Commodore Shelby Logan was tapped to
lead an expedition into the neighboring Tau sector. Over the course
of several years her convoy made their way to the heart of the
sector, fighitng off pirates and plague to establish a new sector
capital. But, once established they found that they were next door to
the pirate capital. They had to fight off a brutal attack. Now
Commodore Helen Richards leads a relief team of medics to deal with
the plague so Commodore Logan can focus on other matters.
And she has 1 in her sights. The
pirates are going to learn the real reason they say...
Shiver Me Timbers!
I'll post the links when they go live.
Edit:
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07PPJJKQM
B&N: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/books/1130913253?ean=2940161176306
Chris,
ReplyDeleteLiked the book, seemed a little rushed on the action but really the pirates are a crappy foe for a well organized military. Pretty much along the lines of what happened in the Caribbean when the British Navy started to clean it out.
You talked lot about Dyson Spheres. I was very confused by this as you used the term but I am not sure that is what you are actually talking about. Did you may mean Dyson sails, Dyson Shards, Dyson swarm, Dyson bubble or a Dyson Ring. I however doubt you were actually talking about a Dyson shell which is what people refer to as a Dyson Sphere. Think Star Trek NG Episode 134: Relics, where an artificial object has been built completed encasing the a Sun in order to capture its energy output. Creating such a structure would likely be beyond the entire federation resources (not even counting the war) at this point let alone just Tua sector resources. Also building such a thing would require tech that you have not given the federation - Star Lifting: Reference Wikipedia.
Careful entering in Star Lifting tech as that will completely destroy any need to gather resources outside of the sun and would make asteroid mining and gas giant mining pretty pointless.
Am I right in thinking you are talking more about Dyson Sails or Shards where they would be large flat panels or curved panels that would hang above and below the sun that would capture massive amounts of energy to be beamed to other devices for use?
Last I think you should start adding dates to the start of chapters. Since you have several story lines occurring with over lapping timelines it would really help to keep the user grounded as to the sequence of events in relation to the different books.
Doing a great Job really excited about the next book. Let me know if you need anything.
Hello Soren,
ReplyDeleteThanks.
Dyson Spheres: I picked it up from the science channel. I too only thought of the habitat seen in Relics until they talked about spheres as a power plant. They are also known as sails and other things.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyson_sphere
My idea is all of the above. Start with a swarm and then grow organically, eventually becoming a partial shell as seen on TV, etc.
Dates: I'm notorious about that.
I just finished Blockade yesterday and it is in Wayne's hands a couple days before his Birthday Saturday. :)
I'm struggling to come up with an idea for the cover art. Which is odd, I usually have 3-5 in mind.
Damn Chris,
ReplyDeleteDid you have to go and tell us Blockade is finished, now I’m going to chomping at the bit for you to publish it. I reckon I checked every day for over 4 weeks waiting for SMT! BTW enjoyed it very much, I don’t get hung up on dates as you have too many different story lines going to be too precise with dates. Looking forward to Blockade now, interested to see how you approach the next stage with Horath, and also the sleepers from the Sigma El Dorado affect plans.
Hi,
DeleteI'm notorious with names and dates. I started to work out a system then got lazy and slipped back into writing the usual way.
Yup, Blockade is big time fun. to quote Wayne: "It's brutal!"
C’mon Chris, almost 3 weeks now since you told us Blockade was finished, how about an update on the progress
DeleteDon't worry it is coming out in 2 days and he will start posting his 6 preview snippets tomorrow.
DeleteLove you Chris!
To be clear that was a joke based on past behavior not an actual timeline.
DeleteChris,
ReplyDeleteCouple of things, Dyson Sails - I think these make the most sense, do you envision them being above and below the star? Purpose being to capture the massive amount of energy wasted from the top and bottom of the sun. Considering the planets are usually on elliptical orbits around the equator of the sun, I think one of the big issues with using a fully enclosed Dyson Sphere for energy production is you lose the ability to freely navigate the solar system and use the planets. As with out the access to the sun they would be frozen balls of ice. Dyson sphere made more sense as a habitat, by encompassing the sun in a shell the interior side can be used as living space. You would probably need a second smaller Dyson half sphere closer to the sun to provide night time and still capture the solar energy output. Just thoughts.
I was also wondering why you have not focused more on the private side of industrial expansion and the military ships yards building mining ships, platforms and civilian fleet tenders. These would be instrumental in restarting the galactic economy and getting things going. While it would seem a waste in terms of the war effort, but not when you include the exponential growth that such things would introduce. Also give that 10+ years have gone by I would think there would be more and bigger civilian yards, outside of Yard Dogs and I mean huge ones. Given a decade to work on it the civilian side should be within 40% of the capacity of the military yards.
Another issue is you never talk about the civilian side of habitat or space station construction nor the size or scale of the construction that would need to feed the space industries that you have talked about. Just building something the size of a dreadnought probably has a work crew of 5k add 50% for support positions and then triple for average family and dependents you could be talking about a population of 22.5k for building dreadnaughts not counting any other building lines. I would be shocked if the federation yards in Antigua where under 100K personal. When you look at resource gathering, fitters manufacture, and assemblers. I read somewhere that it takes about 10k people to build the ford class Air Craft Carrier. Even counting on better technology and automation. I think a Dreadnought is bigger and hard to build that an Aircraft Carrier.
I don't think you should spend a lot of time talking about this but some to convey the scale and add a little wonder at what federation society is coming to. Maybe throw int some about a civilian Station building company. Where are the Rockefeller, Carnegie's? I want some Robber Barons, Chris!
Super Stoked about Blockade. (wink wink) Not too late to add some Robber Barons, just a thought.
Totally agree with SorenMarch 26, 2019 at 3:59 PM
ReplyDeleteYou should look at this angle Chris.
Tanks Soren for pointing to this angle.
Yeah, I didn't get into the research. I took the pop version off of the Science channel. My bad. I'll clarify a bit more later.
Delete