I think there's some weird use of language going on, probably a native to non-native thing. But, to be clear, being a Lobby group in PanOceania does not make the Church a "Corporation". Those two words mean different things, both in the English language and in the setting of Infinity. Mototronica is a Corporation which is ALSO a Lobby (or part of one, anyway). The RPG makes this distinction particularly clear. Equally it's a strange use of language to claim that the Military Orders are Private Military Contractors (PMC). That's not how they are raised, funded or deployed as far as the setting and background that currently exists describes in either the wargame or the RPG. This is an interesting argument, but I don't see the evidence to support it in the existing setting and background material which we currently have in the wargame or RPG. It is certainly fair and correct that there will be women, and likely significant numbers of women, in the Order Sergeants, Specialist Sergeants and Magister Knights as they are described in the setting. However we don't know either way on the issue of women as priests, and as I outlined above I am far from certain that the "liberal" church would necessarily have won that argument. Now, strictly speaking this excludes women only from the Father Knights. There could, technically be orders of sister knights alongside the brother knights of the Hospital, Santiago, Sepulcher etc. However we have not, yet, been told that there are and as the only comment on the matter is that female Knights are "rare", it seems unlikely. This is broadly true as far as it goes, but at the height of the church there were also many sisters in convents in spite of their lack of opportunity for "advancement". And many orders take vows against seeking advancement in any case. I don't think that the existence of a literal glass ceiling would necessarily prevent female recruitment. Especially amongst those who do not intend to give their whole lives to the service (which is to say, those who are not Knights).
@Skoll First of all a correction (most of the?) the orders are funded and maintained by the Vatican bank, not the Hospital bank, the Hospital bank is owned by the MO of the Hospitalers and it is the biggest bank in PanOceania. The church takes a nice tax exemption because they maintain them and PanO high command accepted them because A they proved worthy B exactly because they are not (technically) part of PanOceanian military they are extra troops that cost Nothing to the government and other nations cannot accuse PanOceania for increasing their armed forces because the MO are not part of the actual PanOceania Military Complex. P32 HS Also since I mentioned it in my correction the Hospitaler order owns the biggest bank In PanOceania another sign they are not a state funded military formation but a private company that owns companies. on P27 it states the MO have a certain autonomy from the curia and high command making them a "church within the church and an army within the army", furhter solidifying that they are not exactly part of PanOcenia Army, because the high command would not have that from actual military formations that belongs to them. They kinda cut the Montesa crowd funding from montesa fluff in the new book?, the order of the hospital was settign shop to Acontecimento, but the local Bishop would rather not have the link the church has tot he army (and Acontecimento is the most religious planet) in the hands of an order that is not from acontecimento so he requested to raise their own MO, high command rejected it as unnecessary and he started a political campaign involving the religious population in order to make it happen (in the old book iirc he also raised the money to equip the order). @Kahlain They retain the name, but nothing else, the church makes sure though to associate a historical name that makes sense, the order of the hospital (hospitalers) was created as a hospital security and combat search and rescue force because they were the first combat military order (the order of the temple was security and research) and wanted to give a positive impression to the public, the Teutonic order was created for the second neocolonial wars and was full military. It is not discussed, but since PanO military was already mixed and service provided better resurrection points and they wanted to both appeal to PanO military and to the PanOceanian population, it probably started without any gender restrictions, it is also not mentioned how well the initial recruitment was, given both temple and hospital were in auxiliary role until they prove themselves they could not be that many, on the father knights fluff though it says the knights are not priests only father knights are priests. The church used the army as a conversion tactic before the MO iirc, they upped the MO points because joining the army would mean you get the same points without the church demands on top, another thing is they probably are more lax on the recruitment than the normal army, at least in the background checks and they allow people who fail to meet the recruitment standards to stay as associates if they pay. that does not mean they take everybody regardless of skill and ability it means that people like De fersen and Konstantinos could join the orders something I doubt they could do with the proper PanO military. I assume since nothing is said that the tour of service is the recruitment "contract" and when you advance in the order you get a new "contract".
That's not entirely accurate. The background material on the Father Knight confirms that THEY are all priests, but says nothing to suggest that members of other orders are not also. "“Deo Vindice” (God our Vindicator). Regimental motto of the PanOceanian Father-Knights. Father-Knights are one of the most prominent staples of the PanOceanian forces, always leading the charge whether surrounded by the regular army or their own Military Orders. Each of them an ordained priest, they have received intensive combat training and are renown as tactical support and close-quarters combatants. In the Military Order assault forces, they often form the hard core of cool-headed troops that give support to the more emblematic knights. When deployed along with regular forces, they provide PanOceanian soldiers with much-needed moral support. Father-Knights are shepherds of men, and they know how to send troops into the fray. They look them in the eyes, kindle their hearts with words and persuade them to go beat up the enemy because that is what God wants, because it is the right thing to do and because it is their duty. And they do. With these warrior priests in the vanguard of PanOceanian forces, victories are driven home and defeats turn into success. In combat, nothing can stop them, because these veterans are convinced that the task at hand is a sacred mission that justifies all, including the most extreme displays of violence. That is why, in spite of their exhortations through tactical channels, their true signature is silence. When a Father-Knight grabs his sword and charges towards his enemies, they will be so overcome by fear that they fail even to scream. Hence… silence."
Well, the fact that this is specifically mentioned (as well as there's that bit about FK being shepherds of men) kind of suggests that this is a distinct feature of FK. By "this", however, I mean that they all are priests. Of course, this is just an interpretation.
I think it would have been more interesting if they had kept the Orders male-only, with Joan being the only example of a high-ranking woman within the Military Orders' command structure. Nomads have their creepy Maenad cults which lobotomize & castrate men and boys, PanO can have their mildly chauvinistic Knightly Orders. Of course, good on them to have female Order Sergeant sculpts and so on. There are woman members of the Swiss Guard irl, too, so I'd be down for that. I don't play PanO but the "future church" idea is pretty fascinating to me, but watering it down under modern left-leaning ideas of gender progressivism kind of takes away its appeal. In terms of actual combat capability... Infinity explicitly avoids the -4 str trope via a combination of factors, but we can assume that through cybernetics, power armor, and genetic modification it's not much of a worry for equality of the sexes in terms of combat capability. Rule of cool should prevail, in any case, and while I'm all for badass women in the setting, keeping badass knights exclusively male would have been a nice setting quirk. The future has plenty of gender equality, great, but it adds a lot of flavor to talk about the places where that rule *doesn't* hold true.
So half the Magister knights are chicks. Something I coulda lived without, not something I can't live with. Those renders are really good. Better here than the Hospitals where some people were asking, which woulda been majority women as a Joan link. I will believe in cubes and death rays a lot sooner than I will believe in a majority female Order of Knights of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem.
@Hecatonacles They didn't actually change anything. When I asked Interruptor, (back in 2013/4) what he said is that female knights were "rare", and that only Father-Knights were specifically all male - it's in the name. And (to those who keep raising the issue) Infinity is not pandering to a left-leaning liberal agenda. It's CB's own work based off their own role-playing game. Nothing's really changed: the only unit fluff change I can recall was female Wulvers because the Spanish players pushed so hard for it. CB does what it wants. It makes women in power armour and Haqqislam and also makes women cyborgs with glowing LED nipples and engineers wearing thongs. I'm okay with that. CB just needs to keep on being CB. My main concern in all of this is that I wanted PanO female HI for conversions. Though the new scale makes all of the old MO look like women in sensible armour anyway...
Order of the Hatchet though was an all-female Military Order. Though I'm happy with the current number of Military Orders, there's already one too many (Teutons)
Rosie? As in The Last Jedi? I both liked and disliked that movie for a number of reasons. Pretty much agree with all of this. 2 is fine. I just want conversion material. I'd like a lady Sepulchre, but like @psychoticstorm I won't die if I don't get one.
Please do not put your political ideologies in Infinity's background, female knights are there because it makes sense in the lore not to push some "left leaning liberal agenda" there are deep in lore reasons why PanO society has women in military roles. Also PanOceania is not your modern western society in space and do not behave the same way a society now behaves. Now since it has been mentioned, the WGN movement was based on the notion of how bad the fluff that dog faces only produce male offspring was, not "hurr make women wolvers".
I wouldn't exactly call it "deep," if it's the stuff that you mentioned upthread. And honestly it's hard not to see how PanO's expressed come off as some sort of pro-Catholic diatribe sometimes, considering that there's an unspoken "And all the Southeast Asians saw the error of their ways and converted to Catholicism, leaving behind their backward Muslim religion!"
LOL no, Hindu and Muslim and Sikh religious institutions have all access to resurrections and their regulation, the unified church is just way better at marketing itself and its resurrection services and gained many followers that way. It is not the other religions are in any way or form dwindling, church capitalised mainly on the irreligious bulk of PanOceania (who can still use the welfare state resurrection services, been Christian is just easier and gives you a points based system to "exploit").
I do not disagree that all other religions need more mentions in the fluff, it is mentioned Hindu religion has a really strong lobby for example and all religious institutions are mentioned without name in the resurrection process but the fluff piece is there to showcase how well the neo Vatican sold itself to the masses. Would like to hear more about the other religions for sure.
Plus contrary to most other religions, catholic are damn centralized ( Holy See, Pope and whole Magisterium).
I am not sure I buy the "any-abled-body" argument. I know the Combined Army is a dangerous threat, but Panoceania is written as the wealthiest, and largest of the Human political entities. I think they could make any sort of arbitrary restrictions for entry into a military position, without significantly reducing their ability to fill their quota. If PanO needs 'any-abled-body', then the much smaller Nomads and Ariadnas would be needing to arm every man, woman, child and dog. ( O wait, Ariadnas and Nomads do arm their dogs, so maybe that is a bad example. . .) Now military service being tied to resurrection credits, does provide a more interesting legal argument for allowing women to serve in all rolls. However then we are suddenly playing "Infinity the Court Room Drama", and I demand my Heavy Infantry Lawyers! I did live for a short while in a Benedictine monastery long ago. (Never took final vows.) I can tell you that you can be a monk, and not be a priest. You can be a monk and be a priest. A Brother's priesthood or lack thereof had no bearing on the duties or responsibilities that they would perform. (Other than saying the mass, only a priest can do that.) In fact, the Abbot, the head and leader of the order, is not required to be a priest. This monastery also had close ties to a nearby Benedictine convent. They each had their own missions to fulfill, but would cooperate and assist each other when it was appropriate. So I guess this is a long winded way of saying that I would be fine with some women knights, if the fluff was handled delicately and intelligently. I think the knights would be gender segregated at the local level of individual cloisters, but the larger organizations could have male and female cloisters. Due to the synchronization and implied trust of Link teams, personally I think any MO link teams should be mono-gendered. However this is just a fun little diversion of a game, and if CB produces models and fluff, that does not coincide with my personal head canon, it is not going to stop me from playing an awesome game!
