‘Star Trek: Discovery’ Novel Explains New Starfleet Uniforms

While Star Trek: Discovery wowed audiences with its series premiere, its timeline has left viewers with a few questions. But the series’ first tie-in novel is here to answer a pretty big one.

Mild spoilers for Star Trek: Discovery: Desperate Hours below!

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Star Trek: Discovery: Desperate Hours, which was released earlier this week and is currently up to 31% off on Amazon, gives readers a crossover between the Enterprise and Shenzhou crews in 2255. With the crews traveling space within years of each other, their completely different uniforms would certainly raise some eyebrows. Thankfully, the novel explains it away pretty easily, in a passage you can check out below.

“Gant and his team from the Shenzhou wore dark blue Starfleet utility jumpsuit uniforms with black trim, while the Enterprise team sported pale gold or light blue jerseys over black trousers — a new uniform style that so far had been issued exclusively to the crews of Starfleet’s vaunted Constitution- class starships.”

So, there you have it. Apparently the outfits worn by the Enterprise crew were far ahead of the curve, while the Shenzhou crew members were donning more standard uniforms of the time.

Judging by the response to Discovery, this difference in uniforms hasn’t bothered too many. The series’ premiere, “The Vulcan Hello”, was watched by nearly 10 million viewers on CBS and the premiere of Discovery drew a record-high number of new CBS All Access sign-ups.

CBS has put a lot behind Star Trek: Discovery. The series carries a per episode budget comparable to that of Game of Thrones. CBS expects the series to lead the charge in driving CBS All Access’ subscription numbers to more than 4 million by 2020.

If Discovery proves successful, more Star Trek series could be on the horizon, including a Star Trek anthology series or the rumored prequel about Khan Noonien Singh.

So far, the reactions to Star Trek: Discovery have been mostly positive. New episodes will stream on CBS All Access Sundays at 8:30 p.m. ET.