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I'm working on a story set in the TOS movie era (post-Wrath of Khan) and I need help understanding who would have worn what division color on the bridge of the Starship. I've linked two bridge layouts below (a Connie variant and an Excelsior) with the crew positions labeled. My biggest problem is figuring out Tactical wore and who besides the Captain wears Command white. Any help on this would be great!

Constitution Class Deck 1, from cygnus-x1.net

Excelsior Class Deck 1, from cygnus-x1.net

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Due to the time period, we're talking about the maroon uniforms. Immediately post Wrath of Khan is still early enough that they haven't abandoned the undershirts - the uniform seen on the crew of the Bozeman (circa 2278) appears to be complete, while later uniforms seen on the crew of the Enterprise-C (circa 2344) and on Jack Crusher (circa 2349) omit the undershirt.

As you've already mentioned, a 2270 era captain is the only person who regularly wears white aboard ship. According to Memory Alpha, other than medical sciences (green), cadets (red), and helm or engineering officers (explicitly separated from the other operations staff with gold), everybody else wears grey.

Constitution Class

On the Constitution class, you have:

  • White - Commanding Officer (15)

  • Gold - Engineering (3), Propulsion (4), Damage Control (5), Helm (14)

  • Grey - Communications (2), Auxiliary Systems (8), Defense Systems (9), Weapons Systems (10), Tactical (11), Science (12), Navigation (13)

I've deliberately skipped Environment (6) - it is equally plausible for such a station to be occupied by an engineer, scientist, or even medical sciences crew.

I've flagged the combat related positions as grey as well, because they're clearly none of the others. Anecdotally primarily due to the change in uniform, Chekov was the weapons officer during the first film, and wore grey in all the other films.

The dedication plaque (0), master systems display (1), main viewscreen (7), space suit locker (16), and airlock control (17) would look pretty silly in uniform. The upholstery and carpet involved can vary, though.

Excelsior Class

Helm is renamed Conn (short for flight control), so the only truly new element is "Mission Ops". A little further in the future, but TNG Technical Manual hangs mission ops on the first word, mission. What kind of officer would occupy the station depends on the currently active mission - sometimes, it isn't occupied at all.

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  • Thanks T.J.L. I had actually completely forgotten all about posting this question until last night. I'd already settled on roughly the same setup as you commented. As far as Environment, Mission Ops, and Ops Management go on the Excelsior (the main ship for my story's captain; he was Chief Tactical and then First Officer on the Connie), I selected gold for Enviro (I liked having a full "Engineering Quarter" on the bridge), and grey for the assorted Ops stations. For the Aux stations I imagine they'd be kept empty with any division(s) taking over the consoles depending on the current needs.
    – SpaceWolf1701
    Commented Jul 22, 2017 at 22:21
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Wrath of Khan took place around 2285. You can consult memory alpha for more uniform details than you'll probably know what to do with.

https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Starfleet_uniform_(late_2270s-2350s)

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  • Hello Adam, welcome to Science Fiction & Fantasy. How about a summary of what can be found at the other end of your link? We prefer our answers to be self-contained. Have you taken the tour yet?
    – SQB
    Commented Mar 18, 2017 at 10:00
  • Thanks. Memory Alpha was the first place I looked, but there's still no indication of what a Tactical Officer wore at the time, since as far as I know there was no dedicated Tac Officer onscreen until Tasha and Worf took the role in TNG (regardless of every Movie-era bridge I've seen having a dedicated Tac station). Sulu and Chekov both had the ability to fire weapons, but Sulu wore Ops Yellow and Chekov wore Ops Grey, and neither was a dedicated Tac to begin with. Hence my confusion.
    – SpaceWolf1701
    Commented Mar 18, 2017 at 18:14
  • The uniform depends on division, not bridge post. The tac officer wears whatever colour belongs to their division. Presumably every bridge officer could be command division, but there's a greater chance of e.g. tac being security, comm being science, helm being engineering, etc.
    – OrangeDog
    Commented Mar 19, 2017 at 10:06
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    Hi OrangeDog. I know it's based on division, hence my initial question being what division colors. It's easier in TNG and TOS, since there were only three colors overall. Looking at the Excel bridge picture, I'd assume only the Captain wears Command white. Helm, Engineering, and Propulsion would wear Ops ochre at the time; Science, Comms, and Nav would wear Ops grey. What I'm curious about is the Mission Ops officers and tactical, if they would wear grey or ochre based on the TWOK division colors, and who else would wear Command white (if anyone).
    – SpaceWolf1701
    Commented Mar 22, 2017 at 5:31

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