TM 180 - Starting Over
May. 31st, 2007 10:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
arrow_of_apollo180 - If you could completely start your life over from scratch, what would you do differently the second time around (if anything)? Why?
I think-- and go with me on this-- I would have learned how to play Triad, or at least play it a whole lot better than I do now.
No, seriously. I'm not going to tell you that I don't have regrets or that I never sit down and second-guess the things I've done and wonder if there were ways I could have done them better. I know I do it, and do it often, and I know there are plenty of moments in my life that if I had the power to go back and re-do them, I'd seriously consider doing it.
But when I really think about it, I go back to the Triad thing.
Depending on the track you're on, once you've passed Basic Flight training, you move into one of the pilot specialization programs. Some go in for Raptors, others for starship navigation, and others to Viper school. In the Viper training program is where a nugget learns the basics of flying a combat machine. Engagement protocols and tactics are taught. Computer simulations or actual gun camera footage of historical engagements are used to demonstrate the dos and don'ts of fighter craft. A nugget pulls the trigger a hundred times in the simulator long before even getting to fire blank rounds in a real Viper.
You're expected to know your bird inside and out, and understand what she'll do under as many different circumstances as the textbooks and instructors can imagine.
One of my teachers was a certain Major Fine who'd lost the better part of both his legs in the Cylon War. At first, every single trainee either wrote him off or felt sorry for him, teaching instead of doing. That would be until he'd splashed you a dozen times in a simulator, not to mention what it felt like to get downed by him in a training flight.
Major Fine, in his very first briefing, said to us the same words I later found out he says to every new class of nuggets:
"Your assignment tonight is to head straight to the rec room directly after chow and start up some Triad games. I don't care what stakes you use, or who plays with who-- in fact, I'd prefer you keep switching it up. I want to see all of you with cards in your hands and your eyes on your opponents every damn night of the week, you hear me?"
None of us understood it, but woe to whoever decided to ignore that particular piece of homework. Maj. Fine had a liking to use "shirkers" as he called them as to pull his wheelchair like an Aerolon farm mule.
So I did it, but my heart wasn't in it. I lost more than I won, but most of the time I pretty much just broke even. It wasn't until years after I'd graduated the program and was brought back to Fleet Headquarters to test out the new generation of Viper Mark VII's that I ran into Maj. Fine again and asked him what the point had been.
"It's flying, Captain Adama," Fine explained. "Triad is a game that when it's broken down is governed by complex and intricate mathematical rules. It's all about probabilities and how you can make those probabilities swing in your favor. Flying a bird like a Viper is the same thing, especially when you're talking about combat. It's a tough bird, but a Viper's got more going on under the skin than anyone knows, and making it do what a pilot wants is no mean feat, even for someone talented."
"But mostly, I want you nuggets to learn how to bluff, and how to read. If you can't call a bluff by reading another pilot's face from across the table, you're never going to be able to spot a feint from half a klick away at full afterburner speed. How the other pilot's going to jink, how they're going to pull through a bank-- hell, just how willing they're going to be to turn onto your twelve and go at you head to head. In return, you learn how to keep those things inside, and keep the bandit guessing about every move you make."
I can't tell you how much I would've liked being able to gauge people and what was happening inside their heads and behind the salutes and "yes, sir"s.
Maybe I would've been able to see how hard my father wanted to make us family again, but just didn't know how after Zak. Maybe I would have been able to tell just how badly I'd frakked things up with Dee long before things came to the head they did. And maybe I would've kept Kara from diving into that storm if I had really known how bad things had gotten for her.
So that's why you almost never see me in those games. It's not because I don't like Triad, and not because I mind losing the chips we've been swapping around for years. It's because I've got a lousy game face, and everybody's got theirs down pat. Maybe one day I'll get someone to coach the old CAG, but for now... now, I guess I've just got to guess like everyone else.
(879)
I think-- and go with me on this-- I would have learned how to play Triad, or at least play it a whole lot better than I do now.
No, seriously. I'm not going to tell you that I don't have regrets or that I never sit down and second-guess the things I've done and wonder if there were ways I could have done them better. I know I do it, and do it often, and I know there are plenty of moments in my life that if I had the power to go back and re-do them, I'd seriously consider doing it.
But when I really think about it, I go back to the Triad thing.
Depending on the track you're on, once you've passed Basic Flight training, you move into one of the pilot specialization programs. Some go in for Raptors, others for starship navigation, and others to Viper school. In the Viper training program is where a nugget learns the basics of flying a combat machine. Engagement protocols and tactics are taught. Computer simulations or actual gun camera footage of historical engagements are used to demonstrate the dos and don'ts of fighter craft. A nugget pulls the trigger a hundred times in the simulator long before even getting to fire blank rounds in a real Viper.
You're expected to know your bird inside and out, and understand what she'll do under as many different circumstances as the textbooks and instructors can imagine.
One of my teachers was a certain Major Fine who'd lost the better part of both his legs in the Cylon War. At first, every single trainee either wrote him off or felt sorry for him, teaching instead of doing. That would be until he'd splashed you a dozen times in a simulator, not to mention what it felt like to get downed by him in a training flight.
Major Fine, in his very first briefing, said to us the same words I later found out he says to every new class of nuggets:
"Your assignment tonight is to head straight to the rec room directly after chow and start up some Triad games. I don't care what stakes you use, or who plays with who-- in fact, I'd prefer you keep switching it up. I want to see all of you with cards in your hands and your eyes on your opponents every damn night of the week, you hear me?"
None of us understood it, but woe to whoever decided to ignore that particular piece of homework. Maj. Fine had a liking to use "shirkers" as he called them as to pull his wheelchair like an Aerolon farm mule.
So I did it, but my heart wasn't in it. I lost more than I won, but most of the time I pretty much just broke even. It wasn't until years after I'd graduated the program and was brought back to Fleet Headquarters to test out the new generation of Viper Mark VII's that I ran into Maj. Fine again and asked him what the point had been.
"It's flying, Captain Adama," Fine explained. "Triad is a game that when it's broken down is governed by complex and intricate mathematical rules. It's all about probabilities and how you can make those probabilities swing in your favor. Flying a bird like a Viper is the same thing, especially when you're talking about combat. It's a tough bird, but a Viper's got more going on under the skin than anyone knows, and making it do what a pilot wants is no mean feat, even for someone talented."
"But mostly, I want you nuggets to learn how to bluff, and how to read. If you can't call a bluff by reading another pilot's face from across the table, you're never going to be able to spot a feint from half a klick away at full afterburner speed. How the other pilot's going to jink, how they're going to pull through a bank-- hell, just how willing they're going to be to turn onto your twelve and go at you head to head. In return, you learn how to keep those things inside, and keep the bandit guessing about every move you make."
I can't tell you how much I would've liked being able to gauge people and what was happening inside their heads and behind the salutes and "yes, sir"s.
Maybe I would've been able to see how hard my father wanted to make us family again, but just didn't know how after Zak. Maybe I would have been able to tell just how badly I'd frakked things up with Dee long before things came to the head they did. And maybe I would've kept Kara from diving into that storm if I had really known how bad things had gotten for her.
So that's why you almost never see me in those games. It's not because I don't like Triad, and not because I mind losing the chips we've been swapping around for years. It's because I've got a lousy game face, and everybody's got theirs down pat. Maybe one day I'll get someone to coach the old CAG, but for now... now, I guess I've just got to guess like everyone else.
(879)
