In the 24th Century, there are no tray tables

[kaysho]

If the television series Star Trek: the Next Generation accomplished anything over its lifetime, aside from hopefully making Paramount a lot of money, it gave to the 1980s and 1990s a view that the technical could also be stylish and comfortable.  Before then, for something to be "futuristic" it had to have a sense of coldness and rigidity, with an

Comments

[skookumpaws]

Amazing pictures>>>Hmmmm, *Ideas for my trailer. Off to Home Depot ;-)

[kaysho]

Or Turkmenistan. Although they say that the photographer wasn't allowed to reveal who owned which planes, the one in photograph #7 is pretty obviously the plane of the former dictator, Saparmurat Niyazov. You can tell by the Turkmenistan-shaped blob on the far wall. :)

[rattuskid]

If you were to show me that picture without context, apart form the decorating, I could tell from the shape it was not a usual residence, but if I was forced to wager a guess I would either say extremely up class hotel or yacht... but a jet?

Wow.

I do like how TNG was very good about keeping hallways free of clutter, dangerous piping, and were well lit... but ever panel still seemed to have no circuit breakers or ground.

[kaysho]

You can see it most clearly in the third picture ... otherwise yes, most of these could easily be weird hotel suites or conference rooms on terra firma. :)

The fifth picture, especially, to me just screams ST:TNG as its design inspiration.

I can't remember which Star Trek film it was, but there was one where the "new Enterprise" had hallways where you walked on thin raised platforms in the centre of each hallway, which were surrounded by pipes at a level lower than the platform. I'm sure this was supposed to make the Enterprise look more "serious" and warship-like for what was probably a martial plot line ... but all I remember thinking was, "Man, someone's going to break an ankle on those." :)

[iamweasel_2112]

Time to geek out a bit here as a trek nerd -- but yeah, I loved the design of the Enterprise D's interior. Indeed, it looked more like a comfortable office building than a cold, ridgid spaceship. Unfortunately as Trek went into the later 90s and 2000s, they sorta went back to that rigid edgy interior design.

I really liked the design of the latest Trek film, with its "retro-future" ultra clean (and shiny!) style.

[kaysho]

Especially with DS9 and Nemesis, they took the franchise in a more "military" direction, which isn't really compatible with the comfortable office building look. It kills too much of the tension if everyone looks as though they have a place to relax. :)

[kaysho]

That movie was about sitting in the cinema for over two hours and then going, "Wait, I just watched what?" :)

I wonder when we crossed the line where the cool lighting from fluorescents went from being "modern" to being "low-budget office" ...

[stilghar]

I think the most pleasing asthetic for a starship design stems from David Weber's Mutineer's Moon trilogy.

Imagine, if you will, a ship so large it has multiple park decks, each with its own separate ecosystem, and the smallest still has at least one lake large enough to go sailing on. The atmosphere, even in the corridors, is laced with fresh scents from the homeworld, and the background noise abounds not with the artificial sounds of life aboard ship but with the soft chirps of birds and the skittering of wildlife - recorded, of course, but still a welcome touch.

That being said, those are some sweet photos - and I agree, several of those would be well at home, if not downright opulent, three hundred years later on a Galaxy or Sovereign-class starship.

[kaysho]

One of the funny things about how we view starships is that we usually treat them like "waterships": they can be minimalist in many respects because there will always be shore leave to break up the monotony. But if shore leave may come only once in a generation, if at all, you'd probably want more a "microplanet" like that, lest cabin fever make everyone regret the adventure.

[stilghar]

Exactly.

And with cruise durations ranging between 5 and 25 years, crew comfort - and crew expansion, of a sort - become rather nontrivial concerns.

Of course, camouflaging such a warship is also not exactly easy and typically involves the demolition of a moon or other small body...hence the title of the first book in the series.