User talk:Serenity

Military Ranks

I would have messaged you before now but I only just now figured out how to use the talk function.

I don't appreciate you just blanket undoing all of my changes which is why I simply remade them. This is a wiki so I fully expect my revisions to be further revised to some degree, but I think it's incredibly disrespectful to just undo them in their entirety. In addition many of my changes were clerical (changing lower case letters to capitals for example) and undoing those to me makes no sense.

Second, the reason I keep removing the Petty Officer Second Class/Master Sergeant and Rear Admiral ranks has nothing to do with them not being on Ron Moore's list. It has to do with the fact that unlike other ranks like Rear Admiral, which although not mentioned on Ron Moore's list, have been definitively established on screen; those two ranks have not been established by any authority for the show onscreen or otherwise. In addition I thought we abandoned trying to match it with the U.S. Rank system when we struck that part of the chart. I think we should limit the ranks we list to those that have been definitively established, especially given how complex the rank structure is getting.

Third I believe it's valid to offer possible explanations for rank insignias that haven't been shown. I believe you yourself offered a great deal of speculation on the page dealing with Valkyrie, and if not at least supported them when I tried to edit them to support different theories; so I don't see how it can be ok to speculate on one page but not on another as long as the speculation is reasonably supported.

If you have a problem with something I put up let's discuss it rather than engaging in an edit war, such tactics are completely counterproductive and a waste of both of our time. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Grandmaester314 (talk • contribs).

The ranking system is about to become even more complex. However, I've had to revert your edits and lock the page temporarily, since I really don't want an edit war to go on—plus Serenity's are the closest to the actual stuff used on the show, as opposed to your edits. (As a consultant / assistant researcher on the Battlestar Galactica Props and Costumes auctions run by PropWorx and Unviersal, I have access to behind-the-scenes documentation regarding the rank pins used in the show. I'll add the missing ranks and their corresponding pins here in a few weeks or so, since it's not a high priority for me at this moment.)

Also, given Serenity's status as an administrator and the fact that he can edit the page even if it's locked, I'll ask that Serenity not edit the ranks page in question until it's been unlocked again.

Don't take this action personally. It's just that none of us should be wasting our time editing the page until I get the chance to add what needs to be added there. Thanks! -- Joe Beaudoin ^{So say we all - Donate - Battlestar Pegasus} 04:41, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

• As for the style edits. Ranks are not capitalized unless they're used as titles, followed by a name. That's what other pages here do, or should at least. It's the standard that Wikipedia uses (although a bit inconsistently) and it's what's used in the real world generally; for example here or the official Navy style guide. That's why I changed that. Yes, the ranks are capitalized in the table, but that's a bit different from prose.
• I reverted some of the additions to the names, because some of them were superfluous. It's just supposed to be a few examples, not an exhaustive list of all officers. So I removed Shaw as lieutenant for example. And the stuff about "Razor Part 2" and such doesn't make much sense. There aren't any parts to the movie.
• I initially removed the rank insignia speculation because I thought it went on for far too long for a mere footnote and drew too much comparisons to real-world examples. Then I realized that there is merit to it and re-added it in a condensed form, that gets the main point across. See footnotes #11 and #12. It's still there.
• As for the real-world rank comparison. That has been discussed at some length on the talk page, and while arguments can be made for both, it was generally felt that it makes most sense to have a commander to be the same as a captain. But getting rid of the comparison at all is the best course of action, considering the trouble it caused.
• As for the speculative ranks. They've been there for maybe two years and nobody complained about it before. The footnotes make it clear that they haven't been established on screen, so they can easily be ignored if someone prefers that. I think there are more arguments to include them than there are against them (there is just no reason to not have them, when the rest of the NCO list follows the usual structure). In any case, this is probably a moot point with Joe having something of a complete list. In general, this is an article that lends itself to some deduction. Assuming that there is a rank missing or how some insignia might look can be well-grounded reasoning. That's a bit different from just wildly guessing about the purpose of a certain ship type for example.
• I realize that this has been a sad edit war and I didn't like it, but we are both to blame. I pointed out the capitalization issue in the edit summary for example. We could also have discussed this on talk pages earlier instead of just reverting back and forth. I left a note on your talk page about something else and should have written another when this went out of hand, but I wasn't sure if you'd read it. -- Serenity 15:33, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

First, thanks for the response. Second, I have several points I'd like to make, I apologize in advance if this gets rather lengthy.

In response to the recent unpleasantness:

• I did read your initial message but as I indicated to Joe, until yesterday, I couldn't figure out how to respond.
• I realize I have a tendency to get overly wordy, its a function of my vocabulary and writing style which definitely has something of a flourish to it, however since I couldn't figure out how to consolidate my comments any further than I already had, I figured I'd post it and let someone else figure out how to consolidate them.
• I agree with you and Joe that it is counterproductive to keep revising this page when he will shortly have a bunch of new, and more definitive information.
• I know we got off on the wrong foot but I hope we can change that, you seem to be one of the people most interested in this topic, which to me is perhaps the most interesting one, and I think we could have some very productive discussions.

I'd also like to make some BSG related comments for you to think about:

• Assuming that Joe doesn't provide further clarification on the Lt. Colonel issue I think it's something that should still be discussed further before a final conclusion is made as to it's exact role. I have a very different opinion on it than you seem to. I think it may not be a rank at all.
  • Credits have been known to be mislisted before and their have been instances where ranks have been listed that either conflicted with their insignia (such as Agathon wearing a full lieutenant's chevrons but claiming to be a junior lieutenant), or were never established in the ranks structure (such as the multiple classes of specialist I've heard referred to).
  • Officers of different ranks have worn it.
  • The insignia doesn't follow any kind of trend like all the other ranks do which would place it in a specific rank catagory.
    • The enlisted ranks all have standard diamond shapes with silver borders and green inlay, junior officers all have the same general diamond shape and silver border that enlisted ranks do but have gold inlay, and the other senior officers all have a progression based on a foundation of the full colonel design which is a gold diamond with an extended tapered edge on the bottom and a raised red phoenix logo in the center.
    • This insignia has charactoristics from all these classes and others that are unique to it. It shares the same basic diamond shape and raised border as the enlisted and junior officer ranks. On the other hand it shares it's completely gold color and phoenix logo with the senior officer ranks. However, unlike the enlisted and junior officer ranks which have a raised silver border, it's raised border is the same gold as the rest of it, as is the raised diamond in the center (similar raised designs in the enlisted ranks are the same silver as the border in contrast to the green inlay). At the same time it also diverges from the senior officer ranks because its diamond shape doesn't share the same evolving design as the other senior officers and also unlike the other senior officers its phoenix is engraved and unpainted as opposed to raised and red colored.
  • For these reasons I think this device is designed to indicate someone granted a special role. In Dualla's case it might have been used to indicate her XO status which wouldn't be at all apparent from her actual rank since under normal circumstances, a lieutenant junior grade would never be XO of a battlestar. Now as to why Fisk wore it, I can only speculate, perhaps he wasn't supposed to be a permanent member of the crew but was only on board at the time of the attacks because he had some role in Pegasus' overhaul.
• Unless Joe is able to definitively place him in the rank structure, I think Marine Lieutenant Burrell should be removed from the list of examples on the ranks chart since we can't definitively place his rank in the overall rank structure. Besides as Joe pointed out (and I hadn't really realized), the list isn't intended to be exhaustive. While I understand the desire to have him on the list since he is the only Marine officer we have seen, I think we shouldn't place him on the list until we now for sure where he goes.
• Given a comment from Joe I know ascede to the fact that their may well be a Senior Chief Petty Officer Rank (in fact it would resolve a major issue for me namely, why use the rank of gunnery sergeant when you don't use master sergeant?), at least enough for me to feel ok including it in the list. However given the fact that Cally was promoted directly from Specialist to PO2 I believe it's safe to conclude two things: First, there is no P.O. Third Class. Second, given that the rank of Corporal has been established and would normally be equivalent to PO3, there is indeed no Lance Corporal rank and Corporal is just shifted down one and slotted in next to Specialist. I believe almost as strongly that their is no Vice Admiral rank for a number of reasons. In addition to the fact that it has never even been mentioned, the most notable reason is that if you take a look at the uniform fringe colors for Admiral and Rear Admiral, there doesn't seem to be room for an intermediate rank because the next logical progression from the Rear Admiral's gold over silver is the Fleet Admiral's solid gold.
• Finally, I differ in my assessment of the place of Commander in the rank structure. I believe that Commanders are more closely akin to a one-star admiral than to a Captain in the U.S. Navy. They do fulfill aspects of both roles, but given that battlestars are often dispatched on their own, that Admiral's are only assigned when their are multiple military ships in a group as opposed to unarmed support vessels, and that in reality a carrier task force usually has more than one admiral (usually a two- or three-star in overall command, and at least one one- or two-star admiral in charge of all the screening ships. I believe that equating Commander with Captain does not accurately recognize the scope of a Commander's authorities and duties or his significantly higher standing in the overall command structure. Also I think it can be expected that there are other military vessels which aren't battlestars which may at times accompany a battlestar group and I think for such smaller vessels, it would likely be Colonel or even a Major in certain circumstances who be in direct command of the specific vessel (after all the navy assigns commanding officers of different ranks to command different types of ships based on their size and purpose.

Any way I know I am probably babbling by now but I thought I'd give you some idea of some of the things I would like to discuss in the future.

I am also going to send Joe a list of things that I think are most important to clear up. I think it might be helpful for him to have some guidelines see he can target his research. These include:

• A definite equivalence table for Marine and Fleet enlisted ranks
• The real nature of the so-called "Lt. Colonel" insignia
• Whether the Marines have a different officer structure than the Fleet.
• The exact number of officer and enlisted ranks
• Whether there are any other officer ranks that haven't been introduced.

Again I apologize for the length of the message but I thought it might inspire some constructive discussion. Grandmaester314 18:17, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

• As for the commander/captain/admiral things. I see your points and I've heard them before. There are valid arguments for both points of view. So in the end, the best is to just drop it. There have been long arguments about this before that didn't really go anywhere, and in the end the rank structure is very similar but not identical to real-world examples, especially considering the roles of people. The article isn't really any better with the comparison, so good riddance :)
• I'm usually also a bit hesitant to fully include all behind the scenes information, as it's sometimes contradicted by on-screen content (whereas Joe for example is more of an "inclusionist"). But this seems to be pretty consistent from what I've seen so far. Except that everyone wearing a beige BDUs is supposed to be a warrant officer as Joe noted on the article's talk page. For example Sergeant Hadrian and a couple of pretty young crewmen also wear them and they aren't WOs. We'll see how that all turns out, but in any case, it's more logical to assume that Fisk was indeed intended to be a lieutenant colonel and promoted later, than to invent things to explain it away. That's kinda fanwanky, even if the arguments make sense. Dualla's insignia can just be chalked up as a costuming error then. Yeah, the insignia doesn't fit 100%ly, but if that's what they intended (and maybe supported by other sources), we'll have to go by it. There are similar oddities in real-life, for example with silver outranking gold in the US armed forces (e.g. gold oak leaf = major, silver = lieutenant colonel). It's just a TV show after all, and even the best ones make errors here and there.
• Regarding Burrell. There is actually a second unnamed Marine lieutenant in Season 4. I agree that including him in the list is a bit fishy since he doesn't necessarily line up with a Fleet lieutenant. Maybe the two can be moved up into the text, where Marine officers are briefly mentioned. -- Serenity 20:40, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Rank Listing for Sergeant Hadrian

I have changed back the listing of rank on the Sergeant Hadrian page to Sergeant First Class. You made a valid point when you changed it back but I thought it should be consistent with what is on the ranks page. If this a big problem for you, you can change it back. Also, I would have left this not on the history listing for the change the way you normally do but I still can't figure out how to do that. Grandmaester314 17:53, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

It's fine now that the pages are consistent with each other. They just shouldn't contain something different as before. -- Serenity 14:29, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Errors

The footnotes you added to Unnamed Cities of Caprica don't seem to be showing up.

• Nevermind.... they show up only when i log out.

I accidently added a file which someone should probably delete.

I watched the movie Caprica and saw in a scene the U-87 in just the right pose for a screengrab. I made a screengrab as is allowed under fair use, uploaded it to the wiki and licensed it CC-BY Version # 3.0.

The problem is that in my gusto, I forgot to export it as JPEG. Not wanting to waste our bandwidth, I exported it as JPEG and uploaded the much smaller JPEG to the wiki. This just leaves the problem of the original PNG:

¿Could you please delete?

Post Scriptum:

When looking for a Chief to delete the file, I noticed that your name is Serenity. I too am a Brown Coat. Since I had no better reason to choose a Chief for asking, I ask you for that reason.

Walabio 09:58, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

I saw this on the recent changes and took care of it. Will let Walabio know on his talk page, and suggest he post on the Chief's noticeboard in the future for fastest resolution. Also, hi from another Brown Coat. JubalHarshaw 18:16, 25 April 2009 (UTC)