Star Navy Academy

The Star Navy Academy system is a grouping of five university campuses around the globe on Earth, associated with the Star Navy. The campuses can be found in Munich, Bavaria (Germany), Busan (South Korea), San Diego, California (the former United States), Annapolis, Virginia (the former United States), and Tripoli (Libya). Star Navy Academy's Cadet Program for commissioned officers is located at Annapolis, near the site of the former United States Naval Academy, alongside a larger (but separate) campus featuring normal degree programs for specialized naval recruits going into the enlisted ranks, aiming to perform highly technical jobs. The academy's flight school is located near San Diego, utilizing the infrastructure of the former United States Air Force. All five campuses, and Annapolis particularly, have a culture of competitiveness, sportsmanship, brutal academics, high attrition rates, and rampant drug abuse.

Four of the five campuses (all except Annapolis) only feature undergraduate and graduate degrees in applicable fields, such as engineering, xenobiology, astrometrics, physics, etc, and medical programs training Naval Med Techs and field medics (undergraduate), naval doctors, pharmacological chemists, and surgeons. After completion of an undergraduate or graduate program, depending on what they would like to do, graduates proceed to a naval training program as part of the academy system; upon graduation, completion of their training, and full enlistment, they receive a rank of Specialist or Corporal (depending on their program) and a special negotiated pay grade. Naval training for enlisted specialists also accepts recruits who trained at other universities, though they may need to take additional classes before they fully qualify. Thanks to recruitment and transfer agreements with universities in the colonies, it is comparatively easy to enter the training program for those not educated on Earth. The average age of enlisted graduates entering the navy from the academy or another university is twenty-five, with some specializations entering closer to thirty.

At the academy's main campus in Annapolis, Virgina, a small yearly cohort of cadets train to be commissioned officers. The main commissioned officer core is small compared with the large group of enlisted specialists that work throughout the Star Navy's institutions and ships; a cohort of cadets may begin at 45 to 60 eighteen-year-old students, and, after attrition, it may graduate and offer commissions to 20-30, even during periods of high recruitment (such as during the Praezorian Wars). In the commissioned officer program, cadets choose a specialization and a sub-specialization, earning a degree roughly equivalent to a Bachelor's in Engineering or Astronomy, while learning tactics, strategy, Star Navy protocols, leadership techniques, hyperspace theory, star charts, practical and philosophical ethics, communication protocol, and the ins and outs of Star Navy vessels and consoles. The average age of commissioned officers entering the navy from academy is twenty-one, and given the rarity of enlisted officers gaining commissions, the academy is (for most) the only way into the commissioned ranks. Cadets enter the navy with the rank of Ensign.

Annapolis's Cadet Program for commissioned officers is notoriously difficult to get into, but a mysteriously large number of present commissioned officers' children--especially the children of captains and admirals--seem to get admission. This may be due to the number of specialized private military schools near Star Navy bases on Earth that act as feeders for the Annapolis Cadet Program; these military schools, taking in "navy brats" from the age of five all the way up to secondary school, hone their programs toward admission to the Star Navy Academy Cadet Program at Annapolis.

The academy's San Diego campus features the navy's primary flight school, where naval starfighter pilots go to train. Recruits to the flight program do not require any particular degree at a university. At the flight school, recruits learn the basics of Star Navy security procedures and undergo the rigors of flight and space-based combat. The training program takes approximately eighteen months, and it may be entered after secondary education or any time during an enlisted career.

It is not required that an enlisted recruit enter through academy or attend it for the bulk of their education; however, most recruits encounter an academy program at some point before deployment, entering as trainees learning about space-based architecture, the manufacture and makeup of Star Navy vessels, and the rigors of living in space.