Challenge #01732-D271: Ageing Ungracefully

Still, working on their manners ... I don't know if there are any etiquette schools around known space who take enrollments from intelligent battleships. -- RecklessPrudence

Humans love war. It is a well-known fact. In their early history, they would war with opposing factions of humans, different coloured humans, and, in a large swathe of history covering the pre-Shattering period, nouns. They don't often talk about the war they lost against emus, though.

Given their love of war, it was no surprise that the first vessels of the United Fellowship of Terran planets were battleships. They took every advancement they had ever made in their numerous battlefields and figured out how to bring that weaponry with them into space. It must have been quite a shock when the Hungry Caterpillar and other devices rendered battle obsolete. Humanity sulked for a decade or three, but they never got rid of their battleships. They'd show them off to other warlike civilisations and make displays of strength with them, but they didn't recommission them at all. It took Galactic Society some years to find out why.

At least one of them is alive.

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