Environmental suit

2250s: A rescue party from the USS Enterprise using EV suits in a Ngultor ship(Flesh of My Flesh)

An Environmental suit or EV suit is a specialised type of clothing used to project the wearer from hazards and maintain life-support in inhospitable environments.

EV suits can be used for a variety of tasks; for extravehicular activities, to explore a non-class M environments (or dependent on your species whatever environments might usually cause you harm) or to work in hazardous areas protected from various forms of chemicals and radiations.

There are a number of specialised EV suits, with magnetic boots to walk on the hull of a starship or a small propulsion unit to allow independent travel a short distance into open space. Anthropological isolation suits seem to stem from EV suit technologies sealing a researcher off from their unsuspecting study subjects.

History of EV suits

22nd century

22nd century: An away team from the Enterprise (NX-01) using EV suits to explore the interior of an alien ship (The Crossing)

EV suits used by Earth Starfleet in the 22nd century were a bronze color utilizing a soft body suit with more solid components where necessary. These EV suits had magnetic boots and had various safety measures such as the ability to share an oxygen supply if one was damaged or lost.

The suits were generally emblazoned with the mission patch of the starship they were assigned to and key crew members had their own tailored suits whilst other personnel utilised shared suits. MACOs also had their own style of suit presumably designed to be more effective in combat situations.

(Enterprise episodes: Babel One, The Catwalk, The Crossing and Minefield)

23rd century

2260s: A later 23rd century EV suit
(The Tholian Web)

By the 2250s Federation Starfleet used an orange EV suit with more generally more flexible components than there 22nd century predecessors.

By the 2260s Starfleet began to use new Silver suits which consisted of mostly of a flexible form fitting body suit with a tall helmet. Later in the decade Starfleet began to use Life support belts, a type of personal force field, however these seemed to have been phased out in later years as Starfleet returned to more solid suit designs. (TOS episode: The Tholian Web and The Animated Series)

24th century

24th century: Tom Paris and B'Elanna Torres in EV suits in open space (Day of Honor)

By the 24th century Starfleet was using a white EV suit with a body suit and solid components which were of form fitting design to fit the user to without restrictions of movement and vision.

Kira wears an environmental suit.

The engineering crew of Deep Space 9 would wear environmental suits when conducting repairs on the station's exterior. (DS9 reference: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Technical Manual)

In 2372, the away team of the USS Voyager used EV suits to investigate the surface of Praja after it was ravaged by a botanical plague. (VOY comic: "Homeostasis, Part One")

In 2373, Elim Garak wore an environmental suit when he beamed onto Empok Nor. (DS9 episode: "Empok Nor")

Benjamin Sisko, Kira Nerys and Worf wore environmental suits in 2374 when they beamed down to Jeraddo. They later wore them again when the artificial gravity and life support in parts of Deep Space 9 was interrupted by Obanak Keelen's inhabitation by the Pah-wraiths. (DS9 video game: The Fallen)

Tholian EV suit.

Geordi La Forge had a great dislike for the Starfleet environmental suit even with the modifications that had been introduced after his time at Starfleet Academy. The suit was known as the standard extravehicular work garment (or SEWGs) in Starfleet-speak. (TNG novel: A Time to Sow)

External links

• Environmental suit article at Memory Alpha, the wiki for canon Star Trek.
• Environmental suit article at Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.