…and everyone survives. This debate is an attempt to uncover the nature of people already given a culture and assigned, objective ‘prestige’ levels (like rank). Give your responses the the following questions based on what *would * happen, not what you think *should * happen:
Question 1: Do you think they would a) decide to follow rank structure, b) go egalitarian/democratic, or c) something else?
Question 2: Assuming people are evenly split on the decision, do they a) have to reach an agreement, b) fight to the death until everyone agrees, or c) go their separate ways and live apart?
Question 3: Who would decide what, and what would the punishments be for disobedience?
Question 4: What happens as time moves on? When people die? When children come?
Given conditions: The island is sub-tropical. Getting food and resources isn’t easy, but possible. Everyone realizes the chances of rescue are zero, so no attempt to escape is made. There are 60 people in the group, aged 18-45, all reasonably healthy.
After a few responses, I’ll give you some responses of the soldiers at my unit I’ve quizzed already.
The rank structure would endure for at least six months and probably several years. How long it lasts will depend a great deal on the individuals involved. A random collection of people will naturally sort themselves into a dominance hierarchy. The longevity of the rank structure will depend on how well it matches the natural hierarchy of the individuals. If the officers have the confidence and support of the enlisted men they could stay in control for decades.
The break-up, if it comes, will probably involve small groups and individuals splitting off to go their own way. There will only be violence if there’s a specific resource that different groups want to claim as their own.
The leaders decide. (These leaders will be either the initial officers or the natural leaders who come later.) Punishment will be shaming, banishment, or death.
Eventually you’ll get a tribe that looks pretty much like tribal societies the world over.
I’d try to find the Crazy French Lady and have her lead us to the Others’ camp. Then I’d hijack the sub and escape. Oh, and watch out for the polar bears!
I think you’d see the military rank structure remaining intact for a long time. Everybody on the island voluntarily submitted to this system and would be unlikely to abandon it in a crisis.
I would guess so too, unless it’s clear the ranking officer is completely unable to deal with the crisis. Granted, it is unlikely, as the US military sends it’s folks into training for crisis management and wilderness survival courses…
But let’s do a hypothetical:
A single squad of US Marines washes up on some remote tropical Island. The 2nd Lt accompanying them suffers from a emotional collapse, despite his training. (Maybe the realisation/belief that he may just end up stuck on this island, seperated from his wife and newborn, for life, emotionally breaks him.) He becomes increasingly paranoid and delusional, and his orders make less and less sense. I think, if their is a strong enough secondary leader (say some senior NCO), he will eventually take over, trying to make the best out of a shitty situation as he can, in accordance with whatever his training, experience, and sense of duty allows.
Firearms, if present, could make, indeed would make, things more difficult.
[ul]
[li]Large animals, in numbers great enough to support 12-14 Humans on a steady basis, just do not exist on small islands. So, they can’t be hunted.[/li][li]Military weapon would tend to dissolve birds killed with them into a fine red mist. M-16s are no good here, either.[/li][li]Ammo would run out, rendering them useless.[/li][li] The dependency on firearms would delay the castaways’ development of tools from the local environment.[/li][li]Firearms greatly increase the consequences of interpersonal conflicts, which would arise.[/li][/ul]
You forget, Bosda, that these are military troops. This means that there will be a intensive manhunt for them, and they will be found.
If they won’t be found, guns will most probably be collected by the NCO, and put in an armory. What, do you think soldiers just walk around with 'em?
If the island is big enough for 60 people to live on, it’s big enough to provide enough for a raft to get off of said island.
And if the 2nd LT is flaking out, the senior NCO will advise him. That’s what they’re there for.
Fine. If we want to start breaking the rules, let’s say that even if they could build a raft, they wouldn’t know where to start paddling, so that’s out.
Second, let’s suppose the rest of the world is… dead. All of them. So no rescue is coming. So there.
So, I guess they are pretty happy that the military went sexually integrated at this point.
In a real life scenario, I would guess that military discipline would hang on for quite a while. (If your squad was arguiing that it would dissolve immediately, you might want to transfer out, as I would not want to be hanging around guys with guns in combat if they could not maintain discipline in a new environment.)
It is unlikely that they will begin to go their separate ways (on #2), at least not until a considerable period of time has passed (say, after the breakdown of our lovelorn 2nd Lt). Military basic training in all the branches is meant to strip down the sense of individual and replace it with a mantra that you must work together to survive. This is bashed in with a club. I think a military group would stand a better chance than a bunch of civvies in this situation.
Especially considering that system was designed to operate in crisis situations. Every soldier is indoctrinated to understand that the more dangerous things get, the more important it becomes to maintain military discipline.
I remember reading a science fiction novel more than 50 years ago (It may have been Heinlein’s (Farnham’s Freehold) in which there was a nuclear holocaust and among the few survivors was a rich man and his black (although in those days we said “negro” ) servants. As they tried to establish some sort of order and community, the rich man began giving orders to his former servants. And they rebelled, saying in effect “That was then, this is now.” The servants left the richman’s group and formed their own society. Might that happen on the island?
That’s a fairly mangled summary. There was one servant. Farnham made it clear that Joe(?) was an equal and valued member of their small society. There’s a lot more to it than that, but it probably isn’t appopriate for this forum.
Re the OP: Military discipline would hold for some time. Rather than type my entire answer, I’ll take the lazy way out and say, “What Pochacco said.”
This is the problem at the core of William Brinkley’s excellent postapocalyptic novel, The Last Ship: Amazon.com
Only there it’s a Navy destroyer after WWIII. The captain is a strong-but-silent type who has to deal with a mutiny of a substantial faction of the crew, led by his XO, who want to go back to the USA on the (extremely remote) chance that anyone was left alive after a global nukefest. He also has to deal with the question of how to restart the human race using the female members of his crew. It’s a pretty good book; check it out.
Essentially, they get through the crisis because naval discipline is sustained - the captain reminds his crew that they all swore an oath to the Constitution and to obey their superiors. The ship has become a miniature country, and almost all of them recognize that their odds of survival are much better than if they yield to anarchy or factionalism.
Capt. Janeway faced a similar problem in the series premiere of Star Trek: Voyager, when her starship was flung far from the Federation and she was cut off - probably for decades, or so it then appeared - from her chain of command.
If we’re going into fictional examples, there are several times in Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey/Maturin series when ship’s crews wind up stranded on islands and naval discipline still holds, though it seems to be a touch and go thing at times. In those instances, Capt. Aubrey has to actively lead the crews (keep them busy/entertained/etc.) to maintain discipline.
As O’Brian tried to use actual examples from British naval history of the era as the basis for his stories, I would imagine that there were quite a few shipwrecked crews in the British sailing navy where discipline held and the crews were rescued, particularly under strong officer leadership. It is unclear what may have happened in cases where there was weaker leadership, and what happened when discipline broke down.
I think it makes a difference whether the castaways feel as though they have cahance of recue or not. I think that in real world situation, the military hierachy and discipline would hold as a matter of course with the assumption that rescue was imminent. I think the hierachy would hold for several months, at least, and possibly for a couple of years depending on the level of crisis as well as the competence of leadership. Over time, I think the hiearchy would ineveitably start to disintigrate, especially if the community felt there was no chance of rescue, and that individual groups would start to splinter off on their own. I don’t think there would be much need for violent confrontations.
If the group hypothetically knew from the start that they had no chance of rescue (although, I don’t know of any realistic scenario by which they could know that…it would have to be a “zombie acopalypse” situation or something), then I think the dissolve of the hierchy would happen almost immediately, but I also think the discipline of the group would still hold together for a while. I think they would still work cooperatively, knowing they’d have a better chance for survival that way, but that rank and chain of command would become meaningless and that natural leaders would arise more organically.
Another fictional example is a bit of science fiction by Andre Norton, called “The Last Planet”. I read this about 30 years ago.
In it, the military bunch crashland their spaceship on a planet without any apparent technological civilization, and know there is no chance of rescue or rebuilding the ship.
The officers all want to stay with the military discipline. The captain has a breakdown, becomes somewhat delusional and insists on spending their time trying to repair the ship. His officers support him out of loyalty or discipline.
The NCs and tech staff, eventually, break off from the officer group and decide to go try to adapt to the planet & build a civilization of some sort for themselves.
Fiction, but it seems plausible, given the commanding officer’s breakdown.