Fictional Military Ranks

[Bowler1]

Two things from Gumboats post, which was very good.

A company strenght still does vary quite a lot. Less in a specialist unit, more in a general unit. So a company can vary in size.

Warrant officers, such as pilots, are officers with skills. A commissioned officer receives a commission which is command over men.

There we go, that should help clear things up!

[Gumboot]

Originally Posted by Bowler1

Two things from Gumboats post, which was very good.

A company strenght still does vary quite a lot. Less in a specialist unit, more in a general unit. So a company can vary in size.

Warrant officers, such as pilots, are officers with skills. A commissioned officer receives a commission which is command over men.

There we go, that should help clear things up!

One thing that should be clarified is the above re: officers is only true of the US.

Originally, an officer in the military was by commission, which meant they paid for it. A non-commissioned officer is a military officer who exercises their authority due to seniority rather than through authority from the sovereign (which is why sergeants typically have far more experience than Lieutenants).

However a third type of officer was implemented between that of an NCO and a Commissioned Officer; the Warrant Officer. These are highly experienced officers who do not have a commission (which historically meant they couldn't afford one) but due to their extensive experience and skill, were deserving of status above that of other NCOs.

As such they were issued a Warrant giving them authority. Notable is that unlike a Commissioned Officer, a Warrant Officer does not have authority to command. Rather their Warrant grants them status. In most modern military forces the Warrant Officer ranks are the most senior NCO ranks, although a WO is considered a little different from an NCO.

Another thing to note, and it's an interesting example of how ranks can evolve, is that while the US Air Force carried over US Army ranks, the Royal Air Force (and subsequently other Commonwealth Air Forces) have their own unique rank structure.

The reason for this is quite simply that the War Office felt the RAF should have its own rank structure.

For non-Americans they may be curious to learn the Commonwealth Air Force ranks which are:

Commissioned Officers:
OF-10 - Marshal of the Air Force
OF-9 - Air Chief Marshal
OF-8 - Air Marshal
OF-7 - Air Vice Marshal
OF-6 - Air Commodore
OF-5 - Group Captain
OF-4 - Wing Commander
OF-3 - Squadron Leader
OF-2 - Flight Lieutenant
OF-1 - Flying Officer
OF-1 - Pilot Officer
(Incidentally, the rank of "Pilot Officer" does not mean the officer is a pilot!)

Other Ranks:
OR-9 - Warrant Officer
OR-8 - N/A
OR-7 - Flight Sergeant
OR-6/5 - Sergeant
0R-4 - Corporal
OR-3 - N/A
OR-2 - Senior Aircraftman/woman
OR-2 - Leading Aircraftman/woman
OR-1 - Aircraftman/woman

[Venusian Broon]

Another factor would be that military forces are established relatively late in the colonies' development due the relative absence of external enemies, and first arise as "external operations" departments of internal peacekeeping forces.

A possible suggestion is to 'militarise' civic positions of authority, as perhaps they were instrumental in forming militias. Mayor, councillor, sheriff, constable, commissar (this is partly militarised already, but has been used quite a few times for civilian roles) to give just a few examples off the top of my head. Perhaps your small groups of men nominate or vote for a leader so he becomes 'Representative' and then a commander of a number of groups becomes 'Representative in chief' etc...

[Interference]

I think you have a fascinating opportunity ahead of you to (a) structure your Space Command, whether military or non-military in its origins, and (b) show us how you've worked out what to call everybody.

I don't know if this fits at all with your plans, but if you have a character who rises through the ranks within the timeline of your story, you can show us how the various ranks came about, what their origins are and why the Space Corps has elected to use them.

Beyond that, I have no real suggestions other than to be etymologically logical about your choices.

[Bowler1]

Lots of books have maps etc at the start so you could lay your ranks out at the start for the reader. More so if different forces are involved such as a militarized police force.

[Piousflea]

Whether real or fictional, ranks can certainly confuse people if they aren't logical and well explained.

IMO, a rank system says a lot about the culture and organization that produced the ranks. Contemporary militaries are very tradition-bound and have rank systems that can be traced back to medieval times. If a fictional culture is supposed to be descended from an existing Earth nation or culture, you could show off that link by keeping or slightly modifying existing ranks and titles. If a fictional society is completely culturally unlike modern day Earth, it would make sense to have different ranks. If a fictional society is culturally similar to ancient Rome then it makes sense to break out the Roman titles.

[Gumboot]

One of the good things about the military and the entire rank thing is that you can very quickly establish hierarchy because rank strongly dictates how people interact with each other.

You might not understand what a "Telmar" is, nor a "Bron", but if Telmar 1st Class John Smith is taking orders directly from 1st Bron Paul Thomas, you can determine that a Bron is higher ranked than a Telmar, and that they're quite close together. If John Smith appears to be a regular soldier, you can probably conclude that a Telmar is like a platoon or company commander, no higher.

[atlhivemind]

As someone said, it depends on the origins of your space navy.
In my WIP, the space navy the characters develop isn't a part of any world government. But the characters themselves have experience in the US Navy, Air Force, Marines, the Royal Air Force, NASA and a long-defunct off-world space navy (long story...), with Navy and USAF leading the pack. Either that or they just watched too much scifi as kids.
They're are no enlisted, only officers and a chart that conforms to NATO specs:
Fleet Officer Ranks:
OF-1: Ensign (Ens)
OF-1: Sub-Lieutenant (SLt)
OF-2: Lieutenant (Lt)
OF-3: Lieutenant Commander (LtCdr)
OF-4: Commander (Cdr)

Above that things get murky...
OF-5: Captain (for commands 'afloat').
OF-5: Director (for commands 'ashore') the two terms are context-specific such that only someone in command of a starship is called Captain.
OF-6: Commodore
OF-7: Rear Admiral
OF-8: Vice Admiral
OF-9: Admiral
OF-10: Fleet Admiral

[Hammerhand]

This is all based on the British Army, I have every little knowledge of any others!

The key is the segregation between the educated and the great unwashed. Some start as officers some start as Privates. The most interesting and in most cases respected characters are the late entry officers - i.e. those who have gone through the ranks to become a commissioned officer. These are grizzled veterans, typically mid 40s that have served 22 years plus and sit at the same rank as a bunch of 25 year old college boys "I was in Baghdad when you were in your dad's bag son."

I wouldn't underestimate the importance of the warrant officer class either. These are your Sergeant Majors and the like. Many are QMSI's (Quarter Master's Senior Instructors) and typically fill the train-the-trainers courses for training NCOs and also run the education courses for Senior NCOs.

And then the Senior NCOs. Whilst it seems obvious that the troop/platoon commander (an officer typically 2Lt or Lt and sometimes a Capt) commands the troop/platoon, it is the Senior NCO that is 'in charge'. It is a relationship that has wonderful potential - The young inexperienced officer holds the authority, but he is "advised" in very real inverted commas by the Senior NCO who is experienced and selected for his rank because he is considered as the best one for it amongst his peers. Trust me, it isn't a cliche it is how it actually works!

The last point (from me anyway) is the number of actual command appointments:

Section Commander (Corporal)
Troop/platoon Commander (Lieutenant)
Officer Commanding/ Company Commander (Major)
Commanding Officer (Lieutenant Colonel)
Brigade commander (1* General/brigadier)

There are large gaps in-between those ranks, and people tend to act up rather than down (you wouldn't find a sergeant being a section commander for example). These ranks take up administrative or support roles, staff officers and the like.

So as you can see, even by taking real life as an example, there are endless possibilities for interesting relationships ant intertwining story lines just from a rank structure!

If you have any questions just pop 'em up and I'll have a go.

Good luck with your work :0)

[Cynric]

Just chipping in to thank Gumboot.

Excellent posts!

[kaufmannp]

Necessity will drive design; unless the Commander of your military organization prefers to just point at things and name them. Perhaps you could show the evolution of a rank structure out of the jobs that you mentioned; i.e. mission specialist, pilot, etc.

Another method would be to look at the development of other organizations, for example a business- chief executive officer, chief financial officer- and then you could extrapolate into how the colonies from which these military units developed their own frame of reference.

Anyway- my first post and .02 added!

[sabolich]

As a military veteran (I was an MI officer in the US army), I would have to agree with many of the previous posts. Yes, military rank structure has been looooooong established, and perhaps trying to invent new ranks for a military that is comprised of people descended from Earth origins may simply be creating smeeps all over the place--you know, calling a rabbit a smeep just because. People are generally familiar with sergeants and captains, etc., so you would not have to spend precious word count and tedious explanations explaining it to the reader--or worse, leaving them floundering while they try to figure it out sans explanation. More importantly, the structure works, and works very well, to the point that law enforcement often emulates military ranks. "Captain" is so long established from naval warfare stretching back thousands of years that I have a hard time especially envisioning that rank ever going away.

That said, if you are going to do it, remember that function drives the structure of your military force. You may simply have "leaders" and "fighters" with no other ranks, or you may have a very elaborate structure based on what the various units are actually doing. In the US army you have squad and even section leaders for very small unit functions. Specialized teams may need one guy in charge of 1 or 2 others and he has a specific rank. There may be 50 of those teams within a standard unit and the "commander" might simply be the most senior of the squad leaders. He may never see most of his guys from day to day because they are scattered in areas of operation far removed from headquarters. You might even have elected leaders as in the US army up to the Civil War when militia companies were raised in support of the regular army. On your world, Old Joe might actually have some ordinary civilian title, in that case.

In my current WIP, I have a squad structure called a decim (10 guys), commanded by a decimark. The company or troop is a "hundred" commanded by a captain (still thinking about that term) and the "army" of about 10 hundreds is commanded by a First Captain. You could have First Sword for that matter, or anything else that designates him as the top-ranking guy. Just think about how your people are fighting and how they're organized to do it. I wonder how small, dispersed terrorist operations are structured and what the head guy is called. They are certainly cohesive and operationally organized without the usual military ranks employed at all.

The mission of your military at every level of conflict will determine how it is organized for ground/sea/air/space operations, and that includes command of the logistical bases required to support it. Those guys might have an entirely separate set of ranks for staff/support folks as opposed to combat troops. The US army tried that for awhile with technical ranks that were not supposed to hold authority over troops but eventually pretty much did away with it except for warrant officers, who generally have pretty specialized knowledge.

At any rate, the structure of command means just that: everyone has a way to recognize the authority of everyone else in relation to their own. This means that job descriptions are not a good way to do this, because two mission specialists doing completely different, specialized jobs still need to know who gives the orders if everyone else gets killed. It can't just depend on "I've been around longer than you." Date of rank is always the tie-breaker, but it also, to some degree, indicates that Sergeant A has some degree more experience than Sergeant B. Mayhem may result if B has no combat experience and A does and they're in a combat situation, but one hopes B has brains enough to turn over command in the interest of saving his own skin.

Good luck, and have fun with it!