Babylon 5 - Question of Rank

[Ryan Thomas Riddle]

Another thought.
The symbol for Earthforces navy were a pair of wings. So this service might see it's heritage equally in the wet navies as in the airforces (as the first US astronauts were a mix of naval air wing pilots and airforce pilots), so their rank structure might reflect this in being an amalgam of airforce and navy rank structure.

Not so. The flightwings were only to indicate that the person wearing them is a qualified pilot. You see numerous officers and non-coms in blues that don't have the wings and as has been mentioned, Garibaldi, a security chief also had the wings. By-the-by it's not just a matter of qualification, as I recall if they don't log a certain amont of flight hours per month, then they loose their flight status and by extension, flight pay.

Same with Zack Allen; although, it seemed that he was brought on as a civilian security officer. But from "Sleeping in Light," it seems that Zack was part of Earthforce either before he came to Babylon 5 or after he left. IIRC, in that episode his EF security uniform also had wings on the sleeve. Not to mention that he "flew" a Starfury in the telemovie Thirdspace.

Reverand,

How do you figure the pilot episode ranks into your structure/illustaration? IIRC, there were different devices used on the epalutes.

I've always thought of "The Gathering" uniforms as a variant of the uniforms we saw in the series proper and in the telemovie In The Beginning. Almost a Class-B working uni, especially considering that the station recently went operational.

 

[Reverend]

I tend to write off The Gathering as the uniforms and insignia weren't the only things to be retconned since the pilot.

As for Zack I assume after he was made chief of security he was given pilot training. Actually, as I recall he was seen to pilot a shuttle when they went looking for Garibaldi early in season 4, so perhaps he already had something resembling a comercial pilot's licence and just got checked out on starfuries after he became a warrent officer.
As for being in Earthforce, I assume since all of Sheridan's staff were granted amnesty Zack promotion was honoured by Earth Central.

 

[JoeD80]

The connection between Hague and Sheridan wasn't that they were in the same chain of command at any prior point. They were in a "conspiracy." So I'm not at all bothered by that.

They could do the conspiracy because it was natural for them to talk to each other, likely because they were in the same chain of command.

I'm afraid I'm not remembering General Smits. Who was he again?

He was the General who called Sheridan from Earth in "Point of No Return."

As for General Lefcourt, that's a little bit vague and inconsistent, I'll agree. He really should have been "Admiral Lefcourt." But oh well... "It's just a TV show."

And don't forget General Ivanova. Interestingly, although Ivanova was referred to as "General" in the final episode, she was called "Admiral" in the script.

 

[JoeD80]

Same with Zack Allen; although, it seemed that he was brought on as a civilian security officer.

He was a Sergeant.

 

[Reverend]

It's a tough distinction to discern but the way I see it the security officers are neither military or civilian. They're the filth, the fuzz, the boys, girls and Narn in...uh...grey...or green. Though many are probably ex-military squaddie types (like Garibaldi) it's not necessary a rule that they must be, since either way they'd have to be re-trained.
Having said that of course, since the Minbari War involved a planetary draft, I imagine there are quite a large number of ex-gropos on civvie street, ten years down the line.

 

[Ryan Thomas Riddle]

Same with Zack Allen; although, it seemed that he was brought on as a civilian security officer.

He was a Sergeant.

Yes, but Sergeant is also a rank used in police forces, which are paramilitary by nature but fall under local authority. At times, it is inferred in the series, that the Babylon 5 security personnel are a local authority akin to a civilian police force. Whereas Garabaldi may be Earthforce, those under him as part of "B5 security" are not in the EF.

As Reverand says, B5 security is the Fuzz.

 

[JoeD80]

Since he said that he had re-enlisted in Sleeping in Light (I think he said "re-upped"), he was certainly part of Earthforce previously.

 

[DanCPA]

FYI, a friend of mine, who was a Cobra pilot while we served together, was on the B5 production staff. He was one of the folks who occasionally would straighten out JMS's confusion on these issues. (Incidentally, he was a Chief Warrant Officer in the US Army Aviation Corps.)

Coolness! Tell him "thanks" from the rest of us. I never paid much attention to the ranks on the show, with one exception. Delenn's line about "only one human captain has ever survived battle with the Minbari fleet". When I first heard it, I immediately thought of Sinclair instead of her intended meaning being Sheridan. But then it was pointed out that Sinclair was merely a Commander.

And Sinclair didn't "survive" combat, he was defeated and spared by the minbari

 

[Neroon]

If Sinclair was alive after the battle, he still survived it regardless of the means by which it was accomplished.

 

[DanCPA]

I'm pretty sure Delenn was using hyperbole to make her point... The ONE Captain to score a victory against the Minbari was behind her... what chance did they have?

 

[Harvey]

Since he said that he had re-enlisted in Sleeping in Light (I think he said "re-upped"), he was certainly part of Earthforce previously.

Although that could have been during the telepath war, or some other conflict that happened off screen.

 

[Ryan Thomas Riddle]

Since he said that he had re-enlisted in Sleeping in Light (I think he said "re-upped"), he was certainly part of Earthforce previously.

Which is what I mention in my previous post that you quoted earlier:

Thirdspace[/i].

Zack could've been like Garabaldi, someone who served during the Earth-Minbari War. In fact, Garabaldi mentions that him and Zack, iirc, have a lot in common; although, I'm sure that was more in reference to substance abuse. Hence why Garabaldi gave Zack a "break when no one else did."

Further, SiL occurs after a 20 year gap, so Zack could've left B5 and joined Earthforce Security. Then, left and reupped before the decommission ceremony. However, I think that it could be argued that he had prior EF training since he did pilot a Starfury in Thirdspace. No other B5 security personnel, other than Garabaldi, were seen jocking a 'fury.

 

[Reverend]

As I said before, he wasn't seen wearing flight wings while wearing Earthforce grey and the later uniforms he wore (padded green security & "Army of Light") didn't feature them for anyone. It wasn't until 'Sil' that we saw him back in an Earth uniform. However, as I have previously mentioned he was shown to pilot a shuttle while they went out after Garibaldi early in Season 4 and by mid-season 4 (Thirdspace) he was the new Chief and flying a starfury. The way I see it, he had a pilot's licence already when he became a security officer, either from a previous hitch in the military (not surprising given the planetary draft) or from a previous job as a comercial pilot and his promotion to Chief of Security required he be checked out on the Starfuries.
After the civil war was over, his promotion (and Ivanova's, incidently) was honoured by Earthdome along with his upgraded flight status. Hence, when he left B5 and re-enlisted with Earthforce, he was on flight pay.

 

[Reverend]

Hurray for thread necromancy!

So it's almost two years later and I've finally gotten around to putting some of this stuff to good use on the wiki by overhauling this whole article. Right now though I'm a bit stuck tackling the various General ranks - more specifically finding out which insignia link up to which ratings. Does anyone know of any General that was referred to in any official media as anything other than simply "General"? By that I mean Brigadier Generals and Major Generals? I found one Lieutenant General in 'Point of No Return' (the one that delivered Hague's last message) but other than that nothing.
What really bugs me though, is that I swear I remember some mention of Fontaine and/or Leftcourt as Major, Brigadier or Lieutenant Generals in 'In The Beginning', but I'll be damned if I can find it again.

P.S. Before anyone brings up where 'Major' is on that chart, check out the discussion page first. That comes right from John Copeland.

 

[J.T.B.]

Nice work on those pages. I think it's pretty clear that they were making things up on the fly without a clear system, despite what people in production were saying. They actually need nine grades below flag/general rank? The job descriptions don't sound different enough to warrant it. And a regular system of bars is going along nicely, then out of the blue three pips appear for major? What happened to one and two pips? And then the good old U.S. of A. eagle for colonel? That's not very international. And the blending of army and navy titles just seems messy.

Also, there are 13 officer grades but only five enlisted? That seems a little one-sided. I guess promotions come few and far between for most of those guys!

--Justin

 

[Star Wolf]

How do you see "Generals" Hague, Smits and Lecourt (sp) and "Major" Ryan fit in with your observations, since they are by their uniform color and insignias clearly naval officers?

The original B5 role-playing game suggested that officers who began their careers in one service branch retain their rank title even if they transfer. So Hague and Ryan were originally GROPOS but switched to the Naval forces when they realized they had a talent for ship operations. Garibaldi is rated for Starfury piloting, so this may be common enough if an Army officer/enlisted man is assigned to a spaceborne posting.

It days gone by it wasn't unheard of for non-coms to be pilots but I think that generally went the way of the dodo post WW2.

That said I do have recollection that WOs were get to fly helicopters but that could be just a from watching that crap Nicholas Cage movie years back

Might be the case in the U.K armed forces as well, but at one point WO's in the Australian Army would take a full commission just before their service was up to boast their pensions/benefits after doing their 20 (I asked my Dad who was an officer in the reserves at the time).

Well as long as the thread has come back from the dead

The vast majority of US Army helicopter pilots, thus US Military helicopter pilots are Warrant Officers, in the US sense. Other nations figure warrants differently. For example most Commenwealth"warrant officers" would be called Senior NCOs in the US Mil. While a Warrant Officer in rank they retain titles like First Sergeant or Command Sergeant Major. And if Garabaldi was a police officer/pilot then depending upon the department the pilot may be just an officer no higher in rank then the rookie officer just off of probation.

 

[Reverend]

Nice work on those pages. I think it's pretty clear that they were making things up on the fly without a clear system, despite what people in production were saying. They actually need nine grades below flag/general rank? The job descriptions don't sound different enough to warrant it. And a regular system of bars is going along nicely, then out of the blue three pips appear for major? What happened to one and two pips? And then the good old U.S. of A. eagle for colonel? That's not very international. And the blending of army and navy titles just seems messy.

Also, there are 13 officer grades but only five enlisted? That seems a little one-sided. I guess promotions come few and far between for most of those guys!

--Justin

I think it's clear things were a little wonky early on but I think they quickly got it straightened out. I'm not sure if said "wonkyness" was down to making things up as they went along or actually changing their minds between developing 'The Gathering' and the series proper. If you scroll down the article you'll see I included a subsection on the rank as they are described in the 'Security Manual'. From the looks of it (assuming that came from actual behind the scenes material) I'd say early on they'd intended to have a separation of the Naval/Airforce type ranks and the Army/Marine type.

As for the lack of enlisted ranks, I think it's more a case of them being there, just not fully fleshed out. If you look at episodes of B5 & Crusade when you see non-B5 EF crews like say the bridge crew on the Aggie, you'll note bunch of extras with no rank insignia and a ship patch instead of a division badge on their left shoulders. It's just that they rarely had speaking parts and very actual characters were below the rank of Lieutenant.

Which brings me to another oddity I'm struggling with; can anyone else see a difference between the Lt and LtCmdr insignias? I can't as of yet and it confuses the hell out of me.

Speaking of odd insignias, I generally take the presence of the US colonel bird and the bath stars as a hold over from the EF's early days. As I often point out, the Earth Alliance is not the UFP and Earthforce isn't Starfleet. Given what we know of the EA it seems likely that the first major contributors to the EF military in terms of personnel and hardware would have been the US and British/Commonwealth armed forces. So the insignia weren't designed from the ground up but where a mish-mash picked by some committee headed by a bunch of politically motivated senators and desk jockey generals.

 

[Ensign_Redshirt]

I always figured that Earthforce's rank structure must look like this:

Admiral
General
Colonel
Captain
Commander
Lieutenant Commander
Major
Lieutenant
Lieutenant Junior Grade
Ensign

- In contrast to generals, admirals were rarely seen or mentioned on the show, so I'd assume that there were fewer of them and hence admirals outrank generals. (On the other hand, Season 1 had only admirals and no generals, while from Season 2 onwards there seemed to be only generals and no admirals whatsoever. So we may deal with a retcon here. This is further supported by the fact that the chairman of the joint chiefs, William Hague, was a general and not an adrmiral. Maybe Earthforce changed its rank structure between Seasons 1 and 2?)

- Colonels outrank captains because Lochley was promoted from captain to colonel (see "The Lost Tales").

- Ivanova was promoted from lieutenant commander to commander and then from commander to captain, so these are probably consecutive ranks.

- Major Kemmer and Major Krantz from Season 1 were clearly Sinclair's subordinates. Since it is established that lieutenant commanders are directly below commanders, majors have to come below lieutenant commanders. This is further supported by the fact that Major Atumbe was next in line after (Lt. Cmdr.) Ivanova in Season 1. Furthermore, I don't see any substantial evidence that Major Ryan was outranking Sheridan. At no point he was giving orders to Sheridan. If anything, they seemed to treat each other like equals (maybe this was because Ryan as adjutant to the chairman of the joint chiefs was clearly more important than your regular major).

- Lieutenant Trainor served as Major Ryan's first officer in "Severed Dreams", so lieutenants are subordinates to majors.

- David Corwin was promoted straight from lieutenant, junior grade to full lieutenant, so these ranks are consecutive.

- Ensigns probably come last if we follow the usual naval rank structure.

 

[Reverend]

^No retcon, an Admiral was mentioned in 'Points of Departure' and I think there was a mention at some point that Ivanova was initially going to be an Admiral rather than a General in 'SiL'.

As for Trainor, I'm not sure if he was supposed to be a Lieutenant or a Lieutenant Commander. Like I said the insignia appears identical and I don't think he was referred to by rank in dialogue.

As for the source and reasoning for sequence RE: Majors, I guess checking the discussion page was too much effort so here's the letter from Copeland:

"We actually had a chart somewhere in Wardrobe. Kim Holly might know where it resides these days. Anyway, let's see what I can do: the ranking system was kind of created by Joe, and then we sort of worked [with the continuity] on an ongoing basis in the series.
"It's really a blend of Naval and Air Force ranks, but we didn't adhere strictly to only US military rankings. We tried to throw a little wider loop with some ranks from world military organisations. The wings on the sleeves of the EarthForce Blues is also a nod to other military organisations, which is quite common in some European groups."
So, I've listed the ranks in grouping as a breakdown. Each rank listed second or third is lower than the first, except for Admiral and General. (i.e. Lieutenant Colonels are lower than Colonels.)
Admiral/General: They are of equal standing, however Admirals (and one of the reasons we didn't see them) are fleet (as in Pacific Fleet, or Atlantic Fleet) commanders. Generals (at least in our series) tend to be involved still on the tactical level. General Franklin and General Hague are two examples of tactical appearances on the show.
Colonels, Lt.Colonels, Majors: This is why Major Krantz outranked Sheridan, because Captains come next in the order.
Captain, Commander, Lt.Commander: The two commander ranks tuck back into the Naval system.
Lieutenant, 1st Lieutenant and Ensign: These are the next levels coming down the ladder.
Security Chief: (As in Garibaldi) Even though Garibaldi was really, technically, outside the military. We never really explored how EarthForce Security worked in tandem with the military. I have also thought they were like the Air Police or AirForce, but again we never set that in stone.
And then we go into the regular ranks. Our chevrons and all were based on the British versions. Some of our officers, like Maj. Krantz, wore British style pips of rank.

That was printed in The Official Babylon 5 Magazine: Issue 17, (p.58) and was in response to a specific question. The shame of it is, the end of the letter (not shown here) promises a whole article by Copeland on the organisation of Earthforce in a later issue, but as far as I can tell no such thing ever materialised.

 

[Ensign_Redshirt]

Colonels, Lt.Colonels, Majors: This is why Major Krantz outranked Sheridan, because Captains come next in the order.

First of all, Copeland mixes up Ryan and Krantz here. And he doesn't really explain why Sinclair outranked Majors Atombe, Kemmer, and the actual Krantz then. But maybe this is the retcon here.

Security Chief: (As in Garibaldi) Even though Garibaldi was really, technically, outside the military.

Garibaldi was explicitly established as a Chief Warrant Officer (CWO) in the show.