Hi there! I'm bargeman Bjorn Thomas, of Tactical. Do ya wanna know how the ranks work? Okay, I'll tell ya..
 You probably allready know that a captain is in charge of a ship and that a lieutenant-commander exceeds a ensign in rank. Well, that's really wonderfull, but a  commander can also command a ship and between a lt.-cmdr. and an ensg. are two more ranks. Don't worry, I'll do my best to explain it all to you. The lowest rank you mostely see (in Star Trek) is ensign. This is not however the bottom. That's crewman. Ensign is just the lowest officer. When you are drafted or enlist you enter as a crewman. After that you can promote to yeoman (heh, that sounds familiar!), then to boatswain, bargeman, skipper and finally chief. That's it. "But what about the rest?" you ask, well before you get any higher you have to go through officers-training, wich I am trying to get into by the way. When you've finished that you are an ensign. There could be situations that an 26-year old ensign gives orders to a 55-year old chief. A lot of times the chief knows va lot more than the ensign, simply because he has more experience. This doesn't seem fair, but the latter just never went to officers-training. Here's a list of all the ranks:

 

	Non-commisioned officers	Officers
Crewman	Yeoman	Ensign
	Boatswain	Lieutenant (junior grade)
	Bargeman	Lieutenant
	Skipper	Lieutenant-Commander
	Chief	Commander
		Captain
		Commodore
		Rear-Admiral
		Admiral
		Fleet-Admiral