Fleet admiral

Multiple realities
(covers information from several alternate timelines)

Warning! This page contains information regarding Star Trek: Discovery, and thus may contain spoilers.

Fleet admiral insignia
Type:

Fleet admiral was a military rank, the equivalent of which was used by the service organizations of many civilizations. As a traditional grade, fleet admiral was the most senior flag officer rank of a naval organization, above all the flag admiral grades save for commander-in-chief.

In Starfleet, fleet admiral existed as a separate rank, but was also used as a title awarded and referring to officers wearing insignia of vice admiral or admiral, such as Fleet Admiral Shanthi. (TNG: "Redemption II")

In these situations when an officer referred to an admiral as "fleet admiral" they could simply have been calling them fleet admiral because they were acting as the head of a fleet. Field promotion is another possibility.

While decorating to entertain Khan Noonien Singh aboard the USS Enterprise in 2267, Leonard McCoy commented that the ship must be expecting a fleet admiral for dinner. (TOS: "Space Seed")

Fleet admirals

Klingon Defense Forces

• Krell, a Klingon admiral

Starfleet

The following admirals wore the insignia for the fleet admiral rank:

• Commander in chief named Bill
• Chief of staff named Bob
• Cartwright
• Kirsten Clancy, commander in chief
• Alexander Marcus (alternate reality)
• Morrow, Commander, Starfleet
• Charles Vance, commander in chief

The following admirals were referred to as fleet admirals but wore the rank insignia for vice admiral:

• Brackett
• Alynna Nechayev
• Shanthi

Mirror Starfleet

• Gardner

Gardner was fleet admiral in title, but his insignia were not clearly specified as signifying his grade.

This chart shows only general equivalencies based on the ranks used by many governments on Earth, as well as the rest of the galaxy.

Appendices

Background information

First mentioned in TOS: "Space Seed", the first fleet admiral seen on screen was Fleet Admiral Morrow in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock.

Robert Blackman's production notes during Star Trek: The Next Generation described this rank as "5 Starfleet Admiral, gold framed bar w/5 dots." [1]^(X)

The Star Trek Encyclopedia (3rd ed., p. 210-211) labeled this rank as "fleet admiral" referring to the late 2270's-2350's uniforms, and "fleet admiral, five star" referring to its use on 2350s-2370s, late 2360s-early 2370s, and 2370s uniforms.

Star Trek: The Magazine Volume 2, Issue 10, p. 99, mistakenly identified the late 2270's-2350's admiral insignia as the fleet admiral insignia.

A deleted scene from TNG: "The Inner Light" would have established a Fleet Admiral Gustafson who was at the time assigned to Starbase 218.

External links

• Fleet admiral at Memory Beta, the wiki for licensed Star Trek works
• Fleet admiral at Wikipedia