I'm wanting to get the Enterprise MU uniforms. They look really cool, and I think they look more like military uniforms than some of the other options.
The trouble I'm having is justifying the female characters being so scantily clad. I just can't think of a good reason for the Federation to allow the skimpy tops. Does anyone have any good ideas? The only thing I can really come up with is if the ship captain is Klingon. It seems like Klingon females generally show a little skin. I guess I could just go with the regular Enterprise uniforms, but the MU uniforms really stand out.
I'm not really a roleplayer, but I want things in my personal STO universe to make sense. If that makes any sense.
Comments
MU for the men, normal ENT for the females?
But I see the OPs concern. The way I see it.. It is your ship.. and you establish the dress code.
It would be nice to get the male mu costume for female toons though Id really like to get tos mu shirt for one of my female toons I'd also like to get the female mu enterprise shirt for a male toon I want to make sorta a zapp brannigan / shore leave.
Ummmm... you know that MU stands for Mirror Universe? Pretty much equals Evil Twin Universe. Did you see the episode that these are based on?
In the mirror universe, women are seen more as sex symbols than anything else. (This is due to the fact that most of TOS was written in the 60's when times were all about that.) So naturally the costumes tend to be a little more revealing than they were in the 80's and 90's. (Take TNG for instance)
I watched an interesting TV special about how the various series compare to each other. It was a very interesting watch and compared TOS to TNG to DS9 to Voyager. One of the more interesting stats was about how much Captain Kirk was involving himself with women, and in just 3 seasons of TOS it's pretty high compared to how many times Captain Picard did in the whole 7 sesons TNG was out.
In all actuality if it were in the 23rd century I highly doubt women would be running around in those types of uniforms. Considering all that's been done about womens rights and equal rights in the military I'd see them more in a Enterprise jumpsuit or something more standard like DS9 or Voyager. (7 of 9 costume excluded....
all women can be sexy they just need to realise that the mainstream media denies them this through photoshopping and unrealistic asperations, remmeber women that the majority of men in fashion industry lean towards the perfec woman while most men in the real world want somthing better.
Enterprise's own episode In A Mirror Darkly ha Tholians experimenting with a weapon that tore a hole into the Star Trek Prime univese 115 or so years into the future (relative from ENT's year of 2154) and pulled the 'prime' U.S.S. Defiant into the Mirroe Universe.
You could easily sat the Terran Empire (under Empress Hoshi Sato) of that era captured the Tholian tech - and have continued to experiment with it - thus you have MU personnel (MU defectors or not) running around on the 25th century ESD (and even using an 'upgraded' NX-01 if you prefer <--- and it fits in established canon
Exactly. Seven of Nine, catsuit was shameless grab for "Hey we got a hot chick, come see check her out. Awwwwoooooogah!". Its crass and shameless and ultimately degrades the franchise as a whole. Either put everyone in skin-tight catsuits or put no one in them, b/c otherwise its like TV written by 14 year old boys.
Kira and Dax worked as characters because they were strong characters, who happened to be attractive rather then Hootie McBoobenstein. It is to Jerri Ryan and Jolene Blalock's credit, that saddled with the baggage they were given, they each managed to make their characters interesting and their journey's compelling.
So here's where Cryptic can take a stand of sorts. Things like the Decontamination Chamber, and the catsuits might have been saddled upon the shows by Executive Meddling, and yeah Cryptic probably still has some sort of investors/bottomline/powers that be; but here is they can take a stand. That stand is, gender equality in Star Trek. Allow a gender-neutral option for some alien races, allow facial hair for females and makeup for males. Make the costumes gender blind. Free the Skant Uniform for male characters! Cryptic you can do this, there's nothing truly stopping you.
We are the Terran Empire.... anyone who says otherwise is a traitor and must be destroyed :O
Actually the early episodes of TNG had female officers in some very good looking skirts.
And the men too!
TOS - Uhura, every other female on the ship
TNG - Troi, a little of Crusher, Tasha (until she died
DS9 - Dax (both), Kira
Voy - Kes, 7of9
Ent - T'pol, Sato
So, yeah...there were "sexy" women on every series. TNG wasn't too bad, but DS9 had plenty of "sexy" scenes with Jadzia, Ezri, and Kira. Some of the Voy / Ent episodes might've been a little worse, but they weren't exceptions to the "rule."
Honestly, the decom-chamber made sense. They didn't have bio-filters yet, since they were new in space. Transporters were a fairly new tech, so they usually used shuttles. It made sense to protect the crew from possible "infections" by sending them through a decom chamber. And as several episodes proved, that decom chamber was not only a sensible step, it was a necessary step in preserving the ship's crew from infection.
then why did you watch voyager?:p
i kid.
in all seriousness, i always saw it the same way as they did picard's baldness: nobody cares what you look like, as long as you do your job. sure, in the case of the dabo girls it's part of the job, but when you look at people like seven and troy and even dax sometimes, it was obvious, at least to me, that a woman could dress as she pleased and still be respected by her coworkers. even harry kim, who was googley-eyed for seven, still respected her as an engineer/scientist.
Honestly, the decom-chamber made sense. They didn't have bio-filters yet, since they were new in space. Transporters were a fairly new tech, so they usually used shuttles. It made sense to protect the crew from possible "infections" by sending them through a decom chamber. And as several episodes proved, that decom chamber was not only a sensible step, it was a necessary step in preserving the ship's crew from infection.[/QUOTE]
The chamber itself was a good idea, how they implemented it on the show was another idea.
To quote another blog who summed it up the best "not only do they strip down, they rub each other with decon gel. The pilot episode featured Trip and TPol slathering gel all over one another even though they supposedly dislike each other, and even in spots they could easily reach on their own, like the tips of TPols ears. Trip gets his hands inside the waistband of her shorts at one point, a suitable excuse for a nerve pinch if ever I saw one. Meanwhile, the camera pans lovingly over his pecs and her thighs. It would have been hot had it not been so glaringly, hilariously obvious."
A bit of a silly comparison, really. The role of the womanizer in TNG goes to Riker, not Picard. TNG also had a larger ensemble crew that they focused on, while TOS was mostly focused on just 3 characters. So you spent time with Worf, LeForge, and just about everyone else's love interest. There's, what, three or four episodes focused on Troi's mom and her relationships even? And even with that diverse focus, there's plenty of references to Riker's Kirkness even when it isn't the focus of the story.
Anyway, for the OP:
The Federation is made up from diverse cultures. Given more freedom of choice in uniforms, why wouldn't people from a tropical planet where something more akin to what they wear on that planet? What their culture views as normal.
What we have seen from Trek is primarily ships with human crews. If there are aliens, they typically only have some token bumps or pointy ears. Keeps costs down, as well as saving make up chair time. Well, if all the humans are on those ships, then where are the others? There's got to be some ships out there with a mostly vulcan crew, along with a token human to point out what the illogical course of action would be. Same deal with the Andorians. And if they have it, why not other species? It makes sense, really, for dietary, medical, climate, and cultural reasons.
What is to say that your particular ship isn't heavily crewed by a specific race in the Federation, a race that prefers, possibly even needs, a hotter than human preferred temperature setting. Or maybe it isn't temperature, but a cultural thing. They view excessive clothing as rude, as if you are hiding something. So wearing something a bit skimpier is akin to showing empty hands, to show that you pose no threat. Maybe they have sensitive skin, so less clothing is more comfortable.
And, for that matter, who is to say you even have to clothe all your female BOffs that way. Maybe one enjoys dressing that way, but others don't. My primary fed cruiser captain, for example. Her female BOffs wear modified TOS uniforms. The one exception is the Klingon one. She has the top, but wears pants. It felt right that way. And are you going to tell the Klingon she has to wear a mini-skirt if she doesn't want to?
And then there's other factors. A quasi-humorous approach might be to say that the ship had a run with a Q who decided it'd be funny if that's all the ship's replicators can make for female uniforms or if that's what any female's uniform becomes on that ship. It is annoying to the officers, for sure, but the Federation needs every ship it can get and other than that issue, the ship is fine otherwise.
In short, you can RP justify most anything.
Hmmm, speaking of skirts, didn't Cryptic say that they were working on more skirt options? (Which I took to mean hopefully something a bit longer because frankly, I can't see how they could go any shorter) Anyone hear anything about that recently?
Put a little weight on your toons then.
I'm very much aware of the "relaxed dresscode", but I think we can all agree that this snippet of pseudo-fluff only made it into the game to justify people wearing what they want, up to uniforms of an enemy(!) faction. However, if you're like me, that doesn't change anything about how it looks and feels - so if you want to replicate the atmosphere of the series, you would have to dress according to the style established in the shows (cloth "pajamas", pants for females, combadge, etc).
Any explanation to do otherwise would feel too much like an excuse. YMMV.
Personally, I'm only using parts of the MU-uniform to complement my other costumes - such as the belly-free shirt from TOS MU as a grey undershirt (for sports, training, etc), or the sash to complement the leather-uniform of my Vulcan's Mirror Universe "evil twin" (I don't really play her, but it was fun setting up the costume), or the ENT MU knife sheath to complement my Human Tactical's Hazard Team gear.
I tried... I made one so morbidly obese that I was worried she would not fit throw the doors, but the rib cage thing is the skin texture, not a true skin applied to a skeletal model, which is unheard of in 3D game art by the way. How nice of you to assume that I am the kind of person who made every female on his bridge toothpicks.