- RAM

- RAM

- RAM

- RAM

This episode ends on a much higher note than the one immediately preceding it. Since this episode has not yet been published, I will not spoil the details, but needless to say that a core character makes a life-altering decision and it causes strife amongst the senior staff. I had a lot of fun writing this episode, as we began to really get to know Amy and Jacque, Ryan and Lucy, and Nik and Leslie. And if it seems as though everyone is pairing up in this series, I think by the time you get to the end of the first season, you may not be happy with some of the outcomes of those relationships.

Completing Ex Populo 11 allows me to move on to the twelfth episode, “The Call of Duty,” where we meet a new character and slowly integrate her into the story arc. I’m really looking forward to writing it.

- RAM

Although it might seem as though adding your library would be a daunting task, it will assist you by downloading your Amazon.com purchases from your account and add those into your library.

Check out the site and see if it meets your expectations.

- RAM

Have you ever sat down and reread something written so long ago that it seems like you were reading someone else’s writing?  When I scanned over the original Knight Commissioned, I felt like I was reading something someone wrote back in high school.  Lots of sentence structure problems and just plain raw writing with no polish whatsoever.  It was literally a joy to delete that document.

If you are a fellow participant, then I wish you the very best of luck in getting your 50,000 words!

- RAM

- RAM

Some news will be forthcoming in the next few weeks regarding Knight Commander and Ex Populus.

- RAM

- RAM

- RAM

The second bit of good news I have is that I have finished the new third episode, Ready Five, and it’s in the revision pile along with the other completed episodes.  I’m presently working on The Ganymede Conference and hope to have it completed by the end of themonth and the whole kit and kaboodle will be sent off to an editor for review before we start formatting for publishing.

- RAM

- RAM

- RAM

In the year 2021, the American-led Multinational Force flies the four-star flag of Admiral Kolhammer aboard the Bush-class carrier USS Hillary Clinton. Within formation are over a dozen other support surface vessels and submarines, and a research vessel conducting experiments in quantum singularities. When the experiment goes awry, it sends the modern fleet seventy-nine years into the past, just before the Battle of Midway during World War II in 1942. Upon entering the past, the computer-linked Combat Intelligence seeks and receives full combat autonomy. When the Japanese Defense Ship Suranai is attacked by the WW2-era United States Navy, the CI returns fire… and decimates the Midway-bound fleet. By the time the people aboard the future ships regain consciousness enough to regain control, it’s too late. Thousands are dead and Midway’s immediate future is in jeopardy. History has changed irrevocably, and now Kolhammer and his officers must face the hard reality of being forever stuck in the past with eighty years of advanced technology at their disposal. It’s clear that their arrival gives the Allies a significant advantage over the Axis.

Or does it?

The Muslim-controlled Indonesian vessel Suranto is discovered on the other side of the Pacific Ocean by an Imperial Japanese Naval vessel, and her officers are taken into custody. The ship itself may not be as advanced as the Clinton or her contemporaries, but it holds enough of an advance to give the Japanese pause. While Kolhammer and the Multinational Force deal with President Roosevelt, Admirals King, Halsey, and Spruance, and Albert Einstein, the Muslim Lieutenant in acting command of his ship decides to cooperate with the Japanese against the Americans. With little choice to do otherwise, he begins to help them to understand the advances in technology and shortly stands before the Commander of the Combined Fleet, Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto. And Admiral Yamamoto has no choice but to inform his allies in Nazi Germany.

John Birmingham’s strengths lie in his ability to put you in the middle of the action. His understanding of the military from all angles is pretty impressive, as well as his explanations of the advances in technology from the modern era to the era he’s created to call into contrast of the 1942-era of military technology. Nuclear-based missile technology and carbon armor versus bombs, steel and rivets make for a pretty good read. It’s unfortunate that all that work went into the premise and not enough went into the research of the players of that war. One of the most disappointing and distracting elements of the book was the fact that his understanding of the Japanese war culture appeared to be more than just a bit off-center, especially in his portrayal of Isoroku Yamamoto. Birmingham’s Yamamoto, at times, felt way over the top and in sharp contrast to some of the more in-depth analysis of his makeup I’ve read in my many years studying the Pacific War. Also, his use of geisha-as-prostitutes contributed to my lack of respect for his research methods and the Japanese scenes became less impressive. On the other hand, I really enjoyed reading the Allied response to this sudden temporal incursion, though the contempt of the officers of the future for the past also became somewhat distracting. I felt like Birmingham was preaching rather than writing; using his characters to preach to the read what the future might be like if we all just stopped looking at sexual orientation, skin color, and creed and fought as a single unified force.

Don’t get me wrong, I like the idea… but I’d rather the action move at a better pace than simply magnifying the distinct differences in culture between eighty years of social evolution. I got that in the first chapter describing the arrival. There was very little need to further call attention to it and make the Allies out to be barely above the morality of the Nazis. It was difficult to determine whether Kolhammer really had the moral stance to realize that his best bet was to find some uninhabited island out in the middle of nowhere, hole up and defend it with every bit of the military might he brought with him. Unfortunately, the IJN’s discovery of the Muslim ship made that impossible, of course… so we’re left with the constant and annoying cross-section of ‘42-era social disparities contrasted against the ‘ideal’ society of 2021.

Overall, though, I enjoyed the book. As I understand it, Weapons of Choice is really a set up for the sequel, Designated Targets, which moves the story a lot better and without too much preachiness. Bottom line: if you can manage to hang on and turn the pages, the long wait for the action is well worth it. You will be hooked into checking out book two!

- RAM

Click cover to buy at Barnes & Noble

It’s January, 1941, and Private First Class Kenneth McCoy finds himself on the precipice of promotion to Corporal while serving with the Fourth Marines in Shanghai, China. From the start, you realize that he’s has street smarts and entered the Marine Corps through less than stellar means, given a choice between military service or jail. The strict discipline of the Corps was the intention of the judge overseeing his case, and Ken found himself a place within the military that he lacked in civilian life. As a marine private serving in China, he carved himself a niche life playing poker and gambling at a nearby hotel with other foreign military officers and the Shanghai Municipal Police sergeant named Chatworth. After an altercation with a quartet of Italian marines on his way back from the poker game, he ends up killing two of them and injuring the others when they attack him, using a small knife he had won off of Chatworth.

The acts of self-defense land him in trouble with the Corps, bringing him to the attention of Captain Ed Banning. From here, the story begins to snowball as Chatworth comes to McCoy’s aid in preventing a court-martial and sinking his chances of a promotion to Corporal. Instead, Banning recognizes McCoy as being a man of intelligence, especially when he learns that he can speak several languages, including Japanese, Chinese, and Korean. McCoy finds himself transferred to the motor pool, but it’s a cover while he works directly for Banning and his intelligence work in China. Immediately, McCoy is conducting missions and surveillance of Japanese forces assigned to Shanghai. His status as a killer of men is elevated sharply when on an assignment to protect a civilian convoy, he is besieged by Japanese-led Chinese attackers and he guns them down with another sergeant from the same motor pool. Almost instantly, he earns the moniker of “Killer” McCoy by his fellow marines… much to his dismay.

After being shipped out of China before the Italians and Chinese start looking to repay the favor, he quickly finds himself being asked to join the commissioned officer ranks by way of a test program running at Quantico. Once matriculating from the course, he becomes Second Lieutenant McCoy and is transferred to a special intelligence-gathering detachment operating out of the Headquarters division in Washington, D. C.

Throughout the course of the novel, we’re introduced to many new characters that almost seem like they’re merely supernumeraries. However, later in the series, a lot of the people we’re introduced to become prominent players or support characters in furthering the storyline. I love the fact that his writing style does the historical period justice, speaking strictly as a student of military history (and in particular World War II history), especially when dealing with the nuances of military politics and encounters with “candy-ass” officers who’re more concerned about their personal authority than getting the job done. One foil to McCoy’s straightforward command philosophy is First Lieutenant Robert Macklin, who exemplifies the complete opposite of what makes a good marine officer. The back-and-forth between the two turns the story from a simple recounting of events to an interesting and gripping story. I can’t gush over this book enough.

- RAM

- RAM

- RAM

I’d created an eccentric captain who lived and died by science-fiction fandom; Star Trek in particular.  He purchased a ship and wanted to live out the life of being a ship captain, and effectively making those in his employ refer to him as ‘Captain Kirk.’  Although it was purely a humorous attempt to get my point across, I started considering the idea of progressing the story a little bit more by fleshing out the characters beyond their arbitrary responses.  Within a week or so, I had a cast of characters, each one with their own individual story of how they came to be in Kirk’s employ and furthermore, how this ragtag crew managed to get their jobs done.  This was back in 1999 or 2000, I believe.

Then, Firefly sprang onto the scene a year or two later.  It reminded me a lot of the story I had abandoned, and since I became a complete fiend for all things Firefly, I had a renewed inspiration in writing up a collection of five novella-length stories, with each member of the crew playing the lead.

I started with the last person to join the crew, a former military navigation officer named Natasha Voronova.  I felt like her perspective was perfect to explore the ship and its crew for the first time and introducing the reader to the concept of Second Star and the SS Queen Victoria.  The second story follows the ship’s flight controller, Noriko Sasaki as she checks in and befriends the ship’s engineer.  The third story tells the tall tale of the ship’s cargomaster and medic, Morty, and his creepy habits that make life aboard the ship pretty interesting.  The fourth and fifth stories introduce the ship’s engineering and procurement officer, Peter Norman, and the ship’s captain and owner/operator of Second Star, Kirk Halkiopoulos, and how he fell into his money and decided to shelve the idea of going to college and wander the solar system looking for adventure.

As of right now, Natasha’s story is about halfway done.  Since this collection is nowhere near completion and I need to finish up Knight Commander and Ex Populus, I’m not sure when I’ll find time to finish it, but I’d like to finish it because I enjoy writing the characters a great deal.

- RAM

Sixty-five years ago, on this day, the First Air Fleet of the Imperial Japanese Navy attacked the United States military installations on the Hawaiian island of O’ahu. The first wave of the attack struck the naval base at Pearl Harbor, along with Kāneʻohe Marine Corps Base and the Army Air Corps’ Hickam and Wheeler Fields. All told, the number of American military and civilian casualties numbered nearly 2,400 people. The impact of this attack led to the entry of the United States into the Second World War on the side of the Allies against the forces of the Axis.

The events of World War II touch me more than any other war. I never lived through those events and I don’t have any first-hand experiences of being involved in any way with that war, but I grew up listening to the stories that my grandfather told. My grandfather was a staff sergeant, fighting in the United States Army Air Corps. He was a gunner who worked alongside a flight crew aboard a Consolidated B-24J Liberator. It was through his tales that I was raised on the conflict and years after his death, I read and study all I can to remember the sacrifice of men and women who fought back against those wanting to force their agendas on us all. I can recall, even as I write this, the time I wrote a report on the war in the second grade with use of a tape recorder as I listened to my grandfather narrate his view on the fighting and the fifty missions he flew. I later learned that he was entitled to fly twenty-five before being eligible to come home; he signed up for another tour of duty and completed it successfully. It was not uncommon for crews to do this as they all stuck together and considered one another to be ‘lucky.’ After reading through the history books and watching various documentaries, I had to conclude that my grandpa was either incredibly brave or certifiable. In either case, I’m glad he survived.

I had the opportunity to visit Pearl Harbor in 2000. A good friend of mine still serving at the naval base as a petty officer was kind enough to provide me with a rare tour of not just Pearl, but also Hickam Air Force Base and Marine Corp Barracks Hawai’i (formerly Kāneʻohe). My wife at the time was not impressed as we visited some of the less visited memorials, such as the Utah Memorial near Ford Island. After traveling out to the Arizona Memorial and seeing the battleship Missouri, I think I was sufficiently cowed by the magnitude of what happened there so long ago. I was immediately reminded of my grandfather and his tales of strife told to a young boy, eager to listen, and I could not prevent the wave of strong emotion passing over me.

I’ll never forget that afternoon for as long as I live, seeing the mighty battleship just slightly below the waterline of the harbor; drops of its fuel still surfacing even after all that time as though the souls contained within the hulk of the ship were sending a message to the living world from beyond. A chill ran down my back as the realization of standing over the tomb of the 1,102 sailors trapped within the bulkheads. Try as I might, I could not stop myself from imagining the experience of those sailors during the attack and I could not stop staring at the drops continuing to rise up and explode against the surface tension. We stayed on the memorial for a while, just taking it all in before my wife became impatient and wanted to leave. Returning to the shore, I purchased three flags at the memorial’s gift shop and they flew those flags on the ship’s mast which was still above the water. I kept one for myself, and gave one to my mother and best friend (a war veteran).

Six years after my visit, I want to return. I would the opportunity to spend more than a day learning more about what happened and do my best to understand the history and the tragedy. It’s important to me that understanding the sacrifice be something done not out of respect, but out of desire to keep that memory alive. As I said at the beginning, I was not there. I have no first-hand experience of life during that time of our history, but one of the aspects of learning about the past is preventing something like that from happening again, in the future. My grandfather, followed by my mother, always taught me the importance of studying history and I took it to heart. Every year, December 7th seems to pass with only minor notes in the news or a brief note in an On This Day segment, and it needs to e understood that Pearl Harbor was to Americans of that era as September 11th was to our era. Americans vowed back then to never forget, just as we did today.

And so, as this post should have some kind of point, I would like to implore you to take a moment to read and understand what happened, so that we keep the memory alive… whether it be sixty-five or one hundred sixty-five years after.

- RAM

• Finish Ex Populus Libertas Quod Prosperitasque: Ready Five
• Start/Finish Ex Populus Libertas Quod Prosperitasque: The Ganymede Conference
• Finish Knight Commander’s 6th Revision and hope that there isn’t a 7th.
• Commission a cover for Ex Populus‘ release on lulu.com.

Hopefully, this will all get done within the next three weeks, but I’m not going to hold my breath. It turns out that any schedule I make is often derailed by a multitude of interruptions or other plans like life.

- RAM

I write. I like to write military and politically-charged science-fiction. I like to explore the possibilities of neither a dystopia or a utopia, but somewhere in between where humanity suffers through its own short-sightedness until necessity requires an evolutionary step beyond the cycle of destruction that it seems to go through every so often. I consider myself to be somewhat dark, but not without hope. No pun intended, I assure you.

Hope Station was originally created as a role-playing game back in the mid-1990s. In 1995, three friends discussed the possibility of creating a backdrop that was far grittier than Babylon 5. The intent was to provide a sense of conflict that ran deeper than your average science-fiction universe, placing less emphasis on the technology and more on the depth of the characters we wanted to create. We also chose to set the story a little over one hundred years in the future, in 2097. From 1999, we built a timeline of events that led up to the foreground events that would shape our vision of the twenty-second century, with a few world wars thrown in and some optimism mixed in for good measure.

One of the rules for the universe was, for every advance we introduced, there had to be an equal consequence. A good example of this might be the onset of cybernetic prosthetics becoming more prevalent in society. Anti-cyborg groups began attacking those with prosthetics out of fear. Another example was the discovery of faster-than-light travel. The consequence was time dilation, preventing it from being a feasible method of everyday transit. We did not want this to become another Star Trek or even Babylon 5, where shields and deflectors and warp speed were the norm. Every piece of technology had blood on it, to assure the readers that it always comes at a cost. And the people who survive those costs are changed, for better or worse.

The other rule we adopted was that history cycles faster, as more people affect it. During the time between 1999 and 2097, three world wars occurred. Wars were harder and faster, doing more damage every time. Factions and lines were drawn as a result and the United States survived only due to its intent to remain isolationist (optimistic, I know). But hey, we needed the US to survive somehow, and a little optimism was required in order to do that. I’m personally not so sure, given recent events, but stranger things have happened in history. As we enter the period of the first part of the saga, the world wars are over. Out of necessity, a single world government called the Earth Confederation, allows the surviving nations to rebuild and subscribe to a sense of equality that ensures a short peace before we make another mistake.

It’s all about mistakes.

Why did we call it Hope Station? I think we were trying to be ironic, but in the beginning we hoped it would catch on and we could do something with the plot. Hope Station was the name of the massive space station built on the edge of the solar system. It was also the first site of the alien encounter that led to the long and bloody war before the station is finally destroyed in 2122. Built in the hope that it would allow humanity to leave the solar system and visit other stars, it ultimately failed that vision and later (after being rebuilt) served as a defense rather than a jumping off point. There was a point to using a space station as a hub of activity in a role-playing game, because the different stories we could create using the space station as the backdrop allowed for many more possibilities in a spacefaring society than a planet or a single ship would. We did not want to get locked down into the Star Trek syndrome where the problem fell in with the journey in a physical sense, but rather the journey or a society held suspended in space of their own choosing.

Plus, I think we were fans of both Deep Space Nine and Babylon 5, and liked the idea.

- RAM

This is where fanfiction has it all over original fiction.  Fanfic authors have a majority of their job done for them.  They don’t need to spend time working on backstory because one has already been created for them.  Episodes or movies have already done them the hard work that usually precedes a good story and therein lies the challenge of original fiction.  I remember reading the author’s notes in a Star Trek novel written by Ann C. Crispin in where she had just finished the first novel of her StarBridge series and returned to writing Trek, only to comment that the difference between writing Trek and original fiction was like swimming in a stormy sea as opposed to a warm, heated pool.  Never were truer words ever written, for I’ll occasionally indulge in a little fanfiction myself.  Fanfic authors never have to worry about readers not bonding with their characters; their readers come pre-bonded!

In designing the main character of the Knight triliogy, it was a little difficult to try and put together a character that had all the qualities I wanted along with some I found annoying.  Writers who write in an organic fashion (ie: without use of pre-planning or outline) often tell me that they let their characters introduce themselves and they get to know them as they felt or sense the reactions within them.  It’s a pretty valid method of building a character, but I’m hardly an organic writer.  I use outlines, layers, and most importantly, character sketches.  The funny part about writing Melissa J. “Mejen” Knight was that she was not originally the main character of the very first Hope Station novel I wrote.

Before Knight Commander and before Ex Populus, there was a truly awful novel I wrote called Hope’s Mutiny.  In it, the main character was an older woman named Brigetta Kelley who was facing down a ruthless captain and sought support from a junior officer by the name of Melissa Knight.  Knight was a secondary character, at best, and the only reason why I even wrote about her was because I needed one who could show my reader what the lower decks of a Confederate-era destroyer was like.  However, the more I wrote about her, the more I began to like this fresh-faced young ensign who had this romantic notion of naval life and had yet to be tainted by all the politics that went with officer life aboard a ship.  Hope’s Mutiny eventually became history, as I decided that I would proceed in an entirely different direction with the characters involved, but I still wanted Mejen to experience the mutiny at some point.

Knight Commander fast-forwarded to a point in Mejen’s life where she had fallen from grace.  Not unlike the eponymous Honor Harrington, but to a larger extent.  While Honor retained command of a ship, Mejen was left to a point of near-resignation in disgrace over having supported Kelley in the mutiny.  What saved Mejen from early retirement was a war breaking out, and the faith of a young admiral with whom Mejen had served with as an ensign.  More like Horatio Hornblower than Honor Harrington (lots of Hs, there), Mejen Knight takes a couple of pages from both characters.  I did not want Mejen to turn into Honor Harrington, where she’s eventually adored by all and comes close to a science-fiction Mary Sue or extension of ego.  While I acknowledge that Mejen is a variation of the naval hero, the detracting part of her character sketch is the fact that she’s a product of her environment, not her core values.  We want so much for there to be people in our lives who are those we can imbue with special powers or insight or ability that will ensure our faith.  We want so much for there to be heroes in our lives, so that we can invest our hopes and dreams into them, like empty vessels set upon the sea of adversity.

The truth is that if we really want our hopes and dreams to be fulfilled, we need to look in the mirror for the means to that end.  That’s where Mejen’s problems begin.  When admirals and friends look to her to be a hero, she begins to believe in it.  She starts allowing her ego to roam unchecked and later, it starts causing her problems with her career and friends because her actions ensure that she nearly loses the life she worked hard for, and not a single one of her friends seems willing to talk to her again.  So, she’s resigned to work as an admiral’s aide and then when war breaks out, Mejen’s presented with the opportunity to climb out of the hole.  Knight Commander is where she see her ascend from the pigeon-hole she placed herself in and back on track toward her goal of becoming a shiphandler.  She realizes that she’s the only person who can really make that happen, and that while doors can be opened for her, no one’s going to push her through them.  I’d like to think that maybe it speaks to a larger concern and I think it does, but I doubt anyone’s going to really derive that from a sci-fi novel.

- RAM

The trick, in my opinion, is to jump out ahead as much as you possibly can. If you can make it to 20k in the first three days by writing 6 or 7k a day, then by all means, have at it. Being at 20k before the end of the first week puts you in excellent position to finish early and feel that sense of accomplishment. Another helpful trick was the NaNoWriMo Report Card available here at Cameron Matthews’ site. By entering in the information, it helps you gauge the distance to the goal and tracks your daily output. I felt the at-a-glance method of seeing my progress inspired me to do better the next day and the next and the next, etc. Trying to see if I could match or exceed the previous days’ output with words that cut very well helped tremendously in having something tangible to browse through. Of course, there’s something to be said for having a report card that makes you smile! One of the most helpful resources I had this year was Evolution Writers. That website is like NaNoWriMo all year long, and helps keep my writing pace at a moderate tempo so that I try to produce 50,000 words year-round! I highly recommend it for all writers, from novice to experienced. Thanks to Nonny, Alan, Terra, pet, and everyone there for providing me with a cheering section.

One of the most daunting things about NaNoWriMo is the deadline and the word count. A lot of people fail… a lot. Out nearly eighty thousand participants this year, a little under 13,000 people were validated as winners. That’s less than twenty percent overall, so if you’re among the over sixty-seven thousand people who didn’t win, there’s always next year. In my regional forum, there was a most helpful post about how winners succeeded and what they might keep or change for next year; after all, the event is learning experience for all writers involved. I think you should take a bow for even trying. While some of us can pour out a couple hundred thousand words a year, for some, getting 1,667 words a day for thirty days straight was no small feat and even attempting takes courage.

I look forward to trying again next November!

- RAM

- RAM

The HopeStation.net site has put up a couple of online game for visitors to take part in. A small community of players has already started up around the Legend of the Green Dragon server that’s currently online. If you have ever played the old BBS Door game Legend of the Red Dragon, then you should be in for a treat, as the Green Dragon variant is a direct homage to the older game, complete with Seth the Bard and Violet the Barmaid at the Boar’s Head Inn, waiting to serve you a drink or sing you a song.

Additionally, for all the space opera buffs out there, we offer you Quantum Star SE; a space-based trading and combat game that uses turns per day to achieve economic or imperial conquest of the known solar system. Unfortunately, this game does not have a whole lot of players, yet, but we’re looking for people to head over there and take part in what is an enjoyable game.

- RAM

What was added? Four new stories dispersed amid the existing episodes. The first, Ready Five, tells of how Amy Whitaker comes to select Ryan Tranh as her new deputy chief of staff, while the president tries to mediate a resolution to a minor conflict between two member colonies in the asteroid belt; it fits in between Where Angles Fear to Tread and Phoenix Rising, as the new third episode. The second refers to The Ganymede Conference, where the president, Amy, Reggie, and Al are dispatched to attend a conference of member leaders (the modern-day equivalent of the American National Governors’ Association) to deal with the threat of the Confederation’s dissolution; it falls between Stellar Defense Force One and Modern Royalty, Part One, as the new sixth episode. The Call of Duty introduces a new character by the name of Captain Kimberly Call and settles in right after Maybe We Could Go Back to Then, Part Two. Finally, Intersection portrays the presidential debates between Stand By, Part Two, and Rainy Days Never Stay.

The purpose of these stories is to do more character detail and fill in some of the gaps I found to be too large between some of the stories. For example, the first and second stories are back-to-back, but Phoenix Rising occurs three months later. The mean time between Stellar Defense Force One and Modern Royalty is over six months. I wanted to bridge the gap with some more background information I felt would give the overall arc more definition and direction, without feeling thin or flimsy. Some of it might be a little heavy-handed, but I thought the usage of heavy hands was appropriate to drive the magnitude of the decisions made by the characters was felt.

See the new page on Ex Populus for the updated episode list. Also, check out some of the working titles for the second season right below it.

- RAM

Now that I’m done with NaNo, I’m going to be concentrating (to use the term loosely) on Knight Commander’s unfinished chapter and restructuring Ex Populus to include more history and foreshadowing of the major climax at the end of the first ’season.’ I may publish the collection at lulu.com for people to buy, if they’re interested in reading the series. I’ll announce the book right here, so don’t worry.

- RAM

First of all, we’ve upgraded the site to Wordpress 2.0.5, so if there are any issues, please let me know.

Secondly, I’ve begun my NaNo WIP, and I’m publishing a current status image, courtesy of deviantlore.org:

- RAM