Building a Space Navy

My new digs (sorry, I just couldn't resist).

So, I entered my top-secret bunker in the autumn of 2012 and just came out last week to check the radiation levels.  That's where I've been.  Yeah, that's it...

Anyway, I found this link a few months ago (Uhhhh...while still in my bunker) on the Inter-webs.  It's a episode of the Adventures in Sci-Fi Publishing podcast.  This episode was recorded at Demi-Con,  with Naval Analyst  Christopher Weuve (part of the Honorverse brain-trust) talking about designing the Space Navy(s) seen in David Weber's works. It also features talk-talk by Tom Pope from Ad Astra about hammering out the Saganami Island Tactical Simulator and the (then) new House of Steel Companion. It's a funny listen;  for example, Reeve at one points tells the audience that, for purposes of their discussion, they are assuming that the Air Force is a military organization.

So here is the link for the original podcast: 


If you want to design a Space Navy, make this chart your friend.

Perhaps the most useful part of the whole podcast for a gamers with the dirty habit of injecting plausibility into their SF (Aside from David Weber himself recommending game mastering for all aspiring writers) is this chart:

This chart, along with other sundry detritus from the world of speculative fiction, have been a big influence on my work lately.  Big like the whole Mission Control thing was big.  Future posts will show how an outline based on this chart has be of great use to me in designing not only fleets of spacecraft, but campaign settings, comic strips, and novel plots.

How can a little chart do so much?  I've said it before:  Soft Science Fiction tries to make technology fit the imagination, and Hard Science Fiction tries to imagine what fits the technology.  This chart provides a great framework of technology, logistics, and practical organization to fit one's imagination into.

It feels good to be back...