Brigadier or Brigadier General was a high commissioned rank in some military organizations, typically a junior or quasi General rank, senior to a Colonel but below a Major General. Officers with the rank of Brigadier did not necessarily command Brigades, but brigade commanders could have been referred to as "brigadiers," even if they held a different rank.
Brigadier General Nevar, Imperial Army
The earliest direct evidence for the rank of Brigadier dates from around the time of the Clone Wars, when it was borne by officers like Locus Geen, who led ground forces during the Coruscant Insurrection, and Gideon Tarkin, a member of a military family from Eriadu whose brother Wilhuff later became the feared Imperial Grand Moff of the Outland Regions. Little is known of the exact significance of the rank of Brigadier at this time, but it seems that it was confined to the non-clone units which came to augment the original Grand Army of the Republic over the course of the war, and Brigadier Tarkin was recorded as already holding his rank on his homeworld shortly before the Military Creation Act, making it probable (though not quite certain) that a rank of Brigadier was already in use with locally-based military forces within Republic space before the outbreak of the war.
Under the Empire, there were very few references to a rank of Brigadier, with the position of High Colonel being somewhat analogous. However, there was at least one individual who held this title, Brigadier Nevar, who was aboard the AT-AT walker Blizzard 2 at the Battle of Hoth, and was apparently assassinated shortly before it was destroyed by the snowspeeders of the Rebel Alliance.
In the New Republic, the rank of Brigadier was used within the military-style rank hierarchy of New Republic Intelligence, even though NRI was not known to have contained units designated as Brigades, or indeed to have had any higher hierarchy of general ranks. Brigadiers in Intelligence included Collomus, Colin Darkmere, and former front-line soldier Bren Derlin.
The Dornean naval commander Etahn A'baht was said to have held a rank of "Brigadier General" in New Republic service in 26 ABY, being addressed as "General A'baht" or "General". A'baht had long been known for using army-style general ranks in the manner of his own Dornean Navy rather than the standard flag ranks of the Fleet, but his status as "General" during the Black Fleet Crisis of 16-17 ABY was explicitly equivalent to that of an Admiral at the time, and as such, he outranked Admiral Tolokus, one of his task force commanders during the campaign.
In the real world, "Brigadier" and "Brigadier General" are equivalent ranks in the British and American armed forces. In the UK and other countries where the shorter "Brigadier" rank is used, officers of this rank are not regarded as true general officers, although their substantive rank is equivalent. Other variations on these ranks have existed historically and internationally; in the eighteenth and earlier nineteenth centuries, a "brigadier" in the British Army was simply a brigade commander, ranking either as a Lieutenant Colonel or a Major General, and in some South American air forces, a unique system is used whereby all general/flag ranks are variations on "Brigadier".
In particular, the Argentine Air Force rank of Brigadier-General, equivalent to a Lieutenant General or full General in the US Air Force, may provide a possible explanation for two confusing references in James Luceno's Agents of Chaos duology, alluded to above, where General Etahn A'baht's full rank is given as "Brigadier General".
All other explicit references to Brigadier ranks in Star Wars appear to use "Brigadier" rather than "Brigadier General", which according to real world usage, would suggest a senior field rank rather than a junior grade of general. However, Brigadier Locus Geen is called a "General" in The Dark Forces Saga online game scenario, [1] and the Imperial officer identified as "Brig. Nevar" in the book Inside the Worlds of Star Wars Trilogy—apparently the only reference to a "Brigadier" in the Imperial military—had originally been named as "General Nevar" in the Star Wars Customizable Card Game.
- Dark Empire Sourcebook
- Cracken's Rebel Operatives
- Inside the Worlds of Star Wars Trilogy
- Star Wars Galaxies: The Total Experience: Prima Official Game Guide
- Star Wars: Complete Locations
- Knights of the Old Republic Campaign Guide
- Galaxy of Intrigue