IMO there are no non commissioned officers in TOS. This would explain, why there is no distinction between Ensigns and NCOs.
Any thoughts?
Posted by Aban Rune (Member # 226) on :
Well there are NCOs in the movies. They wear the jumpsuit style uniforms and are referred to as crewmen. As far as the series goes, I think there was a different uniform. It was more of a unitard, jumpsuit looking thing often worn by engineering and transpoter staff.
------------------ "A gathering of Angels appeared above my head. They sang to me this song of hope, and this is what they said..." -Styx
In TOS television episodes, the only uniform that was not worn by commissioned officers was the asbestos suit with helmet seen in "Man Trap" on a deceased guy explicitly called "crewman". All the other uniforms were worn by a commissioned officer one time or another. For example, the jumpsuits used in TOS episodes were worn e.g. by the commissioned Lieutenant Kyle.
In the TOS movies, the jumpsuits used were never seen on a character that would have been identified as a commissioned officer, unless one counts Janice Rand in ST4 as one (there is lots of confusion on when exactly she transformed from NCO to commissioned officer). And nobody who wore the black trousers and blood tunic was ever identified as enlisted.
As far as dialogue references go, TOS used the generic "crewman" and "chief" but did not make clear if these really were enlisted personnel, or just some futuristic Starfleetspeak for low-ranking commissioned officers. But the very first pilot episode, "The Cage", explicitly listed a CPO Garrison in the end credits...
Timo Saloniemi
Posted by Fabrux (Member # 71) on :
I just assumed that those "engineer's mates" were NCOs...
------------------ "We have HTML and images in sigs disabled here. Don't try it. If you do, I'll shove the image up your ass, then ban you. Have a nice day. :)" -Charles Capps, August 13, 2000