Ranks on Spaceships

[Tundra]

Redoing this thread!
Think of a kind of 'Red Dwarf' spaceship.

What might be the official ranks on a spaceship such as that? Starting with Captain.
How do they all fit together, who is higher up than who?

[vindemiatrix]

You could base them off naval ranks, or air force ranks? There would vary depending on country, but I quite like the RAF rank structure (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAF_enlisted_rank_insignia). With some switching around (changing warrant officer to captain?), you could make something of it! And under the Master Aircrew catgeory you could have Master Engineer, Master Navigator...

[Tundra]

they'd also need tech people to look after the ship, and cooks and so on...
You know how in M*A*S*H (yes, i realise that i'm basing a lot of this on tv!) it's a hospital yet they've all got ranks and so forth? Would it be like that in different areas of the spaceship?

[vindemiatrix]

That's your decision. *grin*

What's stopping you from just grabbihng a template like the one above and just adding stuff? I mean, with the one I posted, the RAF one (the only one I'm really familiar with anyway thanks to air cadets), you could have Chief Technicians and Junior Technicians as people to look after the ship, and maybe have chefs and teachers and so forth on the same sort of rank as Senior Aircraftman, but with something added. I dunno, Senior Aircraftman-Chef, and then junior aircraftmen underneath, or something?

I kind of want to use this one myself. *grin*

[Aimless]

Why can't they just all be military personnel, with families, like on a military base?

[Tundra]

They could be. That's a good idea. But i'd also like a bunch of actual civilians, who are just along as passengers... pretty much there just so that they can start afresh in a new world. And breed.
What would the wives or husbands of the actual military people do? Or the children once they grow up?

Okay, so then... if i'm making up ranks to go with the other parts of the ship, what other jobs might a ship have?

[vindemiatrix]

Obviously it would have to make its own food supplies. There may be crops to grow and cultivate (assuming the ship doesn't do that itself), so people would have to do that. You'd need teachers, and maybe even tailors for clothes? Maybe there could be gardens, too, so you'd need gardeners. What do they do for entertainment? What about warehouse workers who work with the stocks and supplies? And doctors and nurses and other medics?

I think "technician" would be by FAR the most needed job, obviously. *grin* I mean, there's a LOT of electronics, all with different functions.

[Tundra]

yeah there'd be hydroponics and so on.

I was just thinking, if there was like a swimming pool or something (i'm not being realistic with gravity here) they'd have to have lifeguards and so on... unless the computer did that somehow.

[Aimless]

Don't military organisations just hand out ranks as required? Everyone on the ship could have a rank :) Perhaps tied to their occupation?

Now where would the ship have gotten all these civilians from? Volunteers? Was there some sort of selection process? What kind of selection-process would allow adults without any professional qualifications to pass? :)

(not sarcasm, I'm really wondering about the selection-process. It'd help you work things out better)

[vindemiatrix]

Lifeguards, sure! And that'd give the teenagers jobs to do, also. In that vein, what about cafeteria staff, asides from cooks? Serving staff and so on. And cleaners and janitors? It depends how much you're willing to have machines do.

I think btw the civilian volunteers would be selected on a few counts: a good education, such as degrees and doctorates in computer science and so forth, would be one possible. Also, genetic stability and healthiness. Families would be screened to see if there was history of herditary disease and disorder in the family? And racial variety, also?

[Tundra]

people who can pay. (which isn't most of them)
Volunteers who were then selected for their health and potential usefulness while on the other planet, and also racially.
Actually, sort of how they did it for Australia in the early days. There were posters in England going on about how you get free passage if you're one of these professions, healthy, between 15 and 30 and married.
Maybe they picked out the best ones from the volunteers, and then held a lottery for who would go. (lottery in sections of occupations)

[Tundra]

Still can't figure out how i'll work this.

[Emperor]

ok, so you wish to create full planned economy of a space ship with some sort of hierchal ranking system

ok, so let do this a few ways

firstly, the platoic way.

ok, three casts, the philsophier kings (officers and scientists), The guardians (soilders), and the producers (Technicians, cargo men, traders and everyone who does stuff other than think and kill)

so then you make up sub castes and we have a republic as done by plato

so firstly i assume, there is no money. no captilism, and you live in a society where everyone is either a working togther in a pure marxist way to progress society or have achieved some state of eudomonic as artistole put it, which is the pursuit of excellence for it own sake, kind of like star trek

right then.

note: if you wondering why i sound song technical at this, i was actually very good in this back in managment theory with ,my lecturer imagine me doing it for real some day.

so we can either devide it by function, which cretae a problem know as communication chimmeys (no cross communincation in departments), division based on geography of the ship (resource duplication), or a matrix which is both of two leaders.

i recommend the platoic mixed with functional so it be like this

you have the captian and three chief viceroys which for this sake we shal call leitutanats

one in charge of the science and other higher technological and thinking tasks, one in charge of military tasks, and one in charge of labour and production tasks, include social welfare and so forth.

under the litenats will be some sort of sargenet, warrent officer or perhaps more like a centurian. who job is the over see one of the indivdual functions of the ship.

so you have one in charge of the atomtic generator, one in charge of the fighter wing, one in charge of the hydroponic farm, and so forth.

then under and between them you can add as many runs as you feel saw fit.

now just remeber more run means message take long to get to top, but each indidbuals has less to control

government typical devide by functiona dn i think plato was right

the leaders however of the non king functions are also kings in their own right. ofsourts

so basically it like this

three funtions (science,military andproduction)

captian
lenataianat of whole function
sargent of sub function
worker

and all you want in the middle.

i hope that is complete dribble