Endless Blue - Week 43 - The Art of Submerged War: Navies of the Known World

Sociology

The Art of Submerged War: Navies of the Known World

The Known World of Elqua may have a superficial resemblance to a placid paradise, but nothing could be further from the truth.  The Fluid Nations have been at war with one another for most of their history, and only recently as there been any relative peace between the powers.   The Cerulean Era is name such for the very fact that the Endless Blue had entered into a period of unprecedented peace if not prosperity.  But that idyllic time is coming to an end, as the homeseas have grown too large for their borders, having slowly settled outward into the treaty-enforced spaces between countries called no mer's seas.  Skirmishes have begun as swimming space dwindles and foraging territories shrink.  The voices of the growing populaces are loudly demanding more water, more space, more freedom, but there is no more un-proportioned water to be had without expanding outward into the influences of their neighbors.

Only the civilized races of the Periphery have a standing navy, or even the infrastructure to support one.  The Hinterseas of the Kouton Bay, Gulf of Locanth, Yaun-Teel Bights, and Sahaguin Lagoons seem to be easier prey, with their less sophisticated cultures and more primitive armament.  The Laws of Fluid Dynamics would tell a society quickly outgrowing its alloted space to follow the path of least resistance, to enact an expansionist campaign outward against their primitive but ruthless neighbors.  But there is also the lure of moving inward to the Core.  For those brave (or ignorant) enough to ignore the superstitious fear of the Ruins of the Kraken Empire in the Maw, there lies the ancient pearl of the Elquan oceans, the Creche of Civilization, unused, uncontrolled, just waiting for the ambitious and the powerful to claim it as their own.

The Endless Blue Navies


It is little surprise to learn that in the culture of the martial Orcans it is expected for all citizens to serve at least one term in the the Orcan Naval Force (ONF).  The ONF is a alliance of city-state militias that serve as local law enforcement as well as a military reserve.  As much a part of their culture as their training, soldiers in the ONF understand that they must work together for the greater benefit of the Orcan government.

To achieve this aim, the ONF operates under the same "Eight Banner System" as the Cetacean Barbarian hordes of their history.  The military force is based on the smallest unit, an 8 Orcan group called an arav.  Eight of these aravs forms a zuut (64 soldiers),  with eight zuuts making a minhan (512 soldiers), and finally eight minhans completed a tumen (4096 soldiers).  Any number of tumens formed an ordu, the mispronounciation of this being the origin of the word Horde.

Ranks -- Khan, Noyan, Boyan, Ongul.

The Chelon navy if formally referred to as Her/His Majesty's Royal Armada, or HMRS.  It is comprised of a number of legions overseen by tribunes, whom in turn report to the legate placed in charge of them by royal decree.  A legion is six cohortes, which in turn is broken into six centuries of 60 to 180 legionaires.  These centuries are divided into a number of ranks dependent on the current military objective, a designation that refers to the ordered arrangement of legionaires into lines.  Each line is the equivalent of a unit of soldiers.  A Senate of Legates oversees the direction and deployment of the legions.

Ranks -- Legate, Tribune, Pilus, Centurion, Legionaire

The Lumulus Maritime Self -Defense Force, or LMSDF, are a decentralized military organization that works in cells across the surviving forgeclans.  These cells are not secretive, but the organization of who reports to whom is so complicated to the non-Lumulus that it is impossible to trace back to where orders originate.  Any one unit of the LMSDF only knows the unit above (and below at higher ranks).  This protects the chain of command from infiltration, as well as the individual Lumulus as their knowledge is always limited.  This strange, seemingly limiting method of letting soldiers "know only what they need to know" has kept their military particularly insular, and is one of the major reasons that the fall of the Kraken Empire could be achieved.

Ranks -- Unknown

The Mer Currents maintains a force called the United Marine Command (UMC).  The UMC is a multi-layered organization that starts with the shoal.  A shoal consists of 6 soldiers with an attachment of 1 packbreeder.  The consistency of these shoals varies greatly, dependent on the combat specialty for which the shoal is intended.   Infantry based shoals would be warriors with a packbreeder controlling beasts of massive builds, while a reconnaissance shoal would consist of scouts and a packbreeder guiding highly swift creatures.  Special shoals comprised of spellcasters but are not common and are normally part of a special branch, either the arcane or medical corps.

From there 2 to 4 shoals form a School, and 2 to 4 schools form a Company.  These companies typically take on colorful names as a traditional method of instilling pride and belonging into its constituent soldiers.  Further up the chain of command, 4 to 8 companies forms a Flotilla. and 2 to 4 flotillas makes a Brigade.  A Division is a pair of brigades, and 2 to four division forms a Corps.  Beyond that is only the highest military leaders, with the entire Fleet under their purview.

Ranks -- Fleet Admiral, Admiral, Rear Admiral, Commodore, Captain, Commander, Lieutenant Commander, Lieutenant, Junior Lieutenant, Ensign.

The Yaun-Teel, like everything else in their culture, relegates the need to maintain an armed services to private mercenary companies.  It is a business to them, like anything else they do.  There is no such concept as "patriotic duty" for the Yaun-Teel.  Instead, it is fulfilled by the work ethic expressed by the soldiers of the mercenary company.  This does not mean no Yaun-Teel ever feels the need to step up and lay down his life for his country, but it does mean that each mercenary company works independently of each other.  Hundreds of such organizations exist in the Bights, selling their swords to the highest bidder when there are brief respites in the waging of war between nations.

Ranks -- Per mercenary charter.

The other three primitive races -- the Kouton, the Locanth, and the Sahaguin -- deal with war and invasion on the local level, with each settlement taking on the responsibility of keeping its constituents alive.  While their homeseas are recognized as sovereign nations, they possess little in the way of a central government to lead them.  For issue of tsunami-level importance, the races generally hold a meeting of the elders, those individuals with sway and the means to enact others.

Ranks -- Not applicable.

"War spares neither the brave nor the cowardly: The brave are killed to wage and the cowardly are killed by the brave."
-- Unknown