So, I'm planing on making a reboot of Star Trek (yes, yet another, blame JJ!:rolleyes:), and I've decided to start by the uniforms.
The idea here is for each departament (command/science/medical/engineering/security) to have it's own color. I'm going for a colorful and TOS like aproach on the design.
I'm still not sure what to do with security, as I want Command to wear red but I also want security to wear red (You know, so that they can die on away missions;)), most likely I'll end up making Command wear orange.
-The ranks (Captain/Commander/Lieutenant/Ensign) are displayed both on the sleeves like in TOS (for easy recognition on distance) and on the neck like in TNG (for easy recognition when comunicating via subspace video)
-The gray thing on the chest of the uniform will display the user's name and assignment. Eg: McCoy - U.S.S. Enterprise.
-They are made of some kind of nanofiber (something that scientists are playing around with today, but that was beyond anyone imagination (at least anyone who worked at Star Trek) on the 60') that make it adjust to the outside temperature to be always comfortable, whether you are on an artic wasteland or inside a volcano (well, I guess it wouldn't actually protect you inside a volcano, but you get the point).
Anyway, please comment and criticise so that I can add more to this uniforms!
Oh, and by the way, I've found some time to get to work on the Buenos Aires, when I find the time to set up Kerkythea I'll post an update on that!
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2) Why not have command wear the same color as security? Do you have to be locked in to the TOS ideas of what departments wear what colors? Science and Medicine clearly go together, but why does Security and Engineering go together while Command and Navigation do?
3) Have you thought about changing the color stripe on the trousers from horizontal to vertical? Similar to the 'blood stripe' worn by US Marine NCOs and officers?
4) How are you planning to do the half-stripes for the Lieutenant grades?
Any idea yet on the formal wear?
I also wonder how the all-red TMP uniforms would look.
Actually, if you wanna follow TOS closer, each ship had their own symbol, so you could have the name on the left, ala ST:Enterprise, and the ship symbol on the right. that would easily tell observers which ship/crew the crewman belonged to.
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A lack of symbols for ships, brains failure to memorise all ships, or a lack of names for ships.
You know, I never thought about making command green, I kinda like the idea but I also like the orange, I don't know yet.:D
I've also included a vertical line in one of the uniforms' trousers instead of the horizontal one. I prefer the original, horizontal line on the boots, but again, I'm not sure.:p
About the ship symbol: what Aresius said, the idea is for the people to know where someone serves, not to have to memorize 2000 symbols.
Walkyrje:1- Most likely there will also be some ships that aren't U.S.S., so I'll be displaying that.
2- Because I want every departament to have a diferent color.
4- I won't be doing a Lieutenant Jr. or a Lieutenant Commander rank. This isn't supposed to be a navy of 21st century Earth, but a navy from an aliance of more than 150 species, each one with a diferent idea of what a navy is supposed to be. So the idea is that Starfleet takes the best ideas of all of them and combine them, thust the "simplified" ranks:
Captain: ship commander
Commander: chief of departament (CoD)
Lieutenant: bridge crew, CoD helpers, night shift CoD
Ensign: The rest, less experienced crew
JohnnyMuffintop: Not yet, I'm open to suggestions!
What about going full medical green (teal?) for such department? That partial white seems a bit inconsistent (full white would be interesting, although I don't know if it would work with such form-fitting suits and black pants: it seems to work better with looser ones, such as McCoy's in ST:TWOK)
The horizontal line in the boots is a bit unexpected, but I'd rather have that than the vertical ones: I'd like Starfleet to be less formally militaristic, which is something I liked in ST:TMP's and ST:TNG's first season's uniforms.
I'd suggest going with the vertical strip on the trousers. It doesn't make me think solely of military uniforms with the vertical rather than horizontal stripes. Look at a lot of police and firefighter uniforms. In that it very readily relates to civil service positions. The green would be great for captains only, IMO. Other command positions could still be red. Heck, you could even make the XO orange so that the two most prominent positions aboard a starship are easily recognizable.
As far as the name tags go, perhaps another suggestion...ditch the rank pips on the collar. If you were to do that you could set up the name tags with stripes to denote rank and the name, i.e. ( //// KIRK ), ( /// SPOCK ), etc. If you were to go with the ethos that starships during this time each had individual symbols that would negate the need to spell out which ship a person belonged to. That would be a nice way to get away from a more military feel.
I still think gold is better for command, though. Otherwise, how would we deal with redshirts? Kirk can't be a redshirt!
I also dig the nanomaterial concept. Considering Star Trek takes place 250 years from now, couldn't the uniforms have all sorts of amazing features built in? Nanomaterials with heating/cooling isn't even that advanced really. I'd go so far as to wager a uniform like these might have a full biometric suite, emergency environmental sealing capability (it turns into a space-suit when exposed to vacuum or dangerous atmospheres), emergency medical technology like the ability to seal wounds, promote healing of tissue, and administer doses of stimulants or painkillers, and maybe even stiffen to set fractures, and administer cardiac resuscitation. It'd be like wearing a miniature sickbay.
Juvat: I was going to make the CO and XO wear a different uniform but not something like a full diferent color, more like something subtle as shown below.
Ironscythe: I like the ideas about the "personal sickbay", and I'll most likely apply them, though I'm not sure about making them space suits, I'll have to experiment with that.
juanxer: I like the idea of the pockets, and the uniforms are designed with flexibility in mind. You don't have to change to a dress uniform, the uniform will change for you, same thing if you get promoted, the captain will get the order to the computer and your rank will automaticaly change.
Comments and critics always welcome!
When I say spacesuit, I don't mean a real, full EVA suit. I just mean an emergency vacuum/environment seal and maybe an hour or two of oxygen. Since the uniforms can alter their appearance by rank changing, maybe they can emit light to make retrieval easier in space. In combat, you could also have everyone activate their suits and then lower the atmospheric pressure in the ship to reduce the chances of fires. You could also save on powering emergency forcefields or stuff like that.
Look at other series, like Gundam for example. Most of that franchise's series has people wearing space suits when in combat situations, even in the very core of big spaceships, and even if they have stuff like shields (which is rare).
I'd go more dark green or all black with department specific singular chest-strip (and no wrist color strips, I always thought the wrist-strips were stupid) for Kirk-era Starfleet MACO's. Include 2011-appropriate wrap-around sunglasses (with interior heads-up display & pinhole camera forward holo-recorder,) in addition to the usual PADD, Audio/Visual & text-message capable wrist-communicator, phase-pistol side-arm, phaser rifles/carbines, grenades, bayonette, mission-specific tricorder, etc.
The COMbadge will be used as the comunicator, and video and text messages will be displayed holographicaly in front of you by a proyector in the chest.
I've finished the "Guy" wearing the uniform, I'll be using him when I create the interiors as reference.
Not sure about the collar pins, though. As for showing rank on a communications broadcast, it seems that if one could establish 2-way video/audio (with language translation no less), then adding subtitles identifying the speaker to the video would be simple.
Hey, I like Bill's pajamas:D! My idea was to avoid having them look like contemporary uniforms, more like something that would be wearable 250 years from now, but not necesary today. And, if you would have read my first post before posting, the uniforms have all the things you've mentioned. Except head gear, but I'll come to that.
Maybe you can answer something for me. I heard you are not allowed to salute someone while inside?
I have heard that the Army may salute uncovered. Since I didn't serve in the Army, I don't know if this is true or false.
It was stated earlier that Rekkert was trying to avoid too military of a look. Everything you just suggested goes the complete opposite direction of what he's trying to accomplish.
1 cookie to whoever gets that last bit!