Is there a colored ribbons list? Hard to understand them, 'cause manual is B&W.

They will just be like real life..
Citation awards to say you served in a certain theater.
Each time you Jump to a new system you should have another one..

Also for any WC lore info the best site to check out is http://www.wcnews.com/ an ancient yet still pretty active WC community.

If you check out the black n' white you'll notice the patterns on them are different. That way you can differentiate them between each other even if you don't have the colors.

They were black and white in the original manual as well.