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The command center in 2153
The command center was a specialized section aboard the starship Enterprise NX-01, in which dedicated data analysis and mission operations were performed.
Layout
Roughly the size of standard crew quarters, the command center was distinguished by a large display screen and computer terminal, flanked by a number of smaller screens mounted on the bulkheads. The room also contained a large, T-shaped table and workstation, and a free-standing computer console. These computer terminals could be utilized for a number of functions, including displaying star charts, ship's status, and sensor data, but were more often used in the analysis of the acquired Xindi database. The command center's computers were also linked to internal sensors and could provide video and audio from linked sections within Enterprise. (ENT: "The Xindi", "Exile", "The Shipment", "Chosen Realm", "Stratagem") The command center was easily accessible from the situation room. (ENT: "Impulse")
History
Installed among other system upgrades in 2153, the command center was located in a converted storage bay that once held conduit housings. Starfleet went to a lot of trouble to retrofit the room, turning it into the command center and outfitting it with state-of-the-art equipment. This work was carried out to help Enterprise locate and investigate the Xindi, due to the extreme jeopardy that group represented to Earth during the Xindi incident. (ENT: "The Expanse", "The Xindi")
Archer, T'Pol, and Reed in the command center
In 2153, Sub-Commander T'Pol and Lieutenant Malcolm Reed were using the command center when Captain Archer arrived. They discussed the ship's forthcoming mission to a particular planet where a Xindi was suspected to be working as a miner. When Reed advised cautious skepticism, a frustrated Archer reminded him that the command center had been intended to help investigate the Xindi but Archer continued by explaining that – because no data on the Xindi had been gathered by Enterprise, despite having been in the Xindi's territory of the Delphic Expanse over the past six months – he felt justified in following the latest lead. (ENT: "The Xindi")
Once Enterprise recovered the Xindi database from an Osaarian merchant ship, Archer returned to the command center alone. The monitors in the room were darkened when he arrived but he soon started viewing the information from the database, which was displayed on all the monitors. (ENT: "Anomaly")
Late one night shortly thereafter, Archer called T'Pol to the command center, where he showed her a third Xindi species he had found, Xindi-Arboreals, and told her he had located the last place a specific Xindi starship had visited – a planet Archer had T'Pol set a course for. (ENT: "Extinction")
The command center was subsequently used by Captain Archer and Commander Charles Tucker III, again late at night. They used the room to review some star charts from the Xindi database, as Tucker suspected the charts might help them determine if there were any previously undetected spatial anomalies in the region. At one point, Tucker spoke with Archer about the crew's morale being low, so he was given approval from the captain to show a Hope and Crosby comedy as part of movie night. T'Pol then arrived and Archer notified her that he and Tucker had been reviewing the Xindi starcharts. Though T'Pol told Archer she would have assisted him with that, the captain stated he hadn't wanted to wake her and that Tucker had been eager to find "something to do". Tucker invited T'Pol to the upcoming movie night, and Archer received a message from Ensign Hoshi Sato, on the bridge, that the ship was picking up an automated distress call from a Vulcan ship, the Seleya, which had proven unresponsive to hails. The command center was then vacated by Archer, T'Pol, and Tucker, who headed to Enterprise's bridge, via the ship's situation room. Later, while T'Pol was infected by trellium that caused her to become irrational, she accused Archer of having used the command center to analyze the Xindi starcharts behind her back, in an attempt to undermine her work. (ENT: "Impulse")
While T'Pol was off duty, she was working in the command center, operating the central monitor from the desk in the middle of the room, when Archer arrived. Moving to the central console, she showed him a simulation she had created, from which she had discovered that a second Delphic Expanse sphere was likely in the region, less than four light years from Enterprise. Archer ordered T'Pol to have the ship alter course toward the sphere.
After T'Pol asked Ensign Sato to analyze a section of the Xindi database, Sato was studying the database on the central monitor when she experienced what seemed to be an hallucination but was actually a telepathic communication from an alien named Tarquin. What Sato witnessed included all the monitors in the command center changing firstly to a view of a particular planet and secondly to various apparently live views of herself, from different angles. After the planet appeared on the screens, Sato used the room's intercom to contact Lieutenant Reed and request assistance in the command center, but there was no response. Moments later, she rushed towards the door but found she had suddenly left the command center and was now in an alien building on anpther world. When the telepathic communication ended, Hoshi was still no longer in the command center, but in a corridor aboard Enterprise.
T'Pol later returned to the command center, from where she vocally gave directions to a shuttlepod (which contained Archer and Tucker) regarding gravimetric distortions in the area. She thereby guided the shuttlepod into a cloaking barrier around the second Delphic Expanse sphere.
T'Pol was subsequently working in the command center when Archer arrived, back from his mission to confirm the existence and location of the second sphere. She explained that, thanks to data he had collected from that sphere, she had discovered there were at least fifty such spheres in the Delphic Expanse. Archer began to realize that the spheres may have been built to create that region of space, though he and T'Pol were unsure of who the constructors had been and what their motives were. (ENT: "Exile")
Shortly thereafter, the command center was visited by T'Pol, Captain Archer, and Lieutenant Reed, shortly before Enterprise visited a Xindi-Arboreal colony, whose location Tarquin had informed them of. They discussed the colony's lack of defenses and Archer arranged for Enterprise to hide behind a nearby moon. He also planned for an away team consisting of himself, Reed, and MACO Major J. Hayes to leave Enterprise and head for the colony in two hours' time. (ENT: "The Shipment")
In an alternate timeline, being in the command center with T'Pol, where they had viewed some long range sensor scans, was one of the last memories Archer had before he was infected by interspatial parasites that caused him to develop anterograde amnesia. Archer kept this memory until 2165, when both the parasites and the timeline were eradicated. (ENT: "Twilight")
The command center was among many sections aboard Enterprise that were damaged in a battle with the Xindi near Azati Prime in early 2154, suffering power failures. Still remaining functional, it was fully repaired by the conclusion of the Xindi mission. (ENT: "Damage", "The Forgotten", "Zero Hour")
Appendices
Background information
The script of "The Xindi" described the command center as "a dark chamber filled with numerous monitors," and went on to say, "A large central wall display dominates the room."
The command center was created especially for the third season of Star Trek: Enterprise and appeared only in that season – first in "The Xindi" and last in "Zero Hour", the first and last episodes of the season respectively. Once built, the set remained standing throughout the season. ("The Xindi" text commentary, ENT Season 3 DVD) Recalling the set's placement, Production Designer Herman Zimmerman stated, "It was added to a corridor near the bridge set that we did have a little space for." (Star Trek: Communicator issue 151, p. 58) In fact, not only was the set for the command center located beside the NX-class bridge set, it was also so near to the series' video control room that linking the computers therein to the monitors on the command center set was relatively easy. ("Countdown" text commentary, ENT Season 3 DVD) The set included a free-standing console that had previously been used in the infirmary on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. (citation needed • edit)
The central monitor referred to in the script for "The Xindi" was represented, on the set, by a monitor that computer graphics were rear-projected onto. This monitor was custom-built for the series. (Star Trek: Communicator issue 151, p. 58) The area behind the screen had to be draped off so that stray light would not wash out the image on the monitor. ("Countdown" text commentary, ENT Season 3 DVD) The monitor was initially created for the observation lounge aboard the USS Enterprise-E in Star Trek Nemesis. (text commentary, Star Trek Nemesis (Special Edition) DVD)
In accordance with the script, many other monitors had to be obtained for the addition of the set. "That added a huge opportunity for a colorful wall that we hadn't done before," said Herman Zimmerman. The room's smaller monitors were represented with fourteen LCD flatscreens. (Star Trek: Communicator issue 151, p. 58) Behind these, Director of Photography Marvin V. Rush hid tiny fluorescent lamps. This use of lighting created small patches of illumination on the wall, which served to visually separate the monitors from their backgrounds.
The wall to the left of the central monitor included a series of lit gizmos that were originally on the set for Enterprise's sickbay; they had been removed from that set when it had undergone a revamp at the end of the first season. The same left-hand wall was a "wild" wall, meaning it was specifically designed to be easily removed when required to allow camera and equipment access. Using this access, Marvin Rush often mounted his camera on a small crane to achieve complex camera moves in the otherwise closed-in set. ("Countdown" text commentary, ENT Season 3 DVD)
Denise Okuda approved of the command center. "That was a fun set," she enthused. "There were monitors all over the place." (ENT: "Observer Effect" audio commentary, ENT Season 4 Blu-ray special features)
In the fourth season of Enterprise, parts of the command center were used in the creation of the medical observation room for the episode "Observer Effect". ("Impulse" text commentary, ENT Season 3 DVD) In an audio commentary for that installment (on ENT Season 4 Blu-ray), Michael and Denise Okuda identify the medical observation area as actually being the command center, though the room was scripted to be an "Auxiliary Medical Lab". The set of the command center was additionally used in the episode "In a Mirror, Darkly", for an interrogation room containing an agony booth aboard the ISS Enterprise. ("Impulse" text commentary, ENT Season 3 DVD)
Apocrypha
In the novelization of "The Expanse" and "The Xindi" (entitled The Expanse), the displays that fill the command center are described as "monitor stacked upon monitor" and mostly unused, their screens "a dull opaque gray." However, in the same scene from the actual episode, there are slightly less monitors arranged vertically than those that are arranged horizontally. Also, all the monitors are shown as being on, with lit screens.
The novel Last Full Measure places the command center on B deck of the NX class.