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War Stories from the Future
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"From a Remove" by Alec Meden
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A short story of future warfare waged in low Earth orbit, from PoV of a space drone pilot.
As a story, it works fairly well, good old-fashioned straightforward storytelling.
The characters toss in a lot of near-future concepts from ideas that are known but currently impractical or underdeveloped: LACS, a concept from the 60s for launching payloads into space using a ramjet-type attachment to replenish oxidizer from air while still in the atmosphere. And fMRI that are essentially expected to let pilots control their craft with thoughts. Bioluminescent paint for emergency pathways. And smart tattoos (didn't I see a concept like that in a recent movie?)
The motivations for its combat in space are twofold: It looks at dropping rocks/spacecraft down onto Earth targets as weapons. (Not sure a de-orbited space station would be aerodynamic enough to be effective. But I'm sure Manny & Mike smiled at the idea.) Secondly, it's possible to attack structures in Earth orbit (in this case, reflective mirrors); and so it's necessary to defend them.
The author expects using remotely piloted spacecraft for military purposes, since you can do it a lot more cheaply than providing life support for living crew. (In fact, the fact that the Remora was a five person craft is almost surprising. Especially in LEO, it's not clear why you'd try space combat with fragile humans on board.
The author also expects targeting the pilots of those drones down on earth as a reasonable military response.
Politically, the story envisions a non-geographic organization with a strong space presence whose members are apparently secret. Not really sure how practical that idea is; buying or building spacecraft cost money, and money leaves a trail. Maybe bitcoin is really popular in the future.
As a story, it works fairly well, good old-fashioned straightforward storytelling.
The characters toss in a lot of near-future concepts from ideas that are known but currently impractical or underdeveloped: LACS, a concept from the 60s for launching payloads into space using a ramjet-type attachment to replenish oxidizer from air while still in the atmosphere. And fMRI that are essentially expected to let pilots control their craft with thoughts. Bioluminescent paint for emergency pathways. And smart tattoos (didn't I see a concept like that in a recent movie?)
The motivations for its combat in space are twofold: It looks at dropping rocks/spacecraft down onto Earth targets as weapons. (Not sure a de-orbited space station would be aerodynamic enough to be effective. But I'm sure Manny & Mike smiled at the idea.) Secondly, it's possible to attack structures in Earth orbit (in this case, reflective mirrors); and so it's necessary to defend them.
The author expects using remotely piloted spacecraft for military purposes, since you can do it a lot more cheaply than providing life support for living crew. (In fact, the fact that the Remora was a five person craft is almost surprising. Especially in LEO, it's not clear why you'd try space combat with fragile humans on board.
The author also expects targeting the pilots of those drones down on earth as a reasonable military response.
Politically, the story envisions a non-geographic organization with a strong space presence whose members are apparently secret. Not really sure how practical that idea is; buying or building spacecraft cost money, and money leaves a trail. Maybe bitcoin is really popular in the future.
By the way, the author, Alec Meden, doesn't show up in iSFDB or SF Encyclopedia and has only this story to his credit on Goodreads. His biography at the end of this e-book says he's a 20-year-old freshman studying screenwriting. Not a bad effort for a first time out.
As you say, not a bad story. The drama of the action is conveyed without getting too bogged down in jargon. Dialogue needs some work, but I guess people don't read MilSF for dialogue or characters."Politically, the story envisions a non-geographic organization with a strong space presence whose members are apparently secret. Not really sure how practical that ideas; buying or building spacecraft cost money, and money leaves a trail."
Maybe this is fantasy and not science fiction?
It was short, but a full, new world, government, & war. Interesting problem. 4 stars
I liked it, but it hinted at a larger story that was never developed - it felt like an excerpt from a novel. The writing lacked polish. I gave it 3 stars but would be interested in reading more.
"From a Remove" by Alec Meden
From the scifi anthology War Stories from the Future, part of our discussion of War Stories from the Future. (The entire collection is available free online in several formats.)