Wasn't the command color in TOS supposed to be green? It looked gold to the people viewing it on TV, but that was due to poor camera lighting of the 1960s.
As someone else said, the colors change with the directors.
Wasn't the command color in TOS supposed to be green? It looked gold to the people viewing it on TV, but that was due to poor camera lighting of the 1960s.
As someone else said, the colors change with the directors.
It was a Gold color. From the Cage, and very early shows. So on TV it looked a little off. So later they changed it up a little to separate the 2. The green came out later, but wasn't used much. Going from memory of the shows and reading about uniforms on Memory Alpha.
USS Casinghead NCC 92047 launched 2350
Fleet Admiral Stowe - Dominion War Vet.
First officer, captain and so on are part of the command structure so they wear red on DS9/VOY/TNG. Anything before that is of course outdated. I remember there was an episode of TNG (Parallels) where Worf went to an alt universe and was first officer of the Ent-D. He wore red. As someone else said Data wore red after becoming 1st officer on at least 1 occasion as well.
Well, it seems that in TNG and I think DS9 Medical used a Teal/Blue Green colour, while Sciences used the typical blue. I've been thinking of experimenting with making Engineering Orange and Security Yellow, just to see how it feels.
Dr. Crusher had that groovy sky blue lab coat, and it looks like her and Pulaski could be seen in both blue or teal, but, teal seems to have been fixed for medical personnel at least by the time of the DS9 jump suits.
Some sort of safety orange would be reasonable for engineers, and also a separate color for shuttle deck crew.
My thoughts: 25th century uniform codes have changed, but more importantly the types of personnel becoming captains has also changed. Rather than captains tending to come from the command career, they are drawn from any and all divisions based on ability. I imagine this is because there's a shortage of people to be captains (which is why they gave all of us ensigns command of our own ships). These captains often keep their division uniform even though they're now ship captains.
TL;DR: Captains now come from all divisions, rather than just command, and often keep their division uniforms.
My thoughts: 25th century uniform codes have changed, but more importantly the types of personnel becoming captains has also changed. Rather than captains tending to come from the command career, they are drawn from any and all divisions based on ability. I imagine this is because there's a shortage of people to be captains (which is why they gave all of us ensigns command of our own ships). These captains often keep their division uniform even though they're now ship captains.
TL;DR: Captains now come from all divisions, rather than just command, and often keep their division uniforms.
They have always come from all divisions. Picard and Janeway for example were scientists. Becoming 1st officer and then Captain necessitates a change in the division for the officer, a change to command (red).
People always forget (or maybe never knew) that the only reason for using different colored shirts is because it was 1960s television and Rodenberry didn't have any budget to spend on something as silly as wardrobe for a science fiction series.
They have always come from all divisions. Picard and Janeway for example were scientists. Becoming 1st officer and then Captain necessitates a change in the division for the officer, a change to command (red).
Picard wasn't a scientist. He was talented in archaeology, but ultimately went straight into the command division; he served as a junior officer and conn officer before earning his command of the Stargazer.
People always forget (or maybe never knew) that the only reason for using different colored shirts is because it was 1960s television and Rodenberry didn't have any budget to spend on something as silly as wardrobe for a science fiction series.
Lol this is a brainbug. Star Trek was an expensive TV show to produce, and it wasn't because of the wardrobe.
I think "tactical" would also fall under command red. The only reason we saw the tactical officer wear gold was that they always were the chief of security as well (Tasha/Worf/Tuvok) while the only occasion we know someone explicitly stated to be a "tactical" officer wear red as well (LTC Shelby, Starfleet Tactical). Of course I might be mistaken, but since helm for example also was red it might somehow be connected.
In STO it doesn't really matter, we have three colors for the three RPG-trinity-classes and further the great in-game explanation that "Sterfleet removed the uniform code" to allow for pretty snowflake customization, so everything in-game is irrelevant But if you, OP, aim for a more classic Star Trek experience I'd agree with the posters stating that permanent command becomes red. My Captain is an engineer but turned red after he took a permanent command, my first officer was/is science and also took the red uniform after becoming commander rank and I follow the TNG colour patterns but including "tactical" officers in the command department (kinda inspired by the voyager elite force games where the "Hazard Team" also wears red despite being from various departments)
^ Memory Alpha.org is not canon. It's a open wiki with arbitrary rules. Only what can be cited from an episode is. ^
"No. Men do not roar. Women roar. Then they hurl heavy objects... and claw at you." -Worf, son of Mogh
"A filthy, mangy beast, but in its bony breast beat the heart of a warrior" - "faithful" (...) "but ever-ready to follow the call of the wild." - Martok, about a Targ
"That pig smelled horrid. A sweet-sour, extremely pungent odor. I showered and showered, and it took me a week to get rid of it!" - Robert Justman, appreciating Emmy-Lou
T'Pol was just like Kira in DS9, or Riker when assigned to the Klingon Bird of Prey: An officer from an allied government wearing the appropriate uniform of that government.
In the TOS era commanders wore their department colors but with the correct rank. I'm not sure about the few I saw here and there in green, might have been admirals? Can anyone clear that up for me?
Post TOS permanent command moved to red, temporary command kept department colors. The few exceptions can probably be chalked up to script errors. Like when people wore the wrong era uniform during time travel episodes.
T'Pol is not a representative of her government starting with season 3. She is a member of Starfleet. Yet she still wears her old uniform. (With a patch showing she is aligned with the federation) Realistically she should have put on a starfleet uniform but for whatever reason she doesn't.
T'Pol is not a representative of her government starting with season 3. She is a member of Starfleet. Yet she still wears her old uniform. (With a patch showing she is aligned with the federation) Realistically she should have put on a starfleet uniform but for whatever reason she doesn't.
Since T'Pol was ENT desperate attempt to pull a "seven of nine" they had to keep her in a skin-tight outfit, that's really the only explanation. Unfortunately, Jeri Ryan did a good job as acting, the actress playing T'Pol did... not.
^ Memory Alpha.org is not canon. It's a open wiki with arbitrary rules. Only what can be cited from an episode is. ^
"No. Men do not roar. Women roar. Then they hurl heavy objects... and claw at you." -Worf, son of Mogh
"A filthy, mangy beast, but in its bony breast beat the heart of a warrior" - "faithful" (...) "but ever-ready to follow the call of the wild." - Martok, about a Targ
"That pig smelled horrid. A sweet-sour, extremely pungent odor. I showered and showered, and it took me a week to get rid of it!" - Robert Justman, appreciating Emmy-Lou
T'Pol is not a representative of her government starting with season 3. She is a member of Starfleet. Yet she still wears her old uniform. (With a patch showing she is aligned with the federation) Realistically she should have put on a starfleet uniform but for whatever reason she doesn't.
The reason is "Berman and Braga". Just watch "Bounty" and you'll know what I mean.
If you are trying to go off of TNG the Command and Conn Officers wear red, Science and Medical wear blue and everyone else is gold. The exception is if they have a dual role. For example, Data was actually the science officer, but because he was also operations officer, he wore gold. Aside from Captain and Commander, rank had little to do with the color. Ops and engineering ensigns wore gold, but Paris who was a lieutenant wore red because he was the conn officer.TOS was largely the same except that gold and red were reversed.
STO changed this for the obvious reason of helping to differentiate the 3 basic divisions, but of course you don't have to follow it. My main captain is an engineer, but wears command red mostly because it's my favorite color. If you want to differentiate further, I've seen some people now do command white for the captain and 1st officer
I always color code my boffs according to their class. Usually I would have my feds wearing the Deep Space Nine Open uniform and I would color the shirt that can be seen because of the open jacket the color for their class so red for tactical, yellow/gold for engineering, blue for science...and for my Fed Romulans it would be the survivor 2 uniform with the shirt colored to their class colors.
In-game I use Red for Tactical, Gold for Enrineering and Blue for Science. The exception is a green-blue colour for my designated medical officer (a bit early Bashir style!)
My captain wears red as standard with an alternate gold engineering uniform.
Picard wasn't a scientist. He was talented in archaeology, but ultimately went straight into the command division; he served as a junior officer and conn officer before earning his command of the Stargazer.
EDIT: Quoted the wrong post, d'oh.
Archaeology is a sciences division position. Here is a pic of him in his science blues.
Also, archaeology is considered a science and a humanity. So one who studies archaeology would be a scientist.
Finally, junior officer is not a position but a description of grade. Let me help you. Ensign - Lt. JG = Junior Officer, Lt - Captain = Senior Officer, RALH - ADM = Flag Officer.
Lol this is a brainbug. Star Trek was an expensive TV show to produce, and it wasn't because of the wardrobe.
That is a flat-out lie.
Inside Star Trek by Solow and Justman
According to producers Robert Justman and Herb Solow, the show's budget was so tiny, they couldn't afford to have costumes made by union costume-makers ? instead, they had them made overnight by a "sweatshop," and sneaked the finished costumes in through a back window at the studio.
That was temporary command. Data wasn't going to run off and change his uniform when in a crisis.
Yeah. By the same token, Data and Picard wore Dixon Hill outfits on the bridge as well.
However I am curious is that would have changed later in TNG's era because First Contact introduced a few "shortcuts". Not only did they speed up Borg assimilation (remember that prior to that, it was done manually) but they had Picard bark out his next costume change to the computer before landing on the surface. And then the Holodeck redressed Picard and Lily to blend in with the Dixon Hill environment.
So during TNG, sure, people didn't change uniforms for temporary assignments.
But if you're looking at the direction things went starting with First Contact, I'm not sure it would be a leap to suggest that the computer would automatically update uniforms.
When the EMH became the ECH, his program also automatically updated his uniform.
I dunno. I think for people who like the grounded elements of Trek, they probably prefer to imagine the clothes as cloth that people change, like normal people today would. For people who like trippy sci-fi... I can actually see the argument that with only modest upgrades from what we saw in First Contact, the computer would constantly repair/update uniforms. Maybe your uniform would change into offduty wear as soon as your shift ends, the fabric would change based on the task, etc.
Nobody even bothers to take their jacket off. They beam it off.
I dunno. It depends on whether you'd prefer humans in Star Trek be totally relatable or a bit alien based on their technology and attitudes.
Well, it seems that in TNG and I think DS9 Medical used a Teal/Blue Green colour, while Sciences used the typical blue. I've been thinking of experimenting with making Engineering Orange and Security Yellow, just to see how it feels.
Why not, I did, though i went with a more bronze colour, since i have the oddy unifomr with the metalic strip
I went with something a little different. I used gray for my character and his First Officer, representing that they are Command division, which encompasses Tactical, Engineering and Science.
I had thought to go with the six division colors from the STII-STVI films:
Command - White
Science - Blue
Operations - Orange
Engineering - Yellow
Medical - Green
Security - Red
I I fly science ships, so I use a Dark Blue primary color on the uniform jacket, with the accent colors reflecting the division. If the current uniform I use has a turtleneck, it gets the division color, and the rest of the uniform gets dark blue and black. I put the brightness of the division color at about 6. I like uniforms that allow 4 colors on the jacket as one of them typically covers accents on the uniform. For my Admiral, I use Yellow set at 12.
I did something similar with mine, all my Oddy dressed Boffs have a white upper section indicating Senior Staff position, with the seperating strip in division colour
My standard away team however has no white section, instead wearing a more dull military style uniform
( ideally i would have them wear excursion jackets if they were in game )
These are the Voyages on the STO forum, the final frontier. Our continuing mission: to explore Pretentious Posts, to seek out new Overreactions and Misinformation , to boldly experience Cynicism like no man has before.......
However I am curious is that would have changed later in TNG's era because First Contact introduced a few "shortcuts". Not only did they speed up Borg assimilation (remember that prior to that, it was done manually) but they had Picard bark out his next costume change to the computer before landing on the surface. And then the Holodeck redressed Picard and Lily to blend in with the Dixon Hill environment.
So during TNG, sure, people didn't change uniforms for temporary assignments.
But if you're looking at the direction things went starting with First Contact, I'm not sure it would be a leap to suggest that the computer would automatically update uniforms.
When the EMH became the ECH, his program also automatically updated his uniform.
I dunno. I think for people who like the grounded elements of Trek, they probably prefer to imagine the clothes as cloth that people change, like normal people today would. For people who like trippy sci-fi... I can actually see the argument that with only modest upgrades from what we saw in First Contact, the computer would constantly repair/update uniforms. Maybe your uniform would change into offduty wear as soon as your shift ends, the fabric would change based on the task, etc.
Nobody even bothers to take their jacket off. They beam it off.
I dunno. It depends on whether you'd prefer humans in Star Trek be totally relatable or a bit alien based on their technology and attitudes.
Movie budgets and SFX are movie budgets and SFX. TV shows deal with their budgets and SFX limits. First Contact was around Season 5 of DS9 and Season 3 of Voyager. Did DS9 and Voyager have holo-clothing that changed on command in those Seasons?
We have to accept the movies as canon but that doesn't mean we need to accept every little picadillo we see in them as well. Some things are just there for the wow factor of the scene rather then having any real meaning to the series.
STO is about my Liberated Borg Federation Captain with his Breen 1st Officer, Jem'Hadar Tactical Officer, Liberated Borg Engineering Officer, Android Ops Officer, Photonic Science Officer, Gorn Science Officer, and Reman Medical Officer jumping into their Jem'Hadar Carrier and flying off to do missions for the new Romulan Empire. But for some players allowing a T5 Connie to be used breaks the canon in the game.
My Science first officer wears gray as the XO, as my captain wears black (thanks to JJ Trek 1). But since I wanted to see a little science in him, and also use the Odyssey uniform, I give him a blue bar across the chest, when all other non science officers use a black bar with silver piping.
I also added Forest Green and Olive Green to Engineering official colors. But as you can see in my sig, some engineering officers still wear gold. Thats an engineer officer at my side in the sig, only because STO doesnt know it should have slotted a Tac BO there. But its broke even worse now so I cant even replicate this sig picture if I wanted to now :rolleyes:
STO: @AGNT009 Since Dec 2010
Capt. Will Conquest of the U.S.S. Crusader
Movie budgets and SFX are movie budgets and SFX. TV shows deal with their budgets and SFX limits. First Contact was around Season 5 of DS9 and Season 3 of Voyager. Did DS9 and Voyager have holo-clothing that changed on command in those Seasons?
We have to accept the movies as canon but that doesn't mean we need to accept every little picadillo we see in them as well. Some things are just there for the wow factor of the scene rather then having any real meaning to the series.
While that's true, I gotta say, it works well for a game. Cryptic had "auras" for costume changes in City of Heroes. They probably could adjust costume changes to match.
And VFX have progressed so considerably and division assignment changed are so rare that I could see a modern Trek show either showing a transporter effect or showing the uniform change colors while someone is wearing it.
I mean, we had heat sensitive color change suits in the 90s. With the kind of tech they have in Trek, uniforms that change color doesn't seem to be out of the question to me.
And for that matter, with modern filming effects, I think LED rank pips would be a lot more likely if they did a show with rank pips. There were practical and cost considerations when TNG was on the air but with today's gaming inspired culture, I could see badges and pips utilizing LED effects.
Somebody taps a combadge, it distorts or flickers. Rank pips as a bar wor on the neck with LED/touchscreen effects with the pips disappearing when someone is offduty. You might even say it's a security thing with the pips using biometrics to confirm identity and rank and maybe having display functions.
Actually, what might look cool is if someone taps their LED combadge and their neck LED shifts from pips to a waveform of their voice.
I'm not suggesting the whole uniform might look like TRON or anything but the badge/neck rank insignia seem like decent contenders to get built in displays.
Archaeology is a sciences division position. Here is a pic of him in his science blues.
Also, archaeology is considered a science and a humanity. So one who studies archaeology would be a scientist.
Finally, junior officer is not a position but a description of grade. Let me help you. Ensign - Lt. JG = Junior Officer, Lt - Captain = Senior Officer, RALH - ADM = Flag Officer.
Okay, there's a lot of correction to be done, so bear with me.
1. Picard never entered archeology after the academy, he went straight to shipboard service in the command division, he only ever studied archeology (in a service sense) at the academy.
2. That picture is from an alternate future created by Q, featured in the episode "Tapestry" and is not canon.
3. In that picture Picard is an astrophysicist, not an archeologist.
4. I used Junior Officer to denote that Picard served in some capacity where he was directly responsible for a shipboard department (which department that was has not been canonically stated, only mentioning the he headed several away teams, and that he undertook specialised tactical training).
5. The ranks of Ensign to Lieutenant Junior Grade are not necessarily junior officers, as if they commanded their own starship they would be a senior officer by virtue of their command. Much in the same way as we are at the early stages of the game.
EDIT: Saying Picard served as an archeologist because he liked archeology in his youth is like saying he served as a vintner because he used to make wine.
EDIT: Saying Picard served as an archeologist because he liked archeology in his youth is like saying he served as a vintner because he used to make wine.
It was an alternate reality where he wore the blue but even Professor Galen said he would have been one of the greats of his generation should he have chosen the archaeology path. He was formally trained in it and most sources recognize him as an archaeologist and diplomat. But this thread isn't about Picard's background so I will end this needless debate here. This thread is about 'first officer color code' which is traditionally red (according to the later shows/movies).
Thank god someone brought this thread up, I was about to do that too.
What I will never understand is the term "command division". Ok, Picard and Riker are the fist in the command chain. Clear. But why are navigators in red?
Each department has a HoD. Engineer is LaForge, Ops is Date, Security is Worf, Medical is Crusher, Science is Data and LaForge as it seems. All their staff wear the department's color.
So what do the Red ones do?
Anyway, for my ships I am using different colors for every department:
Captain and XO: white
Security and Tactical: red, while I have one Tactical chief in light brown
Science: green
Medical: blue
Engineering: orange
Ops: turquoise
I gave my HoDs the Jupiter Belt, and the Future Badge in gold.
For me it was necessary to really see the difference between the departments and the HoDs and the first two commanding officers.
Thank god someone brought this thread up, I was about to do that too.
What I will never understand is the term "command division". Ok, Picard and Riker are the fist in the command chain. Clear. But why are navigators in red?
Each department has a HoD. Engineer is LaForge, Ops is Date, Security is Worf, Medical is Crusher, Science is Data and LaForge as it seems. All their staff wear the department's color.
So what do the Red ones do?
Anyway, for my ships I am using different colors for every department:
Captain and XO: white
Security and Tactical: red, while I have one Tactical chief in light brown
Science: green
Medical: blue
Engineering: orange
Ops: turquoise
I gave my HoDs the Jupiter Belt, and the Future Badge in gold.
For me it was necessary to really see the difference between the departments and the HoDs and the first two commanding officers.
STO is about my Liberated Borg Federation Captain with his Breen 1st Officer, Jem'Hadar Tactical Officer, Liberated Borg Engineering Officer, Android Ops Officer, Photonic Science Officer, Gorn Science Officer, and Reman Medical Officer jumping into their Jem'Hadar Carrier and flying off to do missions for the new Romulan Empire. But for some players allowing a T5 Connie to be used breaks the canon in the game.
Comments
plenty of examples of the the color changing due to position. atleast in TNG time.
the person pointing out the admiral with gold. I think that was a Barkley episode. he was command but of the experimental deep space array not a ship.
As someone else said, the colors change with the directors.
It was a Gold color. From the Cage, and very early shows. So on TV it looked a little off. So later they changed it up a little to separate the 2. The green came out later, but wasn't used much. Going from memory of the shows and reading about uniforms on Memory Alpha.
USS Casinghead NCC 92047 launched 2350
Fleet Admiral Stowe - Dominion War Vet.
Dr. Crusher had that groovy sky blue lab coat, and it looks like her and Pulaski could be seen in both blue or teal, but, teal seems to have been fixed for medical personnel at least by the time of the DS9 jump suits.
Some sort of safety orange would be reasonable for engineers, and also a separate color for shuttle deck crew.
My thoughts: 25th century uniform codes have changed, but more importantly the types of personnel becoming captains has also changed. Rather than captains tending to come from the command career, they are drawn from any and all divisions based on ability. I imagine this is because there's a shortage of people to be captains (which is why they gave all of us ensigns command of our own ships). These captains often keep their division uniform even though they're now ship captains.
TL;DR: Captains now come from all divisions, rather than just command, and often keep their division uniforms.
They have always come from all divisions. Picard and Janeway for example were scientists. Becoming 1st officer and then Captain necessitates a change in the division for the officer, a change to command (red).
Picard wasn't a scientist. He was talented in archaeology, but ultimately went straight into the command division; he served as a junior officer and conn officer before earning his command of the Stargazer.
EDIT: Quoted the wrong post, d'oh.
I think "tactical" would also fall under command red. The only reason we saw the tactical officer wear gold was that they always were the chief of security as well (Tasha/Worf/Tuvok) while the only occasion we know someone explicitly stated to be a "tactical" officer wear red as well (LTC Shelby, Starfleet Tactical). Of course I might be mistaken, but since helm for example also was red it might somehow be connected.
In STO it doesn't really matter, we have three colors for the three RPG-trinity-classes and further the great in-game explanation that "Sterfleet removed the uniform code" to allow for pretty snowflake customization, so everything in-game is irrelevant
Get the Forums Enhancement Extension!
Since T'Pol was ENT desperate attempt to pull a "seven of nine" they had to keep her in a skin-tight outfit, that's really the only explanation. Unfortunately, Jeri Ryan did a good job as acting, the actress playing T'Pol did... not.
Get the Forums Enhancement Extension!
The reason is "Berman and Braga". Just watch "Bounty" and you'll know what I mean.
STO changed this for the obvious reason of helping to differentiate the 3 basic divisions, but of course you don't have to follow it. My main captain is an engineer, but wears command red mostly because it's my favorite color. If you want to differentiate further, I've seen some people now do command white for the captain and 1st officer
My captain wears red as standard with an alternate gold engineering uniform.
Archaeology is a sciences division position. Here is a pic of him in his science blues.
Also, archaeology is considered a science and a humanity. So one who studies archaeology would be a scientist.
Finally, junior officer is not a position but a description of grade. Let me help you. Ensign - Lt. JG = Junior Officer, Lt - Captain = Senior Officer, RALH - ADM = Flag Officer.
Inside Star Trek by Solow and Justman
According to producers Robert Justman and Herb Solow, the show's budget was so tiny, they couldn't afford to have costumes made by union costume-makers ? instead, they had them made overnight by a "sweatshop," and sneaked the finished costumes in through a back window at the studio.
Yeah. By the same token, Data and Picard wore Dixon Hill outfits on the bridge as well.
However I am curious is that would have changed later in TNG's era because First Contact introduced a few "shortcuts". Not only did they speed up Borg assimilation (remember that prior to that, it was done manually) but they had Picard bark out his next costume change to the computer before landing on the surface. And then the Holodeck redressed Picard and Lily to blend in with the Dixon Hill environment.
So during TNG, sure, people didn't change uniforms for temporary assignments.
But if you're looking at the direction things went starting with First Contact, I'm not sure it would be a leap to suggest that the computer would automatically update uniforms.
When the EMH became the ECH, his program also automatically updated his uniform.
I dunno. I think for people who like the grounded elements of Trek, they probably prefer to imagine the clothes as cloth that people change, like normal people today would. For people who like trippy sci-fi... I can actually see the argument that with only modest upgrades from what we saw in First Contact, the computer would constantly repair/update uniforms. Maybe your uniform would change into offduty wear as soon as your shift ends, the fabric would change based on the task, etc.
Nobody even bothers to take their jacket off. They beam it off.
I dunno. It depends on whether you'd prefer humans in Star Trek be totally relatable or a bit alien based on their technology and attitudes.
Why not, I did, though i went with a more bronze colour, since i have the oddy unifomr with the metalic strip
I did something similar with mine, all my Oddy dressed Boffs have a white upper section indicating Senior Staff position, with the seperating strip in division colour
My standard away team however has no white section, instead wearing a more dull military style uniform
( ideally i would have them wear excursion jackets if they were in game )
We have to accept the movies as canon but that doesn't mean we need to accept every little picadillo we see in them as well. Some things are just there for the wow factor of the scene rather then having any real meaning to the series.
USS Zorro Command Staff
My Science first officer wears gray as the XO, as my captain wears black (thanks to JJ Trek 1). But since I wanted to see a little science in him, and also use the Odyssey uniform, I give him a blue bar across the chest, when all other non science officers use a black bar with silver piping.
I also added Forest Green and Olive Green to Engineering official colors. But as you can see in my sig, some engineering officers still wear gold. Thats an engineer officer at my side in the sig, only because STO doesnt know it should have slotted a Tac BO there. But its broke even worse now so I cant even replicate this sig picture if I wanted to now :rolleyes:
Capt. Will Conquest of the U.S.S. Crusader
While that's true, I gotta say, it works well for a game. Cryptic had "auras" for costume changes in City of Heroes. They probably could adjust costume changes to match.
And VFX have progressed so considerably and division assignment changed are so rare that I could see a modern Trek show either showing a transporter effect or showing the uniform change colors while someone is wearing it.
I mean, we had heat sensitive color change suits in the 90s. With the kind of tech they have in Trek, uniforms that change color doesn't seem to be out of the question to me.
And for that matter, with modern filming effects, I think LED rank pips would be a lot more likely if they did a show with rank pips. There were practical and cost considerations when TNG was on the air but with today's gaming inspired culture, I could see badges and pips utilizing LED effects.
Somebody taps a combadge, it distorts or flickers. Rank pips as a bar wor on the neck with LED/touchscreen effects with the pips disappearing when someone is offduty. You might even say it's a security thing with the pips using biometrics to confirm identity and rank and maybe having display functions.
Actually, what might look cool is if someone taps their LED combadge and their neck LED shifts from pips to a waveform of their voice.
I'm not suggesting the whole uniform might look like TRON or anything but the badge/neck rank insignia seem like decent contenders to get built in displays.
Okay, there's a lot of correction to be done, so bear with me.
1. Picard never entered archeology after the academy, he went straight to shipboard service in the command division, he only ever studied archeology (in a service sense) at the academy.
2. That picture is from an alternate future created by Q, featured in the episode "Tapestry" and is not canon.
3. In that picture Picard is an astrophysicist, not an archeologist.
4. I used Junior Officer to denote that Picard served in some capacity where he was directly responsible for a shipboard department (which department that was has not been canonically stated, only mentioning the he headed several away teams, and that he undertook specialised tactical training).
5. The ranks of Ensign to Lieutenant Junior Grade are not necessarily junior officers, as if they commanded their own starship they would be a senior officer by virtue of their command. Much in the same way as we are at the early stages of the game.
EDIT: Saying Picard served as an archeologist because he liked archeology in his youth is like saying he served as a vintner because he used to make wine.
It was an alternate reality where he wore the blue but even Professor Galen said he would have been one of the greats of his generation should he have chosen the archaeology path. He was formally trained in it and most sources recognize him as an archaeologist and diplomat. But this thread isn't about Picard's background so I will end this needless debate here. This thread is about 'first officer color code' which is traditionally red (according to the later shows/movies).
What I will never understand is the term "command division". Ok, Picard and Riker are the fist in the command chain. Clear. But why are navigators in red?
Each department has a HoD. Engineer is LaForge, Ops is Date, Security is Worf, Medical is Crusher, Science is Data and LaForge as it seems. All their staff wear the department's color.
So what do the Red ones do?
Anyway, for my ships I am using different colors for every department:
Captain and XO: white
Security and Tactical: red, while I have one Tactical chief in light brown
Science: green
Medical: blue
Engineering: orange
Ops: turquoise
I gave my HoDs the Jupiter Belt, and the Future Badge in gold.
For me it was necessary to really see the difference between the departments and the HoDs and the first two commanding officers.