Insignia
Insignia
insignia
Provisional
Directive
The starfleet ranks with which we are familiar from the screen are generally officer ranks, the one character we know for certain from the films is not an officer is Chief Petty Officer Miles O'brien. So I shall begin with a look at the rank devices used.
| Rank Name | TOS Insignia | Movie Insignia | TNG insignia | Voyager Provisional | Prime Directive | notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ensign | | | | | No insignia of rank in TOS | |
| Lieutennant Junior Grade | | | | | | Never addressed by title, but seen in several episodes |
| Lieutennant | | | | | | Sometimes called "Full Lietennant", sometimes Lieutennant Senior Grade |
| Lieutennant Commander | | | | | | |
| Commander | | | | | | |
| Captain | | | | | | |
| Fleet Captain | | | | | Rank is canon, all insignia non. | |
| Commodore | | | | | Not actually seen yet in TNG/DS9/Voy | |
| Admiral | | | | | Differing styles by season |
In the original Star Trek Series, and the Animated Series, rank insignia are worn upon the sleeve cuffs in the Tunic and Trousers and the Scant Pattern uniforms, as well as the early command wrap-around uniform. The later command wraparound has them on the front of the shoulders, in a V-shaped pattern, point down and towards the center of the chest, on both sides. Rank insignia are not worn on the dress uniform, however full commanders and higher seem to wear a wide gold stripe down the front, while lesser officer ranks wear a simple gold piping edge on the front closure.
On long sleeved uniforms, the same insignia are worn as in TOS. On short sleeved uniforms, the stripes are worn upon a small (rougly 3/4 inch by 2 inch) tab upon each shoulder, with admirals replacing the wide stripe with an 8 pointed star on the tabs.
The ranks are worn on the wearer's right collar. Since this is a crew -necked uniformm, it actually puts the ranks just above the collarbone.
With the addition of the Mandarin collar to the uniforms, the rank is moved up to the mandarin collar, again on the wearer's right side only.
Voyager and DS9's 1st season uniforms are essentially identical. The later seasons of DS9 change the basic uniform pattern, but in all cases, the insignia are worn on the right side of the turtleneck collar.
The special devices worn during Movies 2 through 7 are worn on a strap over the right shoulder, as well as on the left cuff. My renditions are based solely upon what I've seen on film.
The period after the last of the ST movies but before the time of TNG. The uniform is the same as the TOS based movies, except for lacking the turtleneck, including the use of rank devices.
The 2008 movie uses TOS pattern insignia on all uniforms, except that the stripes are silver, not wavy, and instead of broken, they are thin. The black dress uniforms in Into Darkness use 2 black items per line, with Captain being 4 lines, and Commander 3.
The various flag officer grades are Comodore and the various admiral grades. The table below shows the known useages.
| Rank Name | TOS Insignia | Movie Insignia | TNG insignia | Prime Directive insignia |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Commodore | | |
 | |
| Rear Admiral | |
 |  | |
| Vice Admiral | |  | | |
| Admiral | |
| | |
| Fleet Admiral (Commander Starfleet) | |  | | |
| ||||
Since we do not see any enlisted personell specifically adressed as such in TOS, the only assumptions we can make from the films is that the miscellaneous gents in the jumpsuits might be enlisted. I highly suspect such, and the scripts' Dramtis Personae listings often label certain crew as "PO2" or "Yeoman, Second Class", who then appear in standard (officer's) uniform. We can assume, then, that indeed there should be enlisted personell, but that for some reason, the Enterprise of Kirk's time doesn't actively show grades on elisted personell, putting them all into Ensign uniforms. This is not without historical precedent, but was only done sporadically for certain fleet flagships. As for the movies, we again see a jumpsuit that clearly looks distinctive from the officers, to the point of having a different Starfleet Pin on the breast! We know that red was for cadets, so the jumpsuits appear to be Enlisted and Cadet uniforms, since not all of the jumpsuits have the bright red with the maroon. In TNG, telling the Officers from the Enlisted is very difficult... It wasn't until DS9 that we were clearly informed that Chief O'Brien really was a Chief Petty Officer, and wears two disks. Later, he is swiched to 3 rockers That throws us back to semi- or non-official sources. The best sources I can find are the various roleplaying games: FASA's STRPG, TFG's Prime Directive, and LUG's TNGRPG. LUG has said nothing about enlisted ranks yet, and FASA has different ranks for TOS and TNG.
| Rank | FASA TOS | Movies Era | FASA TNG | PD | PD Titles | DS9 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| recruit |  | Recruit |  | |||
| Specialist 3c | n/a |  | n/a | n/a |  | |
| Specialist 2c |  |  |  |  | Specialist |  |
| Specialist 1c |  |  | |  | Junior PO |  |
| Chief Specialist | n/a | |  | PO3 | n/a | |
| PO2 |  |  | | | PO2 |  |
| PO1 |  |  | | | PO1 |  |
| CPO |  |  | |   | Master PO |  |
| SCPO |  |  | n/a |  | Chief PO |  |
| MCPO |  |  | n/a | n/a | n/a |  |
Notes
| ||||||
Warrant Officers are specialists, who have authority as per a commissioned officer, and usually the perks, but have not been through the formal procedures of becoming an officer (In this case, going through Star Fleet Acadamy). Their existance can be inferred in TNG from a couple of individuals with "Square Pips". Whether they actually exist is a matter of conjecture. FASA trek has warrants for certain. Prime Directive does have warrants, but they are only mentioned in a single essay. [CL#7, IIRC.] LUG trek has made no mention of Warrants.
| Rank | FASA TOS | FASA TNG |
|---|---|---|
| Warrant |  |  |
| Chief Warrant |  | |
| Senior Chief Warrant | n/a | |
Notes
| ||
We know that cadets do wear some insignia; we see Mr. Finnagan, as he appeared during his and Kirk's Acadamy days, in one episode. The comic books also show some cadets. In ST-2 TWOK, we see the Movie Era's cadets. In TOS, and again in DS9 and Voyager, we get glimses of cadets at various times. Midshipmen are simply cadets who have completed the Acadamy education, but are undergoing a sort of final exam, known as the cadet cruise. Historically, a Midshipsman was an officer candidate, and slept in the mid-ship holds, hence the term.
| Rank | TOS | FASA TOS | FASA TNG | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cadet |  |  | no insignia | |
| Midshipsman | | |  | |
| Year | TNG | Notes | ||
| 1st year cadet |  | |||
| 2nd year cadet | | |||
| 3rd year cadet | | |||
| 4th year cadet | | |||
| Midshipman | | Note: This one is conjecture. | ||
| TOS Cadet ranks are sleeve/cuff stripes. TNG Cadet devices are worn upon the right collar, as with officer stripes. Note that Mr. Crusher, while wearing what appears to be a grey cadet uniform, wears no rank device whilst an "Acting Ensign". Movie Era Maroon uniforms seem to be the enlisted uniform, but with the red strap of the "Training" branch. Saavik, who is already commissioned, but apparently undergoing some advanced training, also was wearing the red strap. The TNG cadet bars appeared to be raised, textured, slate gray plastic. | ||||
In Voyager, we get to see some new and interesting devices appearing on the collars of Star Fleet Uniforms. The Maquis individuals, upon being integrated into Voyager's crew, wear a different set of rank devices from the Starfleet Regulars. These devices, as best I can tell are delineated by a pattern of raised lines on the silver base metal, with some having a black enamelled segment. I'm not going to draw them until I can get a better look at them.
It is interesting to note that if indeed the films/shows show klingon ranks by any means other than uniform type, there are not enough good closeups for me to detect them clearly on my TV. Likewise, the Cardascians also lack any clearly visible rank distinctions. Having only ever seen one Gorn, the sample is too small to make any direct decisions about them.
In TOS, the romulans can be ranked apparently by the color of the uniform's "Stole". While I am not certain, I believe Sub-Commander and Commander wear Red, while centurians wear Blue, and crew don't appear to wear a stole. TNG era romulans are much harder to figure, but my current theory is the configuration of the shoulder straps.
The officer stripes in TOS are not straight stripes. They actually are about 1cm wide, with a wavy bit that extends the overall stripe to about 2cm wide overall. Admiral Stripes are about 6cm wide, with a border of the standard 2cm wavy stripe, for a total of about 8cm overall width. The "Half Stripes" or "Broken Stripes" are made of the same material. All the officer stripes are gold.
The TOS Cadet and Warrant stripes are simple, straight edged, 1cm wide stripes in gold and silver, respectively.
The Enlisted Stripes should probably be black, about 1cm wide, and worn so the Arrowhead is just below the Left Shoulder, with the top of the stripe some 3cm below the bottom of the insignia. Note also that the arrowhead, prior to the completion of the Enterprise's 5-year mission, was the insignia of the Enterprise, and only later did Starfleet adopt the arrowhead as the Fleet symbol. So, prior to this time frame, the arrohead would be replaced with ship's insignia.
Prime Directive the a Role-Playing Game set in a "Divergent" Star Trek Universe. This universe is known as the "Star Fleet Universe", a trademard of Amarillo Design Bureau. All SFU starfleet ranks use full or broken stripes in place of pips in the patterns of the TOS ranks through Captain. Then they have FLeet Captain, who wears 4 stripes, with a space between the middle two, and a star centered on the outside of the sleeve, or the center of the epaullette. Then Flag officers wear stars, or a single wide stripe, plus one full normal stripe per grade above commodore.