Balance

And finished! 15 chapters, love it!!! another great read Ryk! Very hard to sleep with all that page turning! I really liked the extra detail on the PC! Tanna! Gil back in the thick of things! Gillardi trying to be inclusive comes across as being very closed minded which was very well done.

The big questions I'm left with now are what will happen between Earth and Tau Ceti re the attack??? Relations may be a bit frayed after this!!! And between Gillardi and the President re withholding Intel? And what new threats do the new recruits bring!!! Oh the Plot Thickens!!!
What is Lord Dusahn's trap? What will happen to the PC with planets like Palee cooperating with and Rakeun ignoring the Dusahn??? Book 2.6 can't come fast enough!!!

I have a feeling that Gillardi is going to try and blame the president for it all (based on his visit with the princess) to get ahead of the president releasing the intel that the Dushan are not really the Jung. it will be interesting to see how that works out, but really, what am i most excited about? Well at the start of the next book the whole gang will be back together, mostly!!! All i could think when i finished was: "Ohh the Dushan are going to get it!!"

I'm gonna assume people reading this thread have finished the book.

Firstly latest start with the ending, any one else think a bouncing gun boat, if the Ghatazhak guard is dead due to injury i would say their been sent as spies, only issue is how they would have found the fleet, with out the guard.

they may now have Dr Sorenson but i can't see them sitting still and replace the jump emitters on the Kurazura Fleet, so in the short term the small ships can be upgraded but i cam see them spend time searching for a safe port to retrofit the Auaora and possible the other ships of the Fleet.

Next step is setting up and contact various underground networks and gathering intel. as far as I'm aware the none of the original Kuraia, you have the expertise in this area. say they have Jessica, but as is said she's to impulsive.

I would say that with President Scott came out with the evidence against Gillardi, he would have be accused of consorti with the new ememey in Gillardi's eyes. So the best play is to play it smart and start a whisper campaign to undermine the Admiral. but also make plans to esape cause i can see Gillardi conducting a coup.

just my first thoughts.

Gillardi has evidence that Miri was involved in espinage, maybe not the full video messages from Nathan/Connor but he knows she got something and that that lead to the misappropriation of the Aurora.

Gillardi will be able to emply that the president knew as Miri was his Assistant.

The President met with the Karazari leadership, and that lead to a private meeting with other individuals which could possible be identified from video cameras at the hockey game as Jess and possibly Nathan / a member of the team who attacked the Cobra facility a day later. That looks bad

Based on the information that the Karazari and the Gatazahk have been providing the Alliance about the Dusahn he knows that they are working together.

Based on the attack on the Cobra facility he knows that the Gatazahk are working together with those rebel officers.

All of these fact are telling to the Presidents involvement in the Attack on a Alliance facility.

Also I can tell you that it certainly will not help the Rebelion's chances at getting aid from the Sol Alliance...

So either President Scott has to public reject and distance himself from the Karazari, which will strengthen Gillardi position, or he has to double down and full attach Gillardi, with the new evidence, risking Gillardi conducting a Coup for the 'good of the alliance / earth'. With option A There is still a risk for president Scout to lose power, but he can secretly undermine Gillardi.

Either way I can either see President Scott and his family being imprisoned, and Nathan having to come to his rescue.

Great read again, thanks Ryk.

Questions re/ previous posts: Knowing that Galiardi is the dark force to worry about and to expose going in, why would Nathan, Deliza, Jessica, Telles and co. compromise president Scott so clumsily by having him meet privately with Nathan for OVER 2 HOURS, just hours before attacking the Cobra base on Tau Ceti, if they did not have the goods on Galiardi? My bet is that very damning information regarding Galiardi was handed to president Scott during the said encounter. He did withhold sensitive information from the alliance and president Scott.

Regarding Lord Dusahn's trap: isn't interesting that the Jung ships that entered sol space went back to the PC? It seems they were Dusahn, after all. They may have had both FTL and jump drives. Are the Dusahn in hock with the Jung? Why are the Jung still not overtly reacting to Galiardi's super KKV strikes against their military assets? Maybe the Jung do have jump drives after all. Then, wouldn't the sol sector, not the PC, be the real target of the Jung-Dusahn alliance? Put another way, whose false-flag operation was it, the Dusahn posing as Jung, or was it the other way around, the Dusahn not being a rogue caste at all but doing the Jung's bidding in the PC?

It just might be that Nathan et al are being fooled this time trying to contain the Dusahn-Jung in the PC when the sol sector is the real target about to be attacked again in force by JUng-Dusahn ships with jump drives, which would prove Galiardi was right, even if dishonest.

Can't wait for the next instalment...

Scott senior isn't a fool. If he has spoken to Scott and Jess, he knows what they sent to Gillardi was not what Gillardi gave to the Alliance council. However it would be hard to admit to not knowing about the Cobra Attack. He could say that The Alliance at Gillardi's encouragement had not aided their allies and in doing so may have turned one of their most friendly but inactive neighbors into a highly active, highly trained and informed non-friend. Putting them in the position where they are stock between two forces one openly hostile and the other completely unsympathetic turned them into enemy's that know a lot more about the Alliance then either the Jung or the Dusahn do!

The Alliance informed the Jung of the trespassing ships, warned them that they must stop, then launched the KKV strikes against industrial sites. There is a possibility that the Jung are taking time to confirm that no Jung assets were used in these invasions before taking any further action in this regard. Also it makes sense to hold off on overtly attacking a force that could wipe out your base of power before your ships reached their space... I strongly suspected that it was the Dusahn infiltrating the Sol Sector as soon as it was mentioned that the ships had an older style power signature, so I'm pretty sure now that the Dusahn have not spoken with the Jung command yet. I would also like to point out that if they did, the Jung may not exactly be happy with the Dusahn for flying into the Alliance in Jung colours and setting loose the Alliance KKV's on them.

I Know that the Jung can be heartless but to false flag yourself to the Alliance under the control of a man know to be trigger happy with know weapons of mass destruction seems a bit far fetched... in saying that, I like your thinking, It somehow seems to have slipped my mind that the Dusahn could be a fabrication, that they were in fact a Jung ploy, a long game approach, in case of an enemy appearing that needed to be taken down in a round about way!!! I love it!!!

I finished this one last night. As usual, I was hooked from the first page. The only thing that really bugged me was the cobra launch tracks. It just seemed like they were necessary for the plot and no other reason. It's safe to assume that a fully functional gunship should be able to take off from anywhere without using the tracks, which would've made the whole sequence unnecessary ... Unless I missed something while reading. Are they space only vessels and that's why the tracks were needed? I don't remember..

The original Scout ships were launched from Earth vertically using the main engines at full burn to bring them to Orbit, where they were finished, polished and sent on their merry way. Even when they were retrofitting the old Scout ships, they had to reduce the gravity of the hanger bay of the Aurora to bring the ships in.

The Cobra's could have been launched the same way but it was Easier/Cheaper/Safer to use the Jump drive to get them to Orbit when they were fully fitted out. The idea being to build up momentum by going down a track and then angle back up for a clear jump line for orbital insertion. This would put less stress on the ship, save propellant, and would generally be seen as a less risky way to build and launch these ships. The Cobra, would not have the thrust to lift itself off of the ground with just its downward facing thrusters. It was never designed to to land on a planet. It could probably lift off if it was constructed or put onto a vertical platform but again this would add risk, propellant costs and limit training in the vessel until it was launched. The construction facility was better served by having the ships following their longer axis though the facility so building it horizontally makes sense too.

What doesn't make sense is how they stored 20 Cobra gunships on the ground, If it were me I would have a crew ferry the completed gunships to Port Terra, until their crew's were ready for them. Port Terra would be a short jump trip away for students and teachers when necessary. but I guess having a Battleship in orbit and the potential of having an "All your eggs in one basket" scenario would make up for this.

Ah yes.. I forgot that they're based on the original scout ships, so space only (or mostly space) ships..everything makes more sense.

agree about the Port Terra comment too.

It's political. (As all things usually are.)

The Tau Ceti system, with three inhabited worlds, is the biggest contributor to the Sol-Alliance, especially since they are the ones pumping out destroyers based on the original Jung Frigate designs that their shipyards were setup to produce. They have their own Cobra Gunship production plant, and crew training, and they don't want all the ships they produce to simply go into the hands of Galiardi, for the sake of political pride and support from their populations.

Makes since... got to love not loving politics!

Its a nice touch also to have the Benakh captained by a Terran (well prior to Balance) calling Tau Ceti system home, while the Cape Town captained by a Cetian has Terra as its home port.

I really liked what you did with Balance by the way Ryk, I love how it all flows, seems completely natural but at the same time seems so unexpected!!!

Any comment on how you are getting on with the next one?

Simple have a team sent it to cut Galiaridi's throat

Well it has been 3 years since I last posted on the Frontiers Saga forum site. Life's trials and tribulations have a tendency to take precedence. That doesn't mean I haven't been reading Ryk's great space Saga (each at least 3-4 times). Here is some thoughts, impressions and take-aways since Part I, Episode 11 (Rise of the Alliance) thru Part II, Episode 5 (Balance). More to follow.
Storylines/threads:Too many to count or keep track of but these were significant to me.
1. Discovering the Cobra gunships. This lead to the introduction of Captain(s) Roselle and Nash who figure prominently in each book since. Also, the Cobra's provide the blue print for the Alliance to ramp up fleet capabilities/numbers.
2. Build-up of the Ghatazhak. Without them the Alliance would not have been victorious. Lt./(Gen.) Telles is the single most valuable military strategist in the Alliance.
3. Jung nanites. They created suspicion, intrigue and were the root cause of the spying speculation that got a lot of play in this forum. I doubt we have seen the last of their effectiveness.
4. Jumping the Karuzara astroid base to SOL. It was and remains the single most valuable military support asset in the SOL sector.
5. The Pentaurus Cluster's political stalemate and military stagnation. Lead to them being easily defeated by the Dusahn.
6. Jessica's undisciplined, self-destructive and insubordinate behavior. Nice way to get her under control by offering her the opportunity to go thru Ghatazhak training.
7. Captain Dubnyk surviving the glassing of Tanna. Wherever Dubnyk ended up in the galaxy he is the reason the Dusahn have jump drives. We will probably hear more about him.
8. Nathan's surrender and subsequent cloning. I sure didn't see the surrender part coming. The cloning was set-up with the relative passive introduction of the Namferan home world as all clones. Should have seen that one coming.

Those are the "biggies" for me. I've got some other thoughts for later. Keep writing the books Ryk - I look forward to each of them and where you take the story(s).