As some of you may know from my report of this past weekend’s successful steampunk festival, I collect costumes, among other things. As a longtime “Trekker/Trekkie,” I already have the boots, phaser pistol, and gold command tunics for the classic 1960s television series. In addition, I recently ordered a shirt and jacket in the style of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine/Nemesis uniforms. The space opera garb arrived from China less than two weeks after I ordered it.
The materials and stitching are good, especially for the gray yoke. I’ll have to be careful with the small zippers. I may eventually replace the red mock turtleneck with one of a heavier material and use my metal rank pips and comm badge pin rather than the plastic ones that were Velcroed or sewn on. The jacket’s sleeves are a bit short, and the cuffs are a bit wide, but that’s because of my personal proportions and can be altered by a tailor (paging Elim Garak).
This costume resembles my image for “Capt. Tzu Tien Lung,” the commander of the U.S.S. Tempest in a homebrew GURPS 3e Space game that Steve M.R. ran in Virginia back in the mid-1990s. Although J.J. Abrams has rebooted the movie franchise and is working on a sequel, as the Star Trek Online MMO and some tabletop campaigns have shown, many fans are interested in continuing the universe of Star Trek: The Next Generation.
While I don’t have a Blu-Ray player, I am curious about the latest remastered episodes of Star Trek. I also hope that we can recover and build on real-world human spaceflight capabilities. Live long and prosper!
Gene's Worlds 