Liner Notes 9

Some notes on the ninth instalment of my space opera serial, In Mitigation For The Crime Of Mutiny and also for the attendant piece, Anti-Gravity.

Liner Notes 9

This, the trial and interrogation story, was the most fun story in the series for me. It was one of the ideas from the start and also always slated to be in the second half of the planned 13 instalment run. I had a firm handle on the characters and the Deep Patrol as they were in practice, rather than the sketchy notes I began with, so by the time I wrote this I could put them all through variants on the theme of questioning. I hope you enjoy the nonsense they put Ashtree through.

If not, then maybe the Secret History of the Deep Patrol™ will have interested you. For various reasons you get half the story here and half next month. Why is this a two-parter? Well, it just is.

Okay, I considered dumping all the background for the Deep Patrol in one story, but it means about half of an instalment would be a three thousand word essay on what’s been going on in the background and why. This is meant to be light hearted adventure fiction. It seemed a bit much. So you get half here in the middle of the trial story and the other half where is was always going to be, in the encounter with an Oracle. How to deal with an Artificial Super Intelligence that can predict what you’re going to do before you can. That’s the question I’m setting up here. I can’t think of a better cliffhanger.

Liner Notes 9a

If gravity is broken to the extent that anti-gravity is possible then all of space and time is up for grabs. Hence the weirdness about time and chronology I keep making references to. Even if I’m not building up to a time travel story it’s good to keep it in the background, just in case (and to cover up any errors).

Comments

Popular Posts