Volume 2 - Chapter 73 - Skill Training
| “The first Integration wave is never meant to be complete. It’s simply the spark, not the whole fire. When a Drive begins, only around one to five thousand Recruits make it aboard immediately. These are the cream of the crop. The ones already flagged, already screened, already thoroughly trained for what is to come as part of their Integration preparations. They get time. Flexibility. Space to explore their Builds, their Abilities, and themselves. They are given every room to grow into the Marines they are meant to be. That luxury does not last forever. Over the course of the first year, the Drive expands to its intended strength—somewhere between eighty to one hundred and twenty thousand Marines. The later Recruits are folded in aggressively. Their training is denser, more structured, and far less forgiving. More mandatory classes. More forced drills. Less freedom. Less self-direction. They aren’t being shaped from raw material like the first group is; they’re being accelerated to catch up. And until that is achieved, their schedules are packed. By the six-month mark, the last Recruits are finally aboard. Their four Assessments are compressed into the same window as the final two Assessments of the initial wave. The timeline is utterly brutal, but equally as necessary. The Galactic War does not wait for ideal pacing, as much as we wished that it does. There are always concerns about culture shock, of course. Early Recruits with months of autonomy mixing with those who have known nothing but schedules and orders. In practice however, it rarely matters. Public rankings, Assessments and the Challenge System reshuffles squads and rebuild them constantly. This is by design, of course. By the end of the first year, it becomes nearly impossible to tell who joined first and who joined last, based on the squad makeups or their rankings on the public leaderboards. Builds have long since converged. Habits have aligned after a few weeks in the barracks. Only the finer details give it away—early Recruits tend to have cleaner foundations, more polished synergies in their Builds… But there are far, far less of them. They are the ones that the UHF hopes to become Aces one day, so their foundation matters more—Merit above all, as is always the motto. And yes, that means, if you didn’t make the first wave, odds are you weren’t top-tier Ace material to begin with. But odds are not always guarantees. Exceptions exist. Especially in the outer stretches of the Inner-Worlds and beyond, where distance alone decides who arrives ‘first.’ In those regions, there are often multiple “first” integration-groups, ordered not by sheer merit, but also by routing efficiency. Those are usually picked up about a month—maybe a month and a half—into the Drive. Another detachment of potential Ace material, still afforded the luxury of full self-determination. But beyond that? Ever-increasing pressure, tighter schedules, and fewer chances to experiment the later you arrive. Make no mistake, however: The UHF does not care when you arrive, or whether you were ever flagged as an Ace candidate. The UHF only cares whether you endure—and whether you have what it takes to be a Marine regardless. Everything else you earn through the Merit of your actions, as has always been the case.” — [Excerpt from “On the Nature of the Drive,” Internal UHF Training Circular, Strategic Personnel Command, PFC893]
|