Let's say you are running a game where the characters would have grown up, basically their entire lives, in an environment of ongoing war. In a sci-fi setting, they were mostly born on a fleet ship or on liberated worlds.
Now, their side has generally been winning the war, so morale is high and resources are good, but its certainly possible that in many of the PCs cases that sizeable chunks of their entire family have died in battle. There are civilians, but over 60% of the population are in the military at any given time.
How would this make for a different society? How would you show this to the players? How would you make sure that the players would get this?
RPGPundit
Unless you wanted to run an 'evil campaign', I don't think you really could do that realistically.
Quote from: RPGPundit;277735How would this make for a different society? How would you show this to the players? How would you make sure that the players would get this?
I'd look to the Spartans and Zulus as models. Regimented, collective child-rearing. Strong sense of collective identity, and corresponding contempt for enemies and foreigners. Status of citizens determined largely by their battlefield accomplishments (can only marry after your cohort wins a battle, etc.)
There's lot of historical information on military cultures. But to second Age of Fable's comment, I think it would be difficult to make such a society admirable or sympathetic in a role-playing game.
Quote from: Haffrung;277742I'd look to the Spartans and Zulus as models. Regimented, collective child-rearing. Strong sense of collective identity, and corresponding contempt for enemies and foreigners. Status of citizens determined largely by their battlefield accomplishments (can only marry after your cohort wins a battle, etc.)
There's lot of historical information on military cultures. But to second Age of Fable's comment, I think it would be difficult to make such a society admirable or sympathetic in a role-playing game.
I had *no* problem doing this in my many Jalan campaigns. The Fonalli Moros were regimented on the Zulu model - children were collectively raised and trained for military duty starting at age 6, remaining in the army until a suitable age was reached - 35 in this case - when they could leave the service, marry, father children, and settle down, though they remained as a mobilizable resource if needed. The PCs never played the Fonalli as evil, though when they played non-Fonalli encountering this cultural model, these outsiders mostly thought of it as evil, or at least thought of the collection and training of children for war part of the culture as evil.
This was probably because of the strong ethical training the children received. This was based on duty, responsibility, and justice. The Fonalli ideal was stern but just. Thus I insist that it all depends greatly on the presentation of the culture to the players, who take their tone from the GM's initial description.
-clash
Like Clash, I can't see the problem with the premise. ("Evil"???)
But let's move on to Pundit's question. I think this is cool and look forward to hearing more details as he sets it up and plays.
Here are some things that popped into my head right off the bat. You might have thought of them, or they might not work with the system, but here goes.
* Every PC is in the military in some way.
* I really like the idea of families being important (Pundit, you brought up the fact that large chunks of families have died, so I'm going to run with it...) I think the Players should generate immediate family members, noting how they affected by the war (serving; MIA; KIA; on a conquered planet; living behind lines whatever -- but relate each family member to the war)
* I would have the Players crated three family members that mattered to the PC who have died. These can be immediate or extended family members.
* Along the lines of the Mongoose Traveller character creation rules, I'd find moments in the character creation process where backstory details about service/a military campaign impinged on the PC's life.... So stats are tied to war moment. (Again, I don't know the system your using, but that's what I would try to do...)
* I'd think about PC goals within the culture: Is the PC looking forward to getting out? Is that something they can work toward? Or do they just have to survive to a certain age or a certain number of terms? Or is the idea to get glory and rank for Clan/Planet/Family/whatever? Your game might not actually pay off any of that, but I think just having something on the character sheet that says, "Trying to survive" or "Honor my father's legacy" would help a lot to nail this stuff down for the players.
* Going back to dead family members and long term goals (and again, this is game and scenario dependent), you could have the PCs have Blood Feuds they are carrying. The PCs might have friends or family members who have died that they want to get some payback on. I'd make sure these are noted on the character sheet as well. The PCs might have "vengeance memorabilia" -- ragged flags, medals from dead family members or friends, and so on, that they keep close. I'd have these on the character sheets as well.
* I'd make sure that the the character sheet is marked with a significant event from every term of service -- how they fit in with the war as a whole, and their government as a whole. (Promotions, commendations, medals, injuries, imprisonment for insubordination, special tasks, locals thinking they were a hero, putting down a rebellion, whatever...)
* I'm running a game set in the Classic Traveller Imperium right now. Before we began play, we not only built the PCs, but laid out the history of the PCs campaigns. We laid out specific worlds where specific events occurred. My players came up with a bunch of slang based off these incidents, and designed a nose cone logo for their mercenary transport ship.
This all took place in the context of a sector map I created, showing the movement of interstellar boundaries that took place while their PCs were in the marines before play began.
My game is about mercs, but your set up might benefit from a sense of how the interstellar boundaries have moved, where the Players have been relative to them before play began, where their home worlds are relative to those boundaries and so on, as well as marking which worlds significant family members are on.
That's some stuff off the top of my head.
Christopher
Quote from: Age of Fable;277738Unless you wanted to run an 'evil campaign', I don't think you really could do that realistically.
Evil campaign ? The use of a martial society as a campaign context doesn't necessarily imply "now the players will have to play evil characters".
Quote from: Haffrung;277742But to second Age of Fable's comment, I think it would be difficult to make such a society admirable or sympathetic in a role-playing game.
Who said it had to be admirable or sympathetic ? I'd love to play in a Spartan RPG, exploring what it is to be part of this very foreign society. Doesn't mean I personally want to live the way the Spartans did or advocate their moral codes and behaviors.
You guys are weird
Quote from: boulet;277751Who said it had to be admirable or sympathetic ?
Not me.
A society like that CAN sometimes be sympathetic. I can think of two possible examples:
1. Klingon Empire as shown during ST: Next Generation and ST: Deep Dish Nine.
2. Israel, 1948 to the present.
- Ed C.
Quote from: Koltar;277762A society like that CAN sometimes be sympathetic. I can think of two possible examples:
1. Klingon Empire as shown during ST: Next Generation and ST: Deep Dish Nine.
2. Israel, 1948 to the present.
- Ed C.
Bingo, Ed! If such a culture is portrayed as sympathetic, the PCs will treat it as sympathetic until proven otherwise. The GM is the PC's window on the world, somewhat like the press is IRL.
-clash
The human rebels in The Terminator movies look like a 'Good' example. :)
Child Soldiers - when they muster up some NPCs for their next suicide mission, give them a bunch of 12-16 year olds with guns. Make half of them girls. Then blow them apart like rag dolls full of meatsauce.
Like in Spartan culture I would make a very ritualized culture : for instance when kids reach specific ages they have to undergo difficult challenges.
I like Christopher's suggestion of an omnipresence of heroes memorabilia, problems of honor, vengeance and duties that transmit through generations. Another angle would be to develop an underground culture where forms of art or activities that aren't matching the military paradigm thrive in secret.
Quote from: boulet;277770Like in Spartan culture I would make a very ritualized culture...
I like Christopher's suggestion of an omnipresence of heroes memorabilia, problems of honor, vengeance and duties that transmit through generations...
...forms of art...
I think you could mush all these things together into something interesting.
People tend to need something to fight for if they're going to risk their lives -- country, a principle, family, a loved one, fellow soldiers... something. Military states will have symbols or gods, or clans will have flags, or whatnot. Even in an SF setting, human beings respond to
something bigger than themselves...
I don't know how you're setting up your setting, but whether its the state level or the family level (or a mix of everything in-between), I'd make some decisions about what concepts or cause the culture is fighting for (or how it defines it -- the family level, the state level, and so on), and then figure out what the SYMBOL for that is. (In the U.S. for example, at the highest conceptual level, we're fighting to protect the constitution, but there are plenty of other levels.)
However that works out, I would then allow the players to build their version of how that symbols looks or feels to their PC. If it's a flag, where does it appear on the PCs armor, and what does it look like. If clan or family or particular planet matters, let the Player design the badge/dagger/whatever.
I've found that when I let the Players do some of the work of coloring in the lines I've made, the buy-in is faster and their commitment to the world concepts clearer.
Christopher
Quote from: RPGPundit;277735How would this make for a different society? How would you show this to the players? How would you make sure that the players would get this?
I doubt my idea is going to be very popular but.....
Make the PCs "outsiders". Either former military personnel or mere "civilians". Emphasize the privileges the military class gets - medical benefits, social status etc.
The media will be all about the war effort - mostly propaganda and the PCs would notice the issues or problems that their society faces which is not covered by the mainstream media.
Military law could be the law of the land. How would civilans who are not members of the culture take to it ?
Walking into an entertainment establishment catering to the military -
and there are plenty of them around - itself would be uncomfortable experience for those who don't share the camaraderie of most of the clientele.
Also, the training and discipline soldiers get would be a stark contrast to the abilities of average citizens. You don't want to get into a bar fight with these people.....
Regards,
David R
CJ Cherryh's Union comes to mind.
Quote from: The Shaman;277819CJ Cherryh's Union comes to mind.
I thought the very same thing.
-clash
Ummm...I would play Dark Heresy. Although not necessarily winning the war (and not necessarily losing either), all of the imperium is united in fighting it and every planet contributes in its own little way.
Battlestar Galactica looks like another model. Loyalty will be to The Fleet or Humanity/the People.
Role of women is a big issue. A highly militarised culture engaged in long term high intensity warfare will want women producing as many children as possible, so they may be kept away from certain forms of combat. Or perhaps unmarried women fight, married women stay home and raise the children.
The Israelis were mentioned upthread. The surrounding Arab groups opposing them arguably give other examples of militarised cultures, eg the Hezbollah-led Shi'ites in Lebanon or the Palestinians. The whites in Rhodesia or apartheid South Africa another modern example.
The tone of a campaign like this is going to vary greatly depending on how the culture views the war/wars it is engaged in.
Glory - If the society's culture is based on the gaining of glory, then trophy gathering, great sagas of exploits, and merit based societal advancement could all figure. "'Tis a good day to die." Glory could be personal glory (maybe even in times of peace, gladatorial games are popular), or the glory of the society. The gaining of glory could be an honour system or at the other end of the scale, extreme, rampant expansionism.
Fatalistic - Could be that they are necessarily militaristic. Surrounded by enemies, or the worship of a Death God or cult. Such society might revere death in battle and have little regard for personal safety or individualism.
Despotic - The wheels of war are greased with the disgruntled populace. Military service and training is imposed. This might make the actual rank and file ripe for revolt against their despotic overlords.
Esoteric - War is a way of life and is the basis of the society's philosophies and ethos. Teachings all venerate war in some way - education systems, advancements, doctrines, the arts, etc.
With over “over 60% of the population is in the military at any given time” you aren’t really going to have a society as much as a military with those to old or to young to be in it. I could only imagine how much of the “GDP” would be spent strictly on the military.
A look at the Soviet Union during the Cold War might be a good starting point. A huge chunk of their economy and population was involved in the military.
Quote from: CavScout;277850A look at the Soviet Union during the Cold War might be a good starting point. A huge chunk of their economy and population was involved in the military.
Ba'athist Iraq and some other Oil States also followed the Soviet model. I think these nations were more bureaucratised than militarised though - everyone has a government job, there's a huge military, but the society itself isn't really shaped around The War or The Military but around totalitarian control.
Quote from: S'mon;277855Ba'athist Iraq and some other Oil States also followed the Soviet model. I think these nations were more bureaucratised than militarised though - everyone has a government job, there's a huge military, but the society itself isn't really shaped around The War or The Military but around totalitarian control.
Would not a military that is your society be effectively "totalitarian control"? He's looking at a society with 60% in the military, I can't think of anything that comes close to that in modern times.
Quote from: Haffrung;277742I'd look to the Spartans and Zulus as models. Regimented, collective child-rearing. Strong sense of collective identity, and corresponding contempt for enemies and foreigners. Status of citizens determined largely by their battlefield accomplishments (can only marry after your cohort wins a battle, etc.)
There's lot of historical information on military cultures. But to second Age of Fable's comment, I think it would be difficult to make such a society admirable or sympathetic in a role-playing game.
Sorry, I should have specified that this is a sci-fi context where the "society" in question is descended from our own society, so you really need to start from 21st century earth, and see how 40 years or so of nearly constant warfare where humanity was under threat of extinction (and where sizeable percentages of the human race were wiped out) more than once would change the society we know. There should be some things (customs, social mores, etc) that are standard, while others have simply vanished.
So would child rearing be very regimented? Yes; given that kids would have grown up on starships and been raised in a military environment on ships that (though perhaps not on the front line) were in situations of war. But would you have collective-childrearing where children are separated completely from the family? No, I don't think so.
Social status could certainly depend a great deal more on either military rank or level of public service (slackers would be seen FAR worse than in our society), but you wouldn't have a bunch of klingons who'd rise up in rank purely based on the number of kills they racked up.
Democracy is considered a quaint political system of the past, though.
RPGPundit
Quote from: ChristopherKubasik;277749Like Clash, I can't see the problem with the premise. ("Evil"???)
But let's move on to Pundit's question. I think this is cool and look forward to hearing more details as he sets it up and plays.
Here are some things that popped into my head right off the bat. You might have thought of them, or they might not work with the system, but here goes.
* Every PC is in the military in some way.
Correct, even though not everyone in the society is in the military. What you'd see is something like Israel is today, where a period of military service is essentially obligatory for any able bodied young person; only where a far larger percentage of people would go on to make careers of it.
Also, certain professions that in our world are "civilian", in this world are almost exclusively military careers (ie. Doctor, Scientist), even if their work caters to both military and civilians, all the infrastructure for these kinds of jobs are in the military.
But yes, in the campaign, the PCs are all in the military.
Quote* I really like the idea of families being important (Pundit, you brought up the fact that large chunks of families have died, so I'm going to run with it...) I think the Players should generate immediate family members, noting how they affected by the war (serving; MIA; KIA; on a conquered planet; living behind lines whatever -- but relate each family member to the war)
Yes, that was done; given the nature of the setting, the majority of PCs have very few living family members, however.
Quote* I'd think about PC goals within the culture: Is the PC looking forward to getting out?
I would imagine that in this society, a certain number of years of "military service" are required (possibly as many as 8 years); people enter the military young (at 16). The military essentially takes the place of higher education.
And "military service" doesn't mean frontline fighting, or even what we'd imagine as a military career (like I said, you can spend your military service being a medic or a lab tech working toward a career in science or medicine; or working in the engineering sections working toward a career in that).
After that, people can get out whenever they want, but many of the real opportunities for careers would be military.
One good question is what essential careers would exist that would NOT be within the military structure?
I think, for example, there would be an "entertainment industry" where the actual entertainers would not technically be in the military, but all entertainment would have a propagandistic side to it and the delivery of entertainment being handled by the Communications division of the military forces.
Quote* I'd make sure that the the character sheet is marked with a significant event from every term of service -- how they fit in with the war as a whole, and their government as a whole. (Promotions, commendations, medals, injuries, imprisonment for insubordination, special tasks, locals thinking they were a hero, putting down a rebellion, whatever...)
The PCs are all relatively young, 15-22 years old (one of them lied about his age to get in before the age of 16), and they're coming out of one of those brief "lull periods" where for a few years (in their area of space at least) there hasn't been any serious conflict, so none of them have any really serious combat experience yet.
RPGPundit
Quote from: Spinachcat;277767Child Soldiers - when they muster up some NPCs for their next suicide mission, give them a bunch of 12-16 year olds with guns. Make half of them girls. Then blow them apart like rag dolls full of meatsauce.
Again, the human military has been on the (slowly, generally) winning side of things for the last long while now, so the need for child soldiers really isn't there, the minimum age for full-blown military service has been 16 for at least a decade or so now.
RPGPundit
Quote from: S'mon;277837Battlestar Galactica looks like another model. Loyalty will be to The Fleet or Humanity/the People.
Role of women is a big issue. A highly militarised culture engaged in long term high intensity warfare will want women producing as many children as possible, so they may be kept away from certain forms of combat. Or perhaps unmarried women fight, married women stay home and raise the children.
Probably because the culture comes out of western human culture from the 21st century, women have been seen as "equals" to men for a long time now. For about 20 years or so, the supreme commander of the armed forces was a woman (who's now retired, but still around).
There are certainly probably big incentives for women to have babies, and probably a lot of rules making it possible for women to have babies safely and often without suffering consequences to their military career if they're in the forces.
And, human society being what it is, the frontline combat forces have a vast gender disparity in favour of men, while most women tend to serve on ships as crew, technical officers, or in other non-frontline capacities. However, any woman who wants to be a pilot or a grunt (and is physically and mentally capable) is allowed (and in this setting some of the most famous soldiers/aces were women).
RPGPundit
Quote from: CavScout;277865Would not a military that is your society be effectively "totalitarian control"? He's looking at a society with 60% in the military, I can't think of anything that comes close to that in modern times.
Yup, this is a setting that hasn't known a functioning democracy in something like 45 years. There is, however, a civilian "government" that is selected by a mix of military, scientific, and technical/professional bureaucrats, and is almost inevitably composed of ex-military individuals. This is a necessity due to the humans being part of a political alliance with several alien worlds, and the "government" (aside from handling the bureaucratic aspects of human life) are mainly there to represent humanity in that context.
In theory, the "president" of the human culture has the highest authority, but the head of the armed forces has over-ruling powers in the case of "military matters", and since almost everything is a "military matter" in practice the armed forces head is really the one who calls the shots.
A note on the question of "evil society"; this is a society that sees itself as fighting for humanity's survival (and currently, the Earth's liberation), and believe very strongly in the value of human life. The NPCs who run things are not evil people, or corrupt, they're people who've given their entire lives, sacrificed their own happiness, and sometimes their own children, to the cause, and they act in generally principled ways. However, the system they work under (essentially a dictatorship) is one that is rife with the
opportunity for abuse, and there have been incidences of corrupt officers and generals doing terrible things, and it is evident that if someone other than the current good people were in charge, everything could go to hell very quickly.
RPGPundit
You should really look at John Scalzi's The Ghost Brigade for this. Although reading Old Man's War prior to it will help explain a culture of genetically engineered and nanotech modified warriors with computer implants to provide tactics & communications but have the emotional maturity of their physical age (in single digit years).
Quote from: CavScout;277865Would not a military that is your society be effectively "totalitarian control"? He's looking at a society with 60% in the military, I can't think of anything that comes close to that in modern times.
It's a question of purpose. Taking Iraq in the '80s, Iraqi society was never really purposively organised for winning the Iraq-Iran war, it was much more organised towards the purpose of maintaining the control of the regime, and especially a small Tikriti cabal around Saddam Hussein. The USSR in the latter part of WW2 was highly organised towards defeating Nazi Germany, but that was a temporary phenomenon, before and after WW2 the USSR's organisation was not directed primarily towards military victory, but towards internal control.
Quote from: S'mon;277887It's a question of purpose. Taking Iraq in the '80s, Iraqi society was never really purposively organised for winning the Iraq-Iran war, it was much more organised towards the purpose of maintaining the control of the regime, and especially a small Tikriti cabal around Saddam Hussein. The USSR in the latter part of WW2 was highly organised towards defeating Nazi Germany, but that was a temporary phenomenon, before and after WW2 the USSR's organisation was not directed primarily towards military victory, but towards internal control.
But a military is about control, and so would a society that is 60% military. A military doesn't work (well) without control.
How about the Clans in Battletech?
Israel might be a useful model. It has mandatory military service for all citizens regardless of gender with limited exceptions for religious beliefs and medical issues, and unlike most modern societies with universal conscription, it engages in wars, military exercises, etc. frequently enough to be a relevant example. Now, Israel is currently a representative democracy, so it's not totally what you're looking for, but it might serve as a starting point,
Lots of good ideas about what the world might be like -- one thought: we don't have many examples of people *growing up* in completely artificial environments; I think *that* might make at least as big an impression as a war.
I think that child-care on a space ship would be hugely communal (for reasons of efficient utilization of resources) and the primary family unit might be subordinate in key ways to the "class" or other group social structure (this might also be the case if there were a lot of orphans).
I wanted to chime in on "how to make sure the players get it:"
This is a technique thing that I've thought a lot about. Here's what I've come up with:
1) You need to have the world written up. No one is going to read a novel (unless you write *very* well), so the document should be structured with clear sections, and bite-sized, bullet-point chunks that would.
- Give the players the basic, common-knowledge their PC's would have
- List key NPC's (say 3-7 people) with basic information like name, gender, age, race (if there are aliens) and role and no more than one or two short sentences of description covering both demeanor & physical appearance
- Introduce them to KEY elements of their perspective, particularly where it's different from 20th/21st century people in your player's country
- Give a bit of flavor about the world through things like terminology, names, and other references
- Use graphics as much as possible -- they're fundamentally interesting and, done well, can convey a *LOT* of information about the world and the culture (so inset pictures of the fleet ships, maps of known-space, etc.) I would get everything from Google because I'm not an artist or anything)
- Give short snippets of first-person narrative, interviews with key NPC's, or purport to be excerpts from official documents
2) You also need to talk (briefly) through the document so during / before character creation and during the game not actually assume anyone has read / remembered it. Reference it during the game.
I've both done and been given these kinds of things and they rock. With the right formatting they're highly skimmable; players pull terms and ideas and references out of them during game to give a remarkable sense of solidity to the world.
I also find that skill in putting this kind of thing together is key -- the best one's I've seen are funny. This stuff is dry, inherently.
Here's an example: I was doing a game set at about 2012 (5 years from now) for characters who would be about 20 at the time. Although these characters would be contemporaries of the actually players (mostly in their... eh... well, ah... old), I thought that playing someone *20 years old* in 2012 would be significantly alien to our group that I gave them the following write up as the first section of a document I'm describing:
I include it since folks read it and it got a decent reaction (mainly "Lord, I'm OLD!" but during the game people have been pretty good about making era-appropriate references and expressing curiosity when older characters make 80's and 90's era references)
Class of 2010
• You were born in 1992
• The year before you were born the Soviet Union dissolved. The Berlin Wall fell two years earlier. You never knew the Evil Empire
• America had been at war – briefly – the year before – with Iraq
• Your first memories might be around 1995 – You were too young to see Toy Story in the theaters that year; your parents might have watched the aftermath of the Oklahoma City Bombing on TV
• Or they might have watched the OJ Simpson trial.
• You were five in 1997 when Titanic became the highest grossing film of all time – too young to see it, or appreciate its intense and transient impact on world culture (by the time you were 12, and old enough for Leonardo DiCaprio to be on your radar he was playing eccentric millionaire Howard Hughes in The Aviator (2004). Kate Winslet had disappeared into movies you've never heard of like Romance and Cigarettes)
• By the time you were eight you were probably aware that everyone would soon be rich (something called the Dow broke 10,000 in March 1999. The next month two teenagers killed 12 of their fellow students and a teacher in what remains the worst school shooting on record) and then the world would end on December 31st, 2000 A.D.
• 9/11 would have been nearly incomprehensible from a geopolitical standpoint. Nothing in your experience would have given you a framework or context for the events of that day. At nine years old the events of that day seem less like a political act and more like a violent, arbitrary act of nature comparable to Hurricane Katrina four years later. The death tolls are almost the same (2500 for the storm, 3000 for the terrorism)
• In 2002 you're 10 years old and just at the edge American Idol becomes a pop-culture phenomenon and remains there as you age into the lower end of its demographic.
• The techno fantasy of enduring ascendency and Dow 30,000 of just three years earlier seem like Narnia-level fantasy. The bubble is gone. The country seems to be in a haze of danger and a build up to war (isn't there a war already going on?)
• The year after that the Iraq War starts (no one you know calls it "Gulf War II"). You're 11 and perhaps old enough to realize we're fighting a war in someplace called Afghanistan as well.
• You entered High School in 2005, when you turned 14. President Bush embarks on his second. It does not begin auspiciously (the Hurricane). Signs are not good – if anything you hear that things may get worse.
• But if the weather, the world, and dad's job seemed a little uncertain, at least the old homestead was doing well. Housing prices were at an all time high
• In 2007 the subprime housing crisis morphed into the global credit crunch. On the eve of your sweet 16 (2008) people would be talking about a collapse comparable to the Great Depression. The optimists said it would only be "as bad as the 70's." You know people – middle class people – who have lost their jobs (Bear Stearns). You know people – middle class people – who have lost their house
Cheers,
-E.
Have you read the Amtrak Wars (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Amtrak_Wars)? The depiction of the Federation is pretty close to what you describe - the society is geared for war against the mutants who have inheirited the world after a nuclear war. Its very regimented but also quite human in its foibles. The main thrust of the book is about how individuals from such a society cope when they meet their enemy and ultimately fall for them and the conflicts that produces.
If you weren't up for an that type story you could perhaps emphasise the social obligation to respond to orders. Everyone expects it, even civilians, and to rebel is call into question the war and the survival of the species.
Civilian characters who appear fit and able to serve could receive a certain social penalty as people wonder why they aren't serving in the military. This has real life parrallels in WW1 and WW2 where able non-combatants were imprisoned or ostracised. Perhaps the characters are operating for a government agency that is so secret they can't tell anyone. In WW2, the code breakers in Bletchley were forbidden from talking about their work to even their families, not just in the war but afterwards and for same reasons could not join the military. One C.O in Bletchley actually went as far as writing to the children of some of the code breakers, now grown up, once the documents had been declassified to explain how critical their work had been to the war effort.
I suppose you want to answer - what sort of military do they have? A broadly meritocratic one or a semi-feudal one where the high positions are appointed from a limited range of people? That will in turn shape the society that emerges.