Imperial Rank Insignia Discussion

[Lord Revan]

I find it somewhat of an unusual approach, given how the EU depicts the chaos and infighting of the greater Empire. I suppose encouraging discord and rivalry is the Sith way, but it's no way to run an intergalactic government. It's like, after he assumes the mantle of Emperor, he began deliberately breaking shit everywhere because he could. Appointing all the wrong people because they kissed his wrinkly ass just right and all that. He got lucky with competent guys like Tarkin, Vader and Thrawn, but on the other hand we have guys like Ozzel and Motti... eh. Expanded universe, what will we ever do with you.

I don't think he broke things because he could. I think the best in-universe explanation is that he broke things because he genuinely didn't care. He's won power, he controls the galaxy, and... what's left? He's a dog who has spent his life chasing cars and finally caught an Abrams Tank, what is there left in life? He seems to get joy out of sadism and using the force (especially to kill Jedi), but beyond that? Solid 'meh's all around.

It explains his lazy planning with just rebuilding another Death Star after the explosion of the first one, and why in RotJ the only thing he seems to enjoy is tweaking Luke, watching Luke and Vader fight, and then torturing Luke.

And, to touch on the 'maybe he's a master manipulator with deep insights into people's minds' thing: Vader is someone Palpatine turned to the dark side by planting images of his wife and children dying, is someone whose turn he cinched by telling him Padme died along with his unborn children, and someone who Palpatine controlled and cajoled by having him search for the Son of Skywalker. And what does Palpy do directly in front of Vader after a climactic battle? Torture his son in front of his eyes with force lightning. Those are the actions of a man who just does not give a crap, not someone who is an arch calculator.

Palpatine's key flaw is essentially "evil cannot comprihend good" combinied with not accepting that he could loose, Palpatine's actions in ROTJ make perfect sense from what we've been told of the Sith philosophy which is ultimately power and dominance for its own sake.

So Palpatine doesn't see Vader's betrail not because he no longer cares for anything but rather he's unable to understand that there's a part of Vader who would put saving Luke above gaining more power, even if saving Luke would cost Vader his life.

[Gandalf]

Palpatine seemed to comprehend good pretty well in the prequels.

[Lord Revan]

Palpatine seemed to comprehend good pretty well in the prequels.

Well not really, he could understand how "good" people would react but he didn't really understand why, ultimately his issue was that he couldn't recognize that things like "protect my son who is also the only positive link to my dead wife" could overtake "more power to myself" as motivation.

Also there's the issue that Palpatine might have gotten sloppy once he won due to arrogance, not to the point of totally not caring but enough that things he could previously noticed would slip his mind.

[RogueIce]

Tarkin may be emblematic of a young bureaucracy that has no real experience doing things? On one hand he's shown to be a capable manager and organizer. On the other hand there are routine basic errors that are made over and over again. The simplest example being the lack of an active fighter patrol during the approach to Yavin IV (something which the Imperial fleet has in the opening of ESB). The Death Star has fighters, rebel fighters are a known threat, and we see them do plenty of damage to the Death Star in their strafing runs, even if there was no perceived existential threat to the station there's every reason to have a patrol out just to be safe/interdict ships as appropriate.

They do have fighter patrols, since that's what fired on the Millennium Falcon and led them to the DS, and there was one transition scene that had TIEs on patrol.

The lack of one on approach to Yavin is thus a little odd, but probably some weird bit of psychological warfare on Tarkin's part? Letting the fighters attack, maybe some of them survive but none of it mattered because the DS was going to blow up Yavin IV anyway. A couple survivors to tell the tale would help in that regard, so having 1,000 TIEs or whatever sweep the 30 Rebel fighters from the sky wouldn't help with that.

Or something. It's obviously never explained so who knows what the reasoning was.

[Elheru Aran]

Tarkin may be emblematic of a young bureaucracy that has no real experience doing things? On one hand he's shown to be a capable manager and organizer. On the other hand there are routine basic errors that are made over and over again. The simplest example being the lack of an active fighter patrol during the approach to Yavin IV (something which the Imperial fleet has in the opening of ESB). The Death Star has fighters, rebel fighters are a known threat, and we see them do plenty of damage to the Death Star in their strafing runs, even if there was no perceived existential threat to the station there's every reason to have a patrol out just to be safe/interdict ships as appropriate.

They do have fighter patrols, since that's what fired on the Millennium Falcon and led them to the DS, and there was one transition scene that had TIEs on patrol.

The lack of one on approach to Yavin is thus a little odd, but probably some weird bit of psychological warfare on Tarkin's part? Letting the fighters attack, maybe some of them survive but none of it mattered because the DS was going to blow up Yavin IV anyway. A couple survivors to tell the tale would help in that regard, so having 1,000 TIEs or whatever sweep the 30 Rebel fighters from the sky wouldn't help with that.

Or something. It's obviously never explained so who knows what the reasoning was.

It's pretty much always depicted as "overconfidence in the face of ultimate victory", and that's pretty clearly how it's supposed to come across. But then you don't really get much of Tarkin's character in the film other than 'Imperial bigwig, holds Vader's reins, the Guy In Charge, Super Confident (TM)'. So...

[Straha]

Tarkin may be emblematic of a young bureaucracy that has no real experience doing things? On one hand he's shown to be a capable manager and organizer. On the other hand there are routine basic errors that are made over and over again. The simplest example being the lack of an active fighter patrol during the approach to Yavin IV (something which the Imperial fleet has in the opening of ESB). The Death Star has fighters, rebel fighters are a known threat, and we see them do plenty of damage to the Death Star in their strafing runs, even if there was no perceived existential threat to the station there's every reason to have a patrol out just to be safe/interdict ships as appropriate.

They do have fighter patrols, since that's what fired on the Millennium Falcon and led them to the DS, and there was one transition scene that had TIEs on patrol.

The lack of one on approach to Yavin is thus a little odd, but probably some weird bit of psychological warfare on Tarkin's part? Letting the fighters attack, maybe some of them survive but none of it mattered because the DS was going to blow up Yavin IV anyway. A couple survivors to tell the tale would help in that regard, so having 1,000 TIEs or whatever sweep the 30 Rebel fighters from the sky wouldn't help with that.

Or something. It's obviously never explained so who knows what the reasoning was.

The psychological warfare on Tarkin's part doesn't square the circle for me because of the amount of damage that the Rebel attack does on the Death Star before the trench run. Even if it doesn't present an existential threat it's Tarkin sacrificing dozens to hundreds of Imperial soldiers to death, and causing hefty damage to his prized station, for the sake of psychological warfare against people who will be dead in thirty minutes? Also, the lack of a sweep to catch the Millenium Falcon even after fighters were deployed (and/or the sensors and batteries on the Death Star ignoring it?) seems to speak either a fundamentally broken Death Star or an uncaring incompetent commander.

[RogueIce]

The psychological warfare on Tarkin's part doesn't square the circle for me because of the amount of damage that the Rebel attack does on the Death Star before the trench run. Even if it doesn't present an existential threat it's Tarkin sacrificing dozens to hundreds of Imperial soldiers to death, and causing hefty damage to his prized station, for the sake of psychological warfare against people who will be dead in thirty minutes?

Fighters engage Death Star. Death Star ignores them. Death Star blows up Yavin IV. Fighters retreat, having no base left to defend, and the pilots tell their story of the useless struggle against the unstoppable battle station.

So some Imperial soldiers die in the process. Do you think this is going to matter to the guy who blew up a planet full of civilians to make a point?

Again though, it's all conjecture. For all I know the initial lack of a fighter screen is because Dambusters and similar WWII movies the Battle of Yavin was based on didn't have enemy fighters engage until after the battle had commenced, so George Lucas just did it like that.

Also, the lack of a sweep to catch the Millenium Falcon even after fighters were deployed (and/or the sensors and batteries on the Death Star ignoring it?) seems to speak either a fundamentally broken Death Star or an uncaring incompetent commander.

Are you talking about when they escaped the first time? If so...

...did you even watch the movie? Because it being a plot point that the Empire (and Tarkin, at the behest of Vader) let them escape wasn't exactly a subtle plot twist.

[Straha]

The psychological warfare on Tarkin's part doesn't square the circle for me because of the amount of damage that the Rebel attack does on the Death Star before the trench run. Even if it doesn't present an existential threat it's Tarkin sacrificing dozens to hundreds of Imperial soldiers to death, and causing hefty damage to his prized station, for the sake of psychological warfare against people who will be dead in thirty minutes?

Fighters engage Death Star. Death Star ignores them. Death Star blows up Yavin IV. Fighters retreat, having no base left to defend, and the pilots tell their story of the useless struggle against the unstoppable battle station.

So some Imperial soldiers die in the process. Do you think this is going to matter to the guy who blew up a planet full of civilians to make a point?

This would make sense if fighters were never deployed to take down the Rebel attack, except they are. The Rebels show up and after they begin their attack Tie fighters are launched and the only rebels who escape either flee or get really lucky. Which begs the question why weren't the Ties launched first.

Again though, it's all conjecture. For all I know the initial lack of a fighter screen is because Dambusters and similar WWII movies the Battle of Yavin was based on didn't have enemy fighters engage until after the battle had commenced, so George Lucas just did it like that.

Agreed that that's the best possible explanation. In universe it doesn't paint a rosy picture of Tarkin though.

Also, the lack of a sweep to catch the Millenium Falcon even after fighters were deployed (and/or the sensors and batteries on the Death Star ignoring it?) seems to speak either a fundamentally broken Death Star or an uncaring incompetent commander.

Are you talking about when they escaped the first time? If so...

...did you even watch the movie? Because it being a plot point that the Empire (and Tarkin, at the behest of Vader) let them escape wasn't exactly a subtle plot twist.

No, during the trench run when the Falcon's appearance is the only thing that saves Luke from getting destroyed by Vader and the lack of a "Heads up, there's a ship making a run at you" alarm is arguably the thing that dooms the Death Star.

[RogueIce]

This would make sense if fighters were never deployed to take down the Rebel attack, except they are. The Rebels show up and after they begin their attack Tie fighters are launched and the only rebels who escape either flee or get really lucky. Which begs the question why weren't the Ties launched first.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Only thing to say here is that Vader gave the order, and he was semi-independent of Tarkin.

Agreed that that's the best possible explanation. In universe it doesn't paint a rosy picture of Tarkin though.

His overconfidence was his weakness.

TBH he literally just may not have even cared about what (relatively little) damage the fighters could even do. Maybe he figured they'd either give up after their base is destroyed or the surface guns would get them, eventually. Maybe he didn't want to have the TIE pilots take any glory for themselves.

No, during the trench run when the Falcon's appearance is the only thing that saves Luke from getting destroyed by Vader and the lack of a "Heads up, there's a ship making a run at you" alarm is arguably the thing that dooms the Death Star.

Oh, that. Well, Han flew in out of the sun so of course nobody could see him. This is WWII in space, after all. /s

Or Tarkin just dgaf about Vader or what was going on outside the battle station, being bore-sighted on just blowing up Yavin IV.

EDIT: Just to be clear, I'm not trying to advance the argument that Tarkin is a great or even good military commander here. It's more about trying to just make up some rationale for what was going through his mind at the time. Much like trying to find consistency in the Imperial rank insignia, I realize there's probably no real "in-universe" reason beyond the aforementioned "WWII in space" influences. But it's something I like to do on the side.

So I'm not so much 'debating' you as just playing devil's advocate I guess.

[Straha]

This would make sense if fighters were never deployed to take down the Rebel attack, except they are. The Rebels show up and after they begin their attack Tie fighters are launched and the only rebels who escape either flee or get really lucky. Which begs the question why weren't the Ties launched first.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Only thing to say here is that Vader gave the order, and he was semi-independent of Tarkin.

Agreed that that's the best possible explanation. In universe it doesn't paint a rosy picture of Tarkin though.

His overconfidence was his weakness.

TBH he literally just may not have even cared about what (relatively little) damage the fighters could even do. Maybe he figured they'd either give up after their base is destroyed or the surface guns would get them, eventually. Maybe he didn't want to have the TIE pilots take any glory for themselves.

I think this goes back to my original point. It's not necessarily a Tarkin problem as much as it's a 'Imperial Bureaucracy is too young to know what it's doing' problem. Multiple commanders with hazy lines of authority with different, conflicting, goals and procedures and a heavy focus on the orders coming from the very top all seem to portray a clumsy bureaucratic apparatus still trying to figure out what it wants to do.

(This would fit neatly with Admiral Piett being the one who approves clearance for the Tydirium in RotJ, surely an admiral on the Flagship of the most important imperial fleet at the most important construction site in the Galaxy has something else to do with his time.)

Or Tarkin just dgaf about Vader or what was going on outside the battle station, being bore-sighted on just blowing up Yavin IV.

Which would make sense, but then it begs the question of what all the sensor operators, tie pilots, and gunners on the Death Star are doing there when not firing ineffectively at X-Wings? Is there no Imperial equivalent of a CAG in charge of coordinating things either from the Death Star or in space?

EDIT: Just to be clear, I'm not trying to advance the argument that Tarkin is a great or even good military commander here. It's more about trying to just make up some rationale for what was going through his mind at the time. Much like trying to find consistency in the Imperial rank insignia, I realize there's probably no real "in-universe" reason beyond the aforementioned "WWII in space" influences. But it's something I like to do on the side.

So I'm not so much 'debating' you as just playing devil's advocate I guess.

Yeah, I'm on the same page as you here. I'm not gunning at Tarkin here, though I think his portrayal is obviously interesting, as much as trying to contextualize him both in the movies and in the weirdly adoring fan culture that's been raised up about him and the Empire in the EU (both pre and post-Disney.) Also trying to figure out whether or not to lay the blame at his feet or the system around him is something that I think might be resolvable and would be interesting in its implications.

I also think Tarkin's perceived overconfidence is an interesting thing, because one of the only private interactions we see of him is his subordinate offering to prepare his shuttle for an evacuation, which seems to imply that Tarkin fleeing the scene of a potential defeat is something that those around him think would be in his character. It makes more sense that he viewed his defeat as being ridiculously small which, in his defense, makes sense because the Death Star was only destroyed because the pilot of one of the attacking fighters was a space wizard who was only given the chance to take his shot because a radar operator was asleep and missed a literal space truck on an attack run.

[RogueIce]

You know, I do think the bureaucracy thing makes a lot of sense. Thinking about it, Tarkin doesn't give the order, but Vader does. And yet he only seems to take a handful of fighters with him, certainly not the whole complement. But why is that?

Because Vader didn't have the authority to do so.

I remember way back when it was posited that these fighters were under Vader's personal command. His own squadron or whatever. That would make sense, so he could give the order to launch them. But Tarkin, as overall commander, would have to order the rest of them to launch. And he didn't. Because Vader was out leading the charge, and so him defeating the attack would steal Tarkin's glory.

So why wasn't Tarkin more proactive? Because he knew Vader would fly out with the rest of the fighters anyway, and by default be "leading" all of them due to his high status in the Imperial hierarchy. He couldn't stop Vader from launching on his own initiative, but maybe he was just hoping the Dark Lord would fail. Or at least take too long and the Yavin base would be destroyed before Vader could destroy the fighters. Which, as it turned out, was very nearly the case. Luke cut it really close, and Han's intervention to save him was also very last minute. The superlaser firing and Vader shooting down the last rebel ship would have been nearly simultaneous were it not for one smuggler's change of heart.

And the lack of warning? Because the Death Star wasn't talking to Vader, period. Obviously, they could track what was happening and analyze the attack pattern. But they didn't warn Vader of Han's approach because Tarkin is like, fuck that guy. I can't stop him going out and being a "hero" but I don't have to help him, either. Tarkin never seems to get any updates on the fighter battle anyway, so maybe this as why.

As for the escape shuttle, well as you point out a lot of deference is paid to the supreme command. Maybe it's just Imperial SOP to have an evacuation plan in place for the top commanders and their cronies, if it looks like there's some existential danger to them. I'd imagine it's more in place for ground actions, where it might look like they're going to get overrun? Since generally if your ship battle is going bad there'd be a general order to abandon ship anyway if you're getting sufficiently blasted, and time in which to do so. But the Death Star had a weak spot so that conventional wisdom went out the window and they defaulted to the evacuation plan.

[Elheru Aran]

IIRC (it has been a very. long. time. since I've watched ANH, so I'm probably wrong but what the heck) doesn't Vader go up to Tarkin shortly before Yavin and say something along the lines of "Those fighters are a threat, I'm going out to deal with them" and Tarkin basically shrugs and says 'do whatever you will, we're going to win anyway'?

[Lord Revan]

IIRC (it has been a very. long. time. since I've watched ANH, so I'm probably wrong but what the heck) doesn't Vader go up to Tarkin shortly before Yavin and say something along the lines of "Those fighters are a threat, I'm going out to deal with them" and Tarkin basically shrugs and says 'do whatever you will, we're going to win anyway'?

No, not directly. Tarkin never directly gives Vader premission to launch the fighters and he's informed of the risk to station by a generic imperial officer not Vader (though he essentially does dismiss the threat).

In fact Tarkin and Vader never discuss the attack on Yavin IV in anyway.

[Patroklos]

Tarkin and Vader are rivals. Both are Palpantine's golden boys representing two halves of his primary power sources: The technocratic military/bureaucracy and the esoteric force adapts. Tarkin may have intentionally ordered them not to warn Vader of threats because him defeating the Alliance and being rid of his chief rival all within seconds of each other is the greatest possible outcome he could imagine.

In the movie, it is just an arrogance thing. To Tarkin nothing, Vader is doing matters because he believes he is invulnerable. Its not an unreasonable assumption either if you are not the bad guy in a movie. The relative power disparity is not gnats buzzing you on a summer's day, it's a dozen atoms wafting your way in the air column. Even as a kid I cocked my head a bunch of random military dudes analyzing the plans for a device the size of a moon for five minutes and finding that weakness. Good movies get to cash in on their rapport with the audience for some necessary contrivances.

[Gandalf]

In effect, Tarkin is just like the every arrogant commander who assumed victory was such a foregone conclusion that "smaller" details were irrelevant. Perhaps thr Empire was in the midst of its own End of History Fukuyama moment?

[Straha]

In effect, Tarkin is just like the every arrogant commander who assumed victory was such a foregone conclusion that "smaller" details were irrelevant. Perhaps thr Empire was in the midst of its own End of History Fukuyama moment?

Wasn't the Empire always a End of History thing? The Emperor as ruler had no ideology, no goal, no plan beyond power and the holding of it.

[Galvatron]

There's a deleted scene in which Bast seemed relatively chummy with Vader and contemptuous of Tarkin, so I always wondered if he told Vader about the Death Star's weakness too.

On the issue of rank insignia, has anyone considered that the Imperial military had to reorganized after the dissolution of the Senate so that its officers had greater political authority? Couldn't that be a reason for the change in their badges too?

[RogueIce]

On the issue of rank insignia, has anyone considered that the Imperial military had to reorganized after the dissolution of the Senate so that its officers had greater political authority? Couldn't that be a reason for the change in their badges too?

If Rebels wasn't using them both concurrently, and well before the Senate was dissolved, I could buy that.

Honestly I'm with Dr. Saxton and it's a Tarkin thing, or Death Star Project, or whatever. Much like Thrawn got his insignia on stormtroopers, Tarkin got unique rank badges? It's not perfect either, but eh. Either that or a transition during the Rebels/ANH time frame, completed by the time we get to ESB.

[Gandalf]

Wasn't the Empire always a End of History thing? The Emperor as ruler had no ideology, no goal, no plan beyond power and the holding of it.

I wonder if those below him had any ideologies (or lack thereof) along similar lines?

It's like the bit in Vice where young Cheney, asks Rumsfeld "What do we believe?" and Rumsfeld starts laughing uncontrollably. Something like that would have been a neat scene in Rogue One.

[Lord Revan]

Wasn't the Empire always a End of History thing? The Emperor as ruler had no ideology, no goal, no plan beyond power and the holding of it.

I wonder if those below him had any ideologies (or lack thereof) along similar lines?

IIRC the "no ideology, goal or plan beyond amassing power and holding it" was the reason why most Sith Empires fell in the legendaries with it eventually devolving into the higher ranking members being too busy with their personal power struggles to maintain the empire even if it was at war with the Galactic Republic at the same time.

At least in the Legendaries (aka old EU) most higher ranking imperials seemed to share Palpatine's philosophical leanings, I dunno how it is in current EU.

[MKSheppard]

Back in 2017, I had a shower thought regarding the entire rank badge issue.

In real life, we know that they simply threw together badges and flipped them on set for ANH as they weren't expecting it to be such a hit and the budget wasn't as big as it'd later be.

In universe though? What if the rank badges were one more vestige of the Old Republic that survived?

In today's world, General Officers in the US military have to be confirmed by the Senate.

They could have used Rogue One's Director Krennic for this with a throwaway scene where Krennic complains that he's doing the job of a High Admiral but with a lower rank (or the side pocket rank of Director that can be appointed by the Emperor, instead of a more prestigious Senate confirmed rank.)

This would play into the ANH conference room scene where they discuss the Senate -- it's clear from reading between the lines of what was said and wasn't said -- is that while the Senate was significantly less powerful than in the Republic era; it was still powerful enough to be a concern.

With no Senate confirming ranks anymore (a perk which the Senators would guard jealously) there's no need for pocket/side ranks to get around the Senate, and by ESB, everyone's been rebadged into more standardized ranks.

When I raised this with Saxton, his reply was

In your proposal, [are] the thin, single-row badges of ANH the result of field promotions that haven't been registered by the Senate and capital authorities? Perhaps everyone who works in a long-term role related to the Death Star has been under a clandestine veil; disconnected from regular pathways? Tarkin, at the top of the hierarchy, is the exception. The size of the organisational pyramid beneath him has been hidden from the Senate and the Imperial courtiers.

With that idea, the Death Star being a top secret project could also explain the massive inconsistencies -- Tarkin wanted the cream of the crop, but he couldn't promote them normally, hence the bizarre ranks worn in ANH -- those "side pocket" ranks can be appointed by Tarkin or the Emperor.

Basically, instead of Tarkin getting Colonel Saxton confirmed by the Senate as a General, he's vest pocketed as a Sub-Director.

This way, Colonel Saxton gets the rank he needs to execute his job, and Tarkin doesn't have to explain to anyone why so many people are being promoted to General Officers or midgrade positions (Major etc) per capita in his command.

Something like this could also have added color and depth to the SW universe -- we know the Republic is pretty old and has a lot of major racial and subnational groupings within it, e.g Corellia, Kuat, etc.

So the Old Republic into the Early Empire system is probably riddled with rank appendages that are like appendixes, done to satisfy some Senator long ago or induce someone to join the Republic -- we'll recognize your unique rank etc -- and they're kept around due to inertia.

Tarkin saw all this and took advantage of it.

There's also the less sinister uses of such appendix ranks -- during the Clone Wars, battlefield promotions and emergency promotions would have to have been made, and it may have been seen as quicker and easier to "pocket promote" someone than wait for the Senate to do it officially.

Another explanation may have been that while there's a standardized rank insignia used by everyone (similar to US military rank insignia) , there's no standardized usage=equivalence.

For example, from real life:

"[Deak] Parsons was the first naval officer to arrive at Los Alamos, and the army MP on guard became suspicious when Parsons’ papers identified him as a Captain, which in the army called for the insignia of two silver bars and not Parsons’ eagles, which were equivalent to an army full colonel.

The excited MP telephoned the sergeant of the guard. “Sergeant,” he said, “We’ve really caught a spy! A guy down here is trying to get in, and his uniform is as phony as a three dollar bill. He’s wearing the eagles of a Colonel and claims that he is a Captain.”

[MKSheppard]

Let's step back and analyze things from the perspective of the big shots in ANH and Rogue One; and just ignore a lot of silly CCG-created ranks:

Grand Moff Tarkin's Political Structure
G Moff Tarkin (6 Blue over 3 Red - 3 Yellow) (HMFIC)
----Romodi (6 Yellow) (Chief of Battle Station Operations in some canon -- but likely a Moff assigned to Tarkin as his 2nd in Command)
----Siward Cass (4 Yellow - 2 Red) (Tarkin's Aide de Camp)
----Bast (4 Yellow - 2 Red) (Chief of Operational Analysis)

Imperial Navy
Admiral Motti (2 Blue - 4 Red) (Death Star Naval Detachment CO)

Imperial Army
General Tagge (6 Red) (Death Star Army Detachment CO)
????? Molock (6 Red) (Death Star Operations Chief)

Imperial Security Bureau
Colonel Wullf Yularen (3 Red - 3 Blue) (Presumably ISB Death Star Detachment CO)
----Unnamed ISB Officer (3 Blue - 3 Red) (Presumably 2nd in Command of ISB Detachment)

BONUS

Director Krennic (6 Red over 6 Blue) (ANH era)
???? Krennic (6 Red) (prologue of Rogue 1)

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It appears to me that the organizational colors are:

Civilian/COMPNOR: Yellow
Imperial Navy: Blue
Imperial Army: Red

It's also clear that there's a significant jump in ranks when you add a second rank row -- i.e. everyone else on the Death Star in high command has a full rank rack (6 x 1 bars); while Tarkin and Krennic both have a double rank rack (6 x 2 bars).

I've been doing some thinking and I think that Colonel Yularen's rank title is an organizational artifact of the Old Republic -- he has a full rank bar (6x1) but a seemingly lower rank (High Colonel?) than the other officers in the room (who are all Generals or Admirals, etc).

Also, like Admiral Motti, he has red/blue bars.

Motti's bars may represent the fact that he commands both the Death Star's Naval *and* Marine Detachments (Imperial Naval Troopers).

Yularen's bars may represent the "dirty secret" that Republic Intelligence (what became the ISB) may have been the actual pre-Clone Wars military force of the Old Republic; a semantic word play way to get around statutory limits on naval/ground force sizes; where they could say with a straight face to the Senate -- we don't have any Admirals; just Colonels.

[MKSheppard]

If you ignore all the silly ranks created by the card games and EU/Disney and assume everyone in the Death Star conference room was a general officer; things start to make a bit of sense.

To give you an example of how "rank heavy" a large command staff can be; I give you Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF), circa June-July 1944; via:

Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supreme_H ... nary_Force)
The Supreme Command (https://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USA/US ... eme-B.html)

SHAEF had 1,185 officers, 101 warrant officers, and 3,628 enlisted personnel (4,914 men total); with Eisenhower's personal staff alone having 24 men.

The breakdown by ranks was roughly:

Supreme Allied Commander (4 Star) <-- Eisenhower
Deputy Supreme Allied Commander (4-Star)

Chief of Staff (3 Star)
Deputy Chief of Staff (Operations) (3 Star)
Deputy Chief of Staff (Chief Administrative Officer) (3 Star)
Deputy Chief of Staff (Air) (3 Star)

Secretary, General Staff (Colonel)
Assistant Chief of Staff, G-1 (Manpower) (2-Star)
Assistant Chief of Staff, G-2 (Intelligence) (2-Star)
Assistant Chief of Staff, G-3 (Operations) (2-Star)
Assistant Chief of Staff, G-4 (Logistics) (2-Star)
Assistant Chief of Staff, G-5 (Planning) (2-Star)

Ground Force COs
12th Army Group (3 Star) <--Bradley
6th Army Group (3 Star) <--Devers
21st Army Group (5-star) <--Monty (he's special)
--Individual Armies (3 Star)
--Individual Corps (2 Star)
--Individual Divisions (2 Star)

Air Force Commander-in-Chief (3-Star)
Deputy Air Force Commander-in-Chief (2-Star)

Naval Forces Commander (4 Star)

French Representative (4 Star)
Soviet Representative (1 Star)

[Galvatron]

In universe though? What if the rank badges were one more vestige of the Old Republic that survived?

Isn't that more or less along the lines of what Shroomy suggested pages ago?

Hmmm that could correspond with the Senate being dissolved. By ESB, a new kind of insignia system might've been implemented not only to denote military rank but their rank in government because the military occupation force IS the government now! They might've streamlined and combined military and civilian governance, like governor-generals in real-life countries colonized by European powers.

[RogueIce]

It appears to me that the organizational colors are:

Civilian/COMPNOR: Yellow
Imperial Navy: Blue
Imperial Army: Red

That seems to be what the Rogue One costume designers more or less went with for ANH-style. They still had multi-color badges but it seems whichever color came first defines the branch of service - so something like the three red/three blue and three blue/three red is purposeful.

Honestly if I was going to head-canon my own ANH style I'd probably do something stupidly simple like the below:

█ 2nd Lt
█ █ 1st Lt
█ █ █ Captain
█ █ █ █ Major
█ █ █ █ █ Lt Colonel
█ █ █ █ █ █ Colonel
█ █ █ █ █ █ Brig Gen
█ █ █ █ █ █ Maj Gen
█ █ █ █ █ █ Lt Gen
█ █ █ █ █ █ Gen
█ █ █ █ █ █ Gen of Army/Field Marshal
█ █ █ █ █ █ Moff/Governor

And then swap blue for the Navy.

Obviously doesn't work for what we see on-screen in any capacity, but it's clean and simple and works. I would probably run with it as Death Star/Tarkin-specific ranks like Shep's shower thoughts, which is why you don't go above "five-star" rank - you wouldn't need it. As a practical matter there probably wouldn't be a five-star equivalent officer attached, as I doubt they had the subordinate units to justify an officer of that level. But, in theory, the system would allow it. Probably as a prestige thing rather than practical necessity.