Pact Ranks

Pact Ranks

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Posted by: doulajen.8953

doulajen.8953

I don’t look around on forums much, so I’m not sure if this is where I should put this, but ah well.

I’ve been poking around and I can’t seem to find anywhere where there might be a list detailing the ranks in the Pact (at least how high up they are in relation to each other). Does anyone know if I can find this anywhere? I have also been looking at military ranks irl and don’t see many similarities…maybe I’m not looking hard enough?

Pact Ranks

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Posted by: Aaron Ansari.1604

Aaron Ansari.1604

That’s because, for the most part, the Pact doesn’t have ranks. There’s the Marshall, commanders, captains, and lieutenants, but past that they use the ranking systems of the three orders that make up the bulk of their troops.

R.I.P., Old Man of Auld Red Wharf. Gone but never forgotten.

Pact Ranks

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Posted by: Moonyeti.3296

Moonyeti.3296

As Aaron said, aside from a few general ranks for the PC and NPC we deal with, the pact members usually are referred to by role rather than rank. For example, pact scout, pact medic, pact soldier.

Pact Ranks

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Posted by: Castigator.3470

Castigator.3470

Well, the Pact is less than a singular entity and more like a joint operational command of the Vigil, Priory and the Order of Whispers. So with the exception of high command, the members of the pact are likely to retain the rank they already have in their respective order.

This can be seen in the Orr campaign. Here is my reconstruction of the pact command structure:

Pact Marshal – The official leader of the Pact.

Pact Commander(s) – The Marshal’s immediate subordinates, or his personal staff.
The size of the Pact suggests multiple Commanders.

The heads of the Orders and their representatives.
General Almorra Soulkeeper and Warmaster Efut for the Vigil,
Steward Gixx and Master Archaeologist Wynnet Fairhaired for the Priory Durmand,
Preceptor Riel Darkwater and Preceptor Doern Velazquez for the Order of Whispers.

The former are official, or in the Case of Riel ,acting heads of their respective Organization and are normally represented through their right hand people.

Then we have the Reinforcements from the five races: Human Seraphs and volunteers, Charr Warbands, Sylvari Wardens, Norn hunters and adventurers and Asura Peacemakers.
From what I’ve seen, at camp resolve behave more like auxilaries, not part of the main force, but receiving orders and instructions from Pact members.

Following the Maguuma Offensive, I expect the pact leadership to be reformed under the new Marshal. The new Pact will likely have a more centralized command, but it is still dependent on support from the orders and nations of Tyria to stay operational.
Maybe we find someone daring enough to draw an organizational chart of the pact?

Pact Ranks

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Posted by: Aaron Ansari.1604

Aaron Ansari.1604

Castigator got most of it right, but a couple of corrections:

Wynnet was ‘just’ a Magister, although that’s still the second or third highest rank in the Priory’s hierarchy.

And Riel, as Master of Whispers (not Preceptor), is very much the official head of the Order.

The Pact does have captains and lieutenants, but curiously, they seem to be largely assigned to the Pact’s secondary and tertiary objectives (Frostgorge, the Cruicible of Eternity, the Citadel of Flame), well away from the main campaign. My guess is that these ranks exist to create a clear authority in places where reporting back to Trinity or Resolve isn’t practical.

R.I.P., Old Man of Auld Red Wharf. Gone but never forgotten.

Pact Ranks

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Posted by: Castigator.3470

Castigator.3470

Castigator got most of it right, but a couple of corrections:

Wynnet was ‘just’ a Magister, although that’s still the second or third highest rank in the Priory’s hierarchy.

And Riel, as Master of Whispers (not Preceptor), is very much the official head of the Order.

The Pact does have captains and lieutenants, but curiously, they seem to be largely assigned to the Pact’s secondary and tertiary objectives (Frostgorge, the Cruicible of Eternity, the Citadel of Flame), well away from the main campaign. My guess is that these ranks exist to create a clear authority in places where reporting back to Trinity or Resolve isn’t practical.

Oops, I really thought she had an informal rank as the resident archaeoligist, Scholar Prott’s dialogue seemed to have pointed in that direction. But it’s most likely her official rank is still Magister and she’s in a first among equals position.

Also, is the Master of Whisper’s Identity still a well kept secret, or do the Pact members know? I know that we know since “Critical Blowback”, Trahearne also knew, since he witnessed the death of her predecessor.

The Pact captains and lieutenants make this even more complicated. The more I think about it, the more I suspect, that the pact has several organizational flaws. It’s a huge organization with multiple chains of command, that may or may not overlap. The entire thing may have barely held together, which explains, why Trahearne needed the commander to look after so many things. Which is why I did respect the Sylvari. Otherwise we would have been forced to play paperwork simulator with the orders.

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Posted by: Aaron Ansari.1604

Aaron Ansari.1604

As far as we know, the other orders don’t know Riel’s identity. She was introduced as Doern’s assistant, and they might know her as the Order’s top agent in Lion’s Arch.

R.I.P., Old Man of Auld Red Wharf. Gone but never forgotten.

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Posted by: Konig Des Todes.2086

Konig Des Todes.2086

The Pact basically has 3 ranks:

Marshal, Commander, and Liaison.

There are multiple commanders, though there is the “commander above commanders” that is the PC (until Season 3 where the PC steps down at least). All other ranks are the ranks of whatever forces individuals are from when working with the Pact.

The heads of the Orders are not part of the Pact, nor are all Order members part of it either. The liaisons are the highest Order members in the Pact, and work as the official go-between between order leader and the Pact leadership. These being Wynnet, Doern, and Efut.

(Side note: Laranthir is higher ranked than Efut in the Vigil, but doesn’t seem to hold position of being liaison. He is treated as makeshift second-in-command during HoT, though.)

The Pact is akin to a Venn Diagram; the circles would be the orders, the overlaps are the Pact.

I don’t recall any captains or lieutenants in the Pact, except when dealing with Seraph entering in. Most NPCs with non-standard Orders rank are just commander. The only “Captain” in the Pact that isn’t clearly of a non-Order that I can find is Captain Gullivre, so I’d be willing to label him an anomaly.

Dear ANet writers,
Stop treating GW2 as a single story. Each Season and expansion should be their own story.

(edited by Konig Des Todes.2086)

Pact Ranks

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Posted by: Aaron Ansari.1604

Aaron Ansari.1604

These are the ones I mean. Not counting the airship/submarine captains, obviously.

R.I.P., Old Man of Auld Red Wharf. Gone but never forgotten.

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Posted by: draxynnic.3719

draxynnic.3719

For the majority, it does seem as if it’s a case of Pact Marshal, than Commanders, then the individual ranks of the orders and other organisations that have contributed to the Pact. There’s a good chance that somewhere there’s an ‘equivalency chart’, that shows what rank equals to what.

The Vigil, I’d imagine, is probably a bit more deeply integrated than the other orders. We see General Soulkeeper behaving as if she herself is a member of the Pact, even operating as acting Marshal after Trahearne’s death. This makes a lot of sense when you think about it – unlike the other orders, which have other goals and only prioritised the dragons when it became clear they were a potentially world-ending threat, the Vigil has been a dragon-fighting organisation from the start.

Regarding the Captains and Lieutenants that Aaron linked to: It’s worth noting that they’re all members of an Order, who presumably would have Order ranks. I’m going into the realm of speculation here, but it’s possible that the Pact needs a means to promote people within the Pact even if the organisation that individual belongs to (be it one of the orders, an allied military organisation, or whatever) does not consider them ready to be promoted. Having their own ranks means that the Pact can thus promote people without stepping on the toes of the order or military they came from.

For instance, if we imagine that the Pact considers a particular Agent to be ready for a greater degree of responsibility, but the Order of Whispers isn’t ready to promote them yet. If we consider that Captain is equivalent to Lightbringer, the Pact cannot promote them to Lightbringer (only the OoW can do that), but can promote them to Captain. This would mean that, in Pact operations, the Captain would have the same rank and responsibility as a Warmaster, Lightbringer, and Magister, but only when acting as part of the Pact. When acting with the Order of Whispers, they’re still a mere Agent (which could be, in part, because they might have got a lot of military experience but may not have the covert operations experience that would be expected of a Lightbringer).

That’s all supposition, though. About all we can probably say with certainty is that Captain is lower than Commander, and Lieutenant is probably lower than Captain.

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People don’t hate Scarlet like Game of Thrones fans hate Joffrey.
They hate her the way Star Wars fans hate Jar Jar Binks.

Pact Ranks

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Posted by: Konig Des Todes.2086

Konig Des Todes.2086

These are the ones I mean. Not counting the airship/submarine captains, obviously.

Lieutenant Mayday is not a member of the Pact – only Vigil were involved in Draconis Mons.

Except for Captain Scott and Lieutenant Morrison, those are all Vigil as well. I believe I’ve seen other clearly-not-Pact Vigil with “standard military ranks” elsewhere. So I think this is just a series of typos on ArenaNet’s part, or there are more Vigil ranks than merely Recruit, Crusader, Warmaster, and Tactician (which, truth be told, makes sense – but would also mean we skipped a few ranks when the PC got promoted from Crusader to Warmaster).

Another possibility, given those are all humans sans Mayday and Horvath, that those are ranks from before they joined the Vigil (such as if they were in the Seraph or the Mist Wars).

Dear ANet writers,
Stop treating GW2 as a single story. Each Season and expansion should be their own story.

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Posted by: Aaron Ansari.1604

Aaron Ansari.1604

A quick browse of the Vigil category on the wiki shows only one captain who’s not clearly linked to the Pact- and he’s still in the context of Vigil coordination with another order.

On Mayday, while it’s not made clear whether she’s Pact or non-Pact Vigil, the fact that about half the Draconis team (although, admittedly, not Mayday herself) use Pact weapons, and that they’re supporting and deferring to our former Pact commander, seems suggestive to me. Add in that she’s sporting a rank we’ve never seen Vigil troops use outside the Pact…

I’m not really sold on the typo argument. Six or seven isn’t a huge sample size, true, but certain patterns (they’re all used by members of one order who are coordinating with another, and they mostly occur outside of the Pact’s main theaters of operation) suggest that there’s some deliberate thought being put into them. My guess is that we’re seeing the result of the Pact needing one order clearly in charge of some operations. If you have a Warmaster and a Magister at an outpost meant for military operations, you’re going to want the Warmaster in charge. And if your outpost is far enough away that it’s not reasonable for that additional authority to derive from Trahearne or one of his commanders, or if there’s been conflict among the ranks that prevents a ‘first among equals’ relationship from working out, giving that Warmaster the rank of Captain might be the best way to solve the issue.

R.I.P., Old Man of Auld Red Wharf. Gone but never forgotten.

(edited by Aaron Ansari.1604)

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Posted by: Konig Des Todes.2086

Konig Des Todes.2086

The issue with that argument is that Commanders exist on three of those fronts – only really lacking in Draconis Mons. We also see one, curiously, in Timberline though.

So there is already that situation of “that additional authority to derive from Trahearne or one of his commanders” being present in those locations.

The existence of such ranks in Timberline Falls, however, makes me think that we’re either seeing typos in Vigil ranks, or standard ranking in the Vigil that’s uncommon. Especially since all Commanders, Captains, and Lieutenants seem to be Vigil with two, Order of Whispers, exceptions.

Dear ANet writers,
Stop treating GW2 as a single story. Each Season and expansion should be their own story.

(edited by Konig Des Todes.2086)