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During the Federation-Dominion war, we see Jadzia being very engaged in the conflict. She is also taking up new roles, e.g. acting as helmsman of the Jem'Hadar attack ship.

Was she still technically a science officer? Why didn't she wear an operations or command uniform? I get it with Bashir, he still did his primary role as a doctor, but Jadzia did completely different things.

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    Why did Worf wear his security/tactical uniform when the Enterprise wasn't in battle? Dax was a science officer. Science officers wear blue.
    – geewhiz
    Commented Jan 19, 2018 at 15:57
  • Katheryn Janeway was a science officer. She wore red when she became captain of a ship. Why wasn't Dax switched to command when she was given command of the Defiant?
    – Kevin Fee
    Commented Jan 19, 2018 at 16:14
  • Data commanded the Enterprise in a gold shirt
    – geewhiz
    Commented Jan 19, 2018 at 16:52
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    @KevinFee - The Defiant was a remote operating arm / extension of DS9 essentially though - not it's own entirely independent commissioned ship. Ultimately, Sisko is still the CO of the station and by extension of the Defiant and he had delegated the ship to Jadzia during war time operations.
    – NKCampbell
    Commented Jan 19, 2018 at 16:57
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    @calina-c I mean, there was a war on...would you prefer Starfleet send a third of its officers off somewhere to take tricorder readings?
    – geewhiz
    Commented Jan 19, 2018 at 17:25

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From what we've seen, in universe, Starfleet officers don't change division colors for temporary assignments.

Worf for example:

spent most of his first year on the Enterprise-D as a relief officer for the conn and other bridge stations.

WhenTasha Yar was killed, Worf permanently took over as tactical officer/chief of security and his uniform changed to operations gold. This remained the case until 2372 when he was permanently reassigned to DS9 as strategic operations officer. Despite returning to his tactical role aboard the Enterprise E in all of the TNG era movies, his uniform never changed as those assignments were temporary.

Geordi La Forge had a similar experience.

In 2365, La Forge was promoted to full lieutenant. He transferred from the command division to the operations division and was named chief engineer.

At this point he started wearing operations gold instead of command red.

During the events of Gambit, Data and Worf temporarily commanded the Enterprise in the absence of Picard and Riker. Neither changed their uniform color to command red as it was temporary.

However, a year earlier, Riker was relieved of duty and Data was promoted, apparently permanently, to first officer. At that point, he wore command red because the reassignment was meant to be permanent.

Dax was primarily a science officer. Generally, command of the Defiant fell to Worf when Sisko wasn't around but Worf was off serving in the Klingon fleet. Dax was the next highest ranking and most experienced officer available so she was temporarily given command of the Defiant while Sisko was assigned to the Starbase. There was no uniform change because it wasn't a permanent reassignment.

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  • This is a really good answer! And I know it's a few years old, but I'd like to add my thoughts - In TMP, Kirk stepped down from admiral to captain for what should have been a temporary assignment. He received a change in uniform, and had Captain Decker do the same. He made him take a "temporary grade reduction" from captain to commander, and a change in uniform to show it. And, in 2009's Star Trek, Kirk has Chekov temporarily become Chief Engineering, telling him to "go put on a red shirt". Though I guess this one might have been intended as permanent?
    – rr_cola
    Commented Oct 3, 2021 at 0:54

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