Bussard collector-equipped linear particle accelerators (being able to not only collect hydrogen particles from space,

but also to fuel the Matter-Antimatter reaction which powered the Warp drive) that provided thrust to the ship in addition to creating the

subspace field which let it enter Warp space; when the Enterprise was redesigned (as shown in ST: TMP), those engine nacelles were

replaced with units which were not only solely Warp field generators, but also (as mentioned in the novelized version of ST: TMP) six

times more powerful than those used on the Constitution class.

 

As for why the ships of ST's various alien races look like they do, I have to add a little bit to Clonus' answer to that question, in that it's

mostly a case of culturally-influenced design as well as engineering considerations. For example, from what's been said about the

Romulans in some published material, their homeworld has some impressive avian predators (or creatures which fill the same basic

slots in the planetary ecology), which has apparently influenced Romulan ship design to the point that virtually all Romulan warships

have an avian design (or are named after flying creatures native to Romulus). The almost blade-like architecture of Klingon warships,

on the other hand, is what one would expect of an aggressive warrior race. Where Federation ships are concerned, the designers

were apparently more concerned with practicality and function, rather than what were likely considered unnecessary artistic 'bells

and whistles' design-wise. The one thing that all three have in common is the need to provide the most protection possible to ships'

crews from the radiation given off by the Warp field generation systems; as seen in both Klingon and Romulan designs, part of this

protection involves placing the Warp nacelles as far from the Primary Hull/crew section as possible (the Klingons take this a step

further, as described in the Klingon Ship Recognition Manual; in their battleship-class and larger vessels, Klingon citizens operate

the Warp drive systems due to the better shielding aboard such vessels, whereas in the cruiser-class and smaller vessels, the Warp

systems are operated by servitor races (one can only imagine the turnover rate amongst Klingon engineering crews under such

conditions). Federation ships most likely use a combination of deflector shields, force fields, and radiation-resistant alloy shielding

to provide the same level of protection (if not better) to the crews of their vessels.

 

Now, regarding what Tasha said in her post about the Klingon and Romulan ships, I don't doubt what she said in the least. However,

there's also past ST (TOS) history to take into account; specifically, the episode titled "The Enterprise Incident", in which it was re-

vealed that the Klingons and Romulans had entered into an alliance with one another, and that -- due to an exchange of technolo-

gies -- the Romulans were now using Klingon-designed D-7 cruisers (while the Romulan name for their D-7s wasn't revealed in

that episode, there are other sources that refer to them as the Romulan Stormbird-class, and that they aren't very-well liked by their

Romulan commanders, who consider them enemy vessels). When FASA published the Ship Recognition Manuals for both the

Klingons and the Romulans, they expanded upon the background of the alliance between the two foes of the Federation. In these

books, it was mentioned that, in exchange for the D-7 cruisers (and empty hulls of the same class, so that the Romulans could

equip them with their technology), the Klingons recieved not only several cloaking devices, but the plans for the Bird of Prey class

scout ship as well. It was mentioned that the Klingons were so taken by the design of the BOP, that they immediately made plans

to produce frigate- and cruiser-sized versions of it as well (needless to say, the Romulans were not only unhappy to learn of this

development, it was also mentioned that they were nervous about possibly facing these giant clones of their design one day in

battle). The design still exists and is in use by the Klingon fleet of the 24th Century, and is even larger than its 23rd Century

predecessors (while not as large as the Federation's Galaxy-class vessels, the BOP of the 24th Century is more than capable

of providing a challenge to such a ship).

 

 

Major Tom 2009

[The Weapon]

Hence inertial dampners. 

 

....aaaaaand there goes the infinite argument loop.

Inertial dampners work against the force of the ships own engines.  As soon as something ELSE causes the ship to move (e.g. weapon hits) they take time to compensate.  Usually not enough to move you more than a few feet, but still, it's an unnecessary risk.

[bigdamnhero]

8) Wear a G%^!@#$ environment suit when you beam down to a completely unexplored planet: Sure, its bulkier and more uncomfortable than going in your pajamas, but how many times have away teams been jeopardized  by exposure to previously undetected alien spores, viruses, gasses, and what have you?

IIRC, the canon rationale was that the transporters were supposed to scrub out anything "extra" the crew tried to bring back with them, which worked 99.9% of the time. Hey, it's not like our society is ever guilty of over-reliance on technological safeguards.

 

#5: You have to remember that (as shown in the early seasons of ST: TNG) the Galaxy was a fairly peaceful place, with the Federation-Klingon

alliance in place and the Romulans (for whatever reason) keeping to themselves, and not stirring up the kind of trouble that Kirk and Spock had

to deal with in their day.

Granted. And if TNG had been about how the Federation had incorrectly assumed that peace would last and how they now had to scramble to cope with the emergence of new threats, I would've liked the show a lot more. But I always felt like the tried to have it both ways: Starfleet isn't a military force yet can trounce any military force in existence, despite having ships not well designed for combat and crews that don't train for warfare. They tried to walk this back a bit in later seasons, and more so with DS9, but it was still always with "we're not saying we need to change, but..." disclaimers. [shrug] I loved many things about TNG, but Roddenberry's utopianism was always a bit too naive and forced for my tastes.

 

I'm not sure if I'm remembering this correctly, but I think that, when the Star Trek Technical Manual was originally published (back in

the late '70s or early '80s), there were deck plans showing that the Bridges of the Constitution-class ships (such as the Enter-

prise) did have access ladders leading from it to lower decks; it's been literally decades since I had access to that particular

book, however, so it's entirely possible that I'm mistaken.

I have the same memory, but with all the same caveats...

[C-Note]

I never understood where all the "steam" came from whenever a ship took structural damage.  They take a hit and steam starts venting from somewhere.  What the hell are they using steam for on a 23rd century starship?  "Scotty, I need more power!"  "Captain, I'm shoveling coal as fast as I can!"

[L. Marcus]

Perhaps it's leaking coolant? I 'unno.