The uniform change around 2350

[Orcus]

^ Yes, well... they say it's cold in space.

What I'd like to know is the on-screen/canon reason for switching the red and yellow shirts...?

 

[USS KG5]

^ Yes, well... they say it's cold in space.

What I'd like to know is the on-screen/canon reason for switching the red and yellow shirts...?

Maybe in-universe a "red shirt" myth developed that threatened morale, so they said "fine, we will swap and now command gets red".

Weirder things have happened in real military forces when the pencil-pushers make policy!

 

[The Wormhole]

some older adversaries remain very much un-peaceful too (the Gorn, the Tholians, the Sheliak, the Suliban probably).

Actually, the Suliban themselves were peaceful. It was just Silik's faction that were involved in the TCW that were a threat. However, I would say it's logical to assume that Future Guy eventually lost his interest with them and stopped providing them advance technology, and by the 23rd century they were no longer a serious threat.

 

[NIUPonyBoy]

Actually, I was thinking more about technological and political development. TNG just doesn't seem like eighty years of advancement from the TOS movies. Still using phasers and photon torpedoes, still grappling with an uneasy peace with the Klingons, still using Miranda and Excelsior class ships with a smattering of new designs here and there. Same shuttles as TFF, but different nacelles and windows. Basically the same transporters. On top of that, no new weapon developments until later in DS9.

Just doesn't seem like a mid-to-late 24th century level of development. Early 24th, maybe (which would be consistent with it being "the next generation." Most of the 24th century events--Cardassian Wars, Tomed Incident, etc--could easily have taken place during Kirk's era; hell, the Tomed Incident might well be the Federation word for what Romulans call "The Enterprise Incident."

It was done by the producers for plot devices and recognizablity.

They were try a completely new cast ship etc etc for a program that had a large following.

By leaving some of the stuff that the old fans could still grab onto and remember it gave them a better base of fans. By tweaking it, like making the ships faster, the weapons stronger (despite being the same), the transporter more effective, etc etc etc it still had the feel of advancement.

Using the Miranda's and Excelsior's again was for both above reasons, plus cost. And I always like seeing Exce's. One of my fav ships.




However if you want to keep with the train of thoguht of it being real, look at modern ships and weapons systems. Lets use ship based rockets as an example. From very simple origins in WWII to the modern cruise missiles we have it's been a long time of development but still the same basic idea and type of weapon, just much more powerful now. Technology does sometimes hit a "wall" and progress but not innovate or create things radically different. Until just the right point in time, tech and personality. War, epically large scale ones tend to increase the spend of it happening.

 

[Longinus]

So this thread gave me an idea: less militaristic class-B uniforms for officers:

http://trekbbs.com/showthread.php?t=109862
http://trekbbs.com/showthread.php?p=3650052#post3650052

 

[Colonel Midnight]

Weirder things have happened in real military forces when the pencil-pushers make policy!

Obviously that's what happened 20-30 years after TNG (ie. future AGT timeline), when those horrid Old Geezer Chest-waders were issued...

Cheers,
-CM-

 

[USS Excelsior]

I suppose the real reason is because they couldn't afford completely new uniforms for Yesterday's Enterprise, but they could have had them in modified spandex uniforms.

 

[Tomalak]

^ True as that is, nothing stimulates weapons development like a cold war/arms race. That, arguably, is what Starfleet was left with after the Khitomer Accords, at least insofar as the Romulans.

Why do you keep saying there was no weapon advancement? The phaser banks certainly changed a lot between the Enterprise-A and the Entperise-D, so in all likelihood did the torpedo launchers, given that the Enterprise-D looks undergunned in comparison.

Just because they improved the technology and went from a mark VI photorp to a mark IX rather than calling it a quantum torpedo doesn't mean there was no change.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

However if you want to keep with the train of thoguht of it being real, look at modern ships and weapons systems. Lets use ship based rockets as an example. From very simple origins in WWII to the modern cruise missiles we have it's been a long time of development but still the same basic idea and type of weapon, just much more powerful now. Technology does sometimes hit a "wall" and progress but not innovate or create things radically different. Until just the right point in time, tech and personality. War, epically large scale ones tend to increase the spend of it happening.

A weird example, though, since modern naval vessels use missiles as their PRIMARY armament, which have almost entirely replaced guns. You look at, say, USS Salem as an all-gun heavy cruiser and then at a modern AEGIS cruiser, a fifty year gap between the two; the difference in capability and weapon systems is almost night and day. And there is as much difference between the Salem and its counterparts of even fifty years earlier, and fifty years before THAT naval vessels were still sails and wooden hulls.

That's what I'm really getting at here. I understand the production reasons for it, but it just doesn't seem like nearly-a-century of technological advancement. Of course, now we find out from ENT that phasers and photon torpedoes are basically unchanged since the 22nd century, which makes matters even worse.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

^ True as that is, nothing stimulates weapons development like a cold war/arms race. That, arguably, is what Starfleet was left with after the Khitomer Accords, at least insofar as the Romulans.

Why do you keep saying there was no weapon advancement? The phaser banks certainly changed a lot between the Enterprise-A and the Entperise-D, so in all likelihood did the torpedo launchers, given that the Enterprise-D looks undergunned in comparison.

But not the development of NEW weapons--quantum torpedoes, for example--until the latter years of DS9. They started out with "slightly more powerful versions of weapons we already have," which is okay for something twenty to thirty years down the line, but makes me wonder what Starfleet has been doing for the better part of the last century.

Just because they improved the technology and went from a mark VI photorp to a mark IX rather than calling it a quantum torpedo doesn't mean there was no change.

See the above examples. Naval vessels are still armed with five-inch guns just like their WW-II counterparts. But they also have other more powerful weapons designed to be used against different types of targets that didn't exist in WW-II. Other weapons were deleted entirely; Bofors guns and Oerlikons are no longer used for antiaircraft defense.

Equivalent advancements in TNG would be represented in different types of torpedo weapons, beam weapons, different types of defensive systems and crew-served systems. They least they could have managed was equipping redshirts with a personal forcefield so they could get shot by the alien of the week without getting killed; that technology is mundane enough that Worf was able to McGuyver one using a communicator and a dinner fork.

 

[Anticitizen]

The real reason for the change to jumpsuits:

The invention of the common food replicator meant eating even triple cheeseburgers was a healthy endeavor, leading to slimming profiles that were flattered by spandex jumpsuits

 

[Orcus]

I still can't believe that someone thought that spandex was a good idea... They're almost as bad as those horrible cumbersome, red woollen TWOK things...