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…

  • Thorry84@feddit.nl
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    1 year ago

    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.works
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      1 year ago

      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.website
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      1 year ago

      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.

      • e_t_@kbin.pithyphrase.net
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        1 year ago

        You should really only need inertial dampeners when changing velocity. You only go splat when the ship’s velocity is significantly different from yours. If it slows down before you do, you splat on the forward bulkhead. If it speeds up faster than you, you splat on the aft bulkhead.