Lit Galactic Empire hierarchy

so I've always wondered of how the hierarchy of the galactic empire looked like, positions, ranks, etc. From what I've gathered myself, the hierarchy isn't that messed up as I thought, but there's stil some flaws which perhaps doesen't make sense (at first, anyway)

here is an organized google document of what i've gathered (so far) as close to lore, some of this might be wrong, tried my best to piece it together:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1AfoAkTEe4irLZWaR1D9vrMYCoy1_3OHYIE_6arqICrA

an example to these kinds of flaws would be, Motti had this position called "Chief of the Imperial Navy" and cassio tagge had the chief of the army position, yet for example, could you see motti be above Thrawn who was grand admiral, but not chief of navy?

what other positions/branches/divisions might there be? where does what fit and who outranks who.. when are people given command of stuff, etc

 

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Joint_Chiefs

I think the idea is that they're advisors - and the Emperor can choose to transfer people to the Joint Chiefs even if they're not top rank. Hence Ozzel being part of the Joint Chiefs (under Motti) despite only being a Rear Admiral.

 

There's also the elusive "High Command," which has been mentioned in two canon books so far.

 

Another question would be, what's the relationship between the grand general,admiral and moffs. Like, if Thrawn has his fleet in Tarkin's sector, who has the biggest authority? Does tarkin outrank thrawn because they're in his system? Or thrawn because it's his men..? There are always stormtroopers and such on planets (of course), which should ultimately branch-wise answer to the chief of the imperial army, but what if tarkin as the owner of the sector say something else?

 

In my opinion the civilian/military leadership: Governors, Moffs, and Grand Moffs are able to direct the Imperial Armed Forces stationed or transiting within their defined territory. However, it is up to the strictly military leadership within those armed forces (ie. the Admirals and Generals) to command the military units to accomplish those tasks.

That said, there's a crossover in rank at play. A Governor isn't going to tell an Admiral/General (of any rank) what to do. And a Moff isn't going to tell a Grand Admiral/General what to do. I do think that Grand Moffs had operational control over everyone excluding Lord Vader, while the Joint Cheifs / Imperial High Command had administrative control over the Imperial Armed Forces while also serving an advisory role to the Emperor. Just my $0.02, great questions though, I often have pondered the same thing.

 

Would the "Imperial High Command" be just another name for the Joint Chiefs' board? That would be the simplest (and bestà explanation.

 

It would seem so considering most of the members of the high command is in the joint chiefs, like Motti, Tarkin and Tagge. Basically branch/division leaders or very high up in those, still though, what's weird is how Motti might be above Thrawn. I don't see that's how it actually is, Motti is the type of guy who Vader is allowed to force choke-- Thrawn is like Tarkin, Vader would never force choke Thrawn because he is Thrawn--and not useless like most officers in the empire are. Maybe the chief of navy and army is just a job to report to the ruling council what they are doing? Motti commanding Thrawn would just be strange.. I don't know much about the imperial high command in legends, other than it containing some high ranks from different branches, and canon doesen't have much info. The high command should just be considered high ranked people, to be honest, and not like a special group. Most likely that.

edit: Actually, the joint chiefs is probably not the same. They're just a group that advised things, probably just some people who wasn't that needed on the field. There was no grand generals or admirals on it aswell.

 

Again, IMO the Joint Chiefs would be part of the Imperial High Command. The tip of the spear as it were. You need a lot more than a few high ranking individuals to administrate the Imperial war machine. Aside from the service branches, you'd need organizations (or a Joint Staff) for Operations, Intelligence, Personnel and Manpower, Logistics, Facilities and Basing, Procurement and Manufacturing, Operations Plans and Training Development, Strategic Plans and Policy, Force Structure and Resources, Special Operations, Research and Development, JAG and Military Police, ect.

 

You have to remember that the Emperor like to do strange things with his people and leaders. I just looked it up and the actor who portrayed Motti was 31 in 1977. Would you ever have a Chief of the Navy who is 31? I don't think so. But the Emperor liked to reward people he liked, ambitious people, and often to get under the skin or motivate other people such as Thrawn.

I see your point about the Joint Chiefs being an advisory group. But I disagree, and what would be the point of middle management advising the Emperor when clearly the real Chief of the Navy would have to advise him as well. It's redundant and inefficient, so I don't believe that to be the case.

 

The imperial military and other forces can all get confusing as far as the hierarchy works. For instance, the Grand Inquisitor in Star Wars Rebels outranks Admirals and Generals. Obviously, he doesn't outrank Grand Moffs, Vader, or the Emperor. I would imagine he wouldn't outrank the Ruling Council either.
I really am interested to know more about the dynamic between Grand Moffs and Grand Admirals. I hear that Grand Admirals typically outrank Grand Moffs, as Grand Moffs tend to have authority primarily in their sector of the galaxy.

 

Here's an interesting question: where did Tarkin get the authority to destroy Alderaan? You said he was the Grand Moff of the Outer Rim oversector, which does match what I remember of the old EU. But Alderaan is an inner system, so no way does it come under his authority.

Honestly, I think it's pretty clear that the Imperial command structure was intentionally set up with some ambiguity by the Emperor. And that at least to some extent, the question of "who has authority?" is resolved by persons pushing their authority as far as they can and basically going "yeah, I did it. You want to make a thing of it?" Palpatine's record of pitting his underlings against each other is pretty clear.

 

My guess is since he was in command of the Death Star, that gave him the authority to use it as needed, no matter where it was going to be deployed. If anyone objected about him being out of his jurisdiction, I doubt they would have continued those objections if he used the Death Star to destroy the Rebel base at Yavin.

 

Right. Like I said: senior leaders push their authority as far as they think they can get away with. And then dare anyone else to have a problem with it.

 

Well, that's because the inquisitor is in the Inquisitorius division and the authorities varies there. As for how the grand admiral have the biggest authority, I don't think this has been canonized but I'd love for it to be because they're responsible for actually bringing the armies around anywhere. Oh and because Thrawn.

 

In the Imperial Handbook - a point was made of how Alderaan was on the list of Priority Targets - that the Death Star could attack - after authorisation had been given from the Emperor and the proper firing codes had been released.


page 156-157:

IMQ-54544-XX-07 SECURITY CLEARANCE BLACK DS-1 ORBITAL BATTLE STATION:

PRIORITY TARGETS

WARNING: Activation of the superlaser represents a tremendous expense to the Imperial military as well as the loss of a potential strategic resource in a habitable or a resource-rich planet. The following list of priority targets are grouped according to the potential damage inflicted on enemy resources.


OBTAIN A FULL AND CURRENT INTELLIGENCE REPORT ON ANY TARGET BEFORE ACTIVATING DS-1 SUPERLASER.

ONLY PERSONNEL WITH OVERSECTOR ADMINISTRATIVE RANK AND CURRENT FIRING CODES PROVIDED BY THE OFFICE OF THE EMPEROR MAY ACTIVATE DS-1 SUPERLASER.

DO NOT TARGET ANY LISTED WORLD WITHOUT THE EXPLICIT AUTHORIZATION OF IMPERIAL HIGH COMMAND AND HIS IMPERIAL MAJESTY.


POTENTIAL REBEL BASES, STAGING AREAS OR DEPOTS (UNCONFIRMED)

• Brigia
• Dantooine
• Edan II
• Golrath
• Polis Massa
• Talay
• Tierfon
• Tomark
• Vergesso

WORLDS PROVIDING POLITICAL OR STRATEGIC AID TO THE REBELLION

• Alderaan
• Chandrila
• Isis
• Kashyyyk
• Mon Cala
• New Plympto
• Ord Pardron
• Ralltiir
• Sullust

 

Insert joke here.

 

Bah! I find it annoying enough that they changed the name of Isis into Gutretee in Star Wars Uprising.

 

Considering, that the Emperor's personal attack-dog was there and didn't complain (at least in the NuCanon as far as I'm aware) we can assume, that the Emperor agreed with Tarkin (who might not have been Grand Moff of the CoreRegion, but aside from being Grand Moff of the OuterRim-Oversector was also the Grand Moff in charge of the DeathStar-project and the destruction of the Rebellion. And since Alderaan was a rebellious world ... .)

 

That we know of. We do know that he received word that the Emperor had dissolved the Senate. For all we know, he might have gotten the authorization from the Emperor at that time.

Besides, as was pointed out, I don't think either Vader or the Emperor would have objected, especially since Tarkin was going to use the Death Star to destroy Yavin 4 once they tracked Han and company there.

 

I still don't get how Motti is chief of the navy, while being an admiral, while Thrawn is a grand admiral and has no such title.

 

Maybe "Chief of the Navy" is more governmental/administrative - like a Star Wars version of "First Lord of the Admiralty" or "Lord High Admiral" - whereas grand admiral is the highest field rank - grand admirals being expected to be out in the field managing fleets.

 

That's what I was thinking aswell, there's no way Motti can command Thrawn..