Heart Military Academy

Heart is one of several Academies throughout Foundation-controlled space. Heart was founded in the early Sixth Age, during the Kamian Succession Wars with the goal of producing better officers for the war-effort.

Among C.B. academies, Heart is unique in that it starts recruitment at the age of eight. From eight through sixteen, it operates like a normal boarding school, but with the added bonus of military-level discipline and limited training. Students learn how to operate within a chain of command, and are familiarized with ranks and regulations.

Students who graduate at age sixteen (two years ahead of public school) are automatically accepted by the academy program, which includes three-year accelerated command training or four-year standard specialist training. Heart is the only academy whose graduates can immediately recieve a Lieutenant's commission, while all other academies begin at Ensign. The only exception is Gudersnipe School, which is not technically part of the Crimson Blade Academy system. Only the best of the best made it into Heart Academy’s command school, only those young people who were going somewhere, who would one day captain the big capital ships that stormed into battle against the enemy like a rain of swords: only they could claim to be graduates of the Heart Military Academy.

The ‘primary school’ portion of the Heart Academy, meanwhile, functioned like any other military school: taking bad little boys and girls, giving them matching haircuts, and turning them into good little boys and girls with matching haircuts.