Seether

E

Eraser

Spaceman
I have a question that i've been wondering about ever since I played WC IV. It's about Seether (as my title suggests ;) )

Tolwyn was the Black Lance's 'esteemed leader' and Seether (project of the Genetic Enhancement Program) was its acting Commander, but I'm actually wondering about how that's possible. As far as I know, he held the rank of Colonel within Confed, which hardly seems an appropriate rank to Command a force of that magnitude. You'd rather think of at least a Rear Admiral, prefferably even higher to do the job. So how could he be appointed to Command the Black Lance Forces in Tolwyn's absence? Or was it because the BLF wasn't officially recognised by the Terran Confederation (at the time they were unaware of it naturally) and therefore ranks didn't apply to the BLF and therefore Tolwyn could simply disregard rank and appoint him? And if that's the case, how would the hierachy work anyway within the BLF? I mean, anyone associated with the BLF needs to know if he's talking to a superior officer right? They must have some sort of ranking system I assume. Because I didn't see any rank insignia's on the BLF uniforms in WC IV and seeing that the BLF had quite a number of people, it's unlikely everyone knows eachother right? I mean, how about wing commanders, squadron leaders, ship captains etc.?

Thanks in advance for the answer.
 
Flag officers (commodores, admirals, generals), as near as we can figure out, are appointed in Confed the same as in the US - meaning that the Senate has to approve the nominations. Such nominations are obviously pretty public things... and Seether is not a public sort of guy ;). So, a flag rank would be out of the question for him as long as the Black Lance was a secret.

Besides, rank doesn't make a commander - why would Seether need to be a general to command the Black Lance? The fact that he did command it as a Colonel seems to suggest that a higher rank wasn't necessary.
 
Well, the easy answer is that rank doesn't have anything to do with position. Seether can command the Black Lance because Admiral Tolwyn, who is positioned in the chain of command over the unit, ordered him to do so. Yes, there are 'normal' ranks that are assosciated with commands... but they're not absolute, and certainly they wouldn't have to be in a highly unusual, specifically structured case like Tolwyn's Project.

That said, you may be overestimating the size of Seether's command.: if he's in charge of all the Project's military forces, he has four fighter wing and a single infantry battalion . I don't believe we've ever seen a force that small commanded by a flag officer in Wing Commander -- and we don't even know that Seether is directly over all of these forces.
 
Alright, thanks for that!

And yes LOAF, I was in fact overestimating the size of his command. Thanks for the explanation :)
 
Yeah, Tolwyn's plan involved pitting regular Confed and Border Worlds forces against eachother -- not direct warfare on the part of Seether's command.

(Although at one point Tolwyn puts Seether in command of the Vesuvius -- so, at that point he's directly over her 7,800 crew, I suppose.)
 
Seether was the commander of a criminal renegade force. Since most of the stuff they were doing was very, very illegal - like terrorism, bilogical weapons - the small detail of rank is irrelevant.
 
Colonel Seether ? General Seether ? Admiral Seether ? Commander Seether ?
Eh it makes difference he was an all round bad ass m*********er bad guy and in almost every game and or so movie there has to be one bad person...or not

In the end Tolwyn was the Commander of the Black Lance Forces and Seether was his Lieutenant, when Tolwyn was away Seether would take command of the forces. Which brings me a question of what happen to those remnants...
 
In the end Tolwyn and Seether were Dead.

But the point is, the Black lance is far from being a regular unit inside the Confed's roster. It is so black ops (and more like terrorists, conspirators and pirates) that tolwyn can appoint whoever he wants to command them at his absence.
 
yeah I sometimes wonder what ever happen to them after the wc4, we know in the novel Blair was assigned a small task force to clean up the remnants but the question remains if any survived and where are they now??
 
Quarto said:
Besides, rank doesn't make a commander - why would Seether need to be a general to command the Black Lance? The fact that he did command it as a Colonel seems to suggest that a higher rank wasn't necessary.
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I thought Seether was refered to as a warrant officer by Paulson in the WC4 novelization. (Youll have to excuse my lack of understanding of the commissioned/NCO and overall ranking system of the military.)
 
yeah I sometimes wonder what ever happen to them after the wc4, we know in the novel Blair was assigned a small task force to clean up the remnants but the question remains if any survived and where are they now??
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Tolwyn's inner monologue at the end of the novel says "Some GE elements remained at large, hidden away where no one could interfere." -- we should probably take that as the gospel... they're out there, but we're not ever going to find them.

I thought Seether was refered to as a warrant officer by Paulson in the WC4 novelization. (Youll have to excuse my lack of understanding of the commissioned/NCO and overall ranking system of the military.)
Click to expand...

That was something Blair said - he asked Paulson if Seether was a warrant officer, because Paulson was referring to him as "Mr. Seether". Paulson's reply was that Seether's rank was classified.

(He was wearing a Space Forces Colonel's bar in the game, though.)
 
Bandit LOAF said:
That was something Blair said - he asked Paulson if Seether was a warrant officer, because Paulson was referring to him as "Mr. Seether". Paulson's reply was that Seether's rank was classified. (He was wearing a Space Forces Colonel's bar in the game, though.)
Click to expand...

Okay - time for LeHah's Goddamned Dumb Question™ - what exactly is a warrant officer in the modern (non-WC) military?
 
I trust Wikipedia about as much as I trust Wesley Crusher to save me from a video game
 
In this case Wikipedia is correct. A Warrant Officer is a non-commisioned officer, basically in between actual officers and enlisted personnel.
 
Warrant officers are, per my understanding, usually people who have particular skills the military wants without having trained specifically to be soldiers in the same way that a career officer would. For instance, you can go to law school and then be a warrant officer because the military needs lawyers.
 
Warrent Officers

All you need to know about that rank is THEY ARE GOD!! any one in the armed forces such as myself well tell you that these guys scare even high ranking officers and you can hear them coming from miles (they shout very loud) ~~~

Loaf you are right in the case of the U.S but in the U.K its a rank that takes about 20ish years to get as you have to go through all the N.C.O ranks to get there
 
In general, warrant officers are very specialized non-commissioned officers, whose rank falls just beneath that of commissioned officers. Their duties and authority differ slightly between the U.S. military branches (except the Air Force, which has no warrant officers).

They are usually referred to as "Mr." (and Mrs., I suppose) rather than their actual rank title.
 
In so far as the Army goes, there are two ways to become a Warrant Officer. The first is by acheiving the rank of E5, and then going through the application process. It's pretty long. If you go that route you can become a 'Tech Warrant' or a 'Flight Warrant'. Warrant Officers are specialists in their field. Basically, they do nothing else other than what they were originally trained to do. The other way to become a Warrant Officer is what is known as 'High School to Flight School'. Since in the Army a Warrant Officer doesn't require a College Degree, you can go straight from the street to applying for a WOFT spot. However, if you do that, its only for flight and its conditional on whether or not you pass all the tests and the Class A1 Flight Physical.

I know all of this because my father is a CW4 in the US Army. He's a Longbow Instructor Pilot and also the Battallian Standardization Pilot for the particalur unit of the 101st he's in.

I can tell you this, trying to become a Warrant Officer is a rough road. Most recruiters don't like to do the packet work. I recently passed all the tests and physicals and put my packet in, I go up for my WOC Board on the 2nd of November. For anyone who wants to fly, is in perfect health, and patient, its a great way to go. Not to say there's anything wrong with going Enlisted, or finishing College and going in as a full Officer, a Flight Warrant will always fly until the day he retires, where as a regular Officer runs the risk of being chained to a desk.
 
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