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beccaelizabethClothes: Uniforms are a bugger to differentiate, but: fabric quality and state of repair.
If an Ordinary Seaman has a damaged uniform it means he's worn through fairly quickly, since in theory he'd be promoted in a year. Ships make do and mend while they're out of port. Ratings will probably have patches or repairs somewhere about them. Under shirt and shorts can get creative without breaking regs. Uniforms happen in sections so you can swap out the sleeves or knees without needing a whole new suit. Also uniforms are color coded by rank, so a petty officer would have red sleeves on a green overall, and if someone got promoted they could swap just their sleeves. It's efficient that way. Chief petty officer has red sleeves and shoulders/chest, only green from the belly down.
That means there's a way of taking the uniform apart so you've got a sleeveless cropped top. And shorts. Which is handy to know. If they're sufficiently scruffy they aren't going to pass as uniform any more they might still be wearable in off hours.
Ensigns are solid red, with promotion adding more black. Except I need more promotions so their trousers change too. Change first? Yes.
Rank slides go on those shoulder loop thingies that have a proper word... are epaulettes the things that look like a handle on your shoulder or are they only the weird fringey braidy thingies? It's easy to search for a picture you've got a word for, a right bugger to do the other way around. Just call them a shoulder strap. ANYways, nice flat rank slides go on shoulder loops.
Loops are functional handles. If you're going to spend time in zero g you want people to have something to grab and tow. Loops on shoulders for sure, don't know where else.
There's a garment I've been calling a waistcoat but it serves functions that would make it similar to what google prefers to call a tac vest. Except that tends to call to mind those 90s comic book excesses where character design is almost entirely pouch. They don't need to be all pouch. But the garment is to carry your computer pad and your most important tools and strap on securely, and it can be swapped so it's on the outside of a pressure suit. It's for varying gravity conditions so everything needs to be fastened in at all times. There's pretty much going to be a certain degree of pouch there. There's got to be some balance between 'useful' and 'OMG Liefeld's Return!!!'
Also, a vest is underwear. It goes under everything. Waistcoats go more on the outside.
Officers have an armoured outer coat. It isn't often very practical on a nice armoured spaceship, but it's part of the uniform. If that armour gets damaged it immediately needs replacing. The fabricators can recycle a lot of it but it's not something you patch back together in your quarters. (It's a thigh length big leather thing with a huge elvis-y collar. Because neck armour. Still not very necessary on spaceships, but fun.) The habit of immediately swapping out, plus the general idea that officers have better things to do, means they don't tend to patch their own clothes. If one does it's a bit of a sign they didn't start out an officer.
Their vests could be more sleek because they don't need so many random tools. Just their pad and a lot of telling people what to do. Probably a multi tool in another pocket. Maybe a snack. They could vary.
If they need to carry more than a pocket worth they're likely to wear backpacks, even just up and down stairs. It's the gravity thing again. You can't really put a box down next to you if down might change without notice. Any load large enough it has to go on a trolley would make certain reflexes nervous.
Fabric quality: future fabrics can be optimised for a bunch of different things. I think star trek uniforms in next gen were meant to never need cleaning and be nearly impossible to burn and stuff like that. Vorkosigan 'verse uniforms are fire resistant and a lot of other things, just in their usual trousers. Since the fabrics will be just as fiddly to make either way, they're probably super tough synthetics designed to protect the wearer.
I still believe laundry is eternal. There will always be something that just doesn't come out without a wash.
Biologicals in space are the precious things, always, because growing them means balancing out human consumption needs. Wearing something like cotton would be extravagance, but if it's plant based it could be station grown. Wearing wool? Somebody grew a plant then fed it to an animal. Who can even afford that? If it came up from a planet you have to add freight costs, and my 'verse is a bit short on ecologically diverse planets. Wearing actual animal grown wool could be more impressive than gold.
Except in the recent past everything could be tank grown. If it's wool and looks old enough to be pre war it will look suspicious, derived from forbidden tech. Yet if animal grown wool is really that expensive somebody somewhere will be bootlegging tank grown wool in their basement, and risking the penalties.
Animal skins where you have to kill something to get it would also be the rich stuff. Especially if the dead thing wasn't ever food. But really, people eat pretty much everything, so there's not much that isn't food. It would have to be very poisonous. Maybe from an alien ecosystem.
If someone is strutting around wearing the skin of a dead animal from an alien ecosystem, they're wearing the most ridiculous amount of money imaginable.
... Fleet uniforms are synthetics.
... Unless you're a Captain with particular tastes. Then there might be cotton involved.
Then there's the colors - dyes fade, that I know of, but future synthetic fabric could stay brighter. Fading might be a sign of variant manufacture.
A tie dyed cotton t-shirt, fading, made with mostly vegetable parts, would be such a show off thing to own. Even if you grew all the parts yourself.
Huh, this looks kind of like what I had in my head. Or this. Coveralls in red and black, with lines that look like they come apart. Farm work clothing it says, with a logo for tractors on it. Not quite as military as I had in mind...
Green would be somewhere between olive and bottle, not christmas. Red would be more old leaf than primary. They're still a bit colorful.
Any sort of modification you can do by hand with accumulated resources probably intended for other purposes, personal clothes have got it, somewhere. There's some very heavily embroidered tank tops, and probably a lot of patchwork. Printing can happen if they can get the dye to work. Uniforms are for working in, but these people never come down, so they have not-work while they're on ship too. They're just unlikely to use their weight limit for relaxing clothes.
Wearing color you're not entitled to is Not Done. Emphatically. Even on loan or in patches.
... and now I should go back to actually writing. I just sat down with a character with a faded uniform shirt and thought, hang on, does future fabric do that?
Answer: yes, but it means she customised her uniform with rich stuff.
If an Ordinary Seaman has a damaged uniform it means he's worn through fairly quickly, since in theory he'd be promoted in a year. Ships make do and mend while they're out of port. Ratings will probably have patches or repairs somewhere about them. Under shirt and shorts can get creative without breaking regs. Uniforms happen in sections so you can swap out the sleeves or knees without needing a whole new suit. Also uniforms are color coded by rank, so a petty officer would have red sleeves on a green overall, and if someone got promoted they could swap just their sleeves. It's efficient that way. Chief petty officer has red sleeves and shoulders/chest, only green from the belly down.
That means there's a way of taking the uniform apart so you've got a sleeveless cropped top. And shorts. Which is handy to know. If they're sufficiently scruffy they aren't going to pass as uniform any more they might still be wearable in off hours.
Ensigns are solid red, with promotion adding more black. Except I need more promotions so their trousers change too. Change first? Yes.
Rank slides go on those shoulder loop thingies that have a proper word... are epaulettes the things that look like a handle on your shoulder or are they only the weird fringey braidy thingies? It's easy to search for a picture you've got a word for, a right bugger to do the other way around. Just call them a shoulder strap. ANYways, nice flat rank slides go on shoulder loops.
Loops are functional handles. If you're going to spend time in zero g you want people to have something to grab and tow. Loops on shoulders for sure, don't know where else.
There's a garment I've been calling a waistcoat but it serves functions that would make it similar to what google prefers to call a tac vest. Except that tends to call to mind those 90s comic book excesses where character design is almost entirely pouch. They don't need to be all pouch. But the garment is to carry your computer pad and your most important tools and strap on securely, and it can be swapped so it's on the outside of a pressure suit. It's for varying gravity conditions so everything needs to be fastened in at all times. There's pretty much going to be a certain degree of pouch there. There's got to be some balance between 'useful' and 'OMG Liefeld's Return!!!'
Also, a vest is underwear. It goes under everything. Waistcoats go more on the outside.
Officers have an armoured outer coat. It isn't often very practical on a nice armoured spaceship, but it's part of the uniform. If that armour gets damaged it immediately needs replacing. The fabricators can recycle a lot of it but it's not something you patch back together in your quarters. (It's a thigh length big leather thing with a huge elvis-y collar. Because neck armour. Still not very necessary on spaceships, but fun.) The habit of immediately swapping out, plus the general idea that officers have better things to do, means they don't tend to patch their own clothes. If one does it's a bit of a sign they didn't start out an officer.
Their vests could be more sleek because they don't need so many random tools. Just their pad and a lot of telling people what to do. Probably a multi tool in another pocket. Maybe a snack. They could vary.
If they need to carry more than a pocket worth they're likely to wear backpacks, even just up and down stairs. It's the gravity thing again. You can't really put a box down next to you if down might change without notice. Any load large enough it has to go on a trolley would make certain reflexes nervous.
Fabric quality: future fabrics can be optimised for a bunch of different things. I think star trek uniforms in next gen were meant to never need cleaning and be nearly impossible to burn and stuff like that. Vorkosigan 'verse uniforms are fire resistant and a lot of other things, just in their usual trousers. Since the fabrics will be just as fiddly to make either way, they're probably super tough synthetics designed to protect the wearer.
I still believe laundry is eternal. There will always be something that just doesn't come out without a wash.
Biologicals in space are the precious things, always, because growing them means balancing out human consumption needs. Wearing something like cotton would be extravagance, but if it's plant based it could be station grown. Wearing wool? Somebody grew a plant then fed it to an animal. Who can even afford that? If it came up from a planet you have to add freight costs, and my 'verse is a bit short on ecologically diverse planets. Wearing actual animal grown wool could be more impressive than gold.
Except in the recent past everything could be tank grown. If it's wool and looks old enough to be pre war it will look suspicious, derived from forbidden tech. Yet if animal grown wool is really that expensive somebody somewhere will be bootlegging tank grown wool in their basement, and risking the penalties.
Animal skins where you have to kill something to get it would also be the rich stuff. Especially if the dead thing wasn't ever food. But really, people eat pretty much everything, so there's not much that isn't food. It would have to be very poisonous. Maybe from an alien ecosystem.
If someone is strutting around wearing the skin of a dead animal from an alien ecosystem, they're wearing the most ridiculous amount of money imaginable.
... Fleet uniforms are synthetics.
... Unless you're a Captain with particular tastes. Then there might be cotton involved.
Then there's the colors - dyes fade, that I know of, but future synthetic fabric could stay brighter. Fading might be a sign of variant manufacture.
A tie dyed cotton t-shirt, fading, made with mostly vegetable parts, would be such a show off thing to own. Even if you grew all the parts yourself.
Huh, this looks kind of like what I had in my head. Or this. Coveralls in red and black, with lines that look like they come apart. Farm work clothing it says, with a logo for tractors on it. Not quite as military as I had in mind...
Green would be somewhere between olive and bottle, not christmas. Red would be more old leaf than primary. They're still a bit colorful.
Any sort of modification you can do by hand with accumulated resources probably intended for other purposes, personal clothes have got it, somewhere. There's some very heavily embroidered tank tops, and probably a lot of patchwork. Printing can happen if they can get the dye to work. Uniforms are for working in, but these people never come down, so they have not-work while they're on ship too. They're just unlikely to use their weight limit for relaxing clothes.
Wearing color you're not entitled to is Not Done. Emphatically. Even on loan or in patches.
... and now I should go back to actually writing. I just sat down with a character with a faded uniform shirt and thought, hang on, does future fabric do that?
Answer: yes, but it means she customised her uniform with rich stuff.
no subject
Date: 2011-07-22 06:18 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-07-22 12:30 am (UTC)Interesting about "vest" - here, vests are outerwear, the word "waistcoat" is old-fashioned, and the thing underneath is an undershirt. Isn't language fun?