What next after To End in Fire

About that sequel. I think the title TEiF is itself a hint that Darius will be found.

The End. Will end. In fire.

I don't think fire happened in this book. And, it was not the end. In a way, I think it is an omen of how Darius will have to be dealt with.

cthia wrote:About that sequel. I think the title TEiF is itself a hint that Darius will be found.

The End. Will end. In fire.

I don't think fire happened in this book. And, it was not the end. In a way, I think it is an omen of how Darius will have to be dealt with.

Huh? Which book did you read? There was a major battle that destroyed the entire infrastructure of a system, plus a last act of defiance from the defenders. I call that fire.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

cthia wrote:About that sequel. I think the title TEiF is itself a hint that Darius will be found.

The End. Will end. In fire.

I don't think fire happened in this book. And, it was not the end. In a way, I think it is an omen of how Darius will have to be dealt with.

Huh? Which book did you read? There was a major battle that destroyed the entire infrastructure of a system, plus a last act of defiance from the defenders. I call that fire.

True on both accounts, but I don't call that fire. I call that business as usual. Infrastructure has been destroyed throughout the books. I'd say the attack on Sol was closer to fire than Galton. But you may be right, I have only my nightmares to back me up.

At any rate, it was not The End, of the Mesan Alignment. Was it even the beginning of The End?

cthia wrote:True on both accounts, but I don't call that fire. I call that business as usual. Infrastructure has been destroyed throughout the books. I'd say the attack on Sol was closer to fire than Galton. But you may be right, I have only my nightmares to back me up.

The Battle of Sol was a walk in the park compared to the Battle of Galton. The GF was never in any danger during the entire "battle" of Sol. In fact, only accidental deaths happened during that battle, when some of the missiles fired at Reserve One near Naval Station Ganymede failed to attack their intended targets and struck something else. Some four hundred SDs and their escorts were struck from the SLN ship roster, and the single biggest military-industrial complex in the Galaxy became space dust, but at most a couple thousand people died.

At Galton, the GF suffered losses, more than 10 capital ships. It also caused far more death on the defenders, even if you don't count the self-destructions of the three stations. The battles of Beowulf and Hypatia were also bigger losses of personnel for the SLN. Heck, the Battle of Saltash caused comparable losses of personnel and the GA only had 5 destroyers in that battle.

No, if there's an adjective for that battle, it's not "fiery." It's "humiliating." The SLN started with 400+ superdreadnoughts and not a single missile hit a target! Star Wars' Imperial Stormtroppers would be ashamed of that performance.

At any rate, it was not The End, of the Mesan Alignment. Was it even the beginning of The End?

[/quote]

Good question.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:At Galton, the GF suffered losses, more than 10 capital ships. It also caused far more death on the defenders, even if you don't count the self-destructions of the three stations.

Most of the losses were 'wow, I haven't killed enough RMN ships, but I don't feel like rewriting the battle, so I'll have something the fleet can handle with ease blow a bunch of ships up and nobody will notice' kind of losses.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

cthia wrote:True on both accounts, but I don't call that fire. I call that business as usual. Infrastructure has been destroyed throughout the books. I'd say the attack on Sol was closer to fire than Galton. But you may be right, I have only my nightmares to back me up.

The Battle of Sol was a walk in the park compared to the Battle of Galton. The GF was never in any danger during the entire "battle" of Sol. In fact, only accidental deaths happened during that battle, when some of the missiles fired at Reserve One near Naval Station Ganymede failed to attack their intended targets and struck something else. Some four hundred SDs and their escorts were struck from the SLN ship roster, and the single biggest military-industrial complex in the Galaxy became space dust, but at most a couple thousand people died.

At Galton, the GF suffered losses, more than 10 capital ships. It also caused far more death on the defenders, even if you don't count the self-destructions of the three stations. The battles of Beowulf and Hypatia were also bigger losses of personnel for the SLN. Heck, the Battle of Saltash caused comparable losses of personnel and the GA only had 5 destroyers in that battle.

No, if there's an adjective for that battle, it's not "fiery." It's "humiliating." The SLN started with 400+ superdreadnoughts and not a single missile hit a target! Star Wars' Imperial Stormtroppers would be ashamed of that performance.

At any rate, it was not The End, of the Mesan Alignment. Was it even the beginning of The End?

Good question.

You said it.

The single biggest industrial complex in the Galaxy became space dust. Along with a monstrous reserve. That is what I call ending in fire. Regardless of how many lives were lost.

As a matter of fact, would someone help me to recall the system and the name of the poor commander who had to scuttle his own ships and infrastructure when the Peeps came acallin to prevent the base from falling into enemy hands? Although that, may be called ending in fire, it was also just business as usual.

The book's title probably came from a Tolkien-inspired quote: "We kill the dragon. If this is to end in fire, then we will all burn together!"

It's almost certainly a reference to Adebayo's final act - and her final words were another literary reference regarding vengeance as her last missiles tried to kill Honor Harrington, who has occasionally been nicknamed the Salamander. That's pretty much a dragon, isn't it?

munroburton wrote:The book's title probably came from a Tolkien-inspired quote: "We kill the dragon. If this is to end in fire, then we will all burn together!"

It's almost certainly a reference to Adebayo's final act - and her final words were another literary reference regarding vengeance as her last missiles tried to kill Honor Harrington, who has occasionally been nicknamed the Salamander. That's pretty much a dragon, isn't it?

Thank you, this is wonderful.

munroburton wrote:The book's title probably came from a Tolkien-inspired quote: "We kill the dragon. If this is to end in fire, then we will all burn together!"

It's almost certainly a reference to Adebayo's final act - and her final words were another literary reference regarding vengeance as her last missiles tried to kill Honor Harrington, who has occasionally been nicknamed the Salamander. That's pretty much a dragon, isn't it?

Yes, it is most likely a reference to Adebayo's final act. I mentioned a while ago that I always look for the reference to the title of a book within its pages. Oftentimes it is obvious. And your take on it is nothing short of brilliance.

But that still leaves the fact that we as readers expected the title to have something to do with the end of the MAlign Alignment. And it didn't.

As a matter of fact, that may have been the beginning of the Benign Alignment to assume its rightful place in the galaxy.

The question has to be asked, "Where from here for Galton?" Wouldn't it be ironic if Galton becomes an ally of the GA?

At any rate, it still leaves the question. What, where, and how, will be the end of Darius? Because Darius hasn't ended in fire. Darius hasn't ended at all. It wasn't even the end of the search for Darius.

I just reread the book. Sometimes I read too fast the first round. At any rate it changed the picture for me and forced some rethinking.

Here are some thoughts.

Except for some rather brief comments, by Simoes after they got him out of Mesa, they don't know about the spider. They do know about the sharks which Simoes was deeply involved with, but whether or not he was able to give Foraker, Hemphill, etc al. enough info to reverse engineer the shark is unknown at this time. What the Alliance does know about is the effective cloaking. However, Honor's fleet is able to detect both the old style SLN style and the more advanced MAlign cloaking on the hastas. That is at least encouraging.

As for the end of the story, I think that it is safe to say that the GA is going to encounter some nasty surprises when they finally get to Darius. Going out on a limb where it could be sawed off behind me, I think this leaves room for one more book. If I am right, everything following that will be books and anthologies filling in back story.

Don

-