So they are basically just lower degree imperial officers? For instance, lieutenant is traditionally the first officer rank, would it be safe to say that they wear the black one?
Lieutenant is traditionally the first army commissioned officer rank, not so in the navy. The non-commissioned officer ranks are a completely different rank structure for the doers within the military. Your privates, sergeants, petty officers and the like. Typically there's a lot more non-commissioned officers than commissioned officers.
Since they're obviously commission officers, I assume they are ranked stormtroopers. At any rate, the second one used to be a stormtrooper officer in Legends anyway (Nahdonnis Praji).
I have no idea what military branch they're in, never mind actual ranks. Unfortunately the ranking structure within the Empire was probably not given deep thought during the production of the OT, and therefore a logical and consistent ranking structure can not be implied. Your guess is as good as mine.
The "regular" officer uniform is colored sort of olive-green. Any imperial officer not wearing the black one wears is. Like, "stormtrooper officer" doesen't make much sense to me, because all imperial officers can command stormtroopers and are in the stormtrooper corps (From what we can make out of it).
This ins't factual, but someone has taken the time time to come up with something. Most of the star destroyer officers seems to wear a dark green (olive) uniform.
All officers (regardless of the military branch they belong to) can command stormtroopers, yes, but not all officers are part of the Stormtrooper Corps. I don't know what gave you that impression. Stormtrooper Corps is a specific branch of the Army. Meaning that there are also navy officers and, presumably, non-stormtrooper army officers.
The pattern sort of breaks when we get to for instance Aresko and Grint from rebels, wearing that and they are army-officers. Also LelalMekha Aresko and Grint should be in the stormtrooper corps yet they wear the olive green one. There are more examples to this aswell.
I don't think all Imperial officers are in the Stormtroopers Corps. I would say any Imperial officer can command a stormtrooper operationally yes. But administratively the Stormtrooper Corps probably has their own administrative command structure with officers who may have unique uniforms.
For some reason I thought the stormie corps was an elite force separate from either Army or Starfleet? I may be misremembering or remembering obsolete data, though.
Wookieepedia says they still are - canon pages: http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Imperial_Military http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Stormtrooper_Corps although they are overseen by the Army. ISB wear black trousers, (except possibly Agents) and seem to lack pockets for cylinders - at least in Yularen's case. That said, Inspector General Jeems does have them: http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Bozeden_Jeems maybe Yularen's lacking them in ANH and Rebels is special circumstances? I would guess that "code cylinder uniform" is used when a character expects to use those cylinders every day to get in and out of places.
The black uniform makes no sense as to the information we have this far. Stormtrooper corps is main component of imperial army. They really need to clarify this issue. Onto another question regarding the ISB. These are the ranks I have gathered so far in canon, I think this is all of them so far. Director Deputy Director Colonel Inspector General Senior Commander Agent Which order do they go in? And what do they each do?
I'm wondering if the black uniforms were originally supposed to be worn by Star Destroyer officers and the Death Star operators/detention officers. In A New Hope, we only saw the upper echelons wear the grey uniforms (Tarkin, Motti, and Tagge).
I feel that while we can try and pound this square peg into a round hole and come up with a ranking/uniform system that fits in with everything we've seen in the movies, it's likely that the producers of the films did not spend as much time on rank and uniforms as we are now. This means that a consistent rank/uniform system will likely not exist.
I think the black uniform makes sense as a uniform giving to officers who either through rank or function (I.e., non-comes or Stormtrooper specialist officers) are expected to wear Stormtrooper armor when engaged in actual combat, but still have enough status that they can act as military aides or uniformed officers when not engaged in combat. Once you attain a high enough level that frontline combat is not required (though still preferred for some), you start wearing the gray "naval" uniform, and when you engage in actual combat, you wear the officer cuirass and kobuto style helmet that we've seen Thrawn, Tarkin, and Veers wear. Of course it also pays to keep in keep in mind that most high ranking officers in history have had far more leeway in their uniforms than their subordinates, and both Thrawn and Agent Kallus may be practicing some form of this, since they include some tailored shoulders on their uniforms. The Colonel rank for ISB may be a Yularen only thing, since he actually had a full fledged military career and was a part of Military Intelligence (which has a rivalry with ISB) for some time, so it may be he holds a military commission he prefers to use, while the other ranks are certified ISB ones.
Well in the case of lego in the new 75159 Death Star set it labels the lego black uniformed imperial officer as a "Imperial Navy Officer" but I don't know how canonical that is... Though I always found it weird probably as a continuity error from ANH to ESB that in ANH Black uniformed officers seem to be lower rank officers or out of armor stormtrooper officers (like Commander Wolfe out of armor in TCW), Grey uniformed are High ranking officers (moffs, generals, admirals), White uniformed with black pants are ISB. But in ESB like changing imperial rank plaques they forgot to keep consistency in officers as now all officers wear grey uniforms besides low ranking black uniformed officers on star destroyers and in ROJ all deck crew on SSD were black uniformed besides Admiral Piett and the Fleet Commander. Also nitpicky detail, but what determines when and why you wear a hat while being an officer? Because Tarkin and other major joint chiefs of the empire in ANH don't wear them or only some of the time. While from ESB forwards all imperial officers wear them all the time. While in Rogue One Officers like Krennic will only wear them outside while not inside... It's just star wars consistency kills me....
The hats seem to be optional. In ANH, Yularen isn't wearing a hat in the briefing room scene (and it's not like it's just sitting on the table or on a hook on the wall or something), but he is wearing one later when you see him walking down the hallway.
It is kind of interesting how the ISB is supposed to be the WHITE uniformed guards. But Zahn made that a super high rank. So much so it created a continuity error when they asumed Yularen was a Grand Admiral.
