Federation life support and the power it requires

[TheDarkling]

Yet in First Contact Picard walks onto the bridge and it is nothing but a wall until he says "activate viewscreen" at which point we see outside.

[Alyeska]

Then there was "Nemesis" where the bridge viewscreen is a fucking windshield! How is that for stupid design? At least the GCS had a more intelligent high-tech movie screen as described in the TNG TM.

What?!? How do you get "windshield" out of Nemesis?

That's even lower-tech than TOS.

And IIRC Wesley mentioned the GCS viewscreen as being holographic or something when he went on the bridge and managed to be an expert on what you'd think would be classified information.

Watch the battle in "Nemesis" and you see my point. Skippy launches a torpedo at the bridge and the view screen breaks, taking a redshirt with the rapid depressurization of the bridge before a forcefield kicks in. You can see the jagged edges of the glass/plastic/transparent aluminum/whatever from the explosion. From where I stand, that is a windshield on a starship.

That is incorrect. The Viewscreen is just like any other wall on the ship. If it was a window then tactical displays would be impossible.

[Alyeska]

Um, I don't follow your *cough* *gag* argument. It was on a wall. What does this have to do with technological sophistication?

Howedar, does it make sense to you to have a sheet of glass/plastic/transparent aluminum/whatever be the way you see things on the bridge? If anything, it is a weak point in what should be a heavily armored and shielded structure. I think it's more structurally sound that there be no physical window on the bridge, but rather thick armor with a screen that projects what the sensors pick up. I know we're talking about the Federation in all its engineering genius but let's assume someone in Starfleet has that much intelligence.

Do you even watch the series you claim to have knowledge about? We have seen time and time again that the viewscreen is a projector placed on a forward wall.

[DarthBlight]

Do you even watch the series you claim to have knowledge about? We have seen time and time again that the viewscreen is a projector placed on a forward wall.

Let's recall what we're all talking about. I am talking about the Enterprise-E in "Nemesis" having a windshield. Yes, it is a windshield. If you look at where the viewscreen was after the explosion, you can still see the jagged edges of the transparent part of the viewscreen. The view of Skippy's ship never changes which makes it even more inane. The apparent size doesn't change after the blast.

Now, I know that TNG, DS9, VOY, ENT, and the previous movies show that it is a projector. I am not arguing that. I am arguing that when "Nemesis" rolled around someone changed it to a windshield.