Distinguising Crewmen and Officers

[c0rnedfr0g]

How were non-commissioned personnel (crewmen) distinguished from Ensigns based on uniform?

I see Chekov has no gold bands around his shirt cuffs, and he is an Ensign.

 

[SchwEnt]

I think Roddenberry once said that everyone aboard the Enterprise was a qualified astronaut and in the 1960s, that meant everyone was an officer.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Jumpsuits

 

[Mysterion]

Easy. The younger officers can be identified because they are the ones being lectured to by gruff, older chief petty officers. Sometimes patiently, mostly not.

 

[c0rnedfr0g]

Jumpsuits

i thought those jumpsuits were only for the rummies in Engineering and sometimes in the labs (or patients in sickbay)

but we can't expect there to be 400+ commissioned officers. that one ship would have enough potential captains for the entire starfleet

 

[Neopeius]

Starfleet does things differently...

 

[Nerys Myk]

Jumpsuits

i thought those jumpsuits were only for the rummies in Engineering and sometimes in the labs (or patients in sickbay)

but we can't expect there to be 400+ commissioned officers. that one ship would have enough potential captains for the entire starfleet

I've seen crewmen sporting Science blue and Command gold jumpsuits.

 

[c0rnedfr0g]

many of the redshirts that died were 'crewmen' and i believe some had gold bands on the cuffs

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

i thought those jumpsuits were only for the rummies in Engineering and sometimes in the labs (or patients in sickbay)

AFAIK, *any* crewmember or officer can wear the jumpsuit if the need arises.

 

[Zycho32]

The truth is, they weren't. You literally couldn't tell the difference between a crewman and an Ensign without a character explicitly saying so.

In retrospect, one can tell they didn't truly give a rip about anybody besides the Main Cast and the occasional 'Guest' crewmember in regards to rank.

I'd also say this; having every last crewmember be an Officer tends to degrade the concept- Officers are leaders, after all, and no matter what outfit exists nowadays, you have Officers leading enlisted men.

 

[Timo]

Indeed, Roddenberry apparently dropped that silly idea before it ever got wings: the pilot episode written by him already features a character established in the end credits as a non-officer, namely "CPO Garrison".

There are some cases where Lieutenant Kyle wears the red jumpsuit (and is still considered Kyle and not some random similar-looking character); then there are cases where our officer heroes and sidekicks recuperate in blue jumpsuits. So the uniform as such doesn't differentiate - and indeed the jumpsuit even makes it impossible to tell the specific rank of an officer. Which is all fine and well: officers on a ship like this would probably know each other pretty well anyway, and Kirk could be running a very egalitarian ship in order to boost morale for this five-year sentence of forced labor.

Even today, it's not really necessary to easily distinguish between various sorts of officer. It's more important to distinguish between various sorts of crew, really, because different members of crew have different special skills. Which is why the color coding of uniforms is actually a pretty good idea - although mere three colors is far too little for the purpose of telling the special skills apart.

In theory, we might say that the enlisteds of TOS wore some difficult-to-see identifier on their sleeves or collars, and our primitive TV sets hide this detail. Since the new movie will have uniforms closely resembling the TOS ones, yet still subtly different, we might adopt whatever enlisted identification scheme the movie uses and pretend that it existed in TOS, too. Hell, we might even pretend that TOS used the movie uniforms, since the main difference is the separate undershirt and the very slightly different surface pattern...

So it now remains to be seen if the movie will introduce enlisted identifiers or not. Here's hoping.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Nerys Myk]

I assume the jumpsuits are the equal to modern day fatigues and officers can wear them but usually its the enlisted men.

 

[Kirk1980]

I thought the uniforms were separate pieces in the 60's, too? I mean, we often saw the main guys in black shirts with just the outer colored top having been removed....

Unless that was just Spock/Nimoy.

 

[Timo]

I thought that was only Nimoy, with his special "Vulcan thermal underwear".

And the black collars were definitely sewed in during the regular episodes. But that doesn't mean they couldn't "really" have been separate undershirts. What does prove troublesome in that respect is the manner in which Kirk always tears his gold shirt and no black tatters are seen beneath...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Nerys Myk]

McCoy and other doctors wear a black t-shirt under their medical smocks

As does Joe the astro-phobe.

 

[Neopeius]

Indeed, Roddenberry apparently dropped that silly idea before it ever got wings: the pilot episode written by him already features a character established in the end credits as a non-officer, namely "CPO Garrison".

I think you mean "the pilot episode... only features a character established...as a non-officer."

Which proves that there was such a rank during the Pike era, but not during the Kirk era. Actually, it doesn't even prove that since The Cage isn't canon. The Menagerie is.

Let's be honest--Petty Officer is used less frequently than Fleet Captain in TOS.

 

[Timo]

It's not just that there was a single Petty Officer in the first episode ever - it's also that there were Crewmen in basically all the early episodes. If Roddenberry had a memo against the use of enlisted designations, nobody read it, least of all himself... Except, just perhaps, Theiss. Which would explain the uniform rank indicator problem.

Beyond that, it's basically "absence of evidence" sort of proof. And no episode goes out of its way to support the notion that there would only be officers aboard, or that Ensigns would be the lowest rungs of the ladder rather than privileged individuals in command of other individuals or groups.

I had completely forgotten about Tormolen's striptease performance. I guess Kirk could be wearing a T-shirt, too, and it just happens to be such a tight stretch-fit to best show off his man-tits that it immediately snaps to his backside when it gets torn at his chest.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[ROBE]

The truth is Star Trek was always really sloppy when it came to rank insignia.

Okay from memory the rank insignia for TOS was:
THE CAGE: All officers have one solid gold stripe and Senior ratings have one gold stripe with rectangles cut into it.
WHERE NO MAN HAS GONE BEFORE: All officers have one solid gold stripe, the captain has two solid gold stripes and Senior ratings have sod all.
TOS (all the other episodes):All ratings and ensigns sod all, Lt (JG) one broken gold stripe, Lt one full gold stripe, Lt Commander, one broken and one full gold stripe, commander two full gold stripes, captain two full gold stripes and one broken gold stripe, fleet captain never shown, possibly three full gold stripes?, commodore one thick full gold stripe. Admirals ranks never shown.

STAR TREK THE MOTION PICTURE
Ensigns were given one broken gold stripe and Lt (JG) seem to have vanished. Senior ratings were given triangle and hollow square insignia. Admiral Kirk had one thick gold stripe and one normal gold stripe and a gold star on shoulder, I presume he was a rear admiral.

Other movies completely changed the insignia.

 

[Nerys Myk]

It's not just that there was a single Petty Officer in the first episode ever - it's also that there were Crewmen in basically all the early episodes. If Roddenberry had a memo against the use of enlisted designations, nobody read it, least of all himself... Except, just perhaps, Theiss. Which would explain the uniform rank indicator problem.

Beyond that, it's basically "absence of evidence" sort of proof. And no episode goes out of its way to support the notion that there would only be officers aboard, or that Ensigns would be the lowest rungs of the ladder rather than privileged individuals in command of other individuals or groups.

I had completely forgotten about Tormolen's striptease performance. I guess Kirk could be wearing a T-shirt, too, and it just happens to be such a tight stretch-fit to best show off his man-tits that it immediately snaps to his backside when it gets torn at his chest.

Timo Saloniemi

Nah, Kirk goes commando.

 

[Timo]

He's probably always forgetting his underwear in previous locations of undress. Usually, it seems to be McCoy's facilities. That K/S thing is just a smokescreen...

Now, for some 's advocate stuff on a well-explored subject:

THE CAGE: All officers have one solid gold stripe and Senior ratings have one gold stripe with rectangles cut into it.

Or then there are no senior ratings in evidence, and the perforated stripe has some other meaning (say, the usual Lieutenant, Junior Grade). After all, while "CPO Garrison" is specified as Adam Roarke's character in the end credits, neither the name nor the rating are actually part of the dialogue, and end credits aren't really part of the Star Trek universe as such.

Everybody wearing the solid stripe could be a Lieutenant; we know that Number One is, at any rate. It would be a bit odd for Captain Pike to be a Lieutenant, though.

WHERE NO MAN HAS GONE BEFORE: All officers have one solid gold stripe, the captain has two solid gold stripes and Senior ratings have sod all.

Unless the new movie contradicts this (that is, shows Kirk promoted to full Captain before the events of this episode, and still somehow fits into the TOS continuity), we could argue that the Captain's rank here was Commander, therefore compatible with his braid in the TOS sense - and Lieutenant Commander Mitchell had either been very recently promoted, or was promoted posthumously, hence the lack of the "half-braid" to accompany his single stripe.

TOS (all the other episodes):All ratings and ensigns sod all, Lt (JG) one broken gold stripe, Lt one full gold stripe, Lt Commander, one broken and one full gold stripe, commander two full gold stripes, captain two full gold stripes and one broken gold stripe, fleet captain never shown, possibly three full gold stripes?, commodore one thick full gold stripe. Admirals ranks never shown.

Fleet Captain need not be a rank as such, considering the ambiguous one-and-a-half references to it. And the Admirals did have braid on their sleeves, even if it didn't show up on camera; the famous gag reel bit on Ed Reimer / "Admiral Fitzpatrick" shows his sleeves with one broad strip and two narrow ones, flanking the broad one from above and below, and perhaps indicating a rank two steps above Commodore (that is, Vice Admiral).

Timo Saloniemi