[Jeff Vader]

You will be on watch with one other ship, Alpha 2.  Since this is your first watch, Alpha 2 will be piloted by Lt. Harbison, a seasoned veteran and top-notch pilot.

Hmm.

$Notes:
I am the lizard king.

[Admiral_Stones]

Ah, in this case.

BTW: You stand no chance, for I am the SCORPION KING!

[Jeff Vader]

Seriously. I went back to the top of the mission file in Notepad to check the name of the mission. And I notice that part. What the hell? Is this FS1 humour or Port humour? I'm gonna go through the rest of the missions now.

Edit: K, there are more weird things in the $Notes sections, so I'll just list them here:

btm-02.fs2: "I've got your basic training RIGHT HERE, baby!"

mdu-05.fs2:
This is a FRED created mission.
Really? I thought it was a BOB created mission.
No, I'm pretty sure it's a FRED created mission.
Hmm, I could have sworn it was BOB.  Oh well.

sm1-04a.fs2: "I am the god of beer and fire!"

SM1-07a.fs2: "This is a FRED created mission, and don't you forget it, baby!  "

sm3-06a.fs2: "Sometimes I feel like a nut."

[Gamma_Draconis]

Those quotes look like something that Axem would make in his JAD series. I think they're just humor from the original developers.

[Flaser]

mistake.  Probably to make it easier to create the game.

If FS was more true to life, Admiral Petrarch would be based on 3rd Fleet HQ.  He would give orders to the various ships within the fleet.  The person in charge of the Aquitaine would be a Captain (or perhaps a Commodore, since it's the flagship).  The ubiquitous "Allied Command" would probably be a communications officer aboard the Aquitaine.  Whenever the player changed ships, therefore, the person playing the role of Command would also change -- which means that during the Vasudan missions, Command would probably be a Vasudan.  Under no circumstances would Command give orders to anyone not associated with the Aquitaine -- especially not the Colossus.

Actually that's not so stupid.
What really sets up the confusion IMHO is that we assume, that the person in command of a ship has to be a Captain. Another thing is, that we assume that pilots are the "grunts" of space warfare.

Neither thing could be further from the truth.

On a typical destroyer also acting as a carrier to keep the ship flying you need dozens of maintenance personal, ordenance, avionics experts, probably even phsysicists to keep the subspace engines in operation. These are probably all warrant officers. Beyond them you have marines on board, the actual hands to operate the ship - damage control parties, tech ratings, weapon and sensor operators, handyman to move equipment, and so on and so on...

Thousands of people.

....and a handful (a couple of hundred) true officers. The pilots belong to the later, heck, most of them are lieutenants.

On your average cruiser, the command staff would be mostly made up off lieutenants.
The thousands of cruisers are probably commanded by Captains and Commodore. Given their scarcity Corvettes are likely reserved for the better personal, and therefore are commanded by Commodores exclusively.

Destroyers though are another breed. They are the core of the fleet, what you'd call the "line" in the age of sail. You put your senior officers in charge of that. Given that a destroyer is the heart of most battle-groups you're likely to find an Admiral on-board.

This isn't Earth people! You can't micro-manage your fleets from your arm-chair. You need officers on-site, to make on-site decisions. You likely have system commanders who implement the orders of the chief of naval operations. The later is probably only possible with a relay-network between jump-points that allows light-speed communication between systems.

All of these officers could be what the game addresses as "Command".

One more thing: Admirals usually only give you "command" briefing.
Actual brifings though are held by the CAG.

[admiral_wolf]

Why not communicate with me directly?

[Jeff Vader]

That wouldn't be nearly as fun, now would it?

[Snail]

Why not communicate with me directly?

'Cause you're dead.

[Flaser]

Because the Admiral has to keep the whole battle in mind, coordinate all the ships on the battlefront, he also has to order what the reserve fighters should be refitted with, what weapons to use on what ships; plot manuevers....he already has his hands full.

Recommended reading:
Anything from David Weber (Honoverse, Starfire etc.)

[admiral_wolf]

Why not communicate with me directly?

'Cause you're dead.

Technically, I died in 2335, so I have over 300 years left.

Going back to the subject, at no point in the game do I announce myslef as Admiral Wolf.  The first point in which pilots learn my name is when Ad. Shima reads out my "Obituary" after the Galatea is destroyed.  So it seems to me, that it is just speculation that I give mission briefings to all pilots.

If we had the Taranis mission briefing video, we'd be able to see if it was myself or Polpolion giving the mission briefing.  I have theories for both sides of the arguement.  Either Volition wre trying to save time and cut corners by reusing a previous model for the briefing in the hope no-one would be that eagle-eyed to notice the mistake.  However, with Admirals being concerned with their destroyers/cruisers well-being, I can't see them taking the time to deliver mission briefings to all flight crew such as with Petrach where he delivered briefings to only squadron leaders for the leaders to pass on the objectives relevant to their squadron.

However, where does this leave Shima?  My theory on her is that she made Alpha One a squad leader.  For after all, does she not say:

For this reason, I am assigning Alpha One to lead these missions

So therefore, I am of the opinion that this matter in inconclusive, unless someone can get a clear screenshot of the mission briefing cutscene of the briefers nametag.

[Jeff Vader]

If we had the Taranis mission briefing video, we'd be able to see if it was myself or Polpolion giving the mission briefing.

Hmm. Maybe you were busy leading the ship or something, and Mr. Polpolion was covering for you on the briefing.

[admiral_wolf]

I must have been in the athletics department or on lunch at the time.  Thanks for clearing that up.

[lostllama]

Hmm, right. 'Nuff said then, I suppose.