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The 4th Uniform Color???

And an actual flight team to handle small craft operations (with maybe even a flight or wing commander on ships with a large complement of small craft)?

Who's to say there wasn't? Lt. Latimer in "The Galileo Seven" may have been part of it.

The Chief Engineer being in charge of ship's security made zero sense, otherwise, and that's just the most blatant example.

It would make zero sense, but the security chief was a different person as seen in "The Devil in the Dark."
 
Black uniforms would have been too evocative of the Klingon uniform, though, I think. The original Star Trek's colourful Starfleet symbolised its progress and vivacious humanity. Purple would have been most fitting, especially since it was seen before.
I think there's more black in Starfleet's uniforms than the Klingon's.
 
It makes sense onboard an aircraft carrier. I'm thinking more than just the three basic Starfleet colors would be similar to the divisions on a carrier. In TMP, the crewmens' lounge scenes show all the different incarnations of Enterprise and one of them is the aircraft carrier U.S.S Enterprise. Tradition.


That is done on aircraft carriers because of all the noise, plus the pilots in their planes and the operations staff in the tower need to be able to see who is who this instant so everything moves smoothly and planes don't run over people.

You don't realty need it inside a starship.
 
IMO black or dark grey only works as a Department Colour if the rest of the uniform is a contrasting colour (blue, tan, green, grey) rather than black itself.
 
Black for the anti-matter technicians and White for the matter technicians. Just don't let their uniforms touch each other or....Ka-Boom!!
 
Though it did come in handy when someone spotted Dr. Van Gelder in his red jumpsuit in a place where he apparently shouldn't have been.

"Hey, you, from Engineering!"

daggerofthemind026.jpg
 
Actually, it symbolized selling color TV's. ;)

(Why else do you think they picked the three primary colors - green, blue and red - for the uniforms?)

Well, of course, that is the 'actual' reason, along with vibrant colours being the aesthetic of the era...the uniforms, even in black-and-white, are clearly not formal military attire as we know it in our epoch, and the original series era Starfleet's casual conduct demonstrates this intent.

This is also contrasted by the more ornate Romulan uniforms (complete with helmets), and the Klingons' militaristic and universal black-and-grey uniforms evocative of armour (which lacked any variations beyond infrequent golden sashes for select Commanders).
 
Well, of course, that is the 'actual' reason, along with vibrant colours being the aesthetic of the era...the uniforms, even in black-and-white, are clearly not formal military attire as we know it in our epoch, and the original series era Starfleet's casual conduct demonstrates this intent.

This is also contrasted by the more ornate Romulan uniforms (complete with helmets), and the Klingons' militaristic and universal black-and-grey uniforms evocative of armour (which lacked any variations beyond infrequent golden sashes for select Commanders).
Not in TOS. The Klingon;s wore shiny silver/gold shirts and sparkle pants. The closest it came to armor was the shirt material had a mesh look.

WzhKZSy.jpg

And of course the Romulan helmets were about budget. ( Ears cost more than helmets)
Ornate is not a word I'd use for their uniforms. They seem pretty simple. Though the material invokes chainmail.
qjNlNRW.jpg
 
I think there's more black in Starfleet's uniforms than the Klingon's.

Not in TOS. The Klingon;s wore shiny silver/gold shirts and sparkle pants. The closest it came to armor was the shirt material had a mesh look.
WzhKZSy.jpg

And of course the Romulan helmets were about budget. ( Ears cost more than helmets)
Ornate is not a word I'd use for their uniforms. They seem pretty simple. Though the material invokes chainmail.
qjNlNRW.jpg

TOS Klingons also wore black undershirts (the arms and collars of which were always visible), black belts and high black boots. Female Klingons, as shown in Day of the Dove, wore all black pants, a la male Starfleet enlistees. That mesh look was intended to evoke armour (which, IIRC, was even stated in the script and costume department directions for Errand of Mercy). Just for clarification, I'm not a "Klingon revisionist" (i.e. 'they were always intended to be ridged, monstrous aliens but Desilu's budget didn't allow it', etc.), btw, as stated by Roddenberry in '79 and which has been believed by many fans ever since (I think we can all agree that Gene L. Coon, and Roddenberry at the time, indubitably never intended Klingons to be sword-slinging, honour-bound, howling, ridged, viking dog-monsters, as they were created only for budgetary reasons). But I digress...haha

The Romulan uniform is quite texturally ornate/fanciful in comparison to TOS Starfleet uniforms (basic, primary colours and black pants). I agree with your assertion that their torso material invokes chain mail and that the helmets were likely cost-cutting measures, as they negated the need for Vulcan-Romulan ear prosthetics.
 
TOS Klingons also wore black undershirts (the arms and collars of which were always visible), black belts and high black boots. Female Klingons, as shown in Day of the Dove, wore all black pants, a la male Starfleet enlistees.
My point was the TOS Starfleet uniforms are 50% black ( more if you count the collars ;) ) The Klingons less so.
 
I still can't quite wrap my brain around what was going on with those TOS Klingon uniforms. The blouse and turtlenecks just seem really odd to me. Anyone want to give me a hand what the esthetic was going for?

Also, there's a lot of black in all three peoples' uniforms. Whether flat black (Starfleet pants) or quilted black (Romulan tunics, Klingon pants). Still, if you put Kirk, Kor, and the Romulan commander side by side, it's not difficult to fathom which of the three is likely the good guy. Black in Starfleet uniforms usually helps the color pop. It's utilitarian and humble. Black in the other guys is there to frighten or intimidate.
 
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The black turtlenecks are reminiscent of Fascists in the 30s. I'm not good at pictures here, but google blackshirts and it should look similar. The didn't wear those vesty things though.
 
The black turtlenecks are reminiscent of Fascists in the 30s. I'm not good at pictures here, but google blackshirts and it should look similar. The didn't wear those vesty things though.
Theiss had a closet full of black turtlenecks. He spread them all over the Galaxy.
 
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