As this post, I've finished my first novel-length manuscript. My first choice for a publisher passed on it. I am now resorting to my backup route, and furthermore I'm taking the 100K word (and more) manuscript and breaking it up into three smaller books--novellas or short novels--because each third is a distinct entity in its own right. It works better as a trilogy than a single stand-alone novel.
Which means that readership here is still below the threshold required to maintain this blog as it has been. I'm setting up at Amazon. By the end of this year I'll have at least one, and may well have three, books available through via Kindle- and later POD via Createspace. This blog will (a) go into archive mode for a time in 2016, followed by a cleanup and relaunch once the backlog is cleared.
The new version of this blog will be to include elements of the milieu that necessarily gets cut from the books I publish because they do are not fit for the purpose of efficient delivery of a literary narrative. In addition, I will use this blog to promote my books and related work. If you like the stories, get them now; after the turn of the year they're going away until I can clean them up and republish them as either entire books to themselves or part of an anthology.
Expect something more concrete when I get to the End of 2015 admin post.
Friday, September 25, 2015
Friday, September 18, 2015
The Harp Incident-12
The second fallout was the transformation of medicine and medical technologies due to the confirmation of epigenetics as a thing. Once that became known as a thing that could significantly transform an individual due to psychological factors, that got suppressed by the governments worldwide right away; they wanted super-soldiers that they controlled, and not free superhumans doing as they like. Epyon wasn't having it; he organized his nascent department to break this information loose, and they did- and without Control saying so. The results were that this too soon got online and embedded into the Darknet, making it impossible to erradicate without destroying the Internet worldwide- a thing that was never going to happen.
The combination of cheap power soon turned into cheap and good Internet access worldwide. That undermined corporate and government centralization through the proliferation of things like easy 3d printing and other technologies of that sort. The Agency picked up on this trend early and used it to our advantage to exert leverage against the enemy organizations we discovered, mapping out and rolling them up in turn- but far more quiet and with far less fanfare. By the time I became Control, Epyon and the other super-soldiers we recruited worked to transform the world into a place I once believed only could ever exist in the more hopeful of science fiction stories.
More than that, I can't say for certain. Once I retired from the Game, and Epyon took over as Control, the Agency had become a true peacemaking organization. Sure, the shadow aspect remained; there remained a need for things done discreetly, and early intervention often nipped problems in the bud well before the super-soldiers became necessary, so the only real thing to worry about now was the possibility of infiltration, either by enemy actors or (more likely) complacency and decadence.
But that's another story.
The combination of cheap power soon turned into cheap and good Internet access worldwide. That undermined corporate and government centralization through the proliferation of things like easy 3d printing and other technologies of that sort. The Agency picked up on this trend early and used it to our advantage to exert leverage against the enemy organizations we discovered, mapping out and rolling them up in turn- but far more quiet and with far less fanfare. By the time I became Control, Epyon and the other super-soldiers we recruited worked to transform the world into a place I once believed only could ever exist in the more hopeful of science fiction stories.
More than that, I can't say for certain. Once I retired from the Game, and Epyon took over as Control, the Agency had become a true peacemaking organization. Sure, the shadow aspect remained; there remained a need for things done discreetly, and early intervention often nipped problems in the bud well before the super-soldiers became necessary, so the only real thing to worry about now was the possibility of infiltration, either by enemy actors or (more likely) complacency and decadence.
But that's another story.
Friday, September 11, 2015
The Harp Incident-11
The first fallout was that a lot of heretofore secret information had to be revealed, warts and all, to the public. The Squids--The Order--were by no means a Johnny-Come-Lately organization. We had to screw the Establishment to get this out because public knowledge of Squid deeds would be good for the population and the Establishment in the long run, even though many Establishment players and institutions would get hit or destroyed in the short run for reasons both fair and foul alike. The technologies that they produced, kept secret by Squid agents in Establishment institutions, had to be released and spread far and wide so that other long-term threats both to the population and to the Establishment could be readily sorted.
We had to provide information, albeit through cutouts, to public inquiries such as various Congressional committees as well as to their many state-level counterparts and even to many media outlets. Interviews, presentations, and many books had to be rushed out the door; fortunately we had a lot of friends and assets in place to handle this, which meant that not only did we have the chance to vett what we released beforehand but that we also turned this into something that allowed us to generate the necessary revenue required to keep our operations going. All this technology, top talent, and so on doesn't pay for itself you know.
Our people watching for alerts from our other enemies--and we had more than the Squids--also put in their work as they watched distinct patterns of interference symbolizing actionable intelligence that we could investigate. We found out about the reality of many other enemy organizations in the Great Game by watching for these things; this would lead to Epyon's rising through the ranks, and also to the proliferation of super-soldiers as well as other augmentive technologies necessary for otherwise ordinary operatives to be able to compete with them. A new arms race in the shadow world, which would ripple outward into the mundane world, broke out as fallout from this incident.
This also meant that the Agency had to reorganize. We couldn't return Epyon truly to the shadows; like the comic-books that he resembled, and took cues from, we had to recognize that Epyon could be a covert operative but never truly secret and that meant forming an entire department around him and those would come in his wake. When we needed something done, and we could afford to be noisy about it, Department Epyon handled it here on out. Several agents I knew--but none of my team--would transfer over to this department because they were more like him in temperament and would be far better for the Agency there than where they were.
But the biggest change to come would be the revelation that there was a proven, ready-made power technology that made fossil fuels pointless; oil remained a thing due to plastics and other polymers, but Big Oil fell over and died overnight once the patents hit the Internet and immediately got spread throughout the world, especially in the Darknet where fools could not touch it. That was a hard call for Control, but it proved to be best; it screwed a lot of enemies out of key advantages. Those transmitters required power production and transmission far beyond what was heretofore allowed to be known; now that the real limits of such technologies were out there, the geopolitical game shifted away from the Middle-East and the oil-based global economy. Yeah, the Establishment was not happy with the end of the petrodollar, but the new technologies allowed that shift to be a soft landing and the new economic system relied on a balance of major currencies--U.S. Dollar, Euro, Pound, Yuan, and Yen--which held out for the rest of my days.
We had to provide information, albeit through cutouts, to public inquiries such as various Congressional committees as well as to their many state-level counterparts and even to many media outlets. Interviews, presentations, and many books had to be rushed out the door; fortunately we had a lot of friends and assets in place to handle this, which meant that not only did we have the chance to vett what we released beforehand but that we also turned this into something that allowed us to generate the necessary revenue required to keep our operations going. All this technology, top talent, and so on doesn't pay for itself you know.
Our people watching for alerts from our other enemies--and we had more than the Squids--also put in their work as they watched distinct patterns of interference symbolizing actionable intelligence that we could investigate. We found out about the reality of many other enemy organizations in the Great Game by watching for these things; this would lead to Epyon's rising through the ranks, and also to the proliferation of super-soldiers as well as other augmentive technologies necessary for otherwise ordinary operatives to be able to compete with them. A new arms race in the shadow world, which would ripple outward into the mundane world, broke out as fallout from this incident.
This also meant that the Agency had to reorganize. We couldn't return Epyon truly to the shadows; like the comic-books that he resembled, and took cues from, we had to recognize that Epyon could be a covert operative but never truly secret and that meant forming an entire department around him and those would come in his wake. When we needed something done, and we could afford to be noisy about it, Department Epyon handled it here on out. Several agents I knew--but none of my team--would transfer over to this department because they were more like him in temperament and would be far better for the Agency there than where they were.
But the biggest change to come would be the revelation that there was a proven, ready-made power technology that made fossil fuels pointless; oil remained a thing due to plastics and other polymers, but Big Oil fell over and died overnight once the patents hit the Internet and immediately got spread throughout the world, especially in the Darknet where fools could not touch it. That was a hard call for Control, but it proved to be best; it screwed a lot of enemies out of key advantages. Those transmitters required power production and transmission far beyond what was heretofore allowed to be known; now that the real limits of such technologies were out there, the geopolitical game shifted away from the Middle-East and the oil-based global economy. Yeah, the Establishment was not happy with the end of the petrodollar, but the new technologies allowed that shift to be a soft landing and the new economic system relied on a balance of major currencies--U.S. Dollar, Euro, Pound, Yuan, and Yen--which held out for the rest of my days.
Friday, September 4, 2015
The Harp Incident-10
Epyon's superhuman power is what made our assault on the Squid's HAARP network a success. We exploited his healing power to ignore the usual limits of human effort that requires bodily rest and therefore the need to pace themselves to ensure that he had about 10 minutes every eight hours in one of our rest tanks to rest his brain enough to keep up with his body. Our teams could act as an anvil and he as the hammer upon which we beat the Squid into submission, and we did just that.
Our assets in the media got into line right quick, both mainstream and alternative, and ensured that we got the message out that the Squid agents were just that and they suckered the U.S. Establishment into being their pawns. This gave the Establishment an out, and they took it en masse, as our people came for Squid operatives deeply enmeshed into various agencies and programs throughout the Federal government as well as that of the several states.
There were hostage incidents, running gunfights, car chases, bombings, and many other incidents that revealed the Squid to be a criminal syndicate dedicated to terrorism as a fallback tactic when the shit hit the fan. Lots of innocent folks died, and they died in horrible ways. Fortunately we saved far more than otherwise would be killed due to Epyon's intervention at the last possible moment- a fact we ensured got into the narrative we put forth into the media.
Control, of course, put my team on the coordination and reserve unit detail. Rolling up this long-running enemy organization, now that we had its entire network revealed to us, was an opportunity that we could not pass up. It took a week of this, but we destroyed all of their arrays and put down or captured all of their members and assets. The governments and corporations comprising the Establishment, since they had that out, gladly complied. The holes in their organizations got filled within a month, barring special elections, so no lasting damage was done.
What did get noticed was the almost instantaneous reversion of weather patterns heretofore used to manipulate the population, especially government and corporate entities, into doing their will. The drought in California? Broken. The "polar vortex"? Gone, for good. The ice caps iced over, and any threat of a massive methane release ended within weeks. The threat of catastrophic climate change had ceased to be a thing, thanks in large part to Agency release of Squid intelligence regarding how this worked and why.
Control also authorized the release of all of the Squid technology that wasn't also held by us, pretty much to seal the deal with the Establishment that cooperating with us was better than not, and we got to retain our shadow status- Control even managed to maintain his own anonymity. Beyond the alphabet soup we remained, now that we made our deal; it had its bad sides, but we didn't care much for the current Chinese regime anyway and we knew that Russia was due to collapse soon also- no point in butting in there.
That said, there was significantly fallout and therefore cleanup operations to be had.
Our assets in the media got into line right quick, both mainstream and alternative, and ensured that we got the message out that the Squid agents were just that and they suckered the U.S. Establishment into being their pawns. This gave the Establishment an out, and they took it en masse, as our people came for Squid operatives deeply enmeshed into various agencies and programs throughout the Federal government as well as that of the several states.
There were hostage incidents, running gunfights, car chases, bombings, and many other incidents that revealed the Squid to be a criminal syndicate dedicated to terrorism as a fallback tactic when the shit hit the fan. Lots of innocent folks died, and they died in horrible ways. Fortunately we saved far more than otherwise would be killed due to Epyon's intervention at the last possible moment- a fact we ensured got into the narrative we put forth into the media.
Control, of course, put my team on the coordination and reserve unit detail. Rolling up this long-running enemy organization, now that we had its entire network revealed to us, was an opportunity that we could not pass up. It took a week of this, but we destroyed all of their arrays and put down or captured all of their members and assets. The governments and corporations comprising the Establishment, since they had that out, gladly complied. The holes in their organizations got filled within a month, barring special elections, so no lasting damage was done.
What did get noticed was the almost instantaneous reversion of weather patterns heretofore used to manipulate the population, especially government and corporate entities, into doing their will. The drought in California? Broken. The "polar vortex"? Gone, for good. The ice caps iced over, and any threat of a massive methane release ended within weeks. The threat of catastrophic climate change had ceased to be a thing, thanks in large part to Agency release of Squid intelligence regarding how this worked and why.
Control also authorized the release of all of the Squid technology that wasn't also held by us, pretty much to seal the deal with the Establishment that cooperating with us was better than not, and we got to retain our shadow status- Control even managed to maintain his own anonymity. Beyond the alphabet soup we remained, now that we made our deal; it had its bad sides, but we didn't care much for the current Chinese regime anyway and we knew that Russia was due to collapse soon also- no point in butting in there.
That said, there was significantly fallout and therefore cleanup operations to be had.
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