The problem with the Voyager bridge

[susannah]

I want to preface this rant with the statement that VOY is my favorite of the Trek series (edging TNG by a hair), so it's clear that I found a ton to enjoy in the show, its characters, and its milieu; however, it is not in my nature not to question, so—

WTF is with the fact that the bridge of the first ship we see with a female captain is also the first bridge we see where there's no central captain's chair?

Seriously, it borders on the absurd: every other ship, be it UFP or alien, in VOY or any other Trek series, has a captain's chair that is in the center of the bridge (sometimes even elevated). But, as soon as we have a series where we know the cap'n is going to be a vagina-haver, the writers/showrunners feel that the viewing public might not be totally onboard with female authority, and signal their own ambivalence by making her captain's chair symmetrical on the bridge with her first officer's.

I think this ship design is more a commentary on where gender relations stood in 1994 than anything else, but it's something that slaps me hard in the face every time I rewatch an episode. I can't believe I didn't notice it at the time. I guess I was too busy gawking at how bad the Kazon make-up/costumes were.

Has this bothered anyone else?

 

[Paul B. Hartzog]

Thanks for posting your thoughts. I was pondering this very same thought again just a few days ago.

As a long time advocate of diversity and inclusion, I, too, have often wondered about this. In the long run, I decided that even if the gender offense was unintentional, the sheer fact that no one noticed it or raised the issue DOES suggest that people were not as aware back then of what I consider to be important now.

That said, I am a radical anarchist, and the hierarchy of the standard Starfleet bridge has always bothered me more than the egalitarian nature of the Voyager bridge.

So if it helps, think of it as Starfleet (and Janeway) simply being more advanced and equality-oriented and having taken steps to demonstrate that advanced attitude to her colleagues and crew. In other words, it wasn't a "demotion" for the Captain position, but rather, it was a step towards a more egalitarian Starfleet, that had less hierarchy and more "peer to peer" cooperation. In other words, it was the "old men" who kept the Captain's chair and the hierarchy around for so long, and it took a woman's perspective to get them to change it. (I could totally see Janeway steadfastly pushing this with the ship designers :-D )

Voyager is my favorite Star Trek, in part, because of the less-hierarchical bridge setup, and I use a similar approach in my own post-Voyager designs and ideas. I do believe that Starfleet was reflective enough to keep striving for more fairness all around, and I think this would inevitably result in improved ship designs vis a vis implied power relations embedded in architecture and other social structures.

Eventually, in the long-term goal of abolishing hierarchy, perhaps even Starfleet "ranks" came to mean simply who has seniority, and that means who has more practice and experience at being kind, patient, helpful, and compassionate. (Oh, would you look at that, my Zen Buddhism is showing....)

Hope that helps you enjoy the show. It's always helpful to invert/subvert tropes and expectations. :-)

 

[Oddish]

Here's a thought: they let a woman be captain... and gave her a ship named after a minivan.

 

[valkyrie013]

Or it was that tng had 3 characters that were "center" and had 3 chairs. While voyager had 2. But I see how it could go the way you say.
Don't like the 1st officer not having a station like Spock. Doesn't take 2 to command.

 

[Akiraprise]

I don't think that they had completely decided on having a female captain yet as they were constructing the sets. The set design was, as mentioned earlier, more of an equality thing. A decentralization of the command functions between first officer and captain. Some interesting info in the link.

https://forgottentrek.com/designing-voyagers-bridge/

 

[Paul B. Hartzog]

@Akillaprise

Yup, I was reading that just the other day, and it might be why my brain started wondering about this issue again. Kewl article, though. These are good questions:

Could command functions be decentralized? Was it time to break the traditional bridge mould?​

 

[Richard Baker]

Never cared much for the dual seating arrangement. I feel that was product of the show concept of a mix of Starfleet and Maquis crews with "Co-Captains”.
Voyager is the only ship with a crew like this and the only ship with a bridge like this.
While the series pretty much wandered off bead with the two crews concept aside from lip service and a couple episodes, the bridge seating still reflects it.

 

[TommyR01D]

It's a marker of Voyager's size.

The Galaxy-class is a very large ship so has three command chairs. The Defiant-class is a much smaller ship so has just one. The Intrepid-class is in between so has two.

 

[jackoverfull]

I don’t think it was intentional and I understand why it happened (not having a third important character to put on a third chair), but I’ve always found it immensely stupid.

A possible solution might have been keeping the conn/ops setup established in TNG and having Chakotay man a station where Kin usually is. Or, even simpler, have him use a standing station behind the captain, like 7 would do later.

Or even having a first officer with no fixed station, walking trough the bridge and constantly inspecting the crew, could have been interesting!

 

[TommyR01D]

It seems to vary immensely between ships - and series. Sometimes the First Officer is a dedicated standalone office in its own right, other times it's just an additional title bestowed on one of the existing senior department heads.

For Voyager it obviously had to be the former given the coalition nature of the crew.

 

[Kor]

Starfleet should put the Captain's chair on a high platform looking down on everyone else, like in the Klingon ship's bridge in TSFS.

Kor

 

[NCC-73515]

The Equinox had 2 center chairs as well (production reason, sure), and those 2 were guys.

 

[USS Firefly]

I didn't mind It. Voyager was a small ship, the Enterprise and the Defiant had only one chair in the center

 

[NCC-73515]

How many chairs did the J have then? XD

 

[Paul B. Hartzog]

Starfleet should put the Captain's chair on a high platform looking down on everyone else, like in the Klingon ship's bridge in TSFS.

Kor

Spoken like a True Klingon @Kor :-)

 

[TommyR01D]

The Equinox had 2 center chairs as well (production reason, sure), and those 2 were guys.

That's odd. I thought the Nova-class bridge was a redress of the Prometheus's made for Message in a Bottle. That was a much larger ship, yet it only had one command chair... and on raised steps!

 

[NCC-73515]

Can't see the pictures, but it would make sense to redress another bridge. I just thought it looks too similar to the Voyager one to not be a redress. Regardless, it's the one other ship class we've seen that has 2 center chairs IIRC (edit: The Hathaway also had 2).
The Cali class has 3 like the Galaxy or Sovereign, and I think the glimpses we got of a Nebula bridge showed only 1 chair, so I don't think there's a direct connection to size or importance.

 

[Shamrock Holmes]

Can't see the pictures, but it would make sense to redress another bridge. I just thought it looks too similar to the Voyager one to not be a redress.

A search online confirms that it was a redress of an existing bridge set.

A reference book "Delta Quadrant" claimed that it was redressed Defiant bridge set, which seems unlikely.

Online sources suggest that it was a redress of the Excelsior bridge from Flashback that was also the source for the Prometheus bridge, which seems more likely than redressing the Voyager bridge as this would have substantially slowed down filming either of those episodes or subsequent ones.

 

[fireproof78]

Would also take away from the thematic comparison between Voyager and Equinox, and Janeway and Ransom.

 

[TommyR01D]

The Hathaway's bridge is a bit strange, as one of the chair's is clearly the captain's chair but the other looks like an ordinary duty station pulled to the middle for no reason, plus there's no helm or navigation station at the front of the bridge so the captain just has a big empty space in front of him. Maybe Riker's team had to move some furniture around when making repairs?. It's quite unlike the other Constellation-class, the Stargazer, seen in the previous season, where there's one central captain's chair and a more traditional arrangement of stations. Both are, of course, redresses of the battle bridge, as was the other Prometheus (Nebula-class) from Second Sight. That one is even more confusing, since the Nebula has the same saucer section as the Galaxy so you'd think the interiors and population would be basically the same yet that episode makes it look like a very small ship with minimal crew on board.