Improving Star Trek Uniforms with technology
- Thread starter Matthew Raymond
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Seems excessive for a standard uniform that you make millions of. Might just want to use an armband or something. That gives me an idea, though. If you're already integrating medical monitors, you might want to integrate a defibrillator to revive someone. Of course, the problem with both these ideas is that a hacker could kill someone with either of them...
The fabric itself could be color-changing and emissive, possibly even with tiny holoprojectors, allowing you not only to be invisible or disguise yourself, but to show data in any manner imaginable. For instance, you could have the uniform show a transparent holographic overlay of the crew member's injuries. If someone is transferred from an engineering position to a command position, their uniform and rank pins could change instantly, or as soon as they read the transfer orders and press a button to acknowledge.
You could send a small probe with six mobile emitters down to a planet, with the probe body containing a high-power transmitter that allows people to telerobotically use holographic bodies to explore a planet while they themselves are on a holodeck. The probe itself could even have its own holoprojectors, and possibly pattern enhancers to beam people up. Why risk crew at all? The best part is, you could explore environments that real humans would die instantly in.
Look, we've had some problems in the past, but that's not going to happen again. The whole operating system has been rewritten by my best engineers, Lt. James Moriarty and Lt. Minuet.Until the holodeck malfunctions...
The problem with that is how to protect it against crazed Vorta with death novels.
These kinds of things usually end in disaster. Most "this could change the way we do things forever" developments do, particularly if they replace the good old plot standard method or people in general. M-5, anyone?
That's when an alien species hacks the projection system and creates an imaginary world that is nothing like reality, enslaving the Federation to power their computer systems.
It doesn't have to be a completely imaginary world. Parts of it could selectively reflect reality. After all, some of those Federation citizens have valuable skills and combat training. Bahahahahahahahahaha! (Mine is an evil laugh.)
This is a favorite topic of mine, I came up with a list of changes a few years ago but I don't have it. I do have a description I wrote for something else using the same ideas.
The Working Uniform is for when you know you are going to work in a hostile place and is like Trek's environmental suit but beefed up a lot, and there is a Combat Uniform. The former is rated up to 50 gram 1000 m/s projectiles (like a .50 cal rifle), and the is latter power armor over the Service Uniform with combined stealth suite. The stealth is done by way of various active and passive sensor tricks and not a cloak, so it is applicable to Starfleet and would just need the addition of anti-beaming tech.
The weaponry is antimatter based, with the standard rifle firing antimatter powered scramjet rockets as bullets with a range of 10 miles. For vacuum combat they have a laser weapon which is a bit like a phaser in how multifunction it is. Their medium weapon is a smooth bore long arm firing egg size antimatter shells with a kill radius of 600 meters and a firing range of 4 miles. There is also the Glorious Space Knife, which is just a knife.
I do have a Starfleet specific infantry description. They beam around a lot and have human led robot squads. I avoided power armor because it doesn't really fit Starfleet, otherwise I would have written about a shuttle a person wears like as suit, giving Starfleet a bunch of Iron Man heroes as common soldiers, with powers somewhere between comic and movie Iron Man.
The Working Uniform is for when you know you are going to work in a hostile place and is like Trek's environmental suit but beefed up a lot, and there is a Combat Uniform. The former is rated up to 50 gram 1000 m/s projectiles (like a .50 cal rifle), and the is latter power armor over the Service Uniform with combined stealth suite. The stealth is done by way of various active and passive sensor tricks and not a cloak, so it is applicable to Starfleet and would just need the addition of anti-beaming tech.
The weaponry is antimatter based, with the standard rifle firing antimatter powered scramjet rockets as bullets with a range of 10 miles. For vacuum combat they have a laser weapon which is a bit like a phaser in how multifunction it is. Their medium weapon is a smooth bore long arm firing egg size antimatter shells with a kill radius of 600 meters and a firing range of 4 miles. There is also the Glorious Space Knife, which is just a knife.
I do have a Starfleet specific infantry description. They beam around a lot and have human led robot squads. I avoided power armor because it doesn't really fit Starfleet, otherwise I would have written about a shuttle a person wears like as suit, giving Starfleet a bunch of Iron Man heroes as common soldiers, with powers somewhere between comic and movie Iron Man.
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Wow, you've really given this a lot of thought. A lot of thought. (I don't think there's a jaw-drop emoji, or I'd have used it.)
Sure you haven't jumped backwards in time/out of a TV show?
(I don't think there's a jaw-drop emoji, or I'd have used it.) Sure you haven't jumped backwards in time/out of a TV show?
There is actually a lot more than just what I posted.Wow, you've really given this a lot of thought. A lot of thought.
Sure you haven't jumped backwards in time/out of a TV show?
I got very excited by a particular project several years ago and wrote for myself a tech manual of sorts for the whole thing based on some very limited information. All I had to go on was a single concept ship, which was based on retro futuristic rocket styling in jet form and a statement that the thing would involve hard science fiction. What I wrote left enough of an impression that I think it was almost used, but it didn't, which isn't so bad, because what I wrote is still mine to do with as I please.
Yeah, Go-Captain's is headed in the right direction. The thing is with Starfleet level technology you could give everyone the capabilities of Iron Man in a uniform that still looked like normal fabric to us heathens in the 21st century. Think of nano technology, smart materials, quantum computing, replicator technology.
The reason we don't see it on the show is two reasons really.
production costs
and
Trying to write interesting stories about a bunch of basically invincible people.
A good example in function, if not looks would be the uniform that Matt LeBlanc's character wears in the Lost in Space movie. When it goes into combat mode it armors up right around him. Pretty Cool. Check it out around the 55 second mark of this trailer:
The reason we don't see it on the show is two reasons really.
production costs
and
Trying to write interesting stories about a bunch of basically invincible people.
A good example in function, if not looks would be the uniform that Matt LeBlanc's character wears in the Lost in Space movie. When it goes into combat mode it armors up right around him. Pretty Cool. Check it out around the 55 second mark of this trailer:
That's exactly right, they should be capable of pulling off some very crazy seeming stuff as completely common material.
The third issue is thematic, in that Star Trek is supposed to be about people embracing their bare humanity, and that is done in a kind of by-the-wits, no tech kind of ideal, despite being surrounded by powerful tech everywhere in their artificial environment. We see them reject enhancement where it is not absolutely required, such as with Geordi's VISOR having omnispectral capability but no one bothers to replicate something like it as standard equipment in goggle form. So, for them to embrace thought controlled technorganic nanobot goo uniforms, which project forcefields and eye phasers, they would have to face regular threats calling into doubt a founding principle of their society. They have faced some of those threats thanks to the Borg and Dominion really squeezing them, but it is no where near enough.
If they were all Iron Man or Green Lantern level then we would likely face stories more along the lines of Superman stories, which in part is what we get a lot of anyway. The issues have more to do with ethics and being clever, rather than matters of strength. I think a lot of TNG would hold up rather well if the redshirts had comic book hero strength. Especially if their ships also get that much more powerful, then all the goal posts are just shifted over, and it is only the primitive society stories which are faced with an even more godlike Starfleet.
This is nearly identical to my own uniform concept (although I'm still working on the heating/cooling part because I want to base an actual costume on my final design). I was thinking that the base jumpsuit would look similar to the MIT Biosuit. Then there would be a variety of garments you wear over the jumpsuit that vary depending on your department and rank. These garments would integrate tiny thrusters to help keep you navigate in zero-G and keep you from hurtling out into interstellar space. The idea would be that it would not be obvious that the uniform doubles as a space activity suit. From a distance, or if you don't look to hard, it just looks like a uniform.
Nah! Just 3D print the suit to the crew member's dimensions. Flexibility would be part of the suit design. No need for the thing to change shape like Dr. Strange's Cloak of Levitation. Besides, who wants to animate that? (Again, thinking from the perspective of film and costume design.)
Again, very similar to my own ideas. There are actually helmet designs you can find on the Internet that start as collars and deploy up and over the head, although they don't seal at the front. The helmet would have a HUD that would aid navigation and managing your power, fuel, oxygen and bio-readings.
Should be unnecessary if you're properly managing the humidity.
Interesting idea with the polymer. I was just going to have some kind of glove that mechanically extends over the fingers, but I may need to reconsider. I'm wondering what would happen to anything you were holding on to when the gloves deploy, though. Might need to monitor the hands to make sure they're clear before deploying.
Of course, the obvious solution is to require them to wear gloves all the time, which is not terrible, but it would probably be really annoying for some.
The legs of the jumpsuit definitely need to have a seal with the boots. It may also be useful to have small thrusters integrated into the boots, like what I was thinking with the outer garments.
I think you're getting a little carried away with the features, though. I mean, why not put retractable versions of the smart wheels from Snow Crash in the soles of the boots, and put the gecko-hair coating on them too, so people can tap their heals together, have their motorized skates come out, and skate up the side of a mountain.
I would assume there would be an intermediate state, where you would just wear light armor over the "service uniform". If you need something heavier, you would just get into a hard suit/exosuit/mech.
Perhaps a harness, akin to the Hazard Team harness, with various different wearable tech, as you suggest, that moves up the lefts of a hard suit, exosuit and mech, depending on the task.
I also found this great design for a more combat oriented suit that I really like the concept of:
For the material, MIT has a new(ish) suit that is supposed to be a more flexible for astronauts.
I also found this great design for a more combat oriented suit that I really like the concept of:
For the material, MIT has a new(ish) suit that is supposed to be a more flexible for astronauts.
That sounds more like vacuum underwear, which is pretty funny, but now that I think about it, such a uniform probably would need special underwear.
I wouldn't integrate a space maneuvering system since that would add a lot of bulk to have something with any proper amount of reaction mass. It could still be small, but it's better left as an add on unit. Consider the fact that Data has a coin size microtransporter in Nemesis, that thing is so small everyone could carry one to automatically transport themselves back onto their ship. The hull shield wouldn't be an issue because it would either be down due to enemy attack, or they would be under the main shield during the breach. However the situation is going they can get back in.
Trek tech is pretty extreme and all of the suits are very slim, so the integrated non-obvious breathing system might last an hour, a combat breathing system for when yellow or red alert is called might last a day, and a space walk system might have a week's worth of capacity if I'm remembering Voyager correctly, then again it might be 18 hours.
Ideally, sure, it makes perfect sense for everything in Star Trek to be perfectly and automatically tailored to everyone, but if the uniform is a life saving apparatus then it needs to work in non-ideal situations too. Imagine power is out, no replicators, and your uniform is damaged, but a dead crewman has an intact uniform. If it is not self adjusting you are out of luck, but if it is like the power laces in Back to the Future II then you can take it. Same goes for ready spares, they cannot be tailored, they need some sort of one size fits all system.
On the side of real life costume production there would be two suits per person, a loose one and tight one. The loose one is the uniform in shirt sleeve environment mode, and the tight one is the hazard mode. It could be animated once if desired, or just show everyone in loose uniform one second and the tight one the next.
I would just have the goo go around non-flesh and creep underneath items as best as it can, displacing them so they stay in the palm or between the fingers. If it is a ring on a finger, then contain it and work around it.
Possibly, but it makes the foot wear heavier to have equipment in them, and thrusters on extremities, rather than the core, requires strength to operate, regardless of power assist limbs.
I figure that if the uniform has mobile shape changing material as a key feature of how it functions that it might as well be able to transform in other ways too. Since it is all the same element doing different tasks it doesn't actually add bulk or make it more difficult to operate.
If I were doing a simple but very advanced uniform I would drop the vacuum survivability, and just go for life sign monitoring, climate control, and variable boot soles. Maybe gloves too, and I suppose I might put a folding cap in the collar or a in a chest pocket.
If there is an intermediate armor then I would imagine it for security personnel, but I would rather them wear the proper combat getup too or just the regular uniform.
For Trek I imagine the combat uniform as a powered exoskeleton carrying a shield generator, transporter, and other gear rather than being hard suit power armor. But, there is no reason the shielded skeleton couldn't be the medium armor, and the hard suit the heavy armor.
I missed the part in the literature where you have to be Mormon to wear a space activity suit.
So coin-size microtransporters are okay, but coin-size microthrusters?!? That's just crazy talk!
My intent was not to have standard uniforms that could be used for prolonged EVA. It was always the idea that the suit would keep you alive just long enough for you to get back into the ship, or for you to be beamed back aboard or for a shuttle to pick you up. I was always thinking that you'd never use such a uniform in hard vacuum for more than an hour at the most. It's purely to make sure you don't die immediately during a sudden decompression. It's not for an 8 hour shift of welding on the ships hull.
Tears and punctures in space activity suits are not as critical as regular spacesuits because the suit is not pressurized with oxygen. Assuming the suit is not self-sealing in the event of a rip, duct tape would probably be the quickest, most effective solution. If you have an environment to change uniforms in, the best idea is to stay put in your pressurized room, not change your uniform. Besides, you could always just give everyone a small bottle of emergency sealant.
While a really sophisticated uniform could basically be one-size-fits-all and allow you to change in a matter of minutes, there's no reason to make uniforms that advanced and not make them self-sealing. So it doesn't matter if the suits are interchangeable.
It'd be easier to just have a collar and a helmet to switch out. Every new costume you have requires tailoring to each actor.
What if you're holding a pistol? Say you're firing at the enemy, and the trigger gets stuck in the goo. Or you're about to fire, and the goo prevents you from pulling the trigger?
Perhaps it would be better to just have buttons on the sleeves to trigger gloves. Also, you could have them wearing gloves that are fingerless until you enter a hostile environment. Then the rest of the glove would deploy over the fingers. That would be more comfortable for the actors and requires less material/mechanical complexity/special effects/et cetera.
The point isn't necessarily to propel the entire body from the boots. A significant amount of your weight will be the muscle mass of your legs, so having thrusters distributed over multiple points on your body, including your legs would provide more even thrust with less potential for unintended rotation.
Fair enough. Gotta be careful, though. If it morphs too much, it's like having a really soft suspension on a car. You can't feel the road as you're driving, metaphorically speaking.
All depends on your priorities, I guess. When you have the technology to beam a corpse out of space and reconstitute it into a living being using the last transporter pattern and materials from the replicators, you can basically make any rational work.
The idea actually was for security personal, now that you mention it. Being too armored up may have a negative psychological effect, similar to how police being in heavy riot gear can actually escalate some situations rather than calm them down.
If you want to know what I had in mind for light armor, google "mma suit by aimmort". I admit, though, that I'm going for more of a hard reboot design, so this may not apply for people trying to fit this into standard Star Trek continuity.
Right. I'm thinking the light armor is really just a vest and some simple light plating. The idea is that crew wearing this kind of armor would have a high range of motion and mostly be fighting against hand-to-hand weapons and small arms fire.
A person's dimensions change over the course of the day, though; you don't want an exact fit like that, because your dimensions aren't constant even over a matter of hours. If you're going that exact, then what's a comfortable fit at 8 AM could be uncomfortably tight or overly loose at 5PM. You might not change much, but it doesn't take much to change the comfort of an outfit if you're fitting it that precisely.
