A quick look around seems to confirm that US{N,CG,A,AF,MC} enlisted are
subject to the same "up-or-out" system as their officers - in short,
"get promoted or get out".

Does this still hold?  Is it as unpopular with the rank and file as the
commissioned version seems to be with the officers?

IIRC, the US treats warrant officers as a different class of critter
(rather than the top enlisted ranks as per the British model) - does
that up-or-out apply to warrant officers as well?

For any subversion, what happens if a servicecritter gets demoted (for
whatever reason) - does their clock reset as at their date of demotion?

ObTrav: I've tentatively assumed up-or-out (in approximately its modern
incarnation) applies in Parental Advisory from its OTL introduction in
1980 right up until the Terran Confederation's founding in late 2125. 
If (as is likely the case) I'm really off base, could anyone hazard a
guess as to what would be in force as at the TC's founding?

I'm then assuming, (as the USN canonically had the largest influence on
the TCN, per GT:ISW), TCN personnel policies would, initially, be
largely what the USN had in place.

For want of a better term, I've labelled transferees from the preceding
national services as "relics" - two such that have already lobbed in
Parental Advisory are Commodore Derryn Dodgie, TCN (he also showed up as
Captain Dodgie, RN) and Lieutenant Tim "Collision" Collinson, RN (now
Lieutenant Collinson, TCN).

Naturally, time and attrition (there is a war on, you know, with people
ending up permanently deaded, retiring (medically or otherwise), being a
lifetime guest of the TC, running afoul of mysterious gardening
accidents, etc) will act to reduce the proportion of active relics in
the TCN. 

I've had a couple of exploratory questions about potential enlisted PCs
who were in uniform during the changeover in some other navy (and I
wouldn't mind consistency for NPCs as well).

What sort of bureaucratic snarls would arise from large numbers of
personnel coming in from non-up-or-out services (such as, iirc, the RAN)
to the TCN during the early years?

Alex

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