this post was submitted on 29 Oct 2023
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Risa
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Come on'n get your jamaharon on! There are no real rules—just don't break the weather control network.
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I've found that I really enjoy it in sci-fi when ships are designed to be comfortable. In TNG, the Enterprise is like one gigantic carpeted lounge.
I've gotten a little bored of the whole spartan, exposed metal, tubes, and access panels aesthetic. If humans get to the point that we're building starships for people to live on, we would probably try make them comfortable.
The Expanse series went into a fair bit of detail on the "form follows function" aspect of spaceship aesthetics, but it was a lot more near-future than Trek.
In most cases, The Expanse postulates that the most important aspect of spaceship design is cleanliness and the ability to protect the air filters and purification systems. In this case, I would assume that carpets are likely going to cause more of a headache than comfort, but who knows. Also, they'd probably want something that would not interfere with magnetic boots when the ship is in zero-g.
Cleanliness is an argument, although it still doesn't excuse the terrible lighting some shows tend to have. You absolutely do not want your ship to have dark corners everywhere; that just increases the likelihood of accidents for no good reason. You want uniform, diffuse lighting as much an possible.
I would hope. Sort of military ship vs cruise ship in terms of decor, I guess. But with far bigger quarters hopefully.
That's a really good distinction, and I wouldn't be surprised if that's precisely what they were going for. They really hammer home that they're not a warship - their mission is exploration.
I like both the clean, comfortable, luxury of the Enterprise or an Imperial Battle Cruiser, but at the same time I also love dirty, rugged, lived-in, utilitarian designed ships like Firefly or Farscape. In reality, I think there would be both. The rich people would have the former, while the not so rich would have the latter.