Darth Vader's rank

Watching the original trilogy recently got me wondering. What is Vader's rank within the Empire?
He bares no rank insignia on his armour and in ANH takes orders from Tarkin.

Can some explain the career ladder in the Imperial Navy?

Moff, grand moff, admiral, commander, grand admiral, emperor's hand - who out ranks who?

 

He's a Sith and pretty much second only to the Emperor. He don't need no stinking rank badges..lol

 

I think Vader can do whatever he wants, and the only person he answers to is the emperor. The emperor finds people like Tarkin useful, so Vader would probably get so much crap from the emperor for killing him that it's not even worth it. Also Vader's main passion is killing jedi, and he eventually hopes to displace the emperor (that's his function as the lower sith lord), not only does he not really care about politics, but if the Death Star blows up some people that are resisting imperial rule, it does him a favor since he would have to take them out once he took over anyway.

 

Well if you want to get technical I think by the time of ESB he is Supreme Commander of the Imperial Navy, but after that I have no idea.

 

Supreme Commander Vader.

Maybe we should send him to Afganistan. Well maybe not, he did lose a war to a bunch of rebels.

 

His official rank is Executioner, which is more or less a fancy way of saying Supreme Commander.

 

Vader actually didn't lose the war to the rebels...If not for Vader's return to Anakin and the light side the rebels would have surely been crushed.Vader's man toss of Palps down the shaft was the turning point of the war, beacuse we all know that it continued on for several more years .

He was Supreme Commander yes, and I believe that it went..Palpatine then Palps vasir then Vader, I believe that when Moff Tarkins " ordered him" it was more of a strong suggestion to "Vader Release him" I believe that novel Death Star said something about Grand Moff Tarkin thinking to himself that the Empire could little afford to lose another officer so he spared.

But in the Grand Scheme of things he was the top dog that is why Palpatine kept him on that short leash, because he had forseen that Anakin and Luke could and would destroy him.

 

Prior to Yavin, I guess you could call him a "shadow minister" or something-no official rank per se, but known to be Palpatine's go-to guy.

After Yavin, the Emperor made him Supreme Commander, but that in and of itself may (I think) conflict with the existence of the Grand Admirals, who also outranked everyone else and reported directly to Palpatine. Although Vader being Palpatine's personal Apprentice as well as the man Palpatine leaves in charge if he goes somewhere might trump that.

Shrugs.

Imperial rank structure, like the rest of the Empire when Palpatine was alive, is tricky mainly because it's not designed for efficiency; it's designed to 1) continue the cult of personality around Palpatine and 2) keep everybody infighting so that they'll never pose a threat to Palpatine.

 

I think that the Death Star was the Emperor's pet toy, and Tarkin was placed by the Emperor to run it. So Vader, while technically outranking Tarkin, took orders from him while on the Death Star, more out of obedience to the Emperor than any respect towards Tarkin and his rank

Had Vader decided to play hardball with Tarkin, it would have messed up the operations of the death star, which would have pissed off the Emperor, which he was incapable of doing really

 

If I recall correctly, back in the original WEG sourcebooks he was simply referred to as the "Emperor's Emissary" when he was on the Death Star, i.e. what he said, went, end of. The rank and file could dispute that he had no rank... but when the Emperor got wind, it was virtually a certainty that he would side with Vader every time, making one either very brave or very foolish to question the Dark Lord's judgement.

 

Did Luke have the same position as Vader when he served the emperor?

 

Yeah, Luke had the same rank, and then after he was all "psshaw I was playin!" at the end of DE 1, Sedriss held the rank of Military Executor.

So, yeah, the title of Supreme Commander/Military Executor took a dive in cool points from 1 ABY to around 9 ABY:

1 ABY: [image=http://carpoolwithbill.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/darth_vader.jpg] From Darth Vader, feared exterminator of the Jedi Order, Chosen One, and general walking nightmare

9 ABY: [image=http://www.starwars.jp/wiki/images/thumb/e/e6/Sedriss_QL.jpg/200px-Sedriss_QL.jpg] to Sedriss QL, who's kinda like the Urkle of Dark Lords and has a doofy acronym instead of an ominous-sounding title.

Also, he got punked by this guy:

[image=http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20100515042141/starwars/images/thumb/8/87/Beltane.JPG/250px-Beltane.JPG]

 

His lightsaber is his rank insignia. Simple as that.

 

His rank was HMFIC

 

What canonical source confirms Vader's rank as the Supreme Commander of the Empire's armed forces?

 

That's good enough for me..

 

Sorry, I saw Kenner and had absolutely no idea what the hell you were talking about.

 

Haven't many of them been proved to be...less than accurate? *cough* Boba Fett *cough*

 

Exactly. Vader by being Palps' apprentice is the #2 man in the Empire.

Tarkin is in charge of the construction of the Death Star and the ops for it....until Palps says otherwise. Then Vader steps in. I suspect that's why Vader is there. A formality, rep of the Emperor reminder for Tarkin as to who the boss is, and to ckeck him if he gets out of line and tries to use the new toy against the Boss.

 

The EU has definitely done a great job revealing the labyrinthine power structure of the Empire, but when you examine George's commentary in A New Hope, it's pretty evident that anyone in the loop knows one thing: the Emperor's the only real hierarchy that matters.

George makes a comment that Vader exists outside of the chain of command, and is roughly equal to the high end of the Imperial chain of command. Personally, I'd say that while he definitely speaks for Palpatine on the Death Star, he is by no means Tarkin's boss. In fact, I'd go so far to say that the only time Vader could ever give Tarkin or someone like him an order is if it's on behalf of Palpatine. Otherwise, Tarkin could tell him to stow it and flip him the bird.

 

I think Tarkin was Palpatine's kind of scum, so Vader gives him some respect. But once Tarkin lets his ego go mad, Vader steps in and takes a flight of TIEs out to stop the Rebels. Vader already told him once not to be "too proud" of the Death Star and in the end Vader was right. You know there were way more TIEs on the DS than Vader took out with him.