#gar organizational structure

[americankimchi]

tcw is so good at introducing us to characters and bite-sized stories that capture our attention and so, SO bad at following even a modicum of logic when it comes to the consequences of actions under military law

[nimata-beroya]

Note: Since my old masterlist is getting notes again (and I'm hosting @tbb-appreciation-week this year), I thought it's a good time to release a new version with a lot more resources. If any of you know another site or thing that it's missing from the list, let me know and I'll include it!! [Altho, I'm getting this close 🤏 to the hyperlinks limit on this thing 😆]

Note 2: To avoid tagging the 3 people from whom I got multiple resources repeatedly, I've placed 1-3 asterisks between square brackets after the links, depending on the OP. I give the respective credit to them in a legend at the end of the post.

PLACES / TIME

Interactive Galaxy Map by Henry Bernberg

Map of the Galaxy

List of planets and moons [Wikipedia /needs expanding]

Planet Name Generator 1 [SciFi Ideas]

Planetary System Generator [Donjon]

Tatooine Location References [*]

Various locations Cross-Sections (Jedi Temple, Palp's office, Tipoca City & more) [**]

Republic - Separatist - Hutt space during the Clone Wars

Hyperspace Travel Times (to calculate how much time would take to go from point A to point B within the GFFA)

Standard Calendar and Holidays [including month names!]

Galactic Standard Calendar [wookiepedia // including week day names]

Date converter according to SWTOR [Google sheet]

Dated Star Wars Chronological Order (Movies + live-action shows + animation)

TCW Chronological Timeline by @mauvrix

Estimated date for: shared by @spectres-fulcrum

Partisans' attack on Onderon

Siege of Lasan

CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT

General

Star Wars Name Generator 1 [Donjon]

Star Wars OC flow chart by @thefoodwiththedood

Star Wars Name Generator 2 [FantasyNames]

Star Wars Name Generator 3 [FantasyNames]

MetaHuman [Unreal Engine]

The character creator

Droid Name Generator

Star Wars Randomizer by @aureutr

Character Picrew [Twi-leks, Zabraks, Torgutas and Nautolans] @/megaramikaeli

Jedi

Taking a Closer Look at the Jedi Order in Star Wars Canon [Meta/Reference Guide] [**]

Jedi Order Structure Flowchart by @rileys-nest

Mandalorians

Mandalorian Armor design by MandoCreator

Keepers of the Way (Mandalorian Lore) [*]

Clones

Complete List Of Named Clone Troopers shared by @propheticfire (Organized by Unit)

Clone Creator [MandoCreator]

Clone Picrew

Star Wars Character Templates by SmacksArt [the ULTIMATE battery of template for any human/humanoid original character in any era. From troopers to droids, from Jedi to Sith, from KOTOR to the sequel Trilogy. 100% RECOMMENDED]

Basic Guide to Clone Trooper Armour by @odekiisu

GAR structure summary by @intermundia

The Clone Wars Republic Military Hierarchy Flowcharts [***]

Clone Trooper Lore [*] [Ranks, Culture, Training, Organization, etc.]

Clones and Kamino [*]

The Bad Batch Characters Concept Art shared by @shadowthestoryteller

MISCELLANEOUS

Star Wars Character Age Comparison Chart by @the-yearning-astronaut

Tusken Raiders lore by @snarwor

Materials (fabrics, leathers, silks, plastics, construction, metal composites, etc.)

Materials in Star Wars by marvel_dc_heart_throbs

Star Wars Fashion [*]

Leisure, Art, Musical Instruments, Ethnography [*]

Political and Criminal Organizations in the GFFA [**]

Financial reference about credits by @thecoffeelorian

List of TCW Opening Quotes

Transcripts of all the TCW episodes shared by @book-of-baba-fett

Star Wars Crawl Creator [not exactly writing-related, but just for fun]

HEALTH AND MEDICINE

Canon Medical Lore [*]

Real World reference for Field organizational structure for corpsman (medics) [*]

Kaliida Shoals Medical Center (Republic Haven-class medical station) shared by @clonewarsarchives

GAR Battalion Aid Station [*]

GAR Clone Medic Q/A [*]

More combat medicine, shipboard medicine, veteran issues, and military culture [*]

SHIPS AND VEHICLES

Ship Generator 3D

Ship Name Generator

All Terrain Tactical Enforcer (AT-TE) shared by @stairset

Republic Vessels Reference [*]

Low Altitude Assault Transport/Infantry (LAAT/i) [*]

List of GAR Flagships in the Clone Wars by @meandmyechoes

Layout of the Havoc Marauder

Dimensions of various ships from the Clone Wars [**]

FOOD AND DRINKS

Star Wars Menu Generator

In-Universe Alcoholic beverages

Canon Cocktails (recipes) [*]

Another In-Universe Drinks list shared by @systemic-dreams

Teas in Star Wars by marvel_dc_heart_throbs

Foodstuff [*]

Canon Star Wars Holiday Recipes [*]

Trask Chowder Recipe (from The Mandalorian) [*]

LANGUAGES; PHRASES AND SLANG; VOCABULARY

Languages of the Galaxy [*]

Script of different languages in the GFFA by @lucif-hare-blog

In-Universe phrases and slang [Google sheet]

List of phrases and slang [wookiepedia]

List of equivalents to real-world objects [wookiepidia]

Talk Like a Clone Trooper shared by @archeo-starwars

Aurebesh Translator [Aurebesh.org]

Learning Aurebesh Tools [Aurebesh.org] Reading - Writing.

Mando'a Database [Mando.org]

Mando'a Transcripticon [MandoCreator] (Create your own text in the Mando'a script.)

@project-shereshoy (Blog that collects and posts sources for Mando'a from all over the internet.)

Mando’a Categorized Spreadsheet

Learning Mando'a Tools [MandoCreator] Reading - Writing.

Setting Thesaurus Entry: Spaceport [Writers helping writers]

Fan-created Conlangs

@dai-bendu-conlang (Jedi Culture Explored) (This blog is the home of the Dai Bendu Conlang, invented by the Archive of Our Own Users aroacejoot, @ghostwriterofthemachine, and loosingletters for the Jedi Order in Star Wars.)

Lasana Lexicon by Anath_Tsurugi (fandom lexicon of the Lasat Language)

HELPFUL BLOGS & SITES

The amazing @fox-trot, who not only makes astonishing art and write an amazing fic, she also responds to medical questions and gives all kinds of references for writing medic characters. Check her #medicposting tag and you'll find tons of information. Also check #star wars reference and her art tag while you're at it.

@writebetterstarwars, which seems to be inactive, but there are a bunch of references there.

@howtofightwrite The place to find out how to write a good fight scene.

@scriptmedic no longer active, but it has a great deal of useful information.

@scripttorture for your whump needs. Major trigger warning for all its content.

@sw-anthrobiology A blog dedicated to collecting headcanons about the biology and cultures of Star Wars species.

@archeo-starwars In-universe sources on culture and history.

@clonewarsarchives Resources & Concept Art Blog for The Clone Wars animated series.

Wookiepedia If you don't find something in here, it's probably because it doesn't exist, neither as a canon nor legends reference.

Star Wars Databank: The official Star Wars website's reference guide. All canon.

WRITING IN GENERAL (For those who don't want to die like Stormtroopers)

SlickWrite: Completely free; online. Checks grammar, punctuation, flow, and writing style according to different settings (including fiction writing).

ProWritingAid: [RECOMMENDED] One of the most thorough online proofreader I've ever used. Although when using a free account gives extremely thorough feedback, with +20 different in-depth reports, for only the first 500 words. However, you can earn a premium account license (for a year or for life) if you get 10 or 20 new users signing up for free; (if you wouldn't mind doing so using the link above and help me earn mine, please). The settings allow you to check your writing according to your needs, from general to formal to creative. It has a bonus that you can check depending on the genre you're writing. For example, in creative, you can choose romance or sci-fiction (there are 14 sub-genre in total). And just like google docs, you can share a document, and people can view, comment or edit it too.

LanguageTool: [RECOMMENDED] Another excellent proofreader. It also has a word limit in free accounts, but if you use the add-on for Google Docs, it counts each page as a new document, so hitting the word limit is nearly impossible. It helps you to rewrite a sentence (3 a day), even if it doesn't raise any flags; it's very useful for when your sentence is grammatically correct, but it doesn't feel quite right.

Grammarly, Hemingway Editor: No so great, but they do the basic job.

Legend

[*] Shared by @fox-trot [**] Shared by @gffa [***] Shared by @cacodaemonia.

[kaasknot]

GAR Organizational Structure (with bonus despair)

point the first: the structure tcw gives us for the GAR is nonsensical. captains are leading legions, a battalion is apparently sufficient for a marshal commander, and generals are, oh my god, leading troops out in the field—the way no general irl actually does, because they are a strategic target and if the enemy kills/captures them it would be a tremendous blow. not gonna lie: Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) is a disaster and should be ashamed of itself. 

i mostly ignore all of the above for my sanity, because 1) it’s more fun to watch jedi waving laser swords around amidst thickets of blasterfire, 2) the whole endgame is to kill them anyway, so who cares if a few jump the gun, and 3) maybe cody just really digs all those cool cats down in the 212th. maybe he runs ops with them whenever he can get away with it. whatever, it’s explainable.

(nothing will ever explain why rex, a junior officer, was leading a whole-ass legion. i cannot forgive. i will not forget.)

point the second: the only hard numbers we have for how big the GAR is are in the repcomm books, which put it at 3 million soldiers. this is. it’s. it's absolutely ludicrously small. to put it in perspective, the united states armed forces alone comprise about 1.4 million active duty personnel in its various branches. that’s ONE military on ONE planet. the GFFA has anywhere from 12 to 70 million inhabited planets. sure, most of them won't participate in the war, but even if you take the lower figure of 12 million, assume 10% are participants (whether as suppliers, victims, allies, or just re-supplied a star destroyer that one time), and take 10% of that as ACTIVE participants, then the number of planets the GAR needs to have a presence on is still 120 thousand. do a little math, and for the GAR to maintain a US-sized presence (which i think we can all agree is plenty large enough to bully a planet into submission) x 120k, the GAR would have to have 170 billion active duty personnel.

if the last number was too small, this one’s too huge. It’s beyond enormous. how do they feed everyone? but consider: the GAR wouldn't have to have the same presence on all planets. some of them might be small, like the rishi outpost. some might not need active policing at all, such as core planets like alderaan. i'll admit right now that i'm extremely lazy and don't feel like crunching the numbers to determine the size of the GAR presence on upwards of a million planets. i'm just gonna say "one billion active duty clones for the war." it’s still hysterically enormous, but it’s a lot more manageable.

my headcanon for the organizational structure of the GAR, using both wikipedia and wookieepedia for reference:

GAR: 1 billion active duty clones (broken down into 10 systems armies)—led by yoda, who is eisenhower

systems army: 100 million clones (2 sector armies)—led by a marshal commander, each of whom is attached to a jedi councilmember (so ponds, cody, wolffe, etc. our beloved cc-2224 is marshal commander of the 3rd systems army.) 

sector army: 50 million (5 planetary armies)—led by a rear marshal commander, each attached to senior jedi masters who are not on the council (so gree, bly, fox, etc)

planetary army: 10 million (5 corps)—senior commander (note: given the unit mobility we see in the show, “planetary” is more a polite request than an actual rule, especially as attrition takes its toll. troops go where they needed.)

corps: 2 million (5 divisions)—corps commander

division: 400 thousand (5 legions)—division commander

legion: 80 thousand (5 brigades)—legion commander

brigade: 16 thousand (5 regiments)—brigadier commander

regiment: 3,200 (4 battalions)—regimental commander

battalion: 800 (4 companies)—major

company: 200 (4 platoons)—captain/1st sergeant

platoon: 50 (5 squads)—lieutenant/staff sergeant 

squad: 10 (2 fire teams)—sergeant

(fire) team: 5 troopers

(“active duty” in this context (the context being slave soldiers) means all clones of age to deploy who are not on medical leave. the total number of cadets of all ages, who are not considered active duty, probably dwarfs this 1 billion figure by like a factor of 978645, which i’m not even going to think about because the sheer logistics of that is staggering. the only reason this army wasn’t discovered sooner is because of movie magic.)

the eagle-eyed among you may notice that several of the formations i’ve separated out (e.g. brigade and legion) are actually the same size irl. in my defense: it’s a billion fucking soldiers! there is no existing military structure on earth that can accommodate a command of that size!! something had to give!!

again, those keen-eyed among you may notice that there are no less than eight different ranks of commander, only three of which are supported by wookieepedia. in my defense: star wars gave us a crappy starting point, and i can only work with what i’m given. either i bump up NCOs to commanding platoons and companies and reinstall our beloved rex as captain of torrent brigade (my soul fucking shudders), or we have to deal with eight different unit sizes all led by officers addressed formally as “commander.”

(it is clone etiquette to address commanders by title and name in mixed company, save the highest-ranking officer, who is THE commander and may be addressed sans name. it is clone humor to fuck with non-clones by sending them on goose-chases in search of “the commander.”)

moving on.

according to wookiepedia, the ranks of jedi are thus:

grand high jedi general—yoda (actually i lied, i made this one up)

high jedi general—the other 11 councilmembers

senior jedi general—all jedi masters

jedi general—all jedi knights

jedi commander—all jedi padawans

as far as i’m concerned those ranks can stay as-is, with senior and regular generals getting scattered throughout the command structure wherever i feel like putting them. it’s not like they make sense as military leaders anyway; they’re last-minute pasties to cover up the GAR’s scandalous bits and make it fit for public propaganda.

of note, there are 12 jedi who sit on the jedi council, but only 10 sector armies. conveniently, yoda doesn’t need to command a sector army, because he commands all the armies. likewise, i headcanon shaak ti doesn’t actually have a command, as she stays on kamino for quality assurance purposes. gotta make sure there aren’t any ethics violations going on.

some may have noticed that fox, despite answering to the chancellor and not to a jedi, is in the “rear marshal” category. i did this (actually @countessofbiscuit did this and i shamelessly stole it) because i (we) headcanon fox not just as head of the coruscant guard, but the head of the CG, GAR military police, and penal battalions. he’s got a big command, too, even if he doesn’t have a jedi to show for it. plus, it makes for excellent intraservice beef if palpatine pushed for fox’s promotion against the prevailing cultural trends of the GAR. (poor fox.)

final notes on this already long-winded and horrific post: seniority within the ranks of the marshal commanders depends on the seniority of their attendant jedi and their own level of experience. e.g. mace windu is the senior-most jedi after yoda, so ponds commands the 1st systems army. however, ponds dies relatively early in the war, so bacara, despite being assigned to the 2nd systems army (i just made that up, i have no idea if ki-adi mundi has seniority after mace), outranks ponds’s replacement because he has more experience. most of this is tacit and doesn’t really affect anything except who sits where at mandatory formal dinners, but it’s also used to justify who’s allowed to eat the last donut—to mixed success.

how DO they feed everyone, though? like, seriously?

[countessofbiscuit]

i've seen this term float around your blog (and some other blogs too) but i've done my google searching and i still can't find a definition for it: what's 'milwank' and what does it mean?

full disclosure: my pals and i are all really horny for supersoldiers with big guns

we also intellectually get off on military stuff, especially esotericism and jargon (and esotericism and jargon from other fields, too—a bunch of competence kinksters), and somehow the term gained traction in our chat. 

I think I saw @tiender use it first a couple years ago, to describe the sort of armchair-general approach to seeking to write military fiction with a high degree of verisimilitude—a problem that’s exacerbated when then trying to map IRL military norms, terms, structures, &c. onto a fictional space army to make it more convincing and satisfying. Even if it’s just a circle-jerk pursuit between ~intellectual~ exhibitionists and voyeurs with a .mil kink.

As with all wank (e.g. fandom wank, which includes the self-pleasuring self-righteousness of antis), it’s more a statement about the masturbatory element of engaging with the content, rather than passing judgement on the content itself.

For example, I’d describe Republic Commando as milwanky, though the content is not. Karen Traviss served in the TA and Royal Navy, so while what she writes may not be wank (born from her lived and professional experience, it’s gonna be p accurate, if a little dated), and I can’t speak to whether or not writing RepComm was a competence-kink-scratching exercise for her (lbr if there was any wanking going on, it was in the direction of Kal Skirata—sorry for that mental image), *reading* it is a milwanky experience, at least for me. It’s just hott. It makes me want to pull out a WIP and just start rubbing out some commandos doing commando things, be it kicking-in doors or fucking with extreme prejudice. The resultant fic would be milwank. 

imo, like masturbation, it’s hard for milwank to be *bad*. Bad milwank is a contradiction in terms. At the risk of completely overdoing the dick metaphors in this post, milwank is either solid enough that it’s there and I’ve mentally rubbed up against it (ideally, I’ve really enjoyed it) or it’s not there. “There was no milwank,” I might complain after backspacing from a Clone Wars fic with average-to-poor military worldbuilding. Translation: I didn’t intellectually get off reading this and no amount of cute clones could make it worth my time.  

Reading a book on logistics in the Falklands War? Good for milwank. Massive meta about the how the GAR is an organizational clusterfuck? Milwank. Smut where you can smell the blaster polish? Milwanky. Trying to follow a lengthy #MilTwitter argument thread about doctrine that’s 75% acronym by wordcount? “What a bunch of milwank.” A gif from a boot blog with a spotter humping his sniper? #milwank. 

tl;dr: milwank = active, self-indulgent appreciation of military aesthetics and functions, probably shrivels under professional inspection. vry srs bsns.

[the-last-kenobi]

I would like to propose marriage to both OP and @countessofbiscuit

You don’t have to say yes but nonetheless I must offer

This is the stuff. THE EXACT FUCKING STUFF. THAT HALTED MY 100+ CHAPTER SW MAGNUM OPUS.

(well that and Force Philosophy™️ but let’s not dally there.)

GAR Organizational Structure (with bonus despair)

point the first: the structure tcw gives us for the GAR is nonsensical. captains are leading legions, a battalion is apparently sufficient for a marshal commander, and generals are, oh my god, leading troops out in the field—the way no general irl actually does, because they are a strategic target and if the enemy kills/captures them it would be a tremendous blow. not gonna lie: Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) is a disaster and should be ashamed of itself. 

i mostly ignore all of the above for my sanity, because 1) it’s more fun to watch jedi waving laser swords around amidst thickets of blasterfire, 2) the whole endgame is to kill them anyway, so who cares if a few jump the gun, and 3) maybe cody just really digs all those cool cats down in the 212th. maybe he runs ops with them whenever he can get away with it. whatever, it’s explainable.

(nothing will ever explain why rex, a junior officer, was leading a whole-ass legion. i cannot forgive. i will not forget.)

point the second: the only hard numbers we have for how big the GAR is are in the repcomm books, which put it at 3 million soldiers. this is. it’s. it’s absolutely ludicrously small. to put it in perspective, the united states armed forces alone comprise about 1.4 million active duty personnel in its various branches. that’s ONE military on ONE planet. the GFFA has anywhere from 12 to 70 million inhabited planets. sure, most of them won’t participate in the war, but even if you take the lower figure of 12 million, assume 10% are participants (whether as suppliers, victims, allies, or just re-supplied a star destroyer that one time), and take 10% of that as ACTIVE participants, then the number of planets the GAR needs to have a presence on is still 120 thousand. do a little math, and for the GAR to maintain a US-sized presence (which i think we can all agree is plenty large enough to bully a planet into submission) x 120k, the GAR would have to have 170 billion active duty personnel.

if the last number was too small, this one’s too huge. It’s beyond enormous. how do they feed everyone? but consider: the GAR wouldn’t have to have the same presence on all planets. some of them might be small, like the rishi outpost. some might not need active policing at all, such as core planets like alderaan. i’ll admit right now that i’m extremely lazy and don’t feel like crunching the numbers to determine the size of the GAR presence on upwards of a million planets. i’m just gonna say “one billion active duty clones for the war.” it’s still hysterically enormous, but it’s a lot more manageable.

my headcanon for the organizational structure of the GAR, using both wikipedia and wookieepedia for reference:

GAR: 1 billion active duty clones (broken down into 10 systems armies)—led by yoda, who is eisenhower

systems army: 100 million clones (2 sector armies)—led by a marshal commander, each of whom is attached to a jedi councilmember (so ponds, cody, wolffe, etc. our beloved cc-2224 is marshal commander of the 3rd systems army.) 

sector army: 50 million (5 planetary armies)—led by a rear marshal commander, each attached to senior jedi masters who are not on the council (so gree, bly, fox, etc)

planetary army: 10 million (5 corps)—senior commander (note: given the unit mobility we see in the show, “planetary” is more a polite request than an actual rule, especially as attrition takes its toll. troops go where they needed.)

corps: 2 million (5 divisions)—corps commander

division: 400 thousand (5 legions)—division commander

legion: 80 thousand (5 brigades)—legion commander

brigade: 16 thousand (5 regiments)—brigadier commander

regiment: 3,200 (4 battalions)—regimental commander

battalion: 800 (4 companies)—major

company: 200 (4 platoons)—captain/1st sergeant

platoon: 50 (5 squads)—lieutenant/staff sergeant 

squad: 10 (2 fire teams)—sergeant

(fire) team: 5 troopers

(“active duty” in this context (the context being slave soldiers) means all clones of age to deploy who are not on medical leave. the total number of cadets of all ages, who are not considered active duty, probably dwarfs this 1 billion figure by like a factor of 978645, which i’m not even going to think about because the sheer logistics of that is staggering. the only reason this army wasn’t discovered sooner is because of movie magic.)

the eagle-eyed among you may notice that several of the formations i’ve separated out (e.g. brigade and legion) are actually the same size irl. in my defense: it’s a billion fucking soldiers! there is no existing military structure on earth that can accommodate a command of that size!! something had to give!!

again, those keen-eyed among you may notice that there are no less than eight different ranks of commander, only three of which are supported by wookieepedia. in my defense: star wars gave us a crappy starting point, and i can only work with what i’m given. either i bump up NCOs to commanding platoons and companies and reinstall our beloved rex as captain of torrent brigade (my soul fucking shudders), or we have to deal with eight different unit sizes all led by officers addressed formally as “commander.”

(it is clone etiquette to address commanders by title and name in mixed company, save the highest-ranking officer, who is THE commander and may be addressed sans name. it is clone humor to fuck with non-clones by sending them on goose-chases in search of “the commander.”)

moving on.

according to wookiepedia, the ranks of jedi are thus:

grand high jedi general—yoda (actually i lied, i made this one up)

high jedi general—the other 11 councilmembers

senior jedi general—all jedi masters

jedi general—all jedi knights

jedi commander—all jedi padawans

as far as i’m concerned those ranks can stay as-is, with senior and regular generals getting scattered throughout the command structure wherever i feel like putting them. it’s not like they make sense as military leaders anyway; they’re last-minute pasties to cover up the GAR’s scandalous bits and make it fit for public propaganda.

of note, there are 12 jedi who sit on the jedi council, but only 10 sector armies. conveniently, yoda doesn’t need to command a sector army, because he commands all the armies. likewise, i headcanon shaak ti doesn’t actually have a command, as she stays on kamino for quality assurance purposes. gotta make sure there aren’t any ethics violations going on.

some may have noticed that fox, despite answering to the chancellor and not to a jedi, is in the “rear marshal” category. i did this (actually @countessofbiscuit did this and i shamelessly stole it) because i (we) headcanon fox not just as head of the coruscant guard, but the head of the CG, GAR military police, and penal battalions. he’s got a big command, too, even if he doesn’t have a jedi to show for it. plus, it makes for excellent intraservice beef if palpatine pushed for fox’s promotion against the prevailing cultural trends of the GAR. (poor fox.)

final notes on this already long-winded and horrific post: seniority within the ranks of the marshal commanders depends on the seniority of their attendant jedi and their own level of experience. e.g. mace windu is the senior-most jedi after yoda, so ponds commands the 1st systems army. however, ponds dies relatively early in the war, so bacara, despite being assigned to the 2nd systems army (i just made that up, i have no idea if ki-adi mundi has seniority after mace), outranks ponds’s replacement because he has more experience. most of this is tacit and doesn’t really affect anything except who sits where at mandatory formal dinners, but it’s also used to justify who’s allowed to eat the last donut—to mixed success.

how DO they feed everyone, though? like, seriously?