Bridge Layouts

Introduction

Science fiction movies and television shows have offered detailed examples of how a space-faring civilization might build the bridge or command deck of a vessel or station. Through a combination of original analysis by set designers and influence from prior art, command decks have taken on a variety of basic patterns, which this paper will describe. 

The purpose of the command deck is to bring together in one place all the officers in charge of various command duties aboard the vessel, allowing the commander to communicate to all of them. Most of the designs presented here achieve this purpose efficiently while allowing the cinematographer to frame the scene with appropriate drama. 

Linear

In the Linear command deck the vessel’s commander and bridge crew face forward in the direction of travel. This includes a wide variety of vessels:

The simplest of these, a single-pilot air craft, is the basic model. The Nostromo from Alien is the most elaborate. In all cases, everyone faces forward with specialized displays and control panels in easy reach. The vessel commander and the pilot in control often have identical or very similar controls. 

Out-Facing

The command deck of the USS Enterprise from Star Trek TOS is the classic example of the out-facing bridge. The Captain sits in a rotating throne at the center where he can see all the panels of all the bridge officers. Two bridge officers sit in front of him in linear style, facing the large view-screen. The other officers are arranged in a circle around them, facing their displays, indicators, and controls; each station is specialized for its function. The vessel’s commander frequently has few or even no direct controls. 

The arrangement is designed to feed information to the commander and allow the commander to efficiently issue commands to the crew. The commander can turn to any station and see what its officer sees. Likewise the officers can turn to the commander for  direct face-to-face conversation. 

The out-facing design is used in all large Federation starships and is even seen in illustrations of Honorverse command decks. An apocryphal tale has it that someone from the United States Navy approached the producers of Star Trek to find out how they had obtained secret plans for a military communications center. 

Submarine command decks are typically of the out-facing design as well. The officers who command propulsion and steering sit at the front facing forward; the commander stands at the center near the periscope; and other officers face outwards along the walls. 

The command deck of the Kobali Samsar class ships from Star Trek Online takes the outward-facing bridge to an extreme. The commander can’t see the screen easily and has to shout at the bridge crew.

In-Facing

One large starship, Battlestar Galactica, turns the Enterprise bridge inside-out. The commanding officer and executive officer stand at the center before a map table. The bridge officers sit at their control panels on tiers facing inwards. The commanding officers can make eye contact with their bridge crew without the crew having to turn away from their panels. 

The Doctor’s TARDIS takes the concept of the inward-facing command deck to an extreme. The most important controls are at the center, where the vessel’s commander must dash from station to station to operate them. Some variants have additional consoles facing the center, but these do not alleviate the fundamental ergonomics problem. 

Overseer

The command decks of Star Wars’ Star Destroyers and of Babylon 5 share an interesting traits that are otherwise rarely seen: The commanding officer stands at the front, facing a large view port, with his or her back to the bridge crew. 

The command deck of Iron Sky’s George H. W. Bush has the commanding officer in the hindmost position, looking over the shoulders of the bridge crew. 

In all these cases, the bridge crew occupy a lower level where they focus on their displays while trying hard not to come to the attention of the ill-tempered commander. GWB and Babylon 5 have railings; the Star Destroyer is probably a violation of the dissolved GOSHA. 

Scattered

The Rocinante is a ship featured in The Expanse. Unlike others, it doesn’t have a unified command deck. The commanding officer and pilot have their stations on one deck; the rest of the bridge crew are scattered far apart on another deck. (It is akin to the Overseer design.) The reasoning seems to be that the Rocinante is a warship and needs to minimize the chances that a single shot can kill all of the command crew. When spread out like this, it would take many shots of the type seen in The Expanse to incapacitate the ship. 

The command deck of Deep Space Nine ’s Terok Nor is a scattered combination of Overseer and In-Facing.

The Thermopod from Buckaroo Banzai is just weird. It has two seats on a sort of rotating mount, so the two pilots can trade positions while the vessel is in flight. According to one pilot, “It is a very bad design.” 

Conclusion and Further Research

Each of these command deck designs was created to fulfill a particular purpose, constrained by the realities of the vessel’s overall design, the imagination of the set designer, and the constraints of the production budget. Aside from deliberately incompetent designs, each of these fits its purpose.

Which of these is best? Real-world examples from aircraft, surface vessels, and submarines will go only so far in the realities of starship design. Examples from cinema and television are opinions. What’s needed is actual research into command deck design. We are fortunate to live in an age when not only can we imagine spacefaring vessels, we can use networked microcomputers to construct simulated command decks. 

Artemis Bridge Simulator, a networked computer simulation of science fiction starship command deck operations, fits this purpose perfectly. Each station can be set up to play any bridge officer position. Aside from practicality and tradition, there is no requirement to set up the stations in any specific layout. The commander does not necessarily have a designated chair; they can go anywhere they want. 

Two layouts are typical. The scattered layout is a natural consequence of networked play, where individuals have their bridge stations in their homes. The linear layout is commonly seen at science fiction conventions.

Artemis’ flexibility offers an opportunity to try out all the different bridge layouts and discover experimentally which one works best. I would encourage operators of such systems to innovate. Take inspiration from the wide variety of layouts portrayed in cinema and television and set up command decks in different ways. Find out how the layouts affect communication and which layouts are preferred.