Command division The command division was the corps of officer s and crewmen within Starfleet who specialized in command and control functions on starbase s , aboard starship s , and at Starfleet Command . Members of the command division were trained in leadership and had tactical training allowing them to decisively take action in organizing and mobilizing Starfleet crews to perform missions . Command officers included most all of the admiral ty , captain s , executive officers , adjutants , pilots , and flight controller ( or helmsman ) . Command division personnel also filled posts as tactical officer s and sometimes in ordnance departments . An officer who belonged to the command division sometimes wore the division color of another department in which they specialized if said command officer became a security chief , engineer , or commanded a science department . In the Earth ' s Starfleet of the 2140s and 2150s , line officers of command division wore gold division stripes on their uniforms . By 2233 , command division personnel wore blue . Gold was again the color of the command division throughout the 2250s and 2260s , worn by line officers and flag officers of this division . Officers in the command division wore a five - pointed star with a lengthened upper point as an insignia on their assignment patch . By the 2270s , new uniforms showed different division colors , the command division was signified by white backing their Starfleet badge , and also on uniform bands and epaulets . This continued onto the 2280s uniforms , and the insignia used gave the officer the option of wearing command division white uniform insignia , with another department color banded across , or the opposite , with department color insignia with command white banded across . By the uniforms used from 2350s onward , red had become the command division color , and this continued through several uniform styles . " Individuals from several possible futures , and some that have been proven to be alternate timeline s , continued to wear red when in the command division , but by the 29th century , several timelines had switched the command color to blue . " Background information . The Original Series . Once fully established during " The Original Series " , command gold was regularly worn by those in positions of higher authority , such as ship captains , commodores and admirals , however , evidence suggests that this was not a requirement for holding a command position . In the first case , starbase commodores and Stocker both wore operations division uniforms , yet this exception seem to exclude commodore Mendez . The second case was that of Captain Krasnovsky , a starship captain who wore a sciences division uniform . The helm and navigation officers typically belonged to the command division , as was the case in , however , in , the positions were held by operations officers , before returning primarily back to the command division once again . The communications officer , which began as operations division , was briefly held by officers in the command division , namely John Farrell and ( briefly ) Uhura , before returning to the operations division . Number One in " The Cage " and Spock in " Where No Man Has Gone Before " both served in the command division as first officer , before he switched back to the sciences division for the duration of the series ( the same color he wore in the first pilot ) . Other specific roles held by command division officers during the series included a gunnery officer , phaser specialist , radiation specialist , and records officer . The work coveralls worn by technician s were originally muted variations on the division colors with the command division being represented by olive green , then later matching the duty uniforms . This coincides with the actual color of TOS which was lime green and only appeared gold under the lights . The purpose of the colors was only obvious through inference , but in , gold was established in dialogue as the " old " style command color ( and red as the " new " command color ) . The decision to switch the meaning of the colors between the TOS and TNG uniform styles was made in pre - production of . The film era . The schemes and insignia of the era uniforms were designed by Robert Fletcher . According to his personal notes ( p . 1 - 2 ) the following was laid out : Command division includes both line and staff officers and all personnel , both enlisted and commissioned of the following corps : In the post - TMP movie era , several costume gaffes appeared . Saavik wore command white despite having a dual position as science specialist ( as did Spock , but he was a captain at this point ) . The costume department had planned to give her uniform a science department color swatch also , but in an error , it was never seen on film . Also , Scott jumped from command white to engineering gold after receiving his captain ' s bars ( ironically , he effectively used them in the " wrong " scenarios , wearing gold with his formal duty tunic but white with the more casual bomber jacket and engineering vest ) . Later eras . During the course of " The Next Generation " , command level officers regularly wore red uniforms , however , again another exceptional case would appear in , where admiral Toddman wore an operations uniform , the only such command level officer to do so . Captain Braxton wore blue in and , but an alternate version of him in " " wore red – indicating that Starfleet never changed the command color in that version .