Roberson's Interminable Ramble

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The military divisions of the Mexica were different than those adopted by the Middle Kingdom. The forces of the Dragon Throne were divided into infantry trained for surface combat—the Army of the Green Standard—marine forces trained to operate in all environments—the Eight Banners—and the Interplanetary Fleet—as at home flying in vacuum as they were in the air, especially after absorbing the men and equipment of the now-decommissioned Imperial Navy of the Air some years before. By contrast, the military of the Mexic Dominion was a single body, reporting through a unified command structure, with men and women assigned to the various functions on an individual basis, by dint of their personal aptitudes and experience. It was sometimes difficult for onlookers from the Middle Kingdom to fathom, but it seemed it was not unlikely for a Mexic warrior to begin as an infantryman, later to be transferred to a marine company of commando, and end up finally as an aeronaut. The rank and roll of the individual could be determined by the type of armor he wore, and especially by its adornment.

The Jaguar Knights were an elite body of Mexic warriors who stood at the pinnacle of a military hierarchy that dominated an entire society. From birth, Mexica were trained to be fierce combatants, and each child’s umbilicus was ritually burned and then buried under the consecrated ground of a former battlefield not far from their capital city, Place of the Cactus. Testing throughout childhood gauged the child’s aptitudes, and training was tailored to the individual’s strengths and weaknesses accordingly. Coming of age, Mexica were sent into battle, and rose through the ranks by capturing prisoners in combat. Eventually, if the young warrior survived enough conflicts and distinguished himself through a sufficient number of kills and captures, he would be inducted into one of the orders. There were many such groupings, but the two preeminent warrior orders were the Eagle Knights, comprised of aeronauts who had garnered a requisite number of kills in air or space, and the Jaguar Knights, warriors who had captured a high number of enemy combatants on land, sea, air, or vacuum.

There was another warrior elite of the Mexic Dominion, the House of Darkness, which served the Great Speaker of the Mexic Dominion much as the Embroidered Guard served the Dragon Throne. But the servants of the House of Darkness were not simply secret policemen and intelligencers, like the agents of the Embroidered Guard, but were likewise torturers and ritual executioners. Those who came under the obsidian blades of the House of Darkness were sacrificed in the name of all the gods of the Mexica, but especially to the honor and glory of the flayed god, Xipe Totec.

# posted by Chris Roberson @ 3:20 PM