Where the Pockets at?

[TheLobes]

I was just watching the tng episode 'Timescape', and at the start Riker gives something that looks like a tv remote to Beverly so she can feed Datas cat. It struck me that he would have had to carry that around in his hand all day, do they not have pockets in star trek?

I cant remember ever seeing anyone use pockets, am I crazy, do they use pockets all the time? Im pretty sure that starfleet doesnt have them. The Bajoran uniforms dont got em, even the engineers. You know, the people most likely to need somewhere other than their hands to stow stuff.

I guess bridge officers wouldnt have as much need for them, but since the bridge of the tng enterprise is cleverly designed so that nothing can be balanced on any of its surfaces, excepting the arms of the command chairs, you'd think they might need them sometimes. Like remember in ds9 Eddington said he had a lucky penny? So where would he keep it if he was going into battle and wanted some luck. In his mouth? In his shoe? Would he tape it to side of the console? Does part of the bulkhead hide a glove compartment that isnt being acknowledged?

Do they have pockets? Why dont they have pockets?

 

[Mr Silver]

Yes, they do have pockets, at least by TNG Season 3, however most of the time you see them carrying around things like Phasers, Tricorders, etc by way of a utility belt thats attached to the material of their uniform

 

[Gary7]

One interesting variation I noticed was in VOY, where Belana had a bunch of small pen sized tools in a kind of front chest pocket on her right, the edge of which was right along the join between the section color top and the black bottom. I thought that was pretty clever... but don't recall seeing anybody else utilizing it on VOY or TNG. I have a vague feeling it was used in DS9...

 

[T'Girl]

Maybe they have "smart" uniforms, when ever you require a pocket, the uniform forms one.

 

[The Wormhole]

Like remember in ds9 Eddington said he had a lucky penny?

No. I do remember Blaze of Glory when he said he had a Lucky Loonie, a Canadian coin worth one dollar.

 

[Mary Ann]

One interesting variation I noticed was in VOY, where Belana had a bunch of small pen sized tools in a kind of front chest pocket on her right, the edge of which was right along the join between the section color top and the black bottom. I thought that was pretty clever... but don't recall seeing anybody else utilizing it on VOY or TNG. I have a vague feeling it was used in DS9...

If I recall correctly, that uniform variation was used to help hide Roxann Dawson's pregnancy bump as she obviously couldn't wear the form-fitting uniform. I also thought it was clever as it makes sense for engineers to carry at least basic tools around. It's a shame it didn't become a regular part of an engineer's uniform.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Doesn't The Making of Star Trek mention that GR didn't want people to have pockets (nor buttons and zippers) in the future?

Either way, they totally made up for their pocket-phobia in Enterprise.

 

[RyuRoots]

Doesn't The Making of Star Trek mention that GR didn't want people to have pockets (nor buttons and zippers) in the future?

If so, that's another onto the list of "I respect him for creating a cool world, but that's really damned stupid" ideas.

 

[C.E. Evans]

Maybe they have "smart" uniforms, when ever you require a pocket, the uniform forms one.

It's possible that those uniforms do have pockets. We've seen supposedly one-piece jumpsuits suddenly become two-piece outfits when necessary, so there may be some kind of "invisible seams" on those uniforms that's a product of 24th-Century fashion tech.

But even if pockets are rare on Starfleet uniforms, they seem to compensate with backpacks, holsters, toolkits, and even transporters when they need to carry stuff apparently. Cadet uniforms, however, still seem to favor pockets though...

 

[Timo]

Maybe they have "smart" uniforms, when ever you require a pocket, the uniform forms one.

This. Advanced materials don't play much of a role in Star Trek, where virtually everything is accomplished through forcefields and beams. But the clothing of our heroes has always bordered on the magical, and there has been a very conscious effort to hide any buttons or zippers and to indicate some sort of a futuristic alternative to these technologies. And IMHO fully rightly so; if anything in the future is going to be identifiably "high-tech", it's consumer technology. That's where the demand is; a military would happily continue to have buttons, leather straps and whatnot for the next thousand years, and indeed zippers and then velcroes were greatly loathed at one point for their inherent high-tech unreliability; but once the civilians get interested (and they will) on new costuming tech, and this leads to the perfection of said tech, the military will grudgingly adapt and adopt.

If it were technologically possible to have clothing that only sprouts pockets when needed, the consumers would have this; pockets are such a massive inconvenience, always in too great or too limited supply for the needs of the hour. And the technology that allows for the seamless uniform jackets of TNG (as explicated in "Ensign Ro") would perfectly cater for the on-demand pockets as well.

The costuming dept typically "fakes" these pockets by having pouches sewn to the collars of the uniform pants so that the heroes can pull these out to use them as phaser holsters or the like; in TOS, such pouches were worn inside the uniform pant collar for the Phaser 1s or communicators. We might well postulate that "in reality" these pouches and holsters are created only when needed, by tugging a bit on the material, and don't uncomfortably crowd the pants of the wearers at other times.

Timo Saloniemi