This doesnt seem like a complicated question to me. Wasnt there a period where the chinese peoples liberation army abolished ranks and went by position only?
Consider, theres no ranks in a business, but everybody can see who is in charge of what looking at the organizational chart. The ceo sets that up, and the ceo is hired by the board of directors, who are elected by the shareholders who are the people who put up the money.
Considr a construction site. There arent any ranks but everyone knows who the project manager is, who the foreman is, and who the workers are, because thise people are hired for thise pisitions in the basis of their qualifications and experience. Everyone knows that the project manager has the authority to tell everybody what to do and provide the plan to the foreman, and the foreman tells people what to do to get the job done.
So, scouts
A scoutship has a crew of what, 5 people? Scout admin in charge of assigning crew members would assign crew positions according to candidates' skills and experience. It would probably be pilot or co pilot since he has an assistant, allowing him to do commander things instead of his primary piloting job all the time. Admin would tell a new crew the first day, this guy has been selectex for command, after him its you, then you, then you, and so on. There would never be any uncertainty.
With player characters, all bets are off. Nobody can make anybody do anything, and they'll happily kill each other, and never roleplay with enough depth to make their characters worry about pesky little things like consequences. So everything becomes a non binding mob democracy. No one is in charge. Or maybe its a feudal technocracy on the interpersonal level.
Im the pilot, so were going where i want!
Oh yeah?? Well im the engineer, and ill turn off the drives!
Im the gunner, so im going play xbox and drink mountain dew until you two cretins figure this out.
Im the navigator, so whatever you say ill just set the jump tape 8 track to wherever i want to go!
...a few jumps later...
Im the ex commando, so i gun down the engineer and the pilot on our way back to the ship. Its all you navigator. Tee hee!
Im the gunner so i finish my mountain dew and vaporize the commando with the ships lasers. Its all you navigator. Lets report back and take all the credit for another successful mission.
