shadow nation: future shock, part three

The third, and for now, final installment of a sci-fi experiment focused on this blog's favorite themes.

In the beginning of the year, I posted the first and second parts of my attempt at science fiction, and after the three month pause in posting updates, some of you have been asking to see more. When last we visited our hypothetical Earth of the year 3507 and its population finding itself in the middle of a galactic conflict, Ace and his crew, along with two humans assigned to the Nation's fleet left to prepare for war deep in the territory of a bizarre species of insectoids, and political tensions before an upcoming election were brewing on the world they left light years away. Now, as we shift into deep space, the Nation's war machines are ready to descend on the Rexx with their devastating weapons. But with the insectoids' territory being so vast and densely filled with stars, finding and capturing their home world won't be easy, and their powerful puppeteers are watching.

These five chapters will delve even further into the cyborgs' sophisticated technology, making just a few more compromises with science to tell a story. For one, we'll meet a genre-obligatory craft capable of destroying an entire planet with a powerful burst of energy. To keep things more in line with the real world, I toned down its potential output and counted a burst powerful enough burst to irradiate the atmosphere and trigger volcanism on a global scale on geologically active worlds as a planet killing event. After all, something like that would be virtually certain to cause a mass extinction similar to the one at the end of the Permian in Earth's past. Another stretch involves a weapon which uses exotic matter in a particularly insidious way, one that may not really be supported by particle physics as we know them, but I'll let you explore that one at your own pace as you get to read about alien carnage, look deeper into what human cultures may be like if they lived in deep space, and maybe just a little bit of something for the adults.

So for those of you who wanted to read more, download chapters 10 to 15 for the conclusion of the first third of the book, and please, keep the feedback coming. Without your input, it's hard to know whether these posts are working for you or if you'd rather just see more science and skepticism instead. And of course, feel free to send a link to friends who might be interested or give it a thumbs up on the WoWT Facebook page if you were to get any sudden urges to do those sorts of things…