Ranks and Insignias, can Anybody Help?

[JasonTL12]

Ok, at the moment i'm putting together my TC concept, which includes gathering information on the right characters to put into the game in terms of being timeline appropriate, having major roles within the time line and the appropriate attributes and/or ranks, and pretty much just making the game more fun and the way i want to play it After this is done, I can get back to digging through ResHack and using Rebed to put the finishing touches on. Wow, that sounds so easy, too bad its still a few months away until it all comes to fruition.

 

So, more to the point. I've spent the last couple hours doing searches on the net and here in the forums, and I'm still a bit confused about ranks and their insignias. Yes, I know that, in the movies, some of the rank insignias were just goofs, and that ANH is just way out there in terms of rank insignias from ESB and ROTJ, but I've found about 4-5 sites (some of which were referenced here) that have ranks listed and pictures of of the insignia bars and cylinders, but I'm still a bit befuddled.

 

The problem is that, although they are pretty close, the sites disagree on some of the insignias and/or cylinders used to denote specific ranks. The insignias from ANH don't help matter much, as many of the references have insignias for both the "old" and "new" systems. To make matters even worse, the original pictures in SWR are a little screwy too, showing combinations of bars and cylinders that I can't find in any of the Databases and Databanks I've found. Griff has 6 blue, 6 red, and a 1 cylinder on boths sides, which would put him where, between fleet admiral and high admiral???? Veers has 4, 4, and one cylinder. Is he only a major general and not a Lt. or "four-star"general??? Is it possible that the Army and Navy have different systems? But, if so, how can Commander Praji be in the army system because there is no such rank as "commander" for army forces. Maybe he is an army Lt. Colonel overseeing the stromrtoopers attatched to the Devastator that searched the Tantive IV and Lord Vader just misspoke.

 

We're given ranks in the forums for posting. From what I've seen, the ranks and insignias used in the forums are pretty much the ones agreed upon my most people and concurrent with most of what i've seen in the databanks. Some of you have been very nice to me by replying to my post about starting my TC project, and i hope that will continue So here is the actual question. Does anybody out there have any idea about which system is the "most" correct in terms of websites or databases. At the moment i have FFURG, Wikipedia, Imperial News Grid, and the Star Wars Technical Commentary. Any suggestions on which one to follow? And now for the really big question I'm not sure which one(s) of you put the ranks up in the forums, but would you happen to have a zip file of all those little named .gifs that you'd be willing to send to me via email jasonlaviolette@hotmail.com (or better yet, put in the downloads section for everybody's reference)?????

 

As I'm working on my TC, i want to make all the charaters as correct and true to form by finding pictures, editing pictures, and even making pictures (anything but using the less than perfect original ones in the game). As i was doing this tongiht, I did make my first card of Imperial Grand Admiral Thrawn, complete with new picture (the most real looking one out there that you can't really see his insignia, so i mirrored the image and found a GA insignia that i resized, tilted, and pasted on his chest), new background, and new Galactic Empire emblem. Only problem is that I mistakenly used the first set of insignia pictues i found, which had a supreme (apparently now changed to lord within the last hour) admiral at the top of the list where i thought grand admiral should be, lol. So, its a reverse of how it should really be. i could mirror the pic, but then the insignia would be on his left chest, which i think would be even worse. I'll fix it soon, but if anybody wants to take a look at the bitmap, let me know.

 

If anybody could provide me with the correct system with pictures of them, that would be fantastic. I'd love to use them to make sure all of my in-game pictures are true to form. During game play, i can also change the EData and hack the DLL bitmaps so that if i decide to give someone a promotion, i can just change the pics and i'll have the correct current rank showing up during mission reports

 

As a side note but on the same topic of rank and insignia, just FYI, i read this somwhere today. The Moff Honorific is granted to Imperial Governers so that they have complete control over all of the armed forces in their territory. However, the Moff title can also be given to Imperial officers overseeing special projects, productions, or organizations. These Moff officers are directly appointed by the Emperor and the title gives them rank over all Imperial personnel, military and civillian working on the project or within the organization. This may explain Jerjerrod's insignia, the fact that vader addresses him as "Commander", and even his young age to be a Moff. Or, it may just be a cover up for the blunder You'd think he'd have some kind of visible indication for the Moff title even if he is only at the rank of commander. Just food for thought.

 

Thanks all, later.

[MDk]

Just two short hypotheses:

 

First one: "Commander" in the Star Wars Universe is not only a military rank (for the Navy), but also a short form for "Commanding Officer". This way the commanding officer of a squadron, a military facility, a platoon of foot troopers or even a Death Star can be adressed as "Commander" regardless of his actual rank.

 

Second one: There is an easy explaination for different rank insignias for the same rank: George Lucas did not think about an unitary rank system before beginning to work on the films. Therefore the rank system may appear like a patchwork.

[JasonTL12]

Yeah, i was just thinking about the movies and actually fast forwarding through ANH just to see if some of the things i read about Bast and Tagge possibly surving the first death star destruction. From what i can decipher, tagge wasn't in the control room. It does look like Bast and Motti were bown to smithereens. I know that ANH was made so cheaply and quickly for a fim of its type that things like a uniform ranking system and actually getting names right were overlooked to just thet the project done. I also know that commander can encompass alot of ranks, like captain in conventional water based navys, but being ex air force, it urks me to not call people by thier appropriate rank i found a couple more sites and found some interesting things. One is that both imperial army and navy pretty much follow conventional US (and other) army and navy ranks to a tee, but (at least on a fleet) they have the exact same uniform and the insignias follow the exact same progression. That has to be confusing. The impirial fighter force follows the British Royal Air Force almost exactly. Thier different uniforms make them more easily distinguised as well. There are some other different officer uniforms with different colors and misleading insignias, but, since this is an military empire, it would make sense that they are other separate branches (such as such as security, intelligence, and R&D) and follow different insignia styles and progressions. I'm probably spending way too much time on this, but when I'm done with my TC, i really want to be proud of it by staying as close to form as possible with the films, books, and what i've read and discovered online as i can, and yet still have a ranking system that is logical. This is just the first time I've really delved deeply into the Imperial and Rebel Officer rankings and it intrigued me, enthused me, and frustrated me, so I'm happy and I think i've put all brances into systems that make sense to me, even R&D officers and governmental ranks. Well, guess it's time to get cracking on pinpointing where my personnel are in thier carrers, getting all the arwork done, and getting them into the game.

 

Oh, just for the sake of asking, does anybody here have any decent pictures of Lieutanant Page or his first name? I read somwhere that he actually has one, but haven't been able to find it anywhere. He's one of the few original characters I'm leaving in the game (heck, the rebel commandos are his commandos, what would they be without thier lieutenant?). He's one of the few original characters that I'm actually leaving in on the Alliance side, but i want to change all the pictures and have full names if they have them.

 

Thanks, and have a great weekend everybody

[DarthTofu]

If I weren't so lazy, I would get out the Rogue Squadron book that Page's full name is mentioned in. But I'm too lazy. I'll tell you that the book is simply entitled "X-wing: Rogue Squadron", though. To answer your very early question about rank: Yes, Naval, Air Force, and army rankings are different.Iinterestingly enough, Marine, SEALs, and Army all use the same system, though... I think. As far as the Grand Admiral level goes, you might want to just check the front cover on the Thrawn trilogy books. I knoow that he's on the cover of at least one. heck, I'll check it real fast (Runs off to check Thrawn trilogy book's front covers) (returns) okay, according to "HEIR TO THE EMPIRE" Thrawn has six blue bars stacked equally on the left hand side of his uniform (The viewer's left if facing Thrawn), and then three yellow bars stacked up on top of three red bars directly adjacent to the blue bars. If that was too difficult, I'll use this easy-to-understand-diogram.

 

BBBYYY

BBBRRR

 

B=blue

Y=yellow

R=red

 

Also, Thrawn has yellow fringe on his uniform's shoulders, in case you want to incorporate that. I forget what the fringe things are called. Pauldrons (SP?)

[JasonTL12]

Thanks Tofu.

 

Yeah, I dug around more, and pretty much have things under control. I incorporated alot of into from different systems i found, picstures, and the movies and books, and compiled a ranking and insignia system for the army, mavy, space force (fighters), security, intelligence, and research &development that follows along (mostly anyway) and actually makes some sense I grabbed some compnents (red, gold, and blue bars, and cylinders) and went to town on PSP. I'm amost done making all my own bitmaps that i can paste onto other pictures as i make all of my character cards, only have intel and research to make yet, and those are pretty easy.

 

Interesting point though... The insignia for grand admiral makes abolutely no sense the way it is, except for the fact that the emperor just thought up the rank out of his dark mind (and with it, the insignia). I guess that's what happens though when you have authors, artists, and, to begin with, George Lucas and a low budget to make the first film (none of whom, i think, had any military advisors to help them with the intricacies of developing a space age insignia system for thier armed forces).

 

Think of it this way. governmental rankings are blue/red and military rankings are red/blue. From what I've read, seen in the movies, and saw on a couple sites with ranking for different parts of the Galactic empire, this is what I've discerned as a basid starting point (and just leaving jerjerrod in ESB out because that was probably a blunder of some sort) Governmental ranks go up to BBBBBB/RRRRRR before gold starts at the left with Moff and works back to the right. High Moff = BBBBBB/RRRRGG, and Moff=BBBBBB/RRRRRG, and moffs have 4 cylinders (and i still don't really have a grasp of why less cylinders is higher than more, but that's the way it is). Grand Admiral outranks Grand Moff. With no cylinders )and gold eschelauns), what would make sense is if it were RRRGGG/BBBBBB, instead of having all six blue on the left because military ranks are red over blue the whole way through. Its still the same 12 with just 3 red and 3 blue switched. This is also logical if Ozzel, in ESB is an admiral instead of a Fleet Admiral (whish makes sense because Vader put him in command of Death Squadron after griff was Killed blockading Yavin--If Ozzel were a Fleet Admiral, you'd think he'd actually be in a high command somewhere instead of at home playing with the kids when he got his orders to get his ass to Death Squadron). So, a Fleet Admiral should be RRRRRG/BBBBBB, High Admiral + RRRRGG/BBBBBB, and Grand Admiral RRRGGG/BBBBBB. None of these ranks would have cylinders, so a Fleet Admiral would outrank a Moff if he were conducting operation inside the Moff's territory, A High Admiral outranks a High Moff, and a Grand Admiral outranks a Grand Moff.

 

Theoretically following all the way through, in the navy, RRGGGG/BBBBBB would be Supreme Admiral, RGGGGG/BBBBBB would be Lord Admiral, and GGGGGG/BBBBBB would be Military Executor: Supreme Lord Commander of the Armed Forces. In other words, Lord Darth Vader would have a rank insignia of 6 Gold over 6 Blue if he were to wear one

 

Governmentally (I'd say civilly, but the line between civil officer and military officer gets blurred in an imperial system of government), after Grand moff, things get a little tricky because you have to switch from a higher Moff ranking to a Vizier ranking somewhere, althoug I've never heard or seen Viziers wearing command rank insignias, but it would make sense that there would be insignias to go along with the classifications (even if they aren't worn) in an Empire. So I've conceptualized it like this: Grand Moff = BBBBBB/RRRGGG with 4 cylinders, Supreme Moff is the same with 3 or 2 (I picked 2) cylinders, Lord Moff is the same with 2, 1, or 0 (i picked 0), Vizier is 6B/2R4G, High Vizier is 6B/1R5G, and Grand Vizier is 6B/6G. This may be a little off because, Grand Vizier Sate Pestage and Lord Vader would be at the same rank, which is a little screwey because, when it comes right down to it, this is a military empire and Vader would definitely outrank the Emperor's cheif advisor and day to day governemtal leader. So, there should probably be a theoretical position of Supreme Vizier (that should be the 6B/6G) that would never be filled, so Vader always stays second in command of the entire empire. That would push Grand Vizier to 6B/1R5G, but I've seen some people use 6B/6G for Grand Vizier, so that's ok with me. Theoretical Lord Vizier would be, of course, the Emperor Palpatine himself.

 

Another way to do it would be to keep the 4 cylinders so admirals always outrank Moffs and continue in the same pattern: Supreme Moff, Lord Moff, Imperial Executor-Supreme Lord Moff of the Imperial Territories. This would leave Viziers as honorable positions appointed by the Emperor to act solely as advisors to him without having direct control over running the government, which is the way it should really work, but, from what I've read, Grand Vizier Sate Pestage does most of the day to day running of the Empire while the Emperor meditates with the Dark Side.

 

Well, in researching this, I learned a lot and refreshed a lot of my memory from the books I've read, and it was fun, but my theoretical conceptualization and structuring of a coherent ranking and insignia system is complete. Some people may agree with it, other not, but most of the information out there is theory and conjecture anyway, even from the authors and illustrators working on books and and comics. In sites that I found with ranks and pictures of thier insignias, no 2 completely agreed, so i'm not really worried about it. I've developed a system that's logical to me, so i'm happy and i can't wait to see it in-game when i'm done with my TC

 

Thanks, and have a good week all

[DarthTofu]

My brain hurts... ow. Man, you are clearly a far smarter person than me. For the record, though, it's just a game, so feel free to enjoy it as just a game rather than a giant legal system. Also, just for fun and to throw a wrench into the middle of all that you've worked so hard to build: Leia specifically tells Tarkin in Episode Four "I should have known you would be the one holding Vader's leash". In other words, Tarkin got to control Vader, meaning that Vader wasn't second in command, or else that a Grand Moff on his own project get's all high ranking authority. Of course, you probably have a responce to that, and I'm willing to bet a fair amount of money that it will be another novel!

[JasonTL12]

Nope, not another novel, just wanted to say thanks for the feedback. Yeah, Tarkin did seem to be in charge of Vader in ANH, but he clearly was not under the authority of Moff Jerjerrod in RoTJ. Between the two movies is when the Emperor made teh Council of Grand Admirals, which i thik should have been outranked by Vader, but maybe not, but the Grand Admirals outrank all Moffs. And although Tarkin was an arrogant f#&% and seemed to enjoy bossing Vader around, lets face it, the Dark Lord of the Sith, apprentice to only the Emperor, could snap Tarkin's neck with a though and a little help from the Dark Side of the Force So who was really in charge of whom?

 

I know its a game, but i really enjoy learning new things, researching, and basically just thinking, that's why i enjoy strategy games. Also, I know i'm putting alot of time and energy into this, but i just really want to be proud of it when i'm done with my total converstion of the game. This isn't some half assed job of just modding some character stats, ship specs, and pictures, I'm looking at making this a whole new game, with just the programming the same. I might not go as far as replacing all of the wave files and all of the videos like they're doing with Rebellion Reloaded, but I'm going to try to change it as much as i can and do the best i can with it

 

And sorry for the length of the messages, when i start to type, it just flows. This one is just a novelette But thanks for the interest and input, glad some people are actually reading all of my dribble, thinking about things, and taking the time to reply If you actually care to see the systems i have come up with, I put all of the pics of insignias i made into a word documents with thier rankings, but maybe i made your brain hurt enough for a while

[DarthTofu]

By no means. See, I'm half Yuzhan Vong, so I empbrace pain! But seriously, I would like to see it. Just asking, though, would you happen to be a member of fanfiction or something? Because you would probably be widely hailed on works in the "Tom Clancey" sections. But yeah, I deffinately want to see this stuff, maybe burn it to a disk and see if windows 98 can stand up toit (Though probably it can't. Thing's a piece of junk)