the rank of captain is a low rank in the air force and army. The insignia that a captain in these two services wears is 2 bars (double that of a first lieutenant's single silver bar.
in the navy the rank of captain is just below that of an admiral and his insignia is a golden eagle (just like a full bird colonel in the army).
Two silver bars in the navy is insignia for a "Lieutenant" (like the army's captain) and the insignia for an "ensign" is a single bar (like the army's lieutenant)
confusing, no?
you got it wrong in the book
the rank of captain is a low rank in the air force and army. The insignia that a captain in these two services wears is 2 bars (double that of a first lieutenant's single silver bar.
in the navy the rank of captain is just below that of an admiral and his insignia is a golden eagle (just like a full bird colonel in the army).Two silver bars in the navy is insignia for a "Lieutenant" (like the army's captain) and the insignia for an "ensign" is a single bar (like the army's lieutenant)
confusing, no?
you got it wrong in the book
Agreed; the (normal) rank (Naval) progression is (I'm sure you know this, but others might not):
Ensign (Ens) - 1 gold bar .....same as 2nd Lt in the other Armed Services
Lieutenant (Junior Grade, or 'Ltjg') - 1 silver bar .....same as 1st Lt in the other Armed Services
Lieutenant (Lt) - 2 connected silver bars (aka "railroad tracks") .....same as Captain (CPT) in the other Armed Services
Lieutenant Commander (LCDR) - gold oak leaf .....same as Major (MAJ) in the other Armed Services
Commander (CDR) - silver oak leaf .....same as Lieutenant Colonel (LCOL) in the other Armed Services
Captain (CPT) - silver eagle .....same as Colonel (COL) in the other Armed Services
Admiral (ADM) - 1 silver star .....same as Brigadier General (BGEN) in the other Armed Services
Since we're being picky, that's a Silver Eagle not gold. Silver denotes the higher rank in the military such as a "butter bar" or second lieutenant vs. a Silver bar or first lieutenant.
@topcat except for the Admiral/General ranks; that's the only time a Vice Admiral/Lieutenant General outranks a Rear Admiral/Major General; their insignia 'color' is the same (2 or 3 silver stars, respectively), though.
I'm happy with the ranks, because
1) The EDF/Alliance Space forces are separate from the Military and Navy forces
2) The military hierarchy of "now" compared to 1000 years ago pre BD plague and the subsequent Dark ages are likely to have undergone change.
3) We do not know what structures existed pre plague.
4) The rank structure of Ensign, Lieutenant, Lieutenant Commander, Commander, Captain, Admiral, is very easy to follow for laymen
Hmm.
Nearly all humans on Earth were wiped out by a bio-digital plague. What was left had to rebuild, relearn, reinvent, nearly everything. And you're expecting the rank insignias for a space force made up of many nations, created 1,000 years after the plague, are not exactly the same as those of one current-day military organization, on a planet with dozens (if not hundreds) of such organizations?
Seriously?
Not to be a smart-ass, but this kind of thing really peeves me. Just because they are from Earth, doesn't mean that their rank insignias would be US military ones. (After all, there is not USA on Earth in these stories.)
I'm not even sure that captains bar's / rank insignia are described as being a single or double bars set it could be 3x or 4x bars. It could have three bars with an eagle crossing them for all we know. I think it was left vague so that you could imagine a set as gaudy as possible or as plain.
Really though I'm just glad its not the "pips" from star trek, they looked silly.
I vote for the bars being a set of barber poles... just cause...
They can't be that nice, or Nathan wouldn't have traded his for prison bars...
I thought it was Vlad that would hang around in bars. Oh, wait...
I think that's a link about as bad as your Segway
