Shipwide Assigned Insignia Transition To Delta Shield For All

Has anyone read (in fiction or behind the scenes documentation) any reasoning for the change from TOS era officers having issued ship insignia to the delta shield for all?

I always liked that about TOS. Some commodore or captain in charge of a different ship, planet, starbase etc had something new and different.

 

Apparently, it was always intended that "starship" personnel would wear the delta/"flying A"/arrowhead, whereas Starbase and Merchant Marine types would wear other insignia. It was a mistake that they showed other insignia on Decker, Tracy and his CMO, as indicated thusly:

As to why the whole service adopted the Starship insignia, who knows?

 

"Under penalty of death!"

That Justman was a harsh taskmaster.

 

We did see non-Enterprise personnel wearing the arrowhead in "Court-martial," as well as one Starbase 11 officer in "The Menagerie, Part I," IIRC. Also, the Defiant personnel in "The Tholian Web" were wearing the arrowhead, though this was hard to see, and ENT: "In a Mirror, Darkly" retconned the Defiant insignia to a uniform-patch version of the "boomerang" shape used for Starfleet as a whole in TOS (as seen in the "racing stripes" on the side of the Enterprise and Galileo and on the wall behind various viewscreen admirals).

And of course, later productions have retroactively established the arrowhead's use pre-TOS. Voyager's "Friendship One" showed that a sideways version of the arrowhead was the United Earth Space Probe Agency's logo in the 2060s. Enterprise used a teensy version of the arrowhead as part of the enlisted rating insignias on Earth Starfleet uniforms. And the 2009 movie established that the Kelvin crew wore the arrowhead in 2233.

 

Speaking of the arrowhead/flying A/delta, here's a chart of its evolution throughout the franchise:

http://yodamaker.deviantart.com/art/Starfleet-Insignia-The-Star-Trek-Delta-Shield-400603395

 

^Nice!

 

Non-Enterprise appearances of "Enterprise" arrowhead patch here:

http://www.trekbbs.com/showpost.php?p=4011577&postcount=12

 

^I forgot the guy from "The Cage."

 

Operations and sciences flipped between the two pilots and then back for the series proper.

 

Oh yeah. That's not correct in the chart, is it? (Let the creator know on his DeviantArt page.)

Speaking of which, here's Scotty wearing what became the science logo in WNMHGB:

 

I agree

 

It's not something I'm sure I'd change as it was obviously a production error. One that it took me nearly thirty years to recognize!

Just a conversation piece.

 

Well, it gave me an opportunity to reach out to the guy on his excellent work!

 

I liked the appearance the way it was before this arrowheads-for-everyone-including-the-ship-pennants rule became obvious. The old boomerang Starfleet pennant as an organization symbol made more sense to me, and that is the way armies did things with shoulder patches in the 20th century military. The pennant, along with the various badges, added a certain verisimilitude to the show's characters, as if they were part of a highly professional (and substantial) fleet. I guess it saved them money by not having to make new and different uniform badges. The neat thing was, TAS picked up where TOS left off, showing other Federation/aligned spacecraft personnel with funky badges. This reinforced what came before. (Also the Epsilon Nine crew had their own badge as well; they were obviously Starfleet or Starfleet-related.)

 

Other patch oddities:

 

...Who knows, perhaps the three symbols in fact indicate the three shifts serving on the starship, rather than departments? During certain adventures, Kirk would insist on his department heads and veterans being in duty, regardless of shift structure; the rest of the time (mostly off camera), people would be working, eating and sleeping in accordance with the symbols on their badges. (The five-pointed star would probably be "wild" or shifts-spanning.)

Naturally, the symbol would be switchable by more elegant means than ripping off and sewing in a canvas patch. The right sort of squeeze, a touch of a dedicated instrument..?

Timo Saloniemi

 

Well, as long as we are being thorough, let's not forget this.

 

As far as I can gather, the original plan in Bob Justman's mind--and apparently GR's as well--was that all starship personnel, regardless of ship, would wear the arrowhead. This would mirror the concept that all Starfleet Command personnel would wear the starburst pendant, which was (more or less—just who was that ensign outside Mendez’ office?) faithfully adhered to throughout the series.

It appears that Bill Theiss later disregarded this construct, even though he had followed it on "Court Martial*." When it came time to costume William Windom for “The Doomsday Machine,” he designed a new patch to represent the starship Constellation. By doing this, Theiss clearly conveyed to the viewing audience—which included casual fans not fully in tune with all these ‘details’—that the character was not a member of the Enterprise crew.

He later repeated this decision by designing and costuming Morgan Woodward with yet another patch intended to represent the starship Exeter. After viewing dailies from the first day of "The Omega Glory" shooting, the infamous “under penalty of death!” memo was sent by Justman. By then, it was too late—there was no way Paramount would approve reshooting scenes to correct what they would consider a trivial matter—and so the Exeter patch stayed.

Let unexplained for all these years is why Justman or GR never caught the (apparent) costuming error on Windom’s costume months earlier. Maybe Gene Coon was the only one watching dailies that week?

Also left unexplained is just where Commodore Wesley, in command of the starship Lexington during “The Ultimate Computer,” was permanently assigned. This episode was shot before “The Omega Glory,” so the Justman memo hadn’t yet come into being. Was Wesley assigned to Starfleet Command and specially put in command of the Lexington only for that mission? Or did Theiss have a brain cramp and simply use the starburst to represent the Lexington’s patch?

I guess we’ll never know the real reason behind these inconsistencies, and so we’ll continue to burn many brain cells trying to deduce some plausible answers.

In any case, it would appear that the original concept was back in place for season three’s “The Tholien Web.” Several (deceased) members of the starship Defiant’s crew are clearly wearing the arrowhead patch… and yet, it’s obvious from the placement of bodies, restraining straps, etc., that the patches , while clearly present, were covered up in many instances. Why????

* From personal experience, I can understand why Theiss would want to change this; it was very confusing for me to try to figure out who the hell “Timothy” and his cohorts were. Since they wore the arrowhead, I initially made the assumption they were part of the Enterprise crew. For years I couldn't figure out why (what seemed to be) members of Kirk's own crew were badmouthing him at the bar (and getting away with it!). I also couldn’t understand why Kirk was saying he hadn't seen them in years. Don’t get off the bridge much, captain?

 

Perhaps the arrowhead became famous during the exploits of April. Maybe it was even April himself who, after being promoted, began instituting the arrowhead for starship personnel under his command. From there the arrow head could have gain wider use. By Kirk's time the arrowhead could have been used by many starship personnel while many others still used their own. By TMP all starship personnel are fully converted to the arrowhead. Then by the movies the arrowhead has been universally adopted.

 

For insignia of the two pilots, it's a pretty mixed bag, make of it what you will.