Walking forwards into the passenger compartment almost made me check if I hadn’t suddenly been shunted into a VR environment somehow. Everything looked luxuriant and perfectly in place: from the white and gold accents flowing along the walls—bulkheads—and the immaculate white seats organized into comfortable sitting booths.

The decadence wasn’t only surface level though. Once the craft fired up and the momentum exchange fields powered on, I didn’t get that gritty sensory feedback, but rather a smooth background hum that was easy to put out of mind and indicative of high-quality and well-maintained generators. Similarly, the scents in the air were also… fresh? No, not quite. While I pondered on that, I looked around and cast a brief glance over the occupants.

They were, in a word, beautiful. I honestly should’ve expected it—these were all scions of some flavor or another—but it was one thing intellectually knowing that you were going to be rubbing shoulders with the ultra-wealthy and another to see ‘ware that looked like it should belong in an art museum in such a… mundane? Setting. Some of them even had the quintessential marbled skin endemic of pure-line nobility, with contrasting skin tone patterns and swirls visible on those parts that weren’t covered with opaque fabric.

Thinking about how the value of the visible ‘ware in many of my future fellow students probably rivaled the value of the already-expensive shuttle craft, I was finally able to pin down what’d been bothering me about the air: it was a soup of designer-brand pheromones. I, in a bout of paranoia, turned my olfactory senses way down before considering a place to sit, and promptly overthinking it.

This wasn’t—or shouldn’t be—some school-age drama entertainment, but I still felt like sitting down with one of the groups that was embroiled in discussion would be highly impolite somehow. Similarly, nobody was signaling for me to sit down with them at their booth. All I’d gotten was a quick once-over when I entered the compartment, and then, seemingly after being dismissed as a non-entity, they’d returned to whatever they were discussing before.

Fortunately, there were a couple of completely empty booths still available, and it took only moments for me to drop myself into an empty seat and sink deep into the cushioning. Then, I wasn’t sure what to do. Those not engaged in quite socialization mostly had their eyes shut and were doing something in virtual or simply sleeping, and I, for lack of better options, decided to join their number.

Leaning back, and tuning out the physical world, I started scrubbing through my internal logs and manually doing what all these rich scions presumably had software packages to do for them—identifying people.

Most of them were, as I’d expected, were rather easy to get a match and a name out of, but then the difficulty of extracting additional information from the network grew exponentially more difficult. For example, I could tell that one of the women who’d briefly opened her eyes to get a glimpse at me before closing them again was probably someone named Magdeline Ardentsworth, second daughter of Corman Ardentsworth—Marquis of some southern archipelago and one or two larger islands.

Beyond that though, there was basically only a short Public Imperial Encyclopedia entry that simply contained some information on her official genealogy and listed her as having graduated from some prestigious school. Any other information about her had been seemingly expunged, or was simply never publicized in the first place.

This pattern held as I continued to look up the faces of all those who’d looked at me when I entered. All were wealthy or powerful, and everyone’s digital presence clearly showed signs of careful management. No embarrassing recordings of them at parties, no controversial statements they’d made, nothing.

Am I ready for this?

I’d never really dealt with this caliber of people before, and while I’d had my fair share of encounters with directly dangerous people, these young scions wielded a power I wasn’t too familiar with. Behind each and every one of them there was an impenetrable bulwark of political power and fiscal wealth.

And what about me?

I had... a cramped apartment filled to the brim with servers, some highly illegal copies of myself, and enough illegal money on hand that I might be able to match one of my fellow student’s monthly allowances, but only for a month.

I sighed, and attempting to distract myself, pulled up some exterior views which were available on the shuttle’s internal feed.

Below me, landmasses rapidly sped past, and with a start, I realized that I was closer to space than I'd ever been in living memory. That thought filled me with... apprehension? Excitement? Intellectually, and from the few memories I had left of my parents, I knew that I’d been born among the stars, and now looking down on the planet below, this vantage felt... right. It was difficult to describe. The emotion it elicited was complex, and nothing that I really had a frame of reference for.

My stargazing didn’t last much longer though. With how quick suborbital hops got you from place to place, it wasn’t minutes later when I felt the gentle electromagnetic surge below me that I knew was indicative of the ship’s reentry deflector system powering up. Seconds later, I watched it gently begin to glow orange before transitioning to positively incandescent as the air ahead of the craft was brought into a superheated plasma state.

This entire fiery spectacle, was, of course, dead silent from inside the cabin. The gentle background tones of conversation didn’t even slow or acknowledge what was going on outside. To them, this was normal. Routine. Not that it lasted long.

Moments later, the plasma dissipated and only the condensation cone was visible as the shuttle had transitioned into a regular, supersonic flight regime. Now, the capitol, and with a little help from some AR pointers, the IEI campus grounds and other famous locations were clearly visible from my elevated vantage point.

The governmental seat, the largest edifice by far, towered skywards, and cast a large shadow. Its construction was unique—consisting of what might be described as a matt of bundled fibers draped over a massive sphere. Near the ground, the golden-accented tendrils stuck into the ground, similar to a root system, and then they headed upwards in an angular way to form a dome over a fantastically large sphere.

This sphere, as the AR-tourism tag helpfully informed me, was large enough that it had its own internal weather management system, and acted as the seat of the Imperium when the governmental process was in session.

The sphere also made it clear that this city had been designed from the bottom up in one smooth stroke. Unlike some of the older settlements—which still showed city planning that was originally completed by the original settlers establishing a foothold wherever they landed their colony ships—the way this city was laid out in its fan-like shape made it obvious that it hadn’t grown organically. At the center of the fan sat the sphere, and radiating outwards from it in golden rays were the main axis that divided the city into sectors.

One of these sectors contained the campus, and my future home. This section, rather close to the origin, was also resplendent in modern Imperial architecture and almost dazzling to look at with golden and white sheen coming off of all the buildings. Moments later, we were among them as the shuttle dipped down among the Institute’s spires and towards a landing pad. Magnetic clamps engaged, and a mild flash of feedback flowed through my internal sensors as all the shuttles momentum exchange projectors powered off, their various duties all complete.

In the cabin, there was a minor commotion, and I disconnected from the external feeds just in time to see the woman who’d picked me up at the safehouse step back into the passenger compartment. She stood, gently cleared her throat, and once she’d captured everyone’s attention, spoke.

“Attention prospective students.”

“Welcome to the Imperial Excellence Institute’s main campus. We will now proceed to the Initiation ceremony, where you will officially enroll and be given the rank of IEI Neophyte and all the privileges, responsibilities, and restrictions this rank entails.”

“Please follow me, and if there are any questions, the visitor’s access to the local campus feed can answer them.”

Then, without any further instruction, she walked down the center aisle and down the lowered ramp of the shuttle.

I looked around, and seeing that the others were all getting up and heading for the exit, I stood up and followed, training near the end of the procession. Curiously, once we exited the craft, there was a group of white gloved servants (?) waiting there who wordlessly accepted the small bags that most were carrying with gentle nods and bows. I was put a bit off-kilter by this unexpected and casual display of power, but not wanting to be the only one lugging around personal possessions, I imitated what I’d seen the others do so casually and handed my bag off.

Just like the others, it was taken with a small sign of respect, and after only a moment of moderate culture shock on my part, I joined up with the rest of the small crowd following the lady.

From the ground, the campus looked very different than from the air. Before, what’d been small, artistic spires, clustered close together and with numerous interconnections were now, well, still artistic spires clustered close together and interconnected in various ways but they no longer appeared small. Instead, it was all positively monolithic. To my left, there was a building my AR helpfully labeled as “Mathematics Spire”.

It, like all the other buildings on this campus, towered upwards and was seemingly composed out of only edges, flat planes, and gold-white accent highlights. Modern, yes, but also with a sense of aged power that all high-Imperial architecture strove towards exuding. It definitely evoked images of timeless scholars and learned people pushing the boundaries of—mathematics in this case—for centuries past and centuries to come still.

This was, in itself, quite the architectural achievement because the helpful tourist-information tag pointed out that this building was only a little over a century old. I gently shook my head at the incongruity of it all. The Imperium always went to great lengths to assert its age and power, yet it couldn’t change the fact that compared to some historical empires, it was barely a blip on the timeline with its 200-and-a-bit years of age.

Eventually we reached the so-labeled “Grand Assembly Hall” which was another white-gold and angular construction, although this one sat lower to the ground than most. We were led in through a side-door.

Things quieted down then—where before many of the others had been talking, laughing, and generally just acting like the day wasn’t anything special, all audible conversations died out once we were inside. Once I entered, I saw why.

The narrow hall we were moving through was just that imposing. The immediate difference was the color scheme; instead of golds and whites as were ubiquitous in Imperial architecture, this hall favored darker tones, the stone beneath our feet even dipping into a space black tone. The real surprise came when the door closed behind us, and the soft indirect light was augmented by holographic projections that fuzzed into existence lining the length of the corridor.

The first, to my right, was a man, resplendent in an old-style Imperial uniform and with handsomely defined, sharp features. Above him, a small tag read “Eoghan DanValle.” I only had a vague idea of who he was, but the name seemed familiar—perhaps he was someone I’d heard of? Fortunately, I had network access, and quickly searched for his name. I found it, and my eyes widened slightly: he'd been quite the legend before his eventual death half a century ago. Apparently, in his prime he'd been the best tactician ever to have served the Imperium, and had played a key role in establishing colonies on planets that were now mainstays of the Imperium. Also, and probably explaining his image's presence in this hall, was the fact that he was an IEI graduate.

The next figure I passed was wearing a similarly cut uniform, but his hair was dark brown, almost black, and was shorn short. He was also young, but looked a lot older than me.

“Sebastian Corwin,” the tag above him said. Just like Egohan, looking him up on the network revealed that he’d also been a military hero during the Early Expansion of the Imperium. His name was famous for having led the successful defense of Nohibus against a large invasion force, and he’d been awarded the title of Hero of Imperium posthumously. He was also and IEI alumni.

The third was a woman, her hair long and flowing, tied back into a single braid that fell halfway down her back. Her skin was pale, almost alabaster, and she, unlike the previous two men, was wearing something closer to a lab coat. The tag above her read “Dr. Althea Baudry.” She was a physicist, and the person who had discovered a method of building momentum exchange field generators in a more cost-effective manner. A small development, sure, but something that had given the Imperium just the edge it needed during a critical point in its history. Her link to IEI was even more pronounced than the previous to men—her discovery had literally been made on this campus nearly a century ago.

I continued walking down the dark hall, taking in the gently glowing projections of what were obviously the academy's distinguished alumni. As I did, I found myself wondering about the nature of the people who had created the Empire, and how they’d managed to create such a vast and powerful civilization in just a couple centuries. It was, put simply, astounding.

"These are the types of people that this place produces" I thought, "And these are the types of people that I'm going to need to fool."

Eventually though, the hallway ended and the group piled up at a set of double doors.

“Prospective Neophytes,” said the woman at the front of the group, "welcome to the Grand Assembly Hall.” The doors opened, and we all filed in. The room was enormous, even exceeding the not-constrained-by-physics virtual assembly halls that my old university had used. The hall wasn't empty though: luxurious seats were filled with people, some dressed in formal attire, others in casual wear. The latter were mainly students, but there were a few professors as well. There was no indication of rank, however, and the overall atmosphere was relaxed, if expectant.

Our group was led down the center isle of the seating, and up to a stage which contained, among other things, a small dais and a man resplendent in Imperial robes. The man—clearly an important figure—had golden lines running across his face in an intricate tattoo. Even with my limited interactions with all things Imperial, this man, and his role were obvious. This was a Master of Ceremonies: a representative designated directly by the Imperium to preside over official ceremonies, rituals, and procedure.

We were all led up, onto the stage, and then ordered to form a neat line facing our audience, and once we were all settled, the Master of Ceremonies began to speak.

“My name is Malthus Vex,” he said, "and I am the Master of Ceremonies for this Grand Assembly Hall."

Then, after a short pause to allow the audience to quiet down, he continued:

"We are gathered here today for one of the most basic ceremonies, yet one which undoubtedly holds the potential to shape the future of the Imperium for centuries to come."

He paused, and after gesturing towards our group, he continued,

"These privileged Imperial subjects have proven themselves. Whether by wit or by will, they have demonstrated their abilities, and caught the eye of the Imperium. They have proven themselves worthy, and it is now time for the Imperial Excellence Institute to guide them on their paths to greatness.”

He paused to let the audience's polite applause die down before reaching to his belt and retrieving two golden disks. Reverently, and with practiced symmetrical movements, he manipulated these golden disks till they laid flat on his upwards-facing palms and extended his arms to spread outwards. Then, he began to hum a deep base note which echoed through the pin-drop-silent hall.

I, of course, was completely flummoxed by this behavior. Imperial ceremony wasn't anything I'd ever come into close contact with, and while I could perform a regulation Imperial salute in the one-handed and two-handed variants, I'd always mentally checked out when this type of stuff snuck itself into entertainments or was presented as mandatory viewing. Then, to my great surprise, and with shocking speed, Malthus Vex brought his hands together violently and a loud clap echoed through the hall.

With the clap, his humming had died down, and upon looking at his hands I was shocked to see that the disks were gone and now instead of the dark skin-tone that covered the rest of his body, his hands had adopted the reflective sheen of polished gold as if they'd been transmuted directly into the substance up to his wrists.

He let the echo from his clap die down, and after layering his now-golden hands into a posture of reverence, slowly and methodically intoned:

"In accordance with the Codex of the Imperium, and this fine Institution’s founding charter, we will now begin the induction ceremony."