Future Safety?

[bara]

So, was watching Star Trek and I noticed they have some nice toys.
Teleports, sheilds, warp ship, replicators, hollodecks, lots of hot women, computers that can run Starcraft and not lag. BUT... I have never seen a seat belt.

Not one damn seatbelt on an entire Galaxy Class ship, no safety harness, no air bags.

I can see it now, cruisin along the milky way and BAM! Stupid comet just came from no where and you are thrown through the viewscreen into vacuum to get the wonderful experience of your blood boiling out through your skin before you die.

[Andara Bledin]

Well... considering that you have to have something majorly bad happening to even feel the ship moving... At that point, seatbelts are kinda further down the safety checklist.

^-.-^

[Gravekeeper]

Well... considering that you have to have something majorly bad happening to even feel the ship moving... At that point, seatbelts are kinda further down the safety checklist.

This is kind of the funny part about it. There's really no reason at all for the bridge to lurch as it does or explode as much as it does ( Talk about faulty wiring ).

Also, Nerd Mode Engaged: The Viewscreen on the bridge is not a window and the Enterprise D is capable of immediately sealing any breach in the hull with a force field. Also, considering the ridiculous level of sensor technology displayed on Star Trek, a random comet is not about to take the ship by surprise. -.-

Your blood would also not boil out of your skin, while gases in your body would expand, they would not break the skin. They will, however, rupture your lungs if you do not immediately exhale any breath you're holding. Thus your biggest problem is simply suffocating and passing out. However, if you did exhale, which you probably will as you shriek like a little girl, you could actally survive for a good 10-15 seconds with only mild discomfort before you started to really suffocate and began basically developing the bends.

Either way you'd survive with plenty of time for the breach shield to kick in. If you were sucked out, an emergency teleport back inside via transporter would save your arse.

This is all of course if a comet actually managed to breach the shields and hull straight to the bridge. We're talking about the ship that fell from orbit and hit the surface of a farking planet and everyone on the bridge was perfectly fine even without seatbelts on. >.>

[HYHYBT]

Shields and transporters are useful, but their most impressive devices (also the ones that allow the show to work at all) are things like artificial gravity that never fails and the probably-related inertial dampers (or some similar name) that keep everything not fastened down mostly in place. Without that, the forces involved would kill everybody regardless of seat belts... and think about all the *stuff* lying around in the living areas, bar, etc.

[bara]

Also, considering the ridiculous level of sensor technology displayed on Star Trek, a random comet is not about to take the ship by surprise. -.-

Its a Klingon comet, with a cloaking field <shifty eyes>.

[Ginger Tea]

If they can drop out of tartan to a stop with little to no lurching for those standing ...

Teleporters how ever, seeing as they could be tampered with, you go in whole and come out with a few corrupted chromozones due to whatever plot device.
Mind you if they had teleporter technology I'd love to have an XY XX swap, really would like to know what I would look like as a woman

[SongsOfDragons]

I'm more familiar with Voyager than any of the Enterprise-based seasons, though I like them all. I remember watching Year of Hell and there was a scene where the Bridge was damaged; the viewscreen had been half-ripped off and it was open to space, but the big hole was sealed by a force-field without too much decompression.

And now I am imagining health and safety officers three hundred years in the future...just as annoying and killjoy and unfortunately necessary as today... XP

[Andara Bledin]

Personally, I don't get why the bridge is ever anywhere near the hull of the ship.

Why the hell would you have all of your most important people so close to the outer perimeter of your defenses? There are no logistics to be worked out since communication is instant and travel would be easier were it in a centralized location. It just makes no sense, even in a "peaceful" era.

^-.-^

[linguist]

the enterprise had a 2-bridge system. the main bridge was located near the hull in the saucer section, and then the battle bridge was central in the main body of the ship. of course, i never understood the whole system, since even when under attack, the battle bridge was almost never used, unless the saucer was being detached. it always made more sense to me to always use the battle bridge.

[Ginger Tea]

my thoughts exactly, mind you the bridge was there cos the original series had it there, but the war bridge as I was calling it to myself (forgot the term battle bridge being the official one) was only introduced mid season of 2 or 3 due to a section split and afaik no meantion of it even being able to split had been made untill that episode.

Same as forward whatever with Whoopie Goldberg, it just appeared one episode and we are just meant to accept that it's always been there.

[Salted Grump]

had a debate not too long ago with a friend about how the Enterprise-E (newest one, seen in the movies with Picard etc.), while it has the weaponry required to be classified as a warship, would be utterly ruined if enemy ships used kinetic weapons (mass drivers et al) Due to a variety of factors.

First off; Short-range weapons. For 'phased energy emitters' and Antimatter torpedos, the Enterprise has almost never actually fired at anything further than 50 kilometres away.

Second off; how often has the Enterprise run blindly into a Space Wedgie of the week and lost all power? Oops, there goes all the forcefields, including the antimatter containment forcefields. *pop* Made even worse in the -E series, as, according to canon, the ship does NOT have windows; just forcefields.

Third off; Hull durability; while it looks iconic, it speaks volumes about the ship in that, in all its incarnations, it ~requires~ a 'Structural Reinforcement Field' to avoid buckling in on itself. Has Nobody heard of bulkheads?

Now, let's say, for argument's sake, that someone drops a Kol Battleship from Sins of a Solar Empire into the ST universe; All of a sudden you have a dedicated warship with integrated automated factories, 2-metre thick bulkheads, 14-metre thick layered armour plating over everything But the Engine venturi, and a crew of 2500 cramed into a spartan, vicious, and slow sardine can that is nearly 3 kilometres long, and has a mix of Cutting beams, Pulse lasers, and Autocannon arrays, plus heavy-duty omnidirectional deflection shielding.

How do you think ST, as a whole, would react to something that is, essentially, a flying brick made to hurt people and break their stuff?

[wraiths_crono]

Funny, we had a similar discussion about this at work. and Thanks for bringing Sins of a Solar Empire into it. Heck Imagine bringing a Battlecruiser from EVE into the ST universe...Or a Drake... heh The ST ships would be toast quickly.

[HYHYBT]

my thoughts exactly, mind you the bridge was there cos the original series had it there, but the war bridge as I was calling it to myself (forgot the term battle bridge being the official one) was only introduced mid season of 2 or 3 due to a section split and afaik no meantion of it even being able to split had been made untill that episode.

It's been a while, but I'm sure the first use of the second bridge would be the first time the ship separated, and that that was in the first episode.

Same as forward whatever with Whoopie Goldberg, it just appeared one episode and we are just meant to accept that it's always been there.

Not so strange. It's a ship built for a thousand or so people. Why *shouldn't* it have areas where nothing worth putting on the highlight reel happened to occur over the course of a year?

[anakhouri]

I don't think seat belts will matter much when every console on the bridge seems to be wired to explode at any moment.

[Gravekeeper]

Yeah, Star Fleet technology is incredibly weak towards Plot Devices, but by the same measure, a Star Fleet ship can use Plot Devices to defeat any other ship. Thus is the inherent problem with challenging the Enterprise with a ship from another franchise.

The other inherent problem, ironically enough, is transporter and sensor technology. In the Star Trek universe, it is a common technology so everyone has countermeasures against it. Without countermeasures, the level of information a Star Fleet ship can glean about another ship with a sensor sweep is hilariously detailed. The show's proven they can basically get the entire lay out and structure of the target ship including the positions of every life sign on board if they're not interfered with in some way.

Against a ship from another franchise that lacks that technology and thus any reason to counter that technology, a ship from the Star Trek universe would just start systematically transporting the enemy crew into open space and/or transporting live warheads directly onto the enemy ship. Ironically, extremely few other sci-fi franchises use crazy sensors or teleportation tech specifically to avoid being compared to Star Trek. Which leaves them inherent vunerable to it.