Episode 15 Thread *Spoilers Welcome*

At least Jessica got her butt ripped out by Nathan because as an ex military man I can truly say she was out of line. I'm somewhat upset with the ending because after staying with this series for 15 episodes, I wasn't looking forward to a cliffhanger ending. I detest them. It's too much like some daytime soap opera my grandmother was addicted to. (Organ in background) Stay tuned tomorrow same time same channel to see if the Jong off our hero.

Hopefully both Ryk and I will remain in good health so I can see how this all works out. I have a bigger challenge as I'm 10 years older than Ryk.

I would have liked to have seen it end with something like an Arkon Bomb being dropped on the Jong capital. I have absolutely no sympathy for those knuckleheads. Sherman said war is hell and he was right. The Jung may have had many more ships than the Alliance but if you toast their command and control (ie. their home planet) and glass a few of their other planets, they would be too busy defending what they have left to mount a serious assault on Earth. With jump drives it is easy to keep the Jung off balance and by knocking out their major industrial sites you would have every 2 bit Jung wanna be Warlord fighting each other for right to be the next emperor. What I'm saying with all of this is that I didn't buy the Admiral Galiardi sequence. I could accept him trying to run with it but I can't accept that anyone with a functioning brain would think that was the way to hold off the Jung.

Still all and all a good book. I would have ended it differently but guess what, I'm not the author and I don't have that right.

1) Dubnyk - not sure. I suspect that he will get away to either the Pentarus sector and assist the nobles, or perhaps he'll head into Jung territory (if he has some sort of past experience with them) and begin taking advantage of them.

2) I think there are a few possibilities here:
2a) The new, more robust nanites used to heal any minor injuries he may endure during tortures visited upon him. Though, given that the Jung nanites can fight back, this seems useless as if the Jung notice they could just dump more of their nanites in him until he no longer has the benefit of the super nanites.
2b) There was the new planet they visited where they said they could transfer souls to a new clone. Perhaps that is what happened here? He's given a nanite injection that uploads his "soul" to a stealth jump FTL relay upon death and he gets put into a fresh new body back in Alliance territory?
2c) Dumar mentioned using the Corinari nanites to kill. Maybe he's been given a dose that will kill him in 24 hours, or 30 days or something along those lines?
2d) The bio-digital plague? The Jung aren't immune I don't think.

3) There's no way she's getting a frigate. Next to Scott she has the most jump combat experience. Given that the cease fire will last at least a little while, plus the fact that they have a buffer between them and the Jung, I imagine she's going to get a new boat. Something built by the Alliance in the lines of either a Defender class or Takaran battleship, but updated with all the latest goodies.

As far as Jess goes, I think she's done with the EDF in her current capacity. She's going to probably take the baby down to Porto Santo and train the new marines. She wasn't ever cut out to be in her current role(s), and only achieved them due to proximity to Scott and a lack of options.

As to the ex-admirals campaign to undermine the Alliance, wasn't he reprogrammed by the Jung? I thought that got mentioned at one point. I would suspect his actions are part of his programming.

Lastly, regarding the cliffhanger, it should be expected and I feel was very well done. We've gone fifteen books without any major conflict cliffhangers. It makes sense that there is one at the end of the first series. We know, for now, everyone is alright. That will change before the next book, but it can't always end up on a high note for the characters.

What happened to Capt Dub? They break the encryption (yeah, right, hope they get the password in 3 tries), jump around, and he'll be getting a new body. When the series turns to the great unknown, you'll find him there. I suspect he will be the focus of 'sins of the past'.

What did they inject into Capt Scott? If it is something we already know about, then it's the super-nanites so he might survive an execution.

Does Cameron get a frigate? Don't know.

What's up with the ex-Admiral? He plans on running the whole show. Tried to get Lt. Scott, and the Aurora, captured by the Jung, thus compromising his father, and then leading the insurrection and being Warlord of Earth. As it is, in a few years, the Alliance can come apart due to his efforts, and he could be President.

Hamsterman

1) As it is becoming more apparent that there are more worlds than just the once we know of in Sol Sector and the PC we might see him going into the great unknown and "selling" the jump drive to some two bit dictator or a rogue Jung officer who is out to form an empire for himself. There might be a bigger threat than the Jung and Dubnyk might be involved in a)creating it or b)strengthening it with a jump drive. I for one hope whatever the case he at least die a very painful death in the process right along with his little cult/gang/whatever.

2) As for the injection of Captain Scott? Nanites with the ability to suicide if questioned/tortured about the jump drive and or the ability to commit suicide if the Jung decide to torture him for a long time. Basically he knows a lot about the Jump drive even if he cannot build one himself he might give them clues under torture and he knows way too much about the disposition of the alliance forces an the location of the PC.

3) Cameron probably would get command of the Aurora. She has after all commanded the sister ship of Aurora and thus is best placed for command.

Mike Strong-

This is a case of stalemate as they mentioned. The oldest Jung Colonies might be pretty industrialized themselves, this would require a significant military presence in and of itself, therefore destroying the Jung home world would require the destruction of all naval assets in those systems as well. If the Jung had a dozen or more battleships in their older more developed colonies/conquests then they might just decide to say screw it they killed x billion people and destroyed our home world we will get our fleet together and go through Earth and destroy it and then go to every other system freed by earth and destroy them.

At this point the situation is such that the Jung know that the Alliance can destroy their world if they negotiate and the Alliance knows that their only play is the destruction of the home world. If the Jung don't believe the threat is real and launch an attack, the Alliance will have to destroy the Jung World and maybe its older colonies and this time they have to find it and they may have expended the bulk of their munitions as well as lost about 20% of their ships and somewhat less of their firepower in the attack, by the time they can launch an attack on the closes colonies if they can find them they may be alerted and even if the Alliance destroys the planet the fleet in the system might be given orders to rendezvous in one place in order to launch a counter attack.

What happens if the Jung have 5 more battle stations 10 battle ships 20 cruisers and an equal number of frigates within days or weeks of their home system by com drone? If they determine that they cannot defend agains the alliance, they may decide to launch a large attack and even if takes a year to get to earth it still wont matter in the long run. Unfortunatly even a year would still leave the Alliance with 1 Battleship, 2-4 Frigates, the Aurora, a recce ship, between 100-200 fighters and maybe 20 to 30 gunships if they can restart the factory within a reasonable time frame to matter.

With those odds, the first battle would likely be the last for the Alliance as as soon as the Fleet is destroyed the Jung could disperse their own fleet in order to recapture or destroy the Alliance systems.

This is a Cold War MAD scenario, the USSR doesent want to attack the US because they know that no matter how complete the surprise they most likely will not get all of the US nuclear weapons out of Action thus they too will get destroyed. Same applies for the US and it is worse from the point of view of the Jung as the Alliance is separate by over 1000 LY between its two halves which means that even a complete surprise attack destroying all systems and ships leaves Alliance assets out of their reach.

Hamsterman:

The ex-admiral might just be posturing to get himself in a position of power to gain a leadership position in the Alliance. There are people who will take advantage even if the world is burning around them as they believe that they can game the system to their benefit. On the other hand he might think he can do better and wants to opportunity.

At the end of the day some of his position makes sense, if they went on the defensive for a year or a year and a half and went all out on building a fleet they might have significantly more firepower by the time the Jung attacked, assuming they send the attack from their Home fleet and nearby units rather than going the long way and redeploying from other systems which could by the Alliance significantly more forces. The fact that Jung could probably build significantly more forces in the same period of time is also true and is one of numerous arguments against that strategy.

As for the rest of the argument? I would think its posturing, he wants power.

Great book , i just cant believe i have to wait another 6 months for the 2nd part

Sort of a "Who shot J. R. " ending". Loved the book, waiting for 16.

We're the areas of destruction on the Junk home world from intentional cleansing?

A. To keep the content of the leaflets secret?

B. Fear of the plaugue being in the leaflets?

C. Skism?

I thoungh that the Jung nuked a few spots to stop rioting due to an upset population. I suspected due to sanitation/ power outage re falcon strikes in the attack. Clean forgot about the leaflets until I read your points gary, but it makes sense too. Maybe a mix.

It might be worth scanning the impact sites, to assess the uniform nature of the impacts/size of bomb. Why did the many remaining Jung ships not distroy the incoming fragments with missiles etc? They would have been ordered to try / could have then been ordered to strike re plague / riot fears.

Captain Dubnic may be stuck for several days on the shuttle until they can crack the jump lock out code. He knows about the Sol sector worlds of old and some of the planned colonies outside of the Sol sector. I bet he will head to one of those. I would hope he would recognise Jung ships if he encountered them as he would have looked up tannan records while planning his move.

Willard to recce ship 1, Cam and Kovick to the Aurora?

I think that Takara will have a hard time convincing the Jung to leave they're worlds free when they were part of the Alliance. Even giving the Jung all of they're tech would not be enough. I hope they are shrewd enough to know that.

I would inject Terran/converted jung nanites programmed to kill/ destroy the host brain on interference by attempted re/programming or the presents of Jung nanites or on death or in the case of the application of torture to the host.

Bacca got off light. I hope they only feed him molo.

Poc was wasted the last two books. But he had an important behind the scene's role as scout/ frigate crew trainer.

Tanna hurt. The loss of the gunships hurt. Nash being told he didnt understand hit me right in the feels.

What happened to the baby? They did take her to medical right, I mean the fathers body cannot have stopped all of the nuke strike. Did Jess keep her in board? Is thay why she didnt turn up for booze and dollags?

A nice phrase would have been 'if this war continues, it will not end in a Jung victory, but the Alliance will still loose.'

Bv-01 & 2 are gone. Stupid hope of a great side story...

Gillardi's actions before the Jung attack and since the Alliance liberated other worlds in the Sol sector are seen as similar to president Scott. I would like to point out that the situation has changed and there for the plan needs to change ie phase 2. Those in authority have changed and that is becoming more fluid. Focusing on earth is not the Alliances main goal any more, so fair enough if an admiral wants to rebuild the edf as a subset of the alliance, to focus on defending earth.

Having local independent fleets is great when they are available, but when they are needed more elsewhere, to hold them back is the stupidest move possible. When you have allies you protect them, when you have an enemy you make them have to work harder to get to you. You hit them as far away from you as you can to avoid collateral damage.

Gillardi went from being my most respected Earth defense force military person to being a dumbass. I can only hope that he is playing an angle re the Jung or that since his time in they're hands he is not his best self ie PTSD

Overall though, a great story and a great conclusion to part 1.

I agree that the injection could be nanites to prevent some kinds of interrogation.

I would have liked to have seen it end with something like an Arkon Bomb being dropped on the Jong capital.

Mike, I almost forgot to comment that I recognized your Perry Rhodan reference. Not a lot of us would notice that here in the U.S. I met the editor (Forrest J Akerman) and translator (Mrs. Akerman) when I was a teenager. I caught her going through my stack of Perry Rhodan books at a convention, and told her I was intending to buy those books. She left, and THEN the book dealer told me who she was...

Hamsterman
PS-For those who don't know what an Arkon bomb is, it creates a self-catalyzing fusion/fission reaction using pre-programmed elements. The effect is similar to the initial detonation of a Star Trek Genesis device, only slower, and the fire doesn't go out.

Hamsterman,

I would have liked to have met Forrest but as I lived in the east coast, I never got out to see the Ackermansion with the world's largest science fiction collection. Back in the late 60s/70s I collected all the ace Perry Rhodans but they didn't survive my move to Florida. There were over 100 and I believe the series is still going on in Germany.

How about a sunbeam or a hyperspatial tube with a few inertialess planets sent through the tube? I wouldn't be surprised if the Jong emperor had to report to Helmuth (your report is neither conclusive or complete). Old SF references are fun.

Mike

I liked the book and I have been hanging on through the last couple but its starting to seem like there will not be an ending to this story arc. I'm not sure was is the point but that was a cliffhanger ending. After everything, the only reason I could possibly see the Jun being happy was if they took Scott to get info and kill him then attack as the Alliance is in morning. We know he didn't want command so is this more of a release for Scott to commit suicide? Either way, you got more weapons and Alliance partners but nothing has actually happened yet; with that type of ending, Dumar could have been monitoring the situation in the Mirai shuttle and still step in to tell Aurora to escape jump to save him. The Jung could just kill him as he gets off the ship and commit to a full out attack. Its just not enough to say anything that change the course of the story over the past three books. They are still at war, no one really died, got a few weapons, lost a few ships got a few new ones. Even the destruction of a major warship doesn't help, they were still greatly out numbered anyways.

I know he is impulsive but the Jung general said the peace offering was a ploy anyways. So they gave up their star captain that can rally anyone and just gave him up on the hope that the Jung won't attack when they will attack. There is no question that they will attack so what did this accomplish. Show of honor? Just keep it going and don't end things and that is the way to make money but not good books.

We knew the Jung were a military in their expansion but with no type of civilians that don't want to die in battle when they see it happen in front of them I think it just started to be a rip off of the federation vs Klingons and I have seen those movies. Sorry, just wanted to see it end with the same vigor it started with. You can't tell a million year story but to end with Scott's death and a peace treaty would have been pretty good for the end of the first story arc.