“In ages past, mariners had to overcome immense difficulties and hardships to maintain their livelihoods.”
The instructor leaned on her desk, addressing the room full of first year cadets. Her blue uniform was dotted with a handful of medallions and ribbons, and though she had a relaxed and conversational demeanor, it was obvious it was earned by a lifetime of service. Her students, in their simple green cadet uniforms, sat attentively, keen to absorb every word of their first lesson. Time and stress would dull their senses, but for now, they were a rapt audience.
“Their ships were powered by the wind, that most fickle and fleeting of mistresses. They could spend weeks running before the wind, every inch of their great sails straining with effort, only to sit becalmed, baking in the still and heavy air, for days. The wind would shift direction with no warning, forcing them to change course on a moment's notice. And with nothing but mathematics and the stars to guide them, crossing the vast distances of the oceans with anything approaching accuracy was a feat of immense skill.”
The instructor stood and took a sip from a water bottle that sat next to her on the desk. Her bright eyes contrasted the dark uniform below and the dark hair above, which framed her face in a way that seemed to make it easy to pay attention. Most of the cadets were taking notes, while a few sat with recorders and fewer still just listened attentively. The instructor carried the water bottle to the wooden lectern that stood front and center of the room, sipping again before thrusting a hand into a pocket and continuing.
“These days, with little more than a week's preparation, a cadet can key a few numbers into a console, execute a program. Press a little blue button, and sling anything from a 230-ton patrol boat to a 73-kiloton frigate to Proxima Centauri. Give it another week and they will have the requisite knowledge to sling a 4.6-megaton battleship or even one of the dreadnoughts. It beggars belief, honestly, but that is the reality in which we find ourselves, cadets.”
As she addressed the room, everyone sat a little straighter. Save for a few of the more bookish among them, most of them were unaware of the sheer size of the warships. They were big, sure, but the scale of ships that weighed hundreds of millions of pounds was truly unfathomable. It was one thing to see a picture of the fleet, ships ranged in close order, and know that they were big. But big just didn't cut it at this scale. The instructor stepped in front of the lectern, hands still in her pockets, and continued.
“In just three millennia, we've gone from mariners spending a decade or more learning to maneuver a wooden ship a thousand miles to you lot being able to fly a ship the size of an asteroid to a star 4 light-years away based on nothing but a week's worth of textbook review.” The weight of this context had noticeable effect on the cadets, who sat completely still and silent.
“The point I mean to make is this: it is easy to think, with our superior technology and engineering, that we've nothing to learn from these mariners of old. To sit in our command chairs and scoff at their laborious trials. But the time is coming when you will long for the trivialities of wind and weather. The hard vacuum of space is infinitely less forgiving than even the most treacherous sea. The behavior of our oceans has been a known quantity for some time. Even the primitive sailors who crossed oceans in log rafts knew about currents and wind patterns. They knew what seasons were safe to make crossings and which weren't. They knew which tiny speck in the vast sky to follow. But we discover new and terrifying things about space on a monthly basis.”
There was a nervous shuffling among the cadets as the instructor walked among them, punctuating her words by abruptly spearing passing tables with a finger. The ventilation started up, and the soft humming of fans and the gentle hiss of moving air washed over the room, drowning out the vague buzzing of the light fixtures. From the back of the room, the instructor continued, leaning comfortable against the wall.
“The Great Peace has lasted over a hundred years now, but make no mistake, you will be fighting war every day. We are specks of dust, floating in the vast and interminable nothingness of the universe. We're barely noticeable, and as far as we can tell, alone. But there will be days, even weeks, perhaps months, where you will be sure that some cosmic force desires your annihilation. At every turn, space will try to kill you. The colonies may have come to heel, and with our great accomplishments it is easy to think that the universe is coming to heel. But that is the absolute epitome of hubris.”
She had made her way back to the front briskly. The clock on the wall ticked down the remaining moments of their inaugural class, and a few brave souls began to surreptitiously gather their things. The instructor glared them into stillness, dark brows furrowed deeply, and once the room was again attentive to his every word, she concluded.
“Space wants to kill you, be absolutely sure of that. It doesn't care if you're a fighter pilot, a reactor engineer, a weapons officer, or the commander of the entire vessel. It will strive to obliterate you at every turn, and the sooner you can come to terms with that, the sooner you can fight back effectively. I cannot promise you this class will be fun, but I can tell you that it gets better. I am Rear-Admiral Lowell, and this is Void Philosophy.”
A gentle but insistent electronic tone sounded, the doors opened, and the cadets filed out in absolute silence.
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