Rank Identifications on Star Trek:Discovery Uniforms.

[Kor]

The pips are essentially the same system as the stripes used in the US Navy today. If anything, it was TOS that doesn't match with anything else.

http://www.officersguide.org/resources/Officer+Rank+Structure+I.jpg

https://media.defense.gov/2010/Aug/04/2000337860/-1/-1/0/100803-F-3478B-200.JPG

I've always thought that the TOS system was the most naval of all by virtue of it being a sleeve stripe system in and of itself.

Kor

 

[Shamrock Holmes]

IMO, a version of the traditional colours should have been used for the department trim on the uniforms (primarily red, gold/olive and cyan), with the badge and sleeve rank in gold (for admirals), silver (for officers and cadets) and bronze (for NCOs and enlisted).

 

[WisTrekFan]

While I'm not keen on the TNG-ish pip system being used in this era, it does kind of follow up on the ENT era, and, like the stripe system, it's definitely more intuitive than the complicated system of symbols used in the TWOK era.

Kor

I agree, the rank symbols in the TWOK era were hard to follow.

 

[Shamrock Holmes]

I agree, the rank symbols in the TWOK era were hard to follow.

The only thing I liked about the "Monster Maroons" rank insignia is that they include insignia for the enlisted/NCOs (but the 2370s uni did that better anyway).

 

[Avro Arrow]

Also I see that not everyone has the same number of said stripes. Some have four, others five. It doesn't look like it has anything to do with rank, though.

I believe it's just that the women's uniform has four, and the men's uniform has five. This appears to apply even to admirals.

 

[Mad Jack Wolfe]

It's probably very hard to see in person. The whole point was the original uniforms was so people could figure out who's is and who does what - even if they don't know the other person well - in a crunch.

Starfleet revised the rank recognition guide to suggest this as the primary method of determining another crewman's rating (besides taking a wild guess).

 

[Timo]

IMO, a version of the traditional colours should have been used for the department trim on the uniforms (primarily red, gold/olive and cyan), with the badge and sleeve rank in gold (for admirals), silver (for officers and cadets) and bronze (for NCOs and enlisted).

At least the colors of DSC more or less match those of "The Cage" (except the grayish blue looks more like silver here - would have been fun to have silver uniforms with blue piping rather than vice versa, for that inimitable 1950s scifi look!).

"Traditional colors" in Trek just means three colors that change every few decades. Before DSC/"The Cage", we had the Kelvin colors. After this, the TOS ones. Then, after a period of utter chaos, the TNG ones. And before there was UFP Starfleet, there were the ENT colors, which were almost but not quite the TOS colors.

Timo Saloniemi