The Real Science Behind Louis Shalako's Tactics of Delay.

Louis Shalako

The real science behind my new novel and online serial, Tactics of Delay, is interesting, and yet I can only put so much info-dump into a military science fiction novel, which is a genre already tending in that direction. Quite frankly, it happens or it’s just too vague, with nothing scientific at all on which to hang the reader’s suspension of disbelief.

(This is why they always show an engine room, even though it’s just a bunch of lights on a panel and a dull hum in the background, with people standing around talking technical mumbo-jumbo. It gives readers or viewers something to relate to which has some familiarity in their everyday life.)

There’s a great deal of information to be put across, only so much of which can be conveyed by action, or exposition in dialogue. In a novel, I can’t just show them a picture or two and move on.

Even in this little blog post, I can only scratch the surface.

Explaining things in a military briefing, or working it in, bit by bit, paragraph by paragraph, as the story goes along, has its limitations.

You can only put so much in a ‘bit’, right? It is, by definition, just a tiny little bit of information mentioned in passing.

One of the technologies involves ‘tight-beam’ communications. This involves data encoded in a very short, relatively high-powered laser pulse. You don’t want the enemy to catch that, even if they can’t decode it. It is a piece of ‘predictive’ information. It can be analyzed, compared to other such bits of data, and, extrapolated into the future, it can give you away to predictive technologies. It’s fired at a receiver which for the sake of discussion is very much like a McDonald’s drinking straw with a sensor or pickup at the bottom of the tube. The transmitter is equally directional. You don’t want that signal going anywhere else but at your target. Assuming ship-to-ship or planet-to-planet communications, the signal is sent from one moving target to another moving target at vast distances. As an example, at billions of miles, a signal sent at noon from one location would be intercepted by another moving target at six o’clock that evening. This is ‘transit time’ at high-planetary/low-stellar distances. This requires predictive mathematics of the highest order. It requires perfect synchronization of the chronometers aboard both ships or on both planets. You have to know when and where the other guy is going to be. It also requires some scheduled interval for communications, in other words such long-distance communications would be planned ahead of time.

Considering the small size of the receiver tube, the shortness of the burst and the coding of the signal, such communication would be fairly secure from outside interception. This is simply unnecessary, even undesirable for civilian ships operating in peacetime, but utterly vital for war-craft, whose movements would be confidential, perhaps even in peacetime.

That depends on the current diplomatic situation. More on ‘soft science’ below.

If two ships were in close proximity, other methods of communication would be used minute by minute, including good old fashioned low-powered radio, or even flashing lights using something very much like Morse code. It doesn’t have to be in the visible spectrum, and the systems would be electronic. If you’re close enough, you can look out the window and wave at the other guy.

One of the things that sets space opera apart from ‘proper’ science-fiction is of course Faster than Light Travel, (FTL).

The general consensus among scientists is that FTL is, and always will be impossible.

This makes life a little more interesting for writers of science-fiction and space opera.

Readers love FTL, and that’s a consideration too. However, Chinese scientists have recently ‘transported’ a particle from Earth into Low Earth Orbit, and quantum science is advancing. 

What we once thought to be an immutable truth may turn out to be mistaken after all.

So that’s all I got to say on that subject.

Okay, somewhere in the story, I mention that Denebola-Seven has an orbit that is a bit egg-shaped. This is by no means impossible if one imagines a massive planet in an outer orbit, one that is going at such a speed that the two planets are in conjunction for long periods. 

Massive Planet-B will always be pulling Deneb-Seven outwards, even as both free-fall around the star. This only takes two bodies into consideration, and there may be others, including a couple of small moons of the planet itself. As they go around the planet, they will exert a force. This alone makes an orbit wobble. In this particular case, the narrow end of the orbit lies closest to the star Deneb. I also think this sort of orbit would be periodic. This is certainly true in geologic or systemic time-scales. That other planet would be unlikely to match speeds for all of eternity, for other bodies are also acting on it. Simply put, all orbits decay over time.

This is what we call 'entropy', the tendency for disorder to accumulate.

The fact is that all orbits wobble to some extent, with every single body in the system affecting every other body in the system to some degree, however great or small, depending on mass, velocity and orbital distance. Once the outer, more massive body had caught up to and passed Deneb-Seven, the orbit would revert to what would be considered a more ‘normal’ orbit.

Not unexpectedly, the troops are using Virtual Reality headsets and goggs, the Confederation has a surveillance satellite and both sides have battlefield drone aircraft. They have armoured vehicles, but it’s not steel armour anymore—it’s a tungsten-ceramic of the author’s own invention…(snork). And of course it’s sloped at the proper 60-degrees.

There are the softer sciences. While the latest in technology would undoubtedly be used in any conflict involving the wealthy, Home Worlds, with tens of billions in population in some cases, out on the fringes of human expansion, the planet Denebola-Seven has barely a million inhabitants. That’s not much of a tax base, and so they have contracted with The Organization, a private mercenary outfit, also associated with the Confederation, (a member planet in their own right). The Confederation is a political entity. But on such a planet, robotic soldiers, tanks, large numbers of ships and aircraft, massive space-based actions are insupportable because it all has to be paid for.

(I’ve been wracking my brains for a name, for the planet or group of planets where the Organization stems from, but really haven’t come up with anything good. Call it an intra-stellar commercial entity of mysterious origin, one with offices on fifty planets, and we'll leave it at that.)

If war is always a gamble, the gambler with the biggest wallet has a distinct advantage.

This is true because they can afford to take losses, for longer than their opponent. With their ten-to-one advantage in manpower and equipment, the Unfriendlies fit into this category. This is because the stakes in any game are only so big, this is, oddly enough, by mutual agreement  between warring parties. 

There is much soft science here.

They call it gambling because there is nothing guaranteed and you can always play so badly as to lose…the real skill lies in starting off with a smaller wallet, playing very well for as long as it takes, and then going home with some of that other guy’s money.

What’s interesting about this story is that the participants only have so much information.

They don’t always know everything that’s going on, and yet they’re facing, and coping with, information overload.

There will always be the battle for the hearts and minds of the people. This is one battle the Unfriendlies probably can’t win and they know it—more soft science.

As far as genetically-engineered super troops, humanity is expanding into the stars, money is hard enough to come by at the best of times, and resources are spread thin enough that it really isn’t necessary. A book is only so long and chemical, biological and nuclear warfare are mentioned only in passing, but then, they are hardly necessary considering the small size of the forces involved.

The Organization relies on training, and Confederation troops are some of the best-educated in the Galaxy.

END

Oh, look, I’ve got all these books on Kobo. (Sorry. Almost forgot the plug.) Some are science-fiction, then there’s mystery, fantasy, horror, a WW I memoir, all kinds of crazy stuff.

Thanks for reading.

Tactics of Delay, Pt. 13. Online Serial. Louis Shalako.

Louis Shalako

It was only four hours, but that was a long shift when the situation was changing so rapidly. 

And yet—and yet it was also so hard to let go, to trust her officers. Her people. She had a feeling that sleep would be hard to come by under such circumstances. Her stomach was in a fine knot, and yet one still had to eat once in a while.

A couple of quick drinks only helped so much.

“Ah, Vicky.”

“Colonel.”

“Hmn. How did you do? Sleep-wise, I mean.”

“Oh, Gawd.”

Dona nodded. The fact was, the Major looked like hell—something no one should ever say thoughtlessly to another person, man or woman. Dona probably wasn’t in much better shape herself.

She grinned.

“Don’t worry. It gets worse before it gets better—”

“Ha. Thanks, Colonel. But, ah, anyways—if you want to go off, now is probably as good a time as any.”

“True. But I was thinking of a little tour of the defenses. Show myself to the troops, and not incidentally, to the local people. They have obviously heard all about it by now. Our new commander is a woman, and there are still people—not all of them Unfriendlies or other fundamentalist types, who are probably wondering just exactly what that means.”

Vicky nodded, settling into the hot-seat, which was well-named—still warm and no time for a cool-down, was there?

***

“Good morning.”

“Good morning.” The couple, dressed in casual clothes, passed her on the sidewalk.

Their eyes were on her back…

With keys in hand, Dona went looking for her pet pickup truck, so pretty in red, washed and waxed to perfection, the windows squeaky-clean, as only a handful of bored firefighters could  ever do.

The slip of pale pink paper tucked under the windshield wiper could be only one thing…

Damn.

A bloody parking ticket.

That settled one question.

First stop, the police station.

Firing up the motor, she fiddled with the navigation system, noting the police station was just across the street from City Hall and right beside the courthouse, just on the other side of a good-sized parking lot.

It was a five-minute drive from her current location. She was headed that way anyway.

Argh.

For the most part, the streets were empty, with few civilians about. At this time of day, many of them would be at work. In spite of war and invasion, people still had to make a living. 

School, on the other hand, had been canceled. It appeared people were keeping the kids indoors and off the street although she did see a few civilian vehicles moving about.

It was surreal in its normalcy.

Peace was about to be disturbed.

***

The officer on the desk took one look at the ticket, one look at Dona and then tore it up without hesitation.

“Don’t worry, Colonel. It’s just that our night shift is pretty uneventful around here, at least most nights. I’ll have a word with the constable. Darla’s a good sport.”

“Thank you.”

“About the truck.” The place was so small, and she’d parked right in front of the glass doors.

“Yes. It has been commandeered under martial law.” There were other vehicles at the airport and those would have to suffice in an emergency.

“I understand, Colonel. I will inform our people.”

“How is the evacuation going?”

“Once people understand the reality of what’s coming, they’re cooperative. One or two holdouts, but that’s only to be expected. We do have our genuine nutcases. Some people seem more worried about their pets than themselves. Some are more involved with their gardens, rather than the possibility of their homes being destroyed. Please understand, Colonel, a good vegetable garden is worth its weight in gold around here. Then there are the flower gardens. People love them things, and with good reason I suppose…we’ve never had a real war before. There were a few conflicts with the natives during the initial colonization phase, but those were nothing much. Once it’s passed from living memory—and there aren’t too many old-timers around these days, it’s basically just legend, and only half believable.” A few centuries would have to pass before anyone would have ever time to care about history.

There was too much work to do—productive work, that kind that put food in people’s bellies and money in the bank.

Especially local history. People paid far more attention to happenings on the more populated, more glamorous planets closer to Old Home, a bit of an expression on Deneb. The fact was, there was so much more going on there—video stars, music stars, celebrities and what appeared to be, at such long range, a much more colourful existence. There just wasn’t that much culture on Deneb, although the people tried pretty hard and Tennessee Williams had been put on recently by Roussef’s amateur theatre company not too long ago.

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.

The reviews had been fairly good, or so he said, and she wondered if he’d been in it.

“Okay.”

She thought for a moment.

“And what about you guys?”

“Some of the staff are setting up a temporary headquarters, out on the north road. An old hardware store. It’s been closed for a couple of years and they owe a fair amount in back taxes. That’s the one leading to Ryanville. We still have prisoners here in the cells. They’re mostly awaiting trial. Assuming a conviction, they get shipped off to Deneb City to serve their sentence. We have a contract with them, and we don’t have the facilities for long-term incarceration. That’s out of the question now. Some of them we could simply release on their own recognizance. One or two, I would prefer not to. If you’ve got a real bad drunk driver, ah, you know damned well he’s going to do it again—after a few days of drying out in here, especially. Ah. One or two civilian employees, basically looking after the prisoners. We plan on moving them and ourselves last, to avoid any disruption of the communications system.” 

The local cops had their own dedicated radio frequency.

Regular police work in Roussef would continue as best it could, which was kind of reassuring.

Town limits were the limit of the Roussef police force’s jurisdiction, as that was the tax jurisdiction paying the costs. There were no rural cops, hence the presence of Confederation troops. Ninety-something percent of the planet was unpoliced.

“Roger that.”

“Let us know if you need anything else, Colonel Graham.”

“Thank you. I will do that. And if you have serious problems, please let us know.”

“Will do, Colonel. If there’s nothing more—”

“I don’t think so. Let your people know we’ve been talking, incidentally. We certainly appreciate all the help you can give us. Ah…is the Mayor around? Any idea where he is?”

“Probably across the street. Other than that, he hasn’t checked in for a couple of hours.”

“Thank you.”

She turned to go, halfway to the doors in fact.

“Colonel.”

She turned.

“Yes?”

“Kick their asses, Colonel. Please.”

The officer’s head was down and he was tapping on his console, and yet another phone was buzzing in the background.

“You can count on it, Constable, and thank you.”

His eyes came up and there was a faint grin on his face as he held the phone to his ear.

“Ha. I believe we can—I believe we can. Hello. Roussef Police Services. How may I help you?”

Yeah, she thought. It’s his planet too. This is his home too.

Of course he’s angry—

Of course he cares.

***

She found the Mayor in the deserted City Hall. He was in his office with a rather distraught-looking young woman wringing her hands and desperately trying to get him to leave. She was just in time to see him knock over a cold coffee with his elbow and the young lady with him scramble to sop it up with paper towels before it ruined everything on the desk.

“Mister Byron.”

The young woman looked up.

The Mayor, eyes wet, was mumbling, slumped in his chair and staring off into space.

“Mayor Byron. We can’t let you stay here.”

“But—but—but.”

He trailed off, shaking his head. He wouldn’t look at her. His hands were all over the place.

Scared shitless. Wanted to go down with his ship. Didn’t know what to do—couldn’t accept it.

Borderline suicidal. It wasn’t too hard to read and she wondered what other issues he might have had.

Dona nodded at the young woman, presumably an assistant manager or some other employee of the town. His secretary, most likely. Dona didn’t care and so she didn’t ask.

Pulling out her com unit, she spoke.

“I’ll get you some help with him.”

“Thank you—thank you.”

Uttering a deep sigh, Dona put in the number for police headquarters. If he would listen to anyone, it would be his own cops.

They’d strap him into a gurney and carry him out, if that’s what it took.

(End of part thirteen.)

Previous Episodes.

Part One

Part Two

Part Three

Part Four

Part Five

Part Six.

Part Seven.

Part Eight.

Part Nine.

Part Ten.

Part Eleven.

Part Twelve.

Images.

Image One. Denebola-Seven Defense Force.

Image Two. Roussef Township Volunteer Fire Department.

Image Three. Collection the author.

Image Four. Chamber of Commerce.

Image Five. Roussef Police Services.

Image Six. Collection the author.

Louis Shalako has books and stories available fromiTunes. All of them are free for July. 

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