Sci-Fi: Earth Authority Navy Ranks

This is probably going to be the last in the series of rank charts for my sci-fi setting; this is a chart of the ranks and insignia used by the EAN, the navy of the Sector Earth Authority.  The SEA is one of the most powerful members of the United Earth Alliance, and is the successor government to the many national and regional governments which dominated the planet prior to the Jovian War.  In the centuries since, it has enjoyed prominence as a dominant Alliance member, although most of the Diaspora, and even many within the Alliance, regard the SEA with suspicion.  The Earth Authority Navy is powerful, but constitutionally limited in size and scope for historical reasons.

In-Universe:
Reconstruction after the Jovian War was a painful process for Old Earth.  Although the United Earth Alliance was victorious in all theatres, it was only able to win the ground war on Old Earth thanks to its decisive defeat of the Jovian League and League of Humanity forces in orbit; even at the war's end, a large proportion - though not a majority - of Old Earth's populace remained sympathetic to the anti-transhuman, purist, cause.  The Exodus of many Allied governments from Old Earth, combined with the capitulation of the governments comprising the League of Humanity, created a power vacuum which the Alliance was keen to fill itself.  Given the political reality of the situation, however, the Alliance was unable to assume direct governance of Earth.  Instead, it encouraged Old Earth's nations and territories to pool their sovereignty in the Sector Earth Authority, a body which would become a member of the Alliance, but which was distinct from it - a compromise acceptable to most parties.  Some areas of the planet remained under the control of the Alliance, and some territories nevertheless ceded control directly to the UEA.  The remainder - over 90% of the planet - became the new Sector Earth Authority.

The SEA immediately became one of the Alliance's most powerful members.  With privileged access to the organs of the Alliance in Geneva, Jerusalem and Kourou, the SEA set about pulling its weight in the Diaspora at large.  Three colonies - Sarasvati, Carthage and Jade - all formerly sympathetic to the League of Humanity and likewise defeated, expressed a desire to join it, and within twenty years, the SEA had become an interstellar state.  Its position on the Alliance Grand Council, and responsibility for defending a number of major outsystem colonies, necessitated the creation of a powerful navy.  The EAN was it.

The years following Terran reconstruction saw a great many individuals emigrate from Old Earth to the colonies; the Last Wave of Colonisation saw the planet's population decrease significantly.  Those leaving were disproportionately from Alliance-friendly, transhumanist groups, however; many of those who remained did so for ideological reasons, Earth after all being the centre of the known universe.  As a result, the EAN over the years has been seen by many across the Diaspora as the most prominent means for the SEA to impose its deeply authoritarian, purist, Terran-exceptionalist, Terran-imperialist worldview on the rest of the Diaspora at large.

In 172 ADH, a cabal of Admirals and Marshals of the EAN bodily seized Old Earth's orbital limit and, for forty-four days, forcibly disbanded the Earth Authority and withdrew Old Earth, Venus and Mars from the United Earth Alliance, attempting to install a radically purist government in its stead and exterminate all transhumans in Sol System.  Huge popular opposition combined with the overwhelming response of the United Earth, Lunar Federation, Interstellar Consortium and rump Earth Authority navies to ensure the coup was short-lived, however, the effect on the Diasporal consciousness was profound.  Despite instituting reforms, the image of the SEA never fully recovered from the Forty-Four Days Coup; for its part, the Alliance declared Sol System a demilitarised zone and permanently excluded all military forces from the system.  Since 172, the only armed ships permitted into Sol System have been at the express invitation of the United Earth Parliament.

Never far from controversy in the decades since, the EAN played a key role in the maintenance of the SEA's so-called 'Reign of Fear' between 302 and 310 ADH, and in putting down the 'Great Marches' protests between 310 and 322.  It was at the forefront of Alliance participation in the First Inter-Solar War between 344 and 360 ADH.  It led the Alliance offensive in the decisive Battle of Menkalinan, thereby ensuring the fall of the Inter-Solar Treaty.  Its darkest hour since the Forty-Four Days Coup was soon to follow, in 359 ADH, when Inter-Solar Treaty forces penetrated the EAN's defences around Sarasvati and bombarded it.  The SEA led the retaliatory assault which ended the war the following year.  However, in so doing, it courted disaster.

In 360 ADH, Commander Zheng Hue of the EAS Ulysses was able to penetrate the Inter-Solar Treaty's defences around its capital world of Van Arnhemsterre; seeking retaliation for the bombardment of Sarasvati, Zheng launched a kinetic javelin at the planet travelling at .1 c.  The resulting blast halved the planet's population and constituted the largest single loss-of-life event, both numerically and proportionally, in human evolutionary history.  The First Inter-Solar War ended at once, and in the resulting Treaty of Menkalinan, the Earth Authority was barred from fielding military forces for fifty Terran years.  The EAN was disbanded, and the Earth Authority only escaped the Terminal Sanction due to Zheng Hue's lack of authority for the attack - accusations that it was tacitly approved by the SEA government were never proven.

The fifty-year disbandment of the EAN lapsed in the middle of the Second Inter-Solar War; the EAN was swiftly re-formed, albeit with constitutional limits on its size and capabilities along proportional lines laid down in the Treaty of Menkalinan.  After a shaky start, following the destruction of its first post-reformation fleet in the general rout of Allied forces at the Battle of Himalaya, the EAN integrated into Alliance forces and became a potent fighting force, if one constrained in scope.  Despite its successes, the limits on its size have remained unshakable in the years since, even following victory in the Second Inter-Solar War and Allied dominance in the years since.  This has become a bone of contention within the SEA, although the unanimity of the Diasporal community, including other Alliance Grand Council members and the Alliance itself, means that the EAN is likely to remain constrained for many years to come.