Rank insignia plaque/Legends

Rank Insignia of the Galactic Empire refers to the system of badges indicating military rank which were used by officers of the Imperial military.

The first thing that must be noted in any study of the Imperial rank insignia is the lack of any clear overall survey of the system. There are several partial tables, and numerous specific examples, but no guide to how to bind them all together.

The second observation that must be made is that, while the basic visual vocabulary of rank badges remained broadly consistent throughout the Empire’s history, the specific insignia in use did not always remain constant. The insignia of a typical Lieutenant serving as a crew-pit supervisor on the bridge of a Star Destroyer just after the Declaration of a New Order in 19 BBY were markedly different from the rank-badges of an officer of the same rank serving in the same role on a Star Destroyer during the Battle of Hoth in 3 ABY.

In any discussion of the evidence for rank insignia, it ought also to be borne in mind that it is not strictly necessary for the badges to follow any fully mathematical or logical pattern, or for officers of corresponding ranks in different arms of the military to bear the same badges. This is not to say that elements of logic and cross-service synchronization never existed; but the most basic requirement is merely that particular insignia are sufficiently distinct for personnel to recognize them rapidly as indicating the particular status of the wearer. Simplicity or synchronization cannot be used as justifications to override primary evidence when that evidence does not fit a theory.

Lastly, there are specific questions concerning the quality of source material, which will be discussed as they are encountered in the course of this analysis.

Introduction
Standard Imperial rank insignia consisted of one or more horizontal rows of colored rank squares carried on a metal plaque on the left breast of the tunic, normally combined with pen-like metal code cylinders worn in narrow pockets at either shoulder. Rank distinctions were indicated by variation in the number, colour, and arrangement of squares and the number, style and arrangement of cylinders. Epaulettes were also occasionally worn, although with the exception of Grand Admirals, these were almost exclusively confined to dress uniform and rare formal occasions.



It is not clear how far back the roots of the rank-insignia system go, but it does seem safe to say that it was established before the declaration of the Empire in 19BBY. Rank insignia seem to have been generally absent on the blue uniforms of officers acting under Judicial Department authority prior to the outbreak of the Clone Wars, but during that conflict, the basic visual vocabulary of rank plaques and code cylinders became common, largely in association with the khaki or field-grey uniforms that would soon come to symbolize the Empire.

At the Battle of Merson, Captain Pellaeon, commanding the assault fleet supporting the GAR forces, wore a plaque on the collar of his uniform with two red and two blue pips. A little later, during the events surrounding the abortive defection of the Rendili Home Defense Fleet, Captain Jan Dodonna wore a plaque below his left shoulder with a row of six rank squares – two blue, two red and two blue.



Immediately after the establishment of the New Order, the insignia of a Moff consisted of five blue squares above three red and two gold, with two code cylinders in either pocket; the insignia of a Navy Lieutenant serving as a controller in one of the crew pits of a Star Destroyer consisted of four blue squares placed between rectangular raised bosses in the metal of the plaque, with no code cylinders.

At around the same time, however, one of the most iconic and enduring elements of the Imperial rank insignia. When Captains of the Imperial Fleet were summoned to a personal briefing from Palpatine and Darth Vader, they already wore a plaque with three red squares over three blue, with a single code cylinder in the left-hand shoulder pocket.

In the present state of knowledge, it is not possible to present a more wide-ranging survey of Imperial rank insignia until around 0 BBY, when a body of visual footage recorded during the brief operational career of the first Death Star depicts a number of officers ranging across the rank hierarchy.

Command personnel
Grand Moff Wilhuff Tarkin, the Governor of the Outland Regions, wore a rank plaque with a row of six blue tabs over three red and three gold, with two cylinders in either shoulder pocket. This was little changed from the insignia which he had worn as a Moff two decades earlier, differentiated only by the addition of an extra square at the outer end of each row on his rank plaque. It is not known, however, whether an ordinary Moff’s insignia still retained its former appearance.



One additional uniform detail distinguishing Tarkin from his subordinates was the absence of metal cartridge-boxes from his belt: these were worn by all the remaining senior personnel aboard the battle station, with the sole exception of Imperial Security Bureau representative Colonel Wulf Yularen.

Admiral Motti, the senior Navy officer aboard the Death Star, had an insignia of two blue and four red squares in a single row. In his right-hand pocket, he wore two code cylinders of an unusual design with ribbed tops, and in his left, a single cylinder of the standard design.



General Cassio Tagge, the senior Imperial Army officer aboard the Death Star, wore a row of five red squares on his plaque, with rank cylinders the same as Admiral Motti.



Chief Officer Bast, Tarkin’s senior adjutant, wore an insigina of four gold and two red pips, with a single code cylinder at either shoulder. Imperial Officer Cass, who reported the return of the scout ships from Dantooine, wore the same insignia, but apparently with no code cylinders at either shoulder. However, while they were probably senior personnel within the hierarchy aboard the Death Star, it is not certain what specific rank either of these men held.

Captain Khurgee, the hangar security officer in charge of inspecting the captured Millennium Falcon, wore a row of five gold squares, with a single rank insignia at either shoulder. It is unclear, however, whether his rank of Captain was held in the Navy, Army or Starfighter command hierarchy, and in the absence of clear evidence, it is impossible to say for sure whether his insignia were appropriate for the commander of a Company of soldiers, a Squadron of TIEs, or even a Star Destroyer.



Blackshirt personnel
By 0 BBY, black uniforms were widely worn by officers attached to elite troops such as stormtrooper detachments, starfighter squadrons, and security details. The insignia of a blackshirt Commander such as Praji consisted of a plaque with four blue squares followed by two gold ones.



An insignia of four blue squares with a cylinder at either shoulder was worn by blackshirt Lieutenants, such as Tanbris, Shan Childsen, and Pol Tredium. Sometimes, officers with this insignia would be styled ‘Commander’ such as Daine Jir, although may have been an informal title accorded to them by virtue of holding some sort of low-level unit command.



Lieutenant Tredium’s deputy in Docking Bay 327 seem to have worn an insignia with red squares, although this is only shown briefly in motion-blurred footage, and it has not yet proved possible to verify whether his rank-plaque had one or two tabs.

Other Personnel
The Intelligence personnel aboard the Death Star are discussed below. Extant footage from the Death Star also shows an officer in a distinctive uniform with a bluish khaki tunic, black breeches, and a black forage cap. His rank plaque carries three red squares followed by three gold, worn without code cylinders. In the background of footage of a command briefing, a brief glimpse can be seen of a senior officer in what seems to be a similar-coloured tunic, apparently with a row of five red squares on his insignia, and again with no rank cylinders.

It is unknown what the rank or posting of these men was, although further scrutiny of the footage may reveal further details or their uniforms, or perhaps additional examples of similar dress.

Conclusions
A number of particular rank insignia can be assoicated with specific individuals in the hierarchy of the Death Star, but in many cases, we do not have a specific rank to associate with an insignia, and it is not possible to infer more than the broad outline of the system from the evidence of the footage alone. It can be noted that higher rank was, in general terms, indicated by increased numbers of rank squares and code cylinders, but it is not clear what precise role was played by the colour of the squares, and there is no firm evidence as to whether insignia were synchronized in any way across different arms of the military.

To say more, further evidence would be required.

The Death Star Technical Manual
After the Battle of Yavin, Rebel Alliance sources released a Death Star Technical Manual, consisting of Imperial documents edited and added to by Alliance personnel. Amongst its contents, this dossier contained a series of illustrations purporting to show officers of various ranks aboard the battlestation.

Some of these images were recognizable depictions of specific officers aboard the Death Star, and the combinations of rank and insignia depicted form an implicit hierarchy; but these illustrations are not without their problems. Firstly, they are black-and-white, so rank-square colours are not shown; also, and more importantly, the insignia shown do not correspond in every detail with surviving footage from the Death Star. Some combinations can be shown to be at variance with the primary material; others are simply not seen there at all.

Several other elements of the material in this dossier are now regarded with wide scepticism as to their accuracy, so these inconsistencies may simply be a matter of error. Nevertheless, it is possible to reconcile the material with the primary footage, and absence of evidence is not in itself evidence of absence. While these images must, therefore, be treated with caution, it may be that the non-matching insignia were indeed in use aboard the battlestation, and simply do not appear in the limited quantity of surviving footage.

The following survey is presented as an analysis of this evidence, with particular regard to the question of how it might be reconciled with the primary footage. There is at present no certain way to know whether any of this additional material is accurate or not: we can merely note the nature of the evidence itself, and consider its potential for harmonization with the information from in the footage, discussed above.

Tabulation of material

 * Grand Moff (Tarkin) – two rows of six rank squares on plaque, two code cylinders in either pocket: corresponds to primary footage.
 * Admiral (Motti) – one row of six squares, one code cylinder on right, two non-standard code cylinders in left-hand pocket: corresponds to primary footage.
 * General (Tagge) – one row of six squares, a single code cylinder of normal type in either pocket: does not correspond to primary footage.
 * Colonel, Operations Chief – one row of six squares, one cylinder in either pocket: insignia seen in primary footage but not clearly linked there with rank of Colonel.
 * Major, Department Chief – one row of four squares, two cylinders in either pocket: insignia not seen in surviving footage.
 * Commander – one row of four squares, one cylinder in either pocket: insignia seen in primary footage but not clearly linked there with rank of Commander.
 * Captain – one row of three squares, one cylinder in either pocket. insignia not seen in surviving footage.
 * Lieutenant – one row of three squares, a single cylinder in the left-hand pocket: insignia not seen in surviving footage.

Insignia and ranks from the Battle of Hoth onwards
At some point prior to the Battle of Hoth in 3 ABY, it would appear that rank insignia had undergone a substantial revision. While the basic insignia were still coloured squares on the tunic breast and code cylinders in shoulder pockets, most plaques now normally consisted of superimposed rows of red and blue squares, with equal numbers in each.

Specific examples
As commander of Death Squadron, Admiral Kendall Ozzel wore an insignia with six red pips over six blue ones, with two code cylinders in his left-hand shoulder pocket, and one on the right. Following Ozzel’s execution by Vader during the opening stages of the Battle of Hoth, Firmus Piett was promoted to replace him, and quickly adopted the same insignia. By the Battle of Endor, however, Piett had reverted to the insignia he wore previously as Captain of the Executor, for reasons that remain unexplained.

The rank-badge of General Maximilian Veers had four red pips over four blue, with a single code cylinder in the left-hand pocket.

During the construction of the second Death Star, Moff Jerjerrod of Moddell Sector wore a badge bearing three red pips over three blue, with one code cylinder at either shoulder. An identical insignia was borne by the Commander who handed over Luke Skywalker to Darth Vader on the Sanctuary Moon shortly before the Battle of Endor.

A very widely worn insignia had three had three red pips over three blue, with a single code cylinder at the left shoulder. This would appear to have been the insignia of most Navy Captains, being worn by Firmus Piett of the Executor, Lorth Needa of the Avenger, and Captain Lennox of the Tyrant. This insignia was also worn by Lieutenant-Commander Ardan, a crew-pit supervisor aboard Executor, and by Commander Desanne on Bespin; at Endor, it was the insignia of Commander Gherant, who appears to have been Piett’s senior subordinate on the flagship’s bridge, and of a number of officers aboard the Death Star.

An insignia with two red squares over two blue ones, again with a single code cylinder at the left shoulder, was widely worn by junior officers during the Hoth Campaign. It was the insignia of Lieutenants Suba, Venka and Cecius aboard Executor, Lieutenant Cabbel on the Tyrant, and Captain Bewil and Lieutenant Sheckil on Bespin. Without visible rank cylinders, the same plaque was carried by an officer in snowtrooper armour in the cockpit of General Veers’ AT-AT on Hoth.

In surviving footage of the Battle of Endor, this insignia is not so widely seen, but it was worn by at least one officer in a hangar-bay side detail on the Death Star.

Grand Admirals
The Grand Admirals wore distinctive white uniforms, sometimes with no further code cylinders or rank insignia whatsoever. When Grand Admirals did wear insignia, they usually displayed three blue and three gold squares over three blue and three red, without code cylinders, but with bullion epaulettes on the shoulders.

Intelligence and Security services
By 0 ABY, members of Imperial Intelligence and the Imperial Security Bureau wore white tunics with black caps and breeches, although it is unclear when this distinctive uniform was introduced, or whether it was retained subsequently.

Colonel Wulf Yularen, the senior ISB operative aboard the Death Star, wore a rank insignia of three red tabs followed by three blue tabs, with no code cylinders, and he was the only senior officer except Tarkin to lack cartridge-boxes on his belt.



Yularen’s Imperial Intelligence colleague, Officer Evax, wore three blue tabs followed by three red on his tunic plaque, and likewise had no code cylinders, but he did wear belt-boxes. It is impossible to be sure of the two officers’ relative ranks, but Yularen's place in command-level briefings, and his lack of belt-boxes, suggests that he may have been the senior of the two men.



It is not known how widespread the white tunic or these rank insignia were. Eight months after the Battle of Yavin, however, a Captain and Lieutenant from Imperial Intelligence assigned to the base on Kalist VI wore black uniforms with rank insignia corresponding to those of their Army and Navy counterparts – three red squares over three blue for the Captain, two over two for the Lieutenant. Code cylinders are not visible in the surviving illustrations.

As well as the duty uniforms hroughout the history of the Empire, the Director of Intelligence often wore a highly distinctive uniform, indicative of senior status in the command hierarchy. At the end of the Clone Wars, Director Armand Isard wore an ornate officer's dress uniform, while Ysanne Isard, after she succeeded her father in post, would wear a red officer's uniform, sometimes with the insignia of an Admiral, sometimes with no insignia in the manner of a Grand Admiral.

Enlisted Ranks
Imperial enlisted personnel are very rarely shown in surviving evidence with any type of insignia, but ordinary soldiers and technicians seem to have been often distinguished from supervising NCOs and Warrant Officers by their differing types of uniforms.

Stormtroopers
Stormtroopers apparently used the same rank system as the Imperial Army, but in armour, they rarely wore any type of outward insignia, apparently relying instead on built-in IFF signals and HUDs in their helmets for identification. A system of colored shoulder pads was used in some contexts, although the exact significance of these is unknown.

Occasionally, officers with recognizable insignia are seen commanding stormtroopers, although no recorded examples are known of insignia being worn on standard stormtrooper armour. The insignia of the blackshirt officers sometimes seen commanding stormtroopers have been discussed above, while examples of personnel in non-standard armour with rank plaques include a Blizard Force officer in the cockpit of General Veers' AT-AT at the Battle of Hoth, and SpecNav commander Sixtus Quin. In both these instances, the insignia consisted of two red squares over two blue, with no code cylinders, and in both instances, they were perhaps worn for the benefit of non-stormtrooper personnel.

Behind the Scenes
In the Star Wars movies, the seniority of Imperial officers is generally indicated by increasing numbers of rank squares and code cylinders, but there is easy way to extrapolate a simple hierarchy of ranks and insignia, and no direct evidence that George Lucas or the movie costume designers and production crew ever created a strict system. Only between The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi are there many points of contact in terms of the specific insignia used, and even here, there are also distinct incongruities.

The Expanded Universe
The rank system used in Expanded Universe material, on the other hand, is largely consistent and systematic. While there are a few inconsistencies, a basic hierarchy of ranks and insigina which first appeared in West End Games sourcebooks for the D6 role-playing game in the late 1980s has recurred in novels, comics and computer games down to the present day. This system is generally assumed to have originated with the RPG, although the possibility should not be discounted that it may have been based on production notes or costume-design sketches from the films, as WEG certainly had access to large amounts of such material.

Of course, not every aspect of the canon system is clear - it is impossible for a simple system to provide an exact match with all the variety of movie badges, and in addition, the relationship between Navy and Army ranks and insignia is often left vague and ambiguous; but the bulk of confusion among fans has stemmed from the fact that the rank hierarchy associated with this system does not conform to real-world Anglo-American usage – the appearance of Commander between Captain and Major is often remarked on.

In fact, the basic model for these ranks appears to be the Napoleonic Grande Armee, with Commander simply translating Commandant. Navy ranks rather more confusing, and while the system used in the novels and comics may have been shaped by the accidental borrowing of Army ranks, the end result corresponds to the Baltic and North Sea traditions represented by the Royal Netherlands Navy and the old Russian Empire, in which ranks below Admiral are organized into a hierarchy of "Lieutenant", "Captain" and "Commander" grades.

Fanon insigina systems
Over time, a number of alternative fanon insignia systems have appeared on the internet. These speculative systems rarely conform to the canon tabulations, and do not always accomodate the full range of specific examples shown in canon material – although in fairness, their creators may not know all the relevant official sources.

Probably the most notable of the various fan-constructed systems is that on the influential Star Wars Technicial Commentaries website. This offers detailed discussions of ranks and insignia, but although hypotheses from these websites have found their way into the general fan consciousness, they have no canon status, and involve a number of important assumptions incompatable with EU material.

The RotJ "rank blooper"
Lastly, mention should be made of the supposed rank badge blooper in Return of the Jedi. It is often said in fan discussions that a wardrobe mistake resulted in the actors playing Imperial officers being given costumes with the wrong insignia, but I have been unable to find any official source confirming this.

What is clear is that Kenneth Colley is once again wearing the insignia which he wore when his characte was a Captain, while Michael Pennington as Moff Jerjerrod shares his badge and cylinder combination with a (presumably rather more junior) officer in the Endor garrison. But it is unclear whether the inconsistency here is really a ‘blooper’, or just another change in the usage of insignia, like the wholesale discontinuity between the first two movies.

For a blooper to exist would also imply that the production crew were working with an idea of what rank insignia were appropriate to certain positions – but what can be said for sure is that much remains uncertain or ambiguous about the processes that have given rise to the complex system of rank insignia used in canon material.