Commander

Commander (French: Commandeur) is a common naval and air force officer rank. Commander is also used as a rank or title in other formal organisations, including several police forces. The literal meaning is he who commands, parallel to Commandant. In most senses, the German equivalent is Kommandeur.

Commander is also a generic term for an officer commanding any armed forces unit, for example "platoon commander", "brigade commander" and "squadron commander". In the police, terms such as "borough commander" and "incident commander" are used.

Commander as a naval and air force rank

Commander is a rank used in navies but is very rarely used as a rank in armies (except in special forces where it designates the team leader). The title (originally "master and commander") originated in the 18th century to describe naval officers who commanded ships of war too large to be commanded by a Lieutenant but too small to warrant the assignment of a post-captain and (before about 1770) a sailing-master; the commanding officer served as his own Master. In practice, these were usually unrated sloops-of-war of no more than 20 guns. The Royal Navy shortened "master and commander" to "commander" in 1794; however, the term "master and commander" remained (unofficially) in common parlance for several years. The equivalent American rank master commandant remained in use until changed to commander in 1838. A corresponding rank in some navies is frigate captain. In the 20th and 21st centuries, the rank has been assigned the NATO rank code of OF-4.

Star Trek uniforms

While there are many costumes from the Star Trek television series and motion pictures, the ones worn by actors portraying enlisted personnel and officers from the fictitious organization Starfleet are the ones most closely associated with Star Trek costuming. Design varied among the successive costume designers, although generally costumes and insignia were consistent within any one series or film. Costumes were re-designed to improve appearance when filmed and to improve the comfort for actors. Deliberately mixing styles of uniforms from the various series was occasionally used to enhance the sense of time travel or alternative universes.

Original Series

The original uniform designs were the product of designer William Ware Theiss. The original series uniforms consisted of a colored top and dark pants, with significant variations between the designs used in the pilot episodes and the rest of the series.

Pilots

The first uniforms, as seen in the unaired pilot "The Cage" (footage was re-used in a later episode, "The Menagerie") and again in the second pilot "Where No Man Has Gone Before", are somewhat different from the Starfleet uniform seen in the rest of the original series. The original concept used a heavy, ribbed turtle neck collar of the same color as the tunic for the men, with a cowl neck variation for the women, each in three colors: gold, beige, and light blue.

Commander (knife)

The Commander (knife) is a large recurve folding knife made by Emerson Knives, Inc. that was based on a custom design, the ES1-M, by Ernest Emerson that he originally built for a West Coast Navy SEAL Team. It was winner of the Blade Magazine Overall Knife of the Year Award for 1999.

History

The Commander has its origins with Emerson's CQC-8 or "Banana" folding fighting knife based on the Bob Taylor Warrior Knife and the Bill Moran ST-23: a knife designed with the blade in line for reverse grip or sabre grip fighting. This knife became popular among the British SAS and the US Navy SEALs, however the SEALs wanted something more aggressive so Emerson developed the SSRT(Silent Sentry Removal tool) model: a larger, hooked blade with a serrated, doubled-edged spine. This blade's profile resembled the horn of a Rhinoceros and its more popular name is the Rhino. The blade folded below the level of the handle scales so the user could not be cut by this extra edge, a small hole drilled through both handle scales and liners allowed the blade to be held in place so it would not open on a parachute jump and cause harm to the operator. Although the knife functioned perfectly in the field, its final design was too specific for the Navy.