The Warrant: Shattered Hollows, Founding Day (Daily Log)

I'll admit I'm relieved that Commander Black held true to his promises. Much easier than having to beat him into submission. We've agreed that Archer and Ranger will remain in the background -- ghosts of the unknown haunting the mists will add to the mystique the Commander thinks these Training Grounds need. Every thruster-sucking time something weird happens, the light of what I can only consider a mad hope enters his eyes. Humans haven't changed much, even after being buried alive for what I am beginning to think was three centuries -- it's hard to tell with their new dating mechanisms. Not that dates have ever mattered to me, but I suppose I am curious about the math. Still doesn't matter.

The first set of Trainees are rough, but all of them have some latent skills we can mold for Systems Analyst Bridge (I overheard the new Cadre start to just call the corporation 'S.A.B.' recently which is an easier mouthful with this unnecessarily quick dialect they've evolved). I'm still wrapping my mind around this idea of a corporation that is also a government with citizens in their midst that are not actually employed by them. I'm certain it's been done before with rather distasteful results, but so far have found no abject crimes against humanity that need correcting. Since they're the power that reigns, they're the one I'll use.

We lost a Cadre member to one of the gators that lurk beneath the black waters here this morning, just as the Trainees were entering for their initiation...unexpectedly set the tone exactly where it needed to be: this swamp is to be respected or died in. Good that they know it before we lose decent candidates to a sense of over-zealousness. It was hard not to laugh at the looks on their faces, but I did feel remorse at losing Bagley -- he had come around nicely to my supremacy in the agreement with S.A.B., however Instructor Ryta has a better mix of rebellion and empathy, and while she'll need more training and convincing, she'll set a better base-line for future groups.

Soon, we'll be able to train nearly 10,000 candidates in one go. I'm pleased to start with only 2,000 and understand the corporation's need to test this out on a few rounds before going full bore. Ironic that this first set will get much more of my attention since there's fewer of them to parse.

Finally got my replacement for Dietrich this morning. The man was brilliant but his pushback with every request in my game plan for the Simulation Pods without actually thinking things through was getting exhausting. New engineer is Madsen, and already she's pumped out more appropriate programming than Dietrich would even consider. Should I add a policy for even split gender on the staff? That would keep me from overemploying women...I'll wait until we've run a few cycles before making the decision. I prefer merit based work, but it's important to have useful idiots around for things to move smoothly.

Heard a small dust-up through the Earth today...off somewhere to the east where I've sensed a small settlement taking root -- felt like a small battle. Will send the Ranger to look into it as soon as they've finished setting the parameters for the upgrade dampening equipment. Archer says there's no way to guarantee the Shattered Hollows will stay fully hidden, but then keeps on about 'memory inhibition upon ingress and departure' so we'll see how much of that nay-saying is just their oppositional character and how much is based on reality, soon.

Logs should work for note-keeping for now. All these S.A.B. personnel are over-committed to stoicism, so they end up looking the same...maybe this will help me keep their faces and names in my memory, but already the candidates are simply more interesting

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--Note: All fruit appears to have been killed off and been replaced with engineered lemons. Our first shipment of fresh foods for the candidates arrived yesterday -- I tried a lemonapple and lemelon. Ridiculous that they think this is what fruit used to taste like, but no one's likely to ever experience scurvy again.