11 janvier 2008
My first take at Zhodani ranks...
Caution! This is a prototype, an alpha version, work in progress...
Whatever you call it, know that this isn't definitive as I'm not
entirely happy with them myself... That's also why they're black, gray
and white: I haven't set for a given color scheme yet!
The rationae behind the drawings:
Some informations I gathered about the Zhodani military:
If their ranks name is of any indication, the Zhos have a traditional clear cut between enlisteds ('protl' suffix) and officers ('stibr' suffix). Given the casted nature of their society, this makes sense
The cut between generals/admirals and 'regular' officers seems less clear, if existent at all...
- The use of the same suffixes for both army and navy might hint at a joinish kind of organisation with similar rank devices for both corps
- 'The combat armor's distinct clamshell helmet appearance may evoke Dark Age Zhdant war-helms used by the early psionic nobility, wich were often designed to suggest Chirper heads.' This sentence (GT:AR1) might be interpreted as some link between 'Chirper' and 'warrior' in the Zhodani mind
- The Droyn coyn symbol for 'warrior' is a kind of chevron, while the symbol for 'leader' is some kind of six points star
- The Zhodany army at last has a very mathematical structure: officer of 20, of 50, of 100, 200, 500...
The design I ended up with:
For officers: six pointed stars on a field of vertical lines
The number of lines indicate the scope of the unit commanded by the officer: 1 line = tens, 2 lines = hundreds, 3 lines = thousands, 4 lines = tens of thousands and a big block = millions
The number of stars further narrows the size of the unit commanded: e.g. 2 stars = 2 hundreds/thousands/...
For the NCOs: pretty much the same with thiner lines and chevrons instead of stars...
Waiting Officer, officer of 20, officer of 50,
officer of 100, officer of 200 and officer of 500.
Officer of 1000, officer of 2000, officer of 5000,
officer of 10000 and officer of millions.
Leader of 10, leader of 20, leader of 50,
leader of 100 and leader of 1000.
At the end of the day, I've got a 'not alien enough' feeling... The whole system looks a lot like the Soviet system; but then, aren't the Zhos the Russians of Traveller?