I grew up in a world where we commanded many worlds. Our only worries were the Chinese and the Russians, who sometimes tried to take some of our worlds from us. The Shang tried to take all of our worlds from us. We did not accept their proposal and we fought back. In the end, we won, and we kept all of our worlds. We conquered many worlds as well, worlds we still hold to this day. We refused to live in the world the Shang wanted for us. We made our own.
We all live on the same worlds as everybody else, but many of us live in worlds that others just don’t. I grew up in a small town, a world where everybody knew each other and smiled real politely. It was a world where someone who tried to steal from you got shot, and where friendly policemen escorted lost boys home. I liked that world. Knowing the bad guys from the good guys was real easy. I wish I could share that world with more people.
We really do follow the preconceptions of our partners. For the British and Americans, we are almost always female, because that is what a ship is. Continental Europe is far more complicated though. While civilian ships are usually female, most fighting ships are male. I think it may be because they didn’t live at sea like the English. Whatever the reason though, few Europeans think of warships as female, so most of us who join them choose to be male.
War is an ugly business, and whenever we seek to make it cleaner, I believe we do a disservice to ourselves. During the Great Space Race of the 22nd and 23rd centuries, we signed treaties not to fight over our important worlds. Our core worlds lived in peace, but we continued to fight over in the colony regions. The majority of our people did not know War until the Shang brought it to us. That nearly destroyed us all.
I’m a lover by choice, a fighter at need. There was a time, after Yosemite, when I wanted to fight, to kill the Shang for what they did. But one thing I’ve learned about fighting over the years, is it’s not like the movies make it look. It’s bloody, it’s painful, it’s scary, and the more I’ve done it, the less I want to do it again. Oh, I’ll fight if someone pushes me. I’ll make it bloody, painful, and scary, so they’ll know the cost and never want it again.