So...the Berman Era "Future Timeline" commbadge all along, just with the gap in the bars shifted slightly to our right to make it more DSC-like.
Yeah, they bring that up in the video https://www.startrek.com/videos/jeff-lombardi-talks-iconic-props-from-star-trek-picard
It was a great movie - a classic 80's anti-Commie flick. I haven't gotten a chance to see the new one, yet, but from what I understand it sucks pretty bad, despite Hemsworth being in it. I really wish they didn't cave to Chinese pressure and change the "bad guys" to the laughably feckless North Koreans. All their boats would sink under the weight of their millions of "good typing" medals 20 feet from their own coastline, never mind making it across the largest body of water in the world.
The 1984 movie wasn't completely believable but at least Andropov- and Chernenko-era Soviet military and foreign policy were threatening enough and Soviet military strength was enormous enough that it was at least not entirely unfeasible. North Korea? Don't make me laugh.
It would've been cool to have the bars in the wearer's division color. DON'T! Chinese or North Koreans, it was just a sad mess.
The Russians could still be a threat, the Suez Canal could be blocked if the Admiral Kuznetsov sinks in there. Or the carrier and it's tugs get wedged in.
I know some people laugh off Red Dawn as Reagan-era jingoism but if you weren't alive back then or didn't do your homework you didn't realize just how powerful and big a strategic threat the Soviet Union was around 1984. They had the manpower and the sheer numbers of equipment to at least make an invasion of a major NATO country plausible even if the actual attack never happened or failed miserably, leading to World War III. Sure, the likelihood of the Kremlin ordering an invasion of the United States across the Bering Strait was pretty close to nonexistent because it would have set off a global nuclear apocalypse but the fact was they had the manpower and the weapon inventories to make it not implausible. North Korea wouldn't even make it to Seoul without their regime being bombed off the face of the planet by both the U.S. and South Koreans.
Goddamnit, I just realized how fucking tiny this Fansets badge is gonna be. I was hoping for a properly-sized badge, not a rinky-dink lapel pin.
On the other hand, there's a second shot which matches and really does look like they added an effect to it. Yeesh. Oh well, even if true I'll just pretend this was a function they added just a little while before they retired that style of commbadge.