Headscratchers / Star Trek: Lower Decks S4E02 "I Have No Bones Yet I Must Flee"

• Just how many promotions has Rutherford turned down?
  • At least two.
• And did he really not get promoted for saving the day last episode because he broke Voyager?
  • His actions could have rendered Voyager un-usable for display.
• Why is there a crew quarters sandwiched between two holodecks that has thin walls which are unsuitable to block the sound caused by active programs?
  • Why aren't the windows facing the nacelles filtered by default?... Actually, why aren't all the windows? There are plenty of dangerously bright objects in space... Also, why have windows?
    • Because people can only spend a limited amount of time in an enclosed environment without windows before it psychologically affects them (a real-life problem for submariners).
    • Sometimes the only explanation is Rule of Funny, perhaps that room was originally not there/something else and was added by a badly thought out refit?
    • Starfleet's saucer and nacelle design style is really modular, and the window and nacelle arrangement on the Cali class was probably caused by Starfleet using a more or less off the shelf design and not really worrying about how it functioned when arranged in that ship configuration. Plus it isn't really big deal, as Rutherford shows, if you know enough to dial down the settings. As to why the windows have multi settings, there are a lot of reasons it could be beneficial to monitor the nacelles or ship exterior in real view rather than in sunshade view, plus there are species in Starfleet who need that high brightness settings as their own comfort default. The sunshade option not being turned on when Boimler moved in could either be that the default room settings is everything turned off to allow the new personnel to modify them to their own preference, or that the previous occupant was a high-light spectrum species member and just left it like that and nobody bothered to change it. The real Headscratcher is how someone who is as big a ship nerd and rule follower like Boimler didn't know that the viewport settings could be altered like that.
  • There's a simpler answer to both questions: because it's funny. Even works as an explanation in-universe. Given the somewhat substandard design and accomodations of the California-class, it's entirely plausible that the designers may have included both rooms as a prank on future crews.
  • On the subject of windows, why do they have windows? The filters probably would not do much to stop a phaser or disrupter hit from flooding the cabin with lethal energy. For that matter, what is the logic of putting crew quarters along the outer hull? Given the kind of holographic technology they have, surely they could simulate windows very realistically, even on an interior wall.
    • People like to look outside, and people know the difference between a picture and an actual view. Even the best fake view, our brains know the difference and need the real thing. It is surprisingly hard to trick the human brain. Besides, they are not windows as we have them. They are not glass inserts; they are literally the same stuff as the hull material, only transparent patches of it. The windows are exactly as tough, no more and no less, than the rest of the hull.
    • The holodecks fool the human (and most nonhuman) brain all the time. That is why starship crews use them for things like experiencing the outdoors on a starship. The issue with windows is that they are transparent! So even if they have the same material strength as the rest of the hull (and hull breaches are not at all uncommon, in combat especially) they would not block any kind of radiation powerful enough to overcome the filter. We actually see this when the Aledo kills Admiral Buenamigo by firing a phaser shot through his office window.
    • The holodecks distract people, not fool them. They are the methadone to reality's sweet free range heroin. We see regularly in DS9 that people feel the need to visit Bajor or some other planet in order to touch grass, and even on the ship based series, they regularly rotate people through shore leave and away teams to get them out into the real environment. This is something that very real agencies like NASA worry about, and test, so, Reality Is Unrealistic again. As for the Aledo, it was being a deliberate dick to (not so)Buenamigo by killing him in the cruellest way possible. When you are throwing around enough energy to obliterate massive chunks of space station, taking the time to do it through a viewing section so they know it is coming is just making sure they know it is personal.
    • Right at the beginning in Encounter at Farpoint it was made explicitly clear that the newer model holodecks, such as the Enterprise-D had, could totally fool the senses of anybody short of Data (and presumably Geordi). Characters take leave largely for personal reasons, not because they need to walk in real grass (which a holodeck can create with its replicator functionality). On the windows issue, as I said, why are crew quarters on the outer hull, with windows, when that is exactly where attacks from enemy starships will be hitting the ship if the shields fail? To repeat: hull breaches are not unusual. Besides, the vast majority of the time there's nothing to see outside of the windows other than the blackness of space. You might recall the NCC-1701 (as seen in TOS) had very few windows, and none were shown to be inside of crew quarters. Not even Captain Kirk had so much as a porthole in his quarters (it's kind of hilarious how opulent Captain Pike's quarters in SNW compared to what Kirk got in the original series).

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