VERY good point Jacques, that could turn the whole "Trial" around, assuming it IS fair.
Chris, Ryk knows about it, and is looking into it. I had the same issue as well.
Anyone else catch the "2001 a Space Odyssey" Easter egg in Chapter 14? "Open the bay doors, Hal."
Yes, noticed the 2001 space odyssey reference. I also can't help but think about chewBacca every time gen Bacca is named. Also wonder why he doesn't use more of the Azorean Islands references. 🙂
I also know all the easy as cake, piece of pie yada yada yada comes from one of the best all time fighter pilot war novels ever written called Piece of Cake which the BBC made into a mini series. Please read the book if you haven't and watch the series. I think you'll start to recognize some of where ideas for the pilots in this space opera come from as well as the humor.
As a former military officer the insubordination in front of the troops or at really inappropriate moments that go unpunished really really really detract from the storyline as beyond realistic.
Anyway, it's an overall awesome opera. I'd like it better if Nathan was actually killed off soon. Kind of sick of his character. I like the series In Spite of Nathan, not because of Nathan. I'm more than ready for new or current characters to get more developed and take center stage myself.
I also think the story needs to start spending a lot more time developing the antagonist characters and their cultures and their history and start to show us what the universe looks like through their eyes otherwise it becomes too shallow.
Looking forward to another whole new plot line and many more books to come!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fMyhvsD5ceI
There you go, episode 1 of Piece of Cake. The rest are there too. Enjoy. It'll keep you well entertained until Ryk's next book.
I loved this book. I was critical of episode 14 as it was a bit of a disappointment, but episode 15 has been far from that.
Well written, engaging, emotionally as well as politically interesting. After all, this series has very much become about intergalactic politics as well war strategy. Gone are the days of a struggle just to get home. Episode 14 struggled with progression and episode 15, expanding supremely. There were so many moments I was desperate to "just read one more page" to find out the ending to.
The series could have ended here, if the last chapter and some of the volume of Jung forces was revised, the series could have been completed. I am so glad that it is not. I like the challenging engineering projects being completed, the political aspects of a ship, a world, an intergalactic alliance and multiple galactic alliances at war with one another all progressing and taking on the problems of "if this situation was real, how would we anticipate it happening and where would it lead which will be accepted by an audience of readers".
I have a theory of Mister Dubnyk. A link could be made to the netcast storyline with him. Either supplementary or major. The major principle is that he is the hacker that released the plague or far more important to Earth's history than he lets us believe. A longshot, but what a twist in the storyline it would be.....
I hope this war never comes to driving an FTL frigate or comm-drone through a planet. I really hope the Jung never invent the jump-drive or I wont be able to keep up with the battles going on. Its hard enough keeping track when only the Alliance are jumping around.
I cannot accept that Nathan is going to die. His emotional struggles and the key link his family and name have to the series would deem otherwise. I was trying to find an appropriate story option for his survival. I like the clone idea as it is suspicious to throw that world into the story and not fulfil its purpose in the universe, but he will look like everyone from this world as they only clone one body design. He will not be released however by the Jung. It would not make sense based on how we have been educated on their lifestyle. The same goes for a trade situation. The only trade they would make is the jump drive technology. Also, to finish part 1 with him gone would have lost some readers from the franchise. You can't kill off a characters whose life is part of the story. A character like Vlad is expendable without losing too much traction (though would be upsetting, the world would go on without him), but Nathan would be far too changing to the feel of the series. I have lived this world with Nathan, tried to understand his feelings while imagining myself in this situation and life.
It would be a very brave decision for him to die off completely. It has been done before however, but a very strong new character would be required. Cameron and Jess are too much "supporting actresses" to take over, and Casimir is dead.
I will never criticise how the war and the political fights will end. This is a mammoth of a story, of which could go any way. The generic Good Guy vs Bad Guy storyline is easy to end when the single bad guy can be killed, but when the Bad Guy is Trillion people, that takes some doing to kill of and End the story to please the readers. Especially when the Bad Guy has multiple castes that behave individually sometimes of collective. In reality, decisions can be made on the spur of the moment based on emotions so people are very un-predicable. It is for Ryk to best guess based on the personalities he has created how they will react and where he needs them to go to give closure to those that need it. I am just happy to be along for the ride......
If Nathan is to survive and be returned to Command the Aurora, I would not be too upset if Ep 16 was not from his POV. but from the POV of Alliance sympathizers among the Jung, with a major break between the Isolationists and the Military Castes with the Expansionists backing the Military. I can see the Isolationists on Jung homeworld requesting aid from the Alliance as they begin to starve (Expansionists and Sol Sector worlds no longer providing foods and other resources to the Jung Homeworld in exchange for Jung Ships, Tech and People.)
The Alliance and the Jung Military flirting with a reignited War on the Border would be a nice supplementary element to the story.
When Doctor Galloway was reporting to Dumar about the Terran version of the Jung nanites, she said that they had been unable to break the Jung nanite control codes. That implies that there was ongoing work being done to attempt to break them. Suppose the codes had been broken before the end of the book and what was being injected into Nathan was a new version of nanite containing a trojan that could take over and re-program Jung nanites to become more trojans doing the same thing?
We already know that the nanites have the capability to receive and send data and to control their host. This could basically re-program the Jung to be whatever the Alliance wants them to be (docile, friendly, compliant, etc.). This could allow Nathan, just by his presence, to completely take over the Jung home world.
This probably won't happen and if it did, the Jung would probably stop it before it finished. Otherwise, Part 2 would be very short. But I can't help thinking that the injection is a very important part of what is to come.
Could be nanites to keep him alive / keep his mouth shut / to kill him / to spy on the Jung / to make the Jung think that they are spying on him / to track him from orbit / to kill others around him others?.
Could be a cocktail of all known contagions - correction, all known contagions known to the Alliance 🙂
Could be a placebo to make the Jung think that they're nanites wouldn't work on him...
Could be hallucinogens- Whoops!
Ryk,
Great ending to this part of the season. I think that you handled everything brilliantly and the ending was pretty much perfect in my view.
I also think that while Jessica's arse chewing was needed, she got off wayyyyy to easy. Being ex-military, I have seen arse chewing that left seasoned men, ready to commit violence or break in tears for way less than what Jessica had done. Thats the only part I wish could have been more descriptive and intense.
Thanks for your hard work and enjoy your well earned "vacation".
Cheers
Mike
For me, there are some clues for Nathan to be alive in Part 2.
1) Dumar explains "something" for him on how to tell the Jung that it is a stalemate. There is a dialogue there that cleverly is not told to us. Dumar has many cards in the sleeves and a lot of experience from back in the PC, that is why he became the Alliance's Admiral.
2) Nathan, in my opinion, is acting in front of Bacca. Kinda not himself...
3) Would he show the bridge of the Aurora to a Jung that will be released? Mmmm.... Nathan will use this somehow.
4) "You'll never know how important you ARE to me"
5) What Dr. Chen injected to Nathan will play a role in the close future
6) There is a possibility to have cloned Nathan or he will be cloned later and his soul recovered
It would be one of a kind series where the main character and hero dies at 1/5 of the series...
1) What Dumar tells Nathan is most likely the thing about the pre-programmed jump KKVs. (I only realized that when I re-read the story, to be honest.)
2) Nathan hasn't been quite himself for a while by then. Especially loosing Luis and Devyn hit him quite hard.
3) Seeing the bridge doesn't help Bacca in any way because he has no idea how to operate the jump console, much less how the algorithms work.
4) He's still alive when she says it, isn't he?
5) I sure hope so.
6) True again.
Yes. We'll see in the summer. 🙂
3) He will use it as argument that Bacca is the traitor because he knew about the jump drive, he even knew of its possibilities and never told Jung command that it was to become their downfall. Seeing the bridge may not give knowledge on how to operate the ship, but if a military man is smart, he may count people, guards, consoles, names, entry points, corridors to the bridge... on other words: intel from the Alliance flagship.
4) Maybe it is my bad English or a lack of understanding from my side 🙂 In other languages, as in Spanish, when you are saying farewell to a person, you use past tense. Only if you know that there will be a reencounter, you use present tense. 🙂 I would like to know how Cetian sounds...
BTW... I hate Dubnyk...
Dubnyk v Bacca
Bacca has a "Plays with his food" mentality with Killing non Jung people, Dubnyk Doesn't care about other people, they are tools to acheive his goals (He can feel proud of them but has no trouble tossing them aside if it will accomplish his goals)
I'm a big fan of the series but I thought this chapter was pretty underwhelming. I'll keep it short and to the point:
1) First half of the book I ended up skimming through, nothing is more boring than hearing about military buildup.
2) Stalemate ending is unsastisfying
3) Jung as a whole are underdeveloped
a) hard to believe the actions and motivations
b) No way the military caste would not be in control of the society if they have all the ships and therefore control supply routes
c) glassing planets seems absurd. 500 years and the Jung haven't started injecting everyone on conquered planets with nanites and just push the kill switch if that system is ever attacked. Habitable worlds within reasonable travel distance would be too precious to wipe.
4) Ryk went to great lengths to describe how limited and precious propellant is in this universe.
a) Hard to believe Dumar doesn't use KKVs to wipe out Jung propellant and production facilities in a stealth campaign.
b) Jung ships wont be able to do random course corrections to avoid KKVs or even fight without propellant.
c) Jung wont be able to get to Earth without propellant.
5) Can't understand the motivation for the alliance not just KKVing the Jung homeworld and ships from afar. It doesn't make for an interesting book but the Jung Empire would be thrown into chaos. No way they would think the Alliance capable of doing it, and Jung infighting for control would undoubtedly allow the alliance the time to gain the upper hand.
I really liked the series as a whole. Captain Dubnyk is one of my favorite characters. Looking forward to Part II.
