Officer rank question

[E Nicely]

Last night while watching Season 1 on DVD I broke out my B5 core book and started making a character (a true geek moment). So I wanted to build an Earthforce Officer. After flipping through the book I could find nothing as to what the character's starting rank would be. I know he'd be an ensign or something, but I like rules that deal with rank. So am I overlooking something or are there rules for rank in the earth Alliance book? I'm considering buying it, though interest locally in anyone playing a B5 RPG is low . Just the pic of the Nova dreadnaught in the preveiw is almost enough to make me run out and get it. 8)

 

[MongooseMatt]

Ranks are indeed covered in the Earth Alliance book. However, a starting officer will be a Lieutenant.

 

[E Nicely]

Better than an ensign! Thanks.

 

[Morgan_Keyes]

Better than an ensign! Thanks.

Same grade, different name.

Like difference between a Technical Sergeant and a Staff Sergeant (E-6) between Air Force and Army.

 

[August]

Hush it, gun fondler.

 

[Morgan_Keyes]

Hush it, gun fondler.

Baiting by the peanut gallery aside.... :lol:

I suppose it all depends how one treats EarthForce ranking. There are many instances in the show where they go back and forth between traditional army and navy rank structures, even within same field (ie., a space force officer position being a 'captain' in one instance and a 'colonel' in another).

But while an O-1 in the US Navy would be an Ensign, that same pay grade would be a Second Lieutenant in the Army, for example. So your character coming in as a fresh, cherry officer (are there any other types? :wink: )you could be either a 2nd Lieutenant or an Ensign, depending whether you were in Space Force or GROPOS.

Or given the attention to detail to such matters in the Earth Alliance Sourcebook you could just as well call yourself Purple Twinkie Counter Suzie for your rank. :mrgreen:

 

[MrFilthyIke]

Baiting by the peanut gallery aside.... :lol:

Or given the attention to detail to such matters in the Earth Alliance Sourcebook you could just as well call yourself Purple Twinkie Counter Suzie for your rank. :mrgreen:

We'll have no August baiting. Those of us "military ignorant" would
proudly serve as a Purple Twinkie Counter Suzie. :lol:

 

[E Nicely]

Thanks for the rank rundown, Morgan. Are you insinuating that the rank descriptions in the EA book are,uh, a little lacking? Don't own the book yet myself...

 

[August]

Heh....

I have to wonder what a Purple Twinkie unifrm would look like...

<imagination activates>

Oh... gods.....

<imagination is hit over the head with a wrench>

That image I did not need. :shock:

-------

Silliness aside, I did not actually write the EA book, though I some supplimental text for it and I should have caught the rank references.

-August

 

[Morgan_Keyes]

Thanks for the rank rundown, Morgan. Are you insinuating that the rank descriptions in the EA book are,uh, a little lacking? Don't own the book yet myself...

Well there are some strange elements to the ranks given. From the given info, EarthForce Fleet does not have any enlisted personnel, only officers. :?: Don't ask me how a group of officers run ships the size of EA ones without some enlisted personnel. Guess shades of Star Trek. :?

EarthForce Army the ranks are more or less right. They have Specialist as an enlisted rank, but say it's given to civilians with some experience required in the field. Really don't understand why it was included in the rank table, or how you'd get civilian specialists to expose themselves to harm at very low enlisted pay. This second enlisted rank gets changed to either Lance Corporal or Private First Class in my own setting.

On Army officers, there is the omission of Captain from the rank table. Suppose this is to avoid stepping on toes with Fleet when you have troops embarked since a naval thing is 'there is only one Captain on a ship'. Some settings have the ground force captain addressed as 'major' or 'brevet major' while embarked as a form of courtesy. So this is avoided by pulling the rank altogether from the Army.

Now more of a form issue and likely transparent to many. There are ten Fleet officer ranks, but only seven Army ones. The last for the Army doesn't count since no one really holds it and usually reserved to a single (or a handful) person at any time. Now why is this bothersome to an extent? Most militaries will a like number of ranks between their services. 1) This makes pay close to equitable between the services, and 2) Makes it easy to establish hierarchy between services. As I said, this discrepency probably doesn't mean much to most who play. If one does wish to change it though and give an equal number of ranks/pay grades between the two services a solution is for Fleet to pull the rank of Second Lieutenant and change the 1LT to simply Lieutenant. For the Army, insert in the ranks of Lieutenant Colonel and Lieutenant General. Not an ideal solution for me and I'll make a new rank structure m'self, but it's a quick and easy fix for those that want it.

 

[E Nicely]

I'll keep your changes to the rank titles in mind if I ever actually get to play B5 (I probably will ,though I think I'll have to GM some one-shots).

 

[frobisher]

If one does wish to change it though and give an equal number of ranks/pay grades between the two services a solution is for Fleet to pull the rank of Second Lieutenant and change the 1LT to simply Lieutenant.

Though that would remove one of the canonical promotions we saw within the series (Corwin's promotion).

 

[Morgan_Keyes]

If one does wish to change it though and give an equal number of ranks/pay grades between the two services a solution is for Fleet to pull the rank of Second Lieutenant and change the 1LT to simply Lieutenant.

Though that would remove one of the canonical promotions we saw within the series (Corwin's promotion).

Well it was an off the cuff suggestion. Otherwise keep the Fleet ranks and work on adding 2-3 new ones for the Army. Of course canon for Babylon 5 can be twitchy in some instances. I can remember a time or two when ship commanders were addressed by a ground force rank as opposed to Fleet.

 

[LoneStranger]

http://www.defenselink.mil/pubs/almanac/almanac/people/insignias/enlisted.html

http://www.defenselink.mil/pubs/almanac/almanac/people/insignias/officers.html

Links to two sites for modern American armed forces rank structures, these work since it seems Babylon 5 uses those rank structures.

http://hemsidor.torget.se/users/k/klix/grader_e.html

This is the site I got those from.

 

[Dag'Nabbit]

EarthForce Army the ranks are more or less right. They have Specialist as an enlisted rank, but say it's given to civilians with some experience required in the field. Really don't understand why it was included in the rank table, or how you'd get civilian specialists to expose themselves to harm at very low enlisted pay.

In answer to this, the US Army used to promote enlisted members to the rank of specialist when they demonstrated technical knowledge that the army required. It was equivalent to a corporal in pay, which was a pay raise in most cases, but it did leave these specialists without the corporal's inherent leadership requirements. This allowed the Army to start cultivating a corp of experts without having to hire contractors at exhorbitant rates. Thus the rank of "Specialist" was born in the US Army.

It appears as if EarthForce is taking the same track.

 

[frobisher]

I can remember a time or two when ship commanders were addressed by a ground force rank as opposed to Fleet.

The only instances are the two Generals (Hague and Lefcourt) and Hague's XO, Major Ryan who takes over command of the Alexander after his death.

Of course they're probably not ground forces but Airforce

 

[Morgan_Keyes]

EarthForce Army the ranks are more or less right. They have Specialist as an enlisted rank, but say it's given to civilians with some experience required in the field. Really don't understand why it was included in the rank table, or how you'd get civilian specialists to expose themselves to harm at very low enlisted pay.

In answer to this, the US Army used to promote enlisted members to the rank of specialist when they demonstrated technical knowledge that the army required. It was equivalent to a corporal in pay, which was a pay raise in most cases, but it did leave these specialists without the corporal's inherent leadership requirements. This allowed the Army to start cultivating a corp of experts without having to hire contractors at exhorbitant rates. Thus the rank of "Specialist" was born in the US Army.

It appears as if EarthForce is taking the same track.

That I do know. Wouldn't be much of a sergeant if I could grill my 'Full Bird Privates' on where there Specialist rank came from. But by the verbage in the book, this rank is given to civilian contractors seconded to the military, not a normal serving member.

 

[Morgan_Keyes]

I can remember a time or two when ship commanders were addressed by a ground force rank as opposed to Fleet.

The only instances are the two Generals (Hague and Lefcourt) and Hague's XO, Major Ryan who takes over command of the Alexander after his death.

Of course they're probably not ground forces but Airforce

Ahhh...but I remember them wearing Fleet uniforms as opposed to the brown (?) GROPOS uniform that was seen a time or two. Also, by the set-up now (for what it's worth) there is no seperate Air Force with the EA Army controlling aerospace assets as well.

 

[Anonymous]

Ivanova's the truly weird case. She went through a succession of naval ranks (Lt. Commander to Commander to Captain), but then ended her Earthforce career as a General.

That almost made me think that there ought to be no admirals in Earthforce, but I think they were mentioned once too (something about Sinclair being on the fast track to admiral before his little run-in with the Minbari).


Deadstop

 

[LoneStranger]

One of the things from the previous attempt at a B5 game was the mention that people could transfer between branches (ground and fleet) almost at will but they'd keep the rank names of the branch they started out in most of the time. Yes I know it doesn't explain Ivanova's rank but it does cover everything else.