The Independents Patch, Researched

When I introduced this topic I talked about how the point up or down discussion is a moot point. It's a simple case of miscommunication between artist's intent and what has been immortalized as screen canon. I stated that there were far better questions regarding the patch and how it fits into the Browncoat Uniform. Turns out, I was more right than I anticipated.

I could only find a handful of characters who wore it. What I found interesting, especially if it was originally designed as a rank patch, was the number of people who did not wear it. Even more interesting I noticed how characters that had a patch on wore their coat differently than others.

There are plenty of soldiers wearing browncoats, not smocks, under their vest. We can see them here retreating over the hill in the opening scene of the episode Serenity.

This guy right here for instance, is very distinctly wearing a browncoat under his vest. His long sleeve has no patch on it though. This ensemble looks a whole lot more like the image on the Wikia I posted earlier than our principle characters do. In fact, not a single one of the extras retreating over this berm have a patch on.

Here's the soldier who was field promoted to Lt. Baker and dismissed to call in for air support. You can clearly see he's got a full sleeved coat on and not a smock, the buttons are visible on his right chest. What he lacks is any insignia on his right shoulder. It is also readily apparent through dialogue that he is subordinate to Mal, referring to our hero both as "Sergeant" and "Sir." I've gone through this frame by frame I can't find a definitive picture of his red vest, only what looks like what could be his red vest. I can't tell if it's under or over his coat, though it is under his tactical vest which is worn over his coat like most everyone else.

Anyone who has a coat on over their vest has a patch on. This one is from The Message. He's wearing a coat, and the patch is aligned the same way Mal's is.

This is another shot from Message. I can't be sure if the guy in the background is the same one from the previous picture, but either way we see a number of over the vest coats with patches. I started to wonder if only those in leadership positions, such as Sergeants and Officers, wore their browncoats free so they would be easily recognizable to other grunts on the battlefield. Though we cannot see the Lieutenant's patch in the episode The Message, it is safe to assume that the two people above are not lieutenants. If they were there would be no need for Mal and Zoe to have spoken for him later on in the episode. We see two confirmed Lieutenants in the show, with coats on over their vests. One of them has his rank patch with the star pointing up and the other has no screen time to confirm nor deny. We see one confirmed Sergeant (Mal) and two assumed sergeants, all with coats on over their vest and with their rank patches pointing star down. So I see the perfect opportunity to merge the creator's intent with what we see on screen. The mis-sewn coats can still be considered accurate for a sergeant and the correct orientation can be considered accurate for an officer.. We have enlisted personnel wearing theirs with the triangle oriented in the opposite way as officers, thus creating contrast that makes identification easier. At this point in time I'm not going to make a sweeping endorsement of the idea, but its something to mull over later. I always intended on doing an Independents Rank Structure blog post and this will add an entirely new, complicated, twist to that discussion.

As for now, wear the damn patch whichever way you want. Screen Canon still supports both ways, but I'm starting to think that I'm onto something with this up or down as an indicator of rank thing.