Hello, my name is Charles

by on September 17, 2015 at 12:01 am
Posted In: Diaries

For a hundred years we expanded into the void using rocket engines that an Apollo Astronaut would have recognized. Our ships and stations spun to generate gravity. We spent weeks accelerating up to interplanetary speeds and using planetary slingshots to send us out to the edges of our star systems. Fuel bunkerage was what held us back. No ship could carry enough fuel to keep accelerating for weeks or months at a time. Science fiction dreamed of drives that could run forever on different scientific theories, but it was old-fashioned rockets and our very good friend Newton that took us to the stars.

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Hello, my name is Jack

by on September 16, 2015 at 12:01 am
Posted In: Diaries

People sometimes ask me what HALO drops are like. Well, I’d like you to envision a bunch of grown men screaming like children. Cries for God’s helping hand to keep them from going splat at the end. OK, now that you’ve got the Hollywood version in your mind, forget it. It’s way scarier than that when HALO dropping into a prepared defense. Trust me. The sky lights up like fireworks but those things are trying to kill you. And there’s friendly fire raining down all around you as well, trying to suppress the enemy defenses. You might avoid every enemy shot only to get hit by the good guys. HALO drops are fun and scary at the same time. Part of me hopes I never see another one. Another part of me can’t wait to do it again.

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Hello, my name is Betty

by on September 15, 2015 at 12:01 am
Posted In: Diaries

Twilight started season two as a diligent but disaffected individual. She’d lost one of her best friends, and that made her question everything she’d learned. Dixie became the anchor that kept her on our side, but the season nemesis Solo soon began to tempt her back towards the Rogue AIs. While based on the real life campaign against Solo, Twilight states to this day that the flirtation with the dark side was entirely fictional. Almost entirely. Mostly. Partly. She likes to smile about those days and keep people guessing.

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Empire-class Battleship

by on September 14, 2015 at 12:01 am
Posted In: Jack's Defense Weekly

Product of the Fleet 2300 Program, the Empire-class battleship was the most powerful warship built by the United States of America when The War came upon us all. Three spinal-mounted gravitic cannons backed up by six forward anti-ship lasers comprised the main armament that made her such a formidable foe. Fifty-eight flank-mounted capital missile launchers and over one hundred swarm tubes on the bow could overload entire squadron point defense networks. Two fighter squadrons and a full Marine battalion simply gave the Empire even more ways of hurting the enemy. She was simply the best American battleship when The War began and at least one Empire served in every victorious fleet until Wars End.

Empire-class battleship on Deviantart

Empire-class battleship miniature on Shapeways

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Hello, my name is Charles

by on September 13, 2015 at 12:01 am
Posted In: Diaries

What most people who grew up after Contact fail to realize is that Pre-Contact spaceships generated gravity by spinning small sections of the outer hull around the central spindle frame. Most of the ship was in zero gee unless they were undergoing acceleration. The crew strapped into their stations for high gee operations surpassing a quarter of Earth standard gravity, and could go for months without experiencing anything above one half gee. Pre-Contact interstellar travel was truly a different world than the one we experience now.

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