As elite as the Galaxy Garrison was, it still had to abide by state-mandated curriculum. That meant on top of flight training and access to special information about space systems and the sharp focus on physics, there were average high school courses as well. Language, math, history, geography, art--occasionally, and general science. For most, it was just as much of a drag as a regular school was. Most were here for the flight simulation or the inensive STEM. With all these boring, basic courses, there was boring and basic coursework. Essays, practice sheets, tests, quizzes, note-taking, and of course group projects.

Not exactly a favourite of the masses, except those who liked to skate by on the effort of other people. Though, that wasn't really a reliable tactic in the Garrison, considering high grades in all subjects were required. For all students everywhere, group projects weren't exactly fun. It was a lot of cooperiation, of communicating with people just as stubborn and hormonal and busy. Never, it seemed, did things work out smoothly, unless you did it all yourself.

And a group project was assigned. A three to seven minute presentation on a galaxy or planet, the makeup of it's atmosphere and terrain, the liklihood of alien life--if high, what forms and how intelligent might they be. The due date was in two weeks. And it was worth a pretty large grade. It would be bad to fail, it would be risky to try riding on the back of a teammate's work in case they told the teacher and scored you a zero.

Fortunately, in some ways, you were paired up with Pidge Gunderson. He was a loner. He was quiet and kind of purposely asocial. Though, he had good grades. He took the notes, he aced the tests. And, with how he had his head down to write immediately after the assignment was released and pairs were meant to find adjacent seats, he might try to run off with the whole project. So pulling up a seat, it was tricky to find a moment to breach conversation while Pidge scribbled down jot notes for the project.