Uniform Colors

[Lighthammer]

There's been a topic I've been thinking about very heavily over the last few days in terms of trek and I have to say it's actually starting to bother me!

Why do Star Trek uniforms use overlapping department colors?

When I think about this I keep finding myself thinking Blue shouldn't represent both Medical and Science as well as "Gold" shouldn't represent both Security and Engineering.

I find myself thinking the following colorations would be apt:

• Red for Command
• Blue for Science
• White for Medical
• Gold for Engineering
• Darkish Green for Security
• Grey for non-department specific.
• MAYBE something different for Flight Control (Orange springs to mind but that doesn't seem fitting.)

To me, the only reasonable explanation why Star Trek doesn't use more colors in uniforms simply seems like it might have been a budget concern. Uniforms that have that specific of a coloration wouldn't be easy to refuse on various crew members.

Thoughts?

 

[Mr Silver]

I think that the colours shouldn't be dominant in the design of the uniforms. In most military forces around the world, a person has their rank, squadron, etc confined to a small area on their person. I think that the FC uniforms got it right (although I'm not keen on the design) by making the department colours less dominating.

As for what I would choose for colourations:

White - Command
Black - Security/Tactical
Blue - Science
Green - Medical
Gold - Engineering
Red - Cadet
Gray - NCO/Enlisted

Essentially what was established by TWOK, but with a few differences.

 

[The Green Mushroom]

Didn't they have something like that in the movies? I feel like I remember there being more than three different undershirt colors, and thats not counting cadet red.

The three color arrangement does make some sense to me:
1) Having a large rainbow of colors would look weird on TV and, at least to me, look weird in real life. The US Army uses branch colors too, but unless you know where to look everyone's uniform is well uniform in color for the most part.

2) Command personnel are involved in running the ship--one branch. Engineers, security goons, transporter chiefs are involved in operating the ship--another branch. Scientists are sciencing, considering the large size of at least Crusher's medical staff the doctors have to be doing something more than mending broken bones all day and Crusher was seen doing a lot of science in her spare time--including hosting astrophysics conferences.

3) Another way that I looked at, though it makes no sense when one thinks about it too much is that people who wear red (or gold in TOS) fly the ship and give the big orders. People who wear gold (red in TOS) do the work of the ship. Hmm, sounds kind of like the Air Force where pilots are all officers and the mechanics and what not are mostly enlisted. Perhaps someone with an Air Forcey background made command personnel the "officers" and operations personnel the "enlisted" by job description if not rank. A chief engineer on a naval ship may be an officer, but albeit with great differences of scale the flight engineer of an air force plane is enlisted.

 

[Lighthammer]

I think that the colours shouldn't be dominant in the design of the uniforms. In most military forces around the world, a person has their rank, squadron, etc confined to a small area on their person. I think that the FC uniforms got it right (although I'm not keen on the design) by making the department colours less dominating.

As for what I would choose for colourations:

White - Command
Black - Security/Tactical
Blue - Science
Green - Medical
Gold - Engineering
Red - Cadet
Gray - NCO/Enlisted

Essentially what was established by TWOK, but with a few differences.

First off, I want to toss out here that I know I read somewhere at some point (I think it was the TNG Tech manual) that Gene actually went out of his way to make sure the colors for each uniform is very prominent. This was because he wanted it to be easy to quickly identify who is available to do what. Moreover, it was intended to help crew members be able to more quickly identify one another in bad conditions such as a ship to ship battle where everything is blowing up around you. Finally, as I recall, the final reason was to act as something like a white flag to this familiar with star fleet to hopefully deter hostile actions against personnel irrelevant to their goal / task. This noteably also has the opposite effect for targets.

Those explanations always sat well with me and I'd so so far as to say I related to them so much when I read that, that I tend to use the same philosophy when I design things (everything from spreadsheets or websites).

That being said, I'd say I agree that I like the uniforms used in FC and forward as it seemed to have a good balance between "uniform" presentation and department displays. So it seems we agree for opposite reasons >.>. It makes the uniform a nice compromise =).

That being said, I do very disagree with your suggested colors. Here's my rationale:

• Red: is a very bold color that psychologically grabs your attention. It's an ideal color to elicit following orders. Its one of the main reason red is considered one of the primary colors for "power ties".
• Blue: Blue in my mind is the perfect color for the science departments. Blue has long since been closely aligned with the idea of study and acquiring knowledge.
• White: White is a very typical medical color. It elicits the idea of purity, health, healing. I think it also kind of acts like a "white flag" suggesting to opponents (or maybe even difficult patients) that they intend no harm. I think this color used in the original Star Trek movies fit perfect.
• Gold: I honestly don't have a good rationale for gold.
• Green: Green suggests camouflage or the intent to remain hidden (obviously in a forest like area). I'm sure someone could make a good rationale for another color, but thats what largely springs to mind for me.
• Black: Black is used too heavily as a primary composite color for uniforms that I can't see it being used as a department color. Although one could apply the argument I made for green for security, I think everyone would have to admit it would be hard to make black work in a fashion sense. Beyond that, it offers a connotation of an unassigned department since, once again, its typically the primary uniform composite color and would likely remain that way, especially since black pants go far too well with everything.

I do find myself agreeing that noncoms having different uniforms would be nice, but I can also think of just as many reasons why it would be a bad idea both from a sociological point of view as well as a financial (in terms of costuming) point of view.

 

[C.E. Evans]

I think three colors are enough. It may not satisfy military or military sci-fi buffs, but TV audiences generally know that one color means command track, another means doctor or scientist, and the last color means everybody else.

 

[F. King Daniel]

There's been a topic I've been thinking about very heavily over the last few days in terms of trek and I have to say it's actually starting to bother me!

Why do Star Trek uniforms use overlapping department colors?

When I think about this I keep finding myself thinking Blue shouldn't represent both Medical and Science as well as "Gold" shouldn't represent both Security and Engineering.

I find myself thinking the following colorations would be apt:

• Red for Command
• Blue for Science
• White for Medical
• Gold for Engineering
• Darkish Green for Security
• Grey for non-department specific.
• MAYBE something different for Flight Control (Orange springs to mind but that doesn't seem fitting.)

To me, the only reasonable explanation why Star Trek doesn't use more colors in uniforms simply seems like it might have been a budget concern. Uniforms that have that specific of a coloration wouldn't be easy to refuse on various crew members.

Thoughts?

The original 3 bright unifom colours in TOS were to make the most of the next big thing - colour TV's becoming available. In-universe rationale came after making it look good.

 

[The Wormhole]

There's been a topic I've been thinking about very heavily over the last few days in terms of trek and I have to say it's actually starting to bother me!

Why do Star Trek uniforms use overlapping department colors?

The departments which share the same colour do so because those departments get similar training.

-Most command officers have backgrounds as pilots, thus why command officers and pilots wear the same colour.

-Security and engineering must receive similar training, otherwise it wouldn't be possible for Captain Jellico's first action upon taking command of the Enterprise to transfer half the engineering staff to security. Also, when Data was believed lost in The Most Toys, Worf took over his job, which is more engineering related than security. Chief O'Brien has worked both departments, Lt. Reed seemed to have some engineering background. Makes sense for these two departments to wear the same colours.

-Medicine is a type of science so both science and medical officers wear blue.

For what it's worth, the TOS movies did try to more than just the three department colours and all it did was confuse everyone.

 

[The Green Mushroom]

There's been a topic I've been thinking about very heavily over the last few days in terms of trek and I have to say it's actually starting to bother me!

Why do Star Trek uniforms use overlapping department colors?

The departments which share the same colour do so because those departments get similar training.

-Most command officers have backgrounds as pilots, thus why command officers and pilots wear the same colour.

-Security and engineering must receive similar training, otherwise it wouldn't be possible for Captain Jellico's first action upon taking command of the Enterprise to transfer half the engineering staff to engineering. Also, when Data was believed lost in The Most Toys, Worf took over his job, which is more engineering related than security. Chief O'Brien has worked both departments, Lt. Reed seemed to have some engineering background. Makes sense for these two departments to wear the same colours.

I think you mean security to engineering.

I've been watching a fair bit on TNG since I got BBC America a few months ago and it seems that part of Worf's job definitely seems to be making sure the weapons and all the systems related to the weapons are working properly. Definitely a large amount of engineering know how involved in running the security department and that's not just when he's running around helping LaForge.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

The original 3 bright unifom colours in TOS were to make the most of the next big thing - colour TV's becoming available. In-universe rationale came after making it look good.

Indeed. In a more realistic scenario there would not be different uniform colors for departments. Speciality would most likely be achieved by wearing small insignia and/or 'stat bars' (as B5 calls them) on the uniform.

Or even no distinction at all among departments, as both versions of BSG did. Although the remake did have separate rank insignia for those who had flight status vs. those who did not.

 

[scotpens]

• Black: Black is used too heavily as a primary composite color for uniforms that I can't see it being used as a department color. Although one could apply the argument I made for green for security, I think everyone would have to admit it would be hard to make black work in a fashion sense.

Why? Black goes with everything!

 

[The Wormhole]

There's been a topic I've been thinking about very heavily over the last few days in terms of trek and I have to say it's actually starting to bother me!

Why do Star Trek uniforms use overlapping department colors?

The departments which share the same colour do so because those departments get similar training.

-Most command officers have backgrounds as pilots, thus why command officers and pilots wear the same colour.

-Security and engineering must receive similar training, otherwise it wouldn't be possible for Captain Jellico's first action upon taking command of the Enterprise to transfer half the engineering staff to engineering. Also, when Data was believed lost in The Most Toys, Worf took over his job, which is more engineering related than security. Chief O'Brien has worked both departments, Lt. Reed seemed to have some engineering background. Makes sense for these two departments to wear the same colours.

I think you mean security to engineering.

No, actually I meant engineering to security. I've now made the correction.

 

[Lighthammer]

I think you mean security to engineering.

No, he meant Engineering to Security.

I've been watching a fair bit on TNG since I got BBC America a few months ago and it seems that part of Worf's job definitely seems to be making sure the weapons and all the systems related to the weapons are working properly. Definitely a large amount of engineering know how involved in running the security department and that's not just when he's running around helping LaForge.

That's another interesting point that really only has been examined in a few situations.

There is a difference between Security and Tactical. Tactical involves more of the technical side of things where security includes more of the physical.

Worf certainly was in charge of doing things like keeping the phaser array and torpedo systems up to top notch on the Enterprise where is on DS9, it was up to the SCE to do that, not Odo, not Worf, although Eddington seemingly did it on the Defiant.

It's not a matter of "helping LaForge", it was simply his job.

 

[Therin of Andor]

• Black: Black is used too heavily as a primary composite color for uniforms that I can't see it being used as a department color.

Black uniformed Starfleet officers are featured in the old Bantam novel, "Death's Angel" by Kathleen Sky, IIRC.

The blue Science division of TOS became orange in ST:TMP (and grey/blue in the later films), and mint green for Medical, to avoid potential problems with bluescreen/greenscreen, also IIRC.

 

[T'Girl]

Command personnel are involved in running the ship--one branch

One thing I liked about the second pilot was that Kirk and Spock (and a very few others) wore the gold-green color and Gary Mitchell, Kelso and the others wore a sand color. Separating the senior command officers, from the others in the "operations branch," or whatever you would call it.

 

[The Castellan]

I think three colors are enough. It may not satisfy military or military sci-fi buffs, but TV audiences generally know that one color means command track, another means doctor or scientist, and the last color means everybody else.

Yep, plus I like the colors used, so screw the military snobs with a phillips, says I. Plus given that Starfleet is not exactly a pure military entity, thank goodness, it works well with them.

 

[USS Excelsior]

TOS did distinguish between departments with the symbols in their Starfleet Insignia.

 

[Bones_McCoy21]

You know if Red wasn't for security we wouldn't have "Red Shirts" in TOS as a temporary "Profession"

 

[Elder Knight]

They probably should have had their replicators use a "civilian" color for guests, castaways, prisoners, villains, et c.

I note that Ricardo Montalban ("Khan") got a red shirt when Enterprise thawed him out. Certainly a subconscious decision by Kirk, who really wanted him dead before the third reel.

 

[lisa]

What's up with Trois uniforms? I know she switches to a regular uniform sometime in the series, but why does she get away with wearing unitards?
And don't say it's because of her boobs gentlemen.... I know what your thinking!

 

[Skywalker]

Well, that is the reason.