Few did.

Inevitably, my face drew the attention of the Explorer Corps. Explorers are "brave volunteers" — draftees — whom the navy sends into unknown situations. Or into known situations that are too damned dangerous for unblemished personnel.

Explorers are expendable. If someone has to die, let it be an Ugly Screaming Stink-Girl. Otherwise, there might be repercussions. Measurable drops in morale and productivity.

In Explorer Academy, we were forced to read studies that showed just how badly navy personnel reacted to the death of normal or attractive-looking crew members. Performance ratings plummeted; clinical depression became rampant; people on duty made serious mistakes from shock and grief. Why? Because modern society resembles a character from Bamar sacred stories… a young prince named Gotama. The prince was brought up by his royal father in a luxurious pleasure palace where he was kept unaware of old age, disease, and death. He grew up knowing only the joys of his harem, and parties and feasts and games. But the gods refused to let Gotama waste his life in superficialities. Through trickery, they showed him the ugly truths his father had concealed. When Gotama finally learned that the world had a dark side, he was devastated — affected so deeply that the experience set him on the road to enlightenment. Prince Gotama became a Buddha: our Buddha, the most recent in a long line of Awakened teachers who’ve pointed the way to wisdom.

But normal Technocracy citizens aren’t ready for Buddhahood. They’re not emotionally equipped to leave the pleasure palace. When confronted with anything that suggests their own mortality, they don’t get stronger — they crumple.

They’ve never learned to live with untimely death. How could they? Old age has been alleviated by YouthBoost treatments. Disease can almost always be cured.