Within the ranks of GDS officers are the legionnaires who lead dozens, hundreds, thousands, and hundreds of thousands of others in pursuit of completing an objective. This objective could be an internal one, one that we’ve been contracted to carry out, or a long-term one that requires multiple generations worth of effort. How this objective is completed, what legionnaires are assigned where, what work is undertaken, and the timeline until completion are all up to the officers in charge.
Success belongs to all.
Failure belongs to the officer.

Recall FrW Riveria’s rather imaginative interpretation of officers and enlisted, where one group is in the action, and the other is in the back trying to wrangle up everyone’s cooperation to make that action happen as efficiently and safely as possible.

Or, as FrW Riveria puts it in another rather colorful way:
“ I’m a tard wrangler for a stadium full of parental mistakes. I give them a lesson plan, they do their work, and if they succeed I get to hand out gold stickers and peanut butter crackers afterwards. If I fuck up and they get any booboos, Iza twists my legs 180 degrees and then shoves them so far up my ass I get boot prints on the roof of my mouth.”

What this leads into is the fact that officers are paid more while having much less hands on work, but they face far, far harsher consequences for failure than any enlisted legionnaire.
We’ll outline this with an example of an officer’s responsibilities.

In our scenario, a force from the Vanguard Legion has been deployed to a combat theater and tasked with the following:

· Secure and establish a TOC, defend alongside the Security Legion.

· Secure an LZ for reinforcements, hand off to the Security Legion.

· In conjunction with the Intelligence Legion and Armored Scout Cavalry from the Armored Legion, secure land-based pathways for logistics, avenues of safe retreat, and egress points into enemy territory. Once secure, hand over all areas to the Security Legion for long term defense.

· In conjunction with the Intelligence Legion and Armored Scout Cavalry from the Armored Legion, secure areas of potential fortification. Once secure, hand over all areas to the Security Legion and Mechanical Legion for defense and fortification.

· Engage with and destroy any enemy fortifications, depots, armored units or soldiers.

· Upon completion of all prior objectives, move into enemy territory and begin capturing bases, destroying supply lines, and eliminating all forms of resistance.

· Time to complete all of these tasks is 6 hours, after which enemy air support and reinforcements will arrive in the operational theater.

· Link up with two other forces of Vanguards that will arrive from the east and west.

· Destroy all enemy combatants.

Note that this is not an exhaustive list and is shortened/summarized for the sake of staying on topic.
The main person who will be responsible for ensuring that all happens is the O-2 in charge of that force, working alongside their E-8 adviser. If any mistakes are made, if anything is unaccounted for, if any enemy strategy is not ready to be countered, if any disruption in execution occurs, a lot of legionnaires may die.
This officer then must sit in front of a blank document, pull up a roster that details all 720 legionnaires they’re responsible for, review all intelligence related to the area, review all intelligence related to the enemy, review all equipment at their disposal, gather the contact info of all other officers and SNCOs who will be involved, and then start to come up with a plan on how their force will make it all happen.
In addition, officers within GDS will always deploy alongside the legionnaires they command in nearly every situation. Whatever strategies or plans that officer comes up aren’t some abstracted thought experiment others will do out of sight; that officer will be living through it along with everyone else.

While it is understandable that enlisted legionnaires may look at an officer who’s sitting behind a desk all day and assume they’re just goofing off, it’s likely they’re spinning hundreds of plates at once to keep operations moving in a timely and organized manner. All of this while maintaining their skills and education, as we require and demand that officers be subject matter experts in their field under penalty of losing their rank.
We do not allow our enlisted legionnaires to be kept past their defined working hours, as that means their command has failed to stay on top of the current workload/tasks. Working overtime means the processes and workflows being used are inadequate, and thus we hold the officers in charge responsible.
At the end of the day, enlisted legionnaires go home on time.
Officers however, will stay behind and get everything back on track.

Under the Operational Directives section you will find our standards and requirements for GDS leadership, so we won’t go too much into that here. What you should know is that leadership within GDS is paid more, and has certain privileges that enlisted legionnaires do not. However, they are held to a far stricter standard, with much greater consequences when it comes to failure.
If officers wish to have that level of pay and those types of privileges, they must earn and continually work to keep them.

Within GDS are the following officer ranks:

Like with the enlisted ranks, we’ll look at the rates at which officers are expected to promote. Again, I will add the disclaimer that these are all averages that were gathered across all nine legions. If you are an officer fresh out of Officer Candidate School, do not take this as a sign that your career aspirations are doomed from the start. Instead, look at it as a challenge to work on and overcome to prove you’re worthy of your rank. There are many instances of officers gaining rank at an unprecedented speed (we have had at least one instance of a legionnaire going from O-1 to O-5 in eight years), but those are the most extreme of edge cases.

There are a few areas in the above chart to discuss.
First is that the promotion attempts for officers are far more numerous than with enlisted legionnaires, and this is intentional. Earning merit as an officer is hard, and we want to make it as rigorous as possible to ensure that only the best of the best earn their rank. Second, is that there are no stats for the ranks of O-6 and O-7.
Obviously, no officers can achieve the rank of O-7.
That is reserved for Arbiter Iza and Chaplain Klein as the commanders of GDS, and it will remain so for the foreseeable future. In the case of O-6, there are no stats as a legionnaire can only gain this rank by order of either Arbiter Iza or Chaplain Klein.
The rank of O-6 is the most merit based rank within GDS, as it requires the person to prove without a shadow of a doubt that they possess the skills, knowledge and experience to lead an entire legion. This person is then evaluated and summarily trusted by both Arbiters, who order the promotion if they feel confident in that person’s record, deeds, and expertise. It is, as always, a matter of merit.
Should a legionnaire prove themselves worthy of that rank, it’s entirely possible to go from O-5 to O-6 in the span of a day, but this has never been achieved nor attempted.

Of note, there’s only one person within GDS who has the rank of O-6 and is not the primary officer of a legion, but that’s a topic for another time.

Now, to address the areas you’re likely most interested in, we’ll take a look at the baseline pay for officers in GDS, and then their counterparts in the Unified Empire. As stated before, this is the baseline pay without taking any other bonuses, additions, benefits, time of service, job role, specialty, or anything else into consideration.

The above chart does not contain a typo; that is the factual annual salary for both Arbiters.
As Arbiter Iza owns GDS, the funds of GDS therefore belong to Arbiter Iza, and thus there’s no need for a paycheck like everyone else. Chaplain Klein’s salary is the same, as he has stated that he has no need for anything beyond that amount.

Looking upon the other amounts however, you may then wonder what the downsides of being an officer are. With the baseline salary of an officer in GDS anyone could afford to raise a large family, purchase a good sized home, put their children through elite private schooling, or pay off their family’s debts.
The issue lies in the expectations and restrictions placed upon officers.

Foremost, officers are held to task to a degree that’d be unfathomable to an enlisted legionnaire. As stated before, should an officer fail in their duties or be found wanting in their leadership, they can quickly lose their rank, lose their commission, be placed on a penal detail, have their pay slashed by 90%, and more.
If legionnaire lives are lost, and the officer is found to be at fault, they may find themselves at the mercy of those they commanded.

Another burden we place on officers is that they cannot move around GDS as easily as an enlisted legionnaire. We give commissions and extra pay as that individual has proven to us their skills in a particular field or area. Therefore, it makes little sense for that individual to be constantly moving from role to role when they should be focusing on their expertise.
Reassignments, cross training and reclasses are immensely difficult for GDS officers as we restrict it from happening unless that individual meets a large range of highly stringent criteria. We simply cannot move officers around and then replace them with someone else at the drop of a hat. An enlisted Vanguard can be moved into a Sapper position with relative ease, but moving someone with 10+ years of experience elsewhere and then finding a suitable replacement is an absolute challenge.
Once an officer is given their assignment, they will likely be there until receiving a new assignment, deployment, or orders from their commander.

To summarize, officers receive the highest pay in GDS.
For which they are held to the highest standards, work the longest hours, are restricted in their assignments, and receive the most severe punishments for failure. Altogether this makes it a highly undesirable position for a vast majority of people, and we maintain that anyone who desires an easy leadership role should never be given one.
The ones who should be trusted with that position should see all the downsides, all of the headaches and all of the requirements, yet go for it regardless. These individuals do it not for themselves, but to make a difference for those that they’ve been charged with leading.
For all the times their leaders failed them, they now have the chance to ensure their subordinates never experience the same in their own careers.

That is not a duty we will allow our people to take lightly.

- FrW Hansuke Ito