Best Starship Bridge Designs in Science Fiction

hi friends welcome back to another episode of generation films my name is Dallin a starship is like a complex organism and it all starts in the nerve center or the bridge of the ship this is where the senior officers in captain relay commands through all of the other crews who like cells make sure each of the important systems within the ship are running at optimal performance a ship without a bridge black sentience and organs might still be able to function but without coordination and higher purpose so how a faction or individual designs a bridge says quite a lot about their personality goals and culture today we'll be looking at seven unique starship bridge designs or giant believe are amongst the best in science fiction [Music] very few ships can match the grandeur and imposing feel of dominance that just oozes from an imperial star destroyer at the height of the collective Empire for more than three decades the Galactic Navy was driven by rampant militarism and a need to save the galaxy soul by wiping out all of the lesser alien races what resulted were some of the most terrifying yet beautiful warships the galaxy had ever seen the Imperial class Star Destroyer was very much the backbone of the Imperial Navy and the executor class starred dreadnought was a spear that the great emperor would plunge into the heart of the rebellion like any fascist regime with heavy nationalistic tendencies in a strong central government the ships the Empire made were like propaganda tools themselves far too big for the job and far too imposing to be properly used for peacekeeping and the bridges of these ships reflected those qualities as well the imperial class star destroyer and the executive class star dreadnought both featured elevated bridges that stuck out from the rest of the ship these were great towers from which the Empire's elites what looked down on the rest of the ship even inside the bridge itself the officers would walk around on catwalks while the junior officers would keep their heads down in the pits controlling the weapons systems navigation comms and so on this was a very visual reinforcement of the Empire strict hierarchy these imposing bridges were designed to inspire awe from the soldiers at the Empire and also the civilian but they were also prime targets for enemy forces ultimately the raise bridge design would be a huge problem for the empire and lead to several disasters throughout the Galactic Civil War the first order which grew out of the Empire's destruction was heavily focused on learning from the Empire's mistake so when they designed the resurgent glass star dreadnought they kept the grand bridge designed with its large romantic viewports overlooking the prow of the ship but they also made short the heavily reinforced that bridge with additional armored plating point defense weapons in its own dedicated shield generator the bridge was also slightly off centered and much lower to the body of the ship when compared to the Imperial of variants there was also a backup bridge placed deep within the hold the start dreadnought in case anything happened to the main bridge so in a way they're searching class starter had not offered the best of both worlds a calculated mixture of romance and function hey guys British man here and the bridge of the USS Enterprise NC c-17 o1d from Star Trek was a luxurious affair it was more like the inside of a Tesla than the bridge of a spacefaring vessel and that was kind of the whole point of the galaxy class a ship that was designed to stay out in space indefinitely they valued comfort people had to be happy living on the ship for years but in practical terms the bridge of the enterprise D was also very advanced first of all the bridge module could be swapped out and replaced so the bridge that you see on-screen in the series is actually the second bridge the ship had the first bridge module that was used during testing of the ship was removed then everything on the bridge of the enterprise D was touchscreen so even though each station had a name for example these stations here are science 1 science to Mission Operations environments and engineering for example they could actually be reconfigured to serve any purpose the bridge of the enterprise D also had independent life support systems from the rest of the ship so it could actually maintain n class planet atmospheric conditions like Earth for up to 72 hours even if both the primary and secondary life support systems on the rest of the ship had failed the bridge also had multiple turbo lift shafts each with backup turbo lift cars so the crew could easily access any important location on the ship as well as an emergency expressed Herber lifts that went directly to the battle bridge to the side of the bridge was Picard's ready room basically it was Picard's office which he was very possessive over sure look it's wonderful to see you again how bad a big get out of my chair and behind the bridge was the Observation Lounge kind of like the boardroom of the enterprise where Captain Picard liked to play practical jokes on the crew I am stuck and get unstuck and continue with the briefing and yes there were a couple of restaurants you gotta go you gotta go and there were also two food replicators in the bridge module so the night shift could pig out on some wings and drinks and watch some classic 20th century movies on the main viewer and talking of viewers now for a bridge that gives you a much better view of everything in the alien universe humanity luckily doesn't have to deal with many alien warships instead the threats are much more mundane like cosmic radiation micro asteroids turbulent atmospheric storms and of course genetically modified killer aliens the u.s. CSS prometheus is one of the earliest exploration ships utilized by humanity it's primarily designed for civilian uses so doesn't feature much in the former defenses but it did have one of the first FTL drives equipped on human ships making it quite revolutionary from a science standpoint it was a lot smaller than freight haulers like the USC SS Sulaco and therefore designed for making landfall even in the most treacherous environments which is why the Prometheus has an excuse for having a massive powered cockpit with a beautiful view of the surrounding environments including a very generous view of the ground and landing struts as convenient as remote cameras are nothing beats a view with your naked eyes when you're exploring a brand new planets [Music] our next bridge might not be all that romantic or visually interesting but it's probably one of the better designed ones and the only one that really makes sense on this entire list we of course are talking about the Battlestar Galactica's bridge the bridge or combat Information Center in this ship is one gigantic room located in the center of the ship behind several layers of bulkhead and armor given the dangers of flying in space and what essentially is a pressurized tin can it makes a lot of sense that make your command center as protected as possible and since real space flight takes place in massive urban areas and requires more mathematical calculations than visually needed flying there are massive banks of computers and navigational equipment where the viewports would normally be as a matter of fact the entire combat Information Center doesn't have any windows at all in situations where the crew would need a direct external view of the ship they would just rely on cameras the only strange thing about the Battlestar Galactica bridge is the fact that everyone seems to be standing there literally are no crash chairs or restraints anywhere to be found sometimes you don't have to sacrifice beauty just and make something functional the Norman esr1 and the Cerebrus upgraded sr2 are a great example of human engineering combined with beautiful human aesthetics the bridge in this ship maintains that beautiful forward view port that we all would love to have in our ship and also a more protected area for the command crew the normally does this by separating the cockpit from the CIC in the center of the ship is the command deck this is where all the crew sits at their system consoles and where the commander can view the navigational map this area the ship can be sealed off completely we bulkhead doors and has no viewports then at the front of the ship is the cockpit which has your more traditional airplane style windscreen the pilot and the artificial intelligence copilot can be isolated at the front of the ship in case other areas are damaged overall this ship is an elegant compromise between form and function oh yeah belt alota it's American been just taking some time out from my research into the proto molecule because Alan requested that I discuss the bridge of the rosin ante the iconic ship from the expanse by the way Alan I know it's been a long time since I've seen you due to this whole pandemic thing but I just want to take the time now to say congratulations on the new baby anyway to be honest the term bridge is a little bit of a misnomer for the Rocinante because when you think of a bridge you think of a central location from which a ship can be commanded but given how integrated the Rocinante systems are it wouldn't be too difficult to command the ship from even the med bay if need be that said the Rocinante does have a bridge like section that's made up of a flight deck and a command deck however this isn't some area of the ship what the crew stands around peering out into the blackness of space ahead you see the rows of 90 needs to be thought of in more of a vertical sense than a horizontal sense it's built like a narrow building with floor stacked on top of one another as I explained on the video I did on the ship the other day if the roastin ante were on earth and stood up vertically and you walked inside of it everything would be oriented normally the expanses creators devised the ship this way because in space when free falling into darkness but the only extant force being some semblance of microgravity directions lose most of their value thus space ships don't need to be horizontally focused like airplanes and therefore the flight deck on the Rocinante which houses the pilot and co-pilot has no window from which to look out onto part of the pun expanse actually if we are using earth-based terminology the pilot would be staring into what we would consider the floor of the ship but he has a giant HD screen in front of him that's integrated with all the ship's systems that he can operate from a tablet connected to his seat and which helps him to guide the ship far better than any window could and now I'm going to get angry comments from the window lobby anyway just down the stairs from the flight deck is the also windowless command deck within which the rest of the crew sits and which also uses screens and tablets integrated with the ship's systems to guide the ship and operate all the ship's features all the seats can rotate and lean on an axis in order to adjust to the ship's orientation and they have strong belts that can hold crew members in place during high G burns or when drinking coffee which if you know anything about space in the expanses universe you know that nothing works without coffee the roast of Nantes bridge is awesome and it belongs on this list but not because it's the most epic bridge you'll ever see but because it makes since and it's an intelligently built bridge that like the rest of the ship can best be described as intuitive there's a meeting table at the center of the command deck which the crew often stands around to discuss missions from this table the crew can once again operate all the ships features whether following along with the crew on TVA missions firing point defense cannons are playing around with its interactive 3d map technology obviously if the Rossa nantes bridge isn't exposed to external enemies it's hard to target but given that the overall ship is only 46 meters long I can claim that its bridge is nestled safely away from incoming fire but it has plenty of other capabilities that keep it protected beyond its bridge and you can check out the full video we did on the roastin ante if you want to learn more about such features now back to al we talked a lot in this video about properly designing a bridge that can be secured for an enemy attack and really give your crew optimal protection now it's something that unfortunately no sci-fi writer seems to forget but in Star Wars at least there's one ship that I think is a great example of a good bridge design and it comes to no surprise that such a ship was designed by the cowardly businessmen of the Trade Federation the Trade Federation was a logistics company that made their money on the hyperspace lines traveling from the deep core of the galaxy to the outer rim due to a lack of Republic law enforcement in the anteroom the Trade Federation was forced the refit several of their transport ships with weapons it's much cheaper than buying a dedicated warship which won't be able to haul any Freight in the first place the Trade Federation was all about cost-cutting measures they also utilized the huge droid labor force and sentience usually served as officers or leaders in their organization and were well protected from any kind of danger they might seem the lucra tolk class battleship started its life as an enormous cargo hauler just like here on earth the largest vessels in Star Wars are either designed for the military or for cargo transportation blue car Hulk was shaped like a doughnut and more than three kilometers in diameter its entire hull was designed to transport Freight and now it was converted to haul millions of droids and other war materiel the whole was also covered in turbolasers point defense weapons and deflector shields at the center of the lucre hulk was an almost def star like mini spear this was actually the command module of the ship we're the bridge and most of the sentient crew would be stationed now only was this area protected by the cargo hold and all the weapons and deflector shields the sensor also had its own generator and reactors and it had its own propulsion system which means if the ship is heavily damaged the command module can disconnect and serve as a massive escape pod so there you have it guys those are some of the best bridges in science fiction according to us it was great seeing American Bend and British Ben even though we're all isolated from one another and haven't really seen each other physically through the power of the internet and blood magic we were able to come together in this video which is really nice I hope you enjoyed it don't forget to subscribe and hit that notification button so you don't miss on the rest of our awesome content as usual my name is Allen reminding you that life is a movie and you are the protagonist [Applause]

Channel: Generation Films

Views: 445,081

Keywords: Science Fiction, Best Ships, Ship Bridge, Starship Bridge, Space Ship, Starships, Best star ship, Star wars, Star destroyer, Imperial Class Star destroyer, Finalizer, Lucrehulk, separatist Alliance, Trade federation, Lucrehulk battleship, Prometheus ship, Alien, battlestar galactica, Rocinate, Expanse, martian, Enterprise, Generation tech, Star Trek, British Ben, American Ben, Picard, Spock, normandy, sr 2 normandy, mass effect

Id: efGkDwsiaVw

Length: 13min 52sec (832 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 22 2020