Line #9 YMMV/TroyRising


1	* FridgeLogic:
2	** Solar power is NEVER used. For anything. A serious problem in the second book revolves around Earth being cut off from interstellar fuel. No one mentions solar power. Coal, nuclear, sure, solar, never even though the SAPL is basically solar power writ large it's never even mentioned. Everything runs off [=He3=] to the point where it feels very odd. At least until you remember that Ringo is a teaparty Conservative who thinks solar power is a lefty pinko environmentalist plot to ruin decent businesses in the name of communism. No, really, that's what Ringo thinks.
3	*** The factories were the lion's share of solar panels are manufactured were destroyed when China's cities where bombarded, and the people that would man those factories were radically depopulated by the Horvath plagues. Environmentalists frequently work at cross-purposes, denouncing the environmental impacts that dams have on salmon or that vast fields of solar panels have on the ecosystem of desert tortoises. [=He3=] became a significant portion of the US power infrastructure precisely because it was the one energy source that nobody stringently opposed.
4	** They have mirrors sufficient to turn sunlight into BeamSpam, so they probably just got overly focused.
5	** More to the point, [=He3=] is extremely rare, and the fuel stations pumps a lot of atmosphere to get it. You'd think they might try harvesting fuel for fusion too. That way, you get high efficiency ground power plants, and spacecraft that are in the realm of possibility for most modern industrialized countries to build. For that matter, after Vernon decides to use a clean fusion bomb-pumped ORION engine for the battleglobes, you would think Earth might start trying to build ORION shuttles. They could probably carry a similar cargo capacity to Paw tugs, whilst being exceptionally cheaper to produce and run.
6	*** The clean fusion bombs used on the Orion drives were also [=He3=]-based.
7	** Even stranger, Solar panels are things we have powering the majority of our space stations, satellites, and probes ''now.'' And for ships too far out from the sun to benefit (such as the Voyager probes), they have nuclear power sources... which again, we have ''now.'' And would probably be even more effective when combined with alien tech.
8	* The nuclear-decay generators on the Voyager probes are an extremely** low-power system that runs passive nuclear decay rather than active fission/fusion. And solar power on existing spacecraft is sufficient to keep the lights on. No earth-tech power system can supply the obscene power demanded of grav tech, and every ship built since the liberation from Horvath had a grav drive (Star Fury), artificial gravity (populated areas of the battleglobes) or both (Myrmidons). They discussed installing nuclear submarine reactors on Troy during the shortage, but it wasn't going to be enough.
9	** Solar power is efficient en masse, but is incredibly inefficient if you need a lot of energy in a small, self-contained package. Additionally, turning to solar just changes which rare element you need - rare earth metals for batteries, instead of He-3 for engines.
10	*** At least we actually have those metals available on earth, unlike [=He3=].
11	* HilariousInHindsight: The first book was published just as private spaceflight was really kicking off. The book presents NASA as insufferably obstructionist. Actual NASA has turned out to be very hospitable to the advancement of private space travel.
12	* SpiritualAdaptation: Of ''Webcomic/SchlockMercenary''. Ringo and Taylor met, hit it off, and when Ringo mused on the First Contact days, Tayler enthusiastically gave him permission to write that story. Unfortunately, they lost touch and the books fell into CanonDiscontinuity. [[http://schlockmercenary.wikispaces.com/FAQ Taylor still loves them, however.]]
13	-->'''Howard Taylor''': ''I wish those Ringo books were canon, but no, they're not. John and I haven't compared notes in three years. We've diverged. We'd need a nuclear shoehorn to make these things fit in the same, consistent space. Hopefully that doesn't ruin anybody's fun. If you want to create a section [in [[http://schlockmercenary.wikispaces.com the Schlock Mercenary wiki]]] for "Reconciling Schlock Mercenary with Troy Rising" you have our blessing.''
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Context YMMV / TroyRising