Military Organization on Tarnus
© Dana W. Paxson 2007
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Public Safety Entities On Tarnus, numerous service organizations are dedicated to public safety and order. These exist at all levels and areas of governance. Understanding their structure and operation helps the citizen navigate the complex realms of law and its enforcement across the globe. There are three basic organizations: the regional military, which is the closest to an army in its size and scope of operation; the City militias, which comprise the primary upholders of public safety in the underground Cities; and the coll militias, which serve as a family– and culture-based counterweight to the regional military and the militias in the Cities, and as the equivalent to the City militias for communities on the surface of Tarnus. In addition to these three organizations, the City police, usually called the ‘blues' by City dwellers, provide zone safety in different sectors of each City, while the corporate police, called ‘corpos' in everyday usage, maintain order in the extensive private holdings of the corporations of Tarnus. Relationships among these organizations are not always harmonious. The most difficult source of strife is the tendency of corporate police to arrogate powers over matters not properly theirs to address. This tendency reflects the aggressive stance of the corporations in expanding their authority and independence at the expense of other components of Tarnus society. Regional Military Ranks Military rank in general has remained remarkably stable over thousands of years, even to the clear distinction between commissioned and non-commissioned officers and soldiers. Brief experiments in reorganization have occurred, but all rank setups have reverted, quickly or gradually, to the familiar pattern seen here. REGIONAL MILITARY RANKS
Readers of ancient Earth, especially those from the United States of America, a supremely-powerful nation of the centuries before the Departure of the Colonists of Tarnus, would have found the slang terms amusing. We have tried to avoid slang usages with humorous or misleading connotations, but these particular examples reflect certain ironies that such readers might appreciate. Military Structure As with ranks, the overall structures have kept stable over most of Tarnus history, and reflect some Ancient Earth patterns fairly closely. Flexibility of size and scope, while still maintaining clear hierarchical lines of command, is paramount here, with some exceptions noted. The following table does not include the rank identifiers of the City Police (the Blues) and the corporate police organizations (Corpos). These two classes of enforcement organization usually worked much as does the City Militia structure, with similar and often identical ranks and groupings of members. Corporate police organizations vary as widely as do the corps themselves. The table also does not reflect the complexities of the clan-crossed Arcus and Astran Terxil colls, both of which incorporated clan rankings in their hierarchies to further distinguish rank and responsibility. Finally, the table avoids dual-structure arrangements as are found in the Darko Hejj, Sinantro, and Incarnastar colls. These setups often grant two or more orders of rank to the same person depending on the function under consideration, and two or more groupings of members again depending on the situation confronted. Such fluidity of operation offers tremendous advantage in unusual situations, but great confusion when the members are uncertain how their roles interact. REGIONAL MILITARY UNITS
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