Red- Command and tactical
Yellow- Engineering and Operations
Blue- Science
Green- Medical
Picard was a helmsman, Janeway a science officer, and Sisko an engineer before becoming commanders where they joined the command department and wore red.
They would however routinely tweak a character's placement based on what looks good in a group shot or with an actor's complexion.
Data was always supposed to be the science officer but yellow worked better with his makeup so they made him head of operations AND sciences.
Likewise, I'm pretty sure they made Dax a science officer primarily to balance out the uniform colors. There isn't a LOT that hinged on her being a science officer, story-wise.
Also, security could be considered operations or tactical depending on what costumes were available that day, what fit, and what looked flattering (actors shared costumes).
In the Original Series (where colors were different), I seem to recall them trying to avoid putting women in gold because it looked less flattering and they even eventually got Kirk away from the gold towards the green and gold wrap. Marla McGivers, the social scientist from Space Seed, wore red almost purely because it was seen as having more sex appeal with her hair and skintone.
So the rules are general and broken a fair amount.
I noticed that Captains Sisko, Picard and Janeway (I am sure the other Captains too) are always wearing the colour red. Is it because they are all Tactical Officers promoted as Captains OR because it's merely the colours of Higher Ups? Please, no tv show spoilers about why or how it came to be (I am watching DS9, and don't want any spoilers related to any ST shows). All I want to know is why their uniforms are always red.
yellow was used during ent and tos, during ent it was a yellow stripe around the shoulders to inner-upper chest area. tos it was all yellow, could be a jumper or a wrap around jumper, sometimes the captain could wear green. after this it was red because no matter the chosen field, to progress you needed to learn command and command was in red, pre ds9 it was a black jump suit with a red torso color front and black but not the sides. after this it was a black jumpsuit with colored shoulders and colored undershirt. then the dominion war came and it changed to a light pink shoulders with optional black jumpsuit or two piece black pants and black jacket with pink shoulders, undershirt was colored.
T6 Miranda Hero Ship FTW. Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
In TOS, they'd break color rules for little reason. In TMP, there's still debate about what colors meant. By TNG, they'd come up with excuses to get people in the most flattering colors.
If they'd had a security chief on a show who looked better in blue, I'm pretty sure they would have said the security chief was a weapon researcher or designer to justify putting them in blue.
Oh and as a sidebar, I believe we saw Geordi's father as the one admiral who wore department colors rather than command color primarily because they thought Ben Vereen looked better in blue or maybe because that was the color of the uniform that fit him.
The uniforms were considered expensive at the time. Riker, Chakotay, and Sisko shared uniforms. They actually changed the designs in First Contact primarily to justify DS9 getting different uniforms than Voyager because the washing from sharing uniforms was starting to wear them out. To justify the cost of making more, they had to introduce a new design that would allow for new merch and write it off under a movie budget.
Heck, in TNG's pilot, Riker takes a tour of the ship and wanders into engineering for only one reason: the pilot had a higher budget and Paramount wouldn't pay for an engineering set based on a normal episode budget. So they wrote a random scene with the warp core, extra hallways, and had lots of people on the bridge to get Paramount to let them use the pilot budget on more costumes and sets.
If Riker had not wandered into main engineering in the pilot, they probably would have been forced to either have a cheaper warp core set or go the whole seven years without showing main engineering. (Keep in mind, none of the main cast in the pilot were even engineers. Geordi was a helm officer.) So without that random scene, they'd have probably spent seven years without showing engineering and they would have probably kept Geordi as a navigator.
Oh and as a sidebar, I believe we saw Geordi's father as the one admiral who wore department colors rather than command color primarily because they thought Ben Vereen looked better in blue or maybe because that was the color of the uniform that fit him.
Georgi's father held the rank of Commander, not Admiral.
In TOS, they'd break color rules for little reason. In TMP, there's still debate about what colors meant. By TNG, they'd come up with excuses to get people in the most flattering colors.
If they'd had a security chief on a show who looked better in blue, I'm pretty sure they would have said the security chief was a weapon researcher or designer to justify putting them in blue.
during these movies all uniforms were all standard regulation one color and size fits all, however there were rank insignia to tell apart the different officers, but nothing beyond that.
I thought Tactical and Operations were much the same in the 24th century. Worf wore gold as the Enterprise's tactical officer, and security teams were always in gold. Red was Command-only.
Also, the colour distinction between science and medical was inconsistent at best. The EMH and Bashir wore blue.
In the very first series of TNG Worf wore red at first, and filled in on a variety of posts. Then Tasha Yar died and he became security and tactical officer, and switched to a gold uniform. He stayed in gold until he returned to command branch on DS9.
White = Command
Gold = Operations (Engineering and Helm branch)
Grey = Operations (Navigation/Astrometrics, Communications, Scientific Research and Technical)
Light Green = Science & Medical
Windsor (Dark) Green = Security
Sky Blue = Special Services (Starfleet Branch)
Dark Blue = Special Services (Federation Branch)
Red = Cadet and Trainee Junior Officers
Black = Enlisted
during these movies all uniforms were all standard regulation one color and size fits all, however there were rank insignia to tell apart the different officers, but nothing beyond that.
i will leave this right here: [url][/url]
The TOS movies (outside of TMP) did have division colors. These movies and ENT were the only ones with more subtle division markings.
Red- Command and tactical
Yellow- Engineering and Operations
Blue- Science
Green- Medical
Picard was a helmsman, Janeway a science officer, and Sisko an engineer before becoming commanders where they joined the command department and wore red.
This is almost right, I have read so many Technical manuals that I cant remember which one had the info but the colors were
TOS (source is the Starfleet Technical manual copyright 1970's)
gold command and ships Operations
Red Engineering and Security
Blue Medical and sciences
From TNG onward (I think this color source is the Next Generation Technical Manual. I just dont feel like pulling out the manuals right now.)
Red- command and Ships Operations
Gold- Engineering and ships Security
blue/teal- Science and medical.
Command track puts you in a red uniform even if your speciaty is Engineering or Science.
EX: Janeway was a scientist but upon changing to the command track she was placed in a red uniform.
Same with Crusher in All Good Things, red uniform.
Infact there has only ever been ONE instance of a command officer (An Admiral in this case) wearing anything other than red, Deep Space Nine, It was literally one scene and it hasn't happened since.
Honestly, I like the way STO handles it more than the shows. Mixing security and engineers together was kind of odd, and the whole "Command" division doesn't make a whole lot of sense. I get having captains and first officers in their own color, but all the ensigns and helmsmen, too?
Meanwhile, STO creates the three distinct divisions, and with the new 2410 unifom, also sets captains apart by giving them the fancy white shoulders instead of dark grey. So if we put all the old captains in STO uniforms, they'd all have white shoulders on the black jumpsuit, but Janeway would have the blue stripe, Sisko would have the gold, and Picard and Kirk would have red. Or maybe Picard would be blue, wasn't he a xenoarchaeologist?
Is this a thread for people who never watched the show at all? :P
What I've learned from the STO forums is exactly how many self-professed fans of the show and movies are unfamiliar with what was actually on the show and movies.
What I've learned from the STO forums is exactly how many self-professed fans of the show and movies are unfamiliar with what was actually on the show and movies.
The Motion Picture did have divisional colors. They were included as the colored background, on the circular Enterprise uniform badge.
Command=White
Operations=Pale Gold
Medical=Pale Green
Science=Orange
Security=Grey
Engineering=Red
Additionally the small shoulder pieces where TRIBBLE was displayed also had division based colors under the rank markings.... using the same color scheme as the badge background.
Additionally the small shoulder pieces where TRIBBLE was displayed also had division based colors under the rank markings.... using the same color scheme as the badge background.
In TNG, DS9 and VOY it was a more broad distinction, it wasn't broken down by department but function:
Command was red (This is specfically high level command, IE: Station commanders, ship captains, admiralty and their staff.)
Ship functions were Yellow (This is why engineering/maintaining the ship and security of the ship are both yellow)
Sciences were blue (This is why until DS9 we didn't have a main character who was science except the doctors division. They were mostly researchers and analysts. Medical is considered science because they engaged in more than just treating people, every scientist we saw also ran medical experiments and acted as xenobiologists.)
Probably because the operations officer seemed to replace the science officer on the bridge during the TNG era, Data and Harry Kim being the examples of this.
Command was red (This is specfically high level command, IE: Station commanders, ship captains, admiralty and their staff.)
This isn't necessarily how it went in the show, though.
While Command always wore Red, Red was not exclusively the color of Command.
In both TNG and VOY, Ensign-ranked Helmsmen wore Red uniforms (Wesley and Paris). These were decidedly not anywhere near Command positions, and in fact the Helm fits squarely in the domain of Starship Operations (as it is the most literal operation of the ship).
How do you define Command anyway? Worf wears Red as the Strategic Operations Officer of DS9, but he largely fills the same role he had as Chief Tactical Officer on the Enterprise, minus the Security command. He had fewer actual Command duties there than he did on TNG, yet wore Yellow in TNG and Red in DS9.
This isn't necessarily how it went in the show, though.
While Command always wore Red, Red was not exclusively the color of Command.
In both TNG and VOY, Ensign-ranked Helmsmen wore Red uniforms (Wesley and Paris). These were decidedly not anywhere near Command positions, and in fact the Helm fits squarely in the domain of Starship Operations (as it is the most literal operation of the ship).
How do you define Command anyway? Worf wears Red as the Strategic Operations Officer of DS9, but he largely fills the same role he had as Chief Tactical Officer on the Enterprise, minus the Security command. He had fewer actual Command duties there than he did on TNG, yet wore Yellow in TNG and Red in DS9.
So who knows.
"Command" is a bit of a misnomer, it's not so much that people in red are senior in authority, but they operate within the ship's command and administrative department. That being said, Helm in red makes sense, since Helm answers only to command, and no other department. Navigation on the other hand answers to both command and navigation, security answers to both operations and command, engineering answers to operations and command, etc. Ships administration falls under the pervue of Command, not operations. Much like modern vessels the XO (First Officer) is head of the ships administative department, and as such people fulfilling administrative roles (like yeomen) wear the command color, and not operations color.
Comments
They would however routinely tweak a character's placement based on what looks good in a group shot or with an actor's complexion.
Data was always supposed to be the science officer but yellow worked better with his makeup so they made him head of operations AND sciences.
Likewise, I'm pretty sure they made Dax a science officer primarily to balance out the uniform colors. There isn't a LOT that hinged on her being a science officer, story-wise.
Also, security could be considered operations or tactical depending on what costumes were available that day, what fit, and what looked flattering (actors shared costumes).
In the Original Series (where colors were different), I seem to recall them trying to avoid putting women in gold because it looked less flattering and they even eventually got Kirk away from the gold towards the green and gold wrap. Marla McGivers, the social scientist from Space Seed, wore red almost purely because it was seen as having more sex appeal with her hair and skintone.
So the rules are general and broken a fair amount.
yellow was used during ent and tos, during ent it was a yellow stripe around the shoulders to inner-upper chest area. tos it was all yellow, could be a jumper or a wrap around jumper, sometimes the captain could wear green. after this it was red because no matter the chosen field, to progress you needed to learn command and command was in red, pre ds9 it was a black jump suit with a red torso color front and black but not the sides. after this it was a black jumpsuit with colored shoulders and colored undershirt. then the dominion war came and it changed to a light pink shoulders with optional black jumpsuit or two piece black pants and black jacket with pink shoulders, undershirt was colored.
Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
If they'd had a security chief on a show who looked better in blue, I'm pretty sure they would have said the security chief was a weapon researcher or designer to justify putting them in blue.
The uniforms were considered expensive at the time. Riker, Chakotay, and Sisko shared uniforms. They actually changed the designs in First Contact primarily to justify DS9 getting different uniforms than Voyager because the washing from sharing uniforms was starting to wear them out. To justify the cost of making more, they had to introduce a new design that would allow for new merch and write it off under a movie budget.
Heck, in TNG's pilot, Riker takes a tour of the ship and wanders into engineering for only one reason: the pilot had a higher budget and Paramount wouldn't pay for an engineering set based on a normal episode budget. So they wrote a random scene with the warp core, extra hallways, and had lots of people on the bridge to get Paramount to let them use the pilot budget on more costumes and sets.
If Riker had not wandered into main engineering in the pilot, they probably would have been forced to either have a cheaper warp core set or go the whole seven years without showing main engineering. (Keep in mind, none of the main cast in the pilot were even engineers. Geordi was a helm officer.) So without that random scene, they'd have probably spent seven years without showing engineering and they would have probably kept Geordi as a navigator.
Georgi's father held the rank of Commander, not Admiral.
during these movies all uniforms were all standard regulation one color and size fits all, however there were rank insignia to tell apart the different officers, but nothing beyond that.
i will leave this right here: http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Starfleet_uniform
Been around since Dec 2010 on STO and bought LTS in Apr 2013 for STO.
In the very first series of TNG Worf wore red at first, and filled in on a variety of posts. Then Tasha Yar died and he became security and tactical officer, and switched to a gold uniform. He stayed in gold until he returned to command branch on DS9.
But I respawn
I am duranium!
STO just ordered them better IMO.
Edit: Though either way, Tuvok would be wearing red anyway. 8D
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This isn't true.
The colours in the movies were:
White = Command
Gold = Operations (Engineering and Helm branch)
Grey = Operations (Navigation/Astrometrics, Communications, Scientific Research and Technical)
Light Green = Science & Medical
Windsor (Dark) Green = Security
Sky Blue = Special Services (Starfleet Branch)
Dark Blue = Special Services (Federation Branch)
Red = Cadet and Trainee Junior Officers
Black = Enlisted
The TOS movies (outside of TMP) did have division colors. These movies and ENT were the only ones with more subtle division markings.
This is almost right, I have read so many Technical manuals that I cant remember which one had the info but the colors were
TOS (source is the Starfleet Technical manual copyright 1970's)
gold command and ships Operations
Red Engineering and Security
Blue Medical and sciences
From TNG onward (I think this color source is the Next Generation Technical Manual. I just dont feel like pulling out the manuals right now.)
Red- command and Ships Operations
Gold- Engineering and ships Security
blue/teal- Science and medical.
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@ren_larreck
Command track puts you in a red uniform even if your speciaty is Engineering or Science.
EX: Janeway was a scientist but upon changing to the command track she was placed in a red uniform.
Same with Crusher in All Good Things, red uniform.
Infact there has only ever been ONE instance of a command officer (An Admiral in this case) wearing anything other than red, Deep Space Nine, It was literally one scene and it hasn't happened since.
Meanwhile, STO creates the three distinct divisions, and with the new 2410 unifom, also sets captains apart by giving them the fancy white shoulders instead of dark grey. So if we put all the old captains in STO uniforms, they'd all have white shoulders on the black jumpsuit, but Janeway would have the blue stripe, Sisko would have the gold, and Picard and Kirk would have red. Or maybe Picard would be blue, wasn't he a xenoarchaeologist?
In the Original Series, Operations was also color-coded red.
In STO, Operations, as it was in The Next Generation, is color-coded yellow/gold.
What I've learned from the STO forums is exactly how many self-professed fans of the show and movies are unfamiliar with what was actually on the show and movies.
The Motion Picture did have divisional colors. They were included as the colored background, on the circular Enterprise uniform badge.
Command=White
Operations=Pale Gold
Medical=Pale Green
Science=Orange
Security=Grey
Engineering=Red
Additionally the small shoulder pieces where TRIBBLE was displayed also had division based colors under the rank markings.... using the same color scheme as the badge background.
Command was red (This is specfically high level command, IE: Station commanders, ship captains, admiralty and their staff.)
Ship functions were Yellow (This is why engineering/maintaining the ship and security of the ship are both yellow)
Sciences were blue (This is why until DS9 we didn't have a main character who was science except the doctors division. They were mostly researchers and analysts. Medical is considered science because they engaged in more than just treating people, every scientist we saw also ran medical experiments and acted as xenobiologists.)
Spock called and said he wants to have a word with you.
Specifically talking about the TNG era
Security always wears yellow/gold.
Probably because the operations officer seemed to replace the science officer on the bridge during the TNG era, Data and Harry Kim being the examples of this.
This isn't necessarily how it went in the show, though.
While Command always wore Red, Red was not exclusively the color of Command.
In both TNG and VOY, Ensign-ranked Helmsmen wore Red uniforms (Wesley and Paris). These were decidedly not anywhere near Command positions, and in fact the Helm fits squarely in the domain of Starship Operations (as it is the most literal operation of the ship).
How do you define Command anyway? Worf wears Red as the Strategic Operations Officer of DS9, but he largely fills the same role he had as Chief Tactical Officer on the Enterprise, minus the Security command. He had fewer actual Command duties there than he did on TNG, yet wore Yellow in TNG and Red in DS9.
So who knows.
Unless mirror T'Pol counts.
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"Command" is a bit of a misnomer, it's not so much that people in red are senior in authority, but they operate within the ship's command and administrative department. That being said, Helm in red makes sense, since Helm answers only to command, and no other department. Navigation on the other hand answers to both command and navigation, security answers to both operations and command, engineering answers to operations and command, etc. Ships administration falls under the pervue of Command, not operations. Much like modern vessels the XO (First Officer) is head of the ships administative department, and as such people fulfilling administrative roles (like yeomen) wear the command color, and not operations color.