In the show there are six military ranks that are mentioned in regards to actual Independent Soldiers during the war. This leaves obvious gaps in the knowledge base. As far as I can tell by a cursory googling there seems to be no real consensus on what the rank structure of the Independents really was. As to the ranks that were mentioned in the show Tracey is referred to as Private multiple times in The Message. Zöe is listed as a Corporal when researched by the Operative in the movie. Mal is called Sergeant more times than is worth counting. A Lieutenant is referenced in both The Pilot and The Message. Zöe mentions a Captain when telling the Griswald Grenade story in War Stories. Mal tells the story about Colonel Orbrin’s mustache when they’re talking about Tracey in the Galley in The Message. Finally in Serenity (The Pilot) Zöe tells Simon that they (Zöe and Mal) aren’t in the encyclopedia entry about The Battle of Serenity because “We’re not Generals or diplomats…” thus alluding to the fact that there must have been both diplomats and Generals involved in the Independent faction.
So how to fill the gaps? The quick and easy way is to just turn to the military we’re familiar with and use that. Private, Private Second Class, Private First Class, Specialist, Corporal, Sergeant, Staff Sergeant, Sergeant First Class, First Sergeant, Sergeant Major, Command Sergeant Major, 2nd Lieutenant, 1st Lieutenant, Captain, Major, Lt. Colonel, Colonel, Brigadier General, Major General, Lt. General, and General. That’s pretty much what the 76th uses after trimming the fat (they don’t use PV2, SPC, CSM, 2LT, or Generals). But using modern military ranks lacks perspective and understanding of the source material. There have been many fundamental changes in military hierarchy and rank structure since the Civil war.
And let’s face it, The Unification War is an unabashed parallel to the American Civil war, not to WWII or to Vietnam or to the Gulf War. The Unification War was about a wealthier more industrialized Alliance vs. the poorer, rural Independent planets. While the south was already part of America when the Civil War happened, the Independent planets were all individual sovereign planets, and the war was about expanding the Alliance to include them (despite their objections.) So if one desires to fill the gaps in the Independent military, it’s best to look at it’s more realistic parallel: the Confederate Army. Both the Confederate and Union armies had identical enlisted rank structure, which consisted of 8 enlisted ranks in comparison to the modern Army’s 13 enlisted ranks (if you include Command Sergeant Major of the Army as a rank and not a position). These ranks were Private, Musician, Corporal, Sergeant, First Sergeant, Ordnance Sergeant, Quartermaster Sergeant, and Sergeant Major.
The modern Army has 10.5 commissioned ranks (technically the 5 star General of the Army rank exists, but will never be awarded again so I count it as a half). The Confederates had 7 commissioned ranks and the Union had 9, but only because they differentiated between three different kind of Generals and the Confederates didn’t. They both had 2nd Lieutenants, 1st Lieutenants, Captains, Majors, Lt. Colonels, Colonels, and Generals (with the Union splitting said rank to Brigadier, Major, and Lieutenant General).
Why is there such disparity between the historical armies of the Civil War and the modern US Army? Without sounding too derisive, a standing peacetime military with career soldiers in it needs a way to keep large numbers of people interested enough to continue to stay enlisted. In the modern Army every commissioned officer from battalion to brigade to division has a NCO ‘side kick.’ This is just a personal opinion, and I don’t wish to offend any acting or retired Brigade Command Sergeant Majors in the audience, but outside of an administrative Army these positions are unnecessary. Field grade officers are more than capable of handling strategic leadership without NCO input and advisement, especially since executive level sergeants are generally so removed from the front line troops that they are rarely as in touch as they make themselves out to be. These positions developed as, over the years, career NCOs became unsatisfied with the ceiling of their advancement and found ways to expand their influence in the upper echelon of Army politics.
This is not just something that happened only at the top of the ladder though, as on the other end of the scale there are three ranks of private that effectively have the same duties and responsibilities. I can assure you from first-hand experience in the US Army as a Private who started at E-1 there really is no difference between them except that there is a feeling of satisfaction and achievement derived from being promoted – even if it’s effectively meaningless except in the most specific circumstances. But with three ranks doing more or less the same thing and benefiting from the morale boost derived from promotion the modern Army is capable of preventing the boredom and complacency that could negatively influence a soldier who has to spend the first quarter to third of their career in the same rank.
Now as jaded and negative as those opinions may sound at face value, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that structure and it’s extremely beneficial when compared to the current social climate in which the Army draws its soldiers from. Lower ranking soldiers benefit from the moral boosts while in the least glorious part of their career. Senior NCOs who are motivated to reach the strategic and political levels of the Army’s advancement are encouraged to pursue their higher education which will benefit them when transitioning to the civilian after their military career is complete. But none of these dynamics exist in a war-centric Army. Somehow I doubt the Independents had thousands of people doing desk jobs and admin tasks as their sole Army job in the way that many soldiers in the modern Army do. For an Army like the modern army all those auxiliary positions are necessary, but in a tooth and nail fight like the Independents were engaged in with the Alliance you don't spare any soldier you don't 100% have to from the front lines; especially not a temporary military force. And let’s be honest, if the Independent Army had won it would have had to disband. All those people who had just finished fighting a war to reject a unified government would never tolerate a unified military that wore brown coats instead of gray tunics.
After the war was over the border worlds would have returned to focusing on themselves as a loose group of barely cooperating sovereign entities. But when you think of how one would organize an Army whose sole purpose is to fight and win a war, it would look much different than an institutionalized standing Army meant to endure multiple generations. It would be imperative that the organization have as few ranks and the clearest chain of command possible. Rank, at its most fundamental level, exists to organize soldiers in such a way that effective large scale military strategy and small unit leadership can be achieved. The prestige and glamor of rank that develops in longstanding armies would have no place in a slap dash Independent Army. While there had to have been plenty of career soldiers in the Independent Army, there could never have been any career Independent Soldiers… if that makes sense.
That’s not so say that the border and rim planets didn’t have preexisting standing militaries and wouldn’t have raised ones after the war was over had they been successful. On one of the firefly Wiki pages it says that Zöe was a career soldier before the Unification War. I’m not sure what source they site for that bit of information, but that’s hardly important as it does make sense both for her character and from a cultural perspective. Individual worlds could and probably would have had their own standing militaries, each of those as unique from each other as the various countries of the world today, utilizing any level of convoluted rank structure with various cultural influences. Just think of how not only does the US have a national regular army, but each US state has its own National Guard, individual Federal government agencies, local county governments, and even their municipalities have semi or para-military style tactical units. Each country on earth has its own military, many of these nations also having various lower level organizations and forces in the same manner as the US. Now project that concept across multiple whole planets. The sheer variety of potential unit arrangements, rank structures, and organization variety that could have existed before the war is dizzying. But the Independent Army could never have functioned with all that incompatibility. The Independent Army would have needed the most streamlined and straightforward rank system possible to function effectively with such a diverse pool of fighters under their command. It would have to be straightforward, hierarchical, and position oriented.
Wow, this post got really long really quick, and probably didn’t really answer any of the specific questions you may have had. I hope, at least, it has created a cultural foundation that will make subsequent, specifically oriented, posts more clear. Even if it’s a bit of a tease I’m going to take a breath and step back for a moment to ruminate on all the conceptualization and theorizing. I’ll be doing a follow up post focused on the enlisted soldiers, and then one elaborating on the commissioned soldiers in the next few days.
