Showers

[JALU3]

As I understand it, since atleast TMP Era, starships were equiped with Sonic Showers . . . so much so, that they appear to be common place even on planet side installations.

However, I must wonder, are water based bathing facilities (two different links) still available? And if so, to what extent?

I can understand the reduction of operational/engineering maintanance that is caused by removing a plumbing system from a Starship . . . and planetside . . . this would be even greater (although a plumbing system would still be necessary due to other then bathing uses (industrial, cooking, gardening)). But you would think that a certain percentage of the population would still favor water based bathing (and some other species . . . may use powder based (like chinchilas do), or what have you). And if so . . . would it still be possible to have it. Or even on a Starship. Can you imagine an Admiral's quarters, or another VIP's quarters, being equiped with a water hygiene system . . . or whatever that species norm is.

[Owen E Oulton]

Voyager had both water-filled bathtubs (see: Caretaker) and sonic showers (I forget the name of the episode, but it ends with a head-and-shoulders dorsal shot of Torres in the shower, with the dirt and sweat vibrating off her body and out of her hair - very neat shot. I would imagine that bathtubs would only be in a few cabins, and most would have a sonic shower.

Most times when they showed a sink, it was filleed with glass marbles, and the water flowed over them.

As for toilets, the only time we've ever seen them was in the core sample of the Enterprise-D taken by the Borg in their initial appearance, and in the brig in Star Trek V. The latter had the in-joke sign "Do not flush while in Spacedock" (a reference to similar signs on old-time steam trains regarding flushing in stations). Presumably, the toilet (which for straightforward design considerations will continue to share traits with current models) would have a disinfectant chemical liquid to accept the waste matter, and the unit would dematerialise the waste for recycling as indicated in the STTNGTM. Obviously, in a power outage, a form of physical flushing to a holding tank would be necessary

[tonyg]

I got the impression that the sonic showers were orginally a way to help conserve water , a precious commonidty on a starship or other closed enviornment.

But, with the continual improvemnts in waste reclamation, replicators and such, water showers are probably commonplace in the TNG era. It is certainly much easier to run a water reclamantion system than to replicate tea.

[black campbellq]

The sonic shower to cut down on water waste sounds like a good idea, but would be completely useless. The main cause of smell is bacteria. You won't shake the stuff off...hell, in some people soap doesn't work too well, either.

I would think you'd have some kind of combo exfoliant/antibacterial crap you'd slather on, that would then be vibrated or scraped off. Otherwise, starships would have a...fascinating...smell to them.

[Tobian]

Hehe well much like Photon torpedoes aren't just made out of light, sonic showers aren't just a clever ghetto blaster, they clearly have some sort of glowy / energy component, which hopefully gets round the smelly part.. possibly allong the same lines as how hospitals use ultraviolet light to help kill bacteria etc. Don't get too hung up on the title

I would imagine that by the TNG + Era sonic showers would be an unneccesary feature, as those ships COULD happily cope with the maintainance / recycling of handing a water based system. However I suspect that just like most people prefer to take showers over baths for reasons other than 'it helps save on water use' - and simply because they prefer them, then equally many people may like the idea of stepping into a booth and having their bodies cleansed in a rotisserry, then stepping out and getting dressed without drying

With the typical effiency of design in most trek ships, I can't see there being a problem with installing both a regular shower and a sonic unit in one booth, as they are both neccessarily contained in a rougly similar shaped booth

[LUGTrekGM]

My Star Trek setting uses regular water-based showers.

Good enough for the US Navy, good enough for Starfleet.

That whole "sonic used to remove bacteria" as an idea, I can't see it working. At all.

With some kind of purifier, and a pumping system, it just makes more sense to me to use water. Since the crew needs a potable water system anyway... there it is.

One of the many Star Trek things that would be a nice gee-whiz thing, but not really going to happen.

[C5]

Well we don't quite know how a sonic shower works, as stated above... Maybe on the contrary is it much more efficient than a water shower, frying a lot of bacterias in the process (or vibrating them to death or something). On the other hand, a water shower could be much nicer to the skin.

I think they only had water showers in Enteprise; given that the NX-01 hadn't a lot of spare space, I suspect the water was replicated or recycled from somewhere. Therefore, water showers could be very easy to have onboard on starship, and I think sonic showers appeared only because they had an advantage over them (it being speed and efficiency).

[spyone]

1) Troi had a bathtub. It was shown in the episode where Barclay got a disease named for him.
And any number of times we have seen a character emerge into the main room of their quarters in a robe and toweling their head: one would assume they are drying their hair, which suggests bathing got it wet.

2) Until that episode of Voyager that showed Torres in the shower, we had no reason to believe that a "sonic shower" didn't use water. I know of a couple of products that combine a regular shower with ultrasound and in each case somebody reviewing it has referred to Star Trek's sonic showers as if this device might be it.

Which is where I still stand on it: a "sonic shower" is not waterless, it just uses ultrasound to enhance the cleaning and save water.

And some people have adopted it groundside, either due to the better cleaning or the less water used, or because they like it better (or got accustomed to it in Starfleet).

And SFA has them for everyone, since you're going to have to learn how to use one eventually.

[Tobian]

Oh for lords sake will you lot suspsend some disbelief a little - Startrek is SCI-FI Can we currently curve spacetime to allow us to travel faster than the speed of light? Can we scan kilomiters away or with enough accuracy to diagnose a disease with a device which fits in your hand? Can we wave a magic wand over somebody's skin to heal cuts and abraisions? Can we dissasosiate matter and reassemble it 40,000 kilomiters away? And you have a problem with a fancy shower?!?!

[LUGTrekGM]

Oh for lords sake will you lot suspsend some disbelief a little - Startrek is SCI-FI Can we currently curve spacetime to allow us to travel faster than the speed of light? Can we scan kilomiters away or with enough accuracy to diagnose a disease with a device which fits in your hand? Can we wave a magic wand over somebody's skin to heal cuts and abraisions? Can we dissasosiate matter and reassemble it 40,000 kilomiters away? And you have a problem with a fancy shower?!?!

As I recall, suspension of disbelief was the job of the gamemaster / Storyteller. If he or she can make Dragons believable, I'll buy into the story.

I'll take phasers (an extension of the laser) , warp travel (Alcubierre has done some good theoretical explanations of this) and FTL Sensors (if the tachyon can be proven to exist beyond theory, and given a few centuries, it might happen). It's not our limited modern physics, but it feels right.

Teleporters/Transporters are another story, a plot device to save the multiple hour shuttle trip, and obviously are not happening,

Having some kind of pulsating sonic shower thing as the new whiz bang has been around since at least 1959...all that house of the future stuff as seen at World's fairs. It's not that it doesn't make sense to me. It's more like hving star trek have some kind of Matter-antimatter powered toothbrush.

What the hell for, when simple effort will do?

Yeah, I have a problem with it.

[Tobian]

Well that's the thing isn't it - we don't know how much energy is involved there.. It could be that it's like turning on a kettle, or a toaster: On a ship which burns through planetary energy reserves in an hour, it's not so absurd! You are also missing my point from earlier.. since when did sound *GLOW* - Sonic is just a nick name for something more complex. You're just chosing to ignore the *only* actual visible physical evidence of the thing over the spoken word! Humans in the future are apparently just as prone to shorten or simplify names to make them more palateable to the ear as we are

Or would you prefer it if we gave it a Voyager Treknobabble style name, so you can let go of the fact it's called a Sonic Shower, in name only?

Ok Rant over