Lit Galactic Empire hierarchy

I get the impression Storm Commandos had their own ships so they could sneak into things. Oddly enough, that makes them the Imperial version of Wraith Squadron.

We need an Imperial March/A-Team Mash up!

 

Forgot about the Hunters, ha. Republic Commando made me prefer the idea that special forces were deployed in TIVs and the like.

 

These guys

Spoiler

lead squads of Shadow Troopers in TFU. Would that make them a part of the same unit, or at least fellow special forces?

 

I thought they were all part of Darth Vader's Special Project.

 

You would think! However, Shadow Troopers report ONLY to the Director of Intelligence. My theory? They were snooping on Vader for Palps.

 

Just finished the Inferno Squad novel. It raises a couple of questions for me

1) How common is it for officers to switch services/job functions? The Admiral forming his little team was the impetus in the case of Inferno Squad but in the case of Del Meeko he was several kinds of trooper before becoming an starship engineer. It seems that highly skilled Imperials can jump between services and job functions very easily. Obviously the four squad members are presented as exceptional military polymaths but can someone just a bit down the bell curve have the opportunity to switch jobs.

2) The flip side is Admiral Versio just drafting the four individuals he wants for his squad. Does the line the squad repeat as a standard response to praise, 'I serve at the Empire's pleasure' really mean the bosses can move them wherever they want regardless if they are assigned to another service? Just how separate are the Navy, Army, Star Fighter Corps, ISB, etc if this is the case?


Also I noticed the white uniform ISB/Millitary Intelligence discussion in this thread. There is a description of Lt. Marana's white uniform while she is still working as a Naval Intelligence Analyst before the formation of the Inferno squad spec ops team.

 

godisawesome
I'd argue that Shadow Troopers fit the Special Activities Division perfectly. They work for an intelligence organization. They're covert ops forces. They perform tasks the Empire doesn't want to be connected to.

 

A question I've had for a while - in Legends, was it ever made clear where the various department heads (Isard, Hethrir, Cronal et al.) ranked relative to the Grand Admirals and Moffs? Higher? Lower? Different command structure entirely?

 

Ysanne Isard became the leader of the Empire at a time when several Grand Moffs and even Grand Admirals were still alive and in the Empire. Going off of her position, I'd guess she outranked them.

 

Yeah, by dressing up in black-painted Imperial armor...

 

I think her rank equivalent was Grand Admiral but she took the position of Regent after killing the Triumvirate.

 

They wear disguises for CovOps; The black armor is for overt missions.

 

Should we consider the "Walrus Men" uniforms part of the Imperial military or political hierarchy, as hypothesised here?

http://boards.theforce.net/threads/how-good-bad-was-the-empire-actually.50044836/page-3

Personally I think it's a more generic uniform, whose commonalities with the Empire's ones are explainable a different way - perhaps through mimicry. They know the Empire is at least mildly intolerant of anything that looks too alien - with them concluding that the best way to minimise Imperial intolerance, is to look as close to Imperial as possible without actually being so.


Or - inversely - the Empire adapted its military uniform design from Republic-era bureaucracy uniforms.

 

Going back a few pages, From a Certain Point of View confirms that at the time of the Death Star's destruction:

-General Cassio Tagge is the Chief of the Imperial Army
-Admiral Conan Motti is the Chief of the Imperial Navy

both are included in the Joint Chiefs.

 

I still think Tagge and Motti are just the administrative heads of the military.

 

Kind of goes without saying. The top-officer of a military branch does not typically have a personnel command or direct control of a unit.

 

Did anyone notice that in Thrawn, the Imperial Navy rank structure is Lieutenant Junior Grade < Lieutenant < Captain < Lieutenant Commander < Commander < Commodore?

 

That seems to be the common rank structure ever since The Clone Wars show: Commander outranks Captain (Cody over Rex); also in TLJ where Poe is demoted from Commander to Captain.

 

I suppose back in the day, Wedge was a Commander and Tycho was a Captain.

 

I was wondering-do most of the courtiers on the imperial palace have some sort of actual job or do they just sort of hang around?

 

I imagine some of them were representatives from planets, systems, civilian organizations, etc, hoping to get an audience with the Emperor or his closest advisors. And some of those advisors were around just to deny them such privilege, spy on them, figure a way to gain advantage from their particular situation, etc.

Imperial Court politics have long intrigued me... it would be amazing to know more about the dignitaries and their relationship with senators, ministers and so on. Being a fan of Sate Pestage, Ars Dangor and that bunch, I would really love to see a little more of them in canon, beyond what we got from them in the Tarkin novel!

 

Yeah you have Palpatine who probably doesn't care much at this point for mundane politics, Sate Pestage and the imperial council, the moffs, imperial senate(before its dissolution), heads of the security agencies like Cronal or Isard and of course the imperial hands.

But yeah imperial court politics and factions is something I wish we had seen more of.

 

The misuse of Commander is always something that will bother me. The ranks should be Lieutenant - Lieutenant Commander - Commander - Captain - Commodore etc. So while a Captain may command a Star Destroyer, a light cruiser may only have a Commander or Lt Commander in charge. Oh, and Commander is a Navy rank, not Army. I can accept it for the GAR, as the General ranks were taken by Jedi, so Commander level fell to senior Clones or less experienced Jedi. That and the GAR didn't seem to have an Army/Navy split.