And?
Crew Rank Insignia?
- Thread starter Chaos Descending
- Start date
It is confusing, at least compared to what we've seen before. But then again, there have been a number of errors around costuming and dialogue related to rank in previous series, too.
Pike has the two wide, one narrow that we've come to expect for captains.
Una has two wide, but is a lieutenant commander. Not sure if this is a "mistake", or a deliberate callback to TOS season 1, when they did the same thing for Spock, Finney and Giotto. (But McCoy and Scotty had one-and-a-half for the same rank.) Una had one wide, one narrow in Discovery season 2, but I don't remember if her rank was mentioned in dialogue.
Kirk is a lieutenant, and has one wide. (This matches full lieutenant from TOS.)
Spock, Ortegas and La'an are all lieutenants and have one wide, one narrow. Possibly this is a change in the system from what we saw from TOS, and it now represents full lieutenant, while one stripe is lieutenant J.G.? Spock only had a single wide stripe in Discovery season 2, and was also called a lieutenant.
Hemmer is apparently also a lieutenant, and he has two wide, like Una. This one is harder to explain, unless he is also a lieutenant commander who was accidentally called lieutenant, like Shelby was once.
As mentioned above, M'Benga and Chapel both have two wide, but AFAIK their ranks haven't been mentioned in dialogue. As @The Wormhole mentioned, the first episode implied Chapel may be a civilian, but it's also possible she got some kind of provisional rank, similar to the Maquis on Voyager.
Ensign Christina appears to have no stripes, just like in TOS. I had thought that maybe if they bumped up each of the higher grades, they might have given ensigns a narrow stripe to differentiate them from non-officer crew, but that doesn't seem to be the case.
If lieutenant J.G, lieutenant, and lieutenant commander were all bumped up one level from what we saw in TOS, then I'm not sure what would represent full commander. They could have made it two wide, one narrow, if they had given Pike three wide.
(Also, I find the red and blue stripes hard to see, but that's neither here nor there.)
Thanks for taking the time to do this breakdown. It seems, to be as generous as I can to those responsible, there are some unresolved discrepancies and inconsistencies with rank insignia. I admit, it's not something that I pay too much attention to. Not thorough lack of interest, but as far as I know there's no official canon on which insignia means what at what time. If there is, I'd like to see it; although I imagine they keep this type of stuff deliberately vague as to afford them some wiggle-room.
Yeah, possibly, or maybe Time in Service, or maybe other rank requirements (trainings, tours, etc.)? As far as I know, it's pretty much a mixture of trying to piece together what's shown on screen and guesswork. Does anybody have anything more substantial that details rank requirements or insignia?
Maybe it's like U-571 where Matthew Mcconaghy's character isn't recommend for captain because he isn't quite ready yet/ He is missing an aspect of leadership that was needed. Maybe Una is missing one aspect, and the steps being taken include commanding the Archer in moving her towards commander.
5 years in grade doesn't strike me as unreasonable.
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IRL, if you’re passed over promotion too many times (I think it’s 3 or 4 times maybe), you’re discharged, as it is assumed you’ve reached your maximum level of incompetence.
In Starfleet, you can spend seven years as an ensign and nobody thinks it's unusual.
That’s why Starfleet isn’t the military! 
Harry Kim does.
In other words...nobody.
[rimshot)
Someone posted a handy reference chart on Twitter...
(My apologies... this was just down in the "Other Tweets" section and I forgot to grab an attribution.)
To be fair to the admirals, though, they seem to have the same system, just the stripes are on their shoulders instead of their cuffs. April's looks like one of the extra-wide stripes with one wide stripe on either side, just like Admiral Fitzpatrick from TOS.
Or perhaps April is just really into Mass Effect cosplay...
(Yes, this image was flipped horizontally to accentuate the similarities.
)
(My apologies... this was just down in the "Other Tweets" section and I forgot to grab an attribution.)
To be fair to the admirals, though, they seem to have the same system, just the stripes are on their shoulders instead of their cuffs. April's looks like one of the extra-wide stripes with one wide stripe on either side, just like Admiral Fitzpatrick from TOS.
Or perhaps April is just really into Mass Effect cosplay...
(Yes, this image was flipped horizontally to accentuate the similarities.
)
Yeah…. I do not like those shoulder boards at all.
One of the best uniforms in SNW thus far.
StarFleet isn't a "Traditional Military".
It's a "Hybrid Organization".
½ Military & ½ Scientific Explorer.
So not every aspect of the "Traditional Military" will be part of StarFleet IMO.
I don't think StarFleet would have this aspect of IRL military. They won't just discharge you just because you were passed up for promotion. StarFleet is the type of Organization that works to improve you over time, regardless of age.
Ergo, we see Commander Reginald Barclay survive to where he was when he was on the PathFinder mission. Despite the fact that at his age, he should've made Captain.
Or why Janeways initial 1st Officer, Cavit, seemed much older than Janeway in appearance.
The actor, Scott Jaeck who portrayed Cavit was only 40 years, 2 months, 19 days old when CareTaker aired and was a Lt. Commander & 1st Officer.
Kate Mulgrew was only 39 years, 8 months, 18 days old when CareTaker aired and was a newly minted Captain.
Age or being passed up for promotion shouldn't get you kicked out. StarFleet IMO wouldn't care about that. They care about improving you as an Officer until you retire from the service.
Pretty much.
The lack of any kind of "up and out" policy is likely to have been influenced by Roddenberry's experience of working for the LAPD, which in common with most police departments largely doesn't have one (completion of the rookie period and promotion to Police Officer II is required and promotion to Police Officer III/Training Officer [~ Corporal] is desirable).
Everybody basically ranks up at "Their pace". Yes, there is a minimum time needed in ___ rank before you can level up to the next rank.
But there is no maximum time before some bean counter tries to push you out.
Everybody has plenty of situations IRL that affects what happens on the job, so everybody will rank up at a different pace.
April also has the same kind of badge as worn by the Admirals on Disco, the Starfleet arrowhead with laurel leaves around it. IIRC, the number of laurel leaves around the arrowhead is supposed to represent which admiral grade they are. I think April is wearing a Vice Admiral's badge, which is also supposed to be Admiral Fitzpatrick's rank.
Though, maybe I'm misinterpreting something, as Memory Alpha lists April as a full four star Admiral.
April also has the same kind of badge as worn by the Admirals on Disco, the Starfleet arrowhead with laurel leaves around it. IIRC, the number of laurel leaves around the arrowhead is supposed to represent which admiral grade they are. I think April is wearing a Vice Admiral's badge, which is also supposed to be Admiral Fitzpatrick's rank.
Though, maybe I'm misinterpreting something, as Memory Alpha lists April as a full four star Admiral.
I wasn't really familiar with how the admiral badges worked on Discovery. I took a look into it, and it seems like they do it through a combination of filled/gold leaves and hollow/black leaves (which look like tiny arrowheads)?
But the Disco ones have four full leaves on the side of the badge, from the edge of the arrowhead to the top, whereas the SNW ones only have three full leaves visible. The "missing" leaves are mostly covered by the arrowhead, and only a small piece is visible on the left side, and about half on the right. It appears the arrowhead used in the SNW version is wider?
Maybe since the SNW uniforms have stripes, they don't use the leaves to represent ranks, and so all admirals have all the leaves filled in? I guess we will have to see more admirals on the show to see how they are going to handle it. IIRC, we have only seen two, and both appeared to be the same rank anyway. (And I think April is the only one where we've seen their badge.)
And only now have I realised the "leaves" are also Starfleet deltas
Yeah, that was something I only learned in this thread too. The modern era sure loves sticking arrowheads everywhere.
Wait till you see the toilet paper. It's quilted
