I have to admit that it hadn't occurred to me to think about it until now, but it is a good question.
However, there's actually an even better one - and it implies the answer to the first: Why have a bridge at all?
Given the level of computer support available and the degree of cybernetic enhancement practiced, there's actually no reason whatsoever for the bridge officers to be gathered in the same compartment. Not when they going to be communicating via their implants anyway. Even across Dahak's diameter communication delays will be unnoticeable to crew members and of no importance in obtaining human responses to the data coming from the computers. It's likely that full integration with the system requires circuitry embedded in the command couches, but those could be located in quarters or in small groups convenient to people's quarters or most favoured recreational spots - and need not be dedicated to a specific function, either, so it wouldn't matter who sat where.
It's not unlikely that the bridge existed at all owing to that long-standing human devotion to illogical modes of operation called "tradition": the Imperium started out building their ships with command decks because they needed to, and once their tech developed to the point where there wasn't any point to it, kept on doing it anyway because ships have command decks, so there!
If so, there probably was no reason for duty officers to actually be on the bridge when the ship was at anchor watch, since they wouldn't need the full cybernetic integration normal for manoeuvring or combat. And for any emergency other that the one that actually occurred, they'd have had hours to get there.
UncleFrank wrote:Mycall4me wrote:The beginning chapter in Mutineer's Moon opens with Captain Druaga alone on the command deck while the mutiny explodes through the ship. But Dahak was a military vessel, and as such, should have had a duty watch on the command deck and in other locations as well (Engineering etc) And yet Druaga is alone and is forced to implement Condition Red Two, Internal to chase the rest of the crew completely out of Dahak's interior spaces.
Anyone have any suggestions as to why this might be? Artistic license, or something else?
Anu was chief engineer, so that would explain how he took care of engineering. And as chief engineer, he would have access to every other area and system on the ship, so he could plan accordingly.
As Dahak explains to Colin when they first meet, they were stopped in the Sol system because of a fake drive failure Anu had created. Maybe the ship being stopped for repairs could explain people not being on the bridge? But yeah, there still should have been a watch.
There's not really anything that explains it.
