I heard of a concept called "patriotism"...

Does anyone have any background or information on non-American Special forces?
Current US Special Forces would be comparable to UCAS, CFS and, more accurately, CAS Special Forces, but I can imagine the PCC or Sioux would have a much more Awakened and less bio/cybered group of Special forces.

What about the Israeli Special forces? I can imagine their system is most reminiscent of a "Me-Against-The-World" country like Tir Tairngire.
In any event a better sampling of international special forces training might give a more balanced depiction of what a green beret in the future would look like after 70 years of cultural diffusion. After all, there weren't any special forces(at least any we recognize today) 70 years ago. Unless you count the Texas Rangers.

And what about officer training in Special Operations? What does a commissioned officer have to do before being considered for a fancy hat?

i don't think there are any other SF's than tir ghosts and the red samurai and the such who have allready been statted out . . at least i did not find anything about mossad and the german equivalent of the seals, our combat-divers/swimers . .

The money argument works the same for everyone though, not just the Awakened. Each and every single member of military Special Forces could make a great deal more money in the private sector. Each of these people are already out of their 20s, and still keep re-enlisting for some reason (other than money).

Not only that, but the strong sense of purpose you feel. Enough money to live and that job satisfaction, combined with quite a bit of adventure to feel, what could many men want more? The band of brothers.

Well as rare as Magic is, I personally think that most Mages would be channeled towards that as opposed to being put into the actual military itself.

Back in the 'good old days', young delinquents of military age were often given the choice of joining the Army in lieu of a jail sentence for minor infractions (theft, destruction of public property, etc.) A friend of mine ended up putting in 4 years after getting caught stealing a car for a joyride. I don't hear about that happening as much these days, but I could easily imagine the Army recruiting any awakened kids in juvie or jail to help fill out the ranks.

And I expect there would be heavy use of contractor mages for non-combat tasks such as ward maintenance, etc.

I lumped this together as I ran across it. It's solely responses to what I saw that was written, with few original thoughts of my own.

There's a long tradition of giving perks to healers, and still feeling more gratitude than resentment, with the usual slew of exceptions. Army surgeons get extra pay without drawing much flak for it. If most military mages are also healers, then perhaps they get the same effect.

Tangent: how would training change if your unit had a guy who could routinely heal a sprained ankle or equivalent injury in about 10 seconds? Willingness to risk injury might change, and thus intensity of some exercises, such as jump training. Better to risk the pain and trust the magical healing, and stay sharp, than to be second best in a for-real firefight, eh?

How much does the draw of military service depend on who's fighting? By most accounts, most veterans returning to America from WWII were treated as heroes, even though some of them had seen and done "questionable things" (mostly necessary or lesser evils, although not always). Veterans returning from Vietnam got more varied receptions because there was not universal agreement that their mission was good, useful, legal or ethical. (That's a deliberate understatement; stronger versions would distract from my point.) So, do many UCAS citizens see their military as keeping them safe and benefiting the world? Or otherwise?

It probably depends on the individual campaign. In my campaign, the UCAS army dealt with both the Renraku Arcology Shutdown as well as the Chicago Bug Problem very quickly (few days to two weeks, depending on whether mobilisation and mop up operations count). They were working with Renraku and Ares, respectively. They did not let those affairs linger on for months, and while the actual operation was very messy, and they took a lot of losses and inflicted serious collateral damage, the general public sees them as heroes, defending the UCAS, and the world, against monsters and robots.

CAS armed forces also have a very positive image in their own country (and in any other country that is at odds with Aztlan) since they took back part of the occupied Texan territory from Aztlan (again, in my campaign, and with some backup from Ares).

Ares, of course, has a lot of PR people working on keeping things this way - if people like the army, it's much easier to get government to pay for more weapon systems for said army, and thanks to the good relations and past shared combat experience, almost all of those new systems will be bought from Ares.

I thought you'd forgotten about me with all the other activity.

I can see your points. I'll have to think a bit before giving a decent response.

Another factor here is training/experience. It's highly unlikely that Delta Airlines would hire you right out of Highschool because you have the potential to be a pilot. The military is appealing because they will take someone with no real training or experience and TRAIN them. Sure, there are some hoops to jump through with many jobs (like only officers being allowed to go to flight school in the Air Force), but in general, if all you have is "potential", the military is a LOT more likely to give you that training than a corporation is.

However, with the awakened, it's completely different. If you test positive for magic potential, tons of companies will be looking to scoop you up, right after graduation...and sometimes even before. It doesn't matter that your GPA was a 2.1, that you barely got out of your remedial classes, or that you never played any sports. They will make the investment in hiring/training you because you have a special something that cannot be trained/taught/or learned through experience. You HAVE TO BE BORN WITH IT.

Awakened individuals won't face the same challenges in getting a job that non-awakened people will simply because of their uniqueness. A teenager from a low-income family who has magic potential doesn't have to worry about how he will be able to pay for college, or how he is going to be able to break into what profession he wants to join for the rest of his life. He becomes a golden-boy, and all of a sudden, that training and job security the Army offered him a year ago doesn't seem so appealing.

It might. It probably wouldn't be any worse than the different pay scales for officers if you are/are not prior enlisted, though.

I think they're probably just go the bonus route in any case, though.

*shrug* The last 2 units I've been in have worked on the basic GS/Step system until recently. The fact that you guys have seen a different system working seems to show that the whole "different levels of pay for the same rank" thing is even less of a pain than I thought.

As an aside, how interwoven are we lead to believe that Ares personnel are with the UCAS military? You never know, Ares might loan some finger-wigglers out. Makes sense, if you think about it.. They get preferential treatment for federal contracts, get to keep their eye on the UCAS military, and on top of that, make sure their country doesn't get invaded.

@Fortinbras: my fault, sorry.

Ares has consultants for weapon tech, their job is to be hired out. Only for "training purposes", but that may include "live fire excercises" using support discreetly pulled from the Desert Wars Division.

Fun and interesting topic, hope it's not so old that this is considered a necro-post...

One thing people haven't really discussed yet is the potentially changing role that Army SF might have in the 6th world, particularly the area of FID (Foreign Internal Defense, or the whole teaching gig that Army SF have). FID came about as a result of the good 'ole U.S. of A having to help other countries become democracies (witness Vietnam, where this birth came about) and was a natural evolution of the WW2 experience that the O.S.S. and the Jedburghs had with training foreign fighters, especially in the Resistance, against the Axis forces.

In the 6th world, how important is it for the CAS / UCAS to flex their military muscles abroad? Given the state of the global politics, it seems that the CAS and UCAS would be a bit more isolationist with regards to extending their military - do they still have bases in other countries? I don't get the impression that this is the case.

Given the the "American Empire" is not the same Democracy-pushing machine it once was - and in fact has so fractured it could hardly be considered an empire - I would think that force allocation outlooks and strategies would be *much* different, and this would spread across the entire military armed forces. Focus would more be spent on ensuring that borders are not breached, rapid deployment to trouble spots within their borders, and similar strategic and tactical considerations. Hell, the military is now effectively divided in half, so we might see some interesting changes there as well.

One of the things I'm looking at for my own campaign is the effective merging of all SoF (regardless of military branch) into one national "unit", as it were. We've already seen the beneficial effects of having SoF under one umbrella with the creation of the SoF umbrella organization; in a world where your military has just taken a gigantic personnel hit and your mission has changed to a large degree, does the vast number of special units currently in the U.S. military still warrant itself, or will many units be folded into a gigantic parent unit that helps them become more efficient at their job?

You might see something like the dissolution of the SF, SEALs, etc. into one unit of a single name, with a unified selection process. It seems that for countries like CAS and the UCAS, the big focuses would be on Unconventional Warfare (What happens if those dirty elves start taking over portions of our country?) and Direct Action (oh crap those dirty elves are funding an internal terrorist group - time to take it out!). Skillsets would thusly change in focus as well.

Just though I'd throw out a few nuyen to the discussion - it's been an interesting read!