We've had, what, six or so? And the longest-lasting uniform must have been the all red jacket ones... 2282-2340's? I mean, we went from the 2360's tng one, to the ds9 ones, to the first contact ones in just ten years.
In-universe explanation for all the uniform changes from in the last half of 24th century?
- Thread starter hxclespaulplayer
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Specialization among different fleet commands, and more variety available to COs to allow for a little more individuality for uniforms of the day.
Someone asked an admiral "How come we have 10 new classes of ships rolling out every year but we all have to keep wearing the same uniforms?" and this was the result.
Might of had ten or twenty designs between 2282-2340's and we only got to see the ones based on the maroons.
Replicators.
The IRL USN has had like, 51, 53 Uniforms in 250 years. Hell, just a few months ago they're rolling out a two piece instead of a jumpsuit -2poc - (sounds familiar?) due to a overlooked but dangerous flammability issue, they had the blueberries, they had the spring and winters, all within the last 20 years....
For all we know, some poor starfleet guys went down to a planet in the DS9 uniforms and attracted a hoard of megamoths that ate them dry and spread throughout the fleet, and then the TLD uniforms don't have that issue.
Stuff pops up, and there's also a political angle too. Starfleet seems to be whaffing between a 'tough' looking uniform and a more softer one, leading to the PIC 2380s, 2390s a, and b uniforms merging the two together it seems.
There are also three? variants of the maroons as well. The full formal ones of TWOK to Generations, then one with a cutback version without the sweater, then finally one with barely anything on it but the jacket as seen in the Ent-C episode or so. I wouldn't be surprised if a Lost Era movie or so had a variant with simplified jackets and color-coding.
For all we know, some poor starfleet guys went down to a planet in the DS9 uniforms and attracted a hoard of megamoths that ate them dry and spread throughout the fleet, and then the TLD uniforms don't have that issue.
Stuff pops up, and there's also a political angle too. Starfleet seems to be whaffing between a 'tough' looking uniform and a more softer one, leading to the PIC 2380s, 2390s a, and b uniforms merging the two together it seems.
There are also three? variants of the maroons as well. The full formal ones of TWOK to Generations, then one with a cutback version without the sweater, then finally one with barely anything on it but the jacket as seen in the Ent-C episode or so. I wouldn't be surprised if a Lost Era movie or so had a variant with simplified jackets and color-coding.
Yeah this is the best answer. On the other side of them it's the same thing with the TOS/Discovery/TMP uniforms and variants. I've seen fanart for if they made a Post-TUC animated series in the 90s and they'd given the crew their own jumpsuits and I thought that was neat. On the one hand I wish there were less uniforms but on the other I appreciate that each show wants their own identity and I always liked how with so many in the 90s you could have Picard in the TNG uniform, Sisko in the FC uniform, and Janeway in the DS9/VOY jumpsuits for those multi captain posters.
True, we simply don't know enough about the Lost Era.
Are there any real-world examples of this, though? I mean a uniform design that either was used for about 60 years, or kept coming back during such a time period?
(In (relatively) modern times, that is.)
If we go by all the recent Trek shows, particularly Lower Decks, Starfleet often had multiple uniforms in service at any given time (it's a big fleet). It's also possible that some uniforms were just short-lived interim designs that were phased out as they were perfected (such as the numerous admiral uniforms in early TNG, the season two Enterprise uniforms in DIS, and maybe even the pre-2401 uniforms seen in PIC).
Guaranteed, we ever get a TV series set during the Lost Era we will see other uniforms besides the Monster Maroons.
From what I remember the original idea with the DS9 uniforms was that they were meant to be special uniforms for personnel working on space stations rather than ships. And early on in DS9 they kept to that idea, there's an episode where Sisko goes to Earth on some sort of official business and he actually switches to the TNG uniform while doing that and I think both Sisko and Jadzia wear the TNG uniform in the pilot before they start their assignments on DS9.
Then Voyager came and threw that idea out of the window.
Then Voyager came and threw that idea out of the window.
As does Bashir. And O'Brien switched back to the TNG uniform when he went back to the Enterprise for his good-bye scene with Picard.
Technically Generations did that showing both uniforms being used on the Enterprise D. Though the entire situation was related to the new uniforms that had been designed but abandoned for Generations. The original plan was that those uniforms would become the ship worn uniform. They would have worn them on Voyager as well as visiting ships on DS9 and presumably Sisko would have worn that in Homefront/Paradise Lost.
But when those uniforms were abandoned, they wanted Generations to have a different look than the TV show, and budget and schedule prevented them from making anything new, so they went with the DS9 uniforms. And even then, they only had money to make two tailor made DS9 uniforms for the movie, which went to Patrick Stewart and Brent Spiner, and even they had to wait for their DS9 uniforms which is why they wear the old TNG uniforms throughout the movie. Everyone else had to wear actual costumes from DS9, Jonathan Frakes and LeVar Burton are wearing the actual costumes worn by Avery Brooks and Colm Meaney. Worf, Deanna and Crusher couldn't wear DS9 uniforms because at the time there were no DS9 uniforms that could fit Dorn, Sirtis and McFadden.
Voyager stuck with the DS9 uniforms due to a combination of them being "more modern" and the feeling they looked better on the cast than the TNG ones did.
I suppose there's also technically a fourth version in Family, where Jack Crusher's hologram wears the Yesterday's Enterprise variant - no belt, no undershirt - but with the TNG era combadge.
Ineed. In real life, especially with material development, has seen a lot of varieties and more designs being presented. Despite the name, the uniformity of uniforms comes from the standards applied by the USN leadership, and rank insiginia, not just having one or two uniform designs.
Starfleet strikes as being much larger than the US NAVY (not by much though) so having a variety of uniforms based upon command, work assignment, and such is not unreasonable.
IIRC, the YE variant had already upgraded the badge to a comm badge anyway. If that's the case, then I wouldn't consider them to be a new variant any more than S1 DS9 (with oval-back badge) and S1 VOY (with the rectangle-backed badge) were different variants but YMMV.
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