Classic Space Color meanings

[Time77]

On 1/18/2023 at 3:58 AM, AstroFalcon said:

The baby being blue sort of throws any job role the blue spaceman could have out the window. Perhaps they are just passengers?

Bit of an odd reference, but I bet its like the minecraft villagers; born with their suits and professions, lol

[Snojd]

My current take on the ”space federation”

Classic space men

Red – Pilot/navigation

White – Research/science

Yellow – Engineering

Blue – Mechanic

Black – intellegence/security

Green – Enviromental/biology

Gray – Robotics

Pink – Communication

Orange – Librarian/data storage

Purple – Xeno-relations

Brown – Education

Futuron – officers/operational staff (I only have one of each, therefore their higher importance)

Red – Commander

Yellow – Chief engineering

Blue – Chief machanics

Black – Chief intelligence/police/army

Green – Medicine/doctors (multiple)

Police (s21) – Police (multiple)

Special

White (s1) – Chief of science

Pink (s6) – HR/chief of communication

Dark blue – Military/marines

 

This is my current line up based on my collection.

[AZKerosene]

My "head cannon" is more or less this:

I have ranks that go across all colors - Admiral/General, Captain, Commander, Ensign and Cadet - each with 3 classes from 3rd to 1st.

I think of the colors like the colors on the flight deck of a carrier - you know immediately their jobs just by looking at them.

White - Pilots (there are all the misc. white spacesuits that look more like the Blacktron pilots so...) ranks Commanders and Captain 3rd Cls.

Red - Mission Commanders/Pilots (occasionally)/Scientists.  ranks Commander 1st Cls. and Captains.

Yellow - Engineering - rank Commander

Blue - Generalist (aka the grunts) - rank Ensign.

Black - Intelligence/Security - ranks Commander and Captain

Green - Mechanic - ranks Commander and Ensign 1st Cls.

Pink - Medical - ranks Ensigns, Commanders and Captains.  (Medics, nurses and doctors)

Grey - Office Staff (rarely seen on the flight deck, usually seen with jackets) - ranks Ensign 2nd/1st Cls. and Commander.

Orange - Infantry.  (With the orange helmets in that one VIP pack, I grabbed my Galaxy Squad guys and made them part of the cannon - they get special suits and are in "Squads" of Orange, Blue, Red and Green.  I've got lots of orange so...) All ranks.

Purple - Command Staff - ranks Admirals/Generals. Generals tend to wear all orange Classic Space.

Brown - Ordnance - ranks Ensign and Commander.

Cadets - Figs from the Master Builder Academy sets.  I have levels 1, 2 and 3 so Cadets in those years.

As for blue baby?  Its what you dress your child in for take your child to work day. :)

Steve "Yes, Benny is a grunt" Peterson.

Edited January 25, 2023 by AZKerosene

[Spectervamp]

On 1/18/2023 at 9:25 AM, Ardelon said:

Or maybe the specializations are actually castes, with people born into their roles?

Is that a reference to The Giver? Dear lord I hated that book...

Edit: forgive me, I was in 7th grade when I read it and I was absolutely traumatized

[Aanchir]

14 hours ago, Spectervamp said:

Is that a reference to The Giver? Dear lord I hated that book...

Edit: forgive me, I was in 7th grade when I read it and I was absolutely traumatized 

It's definitely pretty heavy subject matter for its intended age range. That one didn't end up bothering me so much in middle school, but in my later high school years there were a lot of stories that I still sometimes tear up just thinking about, like "Of Mice and Men" and "Flowers for Algernon" (this was a time when I was very anxious about whether I could ever have a happy, successful adult life as a disabled/neurodivergent person, so stories like those hit me PRETTY hard).

I don't think The Giver was the first story about a futuristic caste system of that sort, but I do feel that a Classic Space fleet based around that sort of concept would likely end up with similar dystopian vibes. So I'm personally not keen on integrating it into my LEGO Space headcanons. That said, I know I don't speak for all Space fans.

Edited January 27, 2023 by Aanchir

[icm]

^ I'd say the vast majority of Space fans, including myself, treat Classic Space uniform colors like Star Trek uniform colors: as roles staffed by merit and skill, not as castes. But you knew that already.

[Aanchir]

23 hours ago, icm said:

^ I'd say the vast majority of Space fans, including myself, treat Classic Space uniform colors like Star Trek uniform colors: as roles staffed by merit and skill, not as castes. But you knew that already.

Yeah, I was mostly adding that to acknowledge that there are probably at least a few Classic Space fans out there who would be keen on re-imagining the theme in a "darker and grittier" way, which is perfectly fine even if it's not my own preferred approach.

Something I just realized I haven't seen anybody mention in this thread: the Galactic Spearhead crew from the 80s Jim Spaceborn comics. These comics used a blue uniform for Bart Seeker (Captain), red uniforms for Viva (Chief Pilot) and Mello (her co-pilot), a white uniform for Jim (passenger/Duncan's assistant), yellow suits for unnamed background characters such as hangar crew, and overalls for Duncan (engineer) and the other mechanical staff. In the second book, "Kidnappers from Swamp Planet", Duncan also wears a blue spacesuit during spacewalks.

I'm curious if anybody has taken inspiration from those comics for their own Classic Space crew assignments? Granted, there are no black-uniformed crew members on the Spearhead (probably to avoid them getting confused with Kazak's space bandit faction, which had a sort of proto-Blacktron aesthetic), so their role would have to be improvised along with the "modern" uniform colors if you went with that approach.

On a related note, the unreleased book "Trapped in Space" used its uniform colors to represent assignment to the Red Team, White Team, or Gold Team, each commanded by a Team Leader aboard the Galactic Spearhead. Red Team seems to be made up of pilots, whereas Yellow Team is made up of engineers. White Team's general role is less obviously apparent, but one team member, Nicola, is "a White Team expert on rocks and minerals", so they may be miscellaneous scientists/specialists. That said, this book was a prototype from 1983 — before blue and black uniformed astronauts were introduced — so it offers no suggestions for what roles they might be assigned.

[icm]

Search for Nova Team on Flickr, that’s one of the darker takes on Classic Space.

[TrackTension]

I would use the pink color as a tie in to people with money wanting to be on the high orbit / space list. (Space X, Virgin Galactic, etc)

They just barely know the basic and paid to be here. And its any easy color to keep an eye on / avoid. (the tour group)

As for black, sound more like internal security, (Thinking Babylon 5) as dressing close to a Blacktron figure would get you shot.

[Ardelon]

On 1/27/2023 at 4:07 AM, Spectervamp said:

Is that a reference to The Giver? Dear lord I hated that book...

Edit: forgive me, I was in 7th grade when I read it and I was absolutely traumatized

Nope, I was thinking about Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. But your suggestion sounds intriguing, I'll have to check it out... 

Though I myself share the more optimistic view on Classic Space.

[Mandalorianknight]

On 1/16/2023 at 3:39 PM, Classic_Spaceman said:

In complete seriousness - Did an AI write this?? 

Sorry for the necrobump, but I noticed these when I came back to update my list. All that account's comments are like that, I think he's trying to do some sort of RPG game and is just a little confused as to which parts of the forum are for those games. (Actually, as am I. I see references to them in people's signatures, but have never stumbled across one.)

 

This is my list of color meanings now:

White: Pilot. Just a generic spacecraft pilot. common color, classic astronaut color in real life- pilot. Just where my mind goes.

Red: Engineering. The engineers fix and maintain existing ships and equipment as well as working on advancements. Another common color for another common occupation needed for spacemen. Also, I'm a mechanical engineer-or at least studying to be one, and my favorite color is red. Sue me.

Blue: Security. Space has a lot of unknowns. Blue provides security against any potential hostile aliens, as well as other groups such as Blacktron. Again, common color- common occupation needed. Benny helmets and scratched torsos can be attributed to the more combative nature of the job.

Yellow: Communications. Planetary atmospheres aren't all the same, and interplanetary communications require specialists. Another common color and needed role.

Black: Scientist/analyst. The black spacemen analyze material samples for possible uses, as well as studying any potential life found on new planets. The last of the 5 classic colors, and the fifth common role I could think of.

Orange: Fleet Admiral. The orange suits are worn only by fleet admirals, who serve as logisticians, organizing the explorative efforts. In the event of an attack, fleet admirals have the authority to organize a defense. Entirely due to the fact that the fig only appeared in the one book. Rare=higher ranking, or at least that's how I'm doing it.

Green: Mining/Resource Acquisition. More commonly referred to as mech jockeys, the green spacemen do the heavy lifting in obtaining new resources scientists have found innovative uses for. If I remember correctly we still don't have the newer helmets in green, so the difference in shape and added clear visors could be expanded air filters for dealing with dangerous chemicals in the mines. The exo-suit could also be seen as a mining device.

Pink: Pilot who accidentally put his clothes in the wash at the same time as red. An unfortunately common occurrence. These pilots are more commonly seen on ground vehicles due to washer mishaps being more common on planetside outposts, where newly-set up machinery can often be faulty, and engineers have more pressing matters to attend to. I thought the comment here saying that was funny. Again, sue me.

LBG: roboticist. Specialist in robotics, usually working in sealed labs to keep all elements decontaminated. Just another role I thought would be helpful, and since we don't have helmets in LBG yet IIRC, the lack of helmets could be due to them doing their work in pressurized labs or something.

Purple: medical. Space can be dangerous, and medics have to be constantly adapting to deal with a variety of wounds and illnesses on new planets. I would have given it to pink, but I liked the washing machine joke, and we need medics... so purple it is.

Brown: instructor/caretaker. On larger outposts and colonies, where children are present, brown signifies the spacemen guiding the new generation. Maybe they should be a more commonly needed role on space stations due to them now being the cheapest astronaut, but I'd prefer to keep those as the classic 5 colors. Plus, they come with the baby astronaut, so the role was obvious.

Edited April 17, 2023 by Mandalorianknight

[Inspecter]

Still not a fan of that pink being white mixed with red instead of being their own unique ranking there. I just say make them medical and make purple chefs, after all a space station needs it's cooks. If you want to keep the joke then just have a few of them have their laundry get mixed up and now they have to become medics.

[icm]

@Mandalorianknight

I'm just putting my two cents down here again because you so conveniently wrote out all the colors, and I haven't updated my list since the brown and purple versions came out. Because I'm lazy, I copied your post and am basically changing some words here and there, filling in the blanks.

White: Scientist. Just a generic scientist. Common color, classic astronaut color in real life - scientist. Most NASA astronauts are scientists in one way or another.

Red: Pilot. Just a generic pilot. Mostly flies transport and courier roles. Takes the scientists where they need to go, also does basic patrols. Another common color for another common occupation needed for spacemen.

Blue: Combat pilot. The kid playing in the basement in TLM tells Will Ferrell that Benny's spaceship is a battlecruiser. Its big role in the movie is to knock little Octan fighters out of the sky. Since I don't have a clear role for true Classic-era blues, Benny's role defines the color for me.

Yellow: Engineer. Another common color for a common occupation. Hi-vis yellow suits for working on heavy equipment.

Black: Spy. This one doesn't really make a lot of sense, but whatever. I think there were some early comic books or ads that showed the black suits as spies or bad guys, a year or two before Blacktron. The pilot of the Gamma V Laser Craft, aka Intergalactic Freighter Dark Star, has a black suit. This one means trouble.

Orange: Test pilot. This one isn't a very clearly defined role, but I pin it to Buzz Lightyear's orange flight suit in the (disappointing) feature film, as he takes out one spaceship after another to get to lightspeed. Also the XL-15 spaceship set is basically a neo-Classic Space set. So, you put that together and you get a test pilot role for the orange suits. In another version, the orange suits could launch on an NCS-styled Space Shuttle.

Green: Mining. The green suits appeared in the Ideas Exo-Suit, and that looks like heavy equipment, maybe for mining or something. Granted, there aren't any green suits in the more mining-oriented classic sets like the lunar dozer, but whatever.

Pink: Medical. Every uniformed service needs field medics. Pink stands out as high-visibility and non-combat, in the rare instances that our peaceful Classics get into a fight.

Light bluish gray: Cadets. In Star Trek: The Next Generation, cadet Wesley Crusher wears a sweater that is generally colorless except for three different-colored stripes across the front, to show that he hasn't chosen his track yet. Similarly, the colorless gray of the cadet suit shows that the young spacer hasn't chosen a track yet. The LBG torso appeared in a CMF of a kid wearing a rocket suit, so that leads me to assign it to young cadets.

Purple: Ambassadors/diplomats. The purple torso only appears on a CMF alien with an unusual head and wings and stuff. That's weird stuff, way out of the usual Classic wheelhouse. Maybe they finally found aliens they could talk to. Maybe the purple spacer was once a regular minifig who put their head in a particle accelerator and got turned into a bug-headed fly alien and couldn't get changed back. Maybe something else is going on. We don't really know.

Brown: Instructor/caretaker. On larger outposts and colonies, where children are present, brown signifies the spacemen guiding the new generation. Maybe they should be a more commonly needed role on space stations due to them now being the cheapest astronaut, but I'd prefer to keep those as the classic 5 colors. Plus, they come with the baby astronaut, so the role was obvious. (Copy-pasted directly from above.)

[Mandalorianknight]

17 minutes ago, icm said:

Light bluish gray: Cadets. In Star Trek: The Next Generation, cadet Wesley Crusher wears a sweater that is generally colorless except for three different-colored stripes across the front, to show that he hasn't chosen his track yet. Similarly, the colorless gray of the cadet suit shows that the young spacer hasn't chosen a track yet. The LBG torso appeared in a CMF of a kid wearing a rocket suit, so that leads me to assign it to young cadets.

I might use this one now, using grey as cadets is genius! There's a lore discrepancy with the baby astronaut being blue, but it's not like there's any actual lore anyway. Plus, you could just say it's a costume or something, like kids dressing as police officers.

49 minutes ago, Inspecter said:

Still not a fan of that pink being white mixed with red instead of being their own unique ranking there. I just say make them medical and make purple chefs, after all a space station needs it's cooks. If you want to keep the joke then just have a few of them have their laundry get mixed up and now they have to become medics.

At the end of the day we don't have official color meanings, so it's up to you. If you want pink as medical, no one's stopping you.

[BJE_2358]

Mine goes like:

Red- Pilot

White- Explorer

Yellow- Scientist

Blue- Security

Black- Spy

Orange- Commander/Admiral

LBG- Cadet

Purple- Engineer

Pink- Medic

Green- Mech Pilot

Brown- Caretaker/Janitor

[MrC the artist]

Personally these are what i consider the colors of the suits mean, the first 5 are obvious and like everyone else

Red - pilot

White - Explorer

Yellow - Scientist

Blue - Security

Black - Spies

Green - Technician or Mech operator

Pink - Medic or Doctor

Orange - maintenance or Miner or Construction 

Purple - Heavy Machinery/Weapons operator

Brown - Caretaker

Grey - Cadet

Also i like umbra-manis idea of a beige space man being HR

[Renny The Spaceman]

Anyone else think that the official colour meanings don't make much sense?

Every og colour pilot in at least one set acts as a pilot, explorer and scientist and why do they even have spies? What benefit could they have to a faction that clearly only focus is basic scientific research and exploration?

[TeriXeri]

6 hours ago, Renny The Spaceman said:

Anyone else think that the official colour meanings don't make much sense?

Every og colour pilot in at least one set acts as a pilot, explorer and scientist and why do they even have spies? What benefit could they have to a faction that clearly only focus is basic scientific research and exploration?

Agreed, I don't think they mean anything officially either, when going by official sets, all the original 5 colors are seen as pilots of both ground or air vehicles, or with some form of jetpack, or instrument/scanner.

Of course people could make up their own systems, or follow other sci-fi material like Star Trek for their roles, especially Futuron uniforms seem quite appropriate as Star Trek next generation , which both the TV series and LEGO Futuron sets released in 1987, probably just cooincidence, but still interesting.

 

Edited June 6, 2023 by TeriXeri

[danth]

9 hours ago, Renny The Spaceman said:

Anyone else think that the official colour meanings don't make much sense?

2 hours ago, TeriXeri said:

Agreed, I don't think they mean anything officially either, when going by official sets, all the original 5 colors are seen as pilots of both ground or air vehicles, or with some form of jetpack, or instrument/scanner.

Yep, there is no "official" meaning. I think people just want to sound like they know something others don't, and share things they've read in designer interviews or whatever, but what they read about never amounted to anything official.

This is why I laugh when people say "Did you know Aquazone/Rock Raiders are akshually SPACE themes?" They're not. They may have started as a potential Space theme in some early design phase, but that's it.

 

[MrC the artist]

Honestly you 3 are kinda correct there's probably no connection to these guys jobs and they're color, they're just cool colors for us to collect, but i think we try to add meaning to the colors is because we have always have tried to associate colors like feeling like red is anger and yellow is happy, but there is probably no actual list they have for what they serve, but again it's fun, to think and do this and it helps people get ideas for mocs and stuff, you are correct though 

[danth]

1 hour ago, MrC the artist said:

Honestly you 3 are kinda correct there's probably no connection to these guys jobs and they're color, they're just cool colors for us to collect, but i think we try to add meaning to the colors is because we have always have tried to associate colors like feeling like red is anger and yellow is happy, but there is probably no actual list they have for what they serve, but again it's fun, to think and do this and it helps people get ideas for mocs and stuff, you are correct though 

It is fun and everyone should continue to have fun coming up with Space color meanings.

Also I don't blame anyone for running with the Red = Pilot White = Ground Crew or whatever that came out of the original designer interviews. I think those are real roles the original designers talked about, I just reject claims that they're "official". Maybe semi-official. 🙂

[Renny The Spaceman]

Okay, glad I'm not going insane here with this take, it is fun assigning roles to them but I feel it's akin to trying to come to a definitive answer for Doctor Who's age, they'll all be contradicted by something so it's not a good idea to take anything as 100% accurate

My headcanon is that they mean nothing, the CS astronauts run purely off vibes and chose these colours just because they each individual one's favourite colours, they make up these justifications for them to seem more structured and professional when speaking to any alien life or other space factions they encounter :P 

[Time77]

On 6/6/2023 at 2:39 PM, danth said:

This is why I laugh when people say "Did you know Aquazone/Rock Raiders are akshually SPACE themes?" They're not. They may have started as a potential Space theme in some early design phase, but that's it.

 

Rock raiders is definitively a space theme though; they've got a giant spaceship in the tie-in media. (not an actual picture, but a clearer minibuild)

Edited June 8, 2023 by Time77

[Blip]

Apologies everyone for dragging this up from the depths of page 2, but it seemed this was the most appropriate thread for me to ask this rather than create a new one:

When designing space MOCs, do any of you put your minifigs in "regular" clothing (ie, uniforms or off-duty garb vs pressurised spacesuits) for when they're inside "sealed" spaces with atmospheres?  I ask because I used to do so in Lego Digital Designer, back when I first figured out how to create upload my own textures (admittedly if it were real Lego I might not bother! )

[TeriXeri]

35 minutes ago, Blip said:

Apologies everyone for dragging this up from the depths of page 2, but it seemed this was the most appropriate thread for me to ask this rather than create a new one:

When designing space MOCs, do any of you put your minifigs in "regular" clothing (ie, uniforms or off-duty garb vs pressurised spacesuits) for when they're inside "sealed" spaces with atmospheres?  I ask because I used to do so in Lego Digital Designer, back when I first figured out how to create upload my own textures (admittedly if it were real Lego I might not bother! )

I think I only would do that if it's clearly something like a Star Trek Holodeck situation, where they try to fit the setting of the simulation (despite being located on a space ship/space station) , for example Star Trek has Western, Horse Riding, Robin Hood, Sherlock Holmes episodes.

Other then that, City space themes  , especially the 2022 version, did differ between pilot suits (yellow), normal uniforms (blue), and space suits (white with azure) depending if they were in a living space, ship, or spacewalk, but I haven't seen regular clothed figures in a space set, the most regular figures would be the scientist or base workers back on earth.

Edited December 6, 2023 by TeriXeri