What does Director Sloan's (Section 31) rank insignia mean? He had 4 full pips with a line under it.
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Posted by Dat (Member # 302) on :
I think it meant nothing at all. I believe Sloan was wearing it just to fool Sisko in thinking he was a Starfleet captain. And that pin is just one of the pins worn by a 4 star admiral. (Though Sisko should have noticed that!)
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Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
Sloan's insignia was not that of an admiral. It was as the original post described, the standard four pips with a bar.
Considering that Sloan was trying to convince Dr. Bashir that he was a member of Starfleet's Internal Affairs division, the bar is probably part of that department's standard uniform.
------------------ "What did it mean to fly? A tremor in your soul. To resist the dull insistance of gravity." -- Camper Van Beethoven
Posted by Timo (Member # 245) on :
It is interesting, though, that Internal Affairs would have such a special identifier when departments like Intelligence or Security wear standard insignia.Why is IA singled out that way? To raise fear among the infidels, or something?
And why wasn't Internal Affairs involved in the various trials of Starfleet personnel we have seen so far ("Measure of Man", "Drumhead", "Rules of Engagement"...)? Why did such an organization have to be made up? Why couldn't Sloan simply have been part of Starfleet Security or something?
Timo Saloniemi
Posted by Gaseous Anomaly (Member # 114) on :
HELLO!?!
The whole shebang was $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ $ a holographic simulation set in what appeared to be an Intrepid holodeck set up to test Bashir's loyalty to the Federation. Sloan and Sisko never met.
------------------ Devil: Oh look at the time! I'm late for services. Stone: Services? Devil: A group of young teenagers that have been celebrating the Black Sabbath are planning on deep-sixing their gym teacher tonight. I'm gonna go and give them a little encouragement.
Brimstone. May it rest in syndication.
[This message has been edited by Gaseous Anomaly (edited March 13, 2000).]
Posted by Michael Dracon (Member # 4) on :
Anyway, Slaon was introduces as some type of director of something... (sorry about being vague)
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Posted by Harry (Member # 265) on :
How can you fool a Starfleet officer by wearing a false rank?? They would first make, then put on an extra bar!!!
Yes, he was called "Director Sloan". Maybe it's some kind of freelance Starfleet officer, or someone from another 'Navy', who's working in Starfleet ------------------ "When You're Up to Your Ass in Alligators, Today Is the First Day of the Rest of Your Life." -- Management slogan, Ridcully-style (Terry Pratchett, The Last Continent, Discworld) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Prakesh's Star Trek Site
[This message has been edited by Prakesh (edited March 13, 2000).]
Posted by Elim Garak (Member # 14) on :
It must be a real rank, or else Bashir (being genetically engineered) would've noticed during the early parts of the simulation.
"Deputy Director Sloan of Starfleet Intelligence" was what they called him, IIRC.
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
This doesn't address the issue of the existance of an Internal Affairs division itself, but perhaps we're going about this from the wrong angle. The bar might represent his status as deputy director, rather than his department. A special enough position to put some extra signage on, perhaps?
------------------ "What did it mean to fly? A tremor in your soul. To resist the dull insistance of gravity." -- Camper Van Beethoven
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
ALSO...since this was the first time we hear about IA, and Sloan is pretending to investigate Bashir on suspicions of the good doctor working for the Dominion, perhaps the whole department was only recently created as a special subset of Intelligence; one that specializes in rooting out Dominion infiltrators. (I single out the Dominion because they were, after all, what everyone was afraid of at the time.) Created, perhaps, under the demand of an increasingly pressured Federation President? "For God's sake, at least look like you're doing something!"
------------------ "What did it mean to fly? A tremor in your soul. To resist the dull insistance of gravity." -- Camper Van Beethoven
Posted by Timo (Member # 245) on :
This sounds like a very good explanation. It would also nicely explain why we won't be seeing those strange bars again in future episodes (IA was dismantled after the war as "unconstitutional", along with Ministry of Peace and the like)...
Timo Saloniemi
Posted by Soontir_Fel on :
Actually, Sloan's insignia looks like a four pip admiral bar. This could be the first evidence of the "Fleet Captain" rank first mentioned in the Original Series episode "The Menagerie, Part I" conserning Chris Pike. This was the rank he held after Kirk took command of the Enterprise. Since he was the only person to hold this rank, it could have been a rank used in Intelligence or another division.
Posted by Aban Rune (Member # 226) on :
A Fleet Captain is pretty much the same thing as Commodore. In the U.S. Navy, it is a position, not a rank. A fleet captain is simply someone in charge of a group of ships. When Picard commanded the blockade in "Reunification", he was serving as a fleet captain. It could also be considered similar to the lowest ranking admiral rank.
Sloan's rank insignia was unlike anything we've seen before and seems to have indicated his post with SF Intelligence.
------------------ "A gathering of Angels appeared above my head. They sang to me this song of hope, and this is what they said..." -Styx
When Sloan was wearing a Starfleet uniform, it looked like to me he was wearing the four pips of a captain. When he was wearing his black outfit on the Holodeck he was testing Bashir with, I couldn't see anything that looked like rank insignia or identifying markings of any kind. Maybe I was mistaken.
------------------ I do what the voices in my head tell me to do
Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
The question refers to his SF uniform. He had four captain's pips, but there was also a thin bar underneath them (I think that's how it was...).
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Posted by Aban Rune (Member # 226) on :
Yes, that's what it looked like. The thing is, though, the only time he was "actually" wearing the pips was in a holodeck scenerio. Basically, the ep was a big holo-mind game. Sloan never really met Sisko or even came aboard the station from what I remember, so the uniform and insignia may or may not be real. It would stand to reason, though, that Sloan would use real uniform markings to make the illusion all the better. Bashir's pretty smart after all.
------------------ "A gathering of Angels appeared above my head. They sang to me this song of hope, and this is what they said..." -Styx