The captain's ready room was a personal office reserved for the commanding officer of a starship and was typically accessed from the bridge.
Here, the captain could engage in administrative work with all relevant office equipment at hand without interfering with bridge operations while having instant access to the bridge in the event of a crisis. In addition, this room was usually the preferred place where the captain could hold private discussions and/or receive classified communications.
In the absence of the ship's commanding officer, the use of the ready room accordingly fell to whichever officer was in command of the vessel at the time. (TNG: "The Arsenal of Freedom" etc.)
Starship ready rooms
NX-class
On NX-class vessels of the 22nd century, the captain's ready room was located starboard of the bridge, directly across from the turbolift. Office space in these early ready rooms was much more cramped than that of 24th century vessels and featured pipes running along the length of the ceiling, which was itself relatively low. The room had one window and one door. (Star Trek: Enterprise)
A short corridor outside the room was usually used as an access to and from the bridge, although it also led to the starship's network of corridors. (ENT: "Chosen Realm", "Affliction") The ready room was located to the aft of an emergency rescue hatch, as an exterior sign indicating this hatch's location was visible immediately below the ready room window. (ENT: "Shadows of P'Jem")
Aboard Enterprise, Captain Jonathan Archer's ready room was sparse compared to its future counterparts, featuring a desk, small couch and portraits of ships named Enterprise, including a sailing ship, the second aircraft carrier, the orbiter, and the NX-01 itself. (Star Trek: Enterprise) The room was plagued by a persistent squeak that, though seemingly repaired, resurfaced from time to time until it was apparently fixed for good by the automated repair station in 2152. (ENT: "Fight or Flight", "Dead Stop") Two years later, the room was one of numerous areas aboard the ship that were heavily damaged during the Battle of Azati Prime. Thereafter, neither the room's door nor its door chime were functioning. (ENT: "Damage")
A version of Enterprise from an alternate timeline in which the vessel was sent back 117 years into the past retained its ready room until at least 2154. However, at that point, the room no longer had its sketches of Enterprise, as they had been replaced with various alien-looking artifacts. ("E²")
Walker-class
Warning! This section may contain spoilers for new Star Trek material. |
The Walker-class starship featured a ready room to the port side of the bridge. It contained a desk for the captain as well as a conference table with six seats.
The USS Shenzhou had a ready room in which Captain Philippa Georgiou and first officer Michael Burnham have a heated discussion about how to respond to a Klingon vessel. (DIS: "The Vulcan Hello")
Crossfield-class
Warning! This section may contain spoilers for new Star Trek material. |
The Crossfield-class starship featured a ready room to the port side of the bridge. It was lightly furnished with a standing desk for the captain, a computer, and several large wall-mounted displays.
The USS Discovery had a ready room in which Captain Gabriel Lorca and Michael Burnham first met after Burnham's prison shuttle was rescued by the Discovery. (DIS: "Context Is for Kings")
Galaxy-class
On a Galaxy-class starship, the captain's ready room was located port of the main bridge, beside the forward-port turbolift. It was approximately seven meters in length. (TNG: "A Matter of Time")
Among the items kept in Captain Jean-Luc Picard's ready room was a copy of The Globe Illustrated Shakespeare: The Complete Works, a model of a Constellation-class starship (registry NCC-7100), a crystal model of a sailing ship, an ancient nautical sextant, and the Kurlan naiskos given to Picard by his mentor Richard Galen (TNG: "The Chase"; Star Trek Generations) as well as a salt water aquarium containing his fish, Livingston.
The room featured a large desk with a personal computer and three chairs, a couch, a large portrait of the USS Enterprise-D, and, in a side alcove, a food replicator.
Despite remaining mostly unchanged throughout its service aboard the Enterprise-D, Picard's ready room was temporarily redecorated (most notably, the fish tank removed) when Captain Edward Jellico briefly took command in 2369. (TNG: "Chain of Command, Part I", "Chain of Command, Part II")
A smaller, seldom-used ready room was also incorporated into the battle bridge on the stardrive section of the ship. (TNG: "Encounter at Farpoint")
Defiant-class
Like the other rooms on the USS Defiant, the ready room of the Defiant-class was small and compact.
In 2374, Captain Tim Watters spoke to Nog in the USS Valiant's ready room. Watters told him of the Valiant's mission to destroy a Jem'Hadar battleship.
Watters and Karen Farris later brought Jake Sisko to the ready room to warn him to stay away from Dorian Collins. (DS9: "Valiant")
Several months later, Captain Benjamin Sisko spoke to Captain Lisa Cusak from his ready room. They talked about the Dominion War, Starfleet's attempts to liberate Betazed from the Dominion and his discomfort with having Kasidy Yates aboard. (DS9: "The Sound of Her Voice")
In 2375, Sisko spoke to Ezri Dax on Deep Space 9 from his ready room on the Defiant to tell her they had been unsuccessful in locating Worf and other members of the IKS Koraga. (DS9: "Penumbra")
Intrepid-class
On an Intrepid-class starship, the captain's ready room was located starboard of the main bridge, beside the tactical station.
The desk, which featured a work area and access console, was the focal point of the room, located in front of the main entrance door. A raised level in the front section of the room featured a small table, a curved couch, and a food replicator.
The bulkhead behind the couch featured three windows facing the bow of the ship. A port-facing door beside the main entrance provided secondary access to the room from a deck 1 corridor. (VOY: "Shattered")
A shelf beside the main work desk allowed the commanding officer to display personal belongings. Captain Kathryn Janeway, of the Intrepid-class USS Voyager, used this shelf to display various historical and archaeological items.
Sovereign-class
Aboard Sovereign-class vessels, the ready room was located to the forward starboard side of the main bridge. It featured a small window looking out into space and a private entrance located off the bridge.
Captain Picard's ready room aboard the USS Enterprise-E featured a desk and small couch. It was decorated with items from the previous Enterprise, including his Mintakan tapestry.
It also contained a large, gold model of the Enterprise-E herself, along with the Enterprise-D, C, B, A and the original Enterprise. (Star Trek: First Contact)
Other
Captain Benjamin Maxwell had a ready room aboard the Nebula-class starship USS Phoenix in 2367, as did Captain Leyton aboard the USS Okinawa during the Tzenkethi War. (TNG: "The Wounded"; DS9: "Paradise Lost")
Ready rooms have also been included within starships built and used by other spacefaring organizations than Starfleet. The Andorian Imperial Guard, for example, were known to equip their vessels with such a room as early as 2153, when Commander Shran used a ready room on the Andorian battle cruiser Kumari. (ENT: "Proving Ground")
There was also a ready room aboard the Xindi-Primate Degra's ship, around the same time. (ENT: "The Forgotten")
Similarly, the Klingon Empire constructed ready rooms in some of their Birds-of-Prey; General Martok had a ready room aboard the IKS Rotarran in the 2370s, and another while briefly serving as commander of the IKS Ch'Tang in 2375. (DS9: "Soldiers of the Empire", "Sons and Daughters", "Once More Unto the Breach")
See also
Appendices
Background information
The concept of a ready room was first conceived by Robert Justman, who proposed the creation of such a room in a memo dated 9 November 1986. (Star Trek: The Next Generation Companion 3rd ed., p. 8) Years later, he recalled, "I suggested to Gene [Roddenberry] that we should have a captain's ready room, for what we both considered as a dramatic necessity. In a show like Star Trek, you need to have a place where the star, or the captain, can go to have a privileged conversation with someone else, without the possibility of being overheard. To me, the ready room was the perfect place to have that." (Star Trek: Communicator issue 115, p. 74) Justman took the idea from Navy experience he himself had had. [3] The ready room was therefore in accordance with Roddenberry wanting to adhere to naval custom. (Star Trek: The Magazine Volume 2, Issue 12, p. 24)
James Mees was of the opinion that the identity of a ready room's occupant should inform how the room itself looks. "My question is this: Does a ready room always have to have a desk, a chair, and a place for someone else to sit, or does the form and function of the room vary between races?" Mees asked. "To me, it seems clear that different people need different spaces. For instance, Degra's Ready Room is more a working laboratory than an office, because that's what he wants and needs." (Star Trek: Communicator issue 152, p. 36)
David A. Goodman picked fault with the captain's ready rooms whose walls featured Enterprise pictures, such as the ready room aboard the NX-class Enterprise and the equivalent room on the Galaxy-class Enterprise. He thought it unrealistic that a person's office aboard an active spacecraft would have images depicting outer space, rather than trees or other more down-to-earth imagery. Although Chris Black countered that each captain couldn't see their respective spacecraft from the outside, Goodman noted each vessel's external appearance was nonetheless known by its commanding officer. Black settled the debate by reminding Goodman he meanwhile had a picture of his office building on a wall in his own office. ("The Forgotten" audio commentary, ENT Season 3 Blu-ray special features)
The practice of using ready rooms seemed to have fallen into disuse by the mid-23rd century, as the Constitution-class USS Enterprise did not appear to have an area specifically designed to serve as a ready room – at least none that was shown in the entire run of The Original Series. Captains instead received a small office area in their quarters, as seen aboard the Enterprise refit in Star Trek: The Motion Picture and Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. Although space station Deep Space 9 likewise didn't feature a captain's ready room, it nonetheless had an office for the facility's commanding officer and Production Designer Herman Zimmerman once likened it to a captain's ready room. ("The Deep Space Nine Scrapbook", DS9 Season 1 DVD special features)
Apocrypha
A scene in the non-canon comic The Modala Imperative shows Admiral McCoy and Ambassador Spock touring the Enterprise-D and, when they get to Picard's ready room, McCoy states that, if Kirk had had such an office, they would have never gotten him off the bridge.
External links
- Ready room at Memory Beta, the wiki for licensed Star Trek works
- Ready room at Wikipedia