Exposed Starship Bridge

Who needs escape pods when you've got an EVA suit and a center punch?

For some reason, many spaceships tend to have their bridge (where all the important people and instruments are) in a very exposed place. This has probably to do with space being an ocean and sea-going ships having their bridge on top of some sort of superstructure instead of deep inside the hull.

Of course, all the possible reasons for placing a bridge in such an exposed place wouldn't really apply in space. Real life ships have the bridge exposed so that the crew can see where they are going and what's going on around them, and also to be able to observe any work going on on the deck. Presumably in the future you'd have cameras and other sensors for those purposes. You would build a spaceship more like a submarine, with the bridge very well protected in the middle of the ship. Indeed, this is the trend in warship design since the 1940s; the actual bridge is still located topside, but only used for navigation, while the actual direction of the ship in combat is done from a Combat Information Center buried deep within the ship. The only exception would be if you had a small ship that might have a cockpit for atmospheric manoeuvring, but even that could be done from a safer place via sensors and computers instead of by looking out the window.

The folly of having a single point of failure in such an exposed location can easily become apparent during a Space Battle, as the destruction of the bridge would not only kill the commander and most important personnel in one fell swoop, it could even lead to a chain reaction that results in the loss of the whole ship. Again, in real life this problem has been recognized since the advent of armored ships, which tried to avert this issue with heavily armored conning towers.

This is closely tied to See the Whites of Their Eyes and Standard Starship Scuffle as bridge officers will often be looking at the battle through the bridge windows even though their weapons should be capable of engaging enemy ships well beyond visual range.

Common justifications for this include the presence of Deflector Shields (which would leave the entirety of the ship vulnerable if they failed), and any windows being made of a futuristic material just as durable as the rest of the hull (though having more than just one layer between the crew and asphyxiation would still be safer.) Other justifications may include explanations that the bridge is heavily armoured despite its prominent positioning, the kind of weaponry involved makes any attempt at hiding the bridge moot (e.g. if Wave-Motion Gun-type weapons are common and can incinerate ships completely), and the bridge's prominent positioning assists in command and control.

This is essentially the starship equivalent of Helmets Are Hardly Heroic, where heroic characters rarely wear helmets even though it is completely logical to do so. Compare Cranial Processing Unit, where a robot's most vital components are all located in its head rather than somewhere more heavily armored. See also Point Defenseless for another trope where ships and installations are unrealistically vulnerable.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• Gundam: Many warships in the various Gundam series have their bridges in prominent positions on the top of the ship. This allows for suitably dramatic moments where the bridge crew can look in horror as an enemy Mobile Suit manages to reach said bridge and point a weapon directly at them. It's also partially justified by the fact that most Mobile Suits and warships carry weapons powerful enough to obliterate the entire ship, so it's more useful for the crew to be able to actually see things through the windows (and hopefully identify potential threats before they actually become dangerous).
  • Mobile Suit Gundam:
    • The Musai-class ships utilised by the Principality of Zeon have their bridges in a prominent position. The risks of this design are put on display in at least one episode, where Amuro Ray wipes out the bridge crew of Char Aznable's personal Musai the Falmel by slashing at it with his beam saber, ripping open a huge gash that sends them screaming into space.
    • The Zanzibar-class ships have their bridges on the front of the ship, but still fairly prominent thanks to the numerous bay windows. Char Aznable destroys a Zanzibar as part of his quest to wipe out the Zabi Family by flying up to the bridge in a space suit and firing a rocket through one of the windows, beheading Kycillia Zabi and causing the entire ship to crash and explode thanks to the chain reaction.
    • The Salamis and Magellan-class ships utilised by the Earth Federation have their bridges in a similar position, though almost always protected by numerous anti-aircraft guns. Because of this, Zeon pilots normally opt to attack the ships' comparatively vulnerable underbelly, though some ace pilots are known to take advantage of the speed and maneuverability of their Ace Custom Mobile Suits to fly up to the bridge and attack it before the AA guns can react.
    • We get a particularly visceral demonstration of why this kind of setup is a bad idea in the Mobile Suit Gundam: The Origin prequel movies, which introduces a new anti-shipping weapon for the Zaku-series Mobile Suits styled after an enormous sniper rifle designed with the express purpose of killing bridge crews. With fragmentation shells. Pink Mist on a naval scale.
    • The Pegasus-class carriers (the most famous example of which is the White Base crewed by the protagonists) have the bridges on the top of the superstructure, the overall shape being the reason Zeon's forces originally used the Reporting Name "Trojan Horse" to describe the White Base (the bridge forming the "head" while the front hangars were the "legs").
  • Mobile Suit Gundam 0083: Stardust Memory: When the Earth Federation unleashes the Solar System II in order to destroy the colony the Delaz Fleet is trying to drop on Earth, Anavel Gato (remembering when the original Solar System was used during the Battle of Solomon) tries to locate and destroy the small command craft that functions as the superweapon's bridge. However, showing that they weren't completely stupid, the Federals had taken the step of camouflaging the bridge (compared to the prominent bridge of the original Solar System). Unfortunately for them, Gato is canny enough to notice that one part of the Solar System II seemed unusually well-defended and realised that the bridge must be there.
  • Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam: Prominent Titan officers Jamaican and Bask Om are killed on separate occasions when the bridges of their flagships the Alexandria and the Dogosse Gier were deliberately targeted and destroyed. In Jamaican's case, Yazan Gable, annoyed at what a Smug Snake General Ripper Jamaican was, deliberately positioned himself in front of the bridge of the Alexandria during a battle, and so when an AEUG Mobile Suit fired on him he simply dodged and let the shot do the rest. Bask is killed when Sirocco launches his coup to take command of the Titans, having his subordinates fight their way to the Dogosse Gier's bridge tower, identify Bask was present, and then destroy it along with everyone inside.
  • Mobile Suit Gundam: Char's Counterattack: The Ra Cailum turns out to be a Subversion. While its bridge is exposed most of the time, during battle, it's retracted deeper into the ship.
  • Mobile Suit Victory Gundam: By the time of the series, the Reinforce-class are among the ships fielded by the Earth Federation and the League Militaire. Like their distant ancestors during from the One Year War, they have their bridges placed prominently on the superstructure, protected by various anti-Mobile Suit weapons. During the Final Battle, the Reinforce Junior performs a suicide run in a desperate attempt to prevent the Angel Halo from coming online. The defending Zanscare forces specifically target the bridge, killing most of the bridge crew. One Zanscare Mobile Suit even flies in close in order to make sure, but despite the pilot's efforts, the few surviving members of the bridge crew manage to aim the Reinforce before being atomised. The fact that the bridge was placed high up on the superstructure meant that the rest of the ship, still comparatively intact, manages to keep going.
  • The Archangel-class battleships in Mobile Suit Gundam SEED had a very exposed bridge, which nearly got most of the main cast killed at least twice in the series. This was actually addressed in Gundam SEED Destiny, where the Minerva-class, like the aforementioned Ra Cailum, has a bridge that is essentially pulled inside of the ship during battles.
  • Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans: As part of their vengeance against Jasley Donomikols, Tekkadan's forces obliterate most of his fleet, and the Gundam Barbatos makes it a point to land on his command ship right in front of his bridge while Tekkadan leader Olga invites Donomikols to beg for his life. After admitting he only gave Donomikols that opportunity to throw the offers back in his face (since he'd made things personal by deliberately targeting Tekkadan's friends and allies), Olga has the Barbatos crush the bridge and everyone inside with a single blow of its mace.
• Macross: Many of the Macross-type ships that appear throughout the series (beginning with the SDF-01 Macross from Super Dimension Fortress Macross) cross this with Cranial Processing Unit thanks to how in ship or cruiser mode the bridge is normally on a prominent tower at the center of the ship, while in mech or attack mode, the bridge becomes the "head". In the final episode of the original series, the Macross's bridge takes major damage from an enemy's last-ditch attack to the point that in Robotech almost everyone in the crew is mentioned to have been killed in the resulting explosion (whereas in Macross they all survive).
• Martian Successor Nadesico: The bridge of the Nadesico is in the leading edge of the upper section, painted red, to make sure it stands out. Justified as the ship is protected by a powerful force field known as a distortion field.
• Project A-Ko: The warships of the Leptons of Alpha Cyngi have a bridge tower at the top of the ship resembling earth navy vessels (likely due to the ship and captain being parodies of Captain Harlock). However, they also have a squadron of single-pilot fighter craft that also double as land assault vehicles, and a frontal defense that makes extreme use of Macross Missile Massacre, so good luck getting to the bridge (though a single-woman powersuit is able to penetrate the defenses).
• Space Battleship Yamato has the excuse of being an actual battleship that was retrofitted for space. It has however no excuse for having a only thinly connected and very exposed secondary bridge mounted below it whereas in the live-action movie, it had to be cut loose when an enemy bomb latched onto it.

Fan Works

• The Ankh-Morpork City Air Watch, in the Discworld as envisioned by A.A. Pessimal, has the Air Force version of this. A division of the City Watch, their principal base, for good organisational reasons, is at Pseudopolis Yard. For a long time, its control and direction in the skies was via the "Control Tower," a separate floor of the Clacks tower serving the Yard, which was built higher and taller for this reason. As technomancy improves, the actual Command structure is brought indoors, into a protected and shielded room, which houses the technomantic comms used for control, as well as a sort of technomage Steampunk radar system. However, vulnerable sensors and Devices are still mounted on the top and sides of the Control Tower so as to relay info to the Command Room, and Air Watch command officers are troubled by how vulnerable the set-up still is. Find out more here.

Film — Live-Action

• The Black Hole: The bridge of the USS Cygnus is perched upon a high tower. While it can be justified as her not being a warship but an exploratory vessel instead, such placement means it's nearly hit when the Cygnus is pounded by meteorites and lost when such tower is torn off when the ship begins to disintegrate at the very end of the movie.
• Galaxy Quest: The bridge of the NSEA Protector is and the top of the forward section, and is also detachable from the main ship. It was built based on a fictional ship, and it's unclear if the original writers considered the tactical repercussions of where they put the bridge, especially since they also had a set of chompy-crushy metal things in the middle of the ship for no apparent reason other than Rule of Drama and/or Rule of Cool, and Gwen was not pleased with the fact.
• Star Trek:
  • Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan:
    • In the first confrontation between Khan and Kirk, as Reliant is closing in on Enterprise, Kirk orders Yellow Alert. Saavik responds with "Energize defense fields!", and a console shows a secondary shield layer activating over the upper dome on the saucer section, giving the bridge an extra layer of protection the rest of the ship doesn't have.
    • When Reliant and Enterprise engage at nearly point-blank range in the Mutara Nebula, Enterprise's phaser salvo hits the port side of Reliant's upper dome. Since both ships' shields are down due to being in the nebula, this causes severe damage to Reliant's bridge and kills everyone inside except Khan.
  • Star Trek: Generations: The Duras sisters' Bird of Prey sticks to shooting up Enterprise's secondary hull, but Lursa's last command before Enterprise is able to counterattack is "Target their bridge!", signifying that they're done toying with Enterprise and are ready for a kill shot.
  • Star Trek: Nemesis: A shot from Scimitar destroys the front of Enterprise's bridge, exposing the bridge to the vacuum of space and leading to one Red Shirt being sucked out before an energy field can seal it off.
  • Klingon warships have a somewhat bird-like shape, and the bridge is typically located on the dorsal side of the "head" of the ship, either directly at the top or almost so^note in the D7, K't'inga, Vor'cha, and Negh'Var cruisers or more internally^note the B'rel- and K'Vort-class Birds of Prey. This design has the same impracticality as that of Starfleet ships, as such a strike on an unshielded ship could easily take out the bridge. Making this even more hazardous is that in the D7, K't'inga, and Bird of Prey, the photon torpedo launcher is located on the ventral side of the "head", meaning a hit there could potentially detonate the torpedoes, blowing the entire "head" of the ship to bits and taking the bridge with it.
  • Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country: The modified photon torpedo launched by Enterprise seems to hit the viewscreen of Gen. Chang's Bird of Prey's bridge, and actually hits the ship almost directly on the "nose". The bridge is implied to be destroyed by the explosion that envelops Chang, although the vessel is only shown decloaking, and it takes multiple torpedoes from both Enterprise and Excelsior to finish it off. This is also a bit of Rule of Cool, as the torpedo was tracking the Bird of Prey's exhaust from its impulse engines and thus should've actually hit the very back of the ship.
  • Star Trek: Generations: Subverted by the torpedo from Enterprise that destroys the Bird of Prey. Like in TUC, it's shown appearing to approach the Klingon viewscreen directly, but it travels below it and hits the body of the ship based on Riker's order to Worf to target the primary reactor and the internal explosions that are shown before the Bird of Prey blows up.
• Star Wars:
  • Many examples appear throughout the franchise, normally justified with the bridges located in such prominent positions to assist with command-and-control on occasions where the ships are engaged in battle in comparatively close quarters (e.g. in orbit when it's useful for the commander to be able to physically see out the various viewports). These bridges are almost always heavily armoured and protected with Deflector Shields, since they're obviously tempting targets.
  • The most famous examples are the Imperial-class Star Destroyers, with their bridges prominently located on a heavily armoured control tower. They were still a noted weak point: Darth Vader's personal Super Star Destroyer, Executor, went down during the Battle of Endor when a Rebel pilot slammed his crippled craft directly into the bridge, causing it to crash into the Death Star II and explode before the Imperials could regain control from the backup bridge. That said, the only reason the pilot was able to do so was that the Executor had just weathered a full non-stop barrage from the entire Rebel fleet, bringing down its shields and making it vulnerable.
  • During the Clone Wars era (i.e. Attack of the Clones, Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Revenge of the Sith):
    • The Providence-class Dreadnoughts has their bridges on the dorsal fin, granting the ship's commander a 180-degree view of the area around the ship from the various viewports. General Grevious' flagship, the Invisible Hand, was modified thanks to the spire being taken over as the personal quarters of CIS political leader Count Dooku, with Grevious' command bridge now shifted to the forward section (which on normal Providence-class Dreadnoughts was utilised during ground operations only).
    • Munificent and Recusant-class frigates have a huge bridge module stretching out above the bow, as if daring the enemy to target it directly.
    • The Venator-class Star Destroyers fielded by the Republic has two bridges. The starboard one functions as the actual command bridge of the ship, while the port bridge primarily focuses on starfighter operations. Like with their later Imperial descendants, this makes the bridges very tempting targets, since taking them out not only cripples the ship but also disrupts command and control of the starfighter wing.
  • The Mon Calamari are fond of this as well, mounting their bridges on small pods atop their capital ships. The most blatant example is the Profundity, an MC75 star cruiser, which has its bridge on the end of a long spire stretching underneath the hull.

Live-Action TV

• Babylon 5:
  • The station itself has a bridge that has observation windows get shielded with extra armor when preparing for combat.
  • The White Star class appears to have an exposed bridge at the top. This comes into play during Between the Darkness and the Light where Ivanova's ship collided with debris, where she instinctively reacted as if the section of the ship was exposed.
• In the original Battlestar Galactica (1978) the eponymous vessel's Core Command was situated atop the forward part of the ship and was exposed to the point that it had a large window with a view of the stars. Surprisingly, this was acknowledged as a design flaw in publicity materials at the time but hand waved away as of little consequence as any battles would be fought at a distance. In an attempt to avoid this trope, the makers of the reboot series buried the Combat Information Centre deep inside the 'alligator head' of the ship, as far away from the exterior hull as possible. The bridge room of the Cylon basestars also appears to be somewhere in the center of the ship.
• Capital ships in The Expanse defy this trope, having their CICs buried deep within the hull, as seen with the M.C.R.N. Donnager in the third episode. Smaller ships like the Rocinante generally have their bridge in the bow but with no vulnerable windows. It should be noted that in this setting, even the smallest anti-ship weapons can easily punch clean through a ship's hull, so the placement of the bridge arguably doesn't matter — if a single lucky shot can cripple your entire ship, all the more important to evade or shoot down incoming missiles before they get close enough to threaten you.
• Capital ships in Farscape, such as Moya and the mammoth Peacekeeper Command Carrier, generally avert this. The Scarran Dreadnought, however, appears to have a bridge-like superstructure similar to a Star Destroyer.
• Whilst not a starship as such, the Moon in Space: 1999 functions as one, travelling between planetary systems and meeting other space travellers. In the first series Moonbase Alpha's control centre, Main Mission, was a spacious area situated in a tower at the hub of the base, complete with large windows overlooking the lunar surface. Whilst this was eminently reasonable for a civilian/scientific installation during peacetime, it became less sensible with every alien threat encountered. In the second season, the renamed Command Centre was moved underground into a much smaller, windowless room.
• Star Trek: With few exceptions, one distinctive feature of Starfleet starship design is that the bridge is located at the very top of the saucer section. Gene Roddenberry, when asked about this by a fan who noted how impractical this was, said it was for basically the same reasons Federation ships don't have cloaking devices: Starfleet doesn't build warships, and man doesn't hide. However, there are times when having an easily-targeted bridge is brought up:
  • Star Trek: The Original Series:
    • The two-part episode "The Menagerie" showed the bridge taking damage from a direct assault.
    • When Scotty reads off the list of damage to Constellation in "The Doomsday Machine", he mentions that the bridge has been destroyed and they have to run the ship from auxiliary control.
  • Star Trek: The Next Generation: Enterprise-D and other Galaxy-class ships are two vessels in one, as the saucer is clamped to the stardrive section and they can separate when needed. If separation is performed, such as in "Encounter at Farpoint" and "The Best of Both Worlds", the bridge crew decamps the main bridge on the saucer and moves to a battle bridge in the stardrive section. This battle bridge is located on top of the exposed "head" of the stardrive section and is as equally exposed as the main bridge, although it was never shown being directly targeted or taking damage. In older vessels reconnecting the stardrive and saucer sections required a Starbase, but from the Enterpise-C onwards such reconnecting could be initiated even without a Starbase.
  • Star Trek: Enterprise: In the Bad Future seen in "Twilight", the Xindi concentrate fire on Enterprise's bridge, eventually blasting it off and killing everyone inside. Fortunately, Archer is able to hit the Reset Button a few minutes later.

Tabletop Games

• Zig-Zagged by BattleTech, where some classes of ship have prominently visible bridges, such as the Lola III, while other classes have deeply recessed command and control centers linked to sensors, such as the Aegis class. However, the game also mentions a notable downside of having C3 operations rooms deep in the ship: when ships suffer damage to their sensor banks or power is cut between the ops room and the rest of the ship, this effectively leaves the vessel blind and dumb, forcing maneuvering and gunnery crews to operate without guidance, greatly reducing effectiveness. The visibility of the spaceship bridges becomes a crucial plot point after the first ilKhan of the Clan Invasion of 3050, Leo Showers, is killed when a dying Tyra Miraborg rammed her stricken fighter into the Clans' flagship. This forces them to retreat and elect a new supreme leader, buying the Inner Sphere a precious year of quiet to rearm and study their foes.
• Warhammer 40,000: The bridges of most factions' starships tend to stand out, though because of how powerful the weapons most ships carry tend to be it often doesn't matter how deep inside the ship's superstructure the bridge is.
  • Most of the Imperium of Mankind's ships tend to be covered with Bling of War, and their bridges stand out because of it.
  • The ships commanded by the forces of Chaos likewise tend to have prominent bridges, though in many cases they're further protected by their patrons (e.g. Nurgle's blessings basically make them impervious to damage, Tzeentch might zap enemy firepower away before they even hit).
  • Averted with space hulks, which are mish-mashed bits and pieces of ships and assorted debris that sometimes somehow come together into semi-functional ships. Generally any bridges will be at the very heart of the hulk, past all sorts of defenses and nasties lying in wait.

Toys

• Transformers:
  • Fortress Maximus zigzags this with Cranial Processing Unit. In his starship mode, he has his bridge on a prominent tower on the center of the ship. In robot mode, the tower splits and folds to form his sides. However, on the actual toy Cerebros (i.e. the Autobot who forms Fort Max's head) transforms into said bridge, meaning destroying the bridge would also effectively decapitate Fort Max himself. In the various media where he appears, on the other hand, Cerebros (or in the case of Transformers: The★Headmasters, Fortress himself) simply commands the Maximus from the bridge rather than transforms into said bridge.
  • Averted with Scorponok, in those series where he's large enough to be a starship. His scorpion head is normally not the bridge, which is deeper in. This is sometimes Depending on the Writer.

Video Games

• Halo: The UNSC starships tend to have their bridge located on the top or underside of the ship. Curiously, despite Covenant ships typically being described as impractical and unnecessarily ornamental compared to humanity's ships, they actually tend to hide the bridge from view, locating it deep within the hull.
• In Hydorah, the warships fighting on your side in the level "Galactic Inferno" have cockpits out on the front and bridges perched on the back, each having a large window looking out into space.
• All freighters in No Man's Sky have shapes similar to those of massive seagoing ships, with perched bridges whose large windows provide a good view on the front of the freighter, the space in front of it and all the spacecraft coming to and from the hangar situated below the bridge. Curiously, you don't get to build your base on the area overseen by the bridge, only right behind it.
• Weaponised in many of the more recent entries of SD Gundam G Generation, where it is now possible to target an enemy warship's bridge to do massive amounts of damage. The shape and location of the bridge has an effect, as some bridges can't be attacked with Range 1 melee weapons due to their location being further in and so must be attacked with ranged weaponry.
• Mass Effect:
  • The Normandy SR-1 had the bridge/CIC (Combat Information Center) located on the topmost deck, and this weakness was exposed when the Collector cruiser attacks it at the beginning of the second game. One huge hull breach and the entire CIC crew ends up dead and spaced including the ship's Commanding Officer. The Normandy SR-2 suffers the same problem as despite being nearly twice the size of the original, the ship still has the same overall design.
  • Subverted with the Collector cruiser which has the “bridge” (a single control console) located somewhere inside the center of the ship.
  • Also Subverted with the Geth since their ships don't have bridges. Instead, the Geth download themselves into the various subsystems of the ship to operate it directly.
  • Mass Effect: Andromeda: The Tempest has the bridge on the topmost deck, albeit with the justification of being a fast, agile but completely unarmed exploration ship instead of a warship.
• Transformers: Fall of Cybertron (part of the backstory to Prime) shows that the bridge is in a prominent enough position that Megatron was able to personally look out the windows at the Ark as he planned a boarding action.

Web Comics

• S.S.D.D.: CORE spaceships don't have a bridge, preferring to turn over most functions to the ship's AI and scattering the crew's consoles throughout the ship. But the Anarchists, with their preference for style over brutalist function, prefer to have a centralized bridge.

Western Animation

• Star Trek: Prodigy: The bridge of U.S.S. Protostar is not only atop the saucer section, it is wrapped at about 270° by large, presumably transparent aluminum windows. Protostar, however, is also significantly smaller, faster, and more maneuverable than most Federation ships, and as such, targeting the bridge directly might prove difficult. There's also a justified reason in-universe that their primary foe, the Diviner, won't target the bridge: A secret weapon designed by his people to infect and destroy Starfleet ships is hidden directly under the bridge, and so he wants the ship intact, not destroyed.
• Transformers:
  • Zigzagged with the various iterations of the Nemesis throughout the franchise. The original Nemesis seen in The Transformers and Beast Wars had its bridge on a prominent conning tower (which proved to be a liability in Beast Wars). Its counterparts in series like Transformers: Animated and Transformers: Cyberverse were lower down, past many weapons and defenses. In Transformers: Prime, the bridge was high up like in the original Nemesis, but since the Autobots have no ships of their own throughout the series there's no chance of an external attack. In fact, the Autobots actually manage to capture the Nemesis intact during the final episode of Prime by managing to board the ship and fighting their way onto the bridge to take control.
  • Beast Wars: In the Grand Finale, Megatron has uncovered the Nemesis, the Decepticon flagship commanded by his namesake the real Megatron and used it to obliterate the seemingly all-powerful Tigerhawk. However, during his attempt to destroy the Ark (and change history in favour of the Decepticons) the Maximal Rhinox manages to slam the Ark's escape shuttle right through the prominent conning tower where the bridge is located, sending the Nemesis careening out of control into the distance. Normally the bridge would not have been so vulnerable, but the Nemesis had spent several million years submerged and Tarantulas (who'd discovered the ship) prioritised flight and weapons systems over defenses. Plus, as seen in The Transformers the Nemesis was already operating at well below peak efficiency due to the dire energy shortage of the time.

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