The Valiant And The Last Gates

BHO-QAB-2 remained near the gates.

The Valiant.

The ceremonial title suits the role, but not because QA is glorious.

Most quality assurance is profoundly unglorious.

It is checking.

Rechecking.

Refusing to infer a pass merely from the fact that everyone is tired.

Catching command errors.

Distinguishing a generated result from a frozen input.

Guarding stage boundaries when the natural human impulse is to say, surely we're done now.

The Valiant's later inheritance reached toward submission and the terminal package. At that point, old empirical stages were not to be reopened casually. If an actual error existed, it could be documented and corrected. Otherwise, the duty was to transmit the completed work onward.

This is where QA changes character.

Early QA asks:

Is this true?

Late QA asks:

Can this truth survive leaving us?

The two questions eventually became one.