this post was submitted on 23 Nov 2023
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Star Trek

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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....

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[–] [email protected] 82 points 11 months ago (5 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 26 points 11 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 29 points 11 months ago (2 children)

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 10 points 11 months ago (2 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago (1 children)

@JungleJim

There is this scene in the Expanse, when a ship suddenly slows down.

A very messy scene.

@Thorry84

[–] JungleJim 2 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I really have to watch this show, I keep hearing great things

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago

Trek might not really go for gore often, but an episode where you see the aftermath wouldn't go amiss

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months 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.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 11 months ago

And they even work even when a dampening field has shut down all power systems on the ship.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 11 months ago (1 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

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.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago (1 children)

They did that one time on Undiscovered Country. I guess that was a Klingon ship though.