But I don't see this kind of thing in most sci-fi. Is it a cultural evolution or something?
Yes, discipline was extremely strict. They didn't hang everyone from the yardarm, though. More often they were given a few lashes with the cat o' nine tails--a very nasty whip.
Yes, I would say most of the difference between that and sci-fi is a change in the culture. At that time, European culture was still very stratified. The sailors were mostly from the bottom rungs of society and treated that way. The officers were "gentlemen" and they were treated accordingly. An officer would probably only be hung for mutiny--the ultimate crime in the navy of that time.
If you haven't ever seen it, there's a great side-by-side comparison of the Navy and Star Trek. "Nine Reasons Why a Starfleet Education Won't Prepare You for the Real Navy." http://ufo.whipnet.org/xdocs/star.trek/navy.vs.startrek.html
Hornblower may be 200 years ago, but class is still a HUGE factor in the make-up of the British armed forces and to a significant, if lesser, extent the US armed forces. There is a gul between commissioned officers and "other ranks" that CAN be crossed but rarely is. The "Sharpe" books accurately depicted that, while Sharpe was respected (by the more intelligent senior officers) for his abilities, he was for the most part hated (or at least looked down on) for his humble origins and his effrontery in having crossed a divide.
It would be nice to think that, in the future, a more egalitarian and merit-based system might come into play. Arguably the closest is the Air Force, but that's predominantly because it consists of a much higher proportion of "officer class" (pilots are officers), largely for reasons of historical aberration.
Most SF "space forces" are heavily based on a naval model. If yo're dealing with "capital ships" and aircraft carrier or battleship equivalents, that arguably makes sense, but you could as easily see an air force model in place with the "capital ships" based on airfields instead.
Back during the Civil War and earlier, Army commissions were often purchased, in which case most officers were wealthy, or at least came from wealthy families.
It's been a long time since things ran that way, mostly because it quickly became obvious that many of the Union Generals -- and some of the Confederate Generals too -- were incompetent idiots, who allowed thousands upon thousands of their men to be slaughtered while they bungled their way through the war.
And yes, there is a line between officers and enlisted. That kind of can't be helped. The one exception being Warrant Officers, who in theory are separated from enlisted just as much as regular officers, but who in practice often get to walk in both worlds, enjoying respect and commonality up and down the chain.
I think one of the big reasons they can't or don't do harsh corporal punishment anymore, besides evolving socialization, is the volunteer nature of the service, and the plentiful amount of competing civilian jobs. Back in the British Imperial days, poverty in the lower classes was so awful, and there were so few avenues of escape, the Navy or the Army were among the few choices that seemed to offer a man anything of value.
The modern U.S. society offers teenagers an endless number of well-paying, easy avenues for growth. This is why the military is still largely regarded as a "dead end" career and nobody with high corporate or political aspiration seriously considers the military; unless they're extraordinarily patriotic, which can and does happen.
This means the military has to find ways to appeal to young civilians, and their parents. The Army and Navy still tied young people to posts and whipped them for infractions, I doubt many of us would have signed up. Patriotic or no. There are certain things Americans just won't put up with anymore. Hard corporal punishment being one of them.
Brad's comment about the voluntary nature of the current military reminds me of another reason why harsh corporeal punishment used to be the norm: a lot of the enlisted sailors were impressed, especially during wartime. These guys did not want to be on board ship. So they were essentially kidnapped, locked up in a small space, starved... captains needed SOMETHING to keep them in line!
On a related (but in some senses completely random) note: I worked as a research assistant some summers ago, studying habeas corpus as applied to the impressment of sailors into the British Navy (late 18th c.) Basically, if you got impressed, the fastest way to get OUT of of the navy was to have relatives sent off letters claiming you were the subject of some monarch other than the British one. The law required such sailors to be shipped back to England and appear in court, so the truth of the claim could be judged. Once the letters filtered through all the red tape and got sent out the to captains, the standard procedure was for the captains to dump off the sailors at the nearest port of call and then write back - so sorry, don't have them anymore! Apparently that was cheaper than actually shipping them back...
Anyway, I think there's a lot of potential for someone to take actual historical military procedures (or even modern ones) and put them out into space in a sci-fi setting. Certainly it would make a change from what we currently read about - and I would think it would have a lot of appeal for people who served in the military (and/or know people who did).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene_Roddenberry
I remember reading somewhere that while it's nuts for senior officers to beam down to the alien planet and fight the bad guys, if they followed military procedure the story would drag. We'd see scenes of officers discussing the situation and radioing orders and taking reports, fiddling with maps, scratching their heads and looking worried, while the enlisted men rushed around, fought aliens, waited for orders and exchanged dialogue like, "WTF?" Realistic but boring.
By taking dramatic license with procedure, ST's writers can write a tighter story, because the people who know what's going on -- the officers -- are also involved in the action.
This is not to say that basing SF stories on more realistic military procedure wouldn't work, just that I think Star Trek knowingly simplified the ship's quasi-military organization for dramatic effect.
[This message has been edited by TaleSpinner (edited April 08, 2009).]
Flogging was a more common punishment in all navies than hanging. Herman Melville's semi-autobiographical novel White-Jacket directly led to the abolishment of flogging in the U.S. Navy.
The practices of navy flogging as recorded by history are horrific. Flogging around the fleet was a capital punishment in the British Navy. A stout man could survive up to 40 lashes of the cat (cat-o-nine-tails) well laid on. Ideally, the crew was so numerous that when ordered on deck to witness punishment there wasn't room to swing the cat. The term quarter meaning mercy orginated with flogging. A chaplain or medical officer could request a quartering of the number of lashes.
Then there's keelhauling, kissing the gunner's daughter, and the starter or teaser. Keelhauling is too grisly to describe here. One punishment carried out while kissing the gunner's daughter, bent (tied face down) upon a cannon, was beating a man's feet until he was crippled. The starter was a knotted cord used by noncoms to beat sailors, sometimes a monkey's fist knot tied around a lead core. "Start that man, Mr. Pritchard." Running the gantlet (gauntlet) was a punishment for stealing from shipmates. Messmates were assembled in rows and beat the miscreant with knotted cords as he walked slowly from end to end and back again three times. Then there's towing, towed behind an underway ship for days until hypothermia and exhaustion overwhelmed the poor wretch. And all this commonplace in the Age of Reason.
[This message has been edited by extrinsic (edited April 08, 2009).]
The officer's would have felt (and it was the prevailing idea of the time) that discipline needed to be maintained and rigourously enforced--the crew had to be kept on a short leash.
Capt. Bligh (of The Bounty) had a record of flogging fewer crewman than than was usual for a captain of the day. It was later distortion that he was a brutal captain--not my facts, but from what I gather.
Doesn't mean you couldn't do it. One of the things that caught my attention in the Serenity series/movie was the allusions to the old naval mannerisms in the futuristic renegade ship. It helped make what was in many ways an stock sci-fi situation interesting.
Fortunately for the leader, people fear mutilation as much as death so non-lethal ways are similarly effective.
Yes. Flogging was more common.
Herein also is the origin of the phrase, "running the gauntlet", which I had not known before.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/empire_seapower/life_at_sea_02.shtml
But, leaders are not always sensible. If a careless Captain hung too many, he could always send out a press gang at the next port o' call ...
KayTi - the very best (in my opinion) is a two-parter set of episodes called "Mutiny" and "Retribution" which I loved thoroughly. It even had the guy who voiced Jon Irenicus as a pivotal character.
[This message has been edited by skadder (edited April 09, 2009).]