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From ASVS itself:

From the Co-Lord of Sourcebooks, Jason L. Miles!

Thread on google here:

http://groups.google.com/groups?q=%22st ... com&rnum=1

Reposted for your benefit:

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From: Jason L. Miles (seaquestst@cox.net)
Date: 2003-01-23 00:59:02 PST

In TNG Era Star Trek, Starfleet personel wear three different
variations on the duty uniform, each one is a different color, and the
colors are supposed to represent departments on the ship. The colors,
and the divisions they represent are:

Maroon: Command
Yellow: Security/Support Services
Blue: Science/Medical

The problem is: Three major crew groupings is simply not enough if
your goal is to ease specialty identification (Not to mention avoidinf
viewer confusion). If that isn't the goal, why use different uniforms
at all? To illustrate my point, I'm going to list the specializations
that I think would be common (or at least needed) onboard a Starfleet
Ship.

Command - Personel whose entire duties fall into the realm of
commanding one or more ships.

Administrative - Personelle who perform the various full time
administrative tasks that any large group of people need. Examples are
logistics and human resources.

Services - People who function in service capacities. Examples would
be bartenders, barbers, and other such positions.

Medical - Member's of the ship's practicing medical staff.

Sciences - Members of the ship's scientific research staff.

Propulsion - Members of the crew involved in the maintnance and
operation of the ship's propulsion systems.

Maintnance and Operations - Crewmembers whose responsibility lies in
the maintnance and operations of the ship's non-propulsive equipment.

Astrogation and Piloting - Navigators and pilots, both for shuttles
and for the ship itself.

Tactical - Crewmembers involved in the operation of the ships tactical
systems, such as weapons, sensors, communications, and jamming.

Information Technology - Crewmembers who are responsible for
maintaining the ships computer systems, examples are LAN and database
admins.

Diplomatic/Civillian - People who serve in a diplomatic or civillian
capacity, advisors.

Security/Marines - Members of the ship's internal and external
security forces.

Trainees/Cadets - People who have not yet completed specialty
training.

The Starfleet system lumps these together in this fashion:

Command (Purple Uniforms):
Command, Administrative, and Trainees/Cadets

Security/Support Services (Yellow Uniforms):
Propulsion, Maintnance and Operations, Astrogation and Piloting,
Tactical, Information Technology, Services, and Security/Marines

Science/Medical (Blue Uniforms):
Medical and Sciences

No Uniforms:
Diplomatic/Civillian

While a person could have very general knowledge of all the areas in
thier division (color), it would seem nearly impossible that they
could be as proficient as a specialist.

Another problem is that Starfleet does not appear to recognize the
difference between these sub-groups.

Worf and Tasha had to operate as both security personel and tactical
personel. These are vary diverse jobs, one of them is vary physical,
the other is a much more cerebral. I can recall at least one occasion
where Worf was asked to provide technical consultation on the weapons
as well.

Geordi is established as a propulsion engineer, he is portrayed as one
of the most capable warp engine operators in Starfleet that kind of
specialization indicates a life's persuit. On the other hand, we see
Geordi doing everything from repairing transporters, replicators,
weapons, sensors, and even computers, and every time he is portrayed
as a person who is incredibly skilled at doing whatever job he is
given. It seems highly unlikely that anyone could attain such
expertise in such a broad range of fields.

Data is the one member of the crew that I can accept as being an
expert in diverse fields. He has direct access to the ships computer,
which would give him an incredible edge in troubleshooting and in
research.

The clincher of the fact that Starfleet does not seem to care what its
people are trained for is the times we have seen Geordi as part of a
security detail.

Any and all comments will be appreciated.

P.S.

Why havn't we seen any LAN admins on the show, I can think of at least
two dozen times an admin would be useful, and they act like they don't
exist.

--

"This is Grand Moff Miles, Lord Vader, I am heading to the Milky Way
with my 95,089 ship Oversector Group, I don't expect much
resistance. Don't worry about sending Death Stars as support."

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I replied with a post adding additional commentary and information:

*****************************************************

Good rant. It's at times like this, I feel inadequate
as a denizen, as I've never had a good articulate rant
like you just did.

I did some research on my own, and using google
and a book I have had since a child (copyright 1945!),
to supplement your rant.

Here are the results of my research for you:

The US Navy DOES use a similar system to the Feds,
with color coded enlisted mens' stripes:

US Navy Color Coding
http://www2.powercom.net/~rokats/usnavy.html

White Stripes:

Deck, Administration, Medical, Dental Group

Red Stripes

Engineering, Hull Group

Blue Stripes

Construction Group (Sea Bees)

Green Stripes

Aviation Group

To indicate the branch of service further, there
are specialty badges:

(Scanned from my circa 1945 book on insignas)

http://mywebpages.comcast.net/MKSheppar ... signa1.jpg
http://mywebpages.comcast.net/MKSheppar ... signa2.jpg
http://mywebpages.comcast.net/MKSheppar ... signa3.jpg
http://mywebpages.comcast.net/MKSheppar ... signa4.jpg

The last 2 pages are of GREAT interest, showing the different job
insigna/badges/emblems. These are from the 1945 US Navy,
so a lot of stuff has changed since then...

The US army also uses emblem badges, too:

US ARMY Badges
http://www2.powercom.net/~rokats/todaybadges.html

*************

DISCUSS!

Good points! SF did use a more complex system during ST 2 to ST 6.

Maroon: Command
Yellow: Security/Support Services
Blue: Science/Medical

Ah, shouldn't those first two be the other way around? After all, Kirk wore yellow.

IG-88E wrote:

Maroon: Command
Yellow: Security/Support Services
Blue: Science/Medical

Ah, shouldn't those first two be the other way around? After all, Kirk wore yellow.

They flip-flopped between TOS and TNG.

I think it was because all of the Red Shirts who were killed because of Gold Shirt decisions in TOS.

Ah, I misread that.

Funny you should mention this. I actually sent an e-mail to Mike a few years ago along similar lines. It went like this. In the original series, the red-shirted Security/Engineering/Maintenance "workers" staged a takeover of the Federation. It was subtle, as after the TOS era, the Movie uniforms were instituted, as there was obviously a call for change. These were very military in design (as far as ST goes) suggesting that the takeover was in progress, spearheaded perhaps by the more aggressive and militant elements in the Federation. By the time the Next Generation rolled around, the "working class" had transposed their gold-shirted opressors, and modified the government to a rigid socialist structure. Even Miles O'Brien was confused when Sisko and he were wearing the opposite colour.

Also, red means commies.

Presumably, the purpose of the colour-coded uniforms is to identify broad categories of specialties. Thus, if one were unfamiliar with the other officers and enlisted personnel present, one would know immediately not to ask the gold-shirted or red-shirted personnel questions regarding medicine.

Short of this general indication, the uniforms are fairly ineffective at identifying the corps or branch to which an officer or enlisted person belongs. The uniforms would be greatly enhanced by such simple devices as an indicator of corps or branch on the collar opposite the rank pips.

Then again, one should not be overly harsh in this matter. Imperial uniforms are similarly flawed; and the uniforms of the Klingons, Cardassians, and Romulans are even more poorly designed -- if one wants to call them uniforms at all. At least the Starfleet and Imperial Navy have clear distinctions of seniority and grade.

Publius

The pointless nature of the three-color system would seem to have dawned on the Federation, leading to the switch to a common color during DS9.

But its not like maintain a multitude of colors is that hard, just look at the flight deck of a CVN.

Sea Skimmer wrote:The pointless nature of the three-color system would seem to have dawned on the Federation, leading to the switch to a common color during DS9.

They don't have a common colour in DS9 - command (Sisko) still has red, Science (Dax) still has blue, Medical (Bashir) still has a greener blue, and engineering (O'brian) is yellow.

What's the problem anway? This seems to be another "they don't do it how we do" problem, created because someone wants to moan.


Trek have colours to differentiate between purpose.

RED = managerial
These people control what happens and how

YELLOW = support / General staff
The ones who make it happen -


BLUE = scientific services
the reason it's happening - you can get by without these, but why would you?


A GREENER BLUE = medical
And you can get by without these, as well in a pinch, but they come in handy occasionally.

The civilians have different uniform depending on what they're doing (see the barmen in TNG)

Where's the problem?

In a broad sense, there aren't many more branches to your average military anyway. There may be specialisation within the branches - but that's specialisation, as Shep pointed out. Trek doesn't seem to designate specialisation as (some) modern militarys do, but what they've got seems to fit what they need fine.

I'm pretty sure it was near the end of DS9 that we had the transition to the common dark gray uniform.

Sea Skimmer wrote:I'm pretty sure it was near the end of DS9 that we had the transition to the common dark gray uniform.

Mostly grey, but the colours are still there - blue for Science, red for Command
(image is from the final episode of DS9)