Starfleet Command Insignia

[CorporalCaptain]

Wingsley wrote:

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Really silly question:

Discounting what we saw in ENT's "In a Mirror, Darkly", were there ever any clear images of the Defiant personnel's badges? Or were the visibility of the badges in "The Tholian Web" so poor as to make it academic?

See just upthread, thanks to Nerys Myk.

I think there's suggestive evidence that the badges were never intended to be made out, though: as Robert Comsol pointed out, the insignia seemed to have been deliberately obscured in all the close-ups; I doubt that it was thought that the insignia could have been made out where they are visible on screens of the day, and Bjo had some rationale (right or wrong) to assign the Defiant its own insignia.

[Wingsley]

I jaunted over to TrekCore and compared the McCoy-in-the-Defiant's-Sickbay scenes between SD and HD. The one clear HD scene where the camera pans across Sickbay's convalescent ward has a fairly clear arrowhead on the one man laying in bed toward the end of that scene. TrekCore's SD slate doesn't include that particular frame, so it's academic for me.

The next scene where they show the operating room/examination room also shows a man slumped face-up on an examination/operating table, but its distant enough to be academic for me. It's fairly clear in HD, though not nearly as good as the previous pan-shot.

For me, it can go either way. If the Defiant's crew had Enterprise-style arrowhead badges, that means both ships are attached to the First Fleet. If we're assuming they could be something else, whatever it could be, then either Defiant is in another flotilla (orbitilla? warpilla?) or we can still pretend that each TOS ship had its own distinct badge, whichever fires your phasers. I prefer to think that it doesn't matter which badge the Defiant crew wore; there were enough examples that badges indicated (to me, anyway) some unit assignment (such as Kirk's arrowhead meaning the First Fleet).

It's probably just me, but I would've preferred if the TMP and TNG ships had retained the TOS boomerang-style Starfleet pennant on their hulls, and a diversity of badges on their uniforms. It may have looked militaristic to some, but today's NASA astronauts seem to be quite a bit less militaristic and they seem to have quite an interesting variety of patches just the same.

Fires my phasers!

[Redfern]

I guess the best way to determine the "intended" resolution is to connect a VCR or DVd player to a period TV, color or monochrome, and play the episodes.

Sincerely,

Bill

[BillJ]

Robert Comsol wrote:

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That space station in "The Ultimate Computer" was already under the jurisdiction of Commodore Enwright. To think that Robert Wesley replaced the Lexington's captain in a training exercise (!) that had been tested in previous simulations (!) would constitute quite a mobbing career blow to the actual captain. I'd rather like to think that this hadn't been the case.

Bob

Maybe there was no captain of the Lexington? Perhaps she had been or was being readied for some type of refit and pulled for the M-5 experiment because she wasn't being used elsewhere? Perhaps Wesley was it's former captain and was recently promoted then pulled some strings to get back into the captain's chair for the M-5 trials?

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Harvey wrote:

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Here's the memo Maurice is referring to:

Damn.

IOW, the "ships all have their own insignia" was a ret-conned explanation by the producers to rationalize away inconsistencies and mistakes in TOS.

That pretty much blows a whole bunch of "canon" out of the water.

It also helps to explain the establishment of the delta as the Starfleet emblem in ST:TMP - Roddenberry was actually reestablishing what he and the other producers had intended to be the status quo from the beginning.

[Robert Comsol]

BillJ wrote:

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Maybe there was no captain of the Lexington? Perhaps she had been or was being readied for some type of refit and pulled for the M-5 experiment because she wasn't being used elsewhere? Perhaps Wesley was it's former captain and was recently promoted then pulled some strings to get back into the captain's chair for the M-5 trials?

I find this extremely hard to believe. "Starship captain" is one of the most wanted jobs in the 23rd Century (driving people insane because they don't get it). And captains like Commodore Decker or Commodore Wesley seem to be the "right stuff", especially in contrast to the bureaucratic flag officers we've seen elsewhere in TOS.

Bob

[Robert Comsol]

My Name Is Legion wrote:

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IOW, the "ships all have their own insignia" was a ret-conned explanation by the producers to rationalize away inconsistencies and mistakes in TOS.
That pretty much blows a whole bunch of "canon" out of the water.

It's neither a retroactive continuity nor a "mistake" but a changed premise to which the original producers were fully entitled to. And I fail to see where this "blows a whole bunch of canon out of the water" as there have been rationalizations during this thread how to explain these minor discrepancies.

My Name Is Legion wrote:

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It also helps to explain the establishment of the delta as the Starfleet emblem in ST:TMP - Roddenberry was actually reestablishing what he and the other producers had intended to be the status quo from the beginning.

Interesting theory. But it fails to explain why the Starfleet emblem (the arrowhead seen on the TOS engineering hull of the Enterprise and the shuttlecraft, and as a wall sculpture in the background of subspace broadcasts) no longer decorated the engineering hull of the movie Enterprise.

By 1979 the Enterprise's delta had become a trademark for Star Trek, so rather than to re-establish some "in-universe" continuity I think Gene Roddenberry wanted to tell the audience, that this is Star Trek, not Star Wars or Battlestar Galactica.

Bob

[BillJ]

Robert Comsol wrote:

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And captains like Commodore Decker or Commodore Wesley seem to be the "right stuff", especially in contrast to the bureaucratic flag officers we've seen elsewhere in TOS.

Admiral Kirk also had the "right stuff" and pulled strings to get back into the captain's chair.

[CrazyMatt]

TO: Bill Theiss
FROM: Bob Justman
SUBJECT: STARSHIP EMBLEMS
DATE: December 18, 1967

Whilst sitting in Dailies today, it was noticed that a Starship Captain (from another Starship) was wearing an emblem unfamiliar to yours truly. I have checked the occurences out with Mr. Roddenberry, who has reassured me that all Starship personnel wear the Starship emblem that we have established for our Enterprise Crew Members to wear.

Doubtless this situation has arisen due to the fact that a different Starship emblem was used last season on “CHARLIE X”. However, the personnel of that other ship in that show were the equivalent of merchant marine or freighter personnel -- and therefore not entitled to bear this proud insignia on their individual and collective breasts.

Please do not do anything to correct this understandable mistake in the present episode. However, should we have Starfleet personnel in any other episodes, please make certain that they were the proper emblem.

Under penalty of death!

Signed this 18th day of December, in the year of our Lord, 1967, by

ROBERT H. JUSTMAN
Chief Inquisitor

CC: Gene Roddenberry
John M. Lucas
D.C. Fontana
Gregg Peters

RHJ:sts
P.S. A carven “I’m sorry!” will be sufficient.
R.H.J.

My whole world is now turned upside down! I've always loved the insignia worn by Matt Decker and Ron Tracey... and the concurrent idea that each starship had its own assignment patch... only to find out it was all a MISTAKE?

[CrazyMatt]

Harvey wrote:

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I haven't been able to find any further memorandum on this issue.

I'm not sure what dailies Justman was watching (I found the memo in a box and folder devoted to wardrobe items, not a particular episode).

The information I have indicates that "The Omega Glory" was filmed on December 18-26, 1967. I was under the impression that it took 24 hours to turn around dailies, but perhaps a date is slightly wrong somewhere, and that's the episode Justman was watching dailies from.

Justman couldn't have been watching dailies from "The Doomsday Machine," though. That was filmed on June 20-26, and broadcast on October 20, 1967, months before Justman's insignia memo.

According to "Inside Star Trek: The Real Story," Bob Justman came down with a very serious infection in his hip just before the start of the second production year. This caused him to be hospitalized and miss working on some of the episodes produced early that season. So I wondered if he could have missed the production of TDM in late June of '67... but accoding to the book, he was back at work well before then. So just how did he fail to notice Decker's insignia in the dailies then?

[CorporalCaptain]

CrazyMatt wrote:

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My whole world is now turned upside down! I've always loved the insignia worn by Matt Decker and Ron Tracey... and the concurrent idea that each starship had its own assignment patch... only to find out it was all a MISTAKE?

“We don't make mistakes, just happy little accidents.” — Bob Ross

[Navigator_NCC2120]

CrazyMatt wrote:

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According to "Inside Star Trek: The Real Story," Bob Justman came down with a very serious infection in his hip just before the start of the second production year. This caused him to be hospitalized and miss working on some of the episodes produced early that season. So I wondered if he could have missed the production of TDM in late June of '67... but accoding to the book, he was back at work well before then. So just how did he fail to notice Decker's insignia in the dailies then?

Well, maybe Commodore Decker's insignia is different because Commodores have different insignias. Commodore Wesley was commanding the USS Lexington in "The Ultimate Computer" episode and he wears the same insignia as Commodores Mendez and Stone wear on Starbase 11 and Commodore Stocker wears enroute to Starbase 10.


Navigator, NCC-2120 USS Entente
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[GSchnitzer]

Navigator_NCC2120 wrote:

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Well, maybe Commodore Decker's insignia is different because Commodores have different insignias. Commodore Wesley was commanding the USS Lexington in "The Ultimate Computer" episode and he wears the same insignia as Commodores Mendez and Stone wear on Starbase 11 and Commodore Stocker wears enroute to Starbase 10.


Navigator, NCC-2120 USS Entente
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Possibly. Although we are still left with trying to figure out why Areel Shaw, the court baliff, and Miss Piper all wear the insignia, too.

[Navigator_NCC2120]

GSchnitzer wrote:

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Possibly. Although we are still left with trying to figure out why Areel Shaw, the court baliff, and Miss Piper all wear the insignia, too.

Greg,

Good point. If the producers wanted all starship personnel to wear the arrowhead shaped insignia then it is possible they wanted all starbase personnel to wear the star-burst/flower shaped insignia. If that is the case then Commodore Decker was neither starship personnel nor starbase personnel. Which raises the question, what is Commodore Decker's insignia suppose to signify?

If the above is true then since Commodore Wesley was wearing the star-burst/flower shaped insignia then he was probably considered starbase personnel that was temporarily in command of the USS Lexington.


Navigator, NCC-2120 USS Entente
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[CorporalCaptain]

Navigator_NCC2120 wrote:

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If the above is true then since Commodore Wesley was wearing the star-burst/flower shaped insignia then he was probably considered starbase personnel that was temporarily in command of the USS Lexington.

That's the way I always took it. Plus, the Enterprise picked up Wesley at a [originally unnamed] space station.