I realized something was off when I noticed that Jerjerrod who is supposedely a Moff had the same plaque as my little Lego guy, (apparently) a mere army captain or commander. No wonder why it's relatively easy to disguise as an Imp and infiltrate their bases, they probably can't tell if the guy standing next to them is an army lieutenant janitor or a commander of a navy's Star Destroyer battle fleet
The argument in the essential guide to warfare is that rank bars portray the role you’re in.L, not the rank you hold (similar to how irl ship captains are always called captains regardless of actual rank). Jerjerrod may be a Moff, but he is acting as Commander of the station. That said this is a post hoc rationalisation for a wardrobe error.
I like the idea that imperial rank plaques are issued rather than automatically updatable, so it's sort of a matter of keeping up with your pay grade on-record until your supply Cadre has your insignia ready for you
Holy heck at (2:49), I had no idea the worldbuilding/lore for the Galactic Empire went that in depth. This is like Warhammer 40K levels of lore for a fictional military organization.
Yeah....when fans are doing a better job than the IP owner, there might be a problem. I do genuinely hope they continue to harmonize things. And I honestly believe that King Doran's chart is the way to go. Just add in the ISB ranks we saw in Rebels and be done with it.
It's funny because Trek has a bit of a out for these inconveniences. Mainly in the fact each Trek was a different era or has a reorganization of star fleet. And with the series taking place over some 200 years can get things will shift around. The empire.... doesn't have this excuse since it only lasted 20 years lol.
That's an army captain, really. Or that's how it SHOULD have been. Army Captain only equals Naval Lieutenant. So a Navy Captain should have had four dots, like a Colonel, in the Army. And there ought to be more than one type of Admiral too, or General (in fact, there are three canonical 'general' badges; five red for Dodonna, four blue one red, for Willard, and five blue, for Hudsol)@@Darth-vade123
My two cent, based on acumulatred star wars canon and eu lore. 1 Row insigia was MOST common and the standard unless very hight ranking officers and moffs before and until the battle of Yavin, (ep 4) by Battle of Hoth the calssic two rows, red over blue was the more connon and the new standard fro all officer rnaks. stromtrooper corps and others could have seperate rules regarding this but I have found none so I belive they too conformed to the above. With most of the series from long before the battle of yavin we do see a large number of officers with a 1 row insignia, and the very higest having two. 2 I have noticed that the ranks and the duty or command positions are often mixed up, this goes espcially with the commsioned ranks of captain and commander. the imperial army does NOT have the commisioned rank of commander, but ALL leaders of a unit is a commander in their commad posiotion. the lieutenant is the platoon commader, even if called platoon leader. any commading officer regardless of their commsioned rank is a commder in the army and for the most part in the navy as well. the army captiain is a commisioned rank and the rough equivalent of a navy Lieutenant. a Navy Captiain is a very high commsioned ranks, ususually the same as an army colonel. they are often in commad of large forces and will be referred to as commader. the commad position of a captiain is anyone regardless of rank that is in commad of a starship, a lieutenant in cgarge of a small shuttle is the Captain, no matter what actuall commsioned rank he holds. So when look at the ranks and see things second thechnical officer, thi is not a rank and can be held by ANY rank, this is a command or duty position. navigaion officer, assistant commader....not rank but command/duty positions. I hope this helps
While a lot of this is obviously production inconsistencies, I think it's also on-brand for the Empire to have a giant mess here. Their military is an enormous collage of different branches, with political infighting causing different members to seek out or invent different ranks, and a heavy cross-pollination between military and political figures - most of the governors (a political position) probably also have a military rank that might not be as high as their actual position would seem to warrant. (For a real-life example, see the debate over whether Manhattan Project scientists would be given military ranks or not.) The Empire sees itself as the ultimate personification of order, but it's not actually very well organized.
Yeah it is quite interesting. In-universe imperial culture is just Republic culture but more overtly ruthless. Out of universe George Lucas was using the Empire to criticise America but made the imps foreign enough to seem like fascists.
Thank you so much for making this. I've had a hard time figuring the ranks out, and another thing that they never really seem to do much about is the difference between the Imperial Army and Imperial Navy. It's very difficult to tell Army officers from Navy officers typically.
It's true! Timothy Zahn was literally handed a bunch of Star Wars Role Playing Game books and was told to make his novels fit in line with the material already established in them. Full circle moment though, because West End games ended up publishing game materials based on his novels!
Also yes. In the novel LOST STARS they talk about the ranks of the actual Navy (Ensign, Lieutenant, Lt. Commander, Commander, Captain, etc.) But then they have Commander come AFTER captain in some other canon novels like the Thrawn Trilogy.
@fandompowerpodcast agreed. But it did reiterate, as you say, that after the Death Star was destroyed there was a reorganization of the Empire due to the loss of so many officers and soldiers. They really didn't focus that much on training but only on getting the soldiers out to the battlefield which explains why the Stormtroopers are such lousy shots. In ANH it was because they were ordered to let them go, but afterwards it was just the product of cutting corners and lessening training.
A lot of that is likely from mixing up army captains with navy captains. Certainly the Alliance system is prey to that very issue. Two dots should be for army captains there (equal only to navy lieutenants) and not, to full ship captains. But the Ahsoka series still keeps on using this version.@@fandompowerpodcast
Just from reading that list alone, you would hardly make it to captain let alone general in the Imperial Ranking system by age 40 unless you were brutally loyal or a floor kisser or your family was rich - most likely your ranking class would be stagnated, most definitely if you just started around 19 BBY - they were probably pushing people to higher ranks by the time the death star 1 went boom.
I always noticed the incostistencies in Imperial uniforms. I love the rank plaque as it's just the first thing that pops out to me. I feel that the SW media with one of the best rank consistencies would likely be Swtor. My Chiss Imperial Agent (IA) always changed her uniform as she got promoted - there are several different IA uniforms, with the plaques and the armoring (on the neck and shoulders, like a Jedi armor) always changing depending on the set. You get more high ranking armor drops as your character levels up and I loved that they work incredibly well with dyes so you can customize them.
some might disagree on that one but Pablo Hidalgo is not a reliable source when it comes to imperial ranks, he gave that one up a long time ago and just makes stuff up to silent people. there are not two eras and there never was a rank re-organisation in canon. both rank systems (if you want to call it like that) double row and single row existed since the clone wars and still existed after the ds1 was destroyed. costume errors and prop issues aswell as wrong assumptions during the OT in form of card games, toys, games, etc. lead to an already broken system that was never "officially" fixed. it is save to assume tho that internally they have it figured out by now the crossmann chart and all visual dictionaries you can buy have consistency errors.
Actually the matter is pretty simple when you consider one very simple fact: There are a lot of people who do not understand and care about military hierarchies let alone keeping that matter consistent. Btw to maybe better understand all of this it might be helpful to keep the real world officer ranks in mind, just google for example the Royal Navy and British army ranks as I consider them commonly known here. So here is what happened: In ANH the rank plaques are completely random and there is no system behind it as George did not understand let alone care about military hierarchies. Almost everyone was just a "commander". One might argue that they were called as such because they were commanders of a unit, but let us face it: The actual reason was that they did not care. One additional reason why they did not bother about this matter back then when making ANH is that considering that many feared "Star Wars" could potentially even flop the matter of establishing a consistent rank structure for the Empire was not that high on the list of worries or the thought that decades later people would try making sense in those plaques with colored squares was simply not there. The only attempt to establish a rank system was in ESB, ironically the movie where George Lucas had the least involvement in the OT. The rank system is exactly that as seen at 1:50 in the video. Although there is no differentiation between navy and army and compared to our common real world officer ranks the one here is simpler it works for the movie and could have been improved/upgraded in the future. And as different grades of generals and admirals can also be just called by "general" and "admiral" it is no mistake that Veers actually holding the rank of major general considering the chart is just being called "general". In RotJ George Lucas once again got more involved, the costume department did a mistake and the production seemingly did not care enough to fix that matter on set. Furthermore many were again just "commanders". As that laziness in this movie is rather obvious even to people who do not know much about military hierarchies it should have been rather easy to just ignore the whole movie for future projects where one would want to work with a more detailed rank system. The actual mess started with that imperial sourcebook for that role playing game from West End Games. If you compare it to the concept art rank system for ESB it does not match up. What happened here? My theory: The person who created that rank system watched the movies without considering that there were costume mistakes in RotJ and furthermore did not know about the differences between army and naval ranks and therefor also did not know about the very original ESB rank system (which considers the differentiation between the army and naval rank names but unfortunatly does not make it visually). So this person saw the ranks of the 2x2 lieutenant, the 2x3 captain, the 2x4 general, the 2x6 admiral and furthermore saw that in RotJ two officers with a 2x3 plaque with two code cylinders -a combination not seen in ESB- were called "commander" which falsely lead him to believe that code cylinders play a role in determining the rank. Why falsely? Because code cylinders are functional objects in the first place and General Veers did not wear his code cylinder openly in combat attire. Then only knowing about army ranks this person noticed that the ranks of major and colonel were supposedly missing between the captain and general and that "General" Veers only had one code cylinder. But he somehow noticed that Veers' squares were rather widely spaced on his normal uniform so he made up that the spacing of the squares on the plaque play a role in determining a rank to squeeze the major and colonel in. If he would have watched the movie more closely, he would have also noticed that on Veers' armor are placed far narrower than on his normal uniform. So this is also the ultimate proof that the spacing of the squares originally had no meaning (and who would even make up such strange rules in the first place as a designer?). This mess is probably one of the main reasons that even now, many decades later, there are still a lot of people falsely believing that the rank of commander is higher that the naval captain (the opposite is true). In Rogue One they wanted the aesthetics to be closer to ANH so they completely abandoned the ESB and West End Games system and even fixed that commander captain issue by correctly placing the rank of naval commander right below the naval captain. Unfortunatly however as they wanted their rank system to match up at least with some of the characters seen in ANH who even got a rank in the Expanded Universe, they did not manage to correctly line up the army and navy equivalents and maybe even did not exactly know about the difference between the naval and army lieutenant (the naval lieutenant is equal to the army captain). At least one could now visually differentiate between navy and army. This was mostly used also in Solo, Obi-Wan and Andor. As for Captain Tigo I would argue that he might have been just recently promoted when he wears th 1x3 plaque because he always wears the correct 1x4 plaque in the later episodes. However I do not know where the rank plaque of the commandant of Aldhani fits into or even what exactly his rank is as "commandant" is no rank, only a position one can hold (a commandant usually commands a military base not specifying how large that base is with how many men). Furthermore I do not know whether this is a lucky coincidence or they actually recognized the mistakes made in the West End Games chart and remembered or reconstructed the very original ESB rank chart, but in Mando season 2 Valin Hess, the former officer in command for Mayfeld's quote on quote "division" is called a "general" on the official website of Star Wars although having his squares placed narrower than Veers which lead many to believe that he was a major when the episode came out. However although Hess' rank is not said the additional things said in the episode all add up to him holding the rank of major general: He held command over a division having consisted of something between 5000 and 10000 men. In the real world the unit type of division usually has between 10000 and 30000 men (which makes that imperial division a little small, maybe one could argue that they suffered heavy losses) and is normally commanded by a major general. Everything actually fits here. All in all, it is a mess.
The death star got distroyed because one man had control over it and underestimated an enemy thread - maybe they reworked their ranks so there would be a possibility for other high ranking imperials to remove whoever has command from power in a similar situation?
@@arthurvangoch9335 yes but that wasn't Tarkin. Just because there is one leader doesn't mean the command structure of the entire Organisation has to be "linear" - you can distribute lower competences to multiple people. ;)
Thank you so much! The whole rank structure has been a real thorn for us. And it baffles us why they can't come up with something consistent. Isn't that part of the story groups job?
So I think in universe who ever is in charge basically just gives you whatever rank they think looks good on you as long as you have less things than them
I choose to believe the plaques (post DS destruction) AND rebels plaqs can mean multiple things. Say, Star Trek: 2 pips means Lieutenant, but also lieutenant jr-grade if one of them is darker in the center, etc Imperials…know who’s in charge. A commander and captain who don’t already know each other can find the difference within a few seconds of a good chewing out. Not that many of them are in direct combat anyway but- it’s not a bad idea that, for a snipers pov, both plaqs of very near ranking officers look the same…50/50 chance you’re actually beheading an operation
I thought it was signified by the number of DataSpikes (those silver pen-looking things) in their breast pockets. The colored plaques are just random bits of color.
Back in Star Wars Legends, particularly in the Role Playing Game published by West End Games, the number of "code cylinders" in conjunction with the rank plack determined rank. And in our opinion that is kind of the root of where things started to go sideways.
And that was also Curtis Saxton's theory too, on his Technical Commentaries website, also. Where Lt. Commanders had three cylinders, Commanders two, and Captains only one.@@fandompowerpodcast
But it shouldn't. As someone who was "field promoted" to go to Afghanistan I can tell you that I wore the higher rank and was addressed as such for the period of the deployment. The system is messy, but I feel like I'm in the minority of people who actually care about this stuff. It's like being a doctor and not being able to watch medical drama's. 😅
After yavin, most of the high ranking staff died. So many, non qualified people were promoted without proper training causing confusion and much more, hence why the plans are messed up.
@papapalps2415 when Ciena gets promoted she says that most officers only got their positions because they lost so many officers when Death Star 1 blew up. It created a need to reorganize.
George Lucas was more involved in RotJ and ANH than in ESB and as he did not understand and care at all about military hierarchies he called many officers just "commander".
@@danielyeshe Yeah, unfortunatly this issue also contributed to the whole rank mess like the commander being higher than the naval captain (the opposite is correct). I have left my thoughts on this whole matter in a main comment here.
@@danielyeshe No no, this issue was very clearly in the navy and not through different branches: For example, if you read the canon Thrawn books, it is very specifically described how Thrawn gets promoted from senior lieutenant to captain, then lieutenant commander, then commander, then commodore and then finally into the admiral ranks. Of course it would be right, if the army captain is lower than the naval commander but again, they also did that with the navy in several media, especially books in the earlier Disney era. Idk whether they corrected that issue in the books when the Rogue One rank system with the commander being below the naval captain got more widely known.
The single row was before the battle of yavin. The double row was mostly implemented after yavin as an emergency reform due to how many high ranking personnel that were lost at yavin
4:40 the main theory about the Imperial rank plaques are that they changed following the Death Star's destruction. In Episode 4, most rank plaques only had a single row, and double rows were highly important. However, a large number of key military personnel of all branches were killed on the DS1, so the rank plaques in Episodes 5 and 6 are different because the military is reorganised. This theory is contradicted by Dave Filoni's shows, however Dave Filoni's understanding of the lore is questionable and his work shouldn't be taken seriously as lore, since in TBB the Imperial officers shouldn't even be wearing imperial uniforms, it directly contradicts the Death Star scene in Episode 3 which happens months after TBB S1, and clearly the Imperials are still wearing Republic officer uniforms. Furthermore, the Tarkin novel and various legends work shows that Imperial uniform was not created until 17bby or later.
I think it's safe ta say that before Disney bought Lucas Films the reason for the inconsistent pins is because Lucas Films was figuring it out themselves as they went along, and finally figuring it out by the time of Star Wars: Rebels; but when Disney bought Lucas Films, they were just as clueless as most of us Star Wars fans so they said "fuck it" and put no thought into it while at the same time trying to rewrite the entirety of Star Wars. . everything, which they have been doin sense the original first movie came out.
Yeah. From a practical standpoint that makes perfect sense. For me I'm actually glad they've abandoned the combination of rank plack AND code cylinders. Cause that was a terrible idea. Code cylinders as keys makes perfect sense. But having them as part of someone's rank doesn't.
@@tk-6967 _Right_ , Filoni, the man who was selected *by* George Lucas *himself* to help develop Star Wars as we know it today, is the clueless one. Did you even watch the video before replying doc?
@@tommyfox854 Seems like you were the one who didn't, because at 0:48 it was clearly Filoni's show TBB that made the mistake with the Governor rank. Based on other knowledge I know that the ranking system he uses in TBB and Rebels is completely wrong because he uses the post ANH ranking system despite both of those shows taking place pre ANH. Worse still, the Imperial officers shouldn't even be wearing Imperial officer uniform in at least Season 1 of TBB because in ROTS in the Death Star scene which happens months after TBB S1 the Imperials clearly wear *Clone War Republic uniforms,* and based on info from the Tarkin novel, imperial uniform shouldn't be present in S2 either (although I would be more lenient in S2 because other media in both EU and Canon have made similar mistakes in the 18bby period)
@@tk-6967 Alright, I will fully and full hearted admit that I had trouble following the video when I watched it, and I made that reply to your reply when I was still half asleep and not in the best of moods, I'm very sorry for my hostility tk. You also provided evidence to support your claim here which is always a good thing in theses sorts of things; with all that being said, even if we can't agree on Imperial ranking, can we at least agree that no one knows how it actually works? I mean I do have my counter point to this, that being Dave Filoni's still the apprentice to George Lucas during that time. . but I'm finding it difficult to find the evidence to support that even though I saw it not that long ago. . so I'm keepin that shut for now. Still, sorry for the hostility earlier doc, ya didn't deserve that.
I realized something was off when I noticed that Jerjerrod who is supposedely a Moff had the same plaque as my little Lego guy, (apparently) a mere army captain or commander.
No wonder why it's relatively easy to disguise as an Imp and infiltrate their bases, they probably can't tell if the guy standing next to them is an army lieutenant janitor or a commander of a navy's Star Destroyer battle fleet
To be fair Jerjerrod was in ROTJ where LFL basically said "hey our costume designer isn't here, just put these old rank bars on everyone"
The argument in the essential guide to warfare is that rank bars portray the role you’re in.L, not the rank you hold (similar to how irl ship captains are always called captains regardless of actual rank). Jerjerrod may be a Moff, but he is acting as Commander of the station. That said this is a post hoc rationalisation for a wardrobe error.
i once heard that the rank plaques are intentionally confusing in universe to promote infighting between imperial officers
Oh I like the sound of that. Keep everyone on their toes!
Like the Beiyang armies? Or the constant warlords fighting in South Vietnam after 1945, wearing ranks that no one can back up?
The rank structure was reorganised due to how many high ranking officers were lost after yavin
No.
@@papapalps2415 yes?
@@omarbaba9892 Here, let me make this easy for you; prove it.
Correct, well said. They are only a mess when they are not understood. That's why I have taken the time to explain them.
I like the idea that imperial rank plaques are issued rather than automatically updatable, so it's sort of a matter of keeping up with your pay grade on-record until your supply Cadre has your insignia ready for you
Ah yes military supply logistics at its best 😢😂
Holy heck at (2:49), I had no idea the worldbuilding/lore for the Galactic Empire went that in depth. This is like Warhammer 40K levels of lore for a fictional military organization.
I suddenly don't feel quite so bad about Star Trek's original assignment patch/rank brouhahas.
Yeah....when fans are doing a better job than the IP owner, there might be a problem. I do genuinely hope they continue to harmonize things. And I honestly believe that King Doran's chart is the way to go. Just add in the ISB ranks we saw in Rebels and be done with it.
Not as silly as the dots the new Republic has a captain gets two dots an admiral gets five it's so lazy
It's funny because Trek has a bit of a out for these inconveniences. Mainly in the fact each Trek was a different era or has a reorganization of star fleet. And with the series taking place over some 200 years can get things will shift around. The empire.... doesn't have this excuse since it only lasted 20 years lol.
That's an army captain, really.
Or that's how it SHOULD have been. Army Captain only equals Naval Lieutenant.
So a Navy Captain should have had four dots, like a Colonel, in the Army.
And there ought to be more than one type of Admiral too, or General (in fact, there are three canonical 'general' badges; five red for Dodonna, four blue one red, for Willard, and five blue, for Hudsol)@@Darth-vade123
@@chrissonofpear1384 fair but of all the years of serving the empire our ranks ard better
My two cent, based on acumulatred star wars canon and eu lore.
1 Row insigia was MOST common and the standard unless very hight ranking officers and moffs before and until the battle of Yavin, (ep 4)
by Battle of Hoth the calssic two rows, red over blue was the more connon and the new standard fro all officer rnaks.
stromtrooper corps and others could have seperate rules regarding this but I have found none so I belive they too conformed to the above.
With most of the series from long before the battle of yavin we do see a large number of officers with a 1 row insignia, and the very higest having two.
2 I have noticed that the ranks and the duty or command positions are often mixed up, this goes espcially with the commsioned ranks of captain and commander.
the imperial army does NOT have the commisioned rank of commander, but ALL leaders of a unit is a commander in their commad posiotion.
the lieutenant is the platoon commader, even if called platoon leader.
any commading officer regardless of their commsioned rank is a commder in the army and for the most part in the navy as well.
the army captiain is a commisioned rank and the rough equivalent of a navy Lieutenant.
a Navy Captiain is a very high commsioned ranks, ususually the same as an army colonel.
they are often in commad of large forces and will be referred to as commader.
the commad position of a captiain is anyone regardless of rank that is in commad of a starship, a lieutenant in cgarge of a small shuttle is the Captain, no matter what actuall commsioned rank he holds.
So when look at the ranks and see things second thechnical officer, thi is not a rank and can be held by ANY rank, this is a command or duty position.
navigaion officer, assistant commader....not rank but command/duty positions.
I hope this helps
While a lot of this is obviously production inconsistencies, I think it's also on-brand for the Empire to have a giant mess here. Their military is an enormous collage of different branches, with political infighting causing different members to seek out or invent different ranks, and a heavy cross-pollination between military and political figures - most of the governors (a political position) probably also have a military rank that might not be as high as their actual position would seem to warrant. (For a real-life example, see the debate over whether Manhattan Project scientists would be given military ranks or not.) The Empire sees itself as the ultimate personification of order, but it's not actually very well organized.
Yeah it is quite interesting. In-universe imperial culture is just Republic culture but more overtly ruthless. Out of universe George Lucas was using the Empire to criticise America but made the imps foreign enough to seem like fascists.
Thank you so much for making this. I've had a hard time figuring the ranks out, and another thing that they never really seem to do much about is the difference between the Imperial Army and Imperial Navy. It's very difficult to tell Army officers from Navy officers typically.
Love the mention of the Thrawn Trilogy!
It's true! Timothy Zahn was literally handed a bunch of Star Wars Role Playing Game books and was told to make his novels fit in line with the material already established in them. Full circle moment though, because West End games ended up publishing game materials based on his novels!
Also yes. In the novel LOST STARS they talk about the ranks of the actual Navy (Ensign, Lieutenant, Lt. Commander, Commander, Captain, etc.) But then they have Commander come AFTER captain in some other canon novels like the Thrawn Trilogy.
So bizarre!
@fandompowerpodcast agreed. But it did reiterate, as you say, that after the Death Star was destroyed there was a reorganization of the Empire due to the loss of so many officers and soldiers. They really didn't focus that much on training but only on getting the soldiers out to the battlefield which explains why the Stormtroopers are such lousy shots. In ANH it was because they were ordered to let them go, but afterwards it was just the product of cutting corners and lessening training.
It’s not impossible that, between characters that know each other, they’re shortening it.
Like. A lt.Cmdr being called just “commander” etc
@@katsarelas1947 true. Buy it was still a rank in the book. Looks like continuity took a day off there.
A lot of that is likely from mixing up army captains with navy captains.
Certainly the Alliance system is prey to that very issue. Two dots should be for army captains there (equal only to navy lieutenants) and not, to full ship captains.
But the Ahsoka series still keeps on using this version.@@fandompowerpodcast
Just from reading that list alone, you would hardly make it to captain let alone general in the Imperial Ranking system by age 40 unless you were brutally loyal or a floor kisser or your family was rich - most likely your ranking class would be stagnated, most definitely if you just started around 19 BBY - they were probably pushing people to higher ranks by the time the death star 1 went boom.
Overhauls to ranks do happen sometimes, so it's possible. It's lazy, but possible.
3:10 Moff Jerjerrod was identified as a commander by the film in dialogue even though the lore states that he is a Moff, hence the discrepancy.
I always noticed the incostistencies in Imperial uniforms. I love the rank plaque as it's just the first thing that pops out to me.
I feel that the SW media with one of the best rank consistencies would likely be Swtor. My Chiss Imperial Agent (IA) always changed her uniform as she got promoted - there are several different IA uniforms, with the plaques and the armoring (on the neck and shoulders, like a Jedi armor) always changing depending on the set. You get more high ranking armor drops as your character levels up and I loved that they work incredibly well with dyes so you can customize them.
That's very cool!!!
some might disagree on that one but Pablo Hidalgo is not a reliable source when it comes to imperial ranks, he gave that one up a long time ago and just makes stuff up to silent people. there are not two eras and there never was a rank re-organisation in canon. both rank systems (if you want to call it like that) double row and single row existed since the clone wars and still existed after the ds1 was destroyed. costume errors and prop issues aswell as wrong assumptions during the OT in form of card games, toys, games, etc. lead to an already broken system that was never "officially" fixed. it is save to assume tho that internally they have it figured out by now the crossmann chart and all visual dictionaries you can buy have consistency errors.
In answer to this video, my videos on the subject have pieced all the ranks together before and after the Battle of Yavin.
Actually the matter is pretty simple when you consider one very simple fact: There are a lot of people who do not understand and care about military hierarchies let alone keeping that matter consistent.
Btw to maybe better understand all of this it might be helpful to keep the real world officer ranks in mind, just google for example the Royal Navy and British army ranks as I consider them commonly known here.
So here is what happened: In ANH the rank plaques are completely random and there is no system behind it as George did not understand let alone care about military hierarchies. Almost everyone was just a "commander". One might argue that they were called as such because they were commanders of a unit, but let us face it: The actual reason was that they did not care. One additional reason why they did not bother about this matter back then when making ANH is that considering that many feared "Star Wars" could potentially even flop the matter of establishing a consistent rank structure for the Empire was not that high on the list of worries or the thought that decades later people would try making sense in those plaques with colored squares was simply not there.
The only attempt to establish a rank system was in ESB, ironically the movie where George Lucas had the least involvement in the OT. The rank system is exactly that as seen at 1:50 in the video. Although there is no differentiation between navy and army and compared to our common real world officer ranks the one here is simpler it works for the movie and could have been improved/upgraded in the future. And as different grades of generals and admirals can also be just called by "general" and "admiral" it is no mistake that Veers actually holding the rank of major general considering the chart is just being called "general".
In RotJ George Lucas once again got more involved, the costume department did a mistake and the production seemingly did not care enough to fix that matter on set. Furthermore many were again just "commanders". As that laziness in this movie is rather obvious even to people who do not know much about military hierarchies it should have been rather easy to just ignore the whole movie for future projects where one would want to work with a more detailed rank system.
The actual mess started with that imperial sourcebook for that role playing game from West End Games. If you compare it to the concept art rank system for ESB it does not match up. What happened here? My theory:
The person who created that rank system watched the movies without considering that there were costume mistakes in RotJ and furthermore did not know about the differences between army and naval ranks and therefor also did not know about the very original ESB rank system (which considers the differentiation between the army and naval rank names but unfortunatly does not make it visually). So this person saw the ranks of the 2x2 lieutenant, the 2x3 captain, the 2x4 general, the 2x6 admiral and furthermore saw that in RotJ two officers with a 2x3 plaque with two code cylinders -a combination not seen in ESB- were called "commander" which falsely lead him to believe that code cylinders play a role in determining the rank. Why falsely? Because code cylinders are functional objects in the first place and General Veers did not wear his code cylinder openly in combat attire. Then only knowing about army ranks this person noticed that the ranks of major and colonel were supposedly missing between the captain and general and that "General" Veers only had one code cylinder. But he somehow noticed that Veers' squares were rather widely spaced on his normal uniform so he made up that the spacing of the squares on the plaque play a role in determining a rank to squeeze the major and colonel in. If he would have watched the movie more closely, he would have also noticed that on Veers' armor are placed far narrower than on his normal uniform. So this is also the ultimate proof that the spacing of the squares originally had no meaning (and who would even make up such strange rules in the first place as a designer?).
This mess is probably one of the main reasons that even now, many decades later, there are still a lot of people falsely believing that the rank of commander is higher that the naval captain (the opposite is true).
In Rogue One they wanted the aesthetics to be closer to ANH so they completely abandoned the ESB and West End Games system and even fixed that commander captain issue by correctly placing the rank of naval commander right below the naval captain. Unfortunatly however as they wanted their rank system to match up at least with some of the characters seen in ANH who even got a rank in the Expanded Universe, they did not manage to correctly line up the army and navy equivalents and maybe even did not exactly know about the difference between the naval and army lieutenant (the naval lieutenant is equal to the army captain). At least one could now visually differentiate between navy and army. This was mostly used also in Solo, Obi-Wan and Andor. As for Captain Tigo I would argue that he might have been just recently promoted when he wears th 1x3 plaque because he always wears the correct 1x4 plaque in the later episodes. However I do not know where the rank plaque of the commandant of Aldhani fits into or even what exactly his rank is as "commandant" is no rank, only a position one can hold (a commandant usually commands a military base not specifying how large that base is with how many men).
Furthermore I do not know whether this is a lucky coincidence or they actually recognized the mistakes made in the West End Games chart and remembered or reconstructed the very original ESB rank chart, but in Mando season 2 Valin Hess, the former officer in command for Mayfeld's quote on quote "division" is called a "general" on the official website of Star Wars although having his squares placed narrower than Veers which lead many to believe that he was a major when the episode came out. However although Hess' rank is not said the additional things said in the episode all add up to him holding the rank of major general: He held command over a division having consisted of something between 5000 and 10000 men. In the real world the unit type of division usually has between 10000 and 30000 men (which makes that imperial division a little small, maybe one could argue that they suffered heavy losses) and is normally commanded by a major general. Everything actually fits here.
All in all, it is a mess.
The death star got distroyed because one man had control over it and underestimated an enemy thread - maybe they reworked their ranks so there would be a possibility for other high ranking imperials to remove whoever has command from power in a similar situation?
The idea of one man having complete control was kind of the main idea of the empire tho
@@arthurvangoch9335 yes but that wasn't Tarkin. Just because there is one leader doesn't mean the command structure of the entire Organisation has to be "linear" - you can distribute lower competences to multiple people. ;)
awesome video dude
Thank you so much! The whole rank structure has been a real thorn for us. And it baffles us why they can't come up with something consistent. Isn't that part of the story groups job?
Empire had to overhaul their ranks because so many of said ranks died at Death Star
I saw a diagram about how it varies based on code cylinders.
Code cylinders definitely played a role in Imperial rank in Legends. But it seems like that's less of an indicator now.
So I think in universe who ever is in charge basically just gives you whatever rank they think looks good on you as long as you have less things than them
I love this comment!
I choose to believe the plaques (post DS destruction) AND rebels plaqs can mean multiple things. Say, Star Trek: 2 pips means Lieutenant, but also lieutenant jr-grade if one of them is darker in the center, etc
Imperials…know who’s in charge. A commander and captain who don’t already know each other can find the difference within a few seconds of a good chewing out.
Not that many of them are in direct combat anyway but- it’s not a bad idea that, for a snipers pov, both plaqs of very near ranking officers look the same…50/50 chance you’re actually beheading an operation
I thought it was signified by the number of DataSpikes (those silver pen-looking things) in their breast pockets.
The colored plaques are just random bits of color.
Back in Star Wars Legends, particularly in the Role Playing Game published by West End Games, the number of "code cylinders" in conjunction with the rank plack determined rank. And in our opinion that is kind of the root of where things started to go sideways.
And that was also Curtis Saxton's theory too, on his Technical Commentaries website, also.
Where Lt. Commanders had three cylinders, Commanders two, and Captains only one.@@fandompowerpodcast
Look up field commission or local acting.
That'll explain a lot of the ranking inconsistencies.
But it shouldn't. As someone who was "field promoted" to go to Afghanistan I can tell you that I wore the higher rank and was addressed as such for the period of the deployment. The system is messy, but I feel like I'm in the minority of people who actually care about this stuff. It's like being a doctor and not being able to watch medical drama's. 😅
After yavin, most of the high ranking staff died. So many, non qualified people were promoted without proper training causing confusion and much more, hence why the plans are messed up.
The Empire had to overhaul their rank system because they had lost so many high ranking officials at Yavin that they had to reorganize.
No.
@@papapalps2415 Yes. It's literally said in the CANON novel LOST STARS.
@@mattt233 Where? In what context? By who?
@papapalps2415 when Ciena gets promoted she says that most officers only got their positions because they lost so many officers when Death Star 1 blew up.
It created a need to reorganize.
6:49 they did the moff and high general wrong fron what I've seen
"FOR THE ALGORITHM!?!"
Every interaction helps!!! 😃
Where did Jerjerrod's status as a moff come from? Not doubting he is one. It is just he was only called a commander in RofTJ.
George Lucas was more involved in RotJ and ANH than in ESB and as he did not understand and care at all about military hierarchies he called many officers just "commander".
@@imperialesoberkommando Thank you. It always confused me. Commander felt way too low for such a prestigious assignment.
@@danielyeshe Yeah, unfortunatly this issue also contributed to the whole rank mess like the commander being higher than the naval captain (the opposite is correct). I have left my thoughts on this whole matter in a main comment here.
@@imperialesoberkommando That never bothered me as much. If one was Navy and the other was a Marine then a commander would outrank a captain.
@@danielyeshe No no, this issue was very clearly in the navy and not through different branches: For example, if you read the canon Thrawn books, it is very specifically described how Thrawn gets promoted from senior lieutenant to captain, then lieutenant commander, then commander, then commodore and then finally into the admiral ranks. Of course it would be right, if the army captain is lower than the naval commander but again, they also did that with the navy in several media, especially books in the earlier Disney era. Idk whether they corrected that issue in the books when the Rogue One rank system with the commander being below the naval captain got more widely known.
It is inconsistent mostly do to single row while double row is way easier
The single row was before the battle of yavin. The double row was mostly implemented after yavin as an emergency reform due to how many high ranking personnel that were lost at yavin
4:40 the main theory about the Imperial rank plaques are that they changed following the Death Star's destruction. In Episode 4, most rank plaques only had a single row, and double rows were highly important. However, a large number of key military personnel of all branches were killed on the DS1, so the rank plaques in Episodes 5 and 6 are different because the military is reorganised.
This theory is contradicted by Dave Filoni's shows, however Dave Filoni's understanding of the lore is questionable and his work shouldn't be taken seriously as lore, since in TBB the Imperial officers shouldn't even be wearing imperial uniforms, it directly contradicts the Death Star scene in Episode 3 which happens months after TBB S1, and clearly the Imperials are still wearing Republic officer uniforms. Furthermore, the Tarkin novel and various legends work shows that Imperial uniform was not created until 17bby or later.
I mean I never cared, but it was an interesting video. I'll give ya a like.
Thank you very much. Always appreciated! 😃
Wow
I think it's safe ta say that before Disney bought Lucas Films the reason for the inconsistent pins is because Lucas Films was figuring it out themselves as they went along, and finally figuring it out by the time of Star Wars: Rebels; but when Disney bought Lucas Films, they were just as clueless as most of us Star Wars fans so they said "fuck it" and put no thought into it while at the same time trying to rewrite the entirety of Star Wars. . everything, which they have been doin sense the original first movie came out.
Yeah. From a practical standpoint that makes perfect sense. For me I'm actually glad they've abandoned the combination of rank plack AND code cylinders. Cause that was a terrible idea. Code cylinders as keys makes perfect sense. But having them as part of someone's rank doesn't.
Filoni is the clueless one, Disney is generally consistent.
@@tk-6967 _Right_ , Filoni, the man who was selected *by* George Lucas *himself* to help develop Star Wars as we know it today, is the clueless one.
Did you even watch the video before replying doc?
@@tommyfox854 Seems like you were the one who didn't, because at 0:48 it was clearly Filoni's show TBB that made the mistake with the Governor rank. Based on other knowledge I know that the ranking system he uses in TBB and Rebels is completely wrong because he uses the post ANH ranking system despite both of those shows taking place pre ANH.
Worse still, the Imperial officers shouldn't even be wearing Imperial officer uniform in at least Season 1 of TBB because in ROTS in the Death Star scene which happens months after TBB S1 the Imperials clearly wear *Clone War Republic uniforms,* and based on info from the Tarkin novel, imperial uniform shouldn't be present in S2 either (although I would be more lenient in S2 because other media in both EU and Canon have made similar mistakes in the 18bby period)
@@tk-6967 Alright, I will fully and full hearted admit that I had trouble following the video when I watched it, and I made that reply to your reply when I was still half asleep and not in the best of moods, I'm very sorry for my hostility tk.
You also provided evidence to support your claim here which is always a good thing in theses sorts of things; with all that being said, even if we can't agree on Imperial ranking, can we at least agree that no one knows how it actually works?
I mean I do have my counter point to this, that being Dave Filoni's still the apprentice to George Lucas during that time. . but I'm finding it difficult to find the evidence to support that even though I saw it not that long ago. . so I'm keepin that shut for now.
Still, sorry for the hostility earlier doc, ya didn't deserve that.
I think... this is one of the biggest messes in the history of modern popular culture, except maybe the Sequel Trilogy.