Your harness concept shares similarity to harnesses utilized by a dolphin crew in the novel "Startide Rising" by David Brin. I missed hearing the dolphin crew reference in ST:TGN, wish they would had persued that.

Well, I kept in mind the concept I drew for Keepiru's pic but more Star Trek oriented.

ready to fight the sharks with the friggin' lasers on their heads.

Nice design !

Nice design: My only additions would be to change one phaser to a Tricorder, with an antenna matrix one one of the swingarms, since they mostly stayed on ship, they could do some engineering work.. not to mention offer 'dolphin therapy' to the crew *grins*. Good work on the central harness with armatures, and I like your blowhole rebreather concept, makes a lot of sense. The propellers would also be good for areas where they're tails can't be kicked due to tight spaces. Overall, very nice:)

I took a while to answer your post, I'm glad a trekkie replied ;).
I took a look at what a tricorder is supposed to do and imho, the tricorder could be implemented in the front part of the harness, as far as I remember when used to check something it was used close to that thing and thus putting a tricorder on top of the harness would defeat that purpose. Also the tricorder could use the dolphin sonar to determine medical conditions or mineral core of a stone or else, making its obvious position once again on the front part of the harness. Since the obvious place of the tricorder is found, its electronic system can be hidden somewhere in the harness only the 'reactive' part of it is in the front, and be integrated with no visible part in the melon of the harness, of course to make it more obvious like it in Batman the 60s series, I could put a sign saying "battricorder here" ;). As for the antenna, it is included in the dorsal part of the harness, the star trek signs serve the same purpose as the commbadges on normal crews triggered by neural controls. The propellers purposes were first thought for battle purpose where tail-kicking is not fast enough to react. Those could also be used in outer space mission with a second harness fitting itself onto the main one from under covering the tail, bottom and the head of the dolphin. Also the second hole where the retractable arm is can be replaced by any useful tool needed. I see the arms as totally replacable tools.
There, I think I said it all :p

All good points, and yes, I am a trekkie:P

Good to see what you meant about the postitioning, and I concur with your reasoning, though 'd expect a small bulge or such in the front to denote the tridcorder assembly, rather then the circuitry being dispersed throughout the front melon assembly. Good point on the propellers, though they would also be good for fine maneuvering in tight quarters.

The comlink would also fit well in the emblem, and could draw off the tricorder power supply. Although, does the phin command all of the included sensors via sonar pings, or is their a neural interface?

The eye visor can be used in case of visual required such when using the tricorder, since dolphins can use their eyes independantly (as any animal with 'separated' eyes afaik), each visor can display different informations. The power supply is the same as Data's power cells, they are able to power the whole suits and are refillable in case of power loss, since it uses dilithium, it makes for easy use to the propellers, those can be moved in any direction. The harness has an emergency power supply in case the normal one fails, for safety reason the power cell is linked to the external propellers and can be ejected in case of overloading. The dolphin then lacks the propeller but in case of external mission in outer space, the second part of the suit has its own propellers, with more energy, an energy field and some other defensive devices.

Not sure what you mean with the tricorder power supply, but each part of the harness electric system has its own linkage to avoid problems due to multiplexing. Also allows to use any of the harness system in case of fail from another system.

As for the bulge from the tricorder, well it's more of a design defects, the dolphin design engineers tried to keep the harness as smooth as possible for water penetration, the harness uses a specific penetration field, copied from the warp field but in a much less powerful state, it doesnt allow for high speed but the harness doesnt slow down phins in this state. And it also allows propellers working with dilithium without interfering with water.

The dolphins works the harness with the neural interface, in 2360, the dolphin brain is perfectly known, dolphins have studied themselves intensively prior to enter StarFleet.
The harness melon is made in a material that lets the dolphin sonar goes through it and back to the dolphin melon without loss, it can also intercept it and use it for the tricorder as stated before. The same technology as warp teleportation has been used to allow sonar through the field during fast moves thanks to a certain Scotty studies.

heh, nice, and again good explanations:) *hands you an offcial Star Trek Enthusiast jumpsuit*

Thank you Captain Cal :D

you are very welcome, Leiutenant Delphine:)

I remember reading the ST:TNG tech manual (yes, I am that much of a nerd) and I remembered the references to 'phins on Galaxy class ships. Quite a cool concept you have here. Though it looks somewhat like a cross between TOS/TAS and TNG styles (kind of like the uniforms in movies 2 to 6). Though why they have weapons yet not any tricorders?

And even though these 'phins are TNG I still say: REDSHIRTs! Bloody REDSHIRTs! I'll kill them all! *insert evil laugh here*

1st: Picard is a red shirt in TNG ;)
2nd: My color supply is limited to 36 colors in markers, I should have used wine red but I don't have such so since Picard were a red shirt, I made it red, never thought of the RED SHIRT stuff at all.
3rd: I'm really not a Star Trek nerd and never looked far into the series canon, I got a pic of Picard, a pic of a commbadge and designed the rest, so sorry if it mixes series styles.

As for the tricorder, read the reply to Calafin's comment :p

the who?

oh :p

Twelve botties and two orcas.

This is highly relevant to my interests!! I have really limited computer time at the moment, but when I get my laptop back, I have GOT to harass you into drawing tech as a starfleet med officer phin... though techno has built in retractable arms :P <3

Then i'll harass you for any technical details I'll need to draw those ;)

Hah! That's a brilliant idea AND execution! :D

Thanks :)

They had a dolphin on the ship? How did I miss this? :O

Actually it was only mentionned in two episodes from what I read and mostly in the background. Although the blue prints of the Enterprise D shows a dolphin deck. (maybe it was D for dolphins ;) )

They were mentioned in Encounter at Farpoint, Yesterday's Enterprise, and one other. A dolphin plays a central role in the ST:TNG book Dark Mirror as a String Theorist.

I wish they had put dolphins in Star Trek Online. Those of us who play have to pretend we're using holo-emitters to disguise our true forms.

wow very cool! hehe phins... in... SPACE! *plays the pigs in space theme*

Interesting. Add an anti-grav unit and they are no longer restricted to their decks. Although I think the eye is placed bit too far forward.

You are the first one to mention that, I think it's the harness that gives this impression, although I could be wrong. Yet the eye is correctly aligned with the blowhole.

yes, but it's also about the position relative to the pecs. Looks a bit too far forward. Maybe it's the 'zombie eyes'.

Probably, I think I always drew my dolphins like that :p