We watched the first three episodes of Star Trek: Starfleet Academy before rejecting it as Not For Us, primarily on the basis of the writing. (And the set dressing – what were you people thinking? Glare-and-darkness does not make a comfortable working environment or viewing experience. And the FX – do you even know how lens flares work? They are not necessary in every shot. But mostly the plot, which is anti-Trek.) There was a very nice moment, though, clearly set up just for the fans to talk about.

I refer, of course, to the business where 800 year old Starfleet Captain whatever her name is, played by Holly Hunter, comes to the bridge of the Athena and sits down in the command chair for the first time. Ms Hunter is 5’2” (157.5cm), which is considerably shorter than many of her coworkers. As Captain, she walks up to the chair, climbs up into it, and verbally commands it:

“Lower.”

“Lower.”

“Lower.”

“Higher.”

“Bah.”

And then she sprawls sideways into the chair, which is still too big for her, but apparently that isn’t an adjustable feature.

The whole thing takes about ten seconds of screen time, enough to be a detail contributing to the theme about how height doesn’t correlate with authority, but not so much as to constitute a whole plot point.

But it bothered me. Star Trek has computing systems which are on the border of sapience, and occasionally cross that line by intention (Data) or otherwise (too many examples to list). Why didn’t the ship computer note the Captain’s approach and adjust the damn height automatically? Does the post-scarcity Federation not think about comfortable chairs on the command deck? It’s just stupid.

My spouse and I discussed this a few days later, and then the conversation riffed into how other fictional universes deal with adjustable chairs.

In Star Wars, the Rebellion takes whatever kinds of chairs it can salvage, but manages to refit them for various species – Wookies and Ewoks are not compatible. The Empire has exactly one chair setting which has been calculated as optimal for an average humanoid officer. The comfort of anyone outside that designated normal is completely irrelevant.

Over in the Firefly universe, the crew of Serenity “acquires” a luxury chair by accident and moves it to the galley. Everyone sits in it and reconfigures it, over and over again, until it breaks when Wash is aiming to get the lumbar support exactly correct. It’s still pretty comfortable - for him. But Wash spends all his time in the pilot’s chair which is already adjusted for his body, so it’s a waste. Occasionally, in later episodes, we see the chair being conspicuously unused in the corner, except once when we see Wash sleeping in it.

The Dune universe canonically has chair-dogs. They are not explained.

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, we theorized, has a chair made by the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation with Genuine People Personality. It really wants to be sat in, and will try to convince any occupant that they don’t want to go anywhere else, possibly to the point of restraining and threatening them. (This is not so far-fetched: we canonically see the Vogon Poetry Appreciation Chairs.)

Then I brought up the Liaden universe, by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller. The people of Liad are basically space-elves, ssshhh, and so a wealthy clan likely commissions chairs suitable customized for each adult member. A pilot’s chair, obviously, is completely adjustable.

We continued to riff in this vein for a while, and brought it up a few times in the weeks thereafter when one of us thought up a new point. Then, this morning, I was reading a short story set in the Liaden universe and came across this passage:

Vanessa sat in the captain’s chair, which obligingly conformed to her shape. That was just the autonomic system doing its job. Disian could have—and did, for him—made the chair even cozier, adjusting the temp, and plumping the cushions for better support. Personal attention, because she loved him, and wanted him to be as comfortable as possible. He’d never asked her to do it.

So.