Cover of the first book
Solar Warden is a new sci-fi book series by Ian Douglas, currently consisting of novels Alien Secrets, Alien Hostiles, and Alien Agendas. The series aims to be a Conspiracy Kitchen Sink involving UFOs, time-traveling aliens, alien tech reverse-engineered by both the US and the Nazis, etc.Lieutenant Commander Mark Hunter is a Navy SEAL (specifically a member of what used to be known as SEAL Team Six), sent to covertly observe a North Korean nuclear test site with his team. Then he and his men suddenly witness a gleaming flying saucer appear out of nowhere. They see humanoid figures (several small ones with big heads and one that appeared to be human) in a hatch before the UFO does something that causes the entire mountain to collapse. Hunter makes sure to record everything on video. Upon being picked up by the submarine USS Illinois, Hunter is debriefed by a man from the CIA, who orders him and his men to keep quiet about everything they saw. After returning stateside, he is approached by Rear Admiral Kelsey, who offers him a new assignment. Hunter accepts and is taken to an underground complex underneath Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, where he and the other five members of his team who accepted are told about the existence of several alien groups, namely the so-called "Nordics", "Greys", and "Saurians". The Nordics are not actually extraterrestrial, being time-traveling humans from about 11,000 years in the future. The Greys look like your typical alien but are also revealed to be descended from humans, but a million years from now. Not much is known about the Saurians. They appear to be similar in appearance to the Greys but with decidedly reptilian features. Hunter also learns that the US (with Nordic help) has secretly built a space fleet to defend Earth from any external aggression. They are soon met by special forces members from other branches of the US military and intelligence and are told they are being put into a unit under Hunter's command. Unfortunately, they don't get a chance to try out they new gear, as they are immediately shipped off to Darkside Base, located on the far side of the Moon, with the journey taking minutes instead of days. They are assigned to the USSS Roscoe H. Hillenkoeter, one of the eight massive carriers that form the core of the Solar Warden space fleet, and are to take part in the vessel's first interstellar journey to investigate Zeta Reticuli and Aldebaran.
The books include examples of the following tropes:
- Alien Abduction: The Greys and the Saurians do it. The Greys actually strong-armed President Eisenhower to sign a treaty allowing them to abduct and perform genetic testing on a small number of Americans in exchange for some of their tech. He initially refused but they said that they'd go to the Soviets instead. Unwilling to let the Soviets have alien tech, he signed the treaty. But it later turned out that not only do they abduct significantly more than stated in the treaty, but they don't always return the abductees. The Saurians don't bother with any treaties (they don't even understand the concept) and just abduct whomever they like.
- Artificial Gravity: A key technology reverse-engineered from crashed UFOs. It not only allows reducing a ship's effective mass, but has a number of other uses, including Reactionless Drive, Deflector Shields, Inertial Dampening, and Faster-Than-Light Travel.
- The Battlestar: Star Warden's spaceship carriers like the USSS Roscoe H. Hillenkoeter serve as both fighter launch platforms and front-line battleships, although they normally travel with cruisers for support. The carrier's most powerful weapon is a 300-meter spinal Mass Accelerator Gun (basically a railgun). The Big H ends up using it in the second novel while traveling at 90% of the speed of light (and using sensor data from one of the cruisers to aim the MAG, as her own sensors are unreliable at those speeds). The hit guts a massive alien ship with weapons powerful enough to One-Hit Kill a Solar Warden cruiser and shields that shrug off cruiser lasers.
- Been There, Shaped History: Apparently, Hans Kammler was almost the one to take a shot at Ronald Reagan under Saurian mind control, as Reagan was drawing up plans to fight the Saurians. However, John Hinckley, Jr., had a better shot, although he still missed.
- Conspiracy Kitchen Sink: Many conspiracy theories turn out to be true, just not necessarily in the way people think.
- Dress Hits Floor: More like "Dress Disappears." In the third novel, Elanna invites Hunter to her quarters and shows him some of her memories via Mental Fusion. Then she presses a green dot on her throat, and her dress dissolves, leaving her standing there in all her naked glory. Surprisingly, Hunter manages to retain some self-control, even when under the effect of Elanna's pheromones, and tries to tell her that he's already in a relationship. Except then he thinks about it and realizes that he and Gerri were never exclusive due to him often being on deployment. Elanna explains that nudity is not taboo in her culture. Hunter assumes that this was all just a demonstration and is a little relieved that she's not trying to sleep with him. Elanna counters that of course she is and proceeds to do just that, with Hunter being a willing participant.
- Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": Saurians have no names. They have no need of them, as they are a part of a telepathic Hive Mind where names are meaningless. They do have designations, however, which refer to their current role. For example, the Saurian who introduced himself as Ssarsk was the third pilot of the UFO that crash-landed in the Black Forest, which is exactly what that designation means.
- Flying Saucer: The most common type of alien craft. As Hunter learns, the aliens are apparently not so great at safety, since so many of them have crashed on Earth over the decades. At the same time, a large number of them aren't actually shaped like saucers but crescents.
- Free-Love Future: According to Elanna, permanent relationships aren't really a thing in her time. While some prefer serial monogamy, most don't form any exclusive relationships at all. Sex isn't treated as anything taboo or special. Public nudity is also a normal occurrence. It's just a way to express yourself and to get to know another person closer.
- Frickin' Laser Beams: The 1-JSST is issued RAND/Starbeam 3000 variable-stream heavy laser rifles as their primary weapons. While they're certainly powerful at the highest setting, the battery can only handle 4 such shots before being depleted. Firing at the lowest setting isn't likely to do much damage, despite extending the number of shots to 50. They're also given Sunbeam Type 1 Mod 3 pulse laser pistols with a battery pack that lasts for 4 shots, although each shot delivers enough energy as a standard blasting cap. The F/S-49 Stingray aerospace fighters are likewise armed with lasers (as well as Gatling guns and missiles).
- The Greys: One of the most common species of aliens encountered by humans. They're actually humans from about a million years in the future. In fact, there are multiple factions across space and time. Some look more human with regular eyes, while others are more alien with utterly black eyes. Their thought processes are entirely unlike those of modern humans. They're all telepathic. Some are working with the Saurians while others are working with the Talis.
- Human Aliens: The so-called "Nordics" are tall, white-haired, beautiful, with eyes slightly larger than normal. They are time travelers from around 11,000 years in our future and are descended from modern-day humans. They call themselves the Talis. Their women are seen as extremely arousing to modern men due to their enhanced pheromones.
- Inside a Computer System: The Xaxki (name translates to "Dreamers") spend their entire lives in a virtual reality system while their physical bodies sleep in asteroids. They're so unwilling to leave that they created an entirely different species of Guardians to take care of their relations with the outside world.
- Invisibility Cloak: While it's technically possible to use powerful gravity fields to keep any emissions from escaping a ship, thus rendering it invisible to any sensors, the very act of doing it is would be like screaming "I'm here!" at the top of your lungs, since most starfaring races possess the means to detect gravity manipulation in a star system.
- Invisible Aliens: The Nordics explain that all starfaring races develop a specialized means of interstellar communication which they use to exchange messages. The humans realize that this is why SETI never picked up any signals from aliens. They compare it to a primitive tribe listening for drumbeats and completely missing the invisible radio signals flying past them.
- Laser-Guided Karma:
- Even Hans Kammler can admit to himself that there is a certain irony to him, a former SS general who has actively participated in the Holocaust and showing no remorse for it, being treated as little more than an animal by the Saurians. They even refer to him as "it". Kammler freaks out when Hunter and his team arrive to free the research subjects from the Saurians, as Kammler can't help but draw parallels between them and the Jews being led to "shower". He ends up having a nervous breakdown and slips into a coma.
- In the second book, the group of Nazis that agree to allow the Saurians to take them to Aldebaran, which Nazi mythology claims is the original home of the Aryan race, ends up in what is essentially an alien concentration camp, which is even set up similar to the Nazi concentration camps with some of the prisoners being used as guards in exchange for better treatment.
- The Masquerade: Established by President Eisenhower after his meetings with the aliens, largely because of the Cold War. Starting with JFK, though, MJ-12 has begun slowly working towards full disclosure, including helping to release movies like E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial and Close Encounters of the Third Kind to better prepare the public.
- Really 700 Years Old: One of the Talis is usually traveling aboard the Big H as a liaison. When it's revealed that she was embedded as an agent in Nazi Germany, the humans ask if she's really 70 or just used time travel. She says it was the latter but then wonders how old they think she is. They say she looks about 30. She thanks them for the compliment but explains that she's closer to 1200, as her people live for quite a long time.
- Red Shirt: There are many deaths during the battles, but most of them had no characterization, being named and then dying to show that these aliens can actually kill people.
- Reports of My Death Were Greatly Exaggerated: The name of the third-ranking member of Majestic 12 is never given, but it's stated that he's the only person to ever been both a US President and a Director of Central Intelligence. A quick google search will reveal that the person's name is George H. W. Bush. Except he was supposed to have passed away in 2018, and the events of the novels take place in 2021.
- Reptilian Conspiracy: Saurians are humanoid lizards with a telepathic Hive Mind. They are generally unfriendly to humans and Nordics. They're actually evolved dinosaurs from the distant past. Their name for themselves is the Surviving Few, as they are the remnant of their once thriving civilization (presumably the meteor had something to do with it).
- Seers: In the second novel, two remote viewers from the Stargate Project (no, not that one) come aboard the Hillenkoeter in order to use their talents to try to get a look inside 'Oumuamua and to try to see what's going on at Aldebaran. Their abilities are proven to be real, although they're unprepared for Telepathic Spacemen to be able to give them a Poke in the Third Eye. The entities inside 'Oumuamua leave one of them catatonic and the other in a severe shock, although she recovers. Furthermore, it's discovered that they are able to view targets not only in another location, but also in another time. Their handler is skeptical, but scientists suggest that the Einsteinian nature of spacetime likely allows for that.
- Shame If Something Happened: The government agent calling Hunter's cell phone after he starts talking to his girlfriend about UFOs makes this type of threat against her. As he learns the next day, though, Solar Warden had nothing to do with it but rather different elements of the government.
- Space Cold War: This state of affairs exists between the Nordics and the Saurians, complicated by the fact that both races also possess Time Travel. There's an unspoken agreement to avoid messing with each other's history too much lest the other side respond in kind. As such, they tend to use less advanced races (like the humans) to do their fighting for them. Hunter compares it to the actual Cold War, and the Nordic woman agrees that the analogy is apt. Then Hunter learns that the Saurians are also from Earth, being evolved dinosaurs, and the primary reason the Nordics fear messing with the Saurian past is because it could have unforeseen consequences on their own history.
- Space Marines: Hunter's new team is essentially this. Previously, Solar Warden actually employed US Marines for the role but eventually realized they needed someone else.
- Stable Time Loop: At the end of Alien Secrets, Hunter goes on a mission in a Grey saucer, which ends up being the very same mission he witnessed at the start of the novel. The humanoid figure that waved to him from the saucer? It was himself. When he angrily confronted the Admiral about the need to send a SEAL team into North Korea if they were already planning on attacking the test site, the Admiral explains that the Greys only agreed to the mission if they knew in advance that it would be successful, thus the need for a scout team ahead of time.
- Starfish Aliens: This is how “true” aliens are distinguished from the Ultraterrestrials. The Greys, Nordics, and Saurians only remotely resemble terrestrial organisms because that’s exactly what they are. Genuine extraterrestrials are far more alien in body, mind, and even basic chemistry.
- Stupid Jetpack Hitler: Nazi Germany was developing advanced aircraft and weapons based on reverse-engineered Saurian technology with the help of Saurians. The project was overseen by SS Obergruppenführer Hans Kammler. Apparently, had Germany been able to hold out for a few more months, the Allies would have been beaten soundly. After the fall of Berlin, Kammler had all the scientists and workers eliminated and himself fled 20 years into the future on Die Glocke ("the bell"), a repaired Saurian space/time craft, which landed in Kecksburg, PA, in 1965. He was being expected, however, and was picked up by members of MJ-12 and put to work as an expert on Saurians and their tech. No one likes working with him, though, as, unlike the other German scientists (brought over under Operation Paperclip), Kammler is unrepentant over his role in the Holocaust and using slave labor. In the second book, the Hillenkoeter runs into Haunebu saucers adorned with the Balkenkreuz at Aldebaran, although the saucers are flown either entirely or partly by Saurians. But flashbacks reveal that the original designs for the craft were given by the Saurians to the Nazis in order to escalate World War II.
- Subspace Ansible: Nordics and Greys have it, but humans have yet to figure out how it works, so they have to rely on good old-fashioned radio waves. The Saurians are a telepathic Hive Mind and just communicate that way.
- Telepathic Spacemen: The Greys and the Saurians are psychic and communicate this way. Saurians are even able to Mind Control both humans and Greys. Except the Greys are not really "spacemen", since they're an example of Humans Are Psychic in the Future. And the Saurians aren't "spacemen" either since they're evolved dinosaurs from the distant past.
- Time Travel: As any starfaring species discovers fairly quickly, Faster-Than-Light Travel and time travel are linked intimately. Thus, discovering one leads to discovering the other. It can not only be used to go back to different time periods but also return home only a short while after departing, even after spending a year away.
- Translator Microbes: The Hillenkoeter has a translator that knows many galactic languages (though apparently not human languages, because when the crew needs someone who speaks German, they have to find an actual person).
- Transplanted Humans: One of the tasks of of the Hillenkoeter battlegroup is to travel to Aldebaran to locate a possible Nazi colony established with the help of the Saurians shortly before the fall of the Third Reich. They do find hundreds of thousands of Nazi descendants living there, but they're little more than slaves of the Saurians and their human collaborators. They're mining resources and are building an invasion force in order to take advantage of the fractious modern world (which is partly that way thanks to Saurian infiltrators and their agents) and start a global nuclear war.
- Ultraterrestrials: The Nordics and the Greys are both descended from humanity 11,000 and a million years from now, respectively. However, the Greys have been actively manipulating the human genome virtually since the appearance of the homo sapiens, so, in a way, they have created themselves. At the end of Alien Secrets, Hunter learns that the Saurians are also from Earth, being evolved dinosaurs, who have fled the cataclysm that destroyed their civilization. Unlike the Nordics and the Greys, the Saurians are time travelers from the distant past. In the third novel, he starts to get certain suspicions about the Saurians, and Elanna eventually confirms that the Saurians created humanity 2 million years ago to use them as servants and food, but now they're upset that humans have overrun their planet and want to reclaim it.
- Worf Barrage:
- When confronted with a Saurian ship and boarded by its crew, the captain of the Hillenkoeter orders the main guns to fire on it. The blasts have no effect.
- Invoked by a Saurian who flies a ship above Los Angeles with Kemperer, demonstrating how none of America's anti-aircraft defenses can damage the craft. This shows Kemperer just how superior Saurian technology is to human technology.
- You Are Number Four: Full Talis names include numbers that come before names. Modern humans usually drop the numbers, though, and the Talis don't mind. A prominent member of the Talis who works with Solar Warden is 425812 Elanna.
