“In the short time that we have left,” Yvessa said, “let’s start with the material from the last trimester. First trimester was before unification. Second is unification, integration and its immediate aftermath. And the third is supposed to be up to today, but according to Sarah, it’s only up to the First Alliance.” She made a dismissive gesture, but its meaning was lost on Sam due to lacking the proper context. Never thought I’d see the day when I’m the one not understanding the historical references.

“The First Alliance was the agreement between the Imperials and ningani after the First Epirak Invasion,” Felix kindly explained when Sam turned to him in confusion.

“Right,” said Yvessa, “except that the Kingdom of Sarechal was also part of that agreement. They rushed the peace settlement negotiation with the empire, to the Imperials benefit I might add, and even agreed to send military help to combat the Epiraks. Two facts which many Imperials are happy to ignore when criticizing the elves at the same time as the deshars.”

“Alright.” Sam cracked his knuckles. “So the course makers pretty much splits the elven history according to the evolution of the dominant political entity, The Kingdom of Sarachel?”

“Sarechal,” Yvessa corrected him.

“Fair enough. So when are you guys learning about other races? Seems to me that if every course is a full year, then you’re still one year short of achieving maximum cultural immersion.”

Felix barked a bitter laugh. “Only the elves get the full year. The deshars get two trimesters next year and the Imps and ningani are bunched together for the one measly trimester after that.”

“And no dwarves, right?”

“Nope.”

“Seems a bit racist if you don’t mind my saying so. Why do the elves get a full year while the dwarves don’t get anything? The academy’s just conforming to stereotypes, acting like that.”

“Probably because half of the teachers here are elves themselves. Obviously, they would place themselves as the most important to learn about.”

“That’s not the reason, and you know it,” Yvessa admonished Felix. “And how’d you get to half? It’s barely a fifth. The reason we learn more about the elves and deshars is because almost all of us Terrans are going to the eastern front and that’s who we’re going to be fighting with. Chances are, the average soldier won’t even meet an Imperial or a ningana during their service. That’s doubly true for the dwarves who, unlike the ningani, don’t make up for their numerical disadvantage with greater magical prowess. This is all a matter of time efficiency and probabilities. There are more elves than deshars, and that’s why we dedicate extra time to their history.”

“Right…” Felix drawled. “And the fact that New Terra was basically founded by the elves has nothing to do with it?”

“What’s that now?” Sam asked.

“It’s a gross oversimplification on Felix’s part. And besides, it’s got nothing to do with our lesson plan for today.”

“Really? Seems pretty weird that you guys don’t learn about Terran history at all. Or is that kept for the third year?”

“That’s kept for highschool. But for now focus, we already wasted a lot of time.”

“I wouldn’t say wasted. Did I forget to cover the different types of time expenditure in the lecture I gave you a couple of minutes ago?”

“No, and you’re not going to waste any more time. Now, since I didn’t attend the lessons at all last trimester, and we don’t have a textbook at hand, I’ll have to pick my own starting point. Unless you remember where they started?” she asked Felix.

Felix scratched his head. “The Emergence, maybe? Or was that covered in a later lesson on myths? I don’t know…”

“Great, so we’ll start for now with the Emergence. That’s what I was planning to do anyway—”

“Hold on,” Sam said. “If there’s a textbook, why are we even here? Couldn’t I just read it and save us all the time and bother?”

“So now we’re a bother, are we?” Felix asked with a smile.

“Of course there’s a textbook,” Yvessa said, “a different one for each trimester. That’s why I wanted to go to the library, so we could loan you one and go over it together. I never even opened mine.”

“What’s the point?” Sam asked. “Just give me the book and I’ll go over it on my own time. I read faster than I listen. I’m pretty sure that most people are like that.”

“The book alone isn’t enough. You’re supposed to supplement it with the lessons themselves. Besides—”

Sam laughed. “That’s what they all say. ‘Oh, you got to read the articles. They’re an integral part of the test.’ Bollocks. Now there might be some courses where you have to read something that wasn’t discussed in the lesson. That much is true. But I’ve yet to chance upon one where you were asked something that wasn’t covered in the textbook if one was provided.”

“Things might have changed in the last hundred years.”

“In higher education? Ha! No fucking way. You’re just being young and naive. I was like you once upon a time. Yeah, believe or not but my first year in uni I was the perfect student. Read everything I was told to, did every homework, attended all lessons. But the only thing I got out of that was burnout. People who were taking it half as serious as I was were getting scores just as good as me, if not better.”

“So you’re saying that we shouldn’t give it our all?” Yvessa asked with a frown. “That doesn’t sound like a very healthy attitude for someone who wants to become a Ruler in the future. Need I remind you that this place is here to teach us how to stay alive in battle?”

“Yeah.” Felix snorted. “And learning who was Farris the Great would surely help him when faced against a hundred Brutes. He’ll just start regaling them with the tale of Thousand Sorrows and they’ll get bored to death.” Yvessa shot him a sharp look, but Felix wasn’t about to be deterred. “C’mon, don’t tell me that you buy into the whole better cooperation angle? Like knowing the names of all different royal dynasties is supposed to help me fight together with an elf better? What if I don’t know something about their history they’re going to leave me to die? Even the academy knows it’s bullshit. Ever heard of someone failing to graduate because they failed history?”

“No. But so what?” Yvessa asked. “You’d rather not know anything about the history of the people who you’re going to be fighting with for the rest of your life? If that’s the case, why are you even bothering going to the lessons? I know that today is your first absence of the trimester.”

“I didn’t say that… Obviously, I believe that we should know about the history of the other races in the Web. I just don’t buy the reason they’re trying to sell us for learning it. They’re trying to hide the fact that the courses are a result of political maneuvering and nothing else when they should be about the importance of learning history for learning’s sake. There’s no practical reason that for the elves to get a full year of us learning about them while the deshars only get two-thirds. If the knowledge we acquire actually has any effect on our combat capabilities, then learning about both of them is equally important. It’s not like we know that we’re going to be fighting with three elves to every two deshar. In fact, we are most likely to fight with neither of them and go into an all Terran unit.”

“Wait,” Sam said, “there’s racial segregation in the military? Have you bastards forgot about my boy Harry?”

“It’s nothing like what happened in Terran history,” Yvessa said. “It’d be more akin to two allied nations, each having their own units.”

“That’s just as bad, but for different reasons! Please tell me that you at least have a unified command structure.”

“We Terrans do,” Felix said. “Because every unit of us that isn’t subordinate to elven command is under deshar one.”

“And the elves and deshars?” Sam asked.

“They also have one,” Yvessa said, before Felix had a chance to open his mouth. “Felix is just being obtuse on purpose. The eastern front isn’t like the western one. Both the elven and deshar forces are ultimately working in unison under the command of the Silent Seer—the deshar Chosen.”

“Except that in practice, she’s not at the front but stays on Koshed, so the two army groups are acting independently.”

“Koshed is one portal away from the front. If she wants to get involved, she can easily get involved. The reason why one might think the army groups are acting independently is that they’ve figuratively split the front line into two halves, one under elven command and the other deshar. A split which is only tactical in nature and has nothing to do with forces allocation or composition. That is still decided only by Koshed.”

It’s seemed that neither of them managed to convince the other, so Sam decided to leave for less contentious waters. “Alright, never mind the east. You’re saying that in the west it’s definitely worse?”

Yvessa nodded with a grimace. “The Imperials and ningani have actually split the front in two. Each one only defending their half of the line. So in practice, unless there’s an emergency, they won’t ever fight together in the same world.”

Sam shook his head. “You guys…” he said in a pleading voice, “this is just not good. Haven’t you told them about World War One? Or even Two for that matter.”

“Look, when you’re in the Council of Chosen, you could tell them to change things up. But until then, this is how things are and there’s no use crying about it.”

“Always a good attitude to have when one sees something wrong with the world.” Felix smiled.

“You’re the one who didn’t see a thing wrong with how things were when we last talked about it. Your only complaint was that you thought the republic ought to be in command of its own forces.”

“I said that we should be in command of our own, but that until we have a Chosen of our own, or at least a lot more Rulers, that this was impractical. And I stand by it. I think that every nation should be in charge of its own forces and shouldn’t mix unless it was an emergency.”

“Felix.” Sam held up his hand. “Let me stop you right there. You are very close to being space racist, also known as a xenophobe in the sci-fi community. Please tell me that you have a good reason for thinking the way you do and that it isn’t that we humans need to stay pure and not mingle with the aliens.”

“I’m not being racist. Just trying to think realistically. Most commanders care more about keeping their own people alive than those of their allied forces. So it makes most sense to keep the command structure separate along national lines. No risk of the elves, or let’s say Terrans—so we would be the bad guys in this scenario—sending a hundred deshars to die in order to save fifty of our own. Now I’m not saying that there shouldn’t be integrated units or people from one nation in overall command of another, but that in general, each nation should only be in command of their own units. If there’s an emergency, then obviously that changes the picture, but this way we minimize the risk that one race would serve as the fodder for another.”

Sam nodded his head, mollified but unconvinced. “Say what you will, but the boy’s not a racist. At least not based on this one opinion of his. Now I’m not saying I’m agreeing with what you said, mind, but it does make enough sense for me to believe that you didn’t come up with in order to justify any other point of view. Yvessa, you obviously disagree, care to share with the class why?”

“No. And we haven’t even started the class yet. We were going to, but then you two dragged us to this unrelated conversation.”

“Wasn’t me,” Sam said shaggily. “I just raised the idea that the official purpose of our meeting today was a total waste of time and that our time would be much better served if I just studied from a textbook. Felix is the one who got us sidetracked by whining about the elven influence on our studying.”

Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

Yvessa crossed her hands and turned her head sideways. “How could it be a waste of time if we haven’t even started it?”

“Speaking about elven superiority,” Felix said, “did you know that the elves, same as the other races for that matter, don’t study Terran history the same way we do theirs?”

“Of course they study it,” Yvessa said.

“Right, right. They do study it, but unlike us, for them it’s an elective.”

“Which plenty of them pick. It’s the most popular elective at the Sarechi Royal Academy for a reason.”

“But it’s not the same, is it? They can choose whether to learn about us. But we have to learn about them. Why? Because obviously we are much less important in the Web’s political landscape. If history lessons had anything to do with actual conduct in battle, the elves and deshars would sure as hell be learning about us.” He turned to Sam. “We might not have a Chosen or as many Rulers but our regular forces are the second largest after the Imperials. Which forces us to confront the fact that the academy’s insistence on history lessons is due to political forces and nothing else.”

Sam laid back on the chair, stretching both his arms and legs to their fullest. “What’s your point?”

“My point? I just made my point. They’re forcing us to learn about them, their history and customs, by claiming that it will help us fight better together. But they don’t act upon their own advise when it comes to learning our history. It’s pure hypocrisy.”

“OK, and?”

“What do you mean and? That’s it. It’s bullshit! They’re just lording their superiority over us like where some kind of backwater civilization that hadn’t even invented the wheel. We shouldn’t be forced to learn about them just cause they’re stronger than us.”

“I don’t know…” Sam drawled. “Sound pretty reasonable to me. The big kids get to make the playground’s rules. And as long as those rules don’t contradict the teacher’s order, i.e. any moral restrictions, anything goes. It’s not ideal, sure, but I just don’t see what the great harm is.”

“The other races are basically forcing us to learn about them! How come the elves get to decide what type of knowledge is valuable for me to learn and what isn’t? It’s a matter of mutual respect. As long as the foreign races can dictate to us basic stuff like education, how could we ever hold our head high and treat ourselves as their equal?”

“Don’t you think you’re putting a bit too much into it?” Yvessa asked. “Besides, how can you be so sure that anyone’s forcing the academy what to teach and what not to teach? After all, we only get one trimester for both the Imperials and the ningani and even in that instance, ningana history is taught less than Imperial.”

“What’s your point?” Felix asked, hopefully on purpose.

“If we really were forced to learn about the other races as a result of some sort of power play by them, then how come the ningani get covered less than the Imperials? It doesn’t strike me as something that your average ningana clan elder would be inclined to accept.”

“Why not? They simply don’t care all that much about us, seeing as how we’re so far removed from the eastern worlds, comfortably snug in our little three worlds enclave. Only the deshars and elves care, on account of us being in their neighborhood and sharing the front line burden with them, so they jockeyed between themselves who gets to influence the Terran youth more and, surprise surprise, the elves won out in the end.”

“What prize.” Yvessa said, deadpanned. “Getting the Terran military academies to incorporate history lessons in their curriculum. Lessons that no one who isn’t interested in learning about them cares about because you can’t really fail them. And on the off chance that you did, they do what? Let you continue with your studies anyway. I tell you what, these foreign races, real nefarious of them to have no consequences for failing to learn about their most basic history.”

Felix winced. “OK. I didn’t say it like that.”

“Say what like what?” Yvessa asked with feigned confusion.

“Foreign races. I didn’t say it like you did.”

“I don’t know… sounded pretty similar to my native human ears. What do you think, Sam?”

“Currently? I was wondering if there was any non anti-western aligned country, and if there were, which was it, where they didn’t teach you about the American War of Independence. Even as a footnote.” They both looked at him with blank stares. “What? It started from me wondering whether there was any country where they didn’t teach you about World War Two. Deciding that no, there probably wasn’t. My mind skipped to what’s the next global event that’s taught everywhere. And naturally, my mind eventually wandered to the nascent United States because of America’s position as the sole superpower and cultural hegemon of the post Cold War world. Really basic stuff here guys. I don’t know why you keep looking at me like that.”

“What did you think about the way Felix said ‘foreign races?’” Yvessa emphasized her question.

“Sounded a bit racist.” Sam admitted. Yvessa turned over her hands as though telling Felix, “see?”

“Fine, fine.” Felix held up his hands. “Whatever you guys say. Didn’t mean anything bad by it, anyway. And not that I’m disagreeing with your chastisement or anything, but how would you even know what racist people sound like?” he asked Sam.

“I don’t imagine the rhetoric had changed much. And when you call someone a ‘foreigner.’ it’s not usually done with much affection.”

“Well, just to make it clear, when I said foreigner, I meant people who aren’t Terran citizens. As far as I’m concerned, anyone’s a Terran if they got or will get the right to vote. Doesn’t matter if they’re non-humans, born on different worlds, or even from a hundred years ago—”

“You better not mean that. I’m a neutralized citizen as of yesterday. Call me a foreigner and you’ll really be digging yourself into a racist grave.”

“Like I said, I wasn’t going to. And as for actual foreigners, I don’t think any less of them. I don’t care about people being different from me. You should know it better than anyone, Yvessa. But what I don’t like is people looking down at me simply because I’m different from them. I’ve had to endure it all of my life, from other Terrans mind you, because Centauri is fucked and good magical education is really hard to get there when you don’t have money. So excuse me for feeling like shit when I finally get here, where who you are shouldn’t matter anymore, only to discover that I’m still looked down upon. But this time it isn’t by asshole rich kids who are mean to me, but by a whole entire race that decided what I should and shouldn’t be learning.”

Yvessa rolled her eyes. “Oh, yeah. Because I’m sure the entire elven race had a hand in deciding what we were going to be learning. I see the picture, the entirety of Larsus, nay of Maynil, gathered together in front of the palace, millions upon millions of people bunched up together. And they all decided unanimously that Felix Polaris should be forced to endure a lesson in elven history once a week for a whole entire school year.”

“That’s not what I meant, and you know. But thank you, nevertheless, for that hilarious mental picture you painted. You really are a master of your craft. Sam, you got what I meant, right?”

“Sure, but I don’t know why you’re coming to me for. I’m fairly in the ‘you’re being a little bitch’ camp.”

“I’m being a bitch?”

“A little one.” Sam demonstrated with his fingers for emphasis. “The distinction is important. Every one of us has been and will be a little bitch at some point in life. It’s just what life is. Eventually you’re gonna come up against something that you don’t like and want to avoid. Faced with the inability to reject reality, and forced to tackle that which we do not like, a person will inevitably resort to whining. And whining will make you a little bitch the moment it starts grating on other people’s nerves, which, in our modern inhospitable urban environment, is pretty instant.

“But like I said, it happens to everyone at some point or another. The important thing is to not let yourself become a big or even just a regular sized bitch. It is when the little bitch starts lashing out at other people due to their frustration with the existing state of things that they are transformed into a proper bitch—”

“This going somewhere?” Felix asked while faking a yawn.

Sam cleared his throat. “If you would have let me finish, I would have graced you with a wonderful joke about me making sure that I never end us as a regular bitch by always acting like a little bitch. But I guess now you’ll never get to experience that joke in its natural habitat.”

“Darn… So, care to explain why you think I’m acting like… what was it? I know it was something to do with being a bitch, but I just can’t recall the adjective you’ve used to describe its size. Lesser than average, was it?” Sam held up his left index finger and thumb so that they almost touched. “Ah! That’s what it was. A little bitch, yes. Will you please explain to me then, in your own words, of course, why it is that you think I’m acting like a little bitch?”

“Gee… I don’t know, mate. I mean Yvessa, do we even have the time?” he asked her while tapping on his wrist.

Yvessa shrugged. “Does it even matter at this point? You two are just going to do whatever it is you like. And it’s not like I’m being paid for my time here.”

“Certainly not! Paying for a friend’s help is a surefire way to lose that friendship. And I should know, I’ve lost many a friend by demanding payments in return for favors requested of me.”

“You had me going until the point where you claimed that you once had many friends.”

“Very good, Yvessa, yes! Full marks for that burn, nicely done. Felix, your rebuttal?”

“Stop evading Sam,” Felix said. “If you continue acting like that, you’ll make me think that you don’t actually want to make me feel bad by saying whatever it is that you’re really thinking.”

“Fair enough. Now, what was your question? Joking, joking. I remember every part of our conversation, I assure you. My social anxiety can’t run on empty. I got to have access to everything I said in order to best criticize myself afterwards. And let me just preface what I’m about to say by saying that nothing of the following is intended as a personal attack on you yourself, or your beliefs. And not only that, you can be certain that despite how it may seem, none of what I’ll say has any effect, none at all, on my evaluation of you as a person. Or at the very least, be the cause for any negative evaluation. That possibility was done and dusted the moment I downranked the probable cause for your misguided opinion on the order of battle from racism to inferiority complex. With that out of the way, let us have at you.

“So, the reason I claimed you were acting like a little bitch—i.e. whining too much about an unworthy cause—is because I don’t see what’s so bad about the version of the world as you’ve described it. And this is without taking Yvessa’s words into account. About how foreign history, notice how I’ve used foreign by the way. About how foreign history is not being taught according to the real world power balance between the different races. And we also don’t need to mind the fact that the academy doesn’t actually care whether you pass the history courses. Even in a world where Yvessa is just as wrong as you a right; where the elves have heavy handedly forced the Terran authorities what to teach us young cadets and failure in passing means an expulsion from the academy. Even in a world like that, I still think you’re being a little bitch.

“And again, I want to assure you that this is not an attack on you or your reputation. This is just my observation, and there is nothing inherently bad about acting like a little bitch. Like I said, everyone acts like that at some point in life, and if you would have let me finish my previous monologue, you would have had my very own case study which would have allowed you to say ‘takes one to know one.’ But I’ve digressed… in order not to hurt your little bitchy feelings. Sorry, sorry, couldn’t help myself.

“In all seriousness. My point of contention against yours is that even in a world that’s as cold and uncaring to us as you’ve described; where arrogant elves tell us what we ought to learn about and forcefully trying to assimilate us into their so-called superior culture. Even in a world like that, my question to you is, ‘so what?’

“And this isn’t a ‘so what’ intending to say who gives a shit. My question to you is ‘So what? It’s not that bad.’ It’s been the way of the world since time immemorial that stronger nations force their own culture on their weaker neighbors. What, do you think, is the reason that most of Europe has the same language family and very tiny differences between their alphabets? (Side note, this would’ve been a good place to insert a joke about Finland and Hungary, but I don’t think that you’ll get it). What is the reason that you and I are talking in English and not Mandarin? On the spectrum of the possible actions a stronger power takes in order to culturally assimilate a lesser one, forcing the students in military academies to take three courses about elven history ranks barely on the scale.

“Now, I’m not saying, indeed I have already claimed the opposite, that the situation is ideal. It’s never right to force your own culture upon other people, even in the case in which said culture is objectively superior to the other culture. At least as long as we’re giving culture a very narrow definition that doesn’t involve anything to do with politics, ethics and the like. I’ll have no one accuse me of moral relativism. And I’m not saying the elven culture is any better than yours, mind you, since I still don’t know anything about them, but only that the political unit which is represented by that culture is stronger than yours.

“Recall, if you will, the wandering thought which I’ve previously described to you two, whether all young students worldwide learn about the American so called ‘Revolution.’ Obviously, kids in the Philippines and Liberia learn about it, or at least I think they do. But is a teenager from Ethiopia or Nepal just as likely to be forced to learn about the founding of the USA? I don’t know, maybe they do, maybe they don’t. Whatever the case may be, if someone came up to me and told me that at some tenth grade class in Addis Ababa, they had a history test yesterday where they asked the students what year was the Declaration of Independence signed. I would, first of all, slap that person, shake them by their shoulders and ask them, ‘How dare you speak to me about Ethiopia?! Do I look like a king named John to you?!’ But my second instinct would be to say, ‘Huh? Really? Oh well, makes sense I guess.’

“For you see, if I were in the position of this academy’s dean or whoever is in charge of making the curriculum. I would also choose to dedicate some lessons to the study of the powers stronger than us and most likely to affect us in the future. While you might see this choice as shameful, you cannot deny that it is nevertheless prudent to learn about those stronger ourselves. Even if they will never be our enemies and we have no cause to fear them, is there nothing to be learned from them that might make our society better overall? After all, there must be a reason that they are stronger than us, no? Probably not; that’s just trying to give things a positive functional spin. What I’m really trying to get at is that the distance between an ideal world and the one where everyone is forced the learn the history of the preeminent political powers of their era… is not that big.”

At this point in his long-winded explanation, Sam stopped to take a breath. “Also,” he said eventually, “I’ll be completely honest with you. But I love history, so you kind of lost me from the get go when you complained about having to learn about the history of any other race. Like sure, there are countries and places with relatively boring history, but I very much doubt that an entire fucking race that had magic available to it would have a boring history. That may or may not have been the deciding factor in me calling you a little bitch, and it is possible that everything I said in that respect was just made up at the spot in order to justify my instinctual reaction. You decide.”

Felix’s face contorted in humor. “Doesn’t that invalidate everything you’ve just said then?”

Sam tilted his head and asked, “Do you really want to get into this now? I warn you, I have some pretty graphic arguments for this particular discussion.”

“No,” Yvessa cut in before Felix could respond. “We’re moving on. Sarah asked me to help teach you history and we’ve wasted almost all of it talking about anything but.”

“I thought that we could do whatever since we weren’t paying you?”

“I changed my mind. From now on, no more interruptions.”