USS Farrington: Captain's Chair (2296)

“Much of the refit makes sense, but I still don’t understand why they replaced the chair.”
“Engineer Niva says the old chair doesn’t hold a candle to this one.”
“C’est ridicule. I’m not convinced. What’s better about it, besides the color?”
“The design is much sturdier?”
“The old one survived everything from an ion storm to wormhole flight.”
“It’s a lot more comfortable?”
“The old one had a nice bounce to it.”
“It’s got better ergonomics?”
“The old chair never sent anyone to the chiropractor.”
“The control layout is much more intuitive?”
“The Skipper never had a problem with the old one and neither did I.”
“The old chair was *HIS* chair!”
“That’s exactly what I miss about it!"
"Captain, are you alright?"
"I’m sorry, Ty, I just…”
“I know, ma’am. I miss Skipperdoodles too. But he’s gone now, and the war’s not over.”
“C’est la vie. I’ll just have to make this chair all mine.”
-(Bvt.) Capt. Madeline J. Carpentier and Lt. Cmdr. Thy’lera, September 2296

DISCLAIMER: The United Space Ship Farrington and her backstory are the intellectual property of model builder April “Kitbasher Girl” Welles. The original U.S.S. Farrington (NX-2010) was a kitbash Excelsior class starship model that I saw on the Starship Modeler web site in 2001, and I’m using some of April’s ideas with her permission.

The Western Blot procedure in a molecular diagnostics laboratory course can take a really long time to finish, especially when your classmates don’t have your level of competence and are fumbling their way through the process so badly that you’re left counting the wasted hours and wondering if you haven’t stated enough times that you majored in molecular biology as an undergraduate to begin with. However, complaining also leaves one’s hands idle, and there are always better things to do with your hands than twiddling your thumbs. Even though I was trapped in a student laboratory with no reference images, no straightedge, no drafting stencils and not even a mechanical pencil, I had an idea - and I really thought I could make it work. So despite my near-total lack of tools, I flipped my schedule around to the blank backside, put pencil to paper and gave it a go. Surprisingly, I wound up producing a great design (although I think the armrests are still too low, even though the backrest is now at the proper height) right on the first try.

The result is the second Captain’s Chair installed on my version of April Welles’ Starship U.S.S. Farrington (NX-2010). In the year 2296, the ship and her crew suffered a terrible blow when her commanding officer, Captain M. Tobias Sun, abruptly chose to resign his position and stay behind in a besieged alternate reality known as the Gamma-Universe in order to replace his fallen counterpart from that reality (Captain M. Lucius Sun) as the Captain of the U.S.S. Resilient and leader of the Starfleet Resistance (Resilient Cell); his sister and the Farrington’s chief science officer, Lt. Commander Sakura Sun, left with him while the Farrington returned to the Delta-Universe (her native dimension) without them. After the ship’s return, Admiral Vincenzo Gavazza decided to honor his lost protégé’s wishes to maintain the existing chain of command by promoting deputy science officer Lieutenant Safferellia Kell to Chief Science Officer and granting Commander Madeline Jeanne Carpentier, the Farrington’s veteran first officer (and Captain Sun’s fiancée), a Brevet Captaincy, officially giving her control of the vessel as the Starship Farrington’s second captain. The full story of this incident can be found in the notes I left on this submission here: fav.me/d5oreqy

Once these promotions were finalized, the damaged Federation battlecruiser headed back to drydock for a much-needed refit. The ship was reconfigured to be more survivable and battleworthy and several parts of her interior received major renovations, including the bridge. It was during this refit that the elegant white Captain’s Chair that Captain Sun had used since the Farrington’s launch was removed and replaced with a new model that was deemed much more suitable for a warship expected to see frontline combat, and as of the story’s end in 2300, this model remains in use aboard the ship under Captain Carpentier’s command even as the rest of the vessel was refitted again to convert her back into a configuration better-suited for peacetime service. This model of Captain’s Chair looks strikingly different compared to the one it replaced; it’s bulkier, more sturdily built, features asymmetrical armrests that rearrange the layout of its control console as well as a much larger Manual Steering Column, and blends in better with the floor due to the flattened shape of its new pedestal. It’s also noticeably darker, with a “smoky,” charcoal grey-colored frame instead of the previous chair’s ivory-white one.

In real life, there is a symbolic meaning behind giving the Starship Farrington a completely new Captain’s Chair when Madeline Carpentier becomes the ship’s new captain. It could be said that “the captain makes the ship.” In the J.J. Abrams “Star Trek” movies, composer Michael Giacchino even emphasizes this musically by giving Captain Kirk and the U.S.S. Enterprise (NCC-1701) the same theme melody. I personally like to associate Captains with their chairs because I’m so used to the idea of the chair being the naval equivalent of a monarch’s throne, so I felt that it would be a great way to symbolize the “changing of the guard” and the dawn of a new era aboard the U.S.S. Farrington by giving her new captain a brand-new chair. Unlike the previous chair, used by Captain M. Tobias Sun from 2286 to 2296, this new chair was designed to evoke a more solid, warlike look and feel.

I still conceived of the chair having a fiberglass frame with leather cushions, but the cushions are much more complex, featuring a segmented pattern inspired by the Captain’s Chairs of the U.S.S. Enterprise (NCC-1701-A) and the U.S.S. Enterprise (NCC-1701-E). The chair’s bulky shape is inspired largely by the chairs of the U.S.S. Kelvin (NCC-0514), the TOS incarnation of the U.S.S. Enterprise (NCC-1701) and, more recently, the U.S.S. Vengeance from “Star Trek: Into Darkness.” Design cues from the Dreadnought-class Section 31 warship’s command chair can be found all over this design if you know where to look. For example, the way the chair plugs into the floor is taken directly from the Vengeance’s chair: the pedestal of the chair is flattened almost to a 90˚ angle and has a flat plate that blends almost seamlessly with the floor, but it can still rotate 360˚ because the swivel mount is located underneath the aforementioned flat section and plugs into the floor itself. This configuration stands in stark contrast to the previous chair, which had a totally stationary pedestal and the supporting shaft that emerged from the pedestal to carry the main body of the chair had a swivel joint. The much larger, joystick-like Manual Steering Column (complete with thumb and index finger triggers) and the shape of the right armrest on which the column is mounted are also directly inspired by the Captain’s Chair of the U.S.S. Vengeance.

However, the left armrest – where the bulk of the Mission Operations, Communications, Computer Access & Shipboard Systems/Status controls are located, has a shape that largely draws from the armrests of the Captain’s Chairs used on the U.S.S. Enterprise (NCC-1701-A), U.S.S. Enterprise (NCC-1701-B) and U.S.S. Excelsior (NCC-2000) and the controls are based directly on those of the previous model, which itself had controls largely taken from those of the ST:09 Ryan Church version of the U.S.S. Enterprise (NCC-1701), all the way down to the labeling scheme on the control buttons. The “wraparound” headrest of this chair is also taken from the previous model, but is more “exaggerated;” the wraparound sections are thicker and cover more of the Captain’s head, better protecting her from the possibility of flying debris that might be sustained in combat conditions. The asymmetrical nature of the armrests on this model of Captain’s Chair may be its most distinguishing, unique characteristic. I had redesigned the control layout to achieve a clear “division of labor” between the Captain’s two hands, but the end result caused the armrests to look totally different from one another with a longer, pointier left armrest resembling the previous model’s and a short right armrest based on the armrests of the Vengeance’s chair that was used by Admiral Alexander Marcus and Commander John Harrison (Khan Noonien Singh).

Overall, I found myself amazed with the quality of the design despite how it was created without access to so many of the things I take for granted when I do starship design work. I don’t feel like it needs any more changes at this point, so the design of the Farrington’s 2nd (and current) Captain’s Chair is pretty much set in stone. Now, as Brevet Captain Madeline “Maddie” Carpentier (who hails from the ancient eastern French city of Metz) would say when jumping to warp (and I’m sure the Tenth Doctor would approve): “Allons-y!”