> keeping track of names for a series like LOGH is like reading War and
> Peace and then picking up the sequel every few months later when it
> gets fan subbed.
>
yeah, i've gotten confused just reading tom clancy before! ;-) thank
goodness that in the LoGH TV series they have those captions with the
character names when they appear.
> As for the titles, always lumped the admirals together and that was that.
>
well, that's pretty easy to do, yes. but while it is true that yang
and reinhard spend most of their time talking to other general/flag
officers, the implications of ranking systems *below* the rank of general
or admiral shouldn't be overlooked. as i said before, whether they use an
army/navy style ranking system strongly implies their military organization
and command structure. that was my real interest.
in a navy ranking system, there's really nothing in-between a ship
captain and an admiral. however, there are lots of ranks below captain
(everything else, in fact), and a captain's a pretty big-shot in a navy.
in fact, on his ship, the captain has the powers of a king or god that even
an admiral dare not contradict while he's aboard. so a captain of his
ship's company is a big deal.
in an army ranking system, there's a lot of intermediate grades between
a captain and a general. a captain and his company is simply a cellular
unit within the battalion, regiment, and brigade. he gets called on the
carpet all the time by his bosses, who really call a lot of the shots on
the battlefield. in the army (and the air force, especially), captains and
company commanders are a dime a dozen.
that was my real interest in the rankings within the alliace army and
imperial fleet: how the command structures within their fleets are
organized. as i said before, the sheer size of fleets makes me inclined to
think that they use an army system of ranks.
a highly simplified example:
(recall that a commodore is the equivalent of a brigadier general and
commands a fleet)
* it doesn't make sense that 10,000 captains report directly to one
admiral; even 100 captains to one commodore, and 100 commodores reporting
to one rear admiral isn't plausible from a command/control/logistics
perspective.
* however, something like 10 captains/major, 10 majors/lt.colonel, 10
lt.colonels/colonel, and then 10 colonels/brigadier general (or = 10,000
captains under the command of a brigadier general) is far more plausible.
of course, i've grossly oversimplified things here, but i hope that this
example gets my point across.
sorry for not making this clear before. :-)
-- Wayne H. Yin why@mail.utexas.edu