The Outlast

The Outlast is the informal title given to the MHAACS - ‘Meta-Human Asset Acclimation and Compatibility Screening'- training scenario that the members of the Legion of Lawndale Heroes undergo from Chapters 11.4 to 11.7. (The correct way to pronounce the acronym is ‘em-hacks’.) It is a full-immersion, live-fire survival and metahuman operations exercise held in a remote, rugged (if not outright hostile) environment over the course of five to eight days.

Named for the similar training exercise for select cadets at Starfleet Academy in the fictional Star Trek universe, the Outlast is one of the five primary qualifications that all known metahumans must undergo and complete in order to gain certification and be allowed unrestricted movement and operational privileges in the United States and those other nations that are signatories to the Bowman Acts. Cadets at the United States Academy of Extranormal Studies and related training institutions undergo their Outlast scenario at some point in their final year of study (but NOT before finishing their mandatory one-year internship outside the Academy). Exceptions are made for cadets who are enrolled at one of the four other Federal military academies; those cadets undergo Outlast scenarios at the end of their third year of summer courses at the Academy

It is Academy tradition that Outlast scenarios are attempted by groups of cadets who have gone through the Academy together - either through the five-year term required of Elite Academy cadets, or of training cadres created when first enrolled at the First Academy. (Fully eighty percent of all Outlast scenarios have been attempted by original training cadres.) The tradition is so strong that only six times in the history of the Academy have training cadres or groups of cadets have undergone their Outlast scenarios without members due to sickness or injury. In such cases, waivers are granted until the recovering members are well enough to attempt the scenario (if applicable), or the incapacitated members have the option to undergo the scenario with other groups at the next Outlast qualification period.