Red or Yellow (well, green?)

Or as I suggested previously on the dedicated thread for "Second Officer", either Spock was being 100% literal and the first officer slot hadn't official been filled yet since Number One's departure (so Spock as Second Officer serves as Second in Command) - possibly due to conflict Kirk and Command as to whether Spock or Mitchell should get the nod as suggested in some of the books - or as with references to 'lithium', 'lasers' and most of the early names for Starfleet they are essentially 'mistakes' and should be ignored.

 

...And you can guess my preference there.

It's so very fortunate that the concept of Spock being the XO or the First Officer doesn't arise in dialogue until after the stardate for the Second Officer remark has passed. Functionally, there's a gaping hole in the crew roster if Spock isn't "it", and it's a bit difficult to think of him accepting the XO role but not the First Officer designation that would normally go with it. I mean, yeah, technically XO =/= 1st Officer exactly, and this was discussed to death and beyond back when Peter David had fun with this. But even PD didn't try and claim there would be no 1st Officer on his ship.

Timo Saloniemi

 

Actually, there's a possible fix for that. First Officer (and it's more formal synonym Exective Officer) is relatively recent coinage, and isn't even universally applied in the modern navy. The role of "First Lieutenant" was the original "second in command", and while the modern navy mainly uses this as the "Housekeeper" position rather than "second-in-command" or even "third-in-command", it's possible (indeed probable) that the production team - who IDed Spock as holding this billet among others in the original treatment - were either confused on this point, or were deliberately evoking the earlier practice.

 

Here's a quick question: "Which side was Jefferson Davis on during the US Civil War?"

Think about that for a while because the answer is connected to a historical example of a quirk of military administration.

 

I see your point, and at least one early episode does call Spock and LTCMDR...but the very presence of the dual full braid on his blue uniform strongly suggests that, whatever his official rank, Spock holds the position of higher than everyone but Kirk.

The pilot sweaters are not so precise on rank, but in the first pilot, the only three officers wearing command sweaters were in the lower area at those three main stations, and two were senior officers while one seemed to be younger and less experienced. In the second pilot, only three actors again wore the command color, Kirk, Spock, and an extra with no braid. From this, it seems possible to make an educated guess to support the idea that Spock was XO in the second pilot, insomuch as he was the only ranking officer besides Kirk to wear a command sweater.

This brings us back to the question about Uhura and her role. Both yellow and red shirts were shown in Communications (Uhura, Mres, Palmer in red, and Farrel and Riley in gold, for example, with Alden in Blue as an unusual case). I suppose that Uhura went from being a younger and less experienced goldshirt command-division navigator, to being a more senior communications officer among the redshirts. She changed divisions in order to get more seniority, while at the same time taking basically the same promotion she would have gotten from navigator anyway. Then, she goes back yellow in TMP (yellow corresponding to the paler color worn by Colt, Mitchell, and B'Ellanna for example)

If you want to skip my reasoning, here's the short version:

Young goldshirt navigatior Uhura takes promotion to senior redshirt communications officer, then stays communications officer but gets promotion and then wears yellow.

 

I wonder why they changed Gold command to Red for the movies? Although in TMP, Blue was Kirk's uniform along with Gold???
JB

 

I can't believe that nobody replied to my post.

Jefferson Davis (1808-1809) was the Rebel president in 1861 to 1865.

There is an anecdote from the Civil War about a man who waited in the office of General Jefferson Columbus Davis (1828-1879) and eventually was let in to see him. When asked his business the man said: "I just want to shake your hand. You must be the greatest man in the world, to be the Rebel president and a Union general at the same time!".

General Jefferson C. Davis was famous for shooting General William Nelson during the Civil War. Unfortunately, General Nelson was a Union general and Davis's superior officer. There was also an incident when Davis broke down a bridge behind his unit, stranding a following crowd of escaped slaves on the far side of the river at the mercy of the Rebels. Davis's military skills led to him commanding a division and then the XIV corps, but he was never promoted beyond the rank of brigadier general of United States Volunteers.

In the eyes of his superiors Davis should have been thankful enough that he wasn't hanged without complaining that he was never promoted. And I guess that General Davis was always annoyed to hear people singing "We''ll hang Jeff Davis from a sour apple tree".

After the civil war the United States Volunteers were disbanded and General Davis's commission as a brigadier general of United States Volunteers was decommissioned. Hundreds of former generals and other high ranking officers in the United States Volunteers now scrambled to compete for high ranks in the regular army, the United States Army. Jefferson C. Davis was lucky enough to be commissioned as the colonel of the new 23rd United States Infantry Regiment in 1866. Davis also gained the brevet commission, largely honorary, of brigadier general in the United States Army.

But the army top brass wouldn't let Davis command his regiment stationed in the relative comfort of various western forts. Instead they almost literally exiled the murderer to Siberia, sending him to Alaska, recently purchased from Russia. Davis established a fort at Sitka, Alaska, October 29, 1867.

Alaska was a military territorial district, part of the Department of the Columbia, which was part of the Division of the Pacific. Alaska became a separate department, the Department of Alaska, under the Division of the Pacific on March 18, 1868, but was reduced to a district under the Department of the Columbia again on July 1, 1870.

So Jefferson C. Davis was a subordinate of George Crook, who commanded the Department of the Columbia, from November 23, 1867 until Alaska became a separate department on March 18, 1868, and again from July 1, 1870 until August 8, 1870, when Brigadier General Edward Canby replaced Crook as commander of the Department of the Columbia.

Even though George Crook had the brevet (honorary) ranks of colonel, brigadier general, and major general, in the United States Army at the time, his substantive rank was only lieutenant colonel. So Jefferson C. Davis was subordinated for several months to a lower ranking officer. Which regiment was George Crook the lieutenant colonel of? The very same 23rd United States Infantry that Jefferson C. Davis was the colonel of. So Jefferson C. Davis found himself the subordinate in territorial command to someone who was both his junior in substantive rank and also his subordinate in their regiment.

And I hope that this story goes to show that sometimes some very strange command arrangements are made.

 

Every episode where Kirk's shirt appears to be green instead of yellow takes place in an alternate universe.
Problem solved.

 

Guys. We've covered this.

 

I can.

 

I think we've established before that the color of the Command shirts in TOS, (which looks pretty green to me) is officially called "gold" by Sisko in DS9. This is the color worn by Uhura in two episodes, if that is important to the original poster's question.

That being said, I think it's high time that it be suggested that "yellow" does not equal "gold" on Star Trek. What Uhura wears in TMP is not the same gold color as what she wore early on in TOS.

In fact, in the two pilots, in re-used pilot footage through TOS, in TMP, in ST:2 through ST:6, in later TNG, DS9, and Voyager, ship's services crew wear a yellow color. The greenish gold Command shirt is only worn by the top command crew in the pilots, and by a number of crew in TOS. As I have said, maybe yellow always meant ship's services, but the greenish gold just is not used often in later eras.

How does this apply to the original poster's question? It implies that there is, in fact, a distinction between Support (red) and Services (yellow), even in TOS, because niether is the same thing as Command (gold). It suggests Uhura was part of the Command division, took a promotion to a leader in the Support division for most of TOS, but moved to Ship's Services with her next promotion for TMP.

That's how I view the changing shirt colors for characters like her. The several different Seven of Nine costumes might be something similar but with no rank considered.

 

I just was re-watching the Trouble with Tribbles and realized that Kirk is probably putting Uhura in command when he gives the "To much of anything...is not necessarily a good thing... and Get these Tribbles off the Bridge" speech in that episode. Spock is leaving with him, Scotty is off duty, and Sulu is not in the episode. That would seem to put her next in line.

 

I agree with that. There are about a half-dozen examples in the series where Uhura seems to be in command. Remember them getting DeSalle back for Catspaw, though.

 

DeSalle was gold in two episodes, Squire of Gothos and This Side of Paradise yet is red in Catspaw? Was he really branching out for a command spot in engineering instead or was his gold uniform in the wash?
JB

 

Unlike many characters in the Enterprise, we know exactly what DeSalle's position was in "Catspaw": Assistant chief engineer. So red would be the right color. As mentioned earlier in the thread, being assigned to engineering seems to have no bearing on whether one is in line to take command of the ship.

 

I Wonder why he was in command yellow for his first two appearances then? Maybe he migrated down to engineering perhaps?
JB

 

That would be my guess, they had an opening for an officer of a certain experience level and he fit the bill and went down there. Like Sulu moved from blue to green/gold at some point.

 

I don't find DeSalle's career trajectory confusing. What makes my head start to hurt is whenever I try to figure out Lt. Kyle's and Lt. Leslie's assignments, as they tended to wear whatever uniform was most convenient for the episode/scene.

Hell, even Eddie Paskey's character name changed a few times! Is he Lt. Ryan? Lt. Connors? Lt. Leslie? Some combination of the three? Who knows?

 

He also died and came back.

As to the colors, though, neither ever wore a blue shirt, but I think Kyle is in blue coveralls in a couple of eps, which makes no sense. As far as shirt color, I believe they both wore almost exclusively red after a couple of early appearances in goldgreen. No?