“Yeah. That’d work,” Ashton agreed. “Maybe all we really need to do there is to work out what divisions we actually need, have one person over each division, and that one person reporting to you.”
“I like it,” Carter averred. “We’d need a section layer on top of that, but I don’t think much more than that. Plus, the section layer sort of comes ‘in addition to,’ and most of the Headquarters people wouldn’t be involved with most of the section leads. At all. And it sorta fits what the Emperor’s doing overall, too.”
“Yeah, it does, and they wouldn’t,” Ames decided. “If Nick and I can help you brainstorm what the divisions need to be, just yell. I think we can manage that, at least.”
“Yup,” Ashton agreed. “Is this gonna filter down through the other sectors an’ districts and planets an’ shit? We talked about that a couple times, but you didn’t have an answer to it yet…”
“Eventually, yes,” Carter decreed. “When I went in to interview with the Emperor and the Consul, they were interested in having the sector police chiefs report to me, ultimately. I mean, that’s one of the five sections – you know, planetary, provincial, sector, Empire, Imperial City. And most of those are already pretty well straight, not corrupt, and any that are corrupt are more likely to be at the planetary level, which is gonna be much easier to fix, in the long run. Honestly? It’s really Headquarters we’re most concerned with at this point, because that was the festering swamp of snakes that needed destroying.”
“Okay, so we have a team right here to help you lay out the divisions, and the division heads would report to you,” Peterson said. “What else, Lee?”
“Nomenclature,” Carter said. “We had a big ol’ talk about that, the Emperor, the Consul, and me. The old IPD was seriously deep into ranks, like military-style ranks. We want something much less militaristic for the ‘new, improved IPD.’ Otherwise people get to thinking they are a military, both inside the organization and out. And that goes in a direction we flatly don’t want.”
“Ooo,” Peterson hummed. “There’s a notion. But how are you gonna designate things like rank otherwise? I mean, Nick’s a detective, and the investigators report to him, and he’s the acting Investigations lead…”
“He’s not just the acting Investigations lead right now,” Ames noted. “He’s been having to help run the group of beat cops, too.”
“Shit,” Peterson grumbled.
“Oh? I hadn’t heard about that,” Carter said, raising an eyebrow in surprise. “I appreciate the effort, but don’t let yourself get overloaded, Nick.”
“Eh, it’s okay. I just advise a little, here and there,” Ashton murmured. “They don’t have an actual lead yet, and their most experienced ‘non-old-guard’ cop is still a little wet behind the ears. There’s a few cops in there with some rank on ‘em, but as a group, they seem kinda disorganized. The ranking guys are ‘old-guard,’ and they haven’t been beat cops in some few years, and they aren’t helping the beat cops figure things out. Those guys are a little too stand-offish, I think.” He shrugged. “All the really experienced street cops got taken out in the retaliation by the Emperor. And frankly, should have been, I think.”
“I have to agree with you on that, son,” Carter affirmed. “On all of it. But I didn’t know you were helping out with that, too. I need to get on top of that.”
“Eh. Like I said, Lee, just advising. Take your time. It’s no big deal. I think we have it under control, at least for the time being. If you could concentrate on getting someone to transfer in that has some experience at organizing beat cops, it’d help, though. Some days, it feels like herding cats.”
Carter nodded. “Okeydoke. Hang on a sec; I’m making a note to myself in VR to do that very thing,” he said then. When he came up for air, the conversation resumed.
“Okay, so how are we gonna do this, then?” Peterson wondered.
“Well, for starters, I’m not Chief Carter, I’m not General Carter, I’m the Director,” Carter said. “Director Carter now heads up the IPD. And that’ll make a big difference, right there. What I need now is to come up with the seniority levels – we’re not even gonna call ‘em ranks – for everybody else. Hopefully some of the rest of it will fall out in the process.” He paused, then glanced at Maia. “And I think you had some of it right there, honey. Investigator, detective, inspector. If we need to subdivide any of those, we add numbers. Investigator level 1, level 2, level 3. Those denote experience, not rank. The bigger the number, the greater the seniority. I guess we could do that with detective and inspector too, if it turns out we need to. And that should be transferable to other divisions, as well; we’d just need to figure out the appropriate titles. Then the person who runs a division is a lead, and the division is effectively a team of sorts. So they’re team leads, or division leads. Investigations Lead Ashton, stuff like that.” He glanced at Ashton. “How does that sound? Nick, are you good with being called the Investigations Lead?”
“Sure, Lee,” Ashton said. “We could even denote the new guys by the year they start with us. You know, like ‘Class of whatever.’ And that, as a formal designation, will denote who has seniority over who.”
“It’s an idea,” Peterson said, “but what about somebody like you or Cally, who comes in already head and shoulders above their class? If we’re just using Academy graduation years, then there’s a problem with the
