Bill Woods wrote:saber964 wrote:The reason why middies are saluted and called sir or ma'am is because the middies in question have already graduated from the naval academy and temporarily carry an officers warrant and are considered warrant officer in the chain of command, they don't get a commission until they complete their middy cruse.In the US Navy, since the 1800s the term 'midshipman' refers to people who haven't yet graduated from Annapolis. They are still students. In the RMN, midshipmen are the juniormost officers, assigned to a ship's company just like the chiefs. Think of them as ensigns (j.g.).DarkEnigma wrote:That is well and good in theory, but I can tell you from personal experience that any non-com caught saluting or sir-ing a middie would be in for the ribbing of his life! They would be the butt of jokes for weeks.
In the real Navy, middies aren't seen as "real officers". In fact, they are lower than the lowest enlisted person aboard any ship because at least that enlisted person is doing a job which is helping the ship meet its mission. Middies, on the other hand, are often given make-work or tasked with following crew members around to see how they do their jobs (and often getting underfoot and slowing them down in the bargain). I can just imagine what a Chief might say to any middie who thought he was due proper honors, or, God help them, actually think they could give out orders!
"Ensign (jg)" is, in fact, a pretty fair approximation.
RMN middy cruises have no precise parallel in modern USN service. On those cruises, they should (in a lot of ways) be considered the equivalent of a "passed midshipman" --- a midshipman (pre-academy use of the term) who had passed his lieutenant's examination and was eligible for promotion as soon as there was a slot in the ships table of organization into which me might be stuck. The parallel isn't complete, of course, because I deliberately set out to build a navy which --- while internally consistent --- wasn't identical to any existing naval. That is, I deliberately designed differences into it.
Should I feel flattered about how well I succeeded in creating a "real" space navy because people feel an urge to scratch the "this is different" itch when they see it? You're not the first to do that, BTW. I've had several people tell me "The RMN wouldn't do it that way because the British Royal Navy didn't." To which I usually reply "But this is the Royal Manticoran Navy and most of its officers never even heard of the British Navy except as a historical example in a lecture or a textbook somewhere."
In this instance, a midshipman has completed his/her education at the academy, including all of the simulations and qualifications suited to his/her soon-to-be lowly rank of ensign. Until he/she's been evaluated on shipboard, however, the Navy still has the right to completely flush the commission (i.e., graduate the middy as a civilian) and the CO's evaluation may also result in the middy in question being offered a staff commission outside the line of command (that ism, being found unfit for executive command in a warship). Think of this as a prospective RMN officer's very first experience with the same philosophy as the one behind "the Crusher."
One of the reasons the RMN officer corps has almost always (not always always; there have been moments which were less than stellar) been one of the galaxy's best is because of the rigorous way in which it gets "weeded" from the academy on. Sometimes someone like Elvis Santino or Pavel Young gets through the filters due to patronage (this was much more likely to happen before King Roger's buildup), but by and large someone steps on people like them at an early stage of their careers, and even they had to pass the Crusher on their own. Grades might be shaved to favor someone with connections, but no one who demonstrated that he was flatly incompetent (at least in sims) in the Crusher would ever be promoted to higher starship command. And without command of a hyper-capable unit on your ticket, you don't make flag rank outside certain specific and tightly limited staff/branch categories. For example, a surgeon admiral is still effectively junior to an ensign (jg) if they're the only two officers in the lifeboat. The ensign owes him the courtesy of his (flag) rank; he has no command authority over the ensign.
As for the senior master chief E10 example, that's exactly what happened and why I invented --- and, BTW, I knew I was inventing it --- the rank in the first place.