Woman at War

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Faith in Technology

I could imagine it, the yellow-lit, windowless world of a G.A.S. ship’s engineering section. The jarring crash of a foreign thing–the bulkhead before me split by a cone-tipped warhead. A half-moment of panic before the thing flashed…

     -Endgame

In modern America (and, increasingly, the rest of the world) faith in technology is certainly something we are guilty of. If your iPhone goes on the fritz (or into a body of water) schedules and contact info are thrown into digital chaos. Most cars or trucks can be shut down by a software glitch. If our ballot-casting machines aren’t protected from cyber attack–which likely happened in the 2016 election–how do we weigh a tainted democratic process?

A Look at the Future

In Endgame, the Mitasterites commit an overwhelming force (five Global Assault Ships, around 150,000 soldiers) to the assault on P-75. They need their precious fuel (a rare crystal unique to the frozen world). Success depends on their sabotaging the opposing T.U.’s primary defense–the Cecelia rockets. (These 150-foot monsters carry enough explosives and metal fragments to eradicate most any threat–provided they can reach them.) Enter cyber warfare.

The technology of one computer transmitting code to hijack another computer is beyond me. (The closest I’ve come to grasping code was a class in JavaScript.) But, just as we have the weapon of cyber attack today, we can see the folly of it not working. The Mitasterites (a young, industrious empire) are cursed with arrogance and cockiness. Why wouldn’t their cyber sabotage work?

Clearly, that means not enough of the right people asked, ‘What happens if the cyber attack fails? Or if the system senses an error and reboots itself after seven hours? Won’t our ships be in danger?’

My heart jumped. Raising my own scope to the sky, I imagined a great flowery burst in space.

Could this be the Mitasterites’ Titanic moment? Will they learn? Unlikely.

Lessons Yet-to-be Learned

To heroine June Vereeth and the other T.U. soldiers, the Mitasterites squander grotesque amounts of men and materials on a gamble. They lose P-75–their first defeat brought by a cataclysmic no-win blast, the fuel dump detonated by the T.U. base chief. Losing two Global Assault Ships (and many thousands of crewmen) is a huge black eye in the aftermath. Failing to grasp the tactical error of a cyber assault, they try it again in Destruction. The Cecelia rockets are delayed, not defeated. Ships are put in peril. Men are squandered.

One can assume that only sorrow and stupidity would be on display when observing chunks of starship tumble through the atmosphere. Enlisted soldiers most often pay for their commanders’ decisions. One can hope the general populace learns something from this.

“We won’t get fooled again,” The Who famously sang.

Of course we won’t.

Endgame cover by Greg Simanson Designs. Cover shows characters, rockets and a woman's eye against a green-ice background and twin suns, orange lettering. "The war begins" is added at the top.

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Editing Destruction

Things are looking up for Captain June Vereeth. With friends, she escaped the madness of icy P-75. She brought a couple trophies (prisoners of war) back from the outlaw world of Shen-Zinkh. Now she’s even having fun climbing the picturesque mountains of Zycarsus with a new male friend, smiling in the sunshine…

Well, not exactly. She and this new friend (nicknamed Hulk) and 30 other soldiers are hauling themselves up 3000 feet into a maddening fogged-in world. They’re looking for a downed freighter. They’re lost, because they can’t use anything electronic and nobody has a map. And those pesky Mitasterites will have some competition for deadliest foe in this abandoned world.

Justin Edison's Destruction, second in the Woman at War series, will be out in 2018.

First draft done, coffee chugged, I’m now editing Destruction (love my cheery title). And it’s going…well, it’s going. To once-again begin the process of editing a book is to wrestle with a bunch of questions.

Is this what I wanted to write?

Is this story good enough?

Do the right people die (it’s about war) or lose their way?

Am I accurately rendering Vereeth and her flaws and strengths?

Can this heroine reconcile the terrible cost of armed conflict, when she’s often stuck with the most difficult choices?

After two years of notes (the opening chunk came to mind before I was done with ‘Endgame‘) do I have the product I need to have?

Am I a good-enough writer for this?

Justin Edison's three available books on a shelf

Justin Edison’s three available books on a shelf

Time will tell.

Maybe.

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Blackout: a Pioneering Term from Destruction

Writing my first sequel (ever) for Endgame has given me a few challenges.

One of those–natural for a sci-fi series about war–is penning my first space battle since I was, well, a teenager. What would it really be like? Since everything in the book is seen from heroine June Vereeth’s perspective, the moments were a combination of what she hears (communications) and the too-fast objects moving across various display screens. (She’s on a space station, not in the battle. Bonus: The worries and concern from watching something you have no control over.)

Since I grew up watching Star Trek: TNG, one of the questions that bugged me was how did the Enterprise crew see what was happening at some far-off outpost or near a cosmic rift. Bridge stalwart Lt. Warf says “On screen,” and, bam, there it is! Piece of Cardassian cake: You’re watching something from a two million kilometers away. No mention of satellites or camera-bearing probes. (The tech in that show was always frustratingly fool-proof, too.) If only.

So, how would we see such events in space? Especially when we’re nowhere close to them?

Introducing the term blackout, playing a minor role in Destruction. A blackout is an SUV-sized pod which would detach from a larger ship, like a battle cruiser, ahead of an event. The craft would move to a spot two miles away (things move pretty fast in combat) and sit stationary, offering tactical and radar assistance. If there are multiple vessels engaged in battle, the third-party view would give the good guys something of an advantage. For one, ships couldn’t hide behind others (a concept which sounds far-fetched but actually makes perfect sense in scenarios, such as in Ender’s Game).

Justin Edison's Destruction teaser featuring red lights on a black background with 'blackout' lettering in yellow.

I’m not pioneering the term ‘blackout’ of course. But, of the dozen or so definitions that appear (the term first being used in 1913) none refers as slang for a ship. That’s exactly what it would be. With space, of course, being quite dark, it would make sense for techs to use dark metal, or just paint the thing black. Then, while the pod was in use, it would make even more sense for all the lights to be turned off. Otherwise, a Mitasterite fighter makes a quick loop out and eliminates this tactical nuisance.

It might be fun to write a comedy piece, too: A mismatched couple (Felix and Oscar, or Elliott and Todd from Scrubs) arguing in the ‘dashboard’ light while all hell is breaking loose twenty seconds’ flight away.

I honestly try not to take myself too seriously, so there’s potential.

Endgame cover by Greg Simanson Designs. Cover shows characters, rockets and a woman's eye against a green-ice background and twin suns, orange lettering. "The war begins" is added at the top.

Endgame is available now!