# Quick question about how top military officers communicate.



## Joker (Jan 18, 2022)

So the Rear Admiral of the Ossian Space Guard for the Bahal system needs to reach out to the Colonel of the NBC Protection Troops halfway across the planet of Kesra. I'm guessing these two people have never met considering their so outside of each other's wheelhouse. 

How would the Rear Admiral reach out? Would he just call her? Are military cell phones off the grid from spam calls and such? Or would he try and reach some flunky under her?


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## Lawless (Jan 18, 2022)

I imagine anyone important enough would have the military equivalent of a secretary rather than answer his own phone and waste his time getting hold of people. So the Rear Admiral would order his secretary to call the Colonel (which would mean the Colonel's secretary.)

However, you have a lot of liberty in making your societies more or less formal or casual, as well as make communications more or less cumbersome. Maybe it's the most convenient for the Rear Admiral to touch a screen a few times and have the Colonel's face on the same in a couple of seconds.


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## Joker (Jan 18, 2022)

Lawless said:


> I imagine anyone important enough would have the military equivalent of a secretary rather than answer his own phone and waste his time getting hold of people. So the Rear Admiral would order his secretary to call the Colonel (which would mean the Colonel's secretary.)
> 
> However, you have a lot of liberty in making your societies more or less formal or casual, as well as make communications more or less cumbersome. Maybe it's the most convenient for the Rear Admiral to touch a screen a few times and have the Colonel's face on the same in a couple of seconds.



Hmm. It is an emergency, and it is 4081 AD. But military procedure is what it is.


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## Lawless (Jan 18, 2022)

Joker said:


> it is 4081 AD


Oh. Why didn't you say so? He rubs the tips of his thumb and ring finger together twice and is instantly connected to the Colonel in his head.


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## CyberWar (Jan 18, 2022)

In peacetime, the top brass would most likely communicate by proxy, i.e., through scheduling calls and appointments via their secretaries. If the officer on the receiving end is available, he might as well pick up the call straight away after being informed by his secretary. If he is indisposed, the secretary will schedule a call or meeting for when he is available. If it is about some small matter, like arranging a transfer of troops or material, it will most likely be delegated to the respective officers responsible for handling such things, their COs merely leaving their stamp and signature on the paperwork. A more serious meeting will be scheduled and held with some ceremony. In the very least, the soldiers manning the base security checkpoints will be informed that a Colonel/General X will be coming today at something-o'clock in a car of model Y with license number Z, that they are to let him pass, render a salute and immediately inform the officer of the watch that this visitor has arrived. He will then notify the receiving officer, who will promptly come outside to greet and receive his guest, and make sure everything and everyone in the base is prim and proper so as not to embarrass his CO.

General-tier officers tend to have pretty busy schedules that are often planned days or weeks in advance. They spend their time on things like inspection tours to various units, meetings with politicians to discuss matters of military budget and national security, meetings with defense contractors to assess their latest merchandise and negotiate procurement terms, foreign trips to international conferences, state receptions and even informal events like playing golf with the president or MoD that might get them the ear of these people. That's on top of their regular work of reviewing reports from subordinates, responding to them with appropriate orders and taking part in staff meetings to plan the next military exercise or whatever the MoD has tasked them to plan.

Those officers who have to work closely together on a daily basis might use each other's personal phone numbers to speak directly as necessary. Many militaries do indeed issue secure cell phones to their officers for work use.

In wartime, things might be a bit less formal, but since officers would be expected to remain with their staff at all times, any meetings outside their units would still be scheduled in advance.


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## Joker (Jan 18, 2022)

Given all the factors, I'm thinking it would go something like this:

Chander, the NBC Colonel, would be in the boring her NCOs with an admin sideshow or some such when her secretary comes in and whispers in her ear that there's been an emergency, the system's Rear Admiral wants to talk to her, blah blah blah. She cuts her meeting short and goes to her office, opens a future!Zoom chat with him, and gets the plot bomb.


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## Travalgar (Jan 19, 2022)

CyberWar said:


> In peacetime, the top brass would most likely communicate by proxy, i.e., through scheduling calls and appointments via their secretaries. If the officer on the receiving end is available, he might as well pick up the call straight away after being informed by his secretary. If he is indisposed, the secretary will schedule a call or meeting for when he is available. If it is about some small matter, like arranging a transfer of troops or material, it will most likely be delegated to the respective officers responsible for handling such things, their COs merely leaving their stamp and signature on the paperwork. A more serious meeting will be scheduled and held with some ceremony. In the very least, the soldiers manning the base security checkpoints will be informed that a Colonel/General X will be coming today at something-o'clock in a car of model Y with license number Z, that they are to let him pass, render a salute and immediately inform the officer of the watch that this visitor has arrived. He will then notify the receiving officer, who will promptly come outside to greet and receive his guest, and make sure everything and everyone in the base is prim and proper so as not to embarrass his CO.
> 
> General-tier officers tend to have pretty busy schedules that are often planned days or weeks in advance. They spend their time on things like inspection tours to various units, meetings with politicians to discuss matters of military budget and national security, meetings with defense contractors to assess their latest merchandise and negotiate procurement terms, foreign trips to international conferences, state receptions and even informal events like playing golf with the president or MoD that might get them the ear of these people. That's on top of their regular work of reviewing reports from subordinates, responding to them with appropriate orders and taking part in staff meetings to plan the next military exercise or whatever the MoD has tasked them to plan.
> 
> ...


Sounds a lot like civilian company executives.


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## CyberWar (Jan 20, 2022)

Travalgar said:


> Sounds a lot like civilian company executives.


You'll be surprised how much that is actually true. A military officer is essentially a business manager in a fancier uniform. Just like civilian managers, his main duty is to organize the activities of his unit towards objectives designated by his superiors, and 70% or more of his work actually revolves around handling loads and loads of paperwork, at least in peacetime. Most of the actual commanding in the field will be handled by NCOs and junior officers ranked below captain.

Having worked as a military officer's personal assistant for a time, I can attest from personal experience that most of what a typical company CO does these days is browse through endless inventory lists to make sure they are in order and up to date, track down and fix any discrepancies, draft exercise plans,  make phone calls to secure guest instructors, outside equipment and time on the training ground schedule if the unit's own resources aren't sufficient, and later writes extensive after-action reports to the battalion CO (half of which is often bullshit and is written solely to add more volume and make the report look more impressive). The officer is furthermore required to have good command of military law and legal technicalities, since every written order must be made according to a lengthy legalistic formula specifying the exact law paragraphs on which the order is based, so as to formally establish its lawfulness. Actually going out on an exercise and commanding men in the field was more of a rare exception for my CO, and was treated more as a pleasant break from the daily bureaucratic tedium.

I'd imagine it's even more so in the higher ranks, whose holders would not be expected to take to the field even in wartime.


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## Travalgar (Jan 20, 2022)

CyberWar said:


> A military officer is essentially a business manager in a fancier uniform


This I've been suspecting for a long time. Thank you for confirming that.

I've learned before in my undergraduate studies that a lot of the things that we do in the field of logistics today (which by extension would encompass the whole supply chain management, which means ~80% of production-related activities in the world) actually had its roots on military supply planning. Military campaigns were one of human's earliest undertakings that requires countless numbers of goods and services to be moved around at a time constraint. Sending 5,000 men to conquer that 500 km away region? You better have something to feed them on the way, then. Sorry; you don't? Well, we're sending them the food from here, no prob. What? the supply caravan takes time to walk from point of origin to wherever your army currently is (which of course moves farther every day)? Damn....


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