Hyperdrive technology required an overhaul in our entire spaceship design philosophy. We built ships short and stubby to make them easy to move throughout our solar system. And to be harder to hit in combat. But the longer we could build our hyperdrives, the smoother the cut into hyperspace became. And so our starships became long and narrow with habitation and cargo sections built around hyperdrive cores that stretched longer and longer as time went on. Dedicated hyper-warships were built shorter to compete with real warships, and accepted the rougher rides in hyperspace for combat utility. The colony ships were where we stretched our manufacturing processes as far as we could go.
I went to the Californias before The War you know. Every kid wants to take a trip to Disneyland after all. And for all that it’s designed for kids, even rebellious high schoolers can go there and have fun too. I should know. And like all good tourists we went out to check the other things you do on a trip. We walked the stars of Hollywood. We toured the Imperial Palace. I sat at the foot of trees as Cherry Blossoms fell around me. I did that the first time I went, when I really was a kid. A nice lady stopped to tell me how they took those trees from Old Japan before the fall. I found out later that the Empress had told that story for hundreds of years to children who enjoyed her garden. So I guess you could say I’ve known her most of my life.
An interesting thing about the Dixie, Twilight, and the various series and movies that followed it is that they showed us the America that was before and during the Second Great Depression. There had been decades of increasingly toxic political rancor in Washington DC between the Democrat and Republican parties, but most American citizens still considered themselves Americans first. The Texas Tech students and faculty came from every State in the Union and liked and trusted each other. The shows gave us that window into America. They spotlighted it even as that America disappeared forever.
The TActical Light Operator Suit, or TALOS, is the American Army’s primary powered personal combat infantry armor. There have been nearly three-dozen variations on the basic TALOS since the first crude versions fought in the early Twenty-First Century’s Islamic Jihad. We took them to space, to the stars, and far beneath the ocean waves. They have fought in every environment known to man against both Terran and alien foes. The modern TALOS sports modular armor plating that can optimize it for anything from a lightly armored scout to a heavily armored bunker buster. This allowed the American Army to constantly surprise the Shang throughout The War as they never knew what they would face next.
The first thing to know about the colonization ships that took humanity to the stars is that they were expensive. Or rather the hyperdrives that carved their way into hyperspace were expensive. At first it took major governments to collect enough funding and resources to build a hyperdrive, and so all expeditions had to be self-sufficient. They traveled with everything they needed to carve out life on alien worlds knowing that they would be out of contact for years. We became proficient at packing the necessities in those early colonization ships, and we continued to use those lessons today.
The Martian Affair on Amazon
Forge of War on Amazon
The Audacious Affair on Amazon
Angel Flight on Amazon
Angel Strike on Amazon
Angel War on Amazon
The Family Affair on Amazon
The Thunderbird Affair on Amazon
Wolfenheim Rising on Amazon
Wolfenheim Emergent on Amazon
The Gemini Affair on Amazon