Uniform Confirmation from Trekmovie.com

Yeah there was an odd-shaped one worn by the Antares crew members in Charlie X.

 

It was kind of a sun/starburst pattern.

That was a balloony "B" turned ccw about 45 degrees. You can see it at the first link below. For those ships with unique insignia, you can see all of them at these links.

http://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/schematics/starfleet_ships1.htm
http://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/schematics/starfleet_ships2.htm

 

We only saw Bob Wesley wearing the shore/base starburst broach (it was a found 60s item; a piece of costume jewelry). Everyone on the Lexington had their backs to the camera, except for Wesley, when the bridge was shown.

In "Charlie X," there was an odd-shaped heart with swirls, like the science insignia, in the middle on the Antares crew uniforms (which were redressed pilot unis).

No new ship patch was seen in "Bread and Circuses."

However, in "Court Martial," we saw officers not stationed on the Big E wearing the delta. It was also seen, somewhat obscured, on the Defiant crew in "The Tholian Web." Although, the ENT producers decided to create a patch for that ship.

 

Regarding ENT, I seem to recall that they folks who did that episode borrowed a fan-created insignia design for the Defiant... anyone able to confirm/deny that?

 

Mike Okuda adapted the "boomerang" chevron that is part of the TOS Enterprise's hull markings (visible on either side of the engineering hull and on the outboard sides of the nacelles) into the uniform insignias for the Defiant in the "Star Trek Enterprise" episodes.

http://ent.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/4x19/inamirrordarkly2_226.jpg

http://tos.trekcore.com/hd/albums/1x20hd/courtmartialhd002.jpg

http://tos.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/2x15/TOS_2x13_TheTroubleWithTribbles0119-Trekpulse.jpg

 

Ah, yes, that's right...

WELL, THEN... let's say that "everything we've seen on-screen is canon." Meaning... the "arrowhead" and the "chevron" and all the other things we've seen may not be specific to ONE starship.

Maybe it's more of an issue with "fleets of ships?" That is... say, the "first fleet" has the arrowhead, the "second fleet" has the chevron, the "third fleet" has the "swirly do-dad" and so on.

Maybe that's why there were "twelve like her in the fleet." Each of the twelve Federation Starfleet subfleets got one ship representing it in the "12-ship Explorer upgrade" which got sent on a 5-year "beyond the boundaries of known space" exploratory/expansionary mission?

You might then argue that "fleet 0x0x0..." or the "home fleet" headquartered at Earth had a particular symbol.

Maybe that subfleet even had been formed out of what had previously been called the "United Earth Space Probe Agency?"

 

I think it's even simpler and jibes with what the TOS producers seemed to have in mind. Each ship had its own symbol. Starfleet decided to honour the Enterprise and her missions by switching to the Arrowhead design after her famous five year mission.

 

I'll give you an even simpler one: The arrowhead was always the Starfleet emblem and was also used by the Starfleet flagship, which, by some interpretations, happened to be the Enterprise.

Regardless, about 95% of the people in this world have no clue that different ships in TOS used different emblems, so why bog down the new movie with such a trivial item that will simply be confusing to most people?

They shouldn't.

 

Works for me!

Exactly. The problem is the people who think that not only is it not trivial, but it's of some paramount (ha) importance because that's the way Gene did it.

Gene was just a man, folks. A dope-smoking womanizing greedy man, who happened to have an idea for a great TV show.

 

Many great visionaries throughout history have been drug takers or had multiple sexual partners - that matters not one bit, nor does it diminish their vision.

 

Nor does the fact that an idea they once had, grown (and changed) by the blood, sweat and tears of countless people over 40 years make them some kind of infallible saint whose "vision" should be set in stone.

Star Trek was Gene's idea. The "vision" that it became was the result of a team of people, and would no doubt have changed if the show lasted more than three seasons. So I have no problem with the new crew putting their own spin on it, as long as the central core is there.

Delta symbols and where the Enterprise was built are bullshit in comparison.

 

Hey I'm not all that hung up on such a small issue myself (though I will admit, it's a tad incongruous when every other piece of info we have about the upcoming movie indicates they have gone to great lengths to preserve the original flavour of Trek). I am eagerly awaiting JJ's new interpretation of Star Trek and wish him all the luck in the world. I want the new film to be a big success as much as any of you.

I'm just pointing out that reflecting on the fact that Gene was a flawed human being is not in itself reason enough to disregard him or his creative vision.

 

My kind of scum, as Jabba said.

 

I like that one, but the only way to accept that is to accept that some stuff seen on-screen (ie, "background" characters in episodes like "Court Martial") wear the arrowhead and aren't on the Enterprise.

There's another argument against the "every ship has its own symbol" too... which isn't an issue with a small fleet but becomes an issue with a large one. That is... just how many unique, recognizable, but still relatively SIMPLE designs of that sort can you actually come up with? If there are only a few dozen ships in the fleet, it's not all that big of a deal. But if there are hundreds, or thousands, of ships, each with its own "unique" symbol... well... what, you start seeing symbols which are almost identical except being a millimeter off here or there, I guess, huh?

I like the "as the producers intended" approach... and I like the "arrowhead got adopted for everybody after the 5-year-mission" idea. But there are definitely some issues with insignia in the original series... we know that there are different ones (for "main character" guest stars) but we also know that there are other ships or crews using the Enterprise one.

You have to accept one or the other, and reject one or the other... or you have to try to "massage" both to fit into some "third way" approach. That's what I was trying to come up with. Yeah, there's no on-screen evidence to support it, but it's the only thing I've come up with so far which could make EVERYTHING we've seen on-screen make sense.

Otherwise, we'll all just have to keep fighting ("the arrowhead was always the only Starfleet symbol!" "No, the guys we saw wearing it weren't 'really' wearing that, it's only a production cheat!" "WAAARRRRRR!!!!!")

 

Well, to be fair... the same 95% of the people in this world you mention, probably have no idea what the "arrowhead" is in the first place.

Anyone who's big enough into Trek to recognize that symbol (or to CARE... much less "get confused" by it's replacement or misuse) probably already knows that each ship had its own symbol during TOS.

 

Sorry, that post wasn't meant as an attack on you. It's just that so often these days I hear these statements that the movie will suck or people won't go to see it because it's "not Gene's vision".

I just felt that some need reminding that he was just a flawed human being. After all, you won't find a television history book with the words of Gene in red. And as a human being just as flawed as you or me, his "vision" certainly has room for improvement or modification. We saw his pure vision in season one of TNG, a future as dull as dishwater. What we saw in TOS was not all his vision; there were many other contributors.

And on a secondary level, how these people think that delta shields and construction yard locations have one iota of relationship to "the vision" that is at the core of Star Trek just boggles my mind.

Peace.

 

No problem, and peace right back at you

The big appeal of Trek for me has always been it's prophecy of an optimistic future for mankind. As long as that's there intact they can change all sorts of superficial details and it will still be Trek to me. I think in this day and age of doom and gloom we could all do with a little vision of hope for the future. Hopefully the time will be ripe for just that in May 2009.

 

Ditto!

 

i like the new uniforms, cuz they remind me of a super quazi futuristic space age material. just like velour was for tos