Daystrom Conference Room

AT: "ar"

The Daystrom Conference Room

The exterior of the building housing the Daystrom Conference Room

The Daystrom Conference Room was a Starfleet Command meeting location at Starfleet Headquarters in San Francisco in the 2250s of the alternate reality. The room was in a high-rise building which also featured at least one landing pad. Starfleet protocol dictated that urgent meetings of Starfleet admirals and other top officers, arranged in response to an emergency situation, be held in this room.

In 2259, Admiral Christopher Pike, Captain Frank Abbott of the USS Bradbury, Commanders James T. Kirk and Spock, as well as several of Starfleet's top brass were summoned to a meeting held in the Daystrom Conference Room. The gathering was convened after Khan Noonien Singh and Thomas Harewood destroyed the Kelvin Memorial Archive in London, England; Khan had the Archive destroyed as part of a plot to kill Admiral Alexander Marcus, the head of Starfleet, as he knew Marcus and several of Starfleet's most important officers would be in the building during the meeting. Khan then opened fire on the Daystrom Conference Room from outside its windows, piloting a stolen gunship which he used to wound and kill several Starfleet officers, including Pike. (Star Trek Into Darkness)

This location might have been named to honor Richard Daystrom, from the Star Trek: The Original Series episode "The Ultimate Computer". By the time of the film, he would be forty years old.

The Daystrom Conference Room and adjacent Starfleet interiors were represented with a soundstage set. Director J.J. Abrams intended to do as much of the sequence in live-action as possible. As such, the area of the set alloted for the conference room was rigged, by the film's special effects team, with multiple impacts seemingly targeting Starfleet personnel. (Cinefex, No. 134, p. 82) Pyro Foreperson William Aldridge remarked, "I love the sequence [....] The bullet hits are not like normal bullet hits. This is nothing like a western – these are bullets which melt stuff and disintegrate things. It was a very busy set-up, because there had to be a lot of people running all over the place. Five of the actors were stunt-people, and there were also a few members of the principal cast, while the rest were extras. It was mayhem," continued Aldridge, laughing. "So we had to plan for that." (Star Trek Magazine issue 174, p. 80) Special Effects Supervisor Burt Dalton attested, "It was total mayhem. We had to blast through the glass and then blow out chunks of the set aiming at specific people [....] We spent weeks rigging tables, lights and walls." To shatter windows behind Kirk, the special effects group staged a clean plate of the exploding window, then took the glass away and set air mortars up to shoot fragments of silicone glass past a stunt double of Kirk actor Chris Pine. Dalton additionally rigged close-up pyrotechnic hits near cast members. "We pumped pressurized propane gas into black balloons and taped those a foot or two from each actor," he recalled. "When we hit the balloons with igniter squibs, the propane was under so much pressure it made a flash that dispersed very quickly. They were extremely safe, and very visual." The sequence was augmented with various CGI elements generated by Pixomondo Berlin Effects Supervisor Pieter Mentz, who inserted digital destruction into the footage. (Cinefex, No. 134, p. 82)

Whereas creation of nighttime views showing the high-rise building amid a three-dimensional cityscape was overseen by Pixomondo London Visual Effects Division Supervisor Simon Carr, exteriors of Kirk trying to shoot down Khan's gunship from a high window were created by Pixomondo Berlin. As such, environment enhancements were among the digital aspects that Pieter Mentz added to the sequence. The group of shots that Pixomondo Berlin created involved environment extensions of floors above and below the conference room, modeled with interior details including furniture and topped with the landing pad, one floor above. The design of the building correlated with the conference room set designs. (Cinefex, No. 134, pp. 82 & 76)