Star Trek: The Next Generation The Starfleet officers and crewmembers seen in
The Next Generation wear a
jumpsuit with a Starfleet
communicator badge (or 'combadge' as it was sometimes called) on the left chest and rank insignia on the right side of the collar. The black areas are seen on the shoulders and the pants, and the uniforms's sleeves and abdominal area are colored to indicate the individual's division, with red indicating command and helm; gold for engineering, security, and operations; and blue for science and medical (
TNG: "
Encounter at Farpoint"). The division colors for command and operations switched from those used in
Enterprise and
TOS while the division color for science stayed the same. In early episodes some crew members can be seen wearing a tunic version of the uniform with bare legs and boots ("skant").
Beverly Crusher often wears a blue
laboratory coat over her standard uniform, beginning in
TNG: "
The Naked Now." The lab coat was used extensively to hide
Gates McFadden's pregnancy in the fourth season. The blue tended to appear teal under certain lighting conditions in the later seasons and subsequent spinoffs. In some episodes of the later seasons, starting in
TNG: "
Darmok",
Jean-Luc Picard would sometimes wear a different uniform that consisted of a gray shirt with black ribbed shoulders and collar with a "
bomber jacket" that was red overall with black ribbed shoulders, often worn open or very loosely fastened. The uniforms could be fitted with pouches for carrying
tricorders and Type 2
phasers on the waist, and the early versions had a small pocket built in on the left side of the waist for carrying a smaller Type 1 phaser when appearing openly armed was not desired. The removable gear pouches were also incorporated into the uniforms used in
DS9 and the
TNG-era films from
First Contact onward. In the show's early seasons the uniforms were one-piece jumpsuits made of
Spandex, and sized slightly too small so that they would be stretched when worn and provide a smooth appearance. But the cast members hated the uniform's painfully tight fit and lack of pockets, and after Patrick Stewart's chiropractor warned that they risked permanent injury, the actors persuaded the costumers to gradually replace them with wool uniforms. The wool uniforms, which most main cast members wear from the third season onward, are two-piece (tunic and pants) designs for male crew members and single-piece for female crew members, that lack colored piping on the shoulders and edges of the pant leg cuffs and have a raised collar. The collar of the tunic has a colored piping similar to that of the original diamond-shaped shoulder piping. The spandex uniforms continued to make appearances throughout
TNG, usually worn by
extras in various scenes. These were later altered to lack the piping on the shoulders and trouser hems and include a raised collar as a cost-cutting measure. Admirals wore numerous different uniform variations in the early years of
TNG; a final design was settled on for all admirals in the sixth season onwards, featuring a jacket with gold piping along a centered front closure, and rank pips (indicating the number of "stars"), in gold squares on either side of the collar. The
TNG dress uniform, which continued to be used in
Deep Space Nine and
Voyager, is a colored wraparound robe-like coat of a solid division color, save for black shoulders. The edges of the coats are piped in silver for
field officers and in gold for
flag officers. For the first few seasons of TNG, this coat was knee-length and had piping all around the edge; in later seasons, as well as DS9 and Voyager, the coat was shortened to just above the thighs, and the piping was removed from the side. Other uniform designs appeared briefly in individual episodes, always following the theme of a colored or differentiated shoulder yoke. Examples include cadet uniforms in several episodes (including "
The First Duty"). Wesley Crusher's 'Acting Ensign' gray costume was never specifically identified as a uniform, but it also exhibited a shoulder yoke design. Theiss, the costume designer from the original series, returned to design the initial
TNG uniforms; they marked his last contribution to
Star Trek wardrobe before he died. The costumes adopted from season 3 onward and later series' costumes were designed by Robert Blackman. During all the shows set in the 24th century, a consistent insignia scheme is used for officers: a series of gold pips, either a solid color or an outline, worn on the right collar. After the first season of
Star Trek: The Next Generation, a consistent scheme is also used for admiral insignia: a series of gold circles inside a black rectangle with a gold border worn on both collars. This new combadge is also used in
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine from season three onward, and in
Star Trek: Voyager. Cadet ranks are rarely ever seen, with the exception of the various visits from Wesley Crusher to the
Enterprise in
TNG. As it appears in those instances, it can be surmised that the insignia of a Cadet consists of one, two, three, or four copper and black bars, similar to those of a modern Lieutenant in the
United States Army. It can also be surmised that if a cadet has one bar, he has one year at the academy, two bars for two years, and so on. Enlisted ranks are seen even less; their insignia are unclear.
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Deep Space Nine introduced a new style of uniform that appeared to run in parallel to the one seen on
TNG. The new uniform comprised a single two-piece open-necked jumpsuit with the colored and black areas of the
TNG uniform reversed (black torso/sleeves/pants and colored shoulders) with the upper part being a removable jacket along with a visible zipper, resembling the
TNG cadet uniforms. The division colors use the same
TNG scheme, though the science division is now blue-green. A grayish-indigo mock turtleneck undershirt was added, to which rank pips are affixed.
Miles O'Brien (who is the first character to wear the
DS9 uniform) is the only character in the series to have the sleeves of the uniform rolled up. The characters of
Major Kira and
Odo did not wear Starfleet uniforms, as they were part of the Bajoran militia. Throughout the run of
DS9, ship-based Starfleet personnel continue to wear the older uniform design. Sisko also wore the
TNG uniform on certain formal occasions, during his first arrival at
DS9 (in the series pilot episode, "
Emissary"), and when he was temporarily given the duties of "Head of Security" for Starfleet Headquarters on Earth (in the Season 4 episode, "
Paradise Lost"). Admirals also retained the
TNG style. A uniform similar to that appearing in the
DS9 series can be seen in the
TNG Season 3 episode "Allegiance", worn by the alien masquerading as a Starfleet cadet. The
DS9 uniforms were first used in the premiere episode, "
Emissary" and would continued to be used up to the Season 5 episode, "
The Ascent". Following the release of
Star Trek: First Contact, the new gray movie uniform design also appeared in
DS9s fifth season and for the remainder of the series. However, the old
DS9 uniform appears four more times following the introduction of the movie gray uniform design in the Season 5 episodes, "
In Purgatory's Shadow" and "
By Inferno's Light" worn by the real Dr. Julian Bashir while still being trapped in the Internment Camp 371 as well as the Season 7 episode, "
Field of Fire" in a photograph and in the flashback scenes of the series finale, "
What You Leave Behind".
Star Trek Generations New uniforms were designed and made for the film
Star Trek Generations, but were abandoned at the last minute. These included a fastening on the right side of the chest and a slightly more militaristic approach with rank bandings on the sleeves (similar to the
TOS uniforms), a colored collar, and the lack of a black "W" shape on the abdomen. On the abandoned costumes for the female crew-members, instead of the additional fastening, there was a higher black band around the waist. Despite their not appearing in the film,
Playmates Toys released a number of action figures wearing these planned uniforms.
Generations instead has the crew wearing both
TNG and
DS9 uniforms, sometimes in the same scene (for instance, Worf and Riker in the battle against the Duras Sisters' Bird of Prey or Data and Geordi scanning the Amargosa Observatory for trilithium), as there was only enough time to make DS9-style costumes to fit on Patrick Stewart and Brent Spiner, so Jonathan Frakes and LeVar Burton had to borrow Avery Brooks and Colm Meaney's costumes, respectively. Neither borrowed costume fit very well, as Brooks' costume was too small on Frakes, which resulted in the sleeves being rolled up (similar to Miles O'Brien's on
Deep Space Nine), and Meaney's costume looked too big on Burton. Picard, Riker, Data and LaForge are the only four characters in the
TNG crew to wear the
DS9 uniform in the film. Picard wears a black belt around the waist with the DS9 uniform. Worf is the only male member of the
TNG crew to not wear the
DS9 uniform in the film, although he would later join the
Deep Space Nine crew in the show's fourth season. None of the female characters, except Nurse Alyssa Ogawa, wear the
DS9 uniform in the film. As the film progresses, some characters alternate between the
TNG and
DS9 uniforms and sometimes switch back to the old
TNG uniforms (for instance, Picard switches back to the
TNG uniform in the film's last scene). The new style combadge (with the previous gold oval background replaced by a rectangular gold background with a cutout in the center) was also introduced for all uniform types. This combadge was subsequently adopted for
DS9 at the beginning of its third season and for
Voyager.
Star Trek: Voyager The crew in
Star Trek: Voyager use the same uniforms seen in the early episodes of
Deep Space Nine throughout the show's run. Because they were stuck in the Delta Quadrant and out of contact with Starfleet, the
Voyager crew never made the switch to the updated uniform seen in later
DS9 episodes and in the last three
TNG films; they continued to use the old
DS9 uniforms, although in the episode "
Message in a Bottle" the EMH mark II is wearing the later
DS9/movie gray
TNG uniform. Starfleet personnel back in the Alpha Quadrant are seen wearing this uniform in later seasons of the show as well, when
Voyager reestablishes contact with home. The crew also wears the
TNG-style dress uniforms (
VOY: "
Course: Oblivion", "
Someone to Watch Over Me", "
One Small Step", "
Ashes to Ashes"). the crew was shown to be wearing black undershirts with a high collar (turtleneck style) instead of the usual grayish-indigo undershirts with a low collar, no
combadges or rank insignia, while some were wearing black gloves including Captain
Kathryn Janeway. This was in the context of historical records that wrongly asserted that Voyager's crew had acted in a malign manner, until corrected by
The Doctor, who was brought back to life 700 years in the future after a "relic" (containing a backup copy of his program) was discovered among wreckage and his program was recovered. The
Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "
Parallels" used an alternate combadge design where rank was denoted by the number of bars behind the arrowhead. Variations in uniforms and insignia are occasionally used as plot devices in the various series. In the episode "
Future Imperfect", the insignia are slightly altered so as to convince a character that 16 years have passed. In the episode, "Parallels", variations in uniforms and insignia suggest a meeting of characters from different parallel universes. ==Prequel era==