Star Trek: 10 Secrets About The USS Protostar You Need To Know

The bridge of the Protostar features several very important points that are unique to this starship.

First of all, the bridge stations themselves all point towards the front of the ship in a conscious decision to make sure that every one of the main characters is included in all the action and no-one is turned away. It's also rare because there are no turbolifts on this bridge and also there is the huge expansive dome which stretches right around.

This was an intentional feature to allow the space environments to fully surround the characters as the ship sped along and would bring the adventure onto the bridge. Note too that the colours on the bridge change dependant on what drive the ship is using be it impulse, warp or protodrive.

Aside from the lack of a viewscreen (replaced by that big dome), the Protostar bridge incorporates a unique 3D holographic starmap. That projector offers up looks at the Star Trek galaxy as well as historical points of the Federation as noted by Hologram Janeway.

If you take a good close look at the LCARS on the panels you can see how the production designers took the original Michael Okuda designs and tweaked them for the late 24th Century but intentionally kept the style recognisable for existing fans. Viewers might just make out that not only does the Protostar have traditional phasers but also pulse cannons among the LCARS buttons! That's another tough little ship!