I finished another Space Arc short and made good headway on yet another.  I don’t know if I’ll be sticking to the Space Arc throughout the week or not. We’ll see. Stay tuned.

I pretty well wrapped up Chapter 28 of Tico4, which means the book is pretty well taken care of, but I’m going to do a read-through first before making a formal announcement of its completion. I also completed two shorts set after the events of the story, which I’ll likely put out shortly after serialization of Tico4 wraps in September. I’ll probably divide the remainder of my time on a few more shorts and the read-through of Tico4. After that, I’ll start turning my attention to Junker Jorg so I’ll have a good head-start when serialization begins. Might try to move “The Case of the Striped Leopard” along too. Stay tuned.

I really let myself get wrapped up in review fever and neglected the writing that should be my primary focus. I pretty well made up for the lost time, though, finishing Chapter 31 of Tico4 and making good headway in the final section of Chapter 28. I should be able to effectively wrap the book in one more sitting. That’ll make Tico4 my ninth completed novel. I may go ahead and work on some Space Arc shorts after that so that the Space Arc won’t be completely neglected once I start moving forward with Cross Arc stories. Stay tuned.

To speak on a meta level, one of the key reasons space fighters feature so prominently in the Ticonderoga series is due to the strong influence of the Wing Commander series on the story. Also, the stakes don’t feel quite as high for remote drone operators as for pilots physically in the cockpit. Also, the deep impression in the popular consciousness of the heroic dogfighting of the two world wars have been perpetuated through major works of science fiction and will continue to be a staple even as technology seems to be bringing the classic concept of dogfighting more and more into obsolescence. However, rather than simply handwave all this, I do try to make some in-universe justification for it all, which I will explain below.

Before the start of the Sheol War, superlight spacecraft (under 50m in length and 300t in weight) were mostly limited to unmanned drones and the occasional custom curiosity. A large part of the reason for this was because the Schauer Fusion Propulsion System, which was the cornerstone of all space travel, could not safely be downscaled any further. At that time, space operations mostly fell under the Navy’s jurisdiction and the prevailing notion was that in any combat situation, the typical patrol escort was the smallest type spacecraft that would be needed. However, even before the Sheolites were identified as such, their small maneuverable craft were proving quite effective. While some in the Navy advocated warships with denser weapons arrays to deliver an impenetrable wall of interlocking fire, the risk of collateral damage was seen as too great, though the fifth generation warships developed during the war were much more heavily armed than their predecessors. Both the Air Force and Naval Aviation saw an opportunity to seize a larger role in the coming conflict and argued in favor of fighting fire with fire with superlight spacecraft.

The superlights would not have been possible without the development of the of the SFPS Mk.VId, a downscaled version of the SFPS previously thought impossible. Though much improved over previous attempts to downscale the SFPS design, the VId was nevertheless unstable and the containment could easily be broke with relatively little damage. Safety systems were put in place to shut down the reactor upon taking damage, but this did not always work and when it did, the superlight was left dead in the water and easy prey for the enemy.

While G-diffuser systems were installed to make the cockpit survivable for a human pilot, the theoretical limits of human reaction time were strained even at the reduced engagement velocity of 100kps. Given these and other concerns, there were many voices who argued against manned superlights, instead advocating either fully independent combat AIs or at least remote operators. The use of independent AI was always politically untenable in the Earth Union. For whatever flaws a human being may have, there is at least clearer accountability in the event something goes wrong. (A discussion on the complex debate on the role of AI in Earth Union society is best saved for another time.) While remote operators at least kept a human in the loop, there were concerns that the connection could be severed or even hijacked by the enemy. (Later review would confirm that the detractors overestimated the Sheolites’ electronic warfare capabilities.) In the end, the advocates of manned superlights won out.

Now that the plan to go forward with manned superlights was going forward, both the crafts themselves and the warships to carry them were being developed alongside the training of the pilots who would fly them. For instance, both Leia Han and Stalinslav Zhukov (who you would better know as Pride of the Seven Deadly Sins) were among the first midshipmen to be trained as pilots for spaceborne carrier operations. In addition, pilots from the terrestrial aviation communities and the pilots of light spacecraft adapted their skills to operate the new superlights. Casualty rates in training were high and even higher in combat, but those who survived helped refine the warfighting doctrine for superlights. Combined with technological advancement, the second generation of pilots (represented by people like Matt and Lydia) were able to gain an advantage over the Sheolites and by the third generation that emerged by the war’s end, clear superiority on the Union side was established.

Following the postwar drawdown of forces, the expense of manned superlights became harder to justify in the changing political climate and worsening economic situation. By the time of the War of the Colonies, the Union had almost completely shifted to remote operators and only when rebel forces succeeded in realizing the concerns of the opponents of remote operators did manned superlights make a resurgence, but by that point it was a race against time to relearn what had already been well-established forty years earlier.

And that should do it for now. There are a number of technological brawls in Union military history and perhaps I’ll get into another in the near future. For my next commentary post, I may talk a little on the embarrassing origins of the Ticonderoga series and some of the early weirdness that was cut before the story saw the light of day. Stay tuned.

I managed to get Chapter 30 of Tico4 mostly finished and made a little progress on Chapter 31 as well. There was also a fair bit of work in the peripheral materials. Trying to detail over 170 years of military technology is no mean task and I still have a lot of gaps to fill.

Now I turn my attention to the Trident War series. I need to do a full read-through/edit of TTWC1 and finish the appendices in time for the update. Stay tuned.

I was doing a lot of work in the peripheral materials about the Earth Union’s powered armor technology and thought I’d share some of that with you. As most of you know, powered exoskeletons have been in development for a while and we may well see field deployment in the next ten or twenty years. There are of course a number of issues to consider, but we’re not going to go too far in depth with that.

By the start of the Earth Union, the original LightSuit S saw limited deployment among heavy weapons operators, combat engineers, construction engineers and materiel transporters. For those of you who have seen Edge of Tomorrow, imagine the Jacket technology scaled down a bit and with a little more armor. Things like mobility and battery life were the primary concerns which kept them from being general issue for combat arms. Subsequent versions improved on the design with modest gains, but the version of the LightSuit without the exoskeletal frame became the standard even though that was not the original plan.

The name LightSuit came from the fact that it was a much lighter and less bulky design than competitors, but there were always plans for larger scale units, but this did not gain much traction (or funding) until the government saw a spike in research funding in the 80s. This research would prove fortuitous because a number of the projects that went into development would prove invaluable in the arms race that kicked off with the start of the Sheol War.

The MediSuit was designed to be self-contained and deployable in all environments. The Mark 15 Heavy Duty EVA Suit developed in the wake of the Lunar Revolt represented the basic template, only the MediSuit was designed specifically for combat roles. One of the first assignments of a young Donovan Graves (future Commandant of the Marine Corps and Hero of the Union) was to serve as a test operator for the MediSuit prototype. The successes of the Mark 0 prototype let to the development of the Mark 1 production model, which began service in April of 100, less than a year after the official declaration of war by the Sheol Empire. The first MEU to fully integrate Mobile Armor saw action the following year with then-Colonel Graves as its commander.

As with the LightSuit before it, the MediSuit’s design went back and forth between the competing goals of strength and mobility. Low-gravity environments made weight less of a concern, but the heavier the armor, the less the mobility in more closed environments. The Mark 3 unit fielded in 108 was the lightest version ever made, but that light armor when added to its glitchy sensors left it widely reviled. The Mark 5 that followed was perhaps an overcompensation, but there were a number of Marines who favored its thick shell and improved load-bearing capacity. The Mark 6 is what you’ll recognize from the story. The 41st MEU on the Ticonderoga was the first unit to use them. Though they had significantly lighter armor than the Mark 5, this was offset by the built-in shield projectors, though their use had to be limited or else the power cells would be used up much more quickly.

The HeavySuit doesn’t show up in the main storyline until late in Tico4. The reason for this is that the things are too big to be practical in most applications. They are more than twice the size of a MediSuit, so they can’t fit in ships or inside buildings. They did, however, prove useful as force multipliers on orbital defense platforms. The ground operations in Mars provided another opportunity for HeavySuits to shine, but for the most part, they’re seen as a waste of money, mostly useful for propaganda and PSYOPS purposes.

We’ll stop here because I don’t want to get too much into the postwar years until I start in on the War of the Colonies Cycle. Hopefully you’ve found this illuminating. Maybe I’ll get into superlight doctrine next time. Stay tuned.

I made some good progress on Chapter 30 of Tico4, but it took me spending a fair bit of time in the peripheral materials beefing up the history of powered armor in the Earth Union military to get it done, all so I’d know which version of the HeavySuit the bad guy would be in. (It’s a Mark 5 prototype, in case you were wondering. Spoiler alert.) I suppose I’ll spend one more day on Tico4. I need to get everything ready for the TTWC1 finale this week. Stay tuned.

I made some good progress on Chapter 31 of Tico4. You might be wondering why I jump around like I do. I’m of the opinion that if progress slows on one front, move in on another. It’s only when I have no other choice that I push forward with gritted teeth. I suppose you could say that I eliminate the parts where inspiration comes easy so that my mind doesn’t have anywhere left to wander. Whether this is a particularly good strategy or not is a question I leave to the scholars.

I suppose I’ll stick with Tico4 another couple days before switching back over to TTWC2. Stay tuned.

I did some work on Chapter 30 of Tico4. At this point, it’s looking like the book will clock in under 70K, which is rather light, but it doesn’t seem particularly less dense than previous entries. I guess there are a number of rather short chapter and I suppose all that adds up, or in this case, doesn’t add up. Well, as I’ve said in my post on wordcount, I don’t really need to worry about it that much under the current model. Just need to write the book as long as it needs to be to hold the story. A solid week of work and I may be done. Stay tuned.

I made some progress on Chapters 28 and 30 of Tico4. I just have four sequences to complete and the story will be done. TTWC2 has a little farther to go, but it won’t be all that much longer for it either and I’ll have my ninth and tenth novels completed. Not a bad bit of work. I’ve got to keep pushing forward, though. Stay tuned.