Of course the real-world reason is that it’s cheaper to shake the camera and set off a firecracker than to build a scale model just to paint a burn scar on the side.

But my thoughts were always that the in-universe reason had to do with the modular nature of federation starships.

In almost every episode, someone on a starship either suggests rerouting something, shunting power from one thing through another, bypassing something, compensating for one power source with another etc.

It seems that in space, being able to re-configure everything at a moment’s notice is important, and to be able to do that, you need easy, fast and direct, access to everything, therefore it needs to be immediately accessible, ergo high voltage power directly behind the controls.

The lack of seatbelts goes right along with it. If a console blows up in someone’s face, the next guy over needs to be able to quickly move down and take over. Don’t need to have to be fighting with seatbelts when nobody is steering the ship.

I don’t know why they don’t have safety glasses however…

  • cyd@lemmy.worldEnglish
    78·
    2 年前

    At the same time, the gravity systems are designed by the best engineers in the Federation because they never, ever, give out, even when the rest of the ship is disintegrating.

    • WastedJobe@feddit.deEnglish
      26·
      2 年前

      Aritificial Gravity is probably part of the system that prevents everyone from going splat against the window Maneo style when they leave warp. Without inertial dampening you couldn’t move ships basically at all, so these systems are probably passive.

      • Thorry84@feddit.nlEnglish
        291·
        2 年前

        The inertial dampeners have issues all the time tho, but instead of everyone getting turned into red mist against a surface instantly it just causes them to sway a little and the camera to shake.

        • JungleJim@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
          8·
          2 年前

          Survivor(star)ship bias: There are only episodes about minor issues with the inertial dampeners because major issues with the system would be very short and messy, and not make for good archival training footage for cadets or whatever the Watsonian reason for our Doyalist TV show may be.

        • Wooster@startrek.websiteEnglish
          2·
          2 年前

          Inertial Dampeners failing means the ship can no longer remain at warp. (Ship would be fine, the meat bags of mostly water would not) Trek is usually pretty consistent about that part.

    • BeardedSingleMalt@startrek.websiteEnglish
      8·
      2 年前

      I can’t remember which series this is from but I swear I remember them saying that the grav plating still holds a charge even in the event of total power failure. So even when the ship is disabled, gravity will maintain it’s hold for a period of time and then will slowly dissipate

      • VindictiveJudge@startrek.websiteEnglish
        3·
        2 年前

        If it was mentioned, it was probably in ENT. They talked a lot more about grav plating in that show than any of the others, probably more than all of them combined.

    • Rednax@lemmy.worldEnglish
      6·
      2 年前

      I used to put that one in the same category as the man-in-suit gorn from TOS: budget/tech restrictions. But even in the latest SNW episode, we see someone waking up on a piece of wreckage with gravity still perfectly fine, while also getting several zero gravity scenes in the same episode.

  • Nobody@lemmy.worldEnglish
    21·
    2 年前

    When a console overloads, it’s way better to be thrown from the seat than to be burned and electrocuted. The lack of seat belts is a safety feature.

  • Indy@kbin.social
    12·
    2 年前

    Over at Daystrom, this comes up from time to time. I’ve formed a head-canon for it as well. To quote one of my comments on a thread there regarding the explosions (and the “rocks”):

    My understanding is that the “rocks” are a product of the electroplasma system being exposed to air. Whether that is some sort of coolant that is meant to seal the EPS leak in that console or some sort of EPS byproduct reacting in air, I don’t remember or have a head-canon for it.

    All of that said, if I form this reply into one worthy of Daystrom, then I say it is an intended safety mechanism to protect the crew against catastrophic failure of the EPS conduits.

    So, the consoles are exploding from the failure of the EPS conduits and the expansion of the coolant.

    • StillPaisleyCat@startrek.websiteEnglish
      3·
      2 年前

      Some engineer friends think it’s failure by design to avoid greater risks - much like a fuse burning out.

      But why not do it more safely?

  • Ramin Honary@lemmy.mlEnglish
    11·
    2 年前

    In an episode of DS9 I heard some of the characters mention that they not only have deflector shields, but also “structural reinforcement shields.” So whatever science-fictiony force field is used to protect them from phasers and micrometeorites is also coursing through the skeletal structure of the ship.

    When I heard this it immediately clicked in my mind: whenever the ship is hit with phaser fire the explosions happening inside are recoil from these internal shields. Perhaps the catastrophic damage prevented by structural reinforcement shields outweighs the localized damage of potentially fatal recoil.

    That is my favorite explanation, anyway.

    (This assumes all ships have structural reinforcement shields, and not just the Defiant.)

  • dmonzel@lemm.eeEnglish
    6·
    2 年前

    What about the rocks, though? It always seems like a starship is built around a massive quarry.