star trek battle bridge

Galleries - Starfleet Bridge Illustrations

Comparison Charts Starfleet and Earth Starship Bridges Starfleet and Earth Shuttle Cockpits

Comparison Charts

Starfleet and Earth Starship Bridges

Starfleet and Earth Shuttle Cockpits

Alien Bridge Illustrations

Bridge Photos

The Evolution of the Enterprise-D Bridge - changes to the bridge set over the years

The Evolution of the Enterprise-E Bridge - changes to the bridge set between the movies

Variations of the Runabout Interior - a detailed look at the changes to this regular DS9 set over the years

Re-Used Shuttle Interiors - runabout interiors, other shuttle cockpits

Many illustrations originally created for the Star Trek Fact Files and Star Trek: The Magazine . All images cleaned up for publication on this site. Some modified to represent different canon bridges. Special thanks to Tadeo D'Oria , Donny Versiga , BobyE, Andy Kinnear , Erwin , Gilso and A Call to Duty .

https://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/gallery/bridges1.htm

Last modified: 24 Aug 2023

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Truth OR Myth – Starship Designs – The Galaxy Class (UPDATED)

Hello and welcome to Truth OR Myth.  In today’s episode, we’re taking a look at the Galaxy Class of Starships and it’s role in the new era of Star Trek.

Launched in the early 2360s, The Galaxy Class would represent the largest most advanced Exploration Starship Starfleet had ever created to this point…  This would not only be a shining jewel in Starfleet’s Crown, but also the symbol of an era.  An Era of relative peace and prosperity for the United Federation of Planets…

Standing 42 Decks tall, the Galaxy Class represented the forefront of Starfleet technological development and comfort.

Being crewed by over 1000 officers, the Galaxy-class was also able to transport 10000 passengers or troops if the need arose.  Measuring 642.5 meters long and 463.73 meters wide they were constructed at the Utopia Planitia Ship Yards orbiting Mars. The Galaxy Class incorporated the latest in Warp Technology.  Having a standard cruising speed Warp 6 and an emergency speed of warp 9.6, the Galaxy Class was designed for deep space exploration and defence of the farthest frontiers of the federation.

This Starship Design also incorporated a new defensive system which allowed the saucer section to detach from the engineering hull.  This allowed for the saucer section to be used either as a lifeboat, ferrying crew, civilians and passengers to safety, or another battle-ready target for an enemy to contend with. 

Up to this point, most starships with 2 hulls had the ability to separate its a primary section in this way but did not have the ability to recombine unless aided by Starbase facilities, and the power quotient on both sections was greatly reduced.  But improvements in fusion impulse reactor technology and a newly redesigned and constructed latching system overcame these design limitations.

During separation, the Stardrive section would be controlled from what was known as the battle bridge.  this bridge, located on deck 8, was a more cramped and traditional bridge, mimicking the standard bridge layouts on most other starships.  This battle bridge would also receive periodic updates and refits through out its history.

The Galaxy Class had a forward and aft torpedo launch system and originally 12 enhanced and much larger phaser arrays, though this number of arrays would be increased in future Galaxy Class designs.  These larger strip-like phaser arrays allowed the Galaxy-class to fire at any target in a 360-degree arc.

The main Deflector dish of the Galaxy Class could be modified into a weapon as well.  A concept that had been developed by Starfleet to combat the Borg. 

In 2363, the USS Enterprise D, the newest flagship of the federation, was launched under the command of Captain Jean-Luc Picard and would prove herself time after time as a force to be reckoned with in the Federation.

Like most federation ships of the time, the Galaxy Classes bridge was located on deck 1.  This was a new take on starship command area as this bridge was one of the most expansive and luxurious designs Starfleet had ever created. 

The bridge design was simplified with much smaller consoles able to control much larger functions of the ships themselves. Also on deck 1 was a Captain’s ready room, used as an office for minor updates to the Captain on ship and crew statuses, and a conference Lounge used for officers to discuss larger issues facing the ship.

Unlike most previous starships, the Main Shuttlebay was located on Deck 4 of the saucer section with 2 addition smaller shuttlebays located on Deck 13. Main Engineering was located on Deck 36 and was much smaller than those seen in previous starships.  The chief engineer spent most of his duty time in Engineering though all functions could be controlled and directed from a station at the aft section of the bridge.

The Computer Core was the largest most advanced ever created for a Starfleet Starship.  It would receive minor upgrades during its lifetime to continue to keep it at the forefront of Starfleet’s technology, and until the development of bio-neural circuitry, it was believed that that new type of core would remain Starfleet’s best, unfortunately, though that wasn’t to be.

The Galaxy Class also had the largest scientific section ever created in Starfleet History.  Labs aboard ship included Stellar Cartography and Astrophysics. The Galaxy-class starship housed over one hundred separate scientific research labs.

The Galaxy Class also included a new innovation in Starfleet Starships, that being the inclusion of families and civilians aboard ship.  In an emergency situation, the bulk of these civilians could be evacuated in under 4 minutes.  By using transporters, escape pods and shuttlecraft.

Most crew quarters on the Galaxy-class were located in the ship’s saucer section, in order to provide safety for civilian and non-essential personnel during a saucer separation. However, the engineering hull also contained crew quarters, generally containing engineering personnel and their families.

The quarters on board this starship were generally spacious and luxurious by Starfleet Standards.  Containing large open spaces and multiple rooms for families and officers.

The Captain’s quarters were located on Deck 8 and were slightly larger than the standard officers quarters.  The captain had a large desk and work area in the main room. VIP and diplomatic guest quarters shared the same layout.

Officers quarters lined the edge of the saucer section and contained a living area, a bedroom, and a bathroom area. Junior officers’ quarters were smaller units that were also comprised of a living area, a bedroom, and a bathroom. Crew members with the rank of lieutenant junior grade or above were given their own quarters, ranks below this such as ensigns were however required to share quarters aboard the starship.

The medical facilities aboard this class were expansive and extensive.  Having 3 Main Medical wards through out the ship, with the main sickbay located in the saucer sections, these facilities were not only designed to treat onboard medical emergencies but also those that could be found through out the Federation.  In the event of extremely large medical emergencies, areas such as cargo bays, shuttlebays and crew quarters could be converted in to further medical facilities.

A large lounge/bar area was located at the front of deck ten called 10 forward.  Other recreational facilities included a Gymnasium Complex on Deck 12 and the newly invented holodeck facilities.  These holodecks, using photons and forcefields, could allow the user to experience any scenery, landscape or story that the programmer could think of.

The Gymnasium Complex contained a variety of recreational equipment for a variety of sports and leisure activities. These included aerobic studios, martial arts areas, parrises squares areas, a squash court and an Ambo-Jitsu court. There was also a fencing room where those aboard the ship could practice their swashbuckling talents.

A phaser range was also located on Deck 12.  Here a person could hone their weapons skills by firing at moving holographic targets from a platform in the centre of this room.

There was also a large theatre aboard, which could also be used as a concert hall for musical performances by crew members. A replicating centre provided an area where crew members could replicate items which were too large or complicated for a standard food replicator terminal. With the addition of families aboard ship, this class also contained facilities such as schools an workshops to provide children with the most advanced education the Federation Could provide. 

Galaxy-class had twenty transporter rooms located all throughout the starship.  These transporters were also the most advanced of the time and contained all the new improvements in technologies, such as the bio-filters, that Starfleet had to offer..

There were numerous multi-level cargo bays located all throughout the ship. Some of these bays even contained cargo transporters, and some even had exterior hatches.

Though very advanced, however, being designed during a golden age of Starfleet Design, the Galaxy Class was not exactly up to the task of major combat as it’s original designers had hoped.  Starfleet’s lacklustre approach to Offensive and defensive technology during these 75 years of relative peace, quickly became a thorn in Starfleet’s side.  Here they had a rather large starship that could be outdone and outfought by the much smaller Defiant Class.

Desperate times then bred desperate measures and with the potential destruction of the Federation from both the Borg and the Dominion, as well as other emerging possible threats like the Romulans Return to Galactic Politics and the hot and cold relationship with the  Cardassian Union, Starfleet began the process of a complete systems redesign and development of the class bringing it up to the new standards all Federation Ships would adhere to.

This would make the Galaxy Class a force to be reckoned with once again.  Unfortunately, though the Enterprise D was destroyed in 2371 while protecting the Veridian Star System from destruction and was subsequently replaced by a new, much more powerful, Sovereign Class Starship.

During the Dominion War, the Galaxy Class would prove her worth and would continue to serve Starfleet and The United Federation Of Planets with distinction and valour…

Thank You for watching today’s episode of Truth or Myth.  What do you think of the Galaxy Class?  Well leave your comments in the section below and don’t forget to like the video and subscribe to channel, hitting that little bell icon so you won’t miss a single video we release.

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Battle bridge

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Galaxy -class battle bridge

The battle bridge is an independent command center .

On a Galaxy -class starship, after a saucer separation , the stardrive section was controlled by the battle bridge, whilst the saucer section was controlled by the main bridge .

On an Independence -class battleship , saucer separation was not possible, but in case of a heavy attack on the ship, the battle bridge was often used for protection.

External Links [ ]

• Battle bridge article at Memory Alpha , the canon Star Trek wiki.

Creating Star Trek’s First Bridge

Gene Roddenberry knew he wnated the bridge to be at the center of the action in Star Trek . Beyond that, his designers, Matt Jefferies and Pato Guzman, had little to go on.

Jefferies was still designing the Enterprise itself in early 1964. He had honed in on a design that separated the warp engines from the main component of the ship: the saucer section. It made sense to place the ship’s command center on top of the saucer. Which meant the bridge was going to be circular.

“It was pretty well established with the model that the thing was going to be in a full circle,” Jefferies recalled years later. “From there it became a question of how we were going to make it, how it could come apart, where the cameraman could get into it.”

Guzman proposed a domed “Control Room”, which introduced two now-familiar features: a viewscreen in the front and the captain’s chair in the center.

Roddenberry writes in The Making of Star Trek that he wanted the captain to be in the center, “so he could swivel around and see every vital station. His people should be in contact with him easily.”

Practicality

Guzman left the series in October and was succeeded as art director by Franz Bachelin. By that time, Jefferies had become skeptical of the direction in which they were going.

“I had to come up with the construction drawings to actually build these sets,” he told William Shatner for his book Star Trek Memories , “and my problem was in trying to figure out just what the hell Bachelin had done such a pretty painting about.”

I mean in terms of practicality, his paintings just didn’t work; the construction crew would have gone out of their minds trying to build what he’d painted.

A self-styled “nuts-and-bolts man,” Jefferies began thinking from the position of the ordinary bridge worker.

The idea of the whole thing was that if a guy’s supposed to be on his toes and alert for hours, he’s going to have to stay sharp, and if you can make him comfortable it will help. So I felt that everything he had to work with should be at hand without him having to reach for it and at a comfortable angle.

That resulted in the design of the consoles around the edge of the bridge.

Building the set

Jefferies disliked placing the consoles at a higher level than the center of the room, where the captain and pilots were seated, but he didn’t have much of a choice: they needed to be able to roll sections in and out.

The set consisted of eight such “wild” sections: one for the turbolift, one for the viewscreen and six work stations. When assembled, the eight components formed an octagon, approximating a circle.

Construction started in November 1964 and took six weeks to complete. The electric wiring alone required hundreds of man-hours. All the instruments could be controlled from a single panel off-stage or individually by the actors. Miles of wiring were needed to connect everything.

At the behest of “The Cage” director Robert Butler, the set was painted in bluish-grey. This was changed when “The Cage” was rejected by the studio but Roddenberry was asked to produce a second pilot. Contrasting blacks and reds were added to the railings, turbolift doors and navigation console. That color scheme would remain for all of Star Trek ’s three seasons.

Franz Joseph’s Star Trek Star Fleet Technical Manual (1975), now considered apocryphal, suggests that the bridge was rotated 36° port to allow turbolifts to travel down the centerline of the saucer section. No reason was given as to why the bridge crew would be looking in another direction than the ship was traveling, although with artificial gravity limiting any sense of momentum, and electronic displays instead of windows, there is no reason either why the crew should face directly forward.

Can anyone comment on why the SF Tech Manual is considered “apocryphal”? What source of equivalent detail exists that’s considered canon?

I was wondering that as well.

There aren’t any canon reference materials such as tech manuals, or the encyclopedia, the chronology, medical reference manuals or blueprints. It’s all licensed to various publishers just as the novels are.

That’s not a scene from “The Cage”. Yes, it was the bridge used in “The Cage”, but that’s Shatner in the back (behind him, Sally Kellerman?) and actor Gary Lockwood next to the captain’s chair. This is the episode “Where No Man Has Gone Before”.

Thanks for pointing that out. I’ve changed the caption.

That’s an interesting photo of the bridge from “Where No Man Has Gone Before”. Not yet in the red color scheme, which it had in the broadcast version. Maybe this is a still from an early rehearsal before they modified it?

In so far as the “canon” question of Star Fleet Technical Manual . As someone else mentioned these materials are just licenced to publishers. However, bits and pieces of information from the SFTM had made it into the films and a couple episodes for television over the years. For example, some of the schematics were used as displays, and ship names (only mentioned in SFTM previously) were used. It’s considered “apocryphal” because since 2002 the Star Trek Encyclopedia , Star Trek Chronology: The History of the Future and The Star Trek: The Next Generation Technical Manual are considered the “official” reference point for all licenced tie-in material according to the Star Trek franchise. So if you want to publish say an owner’s manual for the Enterprise , the info has to be consistent with those three references. Your site is great, by the way.

Franz Joseph’s work was firstly based on the only “canon” source for Star Trek available: the TOS episodes themselves. He literally reverse-engineered from film frames. A work licensed by the studio, The Making of Star Trek , whose author had access to the studio, sets and production personnel (including Roddenberry) was consulted. Joseph also used actual production drawings by Matt Jeffries. He also corresponded with Roddenberry, whom was enthusiastic and encouraged his work. Which was at the time actually endorsed by the studio. The sheer lunacy of having a canon relating to a work of imagination and fiction aside… I can’t imagine anything being more “canon” than Franz Joseph’s work. Certainly in terms of being closer to the source material in timeframe. The idea of people going back after the fact and saying his work was inaccurate or incorrect is pretty wacky. He was working based off sets that changed on an almost weekly basis. Creating the inner workings of a starship that didn’t actually exist by matching sets in episodes with the only consistent aspect being the exterior model of the ship, and the dimensions decided upon by Roddenberry and the production staff once production of the series proper actually began. He did a splendid job and stuck beautifully with the details of the show, using creative license only where absolutely necessary, because no detail existed. Or because the details of the the exterior didn’t match up with the interior without modification. Or where details of the set were changed for creative reasons, but made no mechanical sense. Since supposedly canon only relates to what is shown on screen, then all we really have today is the three seasons worth of episodes that were filmed in the 1960s. Anyone working on technical renderings of The Original Series has no more canon to work with now than Franz Joseph did then. Unless you count subsequent Trek series, and those were created after the fact. If they were written and created properly, they should be created to fit into the canon that existed, instead of retconning their reality. The studio owns the show and they can do whatever they want to for their official licensing. But the idea of publications today being more official than official publications from back then has everything to do with copywriting and marketing, and nothing to do with what’s faithful to the source material or makes sense. Kind of like revisionist historians that rewrite history after the fact. Lol. Oh well, we love it, but it’s just a TV show.

The picture of the black-and-white bridge from “Where No Man Has Gone Before” is actually a photoshop job. The bridge in that episode had the red railings and turboshaft door. Here’s a shot from the episode. This is the photo was was altered because someone (who?) wanted to see what Kirk, etc. would look like on “The Cage” bridge. Notice that all the actors are in exactly the same position. The position of their bodies and all their arms and legs line up perfectly. This tells us that it can’t be that the black-and-white bridge photo was taken during a rehearsal and the “red bridge” was taken later after the bridge was repainted. It’s just one photo (of the red bridge) photoshopped to look like “The Cage” bridge. Also note that the Burke chairs in the black-and-white photo have the leather extensions that actually weren’t used in that episode.

You’re right! Thank you so much for pointing this out. I’ve taken that picture out.

Submit comments by email .

Let's revisit the greatest Star Trek game ever

Few games capture the thrill of taking the captain's chair, but Bridge Commander nails it.

If you’ve ever been a Star Trek fan, you’ve probably imagined what it would be like to sit in the captain’s chair of a Federation starship. Over the years there have been dozens of Star Trek videogames on PC, from point-and-click adventures to first-person shooters. But Star Trek: Bridge Commander is the closest a digital recreation of the show has ever gotten to deeply simulating the experience of being in command of a Starfleet vessel. 

The game starts with a bang, literally, as a star mysteriously destabilises and explodes, killing the captain of the USS Dauntless. The ship’s relatively inexperienced first officer (that’s you) is then forced to take over command and find out what caused the explosion. Your character is a completely blank slate who never speaks and is never seen, or even named, with first officer Saffi Larsen doing most of the talking for you. 

This is initially a little distracting, as charismatic captains who make their opinions known are an important part of the classic Star Trek format. But it does ultimately add to the role-playing aspect of the game, making you feel like you are the captain, and not just in control of someone else. At the start of each mission you’ll get the usual Star Trek-style logs, explaining the current mission objectives. But because of your total lack of a voice, these are read out by other members of the crew instead.

On the bridge, the game is locked to a first-person perspective, and you never leave the captain’s chair. To issue orders you have to turn your head with the mouse and face the appropriate member of the bridge crew, then choose from a list of commands. So if a Romulan Warbird suddenly de-cloaks, you turn to Larsen on your right and ask her to go to red alert, which powers up your weapons and shields. It also dims the lights on the bridge, just like in the show, which is a nice touch.

You can also go to yellow alert, which boosts your shields but leaves your weapons inactive: a good way to show an enemy that your guard is up, but you don’t want a fight. But in most cases you’ll be forced to defend yourself, because Bridge Commander is very heavy on combat, which is actually my biggest criticism of it. I love Star Trek, particularly The Next Generation, because conflict is usually a last resort. If Captain Jean-Luc Picard can solve a problem without firing a phaser, he always will. But in the game, pretty much every mission results in a space battle. It’s primarily a combat sim.

In the middle of a battle, power management is key. Swing your head around to your left and you’ll see your Solian chief engineer, Brex. Through him you manage your ship’s power output via a series of sliders. If you want a wider scan of the area, boost power to the sensor array. If you’re having trouble punching through an enemy’s shields, boost your weapons. And if your own shields are taking a hammering, diverting extra power to them will increase your resilience to whoever is currently firing at you.

Characters in Star Trek are always diverting power to various systems to increase their effectiveness, so it’s marvellous to see that turned into a game system in Bridge Commander. But it’s all about the balancing act. Pull too much juice from the ship and your power transmission grid won’t be able to cope, reducing your overall effectiveness. This power- juggling mechanic is at the core of the game’s many battles, and yelling orders at Brex as the bridge shakes and sparks fly out of the consoles can be hugely exciting.

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Bridge Commander captures the drama of a Star Trek space battle brilliantly. The screen judders as you take damage, the red alert alarm wails, and your crew shout updates about the status of the ship and the enemy’s movements. You can order your tactical officer, Felix Savali, to target and attack at will or you can step in and take control, manually targeting and firing the ship’s arsenal of phasers and photon torpedoes. Honestly, most of the time you’ll rely on Savali to do the hard work, because battles can go on for a long time in Bridge Commander. Sitting back, saying "make it so", and letting someone else do the work feels a lot more captain-like anyway. 

There are some non-combat mission objectives, including delivering VIPs, rescuing people, beaming people aboard your ship, and picking up cargo. But this all happens off-screen, with your crew merely telling you about it rather than you witnessing it first-hand. It would have been nice to leave the bridge and visit other locations. Maybe stopping at Ten Forward for a drink, or checking up on someone in sickbay. But in this game, the life of a captain takes place entirely on the bridge. Even just taking a few conversations in your ready room would have added visual variety. 

At any time you can hit the spacebar and switch to a third-person view, which gives you a clearer view of your surroundings. There are some dramatic visuals here, including colourful alien suns and asteroid fields, but technically it’s pretty ropey, with distractingly low-res textures. You can fly the ship manually in third-person, but it’s much more Trek-like to switch back to the bridge and order your Bajoran flight controller, Kiska LoMar, to move the USS Dauntless between planets and other points of interest.

But after a few hours of play, you’ll almost certainly get sick of your crew repeating the same handful of barks over and over again during combat. "Moving into attack range! Lining up forward torpedo tubes! Sweeping through phaser arcs!" Sound design is one area Bridge Commander falls short, with a forgettable, repetitive soundtrack, and some missing details like the rumble of your ship’s engines. The weapons sound great and the voice acting is decent, but overall it’s a bit of a sonic mess.

However, you can remedy this. I muted the in-game music and played the score from Star Trek: The Next Generation instead, which you can find on Spotify. I also found a ten-hour loop of the ambient engine sounds from the show on YouTube , and played that quietly in the background. This is possibly the nerdiest thing I’ve ever done, but man, it really improves the game. And thanks to a vibrant modding community, there are countless other ways to tinker with the experience, whether you want to improve the visuals or command ships from the other Star Trek series.

There’s some nice stuff in Bridge Commander for Star Trek fans, including guests occasionally joining your crew. In your first stint as captain you’re joined by none other than Jean-Luc Picard, who sits beside you and explains some of the game’s systems. Getting Patrick Stewart to reprise his role as Picard, and then using him as essentially an interactive tutorial, is a wasted opportunity. But it’s still cool to hang out with him regardless, and just hearing his voice lends the game extra authenticity.

You’re also joined by Data, voiced by Brent Spiner, when you swap the USS Dauntless for the USS Sovereign partway through the story. Like Deep Space Nine’s USS Defiant, the Sovereign was developed after the Battle of Wolf 359 to defend against the Borg. It’s a more advanced ship and nimbler in battle, but I must admit, I prefer the bridge of the Galaxy class Dauntless, which looks just like the one in TNG—albeit with some different colouring.

While aboard your ship, Data determines that the exploding star was not a natural event. This revelation leads to clashes with the Cardassians and a race of aliens invented for the game called the Kessok. Occasionally enemies will hail you, either to surrender or to gloat, which adds to the Star Trek vibe. But I would have liked the option to engage in a little diplomacy, perhaps choosing from dialogue options to try and talk aggressors down or offer to work together. If they ever make another Bridge Commander, this would add some much needed non-combat variety. 

If you’re feeling the urge to replay Star Trek: Bridge Commander, you’ll be glad to hear that it runs out of the box on Windows 10 without any messing around—although you will want to install the official 1.1 patch first. Finding a copy, however, might be a little trickier. It’s been out of print for years, and no digital storefronts currently offer it. This is the case for a lot of Star Trek games, but thankfully there are several websites that archive these hard-to-find gems. There’s always a way. But I’d love Activision to do a proper re-release or remaster. With Discovery and Picard getting people into Star Trek again, there’s never been a more perfect time. 

It’s hardly a looker—even by 2002 standards—but gaze beyond the low-poly characters and strangely flat-looking viewscreen conversations and developer Totally Games did a very decent job of capturing the ambience of a Star Trek ship. And if you can’t stomach the lo-fi visuals, you could always give Ubisoft ’s Star Trek: Bridge Crew a go. It offers a similar experience, with modern production values, a TNG-themed bridge and VR support. But it’s not as deep as Bridge Commander, designed with accessibility and co-op play in mind, so it’s not quite the same. Not many vintage Star Trek games are worth playing today, but sitting in the captain’s chair in Bridge Commander still has the power to thrill.

If it’s set in space, Andy will probably write about it. He loves sci-fi, adventure games, taking screenshots, Twin Peaks, weird sims, Alien: Isolation, and anything with a good story.

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Captain's Bridge

The Captain's Bridge was the first Bridge available from Fleet Boss Battles . The materials needed to upgrade the bridge were obtained from defeating The Doomsday Machine .

• 1 Captain's Bridge Rewards
• 2.1 Accuracy
• 2.3 Evasion
• 2.4 Shields
• 2.5 Bonus damage to boss
• 2.6 Ship Hull

Captain's Bridge Rewards

Captains bridge bonuses.

Level Bridge level. Bonus Magnesite to upgrade to 1 1 +0.2% 30 2 1 +0.4% 45 3 1 +0.6% 60 4 1 +0.8% 75

Bonus damage to boss

Level Bridge level Bonus Magnesite 1 1 1.2% 30 2 1 2.4% 45 3 1 3.6% 60 4 1 4.8% 75

Reduce damage taken from boss I 1 2 1.2% 40 2 2 2.4% 60 3 2 3.6% 80 4 2 4.8% 100

Ship Hull I

Level Bridge level Bonus Magnesite 1 2 +0.2% 40 2 2 +0.2% 60 3 2 +0.2% 80 4 2 +0.2% 100

• Game Mechanics
• Fleet Boss Battles

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Battle Grids

Here at Continuing Mission we try to support all your needs at the gaming table, including the table itself! Below is a collection of all the battle grids we’ve released to date. If you have your own, submit them and share with the community!

Starfleet Starships

• TOS Corridors by Robert DeVoe
• Nacelle Control Room and Warp Coils
• Aries Class Shuttlecraft (non-canon)
• Kestrel Class Fighter (non-canon)
• Transporter Room
• Variant Bridge
• Engineering
• Impulse Engine Room
• Observation Deck
• Torpedo Launch Bay
• Turbolift Car Garage
• Holodeck and Arch
• Deck Corridors
• Main Engineering
• Ready Room & Conference Room
• Bridge (Walter Milani-Müller)

Starfleet Stations

• Operations Center

Other Starships

• 3D Deck Tiles by Greg Bird
• Alternate Tiles by Robert DeVoe
• Artifact Interior from Star Trek: Picard
• Artifact Tiles, Expanded from Star Trek: Picard
• Ferengi Shuttle
• Romulan Scimitar Bridge
• Generic Ship Tiles by Sandy Kennedy
• Generic Sickbay and Corridors by Trekie

Planetary Maps

• Lava Field by Robert DeVoe
• Planetary Hexagon, Collection 1
• Research Camps by Robert DeVoe
• Wilderness – Plains by Robert DeVoe

Space Tiles

• Interstellar Hexagon, Collection 1
• Interstellar Hexagon, Collection 2
• Configuration Circle Alpha printed mat
• Configuration Mosaic One
• Configuration Radius Alpha
• Configuration Radius Beta
• Configuration Radius Gamma
• Superimposed on Starfields
• Butterfly Nebula (Circle Gamma)
• Mystic Mountain (Circle Alpha)
• Pillars of Creatio n (Circle Beta)
• Star Trek reboot movie credits (Circle Alpha)

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The Battle (episode)

• View history
• 1.2 Act One
• 1.3 Act Two
• 1.4 Act Three
• 1.5 Act Four
• 1.6 Act Five
• 1.7 Log entries
• 2 Memorable quotes
• 3.1 Production history
• 3.2 Production
• 3.3 Cast and characters
• 3.4 Sets, props, and costumes
• 3.6 Continuity
• 3.7 Reception
• 3.8 Apocrypha
• 3.9 Video and DVD releases
• 4.1 Starring
• 4.2 Also starring
• 4.3 Guest stars
• 4.4 Co-star
• 4.5 Uncredited co-stars
• 4.6 Stunt double
• 4.7 Stand-ins
• 4.8.1 Other references
• 4.8.2 Unreferenced materials
• 4.9 External links

Summary [ ]

Picard suffering from a painful headache

In response to an order from Starfleet , the USS Enterprise -D has been sent to the Xendi Sabu system to rendezvous with a Ferengi Alliance vessel . For three days there has been no message from the Ferengi except for " Stand by, Enterprise . "

Dr. Crusher comes to see Captain Picard in his quarters, where he complains of feeling fatigued and having a terrible headache . Crusher is so surprised at his suggested diagnosis of a headache she says " A what? " and an annoyed Picard repeats his diagnosis. Crusher assures Picard she knows what a headache is but says that she doesn't encounter them often. She examines him and can find nothing wrong but tells him to come to sickbay all the same. He begins to refuse when she orders him to go and says " You've got an order to report to sickbay from the only person aboard this ship who can give you an order. " Just then the Ferengi hail the Enterprise . Picard returns to the bridge and talks with the Ferengi captain, DaiMon Bok , over the Enterprise 's viewscreen . Bok claims to know Picard, but Picard doesn't recognize Bok at all. He wants to meet Picard in person, so despite being wary of his intentions, Picard agrees to meet him aboard the Enterprise .

Act One [ ]

Picard goes to sickbay where Crusher examines him again. He feels like she's running a lot of tests for something as simple as a headache. Dr. Crusher scoffs " As simple? ... It may be true that headaches were once quite common. That was in the days before the brain was charted, before we understood the nature of pain. When we were suffering from things such as the common cold. " But even with all the tests, she fails to find any medical reason for his headaches. She gives him a painkiller for the time being and asks for him to come back for more tests when the Ferengi matter is settled. He returns to the bridge, where Wesley Crusher arrives and tells Geordi La Forge that when he was boosting the range of the long-range sensors , he detected a starship approaching. Then La Forge detects it as well. It's an unidentified Constellation -class starship , which is neither responding to hails nor sending out call letters .

The three Ferengi

The time arrives for the Ferengi to beam over, and three of them materialize on the bridge in front of the viewscreen: Bok and two of his officers, Kazago and Rata . Bok tells Picard that the starship is under their control and is a gift to honor the "hero of Maxia," Captain Picard. Data realizes they are referring to an incident that took place nine years prior while Picard commanded the USS Stargazer . Traveling through the Maxia Zeta system , they were attacked by an unknown vessel, which Picard was forced to destroy. Bok is momentarily enraged to discover that Picard had no knowledge of exactly what vessel he destroyed and reveals that it belonged to the Ferengi. Picard is then hit by another severe headache, before ordering La Forge to zoom in on the approaching starship. It's the Stargazer , which the Ferengi found adrift, and are now giving to Picard. Bok says " it's a gift, free of charge, " which his subordinates don't like.

Act Two [ ]

Picard is back in sickbay describing his new symptoms to Dr. Crusher and Counselor Troi . He says his new headache hit with more impact. Counselor Troi states that she felt something too and describes it as a thought but more mechanical in nature. Picard thinks she was picking up on his thoughts because at the moment in question he was thinking about being at the helm of the Stargazer . As he is describing his thoughts about the incident on the Stargazer he begins to experience physical sensations like being able to smell the smoke from the fire on the bridge in his memories.

Later in the observation lounge , Picard tells the crew about the battle. They had been traveling at warp 2 through the Maxia Zeta system when they were fired upon by an unidentified starship, damaging their shields . In the confusion, the Stargazer was hit again. Suddenly, Picard asks the Stargazer 's weapons officer, Vigo , to identify the attacking ship. This surprises the Enterprise crew, and Picard then realizes what he's said. Riker reminds Picard where he left off and he continues with the story, saying he ordered a sensor bearing on the enemy vessel as it came around for another pass. He then performed what is now known as the Picard Maneuver : he ordered a jump to high warp , making it appear to the Ferengi for a second that the Stargazer was in two places at once. The Ferengi vessel fired at the Stargazer 's former position while the actual ship pulled out of warp right next to it. He was then able to destroy the Ferengi vessel, but was forced to abandon ship and he and his crew drifted around space in shuttlecraft for weeks until they were picked up.

Data inspects the ship

Data , Natasha Yar , Worf , and La Forge beam over to inspect the Stargazer . La Forge gets the emergency power going, and as everything looks all right, Picard then beams over. He affectionately acknowledges his old ship (" Hello, old friend "), then goes to look at his old cabin, and is going through his things when he suddenly gets another headache. He grabs his head and falls back in agony. Among his things in an old chest , a pink sphere glows. Bok is controlling it aboard the Ferengi vessel. Dr. Crusher passes by and sees Picard in pain. She brings him back to the Enterprise , telling him that his belongings will be beamed over later.

" Would you care to hear it, sir? Sir? "

The Enterprise tractors the Stargazer . Data tells Picard that Starfleet is sending a tug to bring it to Xendi Starbase 9 , before Picard goes to his quarters for a rest. When he starts to dream, he dreams about the battle. Meanwhile in the ready room , Data shows Commander Riker a personal log that Picard supposedly recorded, claiming that he attacked the Ferengi vessel without provocation and that the Ferengi ship was under a flag of truce.

Act Three [ ]

Bok uses the thought maker

When Riker shows Picard the log in the captain's quarters, Picard denies making the entry, but tells him he has to report his findings to Starfleet. Then Picard's headache returns. Riker heads to the Enterprise 's bridge and enters Picard's ready room. He walks over to Picard's desk and uses his desktop monitor to contact Kazago, Bok's first officer . After they both secure their respective channels, Riker asks Kazago if he finds it odd that Bok is returning the Stargazer to Starfleet. Kazago reacts incredulously to this, telling Riker that they gave Starfleet the Stargazer back free of charge and they "repay" the Ferengi by accusing them of a crime. He angrily closes the channel.

Picard is in his quarters when Crusher arrives. He tells her the headache is worsening, and he is worrying about the battle and whether he did the right thing nine years ago but is uncertain. Crusher gives him a sedative and puts him to bed. He starts to dream about the battle again and relives it, seeing the crew and the bridge. Bok laughs aboard his own ship as he manipulates a matching sphere to the one in Picard's chest.

Act Four [ ]

Picard on the bridge of the Stargazer

In Picard's ready room, Data is informing Riker that the log is a forgery, when Picard enters. Crusher follows soon after and is surprised to see the captain up and about. He dismisses everyone except Riker, whom he tells to disengage the tractor beam. In sickbay, Dr. Crusher is discussing the headaches with Troi when Wesley enters. He tells her that he noticed the captain's brain patterns were exactly the same as low intensity transmissions detected coming from the Ferengi ship.

They report this to Riker, who checks on Picard's location and finds out he has left the Enterprise and beamed onto the Stargazer . Aboard the Stargazer , Bok meets Picard and raises the ship's shields . He is carrying his pink sphere and tells Picard that the ship the Stargazer destroyed was his son 's first command as a DaiMon. Bok has spent years devising a suitable revenge and bought the two spheres with his life savings. He leaves the sphere on the bridge and beams back onto his own vessel, leaving Picard to relive the battle.

Act Five [ ]

…becomes…

Aboard the Enterprise , the sphere in Picard's quarters has been found, and as the Stargazer turns to attack them, Riker realizes that the sphere is being used to influence the captain's thoughts. He hails Kazago, who recognizes the sphere as a " thought maker ," a device that is forbidden. Then Captain Picard comes on the viewscreen .

Riker realizes that he is going to use the Picard Maneuver, so he orders Data to come up with a suitable defense. Then Kazago hails and tells Riker that Bok has been removed from command for his part in this "unprofitable venture". Data comes up with a defense which involves detecting the correct ship by noting the compression of gas in space and then immobilizing the Stargazer with the tractor beam. The defense works, and Riker hails Picard. He manages to convince Picard to destroy the sphere with his phaser , at which point Picard returns to normal. He then beams over to the Enterprise , leaving the dead to rest in peace and letting the past remain the past.

Log entries [ ]

• Captain's log, USS Stargazer
• Captain's log, USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-D), 2364

Memorable quotes [ ]

" I can't believe they're coming here! "

" As you hew-mons say, 'I'm all ears'. "

" Yes! Who the hell is it?! "

" Not now, Kazago! "

" You transferred some of his belongings from the Stargazer ? " " Yes... including a fairly heavy chest! "

" Captain, he may refer to an encounter which occurred nine years ago in the Maxia Zeta star system, in which an unidentified starship… " " UNIDENTIFIED?! That fine vessel was Ferengi! " " Which... you destroyed, sir. "

" The [Stargazer's] logs will be downloaded into the Enterprise 's records… " ...at a pri–... " " NO PRICE. " " No price? "

" With the enemy vessel coming in for the kill, I… ordered a sensor bearing, and when it came into the return arc… " " You performed what Starfleet textbooks now refer to as the 'Picard Maneuver'… " " Well, I did what any… good helmsman would've done – I dropped into high warp, stopped right off the enemy vessel's bow, and… fired with everything I had. " " And blowing into maximum warp speed, you appeared, for an instant, to be in two places at once! " " And our attacker fired on the wrong one! "

" Hello, old friend. "

" You're welcome, ladies. Adults… "

" This is a confession, given by me, Jean-Luc Picard, commanding USS Stargazer , in the hopes that my... belated honesty will be taken into account by Starfleet when judging my actions during a confrontation with an unidentified vessel. I admit, I must have mistaken their subspace antenna for a weapons cluster – unfortunately, I fired our main phasers, and the... direct hits destroyed the unknown vessel. "

" What is wrong with me?! " " I wish to Hell I knew, Captain, but something unusual has definitely been happening to you! " " Why do doctors always say the obvious, as though it's a revelation? " " Why do captains always act like they're immortal? "

" I hope you're right, Mr. Data. " " No question of it, sir. "

" Where is Bok?!?! " " Removed from command, sir, and placed under guard for his act of personal vengeance – seems there was no…profit in it. " " In revenge, there never is. "

" Let the dead rest and the past remain the past. "

Background information [ ]

Production history [ ].

• Original story outline ( titled "Ghost Ship"): 16 April 1987
• First draft script: 1 September 1987
• Preliminary script draft: 9 September 1987
• Final draft script: 14 September 1987
• Filmed: 17 September 1987 – 25 September 1987
• Score recorded at Paramount Stage M : 5 November 1987 ( Star Trek: The Next Generation - The Ron Jones Project liner notes [1] )
• Premiere airdate: 16 November 1987
• UK premiere airdate (on BBC2 ): 7 November 1990

Production [ ]

• A blooper from this episode exists on a gag reel included with the Blu-Ray season 1 disc set. On it, Brent Spiner, as Data, walks through the Stargazer bridge and upon seeing the dedication plaque, reads it using an imitation of Jimmy Stewart 's voice and then saying " For God's sake Mary, they built this thing in Bedford Falls ! " ( Star Trek: The Next Generation Companion  ( ? ed., p. ? ))
• Director Rob Bowman on filming the scenes aboard the Stargazer , " It was just Patrick [Stewart] on stage, and when I shot first unit, I put a little compass, a degree meter, on the camera and got vertical, horizontal and lateral degrees, height of the camera. lens and so on. [Special FX supervisor] Rob Legato then would go back and do matching shots of the people in the chairs, over-expose them, put a number five fog filter on and transparent them about 50% on the screen so that they looked like ghosts. That was all done in post-production. It was kind of hairy, and as far as I know, I was the first person to use Steadicam on the show, which was fun. I try to use the Steadicam when I go on to other spaceships, just to give them a different feel from the Enterprise , that sense of uneasiness. But, working with Patrick was a real thrill. " ("Rob Bowman - Director of a Dozen", The Official Star Trek: The Next Generation Magazine  issue 10 , p. 16)

Cast and characters [ ]

• Frank Corsentino played a Ferengi for the first time. He would do so again in TNG : " Ménage à Troi " and VOY : " Inside Man ".

Sets, props, and costumes [ ]

• The bridge of the Stargazer is a redress of the Enterprise -D's battle bridge from " Encounter at Farpoint " (which in turn, was a redress of the movie Enterprise bridge). For this occasion, the TNG-era chairs and conn/ops stations were replaced with Kirk's command chair and the combined navigation/helm station last seen in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home . The turbolift interior from the first three Star Trek films also appears, although curiously several crewmembers are seen leaving through the side of the turbolift rather than using the car in its established capacity; within the context of the storyline, it is logical to infer that this is due to battle damage rendering the system inoperable, and the crew having to bypass it to access the turboshaft (as was later seen in " Disaster ").
• The headrest on the navigator's chair aboard the Stargazer changes position three times: when Data and Tasha first enter the bridge, it is inserted upside down into the body of the chair; when Picard beams over during his confrontation with Bok, it is now inserted in the proper orientation; and when Picard orders Vigo to get a fire control party, the headrest is completely gone.
• Picard's quarters, with the characteristic starbase painting , bookshelves and the sextant , are first seen in this episode.
• This episode marks the first time Wesley wears his rainbow-striped shirt , a costume he wears in every scene in which he appears for the rest of the season.
• The episode's score, composed and conducted by Ron Jones , was recorded on 5 November 1987 at Paramount Stage M . ( Star Trek: The Next Generation - The Ron Jones Project liner notes [2] ) The complete episode score, totaling 20 minutes 29 seconds, appears on Disc Two of the Star Trek: The Next Generation - The Ron Jones Project collection.

Continuity [ ]

• The USS Stargazer had the warp effect from the TOS-era movies, instead of the warp effect used from TNG onward.
• The feud between Jean-Luc Picard and Bok was revisited and finally resolved in the seventh season episode " Bloodlines ".
• The Stargazer was originally a Constitution II -class starship and would have reused the refit USS Enterprise model from the first four Star Trek films . However, it was decided after the episode was filmed to change it from a " Constitution -class" starship to the similar sounding " Constellation -class " cruiser. This was so that when LeVar Burton dubbed over the line, the new dialogue would closely match his lip movements on screen. Wesley Crusher says the ship class when making his announcement on the bridge; his lips also appear to say "Constitution". Data also mentions the ship's class by name when reading from the dedication plaque, but his back is turned to the camera; when he says "Constellation" the closed captions say "Constitution." ( Star Trek: The Next Generation Companion  ( ? ed., p. ? )) This can also be confirmed as Picard's Constellation -class starship model in his ready room changes to a silver Constitution II -class starship model in this episode and the following episode " Hide And Q ".
• In this episode Dr. Crusher says " It may be true that headaches were once quite common. That was in the days before the brain was charted, before we understood the nature of pain. When we were suffering from things such as the common cold. " This indicates that headaches and the common cold are a thing of the past. Wesley Crusher also mentions the common cold and refers to it as a " disease my mom says people used to get " in the episode " Datalore ".
• The Xendi Sabu system could have been named after the species who evolved there or after who colonized there. The Xendi Sabu system is reported as "inhabited", but it is never said who inhabits the system or what the species of the inhabitants is called.

Reception [ ]

• A mission report for this episode by Patrick Daniel O'Neill was published in The Official Star Trek: The Next Generation Magazine  issue 4 , pp. 15-17.
• In his online reviews of the TNG episodes, Wil Wheaton states that this is the episode in which Wesley went from, in Wheaton's own words, " mildly annoying to vehemently-hated character, " talking about how having Wesley figure out the problem and the solution before the senior staff could was " perhaps the worst way to help the audience accept that this kid (Wesley) is going to be part of the main crew." Wheaton also remarked that the scene in sickbay where Wesley tells Dr. Crusher and Troi that he "glanced" at the scans while Dr. Crusher was researching them and, quote: " …in that brief moment, magically divined exactly what the rest of the professionally-trained crew – including the hypersmart robot – hadn't noticed: the patterns in Picard's scan are identical to the low-intensity transmissions picked up from the Ferengi ship. Wesley cements his relationship with Trekkies by muttering, "You're welcome, ladies… heh. Adults." after they leave the room. Oh, that's pure genius writing there, guys; that's not going to alienate a single fan. Bravo. " Aside from that (and feeling the episode was derivative of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan ) however, Wheaton deemed the episode to be solid overall, in large part due to Rob Bowman's direction, and the performances of Patrick Stewart and Frank Corsentino . [3]

Apocrypha [ ]

• The novel The Buried Age establishes that the course Picard set for the Stargazer was to have taken the ship into the atmosphere of the gas giant Maxie Zeta V, thereby destroying the ship. However, after the crew escaped in the ship's shuttlecraft, the Stargazer somehow bounced off the planet's atmosphere and was drifting near the planet when Bok arrived in the area, took possession of the Stargazer , and began plotting his revenge. It also establishes Bok's son was named Flax, and the ship he commanded was known as the Seventy-Fifth Rule (referring to the 75th Rule of Acquisition : "Home is where the heart is, but the stars are made of latinum"). The Seventy-Fifth Rule was conducting a survey of the Maxia Zeta system, discovering a massive wealth of dilithium and other precious metals before the Stargazer arrived in the system on its own survey mission. Believing the Federation to be insane due to its moneyless economy, Flax ambushed the Stargazer , leading to his death in the "Battle of Maxia".

Video and DVD releases [ ]

• Original UK VHS release (two-episode tapes, CIC Video ): Volume 5 , catalog number VHR 2396, 3 September 1990
• UK re-release (three-episode tapes, Paramount Home Entertainment ): Volume 1.3, catalog number VHR 4644, 1 June 1998
• As part of the TNG Season 1 DVD collection
• As part of the TNG Season 1 Blu-ray collection

Links and references [ ]

Starring [ ].

• Patrick Stewart as Captain Jean-Luc Picard
• Jonathan Frakes as Commander William T. Riker

Also starring [ ]

• LeVar Burton as Lt. Geordi La Forge
• Denise Crosby as Lt. Tasha Yar
• Michael Dorn as Lt. Worf
• Gates McFadden as Doctor Beverly Crusher
• Marina Sirtis as Counselor Deanna Troi
• Brent Spiner as Lt. Commander Data
• Wil Wheaton as Wesley Crusher

Guest stars [ ]

• Frank Corsentino as Bok
• Doug Warhit as Kazago

Co-star [ ]

• Robert Towers as Rata

Uncredited co-stars [ ]

• Michael Bailous as operations officer
• James G. Becker as Youngblood
• Dexter Clay as operations division officer
• Jay Crimp as Stargazer officer
• James Davison as Stargazer officer
• Jeffrey Deacon as command division officer
• Susan Duchow as operations division officer
• Schae Harrison as Stargazer officer
• Tim McCormack as Bennett
• Lorine Mendell as Diana Giddings
• Susan Raborn as operations division officer
• Command division crewmember
• Female USS Enterprise -D computer voice
• Operations division officer
• Science division officer
• Three science division crewmembers
• Stargazer officer (voice)
• Stargazer navigator (voice)
• Stargazer helmswoman (voice)

Stunt double [ ]

• Unknown stunt performer as stunt double for Patrick Stewart

Stand-ins [ ]

• James G. Becker – stand-in for Jonathan Frakes
• Darrell Burris – stand-in for LeVar Burton
• Dexter Clay – stand-in for Michael Dorn
• Jeffrey Deacon – stand-in for Patrick Stewart
• Susan Duchow – stand-in for Denise Crosby
• Nora Leonhardt – stand-in for Marina Sirtis
• Tim McCormack – stand-in for Brent Spiner
• Lorine Mendell – stand-in for Gates McFadden
• Guy Vardaman – stand-in for Wil Wheaton

References [ ]

2355 ; abandon ; accident ; accusation ; adult ; aggregate amount ; " all ears "; amplifier ; android ; anger Annotated Shakespeare, The ; anomaly ; answer ; armament ; attack ; attacker ; bargain ; Battle of Maxia ; Battle of Maxia combatant ; bearing ; Betazoid ; bit ; blood ; Bok's Marauder ; Bok's son ; " bottom line "; bow ; brain ; brain scan ; brain scan graph ; bridge ; cabin ; call letters ; captain's log ; captain's personal log ; channel ; checksum ; chest ; chief engineer ; choice ; clue ; common cold ; computer ; computer science ; confession ; confrontation ; confusion ; conscience ; conservation ; Constellation -class ; Constitution II -class ; cooperation ; crater ; crime ; criminal ; DaiMon ; damage report ; danger ; day ; debt ; deception ; dedication plaque ; defense ; derelict ; desktop monitor ; destruction ; D'kora -class ; doctor ; download ; " duty calls ": duty station ; Earth hour ; embarrassment ; emergency order ; emergency power cell ; emotional pressure ; era ; evidence ; fatigue ; Ferengi ; fire ; fire control party ; fish ; flag of truce ; flashlight ; forgery ; friend ; friendship ; fury ; fusion generator ; gift ; guest ; hailing frequency ; head ; headache ; heading ; " hello "; helm ; helmsman ; " Hero of Maxia "; high warp ; home ; honesty ; house ; Human ; hypospray ; idea ; identity ; impact ; impulse reactor ; impulse tow ; inertia ; infamy ; information ; " in my right mind ": insult ; intruder alert ; joke ; kilometer ; klaxon ; laboratory ; lesson ; Livingston ; location ; log ; log entry ; long distance sensor ; main computer log ; main phaser ; main sensor ; main system ; main viewer ; maneuver ; Maxia Zeta ; Maxia Zeta system ; medical tricorder ; meeting ; medical exam ; memory : merchandise ; Merchant of Venice, The ; message ; minute ; mission ; mistake ; model ; moon ; murder ; mutual problem ; mystery ; NCC ; name ; nature ; neural scan ; night ; nightmare ; " not half as "; number one ; observation lounge ; offer ; online ; order ; pain ; painting ; pattern ; peace ; permission ; person ; phantom ; phaser ; photon torpedo ; Picard Maneuver ; place ; planet ; point blank range ; power system ; price ; problem ; profit ; proof ; quarters ; question ; ready room ; reason ; record ; rendezous ; report ; revenge ( vengeance ); Richard III ; sale ; scan ; scanning device ; " second hand "; second-in-command ; secure channel ; senior staff ; sensitivity experiment ; sensor ; sensor beam ; sextant ; shield ; sickbay ; signal ; silver ; sleep ; smoke ; space ; sphere ; " stand by "; starbase ; stardate ; Starfleet ; Starfleet Academy ; Starfleet Registry ; Stargazer shuttlecraft ; Stargazer , USS ; statue ; structural analysis ; sub-warp speed ; subspace antenna ; subspace communication ; surge control ; surprise ; tactical station ; tampering ; tattoo ; textbook ; thing ; thought maker ; thought pattern ; thought process disorder ; thousand ; thought ; time ; towing ; trace gas ; tractor beam ; tractor beam power ; transmission ; Transporter Room 3 ; trap ; tricorder ; truth ; tug ; turbolift ; type I phaser ; " under protest "; unnamed medical tools ; unnamed plants ; viewscreen ; Vigo ; VISOR ; voice ; warp ; warship ; weapons cluster ; weapons officer ; weapons report ; week ; Xendi Sabu system ; Xendi Sabu system planet ; Xendi Starbase 9 ; year

Other references [ ]

• USS Stargazer captain's log entries: impulse reactor ; Maxia Zeta III ; Maxia Zeta IV ( moon ); Stargazer chief engineer ; terraforming
• USS Stargazer dedication plaque: Constitution -class ; Federation Space Systems Division ; San Francisco Fleet Yards

Unreferenced materials [ ]

Crusher, Jack R. ; museum ; Picard's father

External links [ ]

• "The Battle" at StarTrek.com
• " The Battle " at Memory Beta , the wiki for licensed Star Trek works
• " The Battle " at Wikipedia
• " The Battle " at the Internet Movie Database
• " "The Battle" " at MissionLogPodcast.com , a Roddenberry Star Trek podcast
• 1 Abdullah bin al-Hussein

Giant Freakin Robot

Star Trek's Newest Captains Prove Fans Tired Of Classic Heroes

Posted: April 13, 2024 | Last updated: April 13, 2024

Star Trek’s Newest Captains Prove Fans Tired Of Classic Heroes

It’s not a coincidence that Star Trek series have always been filled with evil admirals and other corrupt Starfleet officials: franchise creator Gene Roddenberry believed that humanity had evolved so much that he didn’t want to portray our heroic characters as having any kind of interpersonal conflicts. Therefore, whenever we saw a Starfleet character who wasn’t squeaky clean, they were either coded as jerks for us to hate or even written as explicit antagonists. However, the popularity of newer Star Trek captains such as Shaw and Rayner is proof that fans want more three-dimensional characters than Roddenberry wanted to give us.

Star Trek Captains Used To Be Either Saints Or Sinners

While the characters of Star Trek: The Original Series rarely clashed outside of extenuating circumstances (like Spock undergoing pon farr in “Amok Time”), Roddenberry became adamant about his rule against personal conflicts when creating The Next Generation. Some of the writers sarcastically dubbed this “the Roddenberry Box” because it was very difficult to tell great stories involving complex characters when they were never allowed to argue or even stridently disagree with one another. 

That’s why Star Trek: The Next Generation mostly had captains who were paragons of virtue like Picard, and if we got someone who was rougher around the edges (Captain Jellico is the best example of this), it’s because he is meant to be someone the audience can jeer at. While the failing health and eventual death of Roddenberry allowed more conflict, this tradition continued, and more antagonistic admirals (like Admiral Marcus in Star Trek Into Darkness) almost always ended up being explicit bad guys.

In fact, it wasn’t until the third season of Star Trek: Picard that we got a Captain who broke this mold. Captain Shaw is introduced to us as a character with a major chip on his shoulder when it comes to both Picard and Seven of Nine. Fans hated him at first, but after he revealed his tragic Borg backstory, praised Seven as Captain material, and gave his life saving our heroes, this complicated character became a true fan fave.

For this Star Trek captain, “complicated” Is the perfect description: Shaw wasn’t some mustache-twirling evil officer bent on dominating the galaxy. Instead, he was an essentially good guy with bad communication skills who understandably holds a grudge against Picard for the more than 11,000 Starfleet officers lost at the Battle of Wolf 359. He was the most realistic Star Trek character we’ve gotten in decades, and the overwhelmingly positive fan response shows how much audiences related to him.

Captain Rayner

Shaw is no longer with us (RIP, cranky king), but Star Trek: Discovery has delivered his spiritual successor in the form of Captain Rayner. He’s a grizzled captain who isn’t afraid to make hard calls when the mission is important, and this wartime veteran inevitably clashes with Starfleet admirals who prefer squeaky-clean officers like Tilly. It’s only fitting that he reluctantly becomes first officer to Michael Burnham, a captain who understands more than anyone why someone has to make the hard decisions.

Fans Love Rayner And Shaw

Star Trek fans have been quick to embrace Rayner just as they did Shaw, and for precisely the same reason: these captains are flawed heroes who nonetheless work to better themselves and the world around them. They aren’t evil characters in search of a redemption arc so much as they are cynical characters fighting to see the best in themselves. Frankly, that’s how it feels to be a fan of this optimistic franchise in these pessimistic times, so it’s no wonder the fandom has embraced these characters so wholeheartedly over “can never do anything wrong” characters like Picard.

Paramount Needs To Learn From This

Now that Star Trek: Discovery is wrapping up, Paramount needs to learn from the popularity of these captains before launching another new show. Fans are frankly tired of characters who are one-dimensionally perfect and crave characters who are compelling not in spite of, but because of their flaws. If Paramount can’t manage to deliver, then it will prove that not only is the Roddenberry Box alive and well but it is as implacable and inescapable as a Borg Cube.

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James gandolfini reprises tony soprano role in newly found footage.

Gandolfini and Edie Falco reprised their 'Sopranos' characters in a privately made video made to lure LeBron James to the New York Knicks in 2010.

By James Hibberd

James Hibberd

Writer-at-Large

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A long-rumored video of James Gandolfini reprising his Emmy-winning role of Tony Soprano has been unearthed.

The footage (below) has Gandolfini and his co-star Edie Falco back in their roles as The Sopranos power couple Tony and Carmela.

The clip was privately produced in 2010 — three years after the HBO drama’s finale — in an effort to lure LeBron James to the New York Knicks.

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The existence of the tape was publicly revealed three years ago in the docuseries podcast  Shattered: Hope, Heartbreak and the New York Knicks .

Producer Rocco Caruso was enlisted to create the team’s video, which was shot in Gandolfini’s New York apartment. “They thought, ‘Wouldn’t it be funny if we could somehow start the piece with  The Sopranos ?’ because it had just more or less ended,” Caruso recalled at the time. “And I said, ‘I know Edie … I could send her an email,’ and she said ‘Great. I’ll do it.’” 

Falco said she remembered the entire experience well “and what is absolutely amazing to me is I didn’t know who LeBron James was,” the actress previously said, laughing. “We got those requests all the time back then and Jim Gandolfini, he did nothing. And somehow he agreed to this thing, which I was shocked by. I thought it was a prank when someone said Jim’s going to do it. And there we were, dressed as our characters. And I was thinking, ‘This can’t possibly be happening.'”

Caruso said the idea that Tony was in witness protection was actually Gandolfini’s idea as a way to explain why he had a beard.

The full Knicks’ video pitch also includes appearances by Donald Trump, Richard Parsons, Reggie Jackson, Rudy Giuliani, Chris Rock, Earl Monroe, Mark Messier, Mike Bloomberg, Robert De Niro, Harvey Weinstein, Thelma Golden, Alec Baldwin, Spike Lee and several others.

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Kris Jenner Sister Karen Houghton’s Cause of Death Revealed, Plus Her Bipolar Battle

The official cause of Kris Jenner ‘s sister’s death has been revealed.

Karen Houghton, Jenner’s youngest and only sister, died of cardiac arrest and sudden cardiac arrhythmia, TMZ reported citing her death certificate. The document also revealed type 2 diabetes was a secondary underlying cause. Additionally, the certificate revealed the former flight attendant and part-time nurse was diagnosed with bipolar disorder.

Karen, who lived a life away from the cameras, was Jenner’s only biological sibling. She died on March 18. She was 65 years old.

On Instagram, Jenner confirmed her sister’s death the day after. “It is with the heaviest heart and deepest sadness that I share that my sister Karen passed away yesterday unexpectedly. My heart aches for my mom MJ and my niece Natalie and I pray that God guides us all through this difficult time.”

The Kardashian-Jenner matriarch continued, “Karen was beautiful inside and out. She was the sweetest, kindest, the most sensitive and vulnerable and so so funny. She always felt grateful and thankful for her life and treasured her family and friends and especially her beautiful daughter…Karen’s passing is a reminder that life is so short and precious and tomorrow is never promised. We must tell those we cherish how much we love them. I love you my beautiful sister.”

Karen’s only daughter Natalie Zettel shared her own moving words about her mother. “You were my best friend, my everything,” the 26-year-old wrote on Instagram on March 20. “The best mother a daughter could ever ask for and I’m so grateful to have had a mother like you.”

After their parents Mary Jo “MJ” Shannon and Robert True Houghton got divorced in 1962, Jenner and Houghton grew up together with their mother in California. Despite their supposed estrangement in 2013, the sisters seemed to be on better terms in 2019 when they appeared happily in a family photo together.

In her 2011 memoir “Kris Jenner…And All Things Kardashian,” Jenner referenced their sisterhood: “We loved each other, and we were there for each other through thick and thin and to this day, we are a part of each other’s lives.”

Kris Jenner