Hello, folks. Any fans of the board game, Secret Hitler, in here? I was roped into playing it this evening with several EVN personalities. I have some bad luck when it comes to that. For two of the five games, I was Hitler. I even got shot during the last game by Tryinmorning. It left me in a weird place where I wasn’t sure if he had done a great thing by stopping me or if it sucked that I lost. It was with this sense of confusion that I entered this week’s update.

Pretty quiet week for developing. It was mostly just chugging along writing, so this week will be more of a lore posting than actual development. I was hoping to have the promotional video ready for you all to see, but it turns out that having to completely wipe your computer because the hard drive wants to die slows you down. While I didn’t lose anything other than work time thanks to frequent backups, it did delay me a couple of days while I fixed parts and reinstalled everything. Soooooo… lore day!

I’ve got an interesting topic of lore to talk about today. One of the most common things I hear about RA: Reborn is the lack of “professional” military discipline. That I haven’t done my research into how the military acts and how things are done. Every time I hear it, I chuckle a little bit. Apparently eight years in a flying steel tube over warzones doesn’t teach you how the military acts. A couple relationships in Reborn are born from real life experiences with crewmen in that combat zone. That’s only one thing though that makes me laugh. The biggest one is that they are correct that the Katajion Defense Force does not operate like a traditional military force. It isn’t, and that is something that takes a bit of understanding to wrap your mind around.

First off, let’s talk about how one becomes a member of the space force in the first place. From the age of four to the age of graduation, children of the Katajion Directorship are educated in a junior educational academy (four to ten) and a senior educational academy (ten to late teens). Tests to advance are incredibly challenging and almost everyone does a couple years two or three times. Senior educational academy is where Natalie and Sol met, becoming childhood friends. While it is possible to be exempt from these academies (Faye Moonfallow is an example), all children are to be given tests each year to advance to the next segment of their learning. These tests also help gauge a person’s talents and aptitudes, which determines what sector academies than can apply for after graduation. Those who have already graduated an academy and wish to join another sector or were educated outside the system are also given tests to determine if they can join a specific sector’s academy.

When coming into a sector academy, cadets are either given a promised position or an open one. Promised positions are given to those with exceptional talent or with special circumstances. They know what position they will be given upon completion of their training. As they know their position, they also know what rank they will have as Katajion ranks are directly tied to their positions. Open positions don’t have the same luxury as promised. They are forced to compete with their educational academy scores, their sector academy scores, and any other external factors against the other open candidates. While this means some can get lucky and land higher level positions with hard work, it also means average and below average performers can end up in grunt positions and risk never moving up.

Sector Academy is a mix of a traditional college and a very vague technical school. Cadets are taught about the basics of their respective sectors, specialized knowledge in fields of study that were previously covered in educational academies, and some initial classes that are used to determine if they are qualified to advance into more advanced professions. There is a high amount of rigidity in sector academies and a lot of personal freedoms are restricted to ensure that their focus is on the material. It is closer to a strict boarding school than what most people would consider to be “basic training”. Part of the reason for this is the long held belief in Katajion independence and individuality. Most sector academies are only one to two years long. After the cadets have shown their competency in the basics, open position cadets are given their positions. All cadets are then sent to their respective training schools and given brevet ranks. These ranks are either their position’s rank or given up to the deck officer rank of captain. Those who would be promoted higher are temporarily held at the brevet rank of captain until completion of their profession school.

Okay, this is going to be a really long talk, so we are going to have to come back to this next week. Next week we will cover from profession school to official posting. This might be a three part special as we show why things on the Nimross unfolded the way they did. I don’t mean to rant, but a decade of lore has left a lot of things to talk about. Until next time, Chief out!

What’s this week’s video o’ the post? Come more old country songs! Let the world bask in your guitar strings.