Intergalactic Summit

So I have a question that has been plaguing me all day and no one on my staff seems to know the answer to this. With the recent surge in more and more pilot canidates being accepted into the empyrean program, what are entry requirements like these days?

I'm legitimately curious, because I'm starting to feel a little robbed here. Back in my day you were required to have a technical degree, 20/20 vision, perfect hearing, immaculate blood pressure, a complete genome profile, a six hour oral exam, and a 60 kilometer run before they would even consider letting you join. Oh, and that whole needing to score 98 percentile in your aptitude test. (Which, judging by many of the capsuleers I have met is either a testament to how daft most of New Eden is or to how flawed standardized tests are.)

That, or you knew a guy living out in an asteroid belt that'd be willing to grow you a new body with a "Baby's First Clonevat" junior scientist kit.

I worked hard. Very, very, very, very hard to grease the right palms and cheese my way through canidate selection, and though the War Academy no less! I wore those stupid Provist dress blues, went on every fast cruise, and sat through five damn long, boring years of training to get here and now because we scrapped some snot off an alien corpse these yahoos can apparently breeze through selection at an accelerated rate like they freaking ordered their capsule online and they're just stopping in to pick it up.

Someone tell me some good news. Someone tell that it's not that easy for them and that I didn't squander my youth to get here only for it all to be pointless.

L E W D

but rather impressive, endurance wise.

If it's any compensation, I had to undergo a long period of intense learning once I qualified genetically, to get me academically eligible before I ever saw the inside of the State War Academy.

My extended family reduced themselves briefly to peasantry for the sake of my tuition and, if you will, related expenses pertaining to my qualifying for education at a variety of specialized venues and finally at the Royal Academy. They were assured that a single capsuleer would be able to make good on the debts they incurred, and to reap a net benefit for all of us. I was the oldest. Sooner encapsulated, sooner profiting, no?

Thus far, I have been able to address a moderate portion of the expense. We aren't peasants. Leased labor works our fields again, even if they're growing the hastiest soil-stripping cash crops available, right up to the back door of the house where the hedge gardens used to be.

Sigh. Flooding helps the soil. Mining helps the rest. If I had been able to use an alpha clone from the beginning, what I do now would be profit, and I wouldn't be getting nearly so many messages from my uncles and aunts and so on with fond hopes that I'm eating properly and sleeping well and living a kindly and virtuous and coincidentally lucrative life in space. They wouldn't have had to worry in the first place.

I'm truly not worried about how well trained alpha clones are. I'm jealous.

I can't believe I'm saying it, but I think I actually agree with you there Tyrson-haan. It stings that I had to jump through so many hoops, swallow so much of my pride, and do a whole shopping list of things I'm not proud of to get where I'm at but you know what? Damn it all. I hated my instructors in capsuleer training, I hated my interviewers, and I hated those fat-fingered bastards I had to grovel to so I could convince them I had what it takes to be a capsuleer.

I mean, do any of us really identify ourselves by what we had to do in training? Or is it by the tasks we complete once we're a part of this massive, dysfunctional immortal family? And even before we became immortal did any of us really think that any of those tests matter? Because maybe it's just me, but all I could think about at the time was how the only good measure of a pilot is what they can do at the helm.

Hmm.

Okay, I'm sold. I for one congratulate this new generation clones breezing through selection. I'll take it as one last **** you to those suits that made us jump through those hoops and tried to turn us all into something we're not.

I would presume (dangerous I know) that at a bare minimum the new Alpha’s have had to undergo the same physical requirements pre-Alpha pilots endured. (Although I do see a fair number of pilots wearing what appears to be corrective eyewear)

Regardless of what the new Alpha scholastic training entails, I know the hard work I put into that portion of the program has benefited me. I would hope the new Alpha pilots are given the same advantages.


Mr. Achasse raises a point I’ve been curious about.

Are the bulk of the Alpha pilots entering space truly new to the ways of the clone after being rushed through training, or are they former Omega pilots, that for whatever reason, left space and now because of the Alpha clones are able to return?

This is exactly what happened to me at the end of my last PLEX cycle. It seems they automated the rollout through the cloning facilities themselves.

As for the rest of your assessment, I cannot disagree. Strange to think I may have something eavesdropping on my contemplations in the wee hours of night.

Times change. Adapt or die. If you sit around and mope about it too long, they will catch up to you.

Besides, to my knowledge, they don't have the same piloting authorizations that we do. We are licensed to fly everything, they are only licensed to fly the simpler ships, tied to their government's models too.

I blackmailed the administrator...

To be honest, I don't know how to respond to that impressive list of selection criteria.

I was running late for a job interview to become an apprentice chef, ran in the wrong door because I didn't take the time to properly check the address and suddenly spaceships.

Training was all a blur.