What is the rank structure for the Mega City 1 judges. I recall Dredd being referred to as "Senior Judge A+" Does anyone have a canon answer? It would make sense to have more that Judge and Senior Judge.
It's never been established really. The reference you mentioned was in Mechanismo: Body Count and it was senior judge grade 1. Each sector house has a sector chief, deputy sector chief, and a couple of watch commanders. Each division (e.g. Psi Div) has a chief and deputy chief. That's about it.
Chief Judge
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Other Judges
That's pretty succient and makes no sense😜👍
Hi Dude. Dash's diagram is actually pretty accurate, give or take a Council Of Five here, a Head of Division there, and a Sector Chief hiding behind the fridge.
John Wagner's explained how pinning down the specifics of Dredd's world, like hand-held lie detectors, causes more problems than it's worth. I'm going to embark on an elaborate flight of fancy and imagine that also applies to things like rankings and organisational structure.
If Day Of Chaos needs to give an army chief a chair in a Council strategy meeting, that's exactly how it works. If the whole Apocalypse War passes without a single member of the military showing face, then there's no army and Justice Department combines the functions of police, army, navy and air force.
Same goes for Block Judges and auxiliaries. Whatever works for an individual story, just as long as it doesn't close down storytelling potential for other writers. Comics are about stories, not flow charts.
Great answer, bur coming from a law enforcement background I find it organisationally Confusing. Also that there is also the example previously stated where Dredd is given some sort of grade or rank. Plus he is constantly referred to as 'sir'. Maybe they have different grades of senior Judge which means there is in fact a rank structure. Its just one that is not immediately noticeable outside of the Justice Dept.
It is the same with commendations, citations and medals. The judges being a quasi religious zealot monk type order don't go in for visible shows of praise, reward or glory. Come to think of it, that's exactly the parallel I would make. They are quite like a knight Templar or Teutonic Order.
That in itself could be a whole other discussion though.🤔
(http://i240.photobucket.com/albums/ff248/burlearth/Judge%20Dredd%20-%20Mega%20Special%200217_zpsau1yfqpw.jpg) (http://s240.photobucket.com/user/burlearth/media/Judge%20Dredd%20-%20Mega%20Special%200217_zpsau1yfqpw.jpg.html)
Thank you. This is an excellent flow chart of the overall areas of command and responsibility, but it still begs the question around supervisory ranks within each area. I do believe there is a further breakdown of responsibility within each.
So Hershey followed the same path* as Theresa May, from being in charge of locking people up to the top job (without being democratically elected). For the sake of my eyesight, let's hope May is never subjected to the kind of blackmail campaign Hershey suffered:
(http://i.imgur.com/04Pg6KC.png?2)
* According to whoever made up that diagram, probably Mike Butcher
Quote from: The dude on 05 March, 2017, 12:39:57 PM
...it still begs the question around supervisory ranks within each area. I do believe there is a further breakdown of responsibility within each.
You've been granted the job of making it up to suit yourself.
You might find something in one of the RPG books, or possibly the e-novels as they expand more on the details, but exactly specifying how rank breaks down hasn't really been that much of a factor in stories.
It can probably be stuck with the space maths of what proportion of the city is industrial/residential/how the economy works.
The rank structure probably doesn't have to be as elaborate as it is in an army or police force, as street judges are basically autonomous. They generally just ride around shooting and arresting people with little or no supervision, so there isn't much need for orders. There's probably a more detailed rank structure among the civilian auxiliaries, but as they're back room staff we rarely see them in stories.
The anomaly Frank points out is easily explained. In the Apocalypse War, Dredd says "the possibility of invasion was never envisaged." So they didn't need or have an army, because they just relied on their nuclear deterrent. After the war they learned their lesson, so by Day of Chaos there was a standing army.
Dude, if you need to scratch that itch the various pen-and-paper RPGs probably offer a more formal rank scheme, non-canonically of course.
We've heard characters described as having 'made Senior', so there definitely is a rank system among slab jockeys, even aside from temporarily assigned positions we have seen such as Council of Five member, Task Force Commander, Watch Commander, Sector Chief and Division Head. My guess would be that a Senior Judge is able to boss other judges around outside of a formal operational structure, take command in a multi-judge situation she encounters - of course we have seen both Dekker and Kraken do just that when they were rookies, but that may be a concession for purposes the assessment. They are also more likely to be assigned the type of commands referenced above: those positions seem to grant authority over other Senior Judges. Gradations within the Senior rank may simply reflect time served, or there may be a specific pecking order we've never seen.
I suspect the real issue (aside from the writer's convenience) in having visible or very explicit ranks (Sergeant, Inspector etc), is that in a world of instant justice on the street, a Judge's word must be absolute: having him be a subordinate in a system undermines that individual authority, reduces him to a cop rather than the embodiment of the Law. A Judge is a Judge.
QuoteA Judge is a Judge.
I'm glad about that actually. "Colonel Dredd" just doesn't quite have the same ring to it.
Quote from: TordelBack on 05 March, 2017, 01:14:39 PM
... a Judge's word must be absolute: having him be a subordinate in a system undermines that individual authority, reduces him to a cop rather than the embodiment of the Law. A Judge is a Judge.
Good point; it's important to remember Hershey's wee fascists are proper judges, rather than cops with a license to kill. Below is a model of the current US federal court system (http://www.ushistory.org/gov/9b.asp), from which MC1's system of instant justice emerged.
Not too many different ranks:
(http://www.ushistory.org/gov/images/00011994.jpg)
... and here's a model of the current US Department of Justice (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Department_of_Justice):
(http://i.imgur.com/npAkPhs.png?1)
Just to muddy things in the Emerald Isle/Murphyville system they do have more obvious ranks, as Joyce was a Judge-Sergeant.
That's to make it look like we know what we're doing.
Hah!
Quote from: Richard on 05 March, 2017, 10:19:57 AM
The reference (the dude) mentioned was in Mechanismo: Body Count and it was senior judge grade 1 ... The anomaly Frank points out is easily explained. In the Apocalypse War, Dredd says "the possibility of invasion was never envisaged." So they didn't need or have an army, because they just relied on their nuclear deterrent. After the war they learned their lesson, so by Day of Chaos there was a standing army
... but not by the time of
Judgement Day,
Inferno, or
Doomsday; all no-shows for the boys in kakhi. Quarter of a century seems like a long time to act on a lesson; it's not as if Chief Judges are constrained by a lot of red tape.
Gulag (http://i.imgur.com/QzekKqs.jpg?1) (1382, March 2004) is the first appearance of the weakly named 'Defence Div', in the person of the better named Votten. It's not a Wagner story, which brings into play the
totally unofficial rule that's so incredibly
disrespectful we're not even allowed to allude to it, as I just did.
But Wagner teamed Dredd with 'defence ... troopers', who wear chest shields, have one eye replaced with an eagle shield - like Ennis & MacNeil's Space Corp - and call each other 'boys' in a way street judges
just don't, during Day Of Chaos (http://i.imgur.com/2Awyc3T.jpg) (1761), so all the dots join up.
Top work locating that reference to Dredd as Grade 1, by the way.
Maybe the first judge on the scene of a crime is senior judge in that particular case, (which may be why rookies get to lead) unless a) they don't have the particular skill set to properly carry out the investigation (eg., psi, tek or med specialities), b) the case connects to an earlier one already under investigation, c) politics or circumstances dictate a more experienced judge take charge, d) the investigating judge cocks it up or gets incapacitated, e) Dredd turns up and takes over because he can...
There's a scene somewhere (I forget in which story but it's by Wagner and Ezquerra) where Dredd turns up and starts giving orders, and another judge says something like "er, sorry sir, but technically I'm the case judge here," and Dredd says "sorry, force of habit, no offence" and the first judge says "quite understandable." (Probably The Pit or Sector House but I can't check now because I'm out.) So they don't automatically pull rank in each other.
I had assumed that rookies were allowed to take over cases because the point is to evaluate how they do, and they've got their assessing judge's authority to back them up.
Hmm, so maybe when a judge attains a certain level of seniority, like Dredd, the majority of cases they're assigned (apart from the run-of-the-mill "I'm in the area, Control, I'll take it," cases) are because the first judge on-scene needs help or back-up or realises it's part of another case with a senior investigator already assigned. That would indicate that if Dredd turns up at a crime scene already under investigation, as you describe, he's used to being sent there to take charge due to his skills and experience - it would be a waste to assign a judge like Dredd to a case/scene just to guard the perimeter or carry out routine door to door questioning (though probably not unheard of; might be interesting to see what would happen if a rookie control judge sent Dredd to stand behind the 'CRIME SCENE - KEEP OUT' tape!).
This was when Dredd was helping his admirer Demaro the asextor Chief.
I always understood there were Judges and, after a set length of time on the street, they became "senior" Judges - basically guys or gals with more experience.
All are autonomous. They answer to their Sector Chief or the Head of their Division, who in turn answer to the Council of Five, who in turn answer to the Chief Judge.
How can this be? Who decides what is needed and what is right? The Judges to, each of them themself, knowing The Law and what is best for the city. Dredd exemplifies this.
And if you cross the line then the SJS come for you.
Quote from: The Enigmatic Dr X on 05 March, 2017, 08:34:38 PM
I always understood there were Judges and, after a set length of time on the street, they became "senior" Judges - basically guys or gals with more experience.
All are autonomous. They answer to their Sector Chief or the Head of their Division, who in turn answer to the Council of Five, who in turn answer to the Chief Judge.
How can this be? Who decides what is needed and what is right? The Judges do, each of them knowing The Law and what is best for the city. Dredd exemplifies this.
And if you cross the line then the SJS come for you.
Absolutely all of that, although you never really get the impression Dredd answers to a sector chief or even the head of Street Division. His relationship is always with the Chief Judge.
THE PROPER RANK STRUCTURE IN THE MC 1 JUSTICE DEPT.:
Judge Dredd (he is the law)
l
Everybody Else
A cheeky response, but Dredd is top dog and seems to have authority outside of the established hierarchy. Where I am currently reading (just finished CF#20) it appears that whatever actions Dredd takes is the law and everyone else comes second. He constantly tells off Chief Judge Mcgruder (especially over Mechanismo etc.) and she takes it because he is Dredd (with all his authority and experiences). I'm not sure if he has had this relationship with Chief Judges since. He occasionally tells off the SJS and overthrew Judge Cal (justifiably). Regardless of the established structure Dredd is the law...
Brilliant comment!!!!!!!!
Quote from: Rogue Judge on 05 March, 2017, 09:50:40 PM
THE PROPER RANK STRUCTURE IN THE MC 1 JUSTICE DEPT.:
Judge Dredd (he is the law)
l
Everybody Else
A cheeky response, but Dredd is top dog and seems to have authority outside of the established hierarchy. Where I am currently reading (just finished CF#20) it appears that whatever actions Dredd takes is the law and everyone else comes second. He constantly tells off Chief Judge Mcgruder (especially over Mechanismo etc.) and she takes it because he is Dredd (with all his authority and experiences). I'm not sure if he has had this relationship with Chief Judges since. He occasionally tells off the SJS and overthrew Judge Cal (justifiably). Regardless of the established structure Dredd is the law...
I strongly disagree. He calls them on not following the law.
Quote from: The Enigmatic Dr X on 05 March, 2017, 11:40:11 PM
I strongly disagree. He calls them on not following the law.
Disagree with which? As said, I was being a little cheeky; Dredd does not act outside the
established law but seems to act outside the
established hierarchy (as demonstrated, when necessary).
When challenging Chief Judge Mcgruder (who is in authority over him) about Mechanismo, he was calling her out for the potential dangers and ethics of a robot judge, not necessarily the legality of the issue.
Rogue has a point.
Besides, even if he didn't have a point he'd just be living up to his name.
We know there are some levels of ranks - senior Street Judge as opposed to just a Street Judge, for example - but how do the Judges tell each others ranks when they meet?
It's quite easy with the upper hierarchy, given their thing for enormous badge-shaped chest shields and elaborate eagle motifs. You can also spot rookies and specialists (Psi, Tek, Medical, etc) by their uniforms and badges, but if regular Judge A arrives at a crime scene and sees regular Judge B there, is there anything on their uniform that serves the role of pips and stripes and tells A where he stands with B? More feathers on the eagle shoulder pad? An extra star on the name badge?
Quote from: Frank on 05 March, 2017, 03:16:32 PM
Gulag (http://i.imgur.com/QzekKqs.jpg?1) (1382, March 2004) is the first appearance of the weakly named 'Defence Div', in the person of the better named Votten. It's not a Wagner story, which brings into play the totally unofficial rule that's so incredibly disrespectful we're not even allowed to allude to it, as I just did.
Conscious choice of name?
I'll write them in,
and call their leader Votten.
'Cos after this story,
they'll be forgotten.
Quote from: Dash Decent on 06 March, 2017, 02:33:08 AM
if regular Judge A arrives at a crime scene and sees regular Judge B there, is there anything on their uniform that serves the role of pips and stripes and tells A where he stands with B? More feathers on the eagle shoulder pad? An extra star on the name badge?
Chin size.
Quote from: Rogue Judge on 05 March, 2017, 09:50:40 PM
THE PROPER RANK STRUCTURE IN THE MC 1 JUSTICE DEPT.:
Judge Dredd (he is the law)
l
Everybody Else
A cheeky response, but Dredd is top dog and seems to have authority outside of the established hierarchy. Where I am currently reading (just finished CF#20) it appears that whatever actions Dredd takes is the law and everyone else comes second. He constantly tells off Chief Judge Mcgruder (especially over Mechanismo etc.) and she takes it because he is Dredd (with all his authority and experiences). I'm not sure if he has had this relationship with Chief Judges since. He occasionally tells off the SJS and overthrew Judge Cal (justifiably). Regardless of the established structure Dredd is the law...
I always thought this evolved fairly naturally across the first 250 or so progs - Dredd starts out as one of the best street Judges, after he defeats Cal everyone knows he should be the next Chief Judge but he says no, by the time of the Judge Child it's like "anyone else we'd ignore but it's Dredd and what he says goes" and after he wins the Apocalypse War he's built up so much cred that the Chief Judge basically rules by his permission.
That's why it was really interesting around Tour of Duty when you started to get Judges who didn't see why Dredd deserved his special treatment: "sure, you saved the city a bunch of times, but what have you done for us lately?"
Quote from: Dash Decent on 06 March, 2017, 02:33:08 AM
... is there anything on their uniform that serves the role of pips and stripes and tells A where he stands with B? More feathers on the eagle shoulder pad? An extra star on the name badge?
The over worked and under paid art droids of the Nerve Centre welcome this new opportunity for readers to point out minor errors and omissions in their work.
There's no hard and fast rule about who gets two left shoulder pads instead of an eagle, and every artist draws Tek and Med judges
completely different. Then there's that shield Anderson was sporting on her eagle, last time out ...
Quote from: Frank on 06 March, 2017, 07:17:41 AM
Quote from: Dash Decent on 06 March, 2017, 02:33:08 AM
... is there anything on their uniform that serves the role of pips and stripes and tells A where he stands with B? More feathers on the eagle shoulder pad? An extra star on the name badge?
The over worked and under paid art droids of the Nerve Centre welcome this new opportunity for readers to point out minor errors and omissions in their work.
One / a few of the art droids drew stars on the non-Eagle shoulder pad in the early days, though I'm not sure there was any consistency or if it
meant anything.
The correct answer to rank is number of links on the chain. Senior Judges have seven, not so sure about others ;)
I guessed that the stars on the pad was just carrying on the motif on the badge/buckle.
Also helps that the plain pad has bars, so it's stars and stripes.
On the Stallone film, sure I read somewhere that the three stars on the respirator badge relate to the 3 cities.
Maybe their helmets wi-fi their ranks to each other.
Given that this is the future, you'd imagine their equipment would relay relevant information their way.
I was going to mention chain links and their bikes radioing ID signals to each other. I wish I had now! The Lawgiver is another possibility, given it's already doing some kind of ID check on whoever pulls the trigger.
The technological angle makes even more sense when you consider how much of the uniform is obscured by their rain ponchos/rad cloaks, though you'd think they'd want something physically on the uniform in case you lose your helmet/gun/Lawmaster/whatever else it is that signals.
Dredd being "faceless" to illustrate impersonal law may be a clue - maybe street judges look the same to the citizenry for the same reason; rank < law.
And if you lose your helmet/gun/lawmaster/whatever - that's an automatic demotion!
Hmmm... The Judges just all seem to know each other. That was fine when there were only seven of them ( or there abouts). Not sure how that works now.
But the strip had never been big on explaining much about how stuff in the Mega Cities' world works either. Take technology. No "dilithum crystal powered warp drive" explanation has ever been given for Justice One etc.
But frankly, it's not necessary. When you only have 6 pages you don't have time for this fluff... It just gets on with the story instead.
JMS, when asked how fast spaceships go in the B5 Universe replied, "They travel at the speed of plot." I guess a similar answer applies here, judges are ranked according to plot.
Quote from: Magnetica on 06 March, 2017, 12:31:00 PM
Hmmm... The Judges just all seem to know each other.
Well they did all go to the same school...
Exactly what TLS said. I was thinking exactly that... came up a couple of years ago when someone asked how far out from Earth the ship got in Dark Justice and how fast Dredd had to travel to reach them. Answer = as fast as the plot required.
Yep, things like the unarmed sub-light Dark Justice colonising expedition make little sense when you think about the speed of travel we've seen in Judge Child, Dead Ringer etc, and the colonial wars and hostile aliens we've seen in the Dredd strip and spin-offs. I'm happy to rationalise it as the luxury indulgence of the super rich wanting to get the hell out of their cemetery of a city in utopian even pastoral comfort, a sort of mobile version of Condo rather than a serious project, but 'speed of plot' covers it too.
Quote from: Magnetica on 06 March, 2017, 12:31:00 PM
Hmmm... The Judges just all seem to know each other. That was fine when there were only seven of them ( or there abouts). Not sure how that works now.
Name badges help, I'm sure.
It's not in the writers' interest to add too much of this sort of detail, as it can tie their hands in later stories (or, more likely, lead to continuity discrepancies to enrage us and prompt outraged debate on this forum). This may have been said already, but just in case it hasn't.
Damn, been off the forum for a couple of weeks. I go with the idea that there is a Chief Judge ; heads of divisions; Sector House chiefs and below that just Street Judges in a fairly autonomous, self sufficient working environment.
Why would you need anything but the rudiments of a command structure when you spend 20 odd years indoctrinating and training an 'induvidual' to become a justice dispensing machine.
A light hand of control is all that would be necessary or prudent (too much oversight negates the philosophical essence behind creating an independent self sufficient entity consisting of a Judge, Jury. Policeman and paramilitary) you would blunt their ability to act independenty.
SJS weed out the bad ones full stop.
The term Senior Judge us just that a Judge who through particular skill sets or length of experience is cranked one notch above the general street judges. Z
Quote from: ZenArcade on 11 March, 2017, 10:38:20 AM
The term Senior Judge is just that - a Judge who, through particular skill sets or length of experience, is cranked one notch above the general street judges.
I'd have thought it was mostly due to length of service, but this seems to suggest otherwise. The usual proviso of
'they're just making this up as they go along' applies:
(http://i.imgur.com/3etVO8y.png?4)
Academy Class Final Position + Length of Service + (Arrests Made / Ongoing Proficiency Assessment Score) X WAGNER = Rank.