Star Trek: 10 Starfleet Rules You Never Knew Existed

At this point, characters in Star Trek have referenced so many obscure Starfleet regulations that many are easy to forget, despite how interesting they are when you really think about them. Some of these laws can actually really change the way you view the Federation as an organisation.

We've already done one list of strange Starfleet rules, so you can check that out if you want to see what we've already covered, but there are so many more obscure regulations, codes, and general orders that have been mentioned.

You'll also come to realise that, while some of these Starfleet rules make perfect sense, others are incredibly open to interpretation and poorly worded. A few even get ignored the vast majority of the time, until it's convenient for the plot. Still, it's impressive that the writers were able to keep the fictional rulebook so consistent for so long (with a few exceptions of course).

Starfleet's uniform code was not as strict as you may think. Enforcement was largely up to the discretion of the captain, and some officers, like Deanna Troi, were allowed to wear casual clothing on duty. Though she was forced to wear a standard uniform when Captain Jellico temporarily took command.

There were also a number of allowances made for cultural accessories, including Ro Laren's earring, Worf's baldric, Nog's Ferengi headdress, and Scotty's kilt and sporran, which he wore as part of his dress uniform. Ensign Mesk was even allowed to carry a very dangerous Orion multi-key because of a religious exemption. However, Ro was initially prevented from wearing her earring, so it's possible that these allowances were also up to the captain's discretion.

Certain species also needed different uniform styles because of their unique physiology, such as Arex from The Animated Series, the beluga whales from Lower Decks, and Saru from Discovery.

Different uniform styles would also often be used at the same time in Starfleet. While the grey-shouldered uniforms from the Next Generation films were still being used, California-class ships and others used the style from Lower Decks. During this same time period, Starbase 80 used their own variant that we saw in Trusted Sources, and some styles were used only on specific missions, like the ones from the DS9 episode Shadows And Symbols, which were optimised for hot and sandy environments.