Military Ranks (RDM)
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This rank structure for the Re-imagined Series is derived from the Original Series ranks as mentioned in Ronald D. Moore's blog.
Rank equivalences
These ranks have been speculatively expanded in order to provide a rough rank equivalence with the United States Navy. Many aspects of the following table are speculative.
Rank equivalences in real life are usually established only when two organizations with differing rank structures have to work together and establish who outranks whom. As this obviously isn't happening between Colonial Fleet and the United States military, the following table exists mainly to improve understanding of Colonial ranks for those familiar with the US military and similarly structured organizations. However, the emphasis is on placing the ranks in their proper place within the BSG universe, which is why they don't necessarily match perfectly with modern ranks. This rank disparity is seen with the rank of Ensign, in the BSG universe, often applying to officers in training such as Diana Seelix who receives the rank immediately upon acceptance into flight training in the episode Dirty Hands. This use of the rank would likely place the BSG rank of Ensign lower in the command structure that the U.S. rank of the same name, which in the U.S. military is the rank of a fully commissioned officer who has completed their training.
The officer ranks of the Colonial Marine Corps have yet to be established on screen or by official sources and thus are not listed here.
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Insignia
| Senior Officers | ||||
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| Admiral [1] | Rear Admiral [2] | Commander | Colonel | |
| Junior Officers | ||||
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| Major | Captain | Lieutenant | Lieutenant, j.g./Ensign[7] | |
| Non-Commissioned Officers | ||||
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| Chief Petty Officer | Petty Officer, 1st Class [6] | Petty Officer, 2nd Class | ||
| Enlisted Personnel | ||||
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| Crewman Specialist | ||||
These pictures were created by Jim Stevenson a.k.a. "137th Gebirg".
Insignia for the other ranks have yet to be shown on screen and thus aren't listed here.
Senior Officers' ranks can also be identified by the color of the piping on their uniforms.
Notes
- In a blog entry on February 19, 2005 Ronald Moore gave a little insight into the rank structure of Battlestar Galactica:
"What is the rank structure? It doesn't seem consistant with the Navy."
"The rank structure is derived from the original series. I didn't want to change Commander Adama to Captain Adama or Colonel Tigh to Commander Tigh, so I elected to simply embrace the co-mingled nature of the original rank structure. For our internal purposes, we've decided that the ranks are indeed a mixture of naval and army nomenclature and are basically as follows:
Officers:
- Admiral
- Commander
- Colonel
- Major
- Captain
- Lieutenant
- Lieutenant (junior grade)
- Ensign
Enlisted:
- Master Chief Petty Officer
- Chief Petty Officer
- Petty Officer (1st, 2nd Class)
- Specialist
- Deck Hand
- Recruit
Just to complicate matters further, there are also Marines aboard Galactica which conform more closely to the traditional enlisted Marine ranks, with Sergeants, Sergeant-Majors, etc. Unresolved is the question of whether the Marine officers would also adhere to the mixed rank structure (which sounds odd) or if they are strictly army equivalents (which makes no sense given that the "Navy" ranks seem oblivious to there being any such distinction). Aren't you glad you asked?"
See Also
- Uniforms (RDM) - Uniforms of the Re-imagined Series.
- Military Ranks (TOS) - Ranks of the Original Series.
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Admiral: Corman wears the same Admiral insignia as Adama and Cain, but has thick gold piping on his uniform.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Rear Admiral:
- In the Extended Version of the episode "Pegasus", Adama states "Fleet promoted her to Rear Admiral over half of the Commanders on the list." This could also indicate that Commander is not a flag rank in the BSG universe.
- A screen capture of Galactica's Dradis shows two stars next to Pegasus. It is speculated that this denotes Cain as a two-star Admiral.
- When Adama is promoted to Admiral in "Resurrection Ship, Part II" his new rank insignia are identical to Cain's. They also have two gold bars on the sides, which could be equivalent to today's two stars of a Rear Admiral, Upper Half.
- ↑ Commander: The rank of Commander is somewhat unclear and encompassed duties of both modern Admirals and Captains. It may be analogous to the rank of "Commodore", which is no longer used in the US Navy.
- ↑ Helo states his rank as "Lieutenant, Junior Grade" in "33", but he consistantly wears the rank insignia of a full Lieutenant.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 The ranks of Senior Chief Petty Officer and Petty Officer 3rd Class do not exist in the Colonial military, according to Ron Moore, but are included here due to matters of equivalency.
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 In "Litmus" Sergeant Hadrian wears insignia listed here as 'Petty Officer, 1st Class'. While she is a Marine, it is possible that some rank insignia are used in both services.
Her rank is assumed to be 'Staff Sergeant' which equates to 'Petty Officer, 1st Class'. Placing her one rank lower or higher would create a conflict with the established insignia of 'Petty Officer, 2nd Class' and 'Chief Petty Officer' respectively. - ↑ The use of the Lt.jg insignia for the rank of Ensign in episodes like "Scar" and "Dirty Hands" is likely just a costuming necessity. While the costuming department doesn't appear to have produced Ensign insignia yet, the Colonial Military would probably use different ones to distinguish the ranks.
