# What is this thing on the Enterprise D bridge? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 31, 2019, 1:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-this-thing-on-the-enterprise-d-bridge/831795 "2019-03-31T01:40:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2019, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-this-thing-on-the-enterprise-d-bridge/831795/21 "2019-03-31T18:57:39Z")
> [@Balance](#): > > Various diagrams I’ve found list them as equipment bays. The redundant placement (on each side of the bridge) and the association with the alert indicator suggests to me that they are for emergency equipment–they’re set up to be easily accessible and to be very obvious in emergency situations. What that “emergency equipment” entails, I can only speculate, but if I were stocking them, each bay would contain gear for one person–breather mask, phaser, tricorder, first aid kit, some kind of emergency bulkhead sealant, and a basic repair kit (with some common spare parts as well as tools). There are enough bays on each side to provide kit for a full bridge crew, so no one would get left out, even if they all rushed to the same set of bays for some reason. > > If that’s the case, then I would infer that the lights on the bays are status indicators. Steady light indicates the bay is fully stocked and up to date. Light off means the bay is not in ready status–it’s not fully stocked or the items in it are not confirmed ready for use. Blinking lights would mean “attention needed”; perhaps a reminder that the bay is overdue for inspection and manual verification of its contents. (Manual check and refresh of emergency equipment would logically be a routine part of bridge duties during slack times.) The blinking light status may only trigger if the number of “ready” bays is less than the number of people detected on the bridge, or if the stored equipment that can’t be verified is actually safety-specific, like breathers. > > The reason some of the lights are often off is that the bridge crew is prone to raiding them for repair kits or minor medical supplies, rather than leaving the bridge to get spare parts or a headache remedy (or whatever). The redundancy of the kits means they’re pretty casual about restocking non-emergency items in them, and leave them alone until it’s time for a regular refresh or inspection. Why bother stocking equipment/supplies \*at all \*if the replicator can produce anything on demand? :dubious: 😕 ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2019, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-this-thing-on-the-enterprise-d-bridge/831795/22 "2019-03-31T18:58:00Z")
So build replicators into each compartment to keep them stocked. Or if there isn’t room for the tech, have it automatically replicated elsewhere and beamed in. No need for anything to ever be out of inventory for more than a couple of seconds. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2019, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-this-thing-on-the-enterprise-d-bridge/831795/23 "2019-03-31T19:01:37Z")
> [@terentii](#): > > Why bother stocking equipment/supplies \*at all \*if the replicator can produce anything on demand? :dubious: 😕 Relying on replicators for all your emergency equipment doesn’t work great when the emergency disables your replicators. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2019, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-this-thing-on-the-enterprise-d-bridge/831795/24 "2019-03-31T19:24:58Z")
To my eye – which admittedly is biased by things that I’ve seen a lot – those look like legacy disk drives. I’m pretty sure that DEC or IBM made drives that look a lot like that. I can’t put my finger on an exact one right now, but [these DEC RLO2s](http://staff.salisbury.edu/~rafantini/IMAGES/tradepics/rl0102.JPG) would be very similar if they were half-height instead of a full cabinet height. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2019, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-this-thing-on-the-enterprise-d-bridge/831795/25 "2019-03-31T19:26:54Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > Relying on replicators for all your emergency equipment doesn’t work great when the emergency disables your replicators. Must be one hell of an emergency! :eek: ---
**Author:** ![Balance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ccd318/32.png) [@Balance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balance)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2019, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-this-thing-on-the-enterprise-d-bridge/831795/26 "2019-03-31T19:39:31Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > Relying on replicators for all your emergency equipment doesn’t work great when the emergency disables your replicators. Bingo. You don’t want to be caught short on something critical when the replicators are offline. Or it might take too long for a replicator to fabricate some particular thing–they take a two or three seconds to make a cup of tea, after all. If you’re fabbing an emergency item like breather masks for 15 people, that adds up. Or you want everyone to be able to grab a tactical harness with a full load-out, so the whole bridge crew can bug out in under a minute. Or it could just be that, while replicators are clearly common, they’re not so common or cheap (in terms of power, resources, or maintenance) that you want to put 30 of them in a room just to handle a task that the bridge crew can easily cover in idle moments during normal shifts. If they were that common, you’d expect there to be one at every station on the bridge. Finally, this is a quasi-military facility, and bridge duty is going to be boring most of the time. Whenever possible in those circumstances, you give people routine, but useful, manual tasks to get them moving and keep them awake (and out of mischief). ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2019, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-this-thing-on-the-enterprise-d-bridge/831795/27 "2019-03-31T20:01:04Z")
> [@Balance](#): > > Bingo. You don’t want to be caught short on something critical when the replicators are offline. The way everything explodes and shorts out on the bridge after one or two phaser hits, I find it hard to believe there’s anything “critical” in those bins that would be of much help. It would be like having a “See, Mom?” escape hatch on a submarine. Might just as well write the bridge crew off. They’re going to be incinerated/suffocated/sucked out into space before they can even open those bins. They’re just a waste of space and the energy needed to maintain them. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2019, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-this-thing-on-the-enterprise-d-bridge/831795/28 "2019-03-31T20:28:43Z")
> [@terentii](#): > > It would be like having a “See, Mom?” escape hatch on a submarine. What’s a “See, Mom?” escape hatch? ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2019, 8:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-this-thing-on-the-enterprise-d-bridge/831795/29 "2019-03-31T20:32:33Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > What’s a “See, Mom?” escape hatch? The thing you show your parents when they visit your boat and worry you might not be able to get out if you’re sunk: “Sure we can. See, Mom? We have an escape hatch right _here_.” Unless you go down in very shallow water, the damned things are useless. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-this-thing-on-the-enterprise-d-bridge/831795.md?page=1)