Editing Elven Imperial Fleet (section)

==Hierarchy==
Despite its grandiose name, the EIF is not really a singular organization, but rather an alliance of the individual fleets maintained by the different spelljamming elven nations scattered throughout Wildspace, each of which patrols its own Crystal Sphere and maybe those parts of [[Wildspace]] and the [[Phlogiston]] within easy reach. As a result, the EIF suffers from a terribly byzantine bureaucracy and horrible internal communication, which means that even the EIF isn't entirely sure of how many damn ships it has or where they're all stationed!

Ultimate authority lies with the Grand Admiral, who during the time of 2nd edition as also the Admiral of the Evermeet Fleet, governing [[Forgotten Realms|Realmspace]]. The Grand Admiral is assisted by the Council of Admirals, or "The Cabinet", which in 2e consisted of eleven admirals in total, most of whom were quite ancient. The Cabinet oversees the Fleet from the mobile space station Lionheart, which is frequently moved throughout Wildspace. Individual fleets center around their own space stations.

Below the Cabinet are the Bench (the judicial branch) and the Accounting Services, which don't hold true power of command but are crucial to maintaining the structure of the EIF as a whole.

From there, the fleet starts getting more individualistic. The highest individual muckety-muck is, of course, the Fleet Admiral, who has dominion over all Captains in a given portion of Wildspace. Normally, a single Fleet Admiral controls a single Crystal Sphere, but in areas or times when the EIF is spread particularly thin, command over a given Sphere may be given to a single Captain. Both Admirals and Captains have complete command over their own personal spelljammers, and are largely left to their own devices outside of periodic check-ins with the higher-ups (their Admiral for a Captain, the Council of Admirals for a Fleet Admiral). To show their rank, an admiral wears silvered platemail, black boots with a speckled "starburst" design, black silk gloves, and a black tabard bearing the navy's insignia against a starfield design.

On a given EIF ship, the internal hierarchy flows thus:
::Captain	
::First mate	
::Navigator/helmsman 1st class	
::Cleric/medic/priest 1st class	
::Quartermaster	
::Battlepoet 1st class	
::Cleric/medic/priest 2nd class	
::Navigator/helmsman 2nd class	
::Battlepoet 2nd class	
::Weapons sergeant	
::Rigging sergeant	
::Battlepoet 3rd class	
::Cleric/medic/priest 3rd class	
::Navigator/helmsman 3rd class	
::Cleric/medic/priest 4th class	
::Crew chief (weapons aimer)	
::Crewman

Crew with a rank of 3rd class generally were in their first through twelfth year with the Navy. An exception were clerics, who started as 4th class and had to serve on average for more than a dozen years before promotion to 3rd class. The rank of sergeant was not attained until beyond one's 20th year. Most 2nd class crewmen had served between thirteen and 30 years. Again, for clerics, it took longer, typically at least 30 years, to reach the rank of 2nd class. First class was achieved after at least 40 years—or 61 years in the case of clerics. The quartermaster held the equivalent of a 1st class rank. There was fierce competition for these positions in the Navy. Applicants made appeals to specific commanders for promotion, who had full power to accept or reject.