Starfleet Command Insignia

Discussion in 'Star Trek - The Original & Animated Series' started by WRStone, Jan 19, 2013.

  1. Maurice

    Maurice Snagglepussed Admiral

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    The Outpost insignia isn't germane because it's not starship crew.

    Re the Justman memo: production dates below.

    Ultimate Computer
    Lucas, John Meredyth
    Prod #53
    Shoot dates: 12/7-12/14/67

    The Omega Glory
    McEveety, Vincent
    Prod #54
    Shoot dates: 12/18-12/26/67

    As I recall, the dates I have here are confirmed shoot dates, but I understand some days may not be accounted for. The Dec. 18th memo date and the admonition not to change the insignia would indicate the episode in question would be Omega Glory, since the previous episode would have wrapped and there'd be nothing to fix.
     
    Last edited: Feb 2, 2013
  2. WRStone

    WRStone Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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    Pfftt ... nope. I totally stumbled across the initial pic on a Google search -- they made the connection, not me. I just looked up what it was called and found some online.

    Dakota Smith
     
  3. Unicron

    Unicron Boss Monster Mod Moderator

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    I hadn't really thought about that before, and I will admit I've always preferred having a single Starfleet uniform emblem (as with TNG on) than the way individual ship insignia were portrayed in TOS, but I do find the idea interesting.
     
  4. Robert Comsol

    Robert Comsol Commodore Commodore

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    The Justman memo shows that he cared about such details and possibly somehow missed "The Doomsday Machine".
    It's interesting (thanks Maurice) that he wrote this memo the day they started shooting "The Omega Glory" (can I please see the memo he wrote after seeing the dailies for this episode :D).

    It would almost seem they deliberately decided not to come up with a new insignia for the Defiant in "The Tholian Web" just to appease Bob Justman. ;)

    Bob
     
  5. Wingsley

    Wingsley Commodore Commodore

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    Really silly question:

    Discounting what we saw in ENT's "In a Mirror, Darkly", were there ever any clear images of the Defiant personnel's badges? Or were the visibility of the badges in "The Tholian Web" so poor as to make it academic?
     
  6. CorporalCaptain

    CorporalCaptain Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    See just upthread, thanks to Nerys Myk. :hugegrin:

    I think there's suggestive evidence that the badges were never intended to be made out, though: as Robert Comsol pointed out, the insignia seemed to have been deliberately obscured in all the close-ups; I doubt that it was thought that the insignia could have been made out where they are visible on screens of the day, and Bjo had some rationale (right or wrong) to assign the Defiant its own insignia.
     
  7. Wingsley

    Wingsley Commodore Commodore

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    I jaunted over to TrekCore and compared the McCoy-in-the-Defiant's-Sickbay scenes between SD and HD. The one clear HD scene where the camera pans across Sickbay's convalescent ward has a fairly clear arrowhead on the one man laying in bed toward the end of that scene. TrekCore's SD slate doesn't include that particular frame, so it's academic for me.

    The next scene where they show the operating room/examination room also shows a man slumped face-up on an examination/operating table, but its distant enough to be academic for me. It's fairly clear in HD, though not nearly as good as the previous pan-shot.

    For me, it can go either way. If the Defiant's crew had Enterprise-style arrowhead badges, that means both ships are attached to the First Fleet. If we're assuming they could be something else, whatever it could be, then either Defiant is in another flotilla (orbitilla? warpilla?) or we can still pretend that each TOS ship had its own distinct badge, whichever fires your phasers. I prefer to think that it doesn't matter which badge the Defiant crew wore; there were enough examples that badges indicated (to me, anyway) some unit assignment (such as Kirk's arrowhead meaning the First Fleet).

    It's probably just me, but I would've preferred if the TMP and TNG ships had retained the TOS boomerang-style Starfleet pennant on their hulls, and a diversity of badges on their uniforms. It may have looked militaristic to some, but today's NASA astronauts seem to be quite a bit less militaristic and they seem to have quite an interesting variety of patches just the same.

    Fires my phasers! :techman:
     
  8. Redfern

    Redfern Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    I guess the best way to determine the "intended" resolution is to connect a VCR or DVd player to a period TV, color or monochrome, and play the episodes.

    Sincerely,

    Bill
     
  9. BillJ

    BillJ The King of Kings Admiral

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    Maybe there was no captain of the Lexington? Perhaps she had been or was being readied for some type of refit and pulled for the M-5 experiment because she wasn't being used elsewhere? Perhaps Wesley was it's former captain and was recently promoted then pulled some strings to get back into the captain's chair for the M-5 trials?
     
  10. Admiral Buzzkill

    Admiral Buzzkill Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    Damn.

    IOW, the "ships all have their own insignia" was a ret-conned explanation by the producers to rationalize away inconsistencies and mistakes in TOS.

    That pretty much blows a whole bunch of "canon" out of the water. :lol:

    It also helps to explain the establishment of the delta as the Starfleet emblem in ST:TMP - Roddenberry was actually reestablishing what he and the other producers had intended to be the status quo from the beginning.
     
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  11. Robert Comsol

    Robert Comsol Commodore Commodore

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    I find this extremely hard to believe. "Starship captain" is one of the most wanted jobs in the 23rd Century (driving people insane because they don't get it). And captains like Commodore Decker or Commodore Wesley seem to be the "right stuff", especially in contrast to the bureaucratic flag officers we've seen elsewhere in TOS.

    Bob
     
  12. Robert Comsol

    Robert Comsol Commodore Commodore

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    It's neither a retroactive continuity nor a "mistake" but a changed premise to which the original producers were fully entitled to. And I fail to see where this "blows a whole bunch of canon out of the water" as there have been rationalizations during this thread how to explain these minor discrepancies.

    Interesting theory. But it fails to explain why the Starfleet emblem (the arrowhead seen on the TOS engineering hull of the Enterprise and the shuttlecraft, and as a wall sculpture in the background of subspace broadcasts) no longer decorated the engineering hull of the movie Enterprise.

    By 1979 the Enterprise's delta had become a trademark for Star Trek, so rather than to re-establish some "in-universe" continuity I think Gene Roddenberry wanted to tell the audience, that this is Star Trek, not Star Wars or Battlestar Galactica.

    Bob
     
  13. BillJ

    BillJ The King of Kings Admiral

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    Admiral Kirk also had the "right stuff" and pulled strings to get back into the captain's chair. :shrug:
     
  14. CrazyMatt

    CrazyMatt Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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    My whole world is now turned upside down! I've always loved the insignia worn by Matt Decker and Ron Tracey... and the concurrent idea that each starship had its own assignment patch... only to find out it was all a MISTAKE?
     
  15. CrazyMatt

    CrazyMatt Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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    According to "Inside Star Trek: The Real Story," Bob Justman came down with a very serious infection in his hip just before the start of the second production year. This caused him to be hospitalized and miss working on some of the episodes produced early that season. So I wondered if he could have missed the production of TDM in late June of '67... but accoding to the book, he was back at work well before then. So just how did he fail to notice Decker's insignia in the dailies then?
     
  16. CorporalCaptain

    CorporalCaptain Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    “We don't make mistakes, just happy little accidents.” — Bob Ross

    :)
     
  17. Navigator_NCC2120

    Navigator_NCC2120 Captain Captain

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    Well, maybe Commodore Decker's insignia is different because Commodores have different insignias. Commodore Wesley was commanding the USS Lexington in "The Ultimate Computer" episode and he wears the same insignia as Commodores Mendez and Stone wear on Starbase 11 and Commodore Stocker wears enroute to Starbase 10.


    Navigator, NCC-2120 USS Entente
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  18. GSchnitzer

    GSchnitzer Co-Executive Producer In Memoriam

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    Possibly. Although we are still left with trying to figure out why Areel Shaw, the court baliff, and Miss Piper all wear the insignia, too.
     
  19. Navigator_NCC2120

    Navigator_NCC2120 Captain Captain

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    Greg,

    Good point. If the producers wanted all starship personnel to wear the arrowhead shaped insignia then it is possible they wanted all starbase personnel to wear the star-burst/flower shaped insignia. If that is the case then Commodore Decker was neither starship personnel nor starbase personnel. Which raises the question, what is Commodore Decker's insignia suppose to signify?

    If the above is true then since Commodore Wesley was wearing the star-burst/flower shaped insignia then he was probably considered starbase personnel that was temporarily in command of the USS Lexington.


    Navigator, NCC-2120 USS Entente
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  20. CorporalCaptain

    CorporalCaptain Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    That's the way I always took it. Plus, the Enterprise picked up Wesley at a [originally unnamed] space station.