Arioch wrote:As far as I am aware, a modern non-commissioned officer (corporal, sergeant, etc.) has exactly the same responsibility for the men under his command as any commissioned officer does. Our division between enlisted and commissioned ranks is largely artificial and is a relic of traditional land armies in which there was a clear social and class division between the gentry/knights/officers and the peasants/levies/conscripts/enlisted. The Loroi wouldn't have any trouble understanding this concept, but it isn't useful to them either in social terms or in the context of an ultra-tech military. The enlisted/commissioned barrier is already starting to show its obsolescence in our modern militaries, in democratic societies that no longer mirror the gentry/peasant class division, and in increasingly technologically advanced forces that require ever more professional and well-trained and -educated soldiers, especially in services like air forces and navies in which the "rank and file" structure of infantry has less relevance.
As a currently-serving officer, I can say that this is not the case at all. While the peasant/gentry connotations have indeed been long-discarded, the enlisted/officer division is central to the way the military operates and is as artificial as any other pay scale one would find in corporate America. The officer and enlisted ranks evolved with the industrial revolution to a more blue/white collar differentiation. Even in high-tech operations like mine where everyone is doing white collar work, the distinction still exists in the form of a technician/project lead relationship.
Officers will only ever make up a fraction of the force. They take longer to train and cost more to educate. Additionally, they are supposed to be generalists by design. While officers will gain depth in at least one career field at the start of their careers, all are expected to undergo "career broadening" mid-way through in preparation for leadership roles which demand a *very* wide range of experience in acquisitions, personnel management, finance, law, and a myriad of other skill-sets *in addition* to the warfighting and operational knowledge required by their career fields. Some enlisted troops go through lesser amounts of career broadening, but only those who show potential for the senior-most of the enlisted ranks. All others are expected to be specialists in their career fields.
The lines do indeed get blurry when you have modern, highly technical operations where enlisted troops may have higher-level degrees than the officers leading them, but in the end it is the job they perform and the responsibilities levied on officers and enlisted troops that differentiates them. Enlisted personnel are the technical experts that do the work and, at most, manage a handful of other technical experts. They are focused on today, tomorrow, and possibly next week. Officers are the leaders who are coordinating multiple sets of technical experts to achieve the overall objective and should be focused 3-6 months, or even a year or more ahead based on the nature of their jobs. I frequently date paperwork incorrectly because my brain is stuck in 2019 or 2018 and I occasionally forget it's 2017.