12Fold/Thirteen Ribbons/Solfax headcanon
The secret initiation ceremony for the Martian Empressor's Legendary Hospitallers is as follows:
The candidate is brought before their training officer and seated at a table. The officer sits across from them and places two objects on the table: a rotten steak and an antique Terran revolver. They instruct the candidate, "If you do not eat this steak to prove your loyalty to the Empressor, worthless beast, I will shoot you."
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12Fold/Thirteen Ribbons/Solfax headcanon
The successful candidate will simply pick up the revolver and, finding themselves unopposed, leave the room and go home. In the 150 years since its terraforming, there has never been a single primed bullet cartridge on Mars. The candidate may keep the revolver, a prop quickprinted at minimal expense, as a souvenir.
Those who wish to engage in combat with their officer instead are welcome to try.
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12Fold/Thirteen Ribbons/Solfax headcanon
@zebratron2084 I really wish I had been stable enough in my brain meats to be able to play in there, at the time. It always sounds epically weird.
12Fold/Thirteen Ribbons/Solfax headcanon
Regardless, if they turn up to port the next morning-- or, if they chose the "combat" option, the morning after payment is settled with the clonebank-- they're bodyprinted a uniform, assigned a serial number, and sent on an expedition. "AWOL" is not a concept.
The message is clear: Mars will suffer neither fear nor ignorance. This, insists Coach Rezeya St. Hobbes, is how the Legendaries became the number one recreational warfare team in the Solar League.