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Lance had, once upon a time, wondered, as little children do, if there was life in space. Now, wondering seemed ridiculous. He was in space, far from Earth, had friends from vastly different parts of it. It seemed obvious, that there would be life aside from their own, made the conversations he’d had on the topic as a child seem stupid and useless. Pidge had felt something similar at times, he knew. Didn’t know if the others had looked back, had thought about it. There was a lot going on, after all, many things to think about, many things to talk about.
Allura had grown up knowing people from other planets than her own. It had taken a while for the difference to become clear. She had grown up in a time of peace, for the most part, where most of the people they’d meet, travelling, had grown up in war. Had been raised with the Empire as a looming shadow, if not a direct threat.
They had grown up in peace, too, mostly. But... there was a difference there, still. She had grown up before the war, had known other peoples as allies. They hadn’t known much of anything about it when they first meet her. Had barely known about aliens, much less Voltron.
They had taken up their mantels well, he thought. At least for people that were as new to this as they were. The only paladin that was even out of their teens was Shiro, and for the rest of them this was the first time they had been away from Earth.
There was something about that. They had been sheltered from interplanetary politics. From knowledge of the Empire, and the war. But they had only been sheltered by happenstance, because no one had cared, or maybe even noticed, that they were there. And they hadn’t known about any of the things going on in the wider galaxy.
There was life in space. Life everywhere. But, like on Earth, there was powerful people in charge that didn’t care not to hurt people. Even if they cared about hurting them, they didn’t care to stop it. And they hurt people, and then, sometimes, the people that had been hurt by them – because of them – would hurt other people. Maybe because they didn’t think they had a choice. Maybe because they were angry, and it was easy. Maybe because they didn’t care, either.
Empires, even space ones, were very good at making people miserable. At pushing people close to desperation. And, even if most of the enemies were robots, they had definitely killed people. Not that it mattered, really, but. But.
They could focus, at least. Lance wasn’t sure if it had sunk in for the others that they had killed people. He wasn’t even entirely sure it had sunk in properly for him. But he doubted this was something the Garrison could have prepared them for.
But they had a war to fight. A universe to save.