Fleet Academe

The Academe sigil is the flame of learning on the Fleet Eagle.

Training of Fleet officers takes place at the Academe. Since all Fleet personnel are officers, this includes specialists (what would be enlisted in other navies) as well as command track students.

Administration

Prior to Brighthaven's intervention, tuition at the Academe on a typical colony was a fourth of the cost of what it was on Selnor.

Changes post-Brighthaven

During his tenure (after meeting Alysha and prior to his departure), Brighthaven made the following changes:

• Tuition for students declaring as specialists stayed the same (really high). He wanted to reduce tuition across the board, but the Pelted were outraged because they want only people who really, really want to go into the military to do so, to ensure 'quality'. (As if having money is a guarantee of quality?). So he argued that tuition for specialists should remain high because their skills are globally applicable outside Fleet. It's a quality education they can apply anywhere.
• Tuition for students declaring for command track got slashed in half. That's the best he could do.
• He found ten new scholarship grants, and made sure they were from non-Core-Pelted sources so they would be more fairly awarded. Seven of those ten are specifically for command track.
• To fight the belief that the uneven scholarship would deprive Fleet of the necessary number of quality specialists, he had a program developed that would train up non-Fleet specialists to work in Fleet.
• He hired a grant/scholarship specialist for the Terracentrus campus to keep hunting for those things.
• He instated a management position for grant/scholarships for all the Academe campuses.
• He canvassed for, and had created, a committee to oversee the Academe curriculum across the board, with a chair to make decisions. (He assumed he'd end up in that position, but they moved him sideways into PR when Newell saw he was burning out.)

Locations

There are 21 satellite campuses of the Academe throughout the Alliance, on Core worlds and in the colonies, at the time of Alysha Forrest's graduation. The first campus, and still the home of the Commandant, is in Terracentrus, on Selnor.

Terracentrus Campus

A collection of low-lying buildings occupied the northernmost edge of the estate; as she drew nearer she saw a regal house rising against the fringe of the southern side. As she approached, she saw two guards, dark Hinichi with stern expressions, tails rigid despite the wind. Behind them on three tall poles, the Academe flew the Alliance flag, the Fleet’s, and Fleet Academe’s.

The Terracentrus Campus

• Blue Smoke, a bar on or near the campus
• Ralafin Park, named after Elnor Ralafin, the first commandant; has a bulletin board where information like room assignments are posted
• Auditorium antechamber: "The Alliance’s flag hung there over a pedestal, its glory implied by its setting: the rounded heights of the wall were space-black, jeweled with pinpoints of stars, some labeled, others not, each pricked from the tapestry by subtle holographics."
• Administration building: "The inside of the building had been built of cold gray marble, but designed with lines so austere it defied awe. There were no plants to break the chill. Even the wooden furniture had been stained a gray-brown."
• The on-campus residence of the Academe commandant, at the southeast; an "elegant, colonial-style manor."
• An orbital station in orbit over Selnor.

Local Customs and Traditions

• Commencement. Currently held at the Terracentrus public amphitheater and open to the general public. The commandant presides over the ceremony and gives the rank braids.

Customs and Traditions

(Until I come up with a better name for this section.)

• Class Ring - Every graduate of the Academe is issued a ring with either a sapphire or onyx, with a metal overlay of a star; the shoulders on either side of the center stone will have each person's specialties (as on the rank tags). Name and graduation date are engraved on the inside. Each ring has a transceiver, originally intended as a way to locate the person if they need aid, but since almost no one wears their Academe rings, it's become something of a joke that they're never used for their intended purposes: most campuses call them some variation of 'Lost it' or 'in-a-drawer' or 'quick inspec (inspection)', as in 'you misplaced your ring and are using the transceiver to find it.'

Faculty

• Matthew Brighthaven, formerly commandant
• Harroway Sloan, formerly Brighthaven's second
• Mark West, Applied Tactics
• Shaver, physical training

Curriculum

Call the Academe a college-level institution, intended originally for the production (mostly) of 'specialists', which are the subject matter experts that make up most of the crew: scientists, engineers, healers, diplomats and politicians, and a spattering of 'we shoot guns' (tactical and security) types. The majority of the curriculum is focused on broad educational outcomes, then, with specializations.

Basic courses everyone will take:

• Language Skills: Communication 1 and 2
• Math skills: Critical Thinking, Math 1 and 2
• Law and Ethics: Ethics, Law 1
• Philosophy and History: History (Fleet), History (Alliance); Philosophy 1
• Science and Engineering: Principles of Science; Behavior
• Physical Education: various training regimens (when Alysha Forrest was a student, taught by Shaver)
• Tech Familiarity: these courses involve exercises aboard starbases, ships, and in various weightless conditions, intended to familiarize the cadet with the environments they'll be navigating in Fleet. Most of these exercises are concentrated in the final two years of the Academe coursework.

Major fields of study vary depending on the specialist, or whether the cadet is going for the Tactical course, in which case they take classes in leadership and Applied Tactics; when Alysha Forrest was a student, taught by a retired Terran Marine, Mark West; included Capture the Flag exercises and hand-to-hand in the Arena*

Electives are widely varied based on the campus and availability of instructors, but typical offerings include:

• Foreign Languages
• Terran Military history (an elective that Matthew Brighthaven fought to have included in the normal curriculum)
• Higher math and sciences
• Psychology
• Cultural Issues

Because of the breadth of the curriculum, it is possible (and often necessary) for far-flung Alliance citizens to do one, two, or even three years at a local college-level institute and then transfer into one of the 22 locations of the Academe to finish their schooling. The tech familiarization was not initially concentrated in the last two years of schooling, but once the Academe faced the issues involved with onboarding colonists and citizens far from a campus, administrators began clustering those exercises and courses in the final years to make it easier to accept students with some amount of classwork already under their belts.