Hello, my name is Jack

by on May 7, 2016 at 12:01 am
Posted In: Diaries, The Indian Nations

The Apache were the first Indian Nation to focus their efforts on going to the stars. Just as they became more nomadic on Earth, they began building a new space industry devoted to small hypercapable craft. I remember saving one of their little fleets from a Russian attack force. Their craft were homes and factories designed to link together into mobile, spacefaring villages. The “village” I helped save was on a course for somewhere far outside Alliance space. They were hoping to get away from The War. I’ve always wondered what happened to them.

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Hello, my name is Betty

by on May 6, 2016 at 12:01 am
Posted In: Diaries

Jane 1.0 was typical of American military engineering of the time. Her software took up far more room than comparable civilian systems due to extensive security and backup subroutines. Her hardware was slower and more expensive because it was designed to survive solders drop kicking it out of a moving airplane. Which they sometimes did. On purpose. But neither wind, nor snow, nor sudden drops from 5,000 feet could stop Hanoi Jane from telling her soldiers all the bad things that were happening around them.

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Hello, my name is Charles

by on May 5, 2016 at 12:01 am
Posted In: Diaries

Most people do not know that the genesis of the F-18 Tomcat was in the Fleet 2300 Project. While one design team worked on the Avenger, another series of teams competed to create the replacement for the Hellcat along more standard design plans. Cost overruns, delays, and the ease of simply upgrading the Hellcat frame with new technologies slowed Tomcat development to a crawl throughout the duration of the project, until it was first two and then four years overdue. The 2300s revealed a Tomcat that lacked the power to launch with a full munitions load and a targeting system that randomly rebooted. And those were only the problems that made the news. It was not fit to fight when The War came upon us.

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Hello, my name is Jack

by on May 4, 2016 at 12:01 am
Posted In: Diaries

The Indian Nations did not focus on interstellar colonization before The War. Many of their people left of course, just as many people of every nation went to the stars. But the nations themselves never focused on leaving Earth. If the White Man wanted to leave Earth, the Indians were happy to expand their influence in their old homelands. Then the fall of Yosemite Station killed a larger percentage of Indian citizens than almost any other demographic group in America. The Free Japanese had it even worse. It was a wakeup call to all of them. They had to slip the bonds of Earth and go beyond the limits of our solar system if they wished to survive as a people.

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Hello, my name is Betty

by on May 3, 2016 at 12:01 am
Posted In: Diaries

The United States Army’s original Jane 1.0 was a highly secured software system similar to the other voice interface programs of the 1900s and early 2000s. They used a voice actress to record her speaking parts and Jane spent most of her time warning the tank crews about problems they already knew about since they could read their instruments. Soldiers saw her as distracting rather than supportive in battle and came up with a number of derisive nicknames for her. Hanoi Jane was one such name that certain elements of society objected to. Attempts to replace the nickname with more politically correct variations failed spectacularly and Hanoi Jane stuck.

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