This document, the Imperial Academy Staff Handbook, is primarily directed toward staff members of the
Imperial Academy (an institution of The Galactic Empire). Its purpose is to provide the staff
(and prospective staff members, including Course Writers) with detailed information regarding the background,
organization, structure, policies, and other facets of the Imperial Academy.
Please note that this Handbook is not required reading for Cadets... Although de-classified to the Imperial
Citizenry for public viewing, its contents are vital only to Imperial Academy Staff Members; others may review at their
leisure.
The Imperial Academy exists to improve the quality of The Galactic Empire by providing useful education to
its members. In this, it serves a twofold function:
- I. INDOCTRINATION & TRAINING OF NEW RECRUITS
- The Imperial Academy prepares all new recruits for service as full officers of The Galactic Empire. After an
Imperial citizen's application to the GE has been approved, they become a Cadet, and are stationed at the Academy's
training facilities until they complete their training. This mandatory training involves proving ownership of their
"Primary Game Platform" by submitting a screenshot from within the game. After completing this proof of ownership,
a recruit has been deemed qualified to be instated into a Division of The Galactic Empire with status as a
"full member" (officer). During the training phase, any questions or concerns cadets may have are directed
towards their respective Dean and/or the Commandant.
Imperial Academy staff members must be selected with great care... The first impressions, experiences, and outlooks
a member gains toward the GE are gained at the Academy, and may significantly shape their future as an officer of the
Empire.
- II. REGULAR COURSES / OFFICER CERTIFICATIONS
- The Imperial Academy not only deals with new recruits, but its numerous volunteer professors serve to improve the
quality of the existing GE membership via offering "regular courses", which provide advanced certifications in
various areas. This is based on the belief that lack of information should never be a hindrance to participation...
Thus, it is projected that members wishing to know how to better use IRC, properly design a TIE Fighter mission,
or get some tips on improving their flight skills, to name a few examples, will be able to obtain such instruction
at the Academy.
Although there will be occasional examples of regular courses which are mandatory in specific circumstances,
they are, for most intents and purposes, voluntary. In this function, the main aim of the Academy is to
provide instruction to those wishing to expand their horizons, not to become the force-fed "school" of the
Empire.
The Basic Combat Certification courses are required if one wants to be eligible for promotion past the preliminary
rank of Cadet or Private Second Class. The Basic Combat Certifications are themselves "regular courses", and
additional Basic Combat Certifications may be achieved by working officers. All Academy courses are available
to all officers in active service, regardless of whether or not the course is strictly applicable to the
officer's position or function.
The organizational structure of the Imperial Academy consists of positions at five different levels:
Commandant, Prefect, Dean, Professor, and Course Writer.
NOTE: All personnel employed by the Academy report directly to the office of the
Commandant (and/or Prefect, if so instructed by the Commandant or this document). Although Dean is a more
prestigious title than Professor, these individuals are neither superior or subordinate to each other by virtue
of their Academy titles alone. Also note that although these five titles carry levels of authority within the Academy
itself, overall seniority in The Galactic Empire as a whole is still (as always) determined by one's rank.
- COMMANDANT
- Commandant is a High Command position, and always held on a full-time basis by an Imperial officer.
It dictates a minimum rank of Commodore for the holder, who may be promoted to the Admiralty after a
sufficiently long and distinguished term of service.
Unless overridden by the Supreme Commander, the Commandant has jurisdiction over all Academy matters, and
oversees all Academy operations (much as a Division Commander does for their division), which include the
following:
- Collects regular updates from and keeps in contact with all Imperial Academy staff.
- Submits weekly status reports to the Supreme Commander.
- Maintains core sections of the Imperial Academy website.
- Appoints/removes various other Imperial Academy staff as necessary.
- Personally oversees training of all Imperial Navy cadets.
- Maintains the Imperial Academy Cadet Roster.
- Gives review to Imperial Academy course proposals.
- PREFECT
- The Prefect is a naval officer who may range in rank from Lieutenant to full Captain, and serves
as primary assistant to the Commandant.
The Prefect is much more than a standard "aide", and considered to be the official second-in-command of the
Imperial Academy, speaking with the authority of the Commandant when acting on his or her behalf, and
assuming the Commandant's responsibilities in his or her absence.
The Prefect's main responsibilities are determined by the Commandant, who defines the majority of the Prefect's
duties as circumstances require.
- DEAN
- A Dean is an individual who oversees training of all new recruits for a single division of the Galactic Empire.
They typically belong to the division which they train recruits for, and are appointed by the Commandant.
Deans must be individuals with good work habits. For the Division to which they belong, they are expected to contact
ALL new cadets, instruct said cadets, answer questions & concerns from the same, and attempt to ensure high
graduation rates. Deans must keep consistent contact with the Commandant, as well as with the Cadets within their
Division.
It is important to note that the position of Dean was created simply as a title to reinforce that all cadets are
being trained at Imperial Academy facilities, regardless of their intended Division, and is always part-time. Thus,
an officer is never required to resign other positions to become a Dean. The position of Dean has no rank attached
to it; an individual's rank within the GE will be the sole result of their "full-time" position.
The Commandant is responsible for appointing and ensuring the activity of a Dean, and the Dean is
responsible to the orders of the Commandant regarding training matters. In all other matters, however,
the Dean answers to his or her normal chain of command.
- PROFESSOR
- A Professor is a GE Member who has taken upon themselves the responsibility to teach one or more courses at the
Academy. Teaching a course includes grading the course tests, as well as answering any questions students or the
general populace may have in regards to the course.
When a student completes a course, the Professor is expected to submit a graduation notice to the graduate and
Imperial Academy Prefect, CCed to the Imperial Academy Commandant. The notice should contain the graduate's
ID-Line, e-mail address, and score (if applicable), so as to enable the Prefect to register the course completion
onto the graduate's Officer Profile.
The position of Professor is always part-time, which means that an officer is never required to resign other
positions to become a Professor of one or several courses. However, the position of Professor has no rank attached
to it; an individual's rank within the GE will be the sole result of their "full-time" position.
- COURSE WRITER
- The position of "Course Writer" is a title to denote that an individual has developed, or is in the process
of developing, an official Imperial Academy course. A course's Course Writer will often additionally become its first
Professor, but this is not always the case.
To ensure the utmost of quality and applicability, the Imperial Academy has a formal Course Review and Approval
process for additional courses, as follows:
STEP 1: Any individual who wishes to write a course for the Imperial Academy e-mails a course proposal
to the Commandant, containing a basic outline of the intended course.
STEP 2: The Commandant reviews the course proposal and decides whether or not the said course would be
applicable and beneficial to GE members. If so, the Commandant also formulates a list of necessary additional
guidelines for the Course Writer. (E.G.- If someone were to write an IRC course, an "additional guideline" might be
that the course must be written around the mIRC IRC client. Because the GE openly supports mIRC, a course centring
around a different client would actually be a detriment.) Assuming approval, the Commandant informs the individual who
proposed the course that they have become an approved Course Writer, and relays to them any guidelines put forth by
him- or herself.
STEP 3: Once an individual becomes an approved Course Writer, they may begin constructing the course.
Courses should be constructed in two parts, according to the following guidelines...
- STUDY MATERIALS
-- The instructional material of the course, to be constructed within the following
parameters...
- Must contain all necessary data for a student to be able to fully complete the course exam, or clearly define
where such data may be located.
- Must be compiled in one of four formats:
- A WordPad (.doc) Document.
- An HTML document.
- A single PC-format text (.txt) file.
- A PDF File (.pdf)
- COURSE EXAM
-- Students of all courses -- unless otherwise noted in response to a course proposal
-- must be evaluated with an exam, to be constructed within the following parameters...
- The majority of the exam must be able to be completed via written answers.
- The written section of the exam should generally be in the form of an .html file that a student will access for
a respective course, enter their answers, and e-mail to the appropriate professor through a "submit" button located
on the page. However, should the course writier be unfamiliar or uncomfortable with HTML, the written section can
be submitted in the form of a written document.
- Should the written section be submitted in some form other than HTML, it should generally be compiled in one of
two formats:
- A single PC-format text (.txt) file.
- A WordPad (.doc) Document. (Word 6.0/9x format only)
- The written section of the exam must be primarily composed of questions with a definite "right or wrong"
answer, as an "answer key" must be submitted for review along with the exam.
- Open ended questions (questions which students may answer creatively and are marked various amounts
based on quality of answer) may not exceed 15% of an exam's total worth.
- Non-written sections (such as the creation of a simple mission for a mission building course) may be included
in the exam, and may not exceed 50% of its total worth.
- Each question in the exam should state how many marks it is worth. For ease of calculating student grades in
percentages, the total number of marks should be evenly divisible by 100. (i.e.- 5, 10, 20, 25)
- Course Exams may of course credit the course writer, but should not specify to whom the completed exam
should be submitted for grading, even if the Course Writer is also the initial Professor. This data is kept updated
in the section of the Imperial Academy website from which the courses are downloaded.
STEP 4: The Course Writer archives the course study materials, exam, and "answer key" into a single
ZIP file and submits it to the Commandant for review.
STEP 5: The Commandant does a quality-check, ensures that all of the above guidelines are met, and
ensures that all additional requirements have been met. If they have not, the Commandant proceeds to work with the
Course Writer until the course matches GE standards.
STEP 6: When the Commandant deems that a given course is up to GE standards, s/he makes the course's
ZIP file available via the WWW. The Commandant shall subsequently list the new course on the Course Selection page of
the Imperial Academy website.
Individuals wishing to modify the contents of a course after it is published to the GE membership may do so upon
having such modifications approved by the Commandant.
The following is an outline of the "standardised" Indoctrination & Training process, that is, the process
through which an Imperial citizen will become a fully-instated officer of The Galactic Empire. This process is
generally applied to all publicly-recruiting Divisions, however there may be notable exceptions made (as was with the
GE's now-defunct NCO Corps, for which there were no "cadets").
- An Imperial citizen applies for entrance into a Division of The Galactic Empire via the Imperial Academy's
Recruiting Office. Subsequently, the Empire Reborn's HoloSite generates:
- an e-mail of confirmation to the applicant from the Supreme Commander
- an e-mail of notice, containing the applicant's submitted data, to appropriate Divisional and Imperial
Academy personnel
- The Commandant reviews the application via the Imperial Academy Administration Center, and
"processes" it with approval or denial.
Approving an application adds the applicant to the appropriate Cadet Roster, and issues them an e-mail of welcome to
the Imperial Academy. This formal welcome letter appears to originate from the Commandant, includes the cadet's new
ID-Line, directs the cadet to their training materials, and is CCed to appropriate Divisional & Imperial Academy
personnel.
The facility also exists to delete an application at this stage in the process if it is invalid. The most common reason
for an invalid application is an overly-common Star Wars name, or a name including ranks/titles. Ranks or titles of
any kind (Mr., Dr., Admiral, Moff, Darth) may simply be stripped off before processing the application. If the
name given is overly common to Star Wars, however, a new one must be obtained. Variations on names of less-prominent
Star Wars characters, such as Fel, Dash, or Horn would be acceptable, however the fuller Baron Fel, Dash Rendar, or
Corran Horn would not. Usage of the most prominent Star Wars names -- such as Skywalker, Palpatine, Thrawn, Tarkin,
etc. -- is disallowed. Note, however, that there is no rule governing common GE or "real-life" names: ten officers
may join under the name "John", if they so desire. Names which are profane, abusive, or contradict the good reputation
of the GE are also disallowed.
The second most common reason for an invalid application is an incorrectly formatted e-mail address. At times,
applicants who use online services may leave spaces in their e-mail address (Screen Name@aol.com ->
ScreenName@aol.com) or have hastily mis-spelled or ommitted sections such that it is obvious what the correct address
should be (UserName@hotmail -> UserName@hotmail.com). In these cases, the address may simply be manually corrected
before processing the form.
Regardless of the reason for which an application is denied, the applicant should always be e-mailed to inform them of
the reason, and what correctional information they should submit in order to process their application. Exceptions to
issuing this courtesy reply include "prank" applications, and applications wherein the entered e-mail address is
entirely invalid, thus leaving no means of contacting the applicant.
- Assuming the application was approved, the cadet reviews the training materials at the Imperial Academy Training
Centre, and sends the Commandant a screenshot or "savegame" in accordance with them.
- The Commandant reviews the screenshot/savegame. If completion of the necessary requirements is confirmed, s/he
updates the cadet roster to show completion of training, and a graduation notice will be issued to the cadet and
CCed to the Commandant, the Division Commander, and the Supreme Commander.
- The Division Commander of the cadet's selected Division (or other official, as appropriate) utilises their
Division's administration centre to promote the graduated cadet into their Division. Subsequently, an e-mail is sent
with the new officer's membership data to commanding officers (as appropriate), and deletes the cadet from the cadet
roster. It is the duty of the individual promoting the cadet to additionally issue them a formal letter of welcome
into the Division, containing the former cadet's new ID-Line, stationing details, and other information as conforming
to the protocols of the particular Division.