Liner Notes for Information Hygiene
Liner Notes for my story Information Hygiene
Interstellar navigation! You know the analogy here, it’s Age of Sail ships. You follow courses you’ve calculated to where you hope to find a landmark, heading up or down a coast until you recognise something, either from experience or from your charts and guides. To push the analogy a little too far stages of faster than light are out of sight of land, navigating by instruments, and in realspace by land, with the potential dangers but also a clear view of where you are.
All this is complicated by difficulties, some of which 18th century navigators would find familiar, some they would not. Using more than one set of charts and descriptions of course, of varying quality. The changeable nature, in one season a calm sea and favourable winds turns into a dangerous, wrecking strait. And the possibility that hostile ships might turn up and decide to rob you. Age of Sail? Age of Piracy.
Of course piracy can also be “piracy”; state-sponsored seizing of ships. A letter of marque, allowing a private citizen to act on behalf of the state. Mercenaries, those hired as soldiers – or sailors in some circumstances. People of one nationality sent to act as an officer for another, military advisers or trainers.
In this ambiguous legal space is Cerulean Shard. Flagged in one jurisdiction, hired in another. Acting not-quite within generally agreed rules, in space where no one claims authority. In the grey zone.
I should have left Gunn on board, let him see what it’s like to find yourself on the wrong side of people acting as they want because no one can stop them.
Welcome to the midpoint of Space Angel Pursuit, story seven of thirteen, the pivot. Here’s where they stop running and start pursuing! Except there’s another structure on top of this. Stories four, eight and twelve return to other characters from earlier Deep Patrol stories doing other things, so next month we divert to another track. Though they’re related to the main plot as I hope will become clear, in story thirteen if not earlier (scheduled for December 2024).
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