Skillsets

Originally published at: Skillsets | The Associated Worlds

There is, in short, competence and competence. The Accord on the Law of Free Space is rather generously written, to cover all our polities at whatever stage of progress they may be and however much investment in training they can afford. The Imperial Navigation Act is rather more tightly written, on the other hand, insofar as reserving their spaceways for those who can meet a certain higher standard allows them to have nice things, sadly compromised by the realities of free trade and passage.

The Fraternal Order of Astrogators and Sailing Masters, on the gripping hand, considers anyone who cannot complete an interstellar voyage using naught but a printed ephemeris, slipstick, stopwatch, and sextant to be a disgrace to the profession.

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Do you get a navigational hazard guide and a pinger as well?

I see this like being able to do math the old-fashioned way (astrogation really being a subset of math) instead of just plugging input into a calculator or program. Use the conveniences once you have the grounding to understand what the conveniences are doing for you. Sort of like the Regency standard of the mistress of the manor insisting on knowing how to do anything required in the kitchen, before leaving it in Cook’s hands.

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Not until you prove you can do it with your eyeballs and an astrodome.

At least the thrust vectors are relatively easy once you have engines capable of Brachistocrhone trajectories…

(Can I at least get a slide rule of some flavor? Ye olde E-6B “whiz wheel” beloved of Terran pilots, for example?)

There was a mention of the good ol’ slipstick, I believe.

So there was, my bad.

Gonna have to learn a rocket slipstick now, but I’m game for that…

Just realized that you could call the E6B a slipdisc…

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Sounds a bit… spinal.