Operations division The operations division , also referred to as engineering division , was the corps of officer s and crewmen within Starfleet who specialized in services and military functions on starbase s , aboard starship s , and at Starfleet Command . Members of the operations division may have specialized in a ship or base service , administration , or military operations , or served as staff officer s . Operations officers included engineer s , security and tactical , and some service specializations such as communications . Operations division personnel also filled administrative posts as yeomen , personnel officer s , and portmaster s . By the 24th century , this division had new postings established on ships , such as operations officer s ( or chief of operations ) . The operations division , command division , and sciences division were usually denoted by Starfleet uniform insignia , most often color - coded . Officers who belonged to the operations division sometimes wore the division color of another department than that which they specialized in . For example , if an operations officer were to become a department head , he or she might have worn the colors of the command division , or an officer with dual specialties in sciences and operations might have worn the sciences colors . In the United Earth ' s Starfleet of the 2140s and 2150s , line officers of ops division wore red division stripes on their uniforms . The red color had been replaced by the uniforms of the 2250s and early 2260s , as beige ( or gold ) uniforms and work gear were worn by ops division personnel , except security , who wore blue . Red was again the color of the ops division throughout the later 2260s , worn by line officers and flag officers of this division , though some operations officers continued to wear beige ( or gold ) , perhaps indicating a specialized subset . By the 2270s , new uniforms showed different division colors , the operations division was signified by two differing colors , with red backing the Starfleet badge , and also on uniform bands and epaulets , for engineering and maintenance staff . Security and services crew wore gray badge backings and bands . The operations division was changed again with the 2280s uniforms , with gray representing both security and services , but also sciences . Engineering and maintenance wore gold colors , which also represent some conn divisions like pilots and navigators . The insignia used gave the officer the option of wearing command division white uniform insignia , with another department color like operations ' banded across , or the opposite , with department color insignia with command white banded across . For the uniforms used from 2350s onward , gold had become the operations division color , and this continued through several Starfleet uniform styles , including the most recent style , and even several styles observed in alternate futures . Background information . During " " , red ( or beige , except security who wore blue , in the pilot episodes ) was regularly worn by the security , engineering , maintenance , yeomen , communications , and staff officers . Communications Officer Uhura normally wore ops red ( she wore command gold in a few early episodes ) as did Chief Engineer Scott and Yeoman Rand . As for the use of the so - called color beige used in the two pilots , it was most likely true gold which simply looked beige or tan under the lights ( in some cases even pink ) in the same way the command uniforms were actually lime green , but appeared gold . However , the coveralls were most likely actually khaki , tan or beige in keeping with the muted colors used for them within each division . In later episodes they became the standard red of the duty uniforms . In the movie era , featured operations crew Uhura and Chekov wearing gray - colored bands , and engineers and maintenance in red bands . By the uniforms , Scotty wore gold , but Chekov and Uhura continued to wear gray . The schemes and insignia of the later - era uniforms were designed by Robert Fletcher . The purpose of the colors was only obvious through inference , but in , red was established in dialogue as the " old " style ops color ( and gold as the " new " ops color ) . The decision to switch the meaning of the colors between the TOS and TNG uniform styles was made in pre - production of . Most often , in the Federation Starfleet , all captains and admirals wore command division colors ; however , there were exceptions which prove that this was not a requirement . In TOS , two commodore s , and Stocker , wore red operations division uniforms and Captain Krasnovsky wore sciences division blue . In the movie era , Scotty switched back and forth from command white to engineering gold after receiving his captain ' s bars . In TNG - era productions , had an admiral named Toddman wearing operations division gold , despite every other Starfleet captain and admiral ever seen in this era wearing command colors . Apocrypha . In the comic series " " , engineering officers are depicted as wearing a red uniform , with a red collar , alongside the beige uniforms as depicted in " The Cage " and " Where No Man Has Gone Before " . In particular , these uniforms are depicted as only being worn in engineering , rather than elsewhere on the " Enterprise " , suggesting that since the engineering section of the " Enterprise " was never depicted during this era of TOS , such uniforms could have actually existed side - by - side with the beige operations uniforms , thereby continuing the red division color established in " Star Trek : Enterprise " .