What next after To End in Fire

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

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cthia wrote: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.

Other times it's lame, like "Are you guys astronauts in some kind of star trek?" in Star Trek: First Contact.

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

Doubtful, in the short or medium term. That's a system that was wholly indoctrinated in the kool-aid and was left in tatters. Right now, it's a drain in the GA's resources, as opposed to an asset.

Long-term, that could change. But I expect that the books will end before that comes to pass.

n7axw wrote: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.

Quick correction there: they know about the streak drive, which Simões was involved with, not the Sharks. The Sharks were battleship- or dreadnought-sized ships using the spider drive, so he should know absolutely nothing about them. You're probably just confusing the term.

There's also a bit of downplaying in this book. It's impossible to know for sure where RFC is going with this, short of him posting his intentions somewhere (or reading the next book!), but during MoH they were certain it was a new drive technology and Simões simply gave a name to it.

It's similar to the detection of the Hastas via bowshock. That's encouraging, but it could mean nothing. As we know, the spiders have very low acceleration, so they may never reach high enough interplanetary speeds to cause a detectable bowshock.

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.

Hmm... yes, it could be all wrapped up in a single book. It would be an UH-sized book, but it could be done. But it could be split into more than one, especially if we are to see an "A Rising Thunder" style escalation of catastrophes.

It may be that RFC thinks of wrapping up this part of the timeline and focus on the Manticore Ascendant and Star Kingdom books. One problem for long series is that new readers can't jump in at any point. That means the readership of the N+1 book should be lesser than or equal to the Nth book.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

cthia wrote: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.

Other times it's lame, like "Are you guys astronauts in some kind of star trek?" in Star Trek: First Contact.

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

Doubtful, in the short or medium term. That's a system that was wholly indoctrinated in the kool-aid and was left in tatters. Right now, it's a drain in the GA's resources, as opposed to an asset.

Long-term, that could change. But I expect that the books will end before that comes to pass.

It is the fact that Galton was wholly indoctrinated, trusting, and yet totally thrown under the bus. As a result, they would feel sleighted, disrespected, tools for fools, and out for revenge. IOW, there are many levels of ally. Galton could simply throw in with the rest of the Galaxy in searching for them.

"The enemy of my enemy is my friend."


Heck, Mesa should be out to bring their house down.

cthia wrote:It is the fact that Galton was wholly indoctrinated, trusting, and yet totally thrown under the bus. As a result, they would feel sleighted, disrespected, tools for fools, and out for revenge. IOW, there are many levels of ally. Galton could simply throw in with the rest of the Galaxy in searching for them.

Eventually, yes. But not at first. Their first reaction is going to be denial, of reality and of the facts.

Heck, Mesa should be out to bring their house down.

Right, the fact that the Enlightenment is flourishing in Mesa could help.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

n7axw wrote: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.

Quick correction there: they know about the streak drive, which Simões was involved with, not the Sharks. The Sharks were battleship- or dreadnought-sized ships using the spider drive, so he should know absolutely nothing about them. You're probably just confusing the term.

A clarification on your correction.
You're right that Simões wasn't (AFAWK) deeply involved in the Sharks; and that he was deeply involved in the streak drive.
However he did know enough about the spider drive to share its name, and at least some useful information, with Haven and Manticore.

(Guess it's possible that through his work on the streak drive he'd become aware of the Sharks -- who were surely equipped with it. Or it's possible that, as they were testbeds for the Spider drive and he had some peripheral knowledge of it, that he might have been aware of them -- at least in general terms. But even if he was unaware of the specific ships outfitted with it he did, as I said, have at least basic knowledge of the spider drive as well as his more detailed info on the streak drive)

In the first quote I don't think the Detweilers yet knew that Simões had defected; hence blaming things on McBryde.

A Rising Thunder wrote:Benjamin said harshly. “I don’t know how much information McBryde actually handed Zilwicki and Cachat, or how much substantiation they’ve got for it, but they got one hell of a lot more than we’d want them to have! They’re talking about virus-based nanotech assassinations, the streak drive, and the spider drive, and they’re naming names about something called ‘the Mesan Alignment.’ In fact, they’re busy telling the Manty Parliament—and, I’m sure, the Havenite Congress and all the rest of the fucking galaxy!—all about the Mesan plan to conquer the known universe. In fact, you’ll be astonished to know that Secretary of State Arnold Giancola was in the nefarious Alignment’s pay when he deliberately maneuvered Haven back into shooting at the Manties!”

Also Honor specifically indicated that while he wasn't involved in the development of the Spider drive that he had provided enough information for them to know its name and enough about it to understand it was responsible for evading the sensors around Manticore.

A Rising Thunder wrote:And while I could wish he’d been involved in developing this ‘spider drive’ of theirs, instead of the ‘streak drive,’ the stuff he’s already given Admiral Hemphill makes it obvious he knows what he’s talking about. And what he does know about the ‘spider drive’ dovetails entirely too neatly with what happened to us for him to be some delusional nut. Not to mention”—her voice hardened—“pretty thoroughly demonstrating that Mesa must have been behind the attack, since no one else could’ve gotten close enough to hit us that way.”

Jonathan_S wrote:

A Rising Thunder wrote:And while I could wish he’d been involved in developing this ‘spider drive’ of theirs, instead of the ‘streak drive,’ the stuff he’s already given Admiral Hemphill makes it obvious he knows what he’s talking about. And what he does know about the ‘spider drive’ dovetails entirely too neatly with what happened to us for him to be some delusional nut. Not to mention”—her voice hardened—“pretty thoroughly demonstrating that Mesa must have been behind the attack, since no one else could’ve gotten close enough to hit us that way.”

Oh, nice find! I had missed the nuance that Simões knew something about the spider drive after all. All I remembered was that he knew the name. The passage does not explicitly say so, but it's strongly implied he knew more than "it's new" and "it's stealthy."

That throws completely out the hypothesis that they'd assume the Hastas and whatever else the Galton Navy fired could have been what attacked during the Yawata Strike.

That is, unless this gets retconned.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:Doubtful, in the short or medium term. That's a system that was wholly indoctrinated in the kool-aid and was left in tatters. Right now, it's a drain in the GA's resources, as opposed to an asset.

Long-term, that could change. But I expect that the books will end before that comes to pass.

Why is it much of a drain? It was self-sufficient before, nothing was destroyed that would change that.