Troy Rising

Was bored and thought I'd talk with some people about this series. I like the amount of construction discussion in the books, I find it very interesting.

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Right now I'm waiting for... erm, nothing, at the moment. The Hot Gate is out now, apparently.

Dammit, I need to check webscriptions more frequently!

'Scuze me, I'll be absent for a bit.

(I don't do eARCs, regardless of how much I like the author. I'm not so impatient to read a new work to pay more for an un-edited copy ahead of the formal release date.)

edited 3rd Jun '11 4:27:57 AM by Nohbody

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Well, that explains the typos in the version I read.

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Yeah Advance Reader Copies (e- or otherwise) are always before editing for public release, to drum up interest in the work when it's finally finished.

Not that Baen hasn't fumbled from time to time on final edited versions, though. Granted, more than a bit of that tends to be with Weber's books because of the added layer from the voice transcription program (Dragon Dictate) he uses.

All your safe space are belong to Trump

Since you've started editing the page, I assume you've finished reading it?

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Yeah, finished it earlier this morning, after a binge over the weekend between bouts of disappointment at ConCarolinas (though to be fair, it's possible that Dragoncon has spoiled me about what to expect from an SF con).

To be honest, although I like Ringo's writing (yes, even that*

), the Author Tract/Author Filibuster stuff is getting a bit tiresome, and in the case of THG was a bit distracting from an otherwise good read.

On the upside, I liked how Citadel and THG have fleshed out the Rangora as something other than the standard "ravening horde of alien barbarians" often found in science fiction. While I wouldn't mind if he started on that in the first book of a series (Posleen War Series and Council Wars come to mind, offhand, as other works in that mold), when he writes, I am pleased that he ultimately does show them as [edit]something other than[/edit] another bunch of faceless mooks the Good Guys(tm) can mow down with impunity.

edited 7th Jun '11 5:06:36 AM by Nohbody

All your safe space are belong to Trump

I think that's the first time I've seen him do Space Barbarians as the actual badguys to my knowledge. The Posleen were Horde of Alien Locusts, I haven't read either Council Wars or Prince Roger, the "zerg" from Through The Looking Glass were, again, Horde of Alien Locusts. I'd say one of his lower level Author Tract is that advanced technology is no match for properly exploited technology.

Fight smart, not fair.

BTW, I rewrote the Author Filibuster entry to make it less whiny, do you think that covers the issue without wandering into bashing territory?

Fight smart, not fair.

At least while on Marduk, most of Prince Roger/Bronze Battalion's sapient enemies (that is, not the Everything Is Trying to Kill You Death World itself) were of the "barbarian hordes" kind. Council Wars, the Big Bad and the upper end of the chain of command (sorta-kinda) are varying degrees of human, but command orc barbarian hordes (though arguably with a touch of locust in them).

With Prince Roger, at the locals aren't immediately in contact with the protagonist group, so taking time to develop the heroes first is understandable, but in Council Wars it more or less follows the model of "good guys get characterization first, bad guys get some later in the story".

As for the AF entry, yeah it does look a lot less complaining about books you don't like now. The entry on the AF page itself could use some similar vitriol-ectomy, though. I'll get that in a minute.

[edit] Took an axe swing at the Ringo entry and a couple of others on the Author Filibuster page, FWIW, and a suggestion in the edit reason that much more is needed.

edited 7th Jun '11 5:48:36 AM by Nohbody

All your safe space are belong to Trump

Yeah, generally when you talk about something, it's better to err on the side of gushing rather than bashing. I mean, I stay off the Shakespeare pages and don't bash on the main wiki, I don't think it's too much to ask that others take the same view.

Fight smart, not fair.

HOW DARE YOU NOT HATE WHAT I HATE!!1!!1!!11!oneone

Seriously, neither extreme is better, but some people have difficulty not turning TV Tropes into their personal online bullhorn equivalent for parading their opinions for the whole world to see. Had a similar problem with some folks trying to step onto the Carreras Legions page as a soapbox for their pet hatred of Tom Kratman, fueled at least in part by a vitriolic hatchet job done on A Desert Called Peace, elsewhere (where specifically doesn't matter, not a concern for this thread).

Anyway, back on topic...

Given that a majority of the Rangoran fleet was trashed in THG, and their focus on smashing Earth with a somewhat secondary concern about cracking the hold-out Glatun worlds, I wonder if there are other asshole races out there who are giving serious consideration to making a grab for Rangoran worlds that probably have been left with minimal defensive forces by the gathering of forces for the Earth assault. Think of the more cynical interpretation of the Golden Rule (specifically, "do unto others before they do unto you"), or at least consider that those other races might have a bone to pick with Rangora for Rangoran aggression prior to the events of Troy Rising.

All your safe space are belong to Trump

Wouldn't surprise me. The Schlock Verse is full of assholes who don't know how keep from bombing the shit out of things.

There's a couple things I would do different when planning my system defense though. I would put missile clusters floating around the gate so that they don't have to be fired, you can just fire them as soon as something comes out of the gate.

I wonder if we'll get to see some Battle Plates in this.

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Apropos of not much, over on Baen's Bar there's discussion of a new unit of measure, called the Weber, from a comment about THG made in Ringo's Tavern talking about "Webers of missiles"*

. How many missiles count as a Weber is under debate at the moment, with suggested values of (from my known-crappy memory) 5K, 10K, 50K, and 100K, plus a suggestion for use as a non-specific "grouping" name (e.g. a pack of canines, or a pride of lions).

As for battleplates, I don't think it'd occur to them just yet. In Schlock Mercenary, it was use of rocks as weapons that prompted the notion of battleplates, whereas other than the initial rock bombardments from the Horvath going "Y HELO THAR" most of what's been a threat to Earth was missiles (and that decreasingly common as system defenses improve). Also, part of what makes battleplates such badass warships are their gravy guns, a technology not yet seen in TR (grav manipulation, yes, ditto breacher missiles, but not guns).

edited 9th Jun '11 7:39:28 AM by Nohbody

All your safe space are belong to Trump

I don't think the missiles work quite the same way between the two. I think the warheads in Schlock actually have some kind of detonation charge in them instead of being KKV/RKV since having one right next to the hull was used one time.

Is the Baen Bar a fun place? I've been looking for another place to hang out.

edited 9th Jun '11 8:01:40 PM by Deboss

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It depends in part on where you go on the Bar. Ringo's Tavern is kinda low-traffic, due in part to Ringo himself not going there for various reasons. I understand he can be seen on Facebook, but not having FB myself I dunno the details.

For the record, BTW, the FAQ on the official Schlock Mercenary wiki says that Troy Rising is not canon to Schlock Mercenary, and that the two writers haven't compared notes in several years. So betting on the evolution of TR's weaponry options based on SM is, at best, an exercise in futility.

All your safe space are belong to Trump

I edited a bit, please don't use Guilty Pleasure like it's an Audience Reaction, I put a bit of effort into cleaning it off.

I'm not sure how to do the canon thing. Do we still count it as The 'Verse and whatnot?

I probably should have expected it to not be canon. He made something that out weighs a battle plate in the first book.

edited 10th Jun '11 12:15:55 PM by Deboss

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I wasn't aware of the change for GP to in-universe only, and that was originally there from a previous edit by someone else. As much as I like Ringo's works, though, I can understand why some wouldn't want to be honest about doing so as well, so I just left it in the last edit I made.

As for cannonicity, in short TR is irrelevant to SM, for all practical purposes. At best it may qualify as a What If?, but otherwise is just an interesting series to read.

edited 11th Jun '11 6:00:49 AM by Nohbody

All your safe space are belong to Trump

Yeah, the opening of the first book with Taylor mentioning that says he's pretty loose with canon. Considering how he's been loose with the fourth wall as well, it makes sense.

Cleaning Guilty Pleasures was a royal pain because I had to go through and read every example checking for in universe. Turns out, I could have saved myself the trouble and dumped the whole thing.

Fight smart, not fair.

Backtracking a bit, on re-reading LFoD*

: They do have gravy guns, but they're new tech, short-ranged, and have high power requirements that limit them to the larger capital warships.

And dammit, I saw some new trope examples in that reread, but I forgot them already.

edited 16th Jun '11 5:40:00 AM by Nohbody

All your safe space are belong to Trump

It happens. Do you think we can confirm Fixed Forward-Facing Weapon for the Assault Vectors? I'm not clear on the design, although I know it was detailed in Hot Gate.

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Yes, there are FFFW weapons, though I forget the details offhand. I've continued my re-read of TR even with my connection up and running again, and just finished Ch 5 of THG (143rd gym incident), so I'll eventually get to the details on AV armament.

All your safe space are belong to Trump

Finished THG earlier today.

Still thinking on some stuff, but one thing in particular me, specifically the South American social issues. Are they really that screwed up, or is Ringo misinterpreting things? I mean, the RL armed forces of those countries don't seem to be hoplessly incompetent in that manner, though I'll grant you it's not like they've faced a major foe at the level of the US or fUSSR that would really stress them (no, not even in the Falklands in The '80s, the UK was at the end of a long and limited supply line, and were hardly at their British Empire peak at that point).

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I think it's more of an author tract that he likes to rant on (see the General Failure presence in the Posleen series) and while it may not be that bad, he may be exaggerating to hammer people over the head that nepotism is stupid. The point seemed to be that being an aristocrat makes for an incredibly bad leadership potential if you're of the Royals Who Dont Do Anything type.

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Can anyone document the books Ringo is going to add to the series? Quotes from the Baen website or something?

I haven't found anything and The Other Wiki doesn't seem to have anything.

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