![[ img ]](https://i.imgur.com/l4WaKDy.png)
In Alis Somniorum Ad Astra
- Starfleet motto
Founded in 2161, Starfleet Command is the deep space exploratory and defense arm of the United Federation of Planets. Its primary functions are the advancement of the Federation’s knowledge of the galaxy and its inhabitants, the facilitation of diplomacy with non-Federation powers, and the defense of the Federation, and on occasion all sentient life, from various threats.
This study explores in exacting detail the history, organization, uniforms, and equipment of Starfleet from the 13 years between the end of the Four Years War in 2258 and the V’Ger incident in 2271. Often referred to as the height of Starfleet’s ‘golden era’ this time period was home to some of the most influential events and important discoveries in Federation history, playing host to the adventures of such famous ships as the Enterprise, Kongou, Alliance, and many others.
- People-at-Arms, Starfleet Command (2258-2271), cover description
Over the course of Starfleet's long and illustrious history its members have worn a wide mix of hundreds of different uniform types and styles. Depicted here are three Starfleet officers, representing just some of the uniforms worn by members of the organization between 2258 and 2271.
From left to right, these are:
- Dress Uniform, Scorpioni Variant, Sleeveless Standard Tunic Type, Operations Division Colors, with various medals.
- Working Uniform, Humanoid Variant, Short-Sleeve Wraparound Tunic Type, Command Division Colors.
- Working Uniform, Humanoid Variant, Long-Sleeve Standard Tunic Type, Sciences Division Colors, with utility belt, communicator, and tricorder.
Starfleet uniforms are colored to represent the division within Starfleet which the crewmember works within, and have rank identified by stripes on either the sleeves or shoulders. They come in several variants, the first and most common being working uniforms. These themselves have many sub-variants, including short and long-sleeved options, high and low-collar options, and the choice between tunics and skants. Starfleet command staff, which typically comprises officers of Lieutenant grade and up, have access to an additional working uniform sub-variant if they wish - a wraparound, depicted here on the middle character, which again comes with short and long-sleeve options. The other most commonly seen variants are dress uniforms, which are worn at events of importance or ceremonial value, and jumpsuits, which are worn when a working uniform is not available, by those who don’t have uniforms but need to do work that requires one such as non-Starfleet visitors, and in various other niche applications. In addition various other uniforms are available when the situation demands it, these include lab coats, jumpsuits, medical garbs, cold and hot weather clothing such as coats, various pieces of footwear, gloves, and eye protection, and in extreme cases entire hazardous environment suits.
All Starfleet uniforms, even dress uniforms and jumpsuits, are made of many layers of various advanced and in some cases highly classified materials designed to protect the wearer. These materials allow them to safely deflect directed energy blasts of up to half a megawatt, make them almost impossible to directly pierce, and are capable of locally and highly rapidly rigidizing to spread the kinetic energy from blunt-force impacts such as gunshots over a wide area. In particularly hazardous environments, additional pieces of protective equipment such as helmets, gloves, and specialized body armor are available. When fully equipped with them a Starfleet officer or crewmember, using just a regular long-sleeve working uniform, gloves, a helmet, and a chest-mounted plate carrier, can be expected to withstand at least two to three impacts from high-power hand phasers with only moderate burn injuries. For reference, they would also be able to survive the impact of a 120mm tungsten-rod armor-piercing tank round with only moderate bruising. In fact the kinetic energy and piercing force itself from such an impact could be stopped by just the uniform shirt, however the plate carrier has built-in inertial dampers that would be needed to prevent the crewmember from being liquified by the resultant g-loading.
On top of or in addition to these uniforms, Starfleet personnel can wear various other pieces of apparel. All major Starfleet uniform variants come with a Starfleet badge, typically worn on the upper left area of one’s chest. In addition to being marked with one’s name and serial number, these badges also hold very small quantum computers and almost microscopic subspace field generators which are used to manipulate vibrations in the air in a very short radius around the wearer, allowing it to translate speech in real-time. Various medals and ribbons can also be worn on dress uniforms, which distinguish the achievements and commendations one has achieved during their service. In addition, religious items or certain utility objects such as watches may be worn as well, with the specific rules around them varying based on context. However, as a general rule, advanced electronic items like smartglasses and brain-computer interfaces, especially civilian-made ones, are not allowed unless specifically authorized by Starfleet due to the cybersecurity threat they pose.
In addition to the uniforms themselves, Starfleet personnel have access to a wide variety of different pieces of equipment to help them with their duties. The first, and perhaps most important, is the communicator, depicted here being worn on the utility belt of the leftmost figure. These devices are small, highly advanced long-range subspace transmitters, capable of real time communication over several astronomical units. They can also serve as homing beacons, allowing for transporters to effectively target and achieve a lock on someone, and can interface with other pieces of equipment to transmit data to and from them over long ranges.
Another important piece of kit is the tricorder, seen here being worn on its carry-strap by the rightmost figure. These are essentially highly miniaturized subspace sensor packages, with a wide variety of other systems as well, including broad-spectrum EM sensors and the most powerful quantum computer of its size. The utility of these devices cannot be overstated, with them allowing the Starfleet personnel operating them to for all intents and purposes see through walls, analyze the composition and structure of nearby objects, scan one's surroundings to generate a map of the terrain, and track movement or biosignatures over a long range, among many other uses.
Perhaps the most ‘flashy’ item, if the most rarely used, is the phaser. Starfleet personnel from this time period primarily use one main type of phaser, that being the Mk. 3 Mod. 2, which is composed of two separate components. The first is the Type 1 hand phaser, which is very small and highly concealable, and the second is the Type 2 amplifier, which it slots into when more power is needed. Like most phasers these operate by using nadion particles to liberate energy within a firing crystal, which is amplified and directed out of the weapon towards a target using subspace fields.
Two firing modes are available, with the first being stun. In this mode the energy generated by the phaser is modulated to interfere with a target's nervous system, temporarily disabling them. Thanks to the low power requirements of this mode, phasers set on stun are able to, if required, fire their beams in a wide arc, stunning anyone standing within a 45 degree cone in front of the weapon. In the second mode, molecular disruption, some of the nadion particles are kept within the phaser beam, hitting the target and thus liberating the strong nuclear force within their atomic structure. This causes the target to literally disassemble on a nuclear level, and thanks to interactions with the nadions and subspace eddies introduced into the beam, a significant portion of the impacted material in the target is forcefully shunted out of the space-time continuum and into subspace.
Thanks to these operating principles, phasers are capable of outputting an extraordinary amount of destructive energy onto a specific target, while not affecting much in close proximity to it. The Type 1 hand phaser used in this era is able to stun targets in a wide arc out to about a dozen meters, and can output enough energy to kill an unarmored humanoid target out to about 50 meters. When slotted into a Type 2 amplifier the wide-beam stun range is only increased to about 20 meters thanks to the limitations of the energy modulation systems used, however the lethal range in the molecular disruption mode is increased to several kilometers, and on maximum power at close range it is capable of destroying entire large buildings in a single shot.
In order to take maximum effect of these capabilities the phasers utilize an advanced targeting system that is capable of operating independently or in concert with a tricorder. This system allows the phaser to automatically search for, locate, track, and lock-on to various targets at ranges out to multiple kilometers, and a pop-up holographic HUD above the weapon allows the user to select targets and engage or disengage automatic tracking of them. Due to the limitations of mediumless holograms of this era these sights are low-resolution and monochrome, however they are adequate for the task at hand.
Finally, the rightmost figure in the cover artwork can be seen working on setting up another piece of equipment, a transporter enhancer. Transporters, used to teleport crewmembers or cargo over long distances, are somewhat difficult to accurately target when only one 'end of the line' as it where has an actual transporter pad, and in addition various forms of interference can further affect accuracy or negate their use entirely. To get around this, away teams can bring transporter enhancers with them on missions, which essentially act as a makeshift transporter pad on the other end, allowing for all the advantages gained when normally beaming from one pad to another.
This won't be part of the challenge submission, but for those of you who are curious, here is a drawing depicting all of the most commonly seen uniform variants from this era:
![[ img ]](https://i.imgur.com/WYunSp5.png)
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Okay, so, some of you may have noticed that the characters depicted here are somewhat familiar, though not to Star Trek. In short, as inspiration for this challenge I looked to a rather fantastic piece of fan-fiction written by SomePaperMoons called Second Star to the Right, which is a crossover between Star Trek TOS and She-Ra and the Princesses of Power. It’s far better than you probably expect and I highly encourage everyone to go read it!
In any case, from left to right, the characters depicted are Lieutenant Scorpia De Garnet, Commander Catra Weaver, and Lieutenant Junior Grade Rogelio (the latter of whom only appears in the fanfic for one line, so I guessed a lot of things about him). They are crewmembers aboard the USS Alliance NCC-1985, a Pioneer class light cruiser, sometime around 2267. A full list of the major command staff, as best as I can tell based on what we see in the fic, is thus:
Captain Adora Grey
Commanding officer of the USS Alliance
Commander Catra Weaver
First officer of the USS Alliance
Lieutenant Commander Glimmer Brightmoon “Sparkles”
Second officer and chief science officer of the USS Alliance
Lieutenant Commander Entrapta
Chief engineer of the USS Alliance
Lieutenant Samuel Hawk “Seahawk”
Helm officer of the USS Alliance
Lieutenant Scorpia De Garnet
Chief security officer of the USS Alliance
Lieutenant Bow Sherwood
Communications officer of the USS Alliance
Lieutenant Lonnie LaForge
Navigation and operations officer of the USS Alliance
Lieutenant Perfuma Flowers
Navigation and operations relief officer of the USS Alliance
Dr. Helena Mermista
Chief medical officer of the USS Alliance
Before settling on the cast that I eventually did I experimented with a number of other options, some of which you can see here:
![[ img ]](https://i.imgur.com/A3ynH6c.png)
In this version I wanted to draw a collection of starfleet uniforms from the Enterprise era all the way to the Lower Decks era, though as you can see even by this point I was aware I wanted to use the characters from She-Ra in some way. Note here however that in-universe the Gorn officer seen on the far right is not meant to be Rogelio, but some other original character like the Andorian on the left, though I used artwork of Rogelio as a reference to draw from.
![[ img ]](https://i.imgur.com/9Eyhkeh.png)
In this one I briefly experimented with dropping the Star Trek aspect entirely and just drawing the She-Ra characters. Though I do like the way it turned out, in the end I think my decision to stick with the Star Trek crossover was the right one.
Oh, and one other minor note; in She-Ra Rogelio has a tail, however in Star Trek Gorns are tailless as far as I can tell, and I thought that he looked better without one in the submission image that I made, so I decided to draw him tailless. However, in the version of the image above where they are displayed in their She-Ra uniforms, I included the tail so that it would match cannon.
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