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Message: <blockquote data-quote="haakon1" data-source="post: 6112654" data-attributes="member: 25619">Nod, modern military ranks are as close to universal as just about anything in the globalized world.  NATO rank reference codes provide an easy translation for every military that I'm aware of.  And often, even the terms in different languages are cognates.<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparative_military_ranks" target="_blank">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparative_military_ranks</a><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_rank" target="_blank">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_rank</a>Why?  I've often wondered (honestly) at how it could be that universal.  One theory I had is that there's something innate, even evolutionary in origin, in the species that wants units that are more-or-less 10-12 (squad with a sergeant), 100-150 (company with a captain), 1000 (battalion with a Lt. Col., or single-battalion regiment with a colonel), and 10000-15000 (division with a 2-star general).  Is it having 10 fingers?  Or because hunter-gatherer groups evolved to a scale of about 100-150 people (near minimum for genetic diversity over multiple generations)?  Who knows.More obviously it's the legacy of imperialism.  Why would the American, Ugandan, Pakistani, and Singaporean armies all have the same ranks and organization?  Duh.  All four countries, distant as they are in location and culture, were part of the British Empire and their first generals after independence were former British officers.  Add in the French and Spanish have similar ranks, and you get a legacy in probably the majority of the world's countries.For a fantasy world, you could say Dwarves are completely different (different species!) or you could say, eh, it's all the same.  I prefer the latter.</blockquote>

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