Orius
Unrepentant DM Supremacist
mojo1701 said:I don't exactly understand why the different Star Trek series had different uniforms on at the same time. For example, when the Enterprise D was at DS9, Picard had the original, and Sisko had the newer one. When Janeway contacted Starfleet, Voyager never changed their uniforms to be the same as the rest of Starfleet.
Does anyone know why?
It think it's because the costume desginers get bored.
Seriously though, I think the difference of uniform between TNG and DS9 was intended to differentiate between the two shows. I don't know what the internal reasoning would be.
As for Voyager keeping the old unifoms, well, yeah that makes some sense. They're out on their own in the middle of nowhere. Changing uniform styles is hardly a priority. Even when they managed to communicate with Starfleet on a regular basis, getting home was still a greater priority.
Myself, I've always found the frequent uniform shifts to be a tad inconsistant. It has to do with the styles of uniform featured:
22nd century, 2250s: Blue jumpsuit with color-coded piping indicating department. Slightly different uniform for admirals. Featured in Enterprise.
23rd century, 2350s and 60s: Shirt with turtleneck color-coded by department, with black pants and boots. Stripes on sleeve indicate rank. Featured in The Cage and Where No Man Has Gone Before.
23rd century, late 2360s: Similar to above uniforn, but turtlenecks replaced by black collars. Starfleet brass must have gone through a Tailhook phase or something here, because women are fored to wear very short dresses for the next several years (since everywhere else the women wear pretty much the same thing as men). Emblem on left breat indicates duty station; personnel assigned to the U.S.S. Enterprise have an arrowhead emblem, and inside the arrowhead is a symbol indicating department or something. Featured throughout all of Star Trek, and also brough back for DS9 episode "Trials and Tribble-ations".
23rd century, 2370s: Uniforms replaced by bland-looking tan, gray and powder blue uniforms. Sexist admiral(s) repsonsible for previous uniform changed obviously court-martialed for sexual harrassment or something, since men and women are once again wearing the same uniform. Admiral uniform seems to be black and white. Enterprise arrowhead emblem used for all Starfleet. Featured in Star Trek: The Motion Picture.
Late 23rd century to mid 24th century: Uniforms replaced by a white turtleneck sirt, red coat and black pants. Rank indicated by a pin on the clasp for the coat. Sometime during the early 24th century turtlenecks are phased out. Featured in Star Trek II-VI, and a number of episodes of TNG that have flashbacks or other glimpses into the past (such as Jack Crusher's holorecording to his son).
Mid 24th century, 2350s? to mid 2360s: This is the uniform featured in the first two seasons of TNG. (I'm gretting tired of detailing these things. We all know what they look like, right?)
24th century, late 2360s: Uniform featured from 3rd season of TNG to 7th season of show.
24th century, late 2360's to early 2370s: This is the DS9 uniform, which apparently became a standard for all of Starfleet, as it becomes the Voyager uniform as well.
24th century, mid 2370s: This is the later DS9 uniform, also used in most of the TNG movies.
Here's what gets me: The uniforms style seem to change every couple of years for the most part. However, the movie uniform seems to have been in service for 60 or 70 years! Why does Starfleet keep changing the uniform around in the 3 24th century series timeframe, when the uniform seems relatively static from at least a year before Star Trek II to about 20 years before TNG? And the uniform from the first two seasons of TNG was apparently used for about 20 years as well (Picard's crewmates on the Stargazer wear them in the flashback scenes in "The Battle"). How come those two styles remained in place for so long were in other places the uniforms are changed much more quickly?
