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Data's Uniform Color


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I was watching TNG last night and something occored to me. From all the trek canon I've seen / read The color of your uniform during the TNG era identifies what you do on the ship. Red being command, Gold being engineering / security / ops, and Blue meaning medical / sciences.

 

Why does Data wear a gold uniform if he's the chief SCIENCE officer? Shouldn't he be wearing a blue one? Spock was the first officer and the chief science officer, he wore blue. From what I can tell, medical / science officers always have wore blue. Does this seem strange to anyone else? Maybe the producers gave him Gold to match his skin / eye color?

 

http://www.memory-alpha.org/en/index.php/Starfleet_uniform

<--- This is the most definitive description of what the uniform colors mean that I've found so far.

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True' date=' true Data's main post is Ops, but he's still the chief science officer, and does spend a lot of time at the science stations behind Tactical on the bridge.[/quote']

 

p'raps the stations on the bridge are multipurpose anyway.

 

and the thing about the gold make up was never an issue until late on. he was fairly pastey in the early seasons. but i agree he wouldnt suit green.

 

 

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Gold was command in the ENT / TOS eras, but in TNG gold is, as StevenofNine puts it, 'the services', the workers of the ship, Engineering, Security, Operations, Lunchladies, etc. (see the link in the first post in this topic for a full description of what color ment what, in every Trek era)

 

It makes sence for LaForge to wear gold, becuase he's the Chief of Engineering. He's an engineer, so he wears gold. Just like Picard Wears red, becuase he's the commanding officer, and Dr. Crusher is the Chief Medical Officer, so she wears blue (I'd like to open a new topic questioning her blue labcoat / smock some time, but one thing at a time :P )

 

It just seems reasonable that Data should be in blue. But at the same time, it also seems reasonable that they put him in gold for makeup reasons.

 

EDIT: I messud up the link up there here it is again.

http://www.memory-alpha.org/en/index.php/Starfleet_uniform

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The color the officer in question is wearing does not necessarily have to do with his prime/major function on the ship, but more with the function the officer is executing at that time. For example: geordi is chief engineer, that means he has a command function so he should be wearing red, in fact he does also wear red, but only in a few occasions. Since he is usually executing his function as engineer, without the emphasis on the chief and command functions, he usually wears gold. Same goes for data, although I have to admit I never ever saw him wear blue.

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yeh but he always sits at ops on the bridge though doesnt he?

 

that's a good point, but apart of being always in ops he is many times in engineering, so this makes him a better gold uniform than a blue one

 

i think it was taken by ratio;

 

he is more in : ops/engineering

he is never in medical

he is many times in science

 

just calculate the quantity by ratio and it could be explained :)

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  • 10 months later...

yes he was 3rd in command - i'm pretty sure he was gold cause he did help out Geordie a lot and did lots of the same kind of work Harry Kim did - managing senseors and all that

 

however - Data kinda has many talents - he has command experience - he has experience with Science and Medical stuff as well - so just because he's got a yellow uniform dosn't mean he has to be tied down to those positions...

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Exactly, he was in command when Picard and Riker were off duty. He was always in engineering helping Geordie out and he was also always running tons of experiments on that console of his that he had in the room.

 

In fact, being such an advanced life form. He could have pretty much done anything he wants. Captain, Chief of Enginering, Science Officer, Tactical Officer, hell. He could have been a one man crew.

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Slightly OT - But wouldnt it have been cool to see Data in command more often. He would kick ass as a Starship Captain!

 

Still think it was wrong to kill him off in Nemesis. I understand the issues with Brent getting on a little, but im sure the 'Trek Lords' would have been able to think up a reason for this - maybe an 'aging chip' hehe :-P

 

Someone above talked about Geordie wearing Red - Yes he did, but only in the early stages of the show when he was manning the Con. As soon as he was promoted to Chief engineer he switched to Yellow... matched his Visor more :-P

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Wahahaha is actually right. On the IMDB page for TNG they say that he was originally going to be a science officer but that would have clashed with his makeup.

 

To be honest though, Data being stuck as lt. commander for 7 years was so foolish. The guy saves the Enterprise and the Federations dozens of times over and they wouldn't give him his own command... ah well but yeah, I think it was his lack of people skills that kept him out the claret.

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Well aside from the debate on his rank and the uniform, people are pointing out how the blue would clash with his colors and/or might show up if he gets a smudge on them right?

 

Remember the few times he wore red when he was in a Command level of rank? Like some of the time travel episodes, or when Riker/Picard were thought missing/lost so someone got promoted? The red also clashed with him just like the blue. Granted the red was slightly more subtle than the blue.

 

Either way he looks best in gold. As far as we know by Nemesis (before his "death") he was happy to be in the rank he was. I mean come on, LaForge is still cheif engineer all those years later. At the least he should be teaching at the Academy, his work with starships and warp engines is genius. But alas he stuck with being Chief Engineer (just like Scotty told him to ;p ).

 

I think its just one of those minor things in canon we assume about cause they never really give us a ton of information to work with on such small things.

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I'm guessing that they all had chances to advance. Riker with his own command, Data getting his own command, Picard promoted to Admiral and perhaps mucking about in StarFleet. Beverly Crusher would have been Chief at StarFleet Medical Research and all that.

 

So basically they all decided to stick together and continue own with the whacky little adventures. If they didn't, TNG would have ended at season 4.

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