02-02-2014, 03:17 PM | #31 | ||
Join Date: May 2005
Location: Oz
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Re: Flat Black: Status in the Imperial Service
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No, it isn't. An assistant secretary in the Home Office is the equal in rank of a vice-general, but there is a marked difference in the prestige of their social circles. And a marines sergeant with fifty years of service and two awards of the Imperial Service Medal is the superior in point of service but junior in rank to a wet-behind-the-ears acting third officer on an Imperial Spaceways liner. An executive officer third class in the Public Health Services who has grown bent and grey over thirty years setting up a medical school and teaching hospital in the back blocks of Kore has served, is interesting and admired, and gets invited to dinner by senior naval officers; whereas an executive officer first class in the Home Office Department of Health who has a cushy job running the hospital in an Imperial habitat outranks him by two whole grades but is a boring civil servant who socialises with REMFs and colonials. Quote:
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Decay is inherent in all composite things. Nod head. Get treat. Last edited by Agemegos; 02-02-2014 at 03:39 PM. |
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02-02-2014, 03:29 PM | #32 | ||
Join Date: Dec 2007
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Re: Flat Black: Status in the Imperial Service
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02-02-2014, 03:49 PM | #33 | ||||
Join Date: May 2005
Location: Oz
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Re: Flat Black: Status in the Imperial Service
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And above this there is a small handful of families that makes its permanent home in a private orbital habitat called "The Palace", has its kids trained from infancy to be rulers, and dominates appointment to and membership of the ruling council. That seems like a ruling class to me. Quote:
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And by the way: you weren't in a position to know this, but the Imperial Service Medal is for conspicuous service, not military heroics. A medal-festooned war hero would have at least one Military Cross, and maybe even an Iron Star or Imperial Cross for Gallantry.
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Decay is inherent in all composite things. Nod head. Get treat. Last edited by Agemegos; 02-02-2014 at 04:08 PM. |
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02-02-2014, 03:53 PM | #34 |
Join Date: Dec 2007
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Re: Flat Black: Status in the Imperial Service
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02-02-2014, 03:57 PM | #35 | |
Join Date: Mar 2013
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Re: Flat Black: Status in the Imperial Service
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02-02-2014, 04:19 PM | #36 | |
Join Date: May 2005
Location: Oz
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Re: Flat Black: Status in the Imperial Service
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If your place in society is low you socialise with the powerful and celebrated on their sufferance or not at all. You sleep with people whose parents have not power, and you raise children who will rise in social status if they gain socially-approved power. Your peers recognise that their place in society is low, even if they resent the inequality of society.
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Decay is inherent in all composite things. Nod head. Get treat. |
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02-02-2014, 04:23 PM | #37 | |
Join Date: Dec 2007
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Re: Flat Black: Status in the Imperial Service
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02-02-2014, 04:58 PM | #38 | |
Join Date: May 2005
Location: Oz
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Re: Flat Black: Status in the Imperial Service
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In some circumstances and to some extent they can tell from your uniform, and in some they can tell from where you are and what you're doing there. Some of them can tell because they know or know of your family, or from who introduces you and in what terms. In some circumstances they can tell from the way other people behave around you and how they address you. For example:
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Decay is inherent in all composite things. Nod head. Get treat. Last edited by Agemegos; 02-02-2014 at 05:53 PM. |
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02-02-2014, 05:42 PM | #39 |
Banned
Join Date: Apr 2008
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Re: Flat Black: Status in the Imperial Service
That's lucky, since all the material before that seemed impossibly arcane.
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02-02-2014, 05:52 PM | #40 |
Join Date: May 2005
Location: Oz
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Re: Flat Black: Status in the Imperial Service
Social cues in exotic societies often seem that way to outsiders. There are some in which you need a pretty fair knowledge of the brands of jeans and shoes to tell the somebodies from the nobodies.
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Decay is inherent in all composite things. Nod head. Get treat. |
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