Creating Military Culture From Scratch

[cosmicfish]

However, most organizations don't bin everyone into two official career paths and fudge the rest. The officer/enlisted split is not too narrow, it is too broad.

I could see this happening - different ranks for enlisted and officer, but also between combat, non-combat, and "in-between" jobs as well. Perhaps with a certain amount of cleaning to reduce the number of ranks on each path.

Look at some of the things the US Air Force has done. They are a majorly enlisted army... Much more so than our Army. They only "left" the army a short time ago (just over 50 years if I remember right, yes I have a computer but I'm being lazy...)

I'm former US Army Infantry, and talking to those AF guys, despite the fact that the AF grew out of us, how they actually function is totally beyond me.

And the Navy still have "normal ranks" but they have so many Sub-specialties... When you see their MOS/Rank written out it's like an alien language, SPF1-75A grgli, or at least that's the way it looks.

A great example of how technological differences (in this case between environmental regimes) drives organizational structure.

In any case the assumption that bigotry will disappear but war not is eccentric to start with.

Unless you take the typical sci-fi Utopial fantasy where sins are limited to some arbitrary "them", with war limited to being between the perfect "us" and the flawed "them" (who are always the instigators!).

[Johnny1A.2]

Originally Posted by chandley

Hah, no. Instead you cut down the number of humans, of whatever type, that you put on the ship. Which is exactly what we do in the real world. And then, with the few humans you DO put on the ship, mass isnt the qualifier. Competence is. Again without regard really to any other consideration besides loyalty.

And that kind of tiny cadre would make for a VERY different military organization from one used to 2,000+ sailor aircraft carriers. Even submarines make poor examples on that scale, despite them being oft touted as our closest example of what we would do with militarized spacecraft.

My point is that if your sci fi army fights more with its mind than with its fists, you then have the requirement to find the best fighting minds in your population, and it becomes foolish to exclude good fighting minds based purely on something as much a non-factor as gender. No one is saying women cant fly predator drones. If you have a Transhuman Space level of technology, for example, gender is a non-issue.

Conversely, if the world we are building our military in has some kind of built in physics that create a demarcation, like Heinlein's Starship Troopers or similar, that too creates changes unfamiliar to a modern military, that might serve the story you want to tell.

You missed the point. Everything else being equal, the real world does have just such a demarcation. It's called the rocket equation.

Assuming equal competence, lower mass on the part of the crew is advantageous when using reactive propulsion. That's a matter of the laws of physics, nothing else. As long as you're using rocket propulsion, it never goes away at any tech level (though it might become so small as to become irrelevant).

Historically, almost all military organizations have been mostly male, and they still are mostly so. But assuming equal gender competence, space crews would show a tendency toward female majorities assuming recruitment from a normal human population and everything else being equal, just because of mass. The lower mass personnel would be disproportionately female if the starting mix was the general population. You wouldn't be starting out preferentially choosing women, you'd be ending up with that as the result, again everything else being equal.

But everything else is unlikely to be equal in any human society. Gender probably never can be a total non-issue for humans, though I could be wrong.

[Johnny1A.2]

Originally Posted by cosmicfish

I could see this happening - different ranks for enlisted and officer, but also between combat, non-combat, and "in-between" jobs as well. Perhaps with a certain amount of cleaning to reduce the number of ranks on each path.

Smaller crews might actually bring back older forms of naval organization (with or without the old names).

For ex, IIRC, captain's lieutenants on a ship were much more important officers than they later became, as crews grew and intermediate ranks became necessary. With a smaller crew, the captain would need fewer intermediate ranks to manage them all, so that arrangement might reappear.

Many of the 'oddities' of the real-world rank structure reflect how the military organizations have grown over time. Smaller forces would need fewer rank levels by their very nature (though maybe more 'specializations' of them).

One possibility, too, would be to have just one 'officer' grade, as such. Instead of rankings of level, the ranking would be by position, the officer is put in charge of steadily larger groups as he becomes more experienced, but he's still just an 'officer', but his prestige rises with the number of importance posts he's held. I don't know how well that world work in practice, but I could imagine it being tried by a society with egalitarian impulses.

[cosmicfish]

Any organisation is made of people, and people bring their memes with them. If most of the people that formed the organisation were not infected by hazing and bigotry memes (and are actually infected with memes of justice and civil rights), and there were no or few carriers of these memes already in place, then those memes are much less likely to entrench themselves in the organisation.

The reverse is also true - if you made a military from a bunch of contemporary civilians, probably all they WOULD know were the more extreme memes, and might (lacking their own experience or the ability to perform testing) take them as gospel that MUST be repeated, even as they grossly modify those concepts not well documented in media and entertainment.

One big difference I can see is how war will change when managing an interstellar war. When you get to the level posited by some sci-fis you have to assume numerous "World war II's" going on at once between the same empires on different planets.

It depends entirely on the relationship between the scope of the war and the speed of communications/transport. A war where speeds are "fast" would look much like a modern war, while if speeds are "slow" then there would be elements more like the wars of the 17th-18th centuries. The fact that opponents are galaxies apart is insignificant if one can travel a million ly a day.

various comonwealth reserve units promote from enlisted to officer on 10-12 weeks (in total) training. Regular units might use a more intensive course i.e. 10-12 weeks full time rather than over one to two years but the actual mechanics should be similar.

Have you considered whether or not such promotion routes are truly considered the equal of other paths? For example, US OCS is also only about 12 weeks long (last I checked) but the officers, while nominally equal to Academy and ROTC grads, seem to suffer more impediments to promotion at higher ranks - much of the education in those other, longer programs are oriented towards preparation for higher command.

As a real world example, consider that the Japanese Self Defense Forces have been operating on this basis since they were first formed as a branch of the national police in the 1950's.

The SDF has not really participated as a combatant in a war - their use of civilian law to govern their troops might be very problematic under combat conditions.

[cosmicfish]

Theoretically, soldiers are supposed to disobey illegal orders.

This refers to orders illegal under military law. There are many orders routine under combat conditions ("Kill that guy over there!") which are strictly illegal under civilian law. Unless, of course, civilian law includes special exemptions for the military, in which case you don't really have one system, you two systems in one document.

[Johnny1A.2]

Originally Posted by chandley

Hah, no. Instead you cut down the number of humans, of whatever type, that you put on the ship. Which is exactly what we do in the real world.

As long as the number is above zero, it doesn't change the physics of the issue. Keep in mind, too, that there is a countervailing force. Fewer crew means cheaper units and lower casualties...except when it doesn't. Too small a crew means that if someone gets killed early on in the fighting, his or her skills are lost, as are the hands to implement them. You want a crew big enough that you can lose some people and remain an effective combatant. Which does indeed mean carrying redundant (normally) personnel. Past a certain point, too much efficiency becomes counter-productive.

In peacetime, 'cheaper/safer/more efficient' tends to get emphasized. In wartime, 'more effective' either takes their place or you lose.

So you've got one trend toward smaller, and a counter-trend toward larger that mostly shows up when the shooting starts. Where the equilibrium point should be is a good question.

[cosmicfish]

engineers can benefit from having some hands on experience at mechanics, maintenance, and technical work.

Can benefit SOME, sure, but as a technician-turned-engineer I should state that this is a relatively minor effect - the jobs are just too different. Having a little bit of experience helps, having a ton of experience does not really help more and limits the time you have to spend as an engineer.

You missed the point. Everything else being equal, the real world does have just such a demarcation. It's called the rocket equation.

But reducing mass means more than reducing individual mass - it also means minimizing facilities, and supplies, and everything else that crew need to survive beyond their actual station! Indeed, the differences between sexes in this case would be far smaller than asexual differences between the individuals. Although, a society which still required some level of sex or gender-divided facilities might see advantage in using single sexes or genders aboard ship - this has been the argument against integrating women onto US submarines.

[cosmicfish]

Ahhh, all caught up!

Originally Posted by Johnny1A.2

Many of the 'oddities' of the real-world rank structure reflect how the military organizations have grown over time.

Very true, and one thing I could see with a "fresh start" such as the OP envisions is that there would be more of an effort to homogenize the system.

Originally Posted by Johnny1A.2

Smaller forces would need fewer rank levels by their very nature (though maybe more 'specializations' of them).

Very true for enlisted but I think it would be counter-balanced or exceeded by the increased scope of interstellar societies and militaries. A society with trillions of citizens and billions in the military is likely to need a few more flavors of General than we do!!

Originally Posted by Johnny1A.2

One possibility, too, would be to have just one 'officer' grade, as such. Instead of rankings of level, the ranking would be by position, the officer is put in charge of steadily larger groups as he becomes more experienced, but he's still just an 'officer', but his prestige rises with the number of importance posts he's held. I don't know how well that world work in practice, but I could imagine it being tried by a society with egalitarian impulses.

This is only nominally egalitarian, and potentially very confusing in practice. One of the advantages of the normal military system of clear differentiation between rank (nominally the same as responsibility and authority) is to make said differentiation clearly visible to even the newest of recruits. Replacing that with a system based on non-visible prestige places a lot of responsibility on the most junior of members, under circumstances where immediate understanding of authority is most crucial.

[Johnny1A.2]

Originally Posted by cosmicfish

But reducing mass means more than reducing individual mass - it also means minimizing facilities, and supplies, and everything else that crew need to survive beyond their actual station!

Yes.

Indeed, the differences between sexes in this case would be far smaller than asexual differences between the individuals.

No.

Yes, if you select for mass, there are going to be some small males in the crew, and some women too big to qualify. But the mass difference between the sexes is not less than the asexual difference between individuals, in the aggregate. Place the adult human race on a continuum of mass, each adult human being one data point out of some billions. The resulting scale will show the lighter end will be hugely female and the more massive end hugely male. Other differences will certainly skew it a bit, but it won't change that outcome in the aggregate.

Recruit from that adult human population, with a bias for lower mass, and absent reasons not to let it happen, and assuming everybody is equally willing to serve, you'll get a majority-female crew because of that. It's not an intent, it's a result. Now, if you're just choosing one crew of small size from that population, the effect might be swamped by luck, but the more crews you recruit on that basis, from that population, the more the trend will show up.

I don't think that'll produce mostly-female space crews, because everything else usually won't be equal. But the mass issue is what it is.

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by Johnny1A.2

Unless they carry competitive benefits with them. In that case, they'll reappear.

Such as? (In the example given, I have no idea what those might be.)