Random "hard" sci-fi question(s)

[Shroom Man 777]

Shroom : yeah, electronic warfare AND cybernetized transhumans ? Looks like a losing proposition.


Now I'm imagining a ragged bunch from some low-tech shithole fucking the cyborgs' shit by saturating the airwaves with radio white noise generated with some crude salvaged radio transmitters.

no! normal signal noise shits won't work because the artificial cyberoid brains can distinguish mundane frequencies and signal patterns from posthumanoid cybertranshumanoid mind signals

to be able to effectively jam the phased array neurons' low probability of intercept signals your own ECM signals need to be of same wavelengths as the cortical electrodes' neurological responses

so those crude salvaged radio transmitters need to be hooked up to a brain in a jar to simulate the brainwave signals needed to jam the cyberbrains!

[Oxymoron]

A cyberbrain which will come from a previously beheaded supersoldier.

But as the Soldiers are Super, killing one is really hard, so they have to assign the mission to a bunch of last-chancers, in the hope of turning the tide of the war in their favor.

[Oxymoron]

And so the airwaves are drowned under the noise of a crazed brain constantly humming "molly had a little lamb" while projecting images of lush gardenscapes, sometimes cut by flashback of the previous brain owner's life as a combattant and the horrors he saw and commited.

[Shroom Man 777]

A cyberbrain which will come from a previously beheaded supersoldier.

But as the Soldiers are Super, killing one is really hard, so they have to assign the mission to a bunch of last-chancers, in the hope of turning the tide of the war in their favor.

holy shit yeah

that's a pretty radical story premise

scrappy rebels must defeat EVIL EMPIRE but they can't beat the EMPIRE's ELINT systems and shit

the EMPIRE uses nigh-invincible SPESS MAREEENS

so they hire badass mercs on a nigh-suicidal mission to kill one of the MAREENS and decapitate it and bring its head to RESISTANCE HQ for reverse engineering of its brain software

man

[Oxymoron]

Which could be made more difficult if the supersoldiers have some sort of dead man switch that disintegrate their bodies when they die.

So in fact they'd have to capture one of these supersoldier, and maintain it alive long enough for the scientists to study the dead man switch, deactivate it, and then harvest the brain.

All while having to avoid the supersoldier to re-awake lest he'd hit ctrl+alt+del and commit suicide.

[Oxymoron]

And so the airwaves are drowned under the noise of a crazed brain constantly humming "molly had a little lamb" while projecting images of lush gardenscapes, sometimes cut by flashback of the previous brain owner's life as a combattant and the horrors he saw and commited.

Man, that makes me imagine some pretty trippy, surreal shit as far as the visions and the soldiers' reactions are concerned.

[Shroom Man 777]

now THAT is hard sci fi

DAISY DAISY

[Oxymoron]

Not hard sci-fi but related to my writing...

In a post-apocalyptic setting, telling the re-birth of civilization.

On the ash of the old world, centuries after the end of the world, the divided people start being united under a common banner as a common enemy born of the Old World menace to wipe them all.

They fight this enemy, and in the space of a decade, win.

During that war, they were facing the fact everyone was coming from different places, had different ideas about how to run things, and had different morals. So the "Republic" decided to introduce Political Officers to keep things kind of united.


So, question : Is there things I should know historically about Political Officers, interesting factoids that I could use ? Or any aesthetic idea about how you'd see Political Officers as looking / acting like in a post-apocalyptic future ?

I left all the terms of the problem voluntarily vague so as to get general answers. I'm looking more toward receiving general inputs on the idea rather than specific details.

[Glass Fort MacLeod]

I'm sure there are people you can quiz if you want to know the information, or wnat to be accurate, or if you enjoy doing the research then do some browsing yourself (in a book, on the net' etc.)

Or you could just easily handwave it by saying its an arbitrary definition - it could be someone from history heard about something called 'political officers' and just liked the term and applied it to something similar but not identical (or to something totally unrelated.) Lots of things in fiction can be chalked up to misinformation, misidentificaiton, or simple human error without impacting the story (or just to cover your ass if someone complains.)

I suppose it really depends on how important it is to the story and the setting, as details like that add to the word-count volume and if space is finite that can detract from other things.

[Oxymoron]

Well, I had been tempted to tell a storyline in Sandy Mitchell's "Ciaphas Cain" series style.

What I mean is, you have that unit of the Republic's military going around in what is still pretty much the Wasteland, at the frontiers of its territories, and trying to solve problems before they become critical.

And one of the (many) roles of the Political Officer would be to act as the diplomat of that unit - a link between the military and the civilians in some ways.

Here, let me copy-paste what I wrote somewhere else :

Given how diverse the backgrounds of every Republic's units are, and to ensure that proper Republican Moral Standards are met (there may be a number of "reformed" "raiders" who enlisted in its Army...), the Political Officers Corp is tasked to ensure the "political cohesion" of the Republic's forces. They also relay the MoralE state of their units to their hierarchy, so that appropriate measures can be taken.

Still working on the exact relationship between the Political Officers Corp and the Regular Forces.

The Political Officers Corp :

Has its own Academy in [the capital]. Under the supervision of the Department of Internal Affairs and not the Department of the Army.

Has the complex task of (non-exhaustive list) :
- keeping the Republic's Armed Forces united
- ensuring that its units operate smoothly and efficiently with each others
- ensuring that they act in a way that is conform to the Ideals of the Republic
- keep the military hierarchy accountable to the civilians
- overseeing military justice

Political Officers follow a formation in Leadership, Diplomacy and Administration, a formation which nowadays takes long years - the first political officers were recruited for their zeal to ensure the Republic's continued existence and the application of its ideals, but sheer conviction can't replace competence. Most of the orphans of the Republic (and there's a decent number of them) are sent to this Academy.

It's to be noted that the Political Officers who aren't affected to units of the Armed Forces are instead sent to the various settlements of the Republic to serve as bricks of its young Administration.

It's hoped that they will ensure at the most basic level the unity of the Republic, which is otherwise just a federation of cities, settlements and other political entities.

Of note, the story would happen only 30 years after the creation of the Republic, and only around 20 years after the end of the war that saw its creation. So everything is still young to some degree.

Also, the population numbers are still relatively low - I'm not sure there's even a million people living in the Republic's territories, most likely something like 750,000.


And a thing that might help comprehension :

[FT] Fire-Team => 4 soldiers + 1 Corporal
Squad => 4 Fire-Team + 1 Sergeant
[P] Platoon => 4 Squads + 1 Lieutenant (Leader) + 1 Sergeant (Second-in-Command) + 1 Political Officer
[C] Company => 4 Platoons + 1 Captain (Leader) + 1 Lieutenant (SiC) + 1 Political Officer
Battalion => 4 Companies + 1 Colonel (Leader) + 1 Captain (SiC) + 1 Political Officer
[R] Regiment => 4 Battalions + 1 Brigadier (Leader) + 1 Colonel (SiC) + 1 Political Officer
[D] Division => 4 Regiments + 1 General (Leader) + 1 Brigadier (SiC) + 1 Political Officers

Fire Team (5) :
- 4 Soldier
- 1 Corporal

Squad (21) :
- 16 Soldiers
- 4 Corporals
- 1 Sergeant

Platoon (87) :
- 64 Soldiers
- 16 Corporals
- 5 Sergeant
- 1 Lieutenant
- 1 Political Officer

Company (351) :
- 256 Soldiers
- 64 Corporals
- 20 Sergeant
- 5 Lieutenant
- 1 Captain
- 5 Political Officers

Battalion (1407) :
- 1024 Soldiers
- 256 Corporals
- 80 Sergeant
- 20 Lieutenant
- 5 Captain
- 1 Colonel
- 21 Political Officers

Regiment (5631) :
- 4096 Soldiers
- 1024 Corporals
- 320 Sergeant
- 80 Lieutenant
- 20 Captain
- 5 Colonel
- 1 Brigadier
- 85 Political Officers

Division (22527) :
- 16384 Soldiers
- 4096 Corporals
- 1280 Sergeant
- 320 Lieutenant
- 80 Captain
- 20 Colonel
- 5 Brigadier
- 1 General
- 341 Political Officers

[Glass Fort MacLeod]

Well if we're going with 'Ciaphas Cain' does that mean you were thinking along the lines of 40k Commissars rather than just general 'political officer?'

[Oxymoron]

Well, I was thinking of inspiring myself from the kind of narration of those novels.

The POs (Political Officers) themselves wouldn't be and more like "commissars" in the sense that their job is to be the link / grease that help the units works smoothly with each other and ensure some kind of "standardization" of the forces. And also to help with the administrative tasks not directly related to the fighting.

In operation they are also supposed to serve as the intermediary between the Civilians and the Military Leadership.

In short, the soldiers do the fighting, the officers do the order-giving, and the POs ensure that the supplies come in, that the local civilians don't get in the way, that the current operation doesn't interfere with other plans from the higher ups in the hierarchy...


At least that's the theory and the motivation behind the creation of their institution.

As you can guess, they're quite the overworked bunch. That's why a number of them have assistants, without any official power, to help them do their job.


The basic "unit" of the Republic's army is the Platoon, where you can hope people will have trained and fought together for a while, and will have some amount of common experience. But above that, more often than not people will come from different places.

If you want, imagine the "platoon" as Imperial Guards regiments regarding that particular aspect.

[Glass Fort MacLeod]

Well 40K commissars are diplomats in a way, but they're really more psychological manipulators. They're basically designed to 'get troops to do what the Imperium wants it to do, by any means necessary'. Which is not very 'diplomatic' except in the sense that diplomacy can be a tool to manipulate people by (the Tau are even better at it.) Heck 40K commissars don't necesarily execute or mete out punishments at the drop of the hat (only the unimaginative or inflexible ones do, or if you're going strictly by codex interpretations.)

How that fits in historically I'm not sure, but you seem to be going more for an 'advisory/representative' sort of executioner/manipulator/inspirational figure. It also sounds like the guy might have multiple hats (logistics officer, bureaucrat, protocol, etc.)

[Oxymoron]

More or less what I'm going for, yes.

The thing about them having a number of different hats is spot-on.

See, the Republic's armed forces evolved from a simple motivation : fighting an enemy that menaced to wipe them out. However, at that time the biggest "armies" out there in the wasteland were barely bigger than 500 people (and were also enemies of the Republic). So all questions of logistics, administration, these kind of things were, to put it mildly, foreign to them.

If you look at the "order of battle" I posted above, you'll note that, how things are organized, everyone is expected to fight. That, at least, is the theory.

It quickly arose, as the Republic's armed forces grew, that its forces were heavily disorganized, and resembled more a mob of malnourished peasants (which they were, minus the peasant part as there wasn't much clean land to cultivate) than a real, effective fighting force.

So, to bring some semblance of order, in parallel to the fighting force, a support / administrative / political body was grafted to the order of battle.

All of their "hats" organically grew of their experience in trying to succeed in their mission.

[Glass Fort MacLeod]

I tried to thinik of a better term than 'political officer.' The best I could come upw ith was 'facilitator.'

[Crazedwraith]

'i don't want you to think of me as a self-appointed chairperson just think of me as a facilitator'

boys from the dwarf.

[Oxymoron]

"Commissioners" ?

Though the idea of the term "facilitator" is funny, I don't know if it would hold as an official name for a position. Maybe some synonym or another word conveying the same kind of idea ?

Though I like the idea of simply using the term "Commissar" as the common way to designate them, and their official title being something... not exactly pompous but more of a mouthful like "Representative of the Executive Office of the Republic" or something like that.

Why Commissar ? Because in the universe that story is set set, people had always lived under a monarchy, or under autocrats of some sort, and that the idea of "Res Publica" is something relatively novel for them. I'm taking liberal inspiration from the French Revolution & Russian Revolution.

[Oxymoron]

Also, it's to be noted that in the French Armed Forces, the "Commissariat" is the inter-army corp tasked with all the administrative tasks, and their official denomination is "Commissaires" (Commissars).

[Glass Fort MacLeod]

Well then my opinion is that oyu shouldn't need to worry so much about the 'historic' side of things unless you're in need of ideas to expand it, because it sounds to me you have it pretty well developed in the context of your own story and its just a label (and by and large one label is as good as another.)

Heck you dont even have to worry about the 'historical' side right now even, it could wait for something to deal with in the future. Sometimes things don't need to be hashed out right away because its distracting and you never know how you will feel about it down the line anyhow. I've known lots of authors who start out intending to write one story, and then over the years deciding that the direction and scope change simply because they themselves change over time (Gaunt's Ghosts and Stephen King's Dark Tower series are some of my favorite examples of that.)

[Oxymoron]

Yeah, I'm more in search of inspiration rather than anything else, really.

I mean, the story doesn't take place on Earth, feature no human, and magic hold a central place in the story, so...

[evilsoup]

oh god
it's a pony fanfiction isn't it

[Oxymoron]

[Oxymoron]

It's as good a writing exercise as any, and I need the practice.

[Manus Dei]

And so the airwaves are drowned under the noise of a crazed brain constantly humming "molly had a little lamb" while projecting images of lush gardenscapes, sometimes cut by flashback of the previous brain owner's life as a combattant and the horrors he saw and commited.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=Lva8L-J8x04

little lamb

little lamb

little

lamb

[Oxymoron]

heh. I didn't even know about that one.