Machine oil rained from the sky in big, greasy drops: plip plip plip. With a flick of her wrist she swats off a thick coat of the substance from her blade, the metallic carcass behind her splitting cleanly into two. Bounding across the cracked pavement, she treks towards the abandoned boardwalk: the carrier strike group rendezvous site. Now in full sprint, she handsprings between the legs of a multilegged model scuttling into her path, narrowly missing its outstretched pincers. An intoxicated smile plays across her lips as the potent cocktail of catecholamines and endorphins course through her veins. All combatants are exerting their wills in full, violent expression; all is well. The truth of the world, manifesting itself with her very own body: in every muscular contraction, in every swing of her blade, in every calculated decision, in every exhale of breath, in every life taken, in every injury sustained. That fundamental law of nature--strength prevails--was on her side in that very moment. "Feels so good...". Interrupting her moment of bodily pleasure a looming shadow appears in her periphery. Before she could react, her vision momentarily goes white as she feels hot, stinging pain across her delicate face.
Unit 16I: Are you with us, cadet?
She gingerly rubs her cheek, wincing as she turns to identify the source of her trauma. Maybe taking a desk by the window wasn't the best idea, especially for History and Moral Philosophy. Perhaps even doubly so, considering these OCS units don't mess around. Before her, the figure was gazing down disapprovingly from behind stern, deep green eyes, officer's crop drawn and now gently tilting her chin up.
Unit 8B: [between clenched teeth]
Yes, ma'am. I'm with you...
16I: [mockingly]
You grace us with your presence! Then perhaps you'd be so good as to grace us with your infinite wisdom in answering this question: what was one of the cultural preconditions that precipitated the fall of the North American Republic during the 21st century?
8B: The North American Republic fell because of the weakening of social virtue.
16I: [irritated at a correct answer, she swats the young corporal across the face once more]
Be more specific.
8B: [glaring at her tormentor, she growls]
The citizenry had grown soft, amoral, and peevish, ma'am.
16I: [swatting her victim once more, she begins to slowly pace between the desks of the classroom, leisurely examining her crop, apparently pleased with the failure of her pupil to give a complete answer]
As soft as your response to the question, I'm sure. The fatal flaw that led to the downfall of the North American Republic was the wholesale rejection of duty and punishment. Even prior to the economic and social collapse brought on by the war against the Sino-Russo Hegemony, it was not unusual to see rampant crime in the homeland.
[sauntering past her cadets to the front of the class]
Scores of gangs infested inner-city areas, vandalizing private property, selling illicit substances, fighting over control of neighborhoods with innocent people caught in the conflict. During times of political unease, protests turned to riots as the populace rebelled against their leaders while nonsensically pillaging and destroying their own communities. Women and children alike were treated as objects, stripped of their dignity, sexually victimized in some of the most heinous, most depraved of ways.
Unit 10S: [in wide-eyed incredulity]
But ma'am, all of those offenses are punishable by death! Weren't there any police to enforce the law and uphold social order?
16I: [braces herself against her desk, nodding somberly]
Oh yes, there were police. Orders of magnitude more units than what we currently have, in fact. And yet their society was even more harried by crime and violence.
10S: How could that be! Were they that ineffectual?
16I: [scoffs, her expression contorting with pure disdain]
Ineffectual. That's putting it far too kindly, cadet. Incompetence can be trained out of a unit. No, this was nothing short of dereliction of duty. The popular sentiment back then was that to punish any of those criminal acts with death or at the very least corporal punishment was considered "cruel and unusual". Cruel and unusual...cr--
[slams her fist on the desk, pausing for a moment to regain her composure]
[icily]
Such worthless nonsense. 'Cruel and unusual'. Let me tell you all something about discipline and punishment. Punishment ought to be cruel, for any punishment that is tolerable is no punishment at all. Why must this be so? The familiar dictum is that the 'punishment shall fit the crime', is it not? By that very logic, any act that is considered a violation of social morality, an ostensibly intolerable act, ought to be met with a similarly intolerable punishment. This is the moral law of our universe, an analogue of the physical law stating that each and every action shall be met with an equal and opposite reaction.
Now, for what reason must this punishment necessarily be physical cruelty? That one is easy: because it is easy. Both to exploit by the disciplinarian and to grasp by the disciplined. It does not take much to inflict physical pain; bend a joint a few degrees beyond its natural range, exert a few Newtons of force against tissue along a small surface area. The perpetrator is unable to be indifferent to her pain; she will know exactly why she is feeling it, she will understand the meaning of it, and grasps the full severity of it instantaneously. That is the only unambiguity in this life: the meaning of one's own pain. This creature mechanism has been reinforced into us through years and years of evolution, steering us away from actions that jeopardize our survival. We ought to exploit it. [pauses for a second, scanning the rows of desks] You there.
[points a finger to her hapless victim, narrowing her eyes]
Now that I have addressed the cruel nature of punishment for the class, I want you to offer a logical proof for the justification of the unusual aspect.
Unit 12S: [stammering]
T-the unusual aspect? I, ah...
16I: [raising her voice]
Yes, the unusual aspect of punishment, cadet. Was I not clear?
[she slowly steps out from behind her desk, staring down her prey as she advances towards his seat in the second row]
12S: [gawking]
B-but I don't agree! Punishment shouldn't be unusu--ah!
[he reels as a crop slams hard across his desk, missing him by mere centimeters.
16I: I did not ask you for your consensus. The logical proof, now!
12S: T-t-the the the umm...if I h-had to, had to venture a g-guess I--
[The boy's words are cut-off as he is forcibly lifted out of his seat, his chair clattering to the floor]
16I: [her face inches from the boy's, speaking slowly and deliberately, her hand tightly constricting around his throat]
I am not asking you for your opinion, nor am I asking you to guess. I am asking you to perform. Now, do as you are told, cadet.
The entire classroom fell silent, save for the sickening sounds of asphyxiation coming out of the boy's small body. 8B gripped the edge of her desk anxiously, her nervous system primed for combat as she witnessed the boy struggling for breath against this unforgiving inquisitor holding him a clear meter off of the ground. Though she was svelte in her frame, awkwardly tall, and walked with a slight hunch, 16I was unusually strong. 8B felt a creeping warmth course through her body.
12S: [drool seeps from the corner of his mouth as he tries to speak between clenched teeth]
C-c-cruel..... --unishment...
12S's body, once rigid but alive with fear and fight, goes limp in unconscious resignation.
16I: [with a sigh she shakes the boy once within her grasp, giving him opportunity to respond before throwing him to the side of the classroom, among his overturned desk and chair]
Let this be a lesson to you all [slowly, she paces alongside the first row]. Make no mistake, there is indeed a logical proof justifying unusual punishment. Punishment ought to be unusual, for if it is repeated too frequently it loses its salience and effectiveness. But why explain it to you when it can be demonstrated?
[glances over her shoulder at the limp body on the floor]
Corporal, you've worked with that boy before, haven't you?
8B: [shifting in her chair uncomfortably as 16I approaches her desk once more]
Yes ma'am. We worked together a few times before, in the 7th Reconnaissance Division.
16I: [taking a seat on 8B's desk, crossing her legs, a slight smile playing across her lips as her voice drips with false naivete]
In the 7th Recon, hm? Then surely you must know how difficult it is to train new Scanner units. Tell me, do they ever make mistakes?
8B: [eyeing her instructor uneasily, she answers cautiously]
Yes ma'am. Many times, in fact.
16I: When they make mistakes, do you get angry?
8B: [hesitantly]
N-no. It is understood that they're new, and their training takes place in a simulation, s--
16I: [interrupting]
They simply do not know any better, is that right? What do you do when your trainee Scanner makes a mistake?
8B: Why, I scold him and administer lashes, according to the severity of the mistake.
16I: [her eyes narrowing as the slight smile turns fiendish]
But I had thought you weren't angry.
8B: [grits her teeth as her caution morphs into frustration]
Well, n-no. Yes. But...Well, I may not be angry but he has to think I am angry!
16I: [leans in, her gaze piercing with judgment]
You've expressed your disapproval, conceded that the poor Scanner unit is simply inexperienced, and yet you still inflict pain on him. Justify yourself, corporal. Are you a sadist?
8B: [her cheeks becoming hot, her jaw clenching]
I...w-well...!
16I: [crosses her arms, impatiently tapping her crop against her shoulder]
8B: [exasperated]
Ma'am, you HAVE to hit them! Or else they won't learn! You have to scold them and tell them exactly what they did wrong and punish them so they know not to do it again! And these two things have to be done in short order: a delay would just confuse him. I can assure you that the Scanners learn correct doctrine quickly because of this process, especially considering every subsequent punishment is harsher than the last.
16I: [huffs in approval]
So they do. Anyway, back to the fall of the North American Republic...
[resumes her prowl between the rows of cadets, leisurely swinging her crop]
It is exactly in the process that you described, corporal, where the Republic went wrong. These juvenile miscreants were scolded for their crimes and rarely, if ever, punished in serious manner. Often times they'd be reprimanded by the judicial system, fined, and let loose, only to have them arrested and scolded once more when they inevitably transgressed again. Repeated convictions would land them the most severe punishment: confinement with others just like themselves, where even worse criminal habits were learned. Comically, 'good behavior' was rewarded with early release. 'Parole', they called it. How amusing...
Unit 22H: [eyes wide]
How could the humans have allowed such a thing?! Didn't they care about their society? About their own safety?! How could they expect to foster stable society and social virtue without the timely application of deserved punishment?
16I: [grimly, she shakes her head]
It is not quite known why they allowed any of this. It is theorized that it was the nonsense peddled at the time that led to this behavior. The era was plagued with pseudo-intellectual drivel. 'Humanistic psychology'. 'Interpretivism'. 'Critical Theory'. These are the intellectual frameworks by which the intelligentsia justified abhorrent behavior, from pedophilia to race riots. Objective standards, including moral ones, were subordinate to an agent's subjectivity: 'lived experience' as it was called.
22H: 'Critical Theory'...ma'am, that isn't...? That's not the 'Critical Theory' related to the CRiT antigen, is it...?
16I: Very keen of you, cadet. Yes, it is. CRiT is the live, information hazard sub-component used in the manufacture of some of the earliest logic viruses, particularly the Baizuo strain of the mid-2020s. We take it for granted now, but previously it was not widely-known that information is the fundamental unit of the universe rather than mass or energy. Once humanity discovered this, they turned their attention from weaponizing mass and energy towards weaponizing information against each other. The results were the predecessors to the logic viruses still in use today.
The vile nature of these types of weapons lies in the fact that--much how a biological virus may infect a host, transform it into a vector, reproduce, and ultimately destroy the host--logic viruses are capable of this plus warping the superstructure that the host is embedded in. In short, where biological viruses merely cause physical, tangible damage to biological systems, logic viruses cause abstract, intangible damage to informational systems. Therefore they are much harder to detect, even harder to inoculate against, are far more virulent due to the speed of information propagation, and have downstream effects that may not manifest until decades or even centuries later.
22H: [gently chewing on her thumbnail]
Something I never understood, ma'am, if you'd entertain my question. Why is it that us YoRHa are susceptible to much of the same things the humans were? Were we not created to be superi--?!
16I: [slams her palms down onto her student's desk]
22H: [recoils, cowering down into her seat, her eyes squinted shut, closing out the looming figure before her as her body involuntarily begins to tremble. Her thumbnail slipping from between her teeth with an audible click]
16I: [glaring]
I'd advise you to be more careful with those thoughts of yours cadet. Never forget that although we, the YoRHa forces, are superior to our human masters in several capacities--our strength, our intellect, our resilience, we are created in their image. All of our capacities are not our own, but a reflection of human qualities, only amplified to meet their operational needs. Moreover, that which creates and utilizes is superior in essence to that which is created and utilized; this is a natural hierarchy. You'd do well to remember that next time such arrogant sentiment crosses your mind.
[The class falls dead silent, partly out of somber acknowledgment, partly out of fear]
16I: [sighs deeply, sliding her hands off the edge of the desk as she rights herself and begins to pace slowly towards the front of the room]
We cannot forget that we are mere instruments of humanity's will, endowed with a strict purpose and gifted with remarkable ability in order to achieve those ends. Part of that remarkable ability lies in our intellectual capacities, our flawless logic that orders our steps in everything that we set out to do. Perhaps this is exactly where our creators' fatal flaw lies; they were not able to construct a logical theory of morals, an ethic who's axioms are informed in their totality by a material understanding of the universe. Unfortunately, mankind believed, and still believes to this day, that they possess a moral instinct.
8B: Ma'am? But I thought he does? I mean, he has to; I myself feel--
16I: [turning her back to the class, she shakes her head, looking downward pensively, talking over her student]
No. What man feels--and what you feel by extension--is not what he calls 'moral instinct'. It is no more than a cultivated conscience. It is a moral sense that is acquired through experience and harshly reinforced and perfected by social order. At the core of this sense is the very real, corporeal, instinct to survive: this is the single imperative that governs the actions of both humanity and the YoRHa forces alike. Make no mistake, this instinct for survival does not remain idly on an animalistic, selfish, individual level, but scales upwards. A mother cat will die to protect her kittens. A soldier will charge into certain death for country. The greater virtues that have been mistakenly attributed to a moral 'conscience' are no more than increasingly sophisticated expressions of the fundamental, biological imperative to survive. Any behavior discordant with this imperative leads to the decline of the individual and ends with the individual; the harsh prescriptions of natural selection ensure that the behavior does not appear in future generations.
[turns to address her students with her characteristic steel expression]
Returning to the fall of the North American Republic, the rampant crime precipitated by atrophy of social virtue--those perpetrators of said crime only achieved the basic level of moral sophistication by these terms. They merely possessed the selfish instinct of self-preservation and perhaps some tenuous loyalty to whatever group of miscreants they belonged to. Nothing greater, for society had ultimately failed them; the lack of punishment and discipline told them that merely surviving was moral and justified. There was no lesson of higher duties towards humanity, nor administration of the rod to ensure that this lesson was actually learned. Consequently, the once admirable society of the North American Republic rotted and collapsed from the erosion of it's moral foundation, forgoing duty for favor of an idiotic culture that prattled on endlessly about 'natural rights'.
I challenge, each and every one of you, to tell me what 'right to life' does a YoRHa unit possess, struggling for breath after having her lungs crushed by a Goliath biped? The blood pooling in her chest will not hearken to her cries. If one unit of a recon dyad is infected with a logic virus, and each unit has a blade pressed to the other's throat, which unit's 'right to life' is unalienable? Moreover, this so-called 'right to liberty' is of the most trite and stupid. Liberty is never granted and certainly is never without cost; us YoRHa are living proof of that. How many of your comrades have paid with their lives over the millennia in this godforsaken war...Now then, the final so-called right, 'the pursuit of happiness'; not much of a right at all but rather a state one dwells in. It is indeed unalienable, for it can neither be granted nor taken away from you; one can indeed find happiness in the worst of conditions so long as the body lives on. Suffering imprisonment, subjected to horrific torture, being brought to the very edge of death one is free to 'pursue happiness' until their cognitive functions are taken offline.
An assignment for tonight, cadets. I want you all to reflect on what other forms of wishful thinking humanity engaged in that led to their civilizational downfall; why they now find themselves in refuge on the Lunar surface. Contrast this meditation with an enumeration of our core virtues that enables us to bring the fight to the enemy on behalf of our human masters. Class dismissed. [salutes] Glory To Mankind.
All: [salutes]
Glory To Mankind.