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I haven't gone through in detail for all the Starfleet vessels I know of, but it seems that all Enterprises seen in the TV show and movies have bridges positioned right in the top middle of the saucer section. I am wondering why this is. This seems to be a very vulnerable location, and in at least one instance (ENT episode "Twilight") the bridge's vulnerable location leads to its destruction. It seems like a bad idea to have the bridge positioned there.

I seem to recall Gene Roddenberry had specified this should always be the location of the bridge for Starfleet ships. Whether or not this is the case, I still must ask, "Why?"

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  • Great question! – flq Jan 11 '16 at 20:54
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    There is a related question on Worldbuilding SE – DaaaahWhoosh Jan 11 '16 at 21:10
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    Given the types of high-energy weapons used on Trek, aren't they pretty much relying entirely on shields to protect all parts of the ship, not physical insulation? I would imagine that even if the bridge was buried in the center of the ship, without the shields a phaser or photon torpedo would tear through the outer layers like butter and blow it up all the same. – Hypnosifl Jan 11 '16 at 22:29
  • Interestingly, this is also the case for Romulan and Klingon ships, which each have their bridge in the forward "head" of the ship. – jscs Jan 12 '16 at 08:58
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    @Hypnosifl It's not really about Trek weapons being high-energy, as much as it is about Trek ships being "elegant" - they rely almost entirely on their shields for protection (and even then, the damage "leaks" through the shields a lot). Star Wars ships sling far higher-energy weapons at each other, and they are still armoured heavily. From a physical standpoint, this makes perfect sense - your shield is only as strong as your superstructure; if someone throws a rock at you and your structure can't take it, it will rip your shield generator out of the ship :P – Luaan Jan 12 '16 at 09:37
  • @Luaan - Your last sentence doesn't really make sense to me--how could the superstructure be damaged by something (say, a rock) that doesn't even get through the shield to hit the superstructure in the first place? Are you talking about your earlier comment about damage leaking through the shield? I'm not sure that's true exactly--a starship under fire seems to experience power surges which cause consoles to blow up, but that could be something more like shield generators experiencing overloads as they rush to shift energy around to where the shields are being hit. – Hypnosifl Jan 12 '16 at 10:53
  • consider if you will the bridge placement on the Klingon D-7 class battle cruiser. You don't even have to hit it, a good swipe with continuous wave phaser fire and you have a litteral decapitation attack, with the added bonus that you take out the primary weapons systems as well. I think we can conclude that Trek universe ships in general rely heavily on functioning shields to survive enemy fire. – Joseph Rogers Jan 12 '16 at 11:57
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    1 noted instance doesn't sound like it's particularly vulnerable. Especially when you compare it to the real vulnerability: highly sensitive explosive packs hidden in consoles - those things must go off in over 90% of the episodes, often inuring or killing crew! – Eborbob Jan 12 '16 at 14:01
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    @Hypnosifl Well, momentum is conserved. That means that deflecting a rock means applying momentum to your ship. So either you have to move the shield (which would negate usefulness of such a shield), or you have to apply the momentum to the shield generator. If the shield generator is well integrated with the ship structure, this simply accelerates the ship - if it isn't, you cause damage to the structure or the shield generator. Also, note that the "console effects" only became "mainstream" in TNG - before that, it was first seen in the Kobayashi Maru, where it was a way to simulate damage. – Luaan Jan 12 '16 at 14:37
  • @Luaan - But we're talking about Trek physics rather than real physics--we don't see ships visibly move when their shields absorb an impact, so it's possible momentum conservation doesn't work that way in Trek. After all, how is momentum conserved when a ship jumps from sublight to warp? Maybe in both cases the equal and opposite momentum is radiation in subspace, or maybe both shields and warp involve warping of spacetime, and in the real theory of GR (general relativity) where that happens, conservation of energy and momentum are only valid in a "local" sense, not a "global" one, – Hypnosifl Jan 12 '16 at 19:09
  • as explained here and here. And there is a theoretical solution in GR, the Alcubierre drive, which works a bit like Trek warp, and according to this paper it would be a "reactionless drive". – Hypnosifl Jan 12 '16 at 19:13
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    @Luann - Though come to think of it, there must be some momentum transfer because we see the cast rock sideways on the bridge whenever there's a weapons impact, even with shields functioning. Maybe it's not large enough to be visible on exterior shots, only interior ones (probably the effects people just didn't really think about the issue when creating shield hit graphics). I think it's been established that Trek ships have "inertial dampeners" which prevent the ship from squashing like an accordion in sudden accelerations, but they have a slight lag so people on board still get shaken. – Hypnosifl Jan 12 '16 at 23:09
  • Can't be as bad as a Star Destroyer from Star Wars. Big old box hundreds of meters on top of the Star Destroyers... So poorly designed, they had to have 2 DEDICATED SHIELDS JUST FOR THE BRIDGE – Daniel Jan 12 '16 at 23:09
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    I thought this question was "Why are Starfleet badges positioned so vulnerably?" and I thought, "Yeah! Good question!" Aliens are always capturing the crew and ripping their com-badges off! – CJ Dennis Jan 13 '16 at 03:05
  • @Daniel Those globes aren't shields :) And Star Destroyers don't actually depend on their bridges - the ship systems are autonomous, so destroying the bridge only means a few moments of confusion. Of course, it's still the thing that killed the Executor - the crew didn't have enough time to reclaim controls when the bridge was destroyed. I guess noöne imagined that seconds might make a difference with such a huge starship designed for slugging that lasts for hours (just think about it - it was extremely unlucky for the ship to accelerate towards DS as a result of bridge destruction). – Luaan Jan 13 '16 at 16:32
  • http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/ISD-72x_deflector_shield_generator_dome @Luaan, this is a shield generator. – Daniel Jan 13 '16 at 17:02
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    And while they may not have depended on the bridge, it's certainly inconvenient to have your command staff blown off the ship. – Daniel Jan 13 '16 at 17:03
  • @Daniel This is tricky. The (old) canon literature describes the globes as sensor equipment, which makes a lot more sense - remember, the globes were destroyed only after the bridge shields collapsed (due to heavy bombardment by the Rebel fleet, including ion cannon fire). One non-canon source (the X-Wing video game IIRC) introduced the idea that they are shield globes (for gameplay reasons), and others copied it. There's a nice analysis at http://www.theforce.net/swtc/towers.html#globes by Curtis Saxton. As for command staff being killed... well, they have more to fear from Vader, eh? :D – Luaan Jan 26 '16 at 09:01
  • Fair enough. I'll take that. – Daniel Jan 26 '16 at 16:16
  • Related: https://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/173473/are-star-trek-ships-bridges-protected-against-beaming-torpedos-into-them – Machavity Jan 05 '18 at 16:02
  • @Luaan How do you know whether Star Wars ships fire more powerful energy bursts than Star Trek? When they show atmospheric bombardments in Star Wars, the torpedoes/plasma bursts just create a small, burnt hole while just one Star Trek ship, whether Federation or alien can completely devastate an entire planet. That suggests that Star Trek ships arre much more powerful. – Sovereign Inquiry May 05 '20 at 17:14

16 Answers16

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In the Star Trek: Next Generation Technical Manual, it is mentioned that the Bridge module is replaceable. This makes a case for why the bridge should be where it is.

The concept of the replaceable bridge module originated during Star Trek V, when we were working with Herman Zimmerman on a new Enterprise bridge that was quite a bit different from the one seen in Star Trek IV. We rationalized that this was because the bridge, located at the top of the saucer, was a plug-in module designed for easy replacement. This would permit the ship's control systems to be upgraded, thereby extending the useful lifetime of a starship, and would make it easier to customize a particular ship for a specific type of mission. This concept also fits the fact that we've seen the main bridges of at least four different Miranda class starships, the Reliant (Star Trek II), the Saratoga (Star Trek IV), the Lantree (Unnatural Selection) and the Brattain (Night Terrors), each of which had a different bridge module.

The problems with this placement are clear, but we also see that unshielded starships are extremely vulnerable. If an enemy wanted to destroy your ship, they would be better served by targeting the reactor. If they wanted to kill the bridge crew specifically, they could always beam them out into space, no matter where the bridge was located.

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    An excellent find. Since they need to be able to slot it out and slot it back in again, burying it in the guts of the ship makes no sense. – Valorum Jan 11 '16 at 20:59
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    @Richard Of course, replacing the whole bridge just to upgrade the control systems seems a bit of a waste. But oh well, this is the universe that led to plasma conduits routed directly through the control consoles. At least replacing the bridge has benefits (likely allowing the whole upgrade to be done significantly quicker, which might be quite important in the tiny Federation fleet). – Luaan Jan 12 '16 at 09:28
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    A ridiculous premise in a world with transporter technology. Parts of the ship they want to replace are beamed off with cargo transporter technology and beam back exactly the same way. No need to position the bridge for mobile access since transporter technology is so ubiquitous. Any facility doing that kind of work already has such technology at their disposal... – Thaddeus Howze Jan 12 '16 at 20:31
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    But, we repeatedly see vessels in stardock being constructed in the old fashioned way, welders and workers. Transporters are rarely used for large objects, and it is mentioned in an episode that the cargo transporters are lower resolution, and cannot safely transport people. Its entirely possible the energy doesn't scale linearly, or lining up pieces in a multi-step transport operation is impossible/difficult. – ench Jan 12 '16 at 20:34
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    Amusing side note: in an episode of Enterprise, Lt. Reed has a line saying, "There's no rule that a bridge has to be at the top of a ship." (while he and Trip are looking around the inside of the Romulan unmanned vehicle). Of course, he's an armory guy and not a construction engineer, so even in-universe he's allowed to be wrong. :-) – Ti Strga Jan 12 '16 at 22:42
  • I guess, being placed on top of the ship is the primary reason for the bridge to need a replacement so often. The other question is, what is really controlling the ship, the main computer or the touch screens in the bridge. But @Luaan nailed it, in Star Trek, it’s the touch screen, through which the plasma flows, that controls the ship. The main computer is merely for stupid discussions and driving the holodeck. Oh wait, memory comes up. Isn’t there an alternative control room, not being placed on top of the ship? Does that mean, this secondary control room is never updated? – Holger Jan 13 '16 at 10:57
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    The battle bridge, yes. Its located in the neck of the ship on the Enterprise-D. Your comment is amusingly accurate, as the set for this bridge was actually repurposed from the TOS bridge, if I remember correctly. – ench Jan 13 '16 at 15:27
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    A replaceable bridge would allow you to 1) construct a new module when the ship is away on a mission and 2) use it as an escape pod to maintain ship control up till the last second, while the rest of the crew is abandoning ship. Also worth noting that combat is never the #1 priority of a federation ship. – Kevin Laity Jan 13 '16 at 16:26
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    The Defiant (DS9) has shown that armoured ships have a good ability to withstand a barrage, for some time at least. – user001 Jan 14 '16 at 10:51
  • @user001, good point. It always seemed like their Ablative Armor was a very strange development, since at times they treated them exactly like shields "Ablative Armor down to 74%!". – ench Jan 14 '16 at 21:48
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    @ench Ablative armour would act like that though. It's designed to disintegrate under pressure without passing the energy into the ship itself – user001 Jan 15 '16 at 09:17
  • Well I do not know how many of you have seen a combat ship, but the bridge is almost always on top and/or in front of the ship's superstructure. If you ever watch some older W.W.-2 movies, like battle of the river platte, sink the bismark, in harms way! Combat at sea is a very deadly business. The bridge was always the first target and there are no shields. That is why real warships have a CIC (COMBAT INFORMATION CENTER) and why most series even STTOS had an auxiliary control center or battle bridge. Star Trek was about exploration, and fight only if we must, in self defence. – templerman Aug 23 '18 at 17:22
  • Plus most hull classes have auxiliary control rooms and battle bridges deep in the belly of the vessel for when the main bridge is destroyed. – MissouriSpartan May 14 '20 at 03:09
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Officially, because Gene Roddenberry said so. Part of the ship design parameters places the bridge on the top of the ship as per his specifications. He had strict design parameters set for all the ships of the series.

enter image description here

Roddenberry's Design Rules: The following are Gene Roddenberry's official design rules. I found them at Jim Stevenson's Starship Schematic Database.

"Years ago, I was lucky enough to attend an Industrial Design class conducted at a Star Trek convention by Andrew Probert, head of the design team for the Enterprise in ST:TMP and primary designer of the Enterprise-D. He was nice enough to relay to me the 'Unofficial Starship Design Rules' as told to him by Gene Roddenberry..."

Rule #1 Warp nacelles must be in pairs.

Rule #2 Warp nacelles must have at least 50% line-of-sight on each other across the hull.

Rule #3 Both warp nacelles must be fully visible from the front.

Rule #4 The bridge must be located at the top center of the primary hull. Recently Andrew Probert confirmed at Trekplace that these are really the design rules that Roddenberry and he himself nailed down for TNG.

  • Given the metaphor of starships as battleships, and Roddenberry's military experience, he is placing the bridge of the ship in the same place it would be on most military naval vessels of his time. Note the windows in the front of the bridge area. Substitute bridge monitor on board a starship for the viewports.

enter image description here

  • However, in the real military, the bridge is capable of viewing the external world because captains and their command crew might want to be able to SEE their enemy with binoculars or other optical equipment. In space, this makes no sense, since the enemy is far beyond the range of normal vision.

enter image description here

  • Scientifically speaking, given that it's a starship and uses external sensors, it doesn't necessarily make sense for the command region to be physically at the top of the ship. In fact, the actual bridge should be deep within the ship like the auxiliary bridge control area is on combat Federation vessels.

  • Since Federation starships are equipped with shields and the forward shields are the strongest shields on the ship, perhaps it is no more vulnerable than any place else on a starship, since without the shields, most ships don't appear to be able to withstand a concentrated barrage of fire from enemy vessels anyway.

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    since Federation vessels are ostensibly not combat vessels, perhaps his goal was to put the bridge right out in front as a sign of openness? – KutuluMike Jan 11 '16 at 19:29
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    Perhaps. I related to it immediately as former Navy personnel, so I can understand, but given their technology it didn't HAVE to be there for any reason other than aesthetics. – Thaddeus Howze Jan 11 '16 at 19:31
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    Beautiful answer, Thaddeus. +1 – Praxis Jan 11 '16 at 22:14
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    In space, this makes no sense, since the enemy is far beyond the range of normal vision. In some episode crew members look out the window and actually see nearby ships when in fact they probably should be too far away to see! –  Jan 12 '16 at 01:18
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    Sci-fi writers, generally, have no sense of scale. (note the article image). – Nick T Jan 12 '16 at 01:38
  • @NickT - That article image shows a ship appearing on the bridge viewscreen, not a window, so it's not a good example of ships in windows appearing closer than they should be, a viewscreen can show a magnified view. – Johnny Jan 12 '16 at 03:08
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    Bridges on naval military vessels tend to be expendable. Sure, they tend to host your command staff, but the ship doesn't stop working just because you destroy the bridge and kill the command staff - every other piece of the ship tends to be autonomous to an extent. Even some Star Trek ships have redundancy - we've seen the Enterprise-D has a backup bridge, for example - and the backup bridge is much less exposed. Star Wars military ships are an even better example of the "naval tradition" - the big guns on Star Destroyers have their own power sources and targeting systems, for example. – Luaan Jan 12 '16 at 09:35
  • Of course, these design rules have been violated more than once, such as the Saladin and Hermes class ships with a single nacelle (and I'm sure I've seen others). They always jumped out at me. – T.J. Crowder Jan 12 '16 at 13:05
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    "might want to be able to SEE their enemy with binoculars or other optical equipment" - As a former US Navy member, the bridge crew probably makes the most use out of being able to directly see when navigating in port or mooring. You don't really want your enemy too close :) . Also, it's possible on some ship to control the vessel completely from engineering. However, it makes one feel better to actually see where the large, heavy, expensive ship is going. – Steve Jan 12 '16 at 13:19
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    The future Enterprise in All Good Things had three nacelles. – Lucas Jan 12 '16 at 17:57
  • @Steve: indeed, line of sight is irrelevant to modern warships too. And you can still have a small bridge for port navigation where that matters. But…you haven’t worked yourself the ranks up to become chief mate or captain to work deep down the ship and smell the oil. You have the right to see sunlight and breathe fresh air. On a starship, however, having the bridge on the outside does not pay off. – Holger Jan 13 '16 at 11:12
  • @Thaddeus: in combat, the placement of the bridge might be irrelevant when the shields are down. However, ships are not always in combat. And the placement of the bridge might be relevant on asteroid impact or such alike. Further, when the shields are not down, the damage seems to affect the outer structures first, as depicted in almost every Star Trek battle. We see lots of situations where the placement of the bridge backfires, including direct impacts. And don’t forget, the first reason why placing bridges on top of the spaceship makes no sense is that there is no “top” in space… – Holger Jan 13 '16 at 11:22
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    "Most military naval vessels of [Roddenberry's] time" and a picture of a Zumwalt-class destroyer don't really mix. That program wasn't even started in Gene's lifetime. ;-) – DevSolar Jan 13 '16 at 12:54
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    I note in passing that the USS Defiant from DS9 violates Rule #2 considerably -- there is 0% line of sight between the Defiant's nacelles, since they are flush-mounted along either side of the primary hull. – Jazz Jan 13 '16 at 18:01
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    Many of these rules were violated after Roddenberry's death. DS9 is filled with such ship violations. – Thaddeus Howze Jan 13 '16 at 18:37
  • Who says forward shields are the most powerful? – Sovereign Inquiry Nov 30 '22 at 02:57
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There's a multi-part answer to this.

This is not an actual spaceship. It's an elaborate fantasy backdrop upon which the actors play out mostly ancient and classic story types. The bridge of the starship is the "executive suite," where the leaders lead from. You don't see the President of the USA or the CEO of Apple setting up their offices in the bowels of the cellar.

The bridge is where the Executive-class folks hang out. They're the bigwigs. The bridge needs to have an executive flair to it, and being up in the apex of the ship helps us earth-bound folk understand that it does.

Finally: the layout of the bridge and the notion of its importance and placement really has to make sense to us, the viewers, not to be actually an appropriate layout for running a real ship. Also, it has to be pretty handy to the camera people getting the shots. One of the reasons that the layout is circular...no matter what angle you take your focus on the captain, there's a flash of equipment/tech station behind him.

The layout of the ship also has to be flawed in order to allow for plot twists and conundrums.

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    "What does in-universe mean"? – Valorum Jan 13 '16 at 00:55
  • @Richard The first half of this answer works in-universe, but considering the OP references out-of-universe reasoning, there's no reason for answers to constrain themselves to in-universe explanations. – TylerH Jan 13 '16 at 16:22
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    This answer is the least fun, but sadly, it makes the most sense. – Mark Meuer Jan 14 '16 at 18:57
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    @MarkMeuer, I definitely concur. Least fun. Unless, of course, you're WRITING episodes...then the meta-tech becomes a bit more fun! I mean, think of it...how many years were Batman and Robin strapped to a conveyor belt with pink velvet bathrobe-ties, and the bad guys LEAVE THE AREA to let the dynamic duo inexorably inch toward their demise...only to save themselves at the last second? An in-universe person/henchman would say "hey, boss...why don't we just put a slug in their hippocampus?" – dwoz Jan 16 '16 at 02:03
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The bridge is actually not a valuable target on a fighting ship. Killing the captain and some of the command staff will not render the ship inoperable. It is more valuable to target ammunition storage, engines or power systems in an attempt to sink (in this case depressurize), disable or destroy the target.

In the case of space travel, I believe that a fighting spacecraft would have a similar design to that of a submarine.

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    Why would a decapitation strike not work on a spaceship? – March Ho Jan 11 '16 at 22:38
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    @MarchHo because most systems can also be controlled from engineering? – Zoredache Jan 11 '16 at 23:14
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    @MarchHo: You wanna die when the chief engineer demonstrates zero restraint? Not me. – Joshua Jan 11 '16 at 23:25
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    @Joshua "Computer, transfer command functions to Engineering, Authorization LaForge Omega One Four Seven" –  Jan 12 '16 at 01:22
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    +1: In playing the hit indie game FTL, one finds that the best areas of an opponent ship to target are their weapons, shields, and/or engine.  The bridge is important, but destroying it won't necessarily net you a win.  Understandably, this is only one fiction and the Star Trek universe may have distinctly different mechanics, but still. – Slipp D. Thompson Jan 12 '16 at 07:43
  • Possibly the reason for not targeting the bridge is because then other people will do that. This is why assassinations are rare. – Rob Grant Jan 12 '16 at 09:05
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    @SlippD.Thompson Depends on your weapon payload. An FTL bridge can be better to hit than the engines because it disables the same functionality, and is normally easier to disable (max 3 health). – deworde Jan 12 '16 at 12:02
  • @deworde Of course. It depends a lot on what kind of ship you're attacking. Teleporters, or bot control, or clone storage may be better to hit. I only meant that in the general case towards the beginning of the game using the starter ships, weapons and shields are the best to hit and engines if they're evading so much you can't hit the first two or if they're preparing to jump. And in my experience. But there are numerous strategies & playstyles, of course. – Slipp D. Thompson Jan 12 '16 at 12:08
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    @Robert Grant: inside the TV show or the movies, it’s not uncommon to target the bridge of a ship. Besides that, space debris doesn’t obey the “You don’t destroy my bridge and I don’t destroy your bridge” contract. The bridge is a dangerous place if it isn’t the bridge of the Enterprise. Even the Enterprise’s bridge gets serious damage several times, but as long as you are not wearing a red shirt you’re still safe… Besides that, even if the outside of a ship wasn’t a dangerous place, that was still no reason to actually do placing the bridge on the outside. – Holger Jan 13 '16 at 11:30
  • @Holger from what I remember, targeting the bridge is a disenfranchised baddie move. But I may be mistaken. – Rob Grant Jan 14 '16 at 15:41
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    @MarchHo On a real fighting warship. There is the Bridge and there is also the Command and Control Center, usually located deep within the ship. During a battle, the captain stays on the bridge while often the XO will man the C&C, preventing any possibility of a "decapitating" strike. Although I would still point out, that even if the captain and XO were killed, the ship does not lose its ability to fight back, and that's why it is not a priority target. Space combat will obviously be different from naval combat, but in any fight, its best to go for a catastrophic kill over a blinding attack. – Charles H Jan 14 '16 at 21:41
  • Even if "it's not vital, you can still control the ship from engineering" whoever was previously in charge on the bridge would be gone, if it's a fight over revenge or against the captain that would end the fight right there. And maybe the new engineer-captain in engineering doesn't want to join the former bridge crew so would retreat. At the very least, the former captain's tactics would be lost or interrupted, and there would be a brief pause, maybe that's enough for the enemy to take advantage of. – Xen2050 Aug 10 '17 at 06:22
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TPTB worked around this issue a bit in The Next Generation. In addition to the main bridge at the top of the saucer section, the Enterprise-D had a "Battle Bridge" located in the drive section of the ship. The two bridges were connected by a dedicated turboshaft. I believe that the battle bridge was only used in the show when the saucer and drive sections were separated, and that the battle bridge was located at the top of the "neck" of the ship and was therefore just as exposed as the main bridge when the sections were operating separately, but the battle bridge was more heavily armored and had smaller windows (or maybe no windows?)

So to answer the question, at least as it relates to ST: TNG - they were able to position the bridge so vulnerably (or to look at it another way, so prominently) because it could afford to be vulnerable: they have a dedicated secondary bridge for battle situations.

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Dan C
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Really, a starship bridge would be more inside the vessel, but for aesthetics relating to sailing ships, having a bridge that can be prominent and easily located is natural. Let's face the fact that even though the Enterprise isn't designed to enter the atmosphere of a planet, it still is shown as being upright even relation to other spaceships even though there is no up or down in space.Now some ships like the defiant class have enclosed bridges, and less prominant profiles. And in later Star Trek shows, you see the full use of XYZ axis manuevering, as well in the J.J. Abrams movies. In real life, the beautiful shapes of the Trek starships we all love wouldn't be practical designs.

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chanjoo brown
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    How practical or not they would be depends entirely on the technology available. And Star Trek handwaves a lot of issues with technology - wherever it's possible to use some high-tech gadget, you can bet they use the highest-tech gadget available. Overal ship shape is just one example of this, and it's mainly driven by the extreme reliance on shields and "structural integrity fields" (How does it hold together under stress? It just does.). Most of the weirdest design decisions stem from this basic design philosophy - a showcase of high-tech gadgets. – Luaan Jan 12 '16 at 14:43
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One important thing to remember in the specific case of the Enterprises - they aren't military vessels; they're roving science stations. So, the logic behind their creation wouldn't inherently be that of a military tactician.

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MichaelS
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Because once the shields are down, it doesn't really matter where the bridge is located. If your aggressor still has shields, whether you're buried deep in the ship or not - you're still dead as you have no ability to repel the enormous amounts of damage that enemy weapons deliver.

In addition, in a combat scenario where all sorts of jamming and electronic failure are possible, you don't necessarily want to rely on those systems to be able to navigate through the confrontation. In many of the fleet engagements we see in Star Trek, within a relatively short amount of time, the encounter takes place within visual range. Much like when piloting an aircraft or driving a car - you want to be able to see where you're going as opposed to looking down at a display (which may be destroyed in combat as well).

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    "visual range" means close enough to determine what the object is with camera's. It has nothing to do with windows. – Mast Jan 13 '16 at 13:20
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Two reasons.

  1. Psychologically, it establishes the bridge crew as the most prestigous officers on the ship. Whereas we never see the poor schlubs assigned to the "bottom".

  2. If you look at the two pilots of TOS, the opening "curtain" is the viewpoint swooping up the the top center of the saucer and then the cast is revealed through the figuratively invisible ceiling at the top of the dome. This may have been the intended way to open up Star Trek episodes which would have necessitated the bridge being on top.

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The location of the bridge, as well as of the battle bridge, is also an interesting metaphor for Starfleet as a whole: the main bridge is out in the open, which is good for negotiations (it can show that you have nothing to hide, which could help make others more amicable), but the battle bridge is buried deep inside the ship, where it's less vulnerable to weapon fire. This is a reflection of Starfleet's stance on combat: while peaceful exploration is their main goal, they're ready for a fight if push comes to shove.

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As mentioned in Enterprise S04E06 The Augments, the bridge of the Klingon ship has very strong bridge armor that deflects almost any weapon fire. Based on that I think that most post-Enterprise bridges implement a similar technology. Therefore the bridge is generally safe from most types of weaponry. Also some ships such as the 1701-D had a battle bridge.

Edlothiad
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Beluga Whale
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The answer is simple. Star Trek is patterned after naval vessels, in every respect, including rank. Alot of science fiction movies and shows, depict this,, including Star Trek. All navel vessels have the bridge, atop of the ship, so this is simply carried over, to Star Ships.

Barry Lewis
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Starfleet does design the bridge for safety, but they have a different threat model that they're defending against.

Keep in mind that in the TOS and TNG eras, it was relatively uncommon for a ship to be physically torn apart by enemy fire unless it was completely outmatched. What was more common was that its shields would try to block too much incoming fire, too quickly, and this would destabilize its power systems, leading to a warp core malfunction. Crews could be forced to abandon their ship because of radiation and other hazards even though the hull itself was largely intact - this was the fate of the Stargazer, for instance. More often, the warp core was damaged and would need to be repaired or abandoned, but again, the warp core could blow up in an otherwise intact spaceframe. Weapons systems could also be a hazard if damaged, as in the episode "Balance of Terror".

Now, in reality this is probably largely an effects-and-budget consideration: it's a lot easier to have some engineer shouting about a warp core breach and then cut to an explosion rather than showing beams physically tearing through hull plates. But that was still the threat model that Starfleet had to work with: shields protect the ship from the enemy, but the ship's layout is designed to protect the crew from the ship.

In that case, the logical place for a ship's command center is as far from any potential radioactive or other hazards from the warp core and weapons as possible. Given the original, rather squat saucer design of the first Enterprise, the bridge being on top of the main hull gives it that protection. The Galaxy-class might offer better protection in the forward-most part of its saucer, but that's also a prime location for weapons systems for maximum coverage, so the designers might have preferred to keep the bridge where it was.

And, of course, Starfleet's mission was not solely military. Stellar phenomena are often shown threatening the stability of the warp core, reinforcing the idea that other critical systems should be kept as far away from it as possible.

Cadence
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According to Ronald D. Moore, the positioning of the bridge atop the primary hull is simply a legacy from the 1960s Trek shows that they chose to respect.

Q. Why on all starships in the Bridge on deck 1. Is this not stupid?

RDM: You can certainly make that argument, but the Bridge on Deck 1 is a legacy from TOS that we're not going to abandon.

AOL Chat

Valorum
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  • Noting the above, the decision to put the bridge of the USS Shenzhou underneath the saucer is simply part of a greater malaise where the showrunners show their casual disrespect for the Star Trek IP. [rant over] – Valorum Dec 31 '22 at 19:16
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In TOS, they often zoom in on the captain sitting in his chair on the bridge from a viewport. This indicates that the viewport is actually a window that you can physically see out of... potentially the bridge might actually be able to "rotate" which would give you 360 degree view of the space around you. Although they do have "magnification" enhancements, so its possibly some sort of Window+Screen hybrid... where the window is made of some extremely strong material, as invented in Star Trek IV by Scotty.

All of this makes sense, as if you were to embed the bridge within the ship, you would have to rely solely on a computer screen, which relies on: a) sensors, and b) cameras - which can be disrupted by technology.

Something not proposed in Star Trek, but would make a lot of sense, is to make the bridge a "mobile" module, that moves up and down through the interior of the saucer section... kind of like a periscope. So that if the sensors or cameras are in question, you could move the bridge module up to take a look around.

Also... I believe the whole star ship is designed to be modularized, as you have seen that, they are able to jettison entire modules. So each module might even have its own force field, (i.e. sub-shield generator) that way... in the event that the exterior shield ever went down, if you hit a single module, it would help to mitigate the damage of each individual module. This could explain why, when a room is damaged in a ship, you will always see a force-field covering the exposed area.

You can see that they can create force fields in sections, all around the ship... it makes sense then, that every deck/section has its own sub-shield generator, which ultimately helps protect the structural integrity of the ship.

So the best explanation is, that the bridge is not as vulnerable as you might think. It might be positioned in a seemingly vulnerable location, but when you factor in,

  1. Materials used.
  2. Layout of materials (i.e. bulkheads).
  3. Localized force fields
  4. Shield (global force field).

Then its clear that it is not as vulnerable. Also considering, there is auxiliary control, which would be used as a secondary bridge, and is in a more safer remote location.

Then consider, if the saucer section were to detach, and to make a crash landing... (which Kirk has done at least twice). Would you rather be in the crow's nest, or would you rather be in the heart of the ship, that will take the brunt of the structural stress?

I'd like to think that the bridge is capable of moving up and down levels, like a turbolift, like a periscope. That would be best.

Au101
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Warren
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    Welcome to Science Fiction & Fantasy! This is a very interesting post but, forgive me, it seems to be mostly your own opinions and speculation. For example, starting a sentence with 'Something not proposed in Star Trek, but would make a lot of sense,' is not something we really encourage on this site. On this site, we're generally looking for canon answers, ideally supported by references to the original content or an interview with the author/director/whoever, that kind of thing. – Au101 Nov 08 '16 at 20:06
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    I think (and this is a long post and I know nothing about Star Trek) there are a lot of good facts in this answer, but they're a bit lost amongst what you'd like to think and what you reckon is best - and that's just not what this site is aimed at. You'll get a much better reception (cause you clearly know your stuff) if you stick to the facts and add in as much supporting evidence as you can. That's what makes a good answer here and will gain you plenty of votes :) – Au101 Nov 08 '16 at 20:08
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It doesn't matter where you put the bridge, if the shields are down, the bridge would be no more vulnerable than anywhere else. The hull of a starship even if the bridge is buried by 20 decks, is no more or less safe in an era of energy weapons capable of leveling continents. The real reason is bridges in real ocean going ships are just as prominently placed for sake of visibility. Gene Roddenberry wanted it up top to give a sense of scale for it compared to the ship itself. Another in universe instance is the bridge is a detachable module, that can be removed and replaced with whatever new technologies or refits are necessary.

LazyReader
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