Public Situation of the Week #1 - Student Life

[Ingrid L'lerim]

Prompt of the Week

What was your character's funniest or most unpleasant memory/experience related to their studies? Perhaps you can be mentioned in what way this influenced the further lives and studies of the characters?

The weekly smaller header, if anyone wants to use it:

 

[Karl Von Strauss]

Memoirs of an Old Man - #01

It's not very often I write down old memories, but Commodore Keegan brought up an old story back from my time in the Naval Academy. In my earlier years, I was known for being overly enthusiastic and getting into awkward situations. In my earliest years at the academy, I had an incident that gave me a nickname.

I would like to state for the record I have gotten a bit better at flying, in simulations, with autopilot. Don't look at me like that, I'm an engineer, not a pilot.

There was an exercise that simulated a 'high-stakes' battle against another class. Funnily enough, this is where I met Commodore Keegan, but at the time he was just Cadet Keegan. He was chosen to be our 'Captain' in the exercise, while I was chosen to be the helmsman, or pilot for our vessel. Unfortunately, our vessel was an older model that I wasn't very studied, and so I was skimming through the basics right until the start of the exercise.

'Captain' Keegan briefed the team and I didn't listen from my seat at the helm, so it took him five different attempts to get my attention to start moving us in the right direction. In my, let's call it enthusiasm, I pressed the wrong button which jolted everyone forward as the vessel began to reverse. I was quick on my feet, however, and pushed the correct button... which launched everyone backward, as we jolted forward.

This, unfortunately, sent us into the opposing class's fire, "destroying" our vessel and losing the first round. As we reset for the second bout, I offered a battle plan that would lead our enemies into a trap. Keegan reluctantly agreed, but with the stipulation that I don't hit any more unknown buttons. Little did he know, all of them were unknown to me.

So when the second bout started I confidently pressed the wrong button, activating the auto-pilot and our thrusters at full speed, shooting us directly toward our enemy. Which caused them to panic and move out of the way, in an attempt to rectify the situation I had put us in, I accidentally pressed the emergency signal, which caused a loud siren to blare and call for us to abandon ship. At that point, the instructors called it a win, for the opposing class, and as we left the ship I was ceremoniously dubbed "Captain Clumsy." A name that haunted me until I graduated second in our class, but first in tactical exercises. Although, Keegan still calls me it sometimes in private.

 

[Edward Ashcard]

99 Knots Too Many

Edward sat looking out of his neat room over the swamps of Mijos. He was waiting for the water to boil and so his mind wandered back to his early days within the Blackwatch, during one of the many field exercises.

He was on top of a windswept plateau alongside many others who hoped to be accepted into the Blackwatch. The exercise was fairly simple as they were divided into two teams. Team 1's task was to chase after airdropped supply crates and then tie them down to something on the plateau so that when Team 2 was deployed after a few hours the crates were in the same place and with as little damage as possible.

As part of team 1, Edward bounded across the plateau to chase after a crate he spotted in the air. As a child, he had spent many days running over and between the rocks of his family's mine, and so was not put off by the many small stones covering the Atoll. Edward chased down and grabbed the crate, preventing it from rolling away in the wind any further, and started tying it down to a nearby rock formation. Edward was determined to succeed, and so tied as many knots into the rope around the crate as he could. It sounded silly, but he was certain he tied at least 100 knots. As he finished a glint was caught in his eye only to see that by mistake he had tied his training knife, with an inbuilt whistle, to the crate. Edward pulled at the blade to free it, but it was no use. He did not have the time to untie the knots and do them all again, so he returned to the camp.

His partner in team 2 did find Edward's crate. In fact, his crate was found first, as the training knife's whistle signalled its location for all to hear. His partner found it funny, but the instructors did not share the same sense of humour, and Edward was forced to inspect and clean every whistle at the Blackwatch base as he was clearly such a fan of them.

Edward was known as the loudest operative to live until he completed his training and well, considering his affinity for demolitions and all things explosive, perhaps they were not so wrong after all.