Welcome! These forums will be deactivated by the end of this year. The conversation continues in a new morph over on Discord! Please join us there for a more active conversation and the occasional opportunity to ask developers questions directly! Go to the PS+ Discord Server.

Dread Empire's Fall

8 posts / 0 new

Last post

Fri, 2012-05-11 20:51

Anarhista

Dread Empire's Fall

Written by Walter Jon Williams, this is first SF that has given me good AND realistic space battles. This is not the only reason reason to read the book but beside Peter F. Hamilton 'Reality Dysfunction' his... physics of space combat is not ridiculous or too far in to the future. 'Reality Dysfunction' is great book at first 90% but catastrophic in the last 10%. He has great setting (living habitats, Voidhawks: gen. engineered space ship that generate wormhole through singularity and ship combat is basically battle between carriers of 'combat wasps' => antimatter/nuclear powered drones that fight... other 'combat wasps' because one is enough to destroy whole ship...) Sidetracked again... Dread Empire's Fall if great, hard SF series with solid story, good characters, very realistic empire (war between alien races is short and extremely bloody for the technologically inferior race) and it is about war. War (that) never changes... If anyone has read these books I would like to know your opinion on these.

—

So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish.

Sat, 2012-06-02 21:57

Cynical Felidae Cynical Felidae's picture

Re: Dread Empire's Fall

I liked the series, one of the few ' hard sf ' style series that could keep my attention. Sadly, it seems, its not all that popular since its still capped at three books. The ideas it puts forth on how realistic space combat and the idea of the Praxis... I'm just sad that nothing else has been written on the subject. I fell in love with the main characters and their romance, and to see how it's been left hanging is a great tragedy to me. I've always been a sucker for a good space opera.

Sun, 2012-06-03 06:51

Anarhista

Re: Dread Empire's Fall

SPOILER ALERT!!! (one scene) And off course (one of) legendary spectacles, where lady Sula is driving one-seat kamikaze fighter armed with dozen missiles (about the size of her fighter) flying around her in formation toward the battle. Battle of titanic proportions where dreadnoughts, cruisers, destroyers, frigates, corvettes... from both sides launched hundreds of antimatter missiles per second. With one missile enough to level the largest cities enormous energies were released in the area between fleets until radiation (across all specters) was so strong to block most secure/shielded communication between control and anti-missiles systems... then antimatter torpedoes started hitting targets... in couple of seconds majestic battleships on both sides started to erupt in blinding blasts when their large antimatter munition stockpile detonated. After the holocaust, shocked survivors started to retreat. Majority of enemy fleet started using slingshot maneuver around local gas giants. That is when they caught Sula attention: she programmed all of her, until now quite useless, dozen missiles to slingshot in opposite direction around gas giant toward the retreating enemy fleet. With combined velocity close to light speed her missiles hit enemy with no time to react and blasted them in to debris while she screamed on radio sending the massage to everybody: 'Sula! It was Sula who did this!! Remember my name!' And went home expecting court martial for disobeying direct order (basically to kill herself attacking first wave of enemy ships)...

—

So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish.

Sun, 2012-06-03 13:01

Arenamontanus Arenamontanus's picture

Re: Dread Empire's Fall

WJW also wrote one of the best descriptions of how it is to be a really cognitively enhanced hyperelite: "Aristoi". Everybody are multitasking, having subminds solve different problems. They live in a world of aesthetic and intellectual refinement (just consider the scene where the protagonist is dancing a tango in an Escher VR with a potential enemy, both trying to analyse each other in minute detail while discussing the finer points of an opera about the sociopsychological mood of the origin of tango...) This is how people with COG 30 better behave :-)

—

Mon, 2012-06-04 17:33

Anarhista

Re: Dread Empire's Fall

Arenamontanus wrote:
WJW also wrote one of the best descriptions of how it is to be a really cognitively enhanced hyperelite: "Aristoi".

Mmmm, I'll definitively put this on my 'to read' list. On the unrelated note: I looking for an adventure someone posted/put link and after more then couple of hours I cant find it. It is about habitat (near Earth, I think) engulfed in civil war between dissatisfied lower and ruling class while experimental seed AGI observes and later, free, protects the children in habitat. Could anybody PM me a link or post it so it doesn't get lost in all these topics. Thanks in advance.

—

So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish.

Mon, 2012-06-04 19:37

Arenamontanus Arenamontanus's picture

Re: Dread Empire's Fall

Anarhista wrote:
On the unrelated note: I looking for an adventure someone posted/put link and after more then couple of hours I cant find it. It is about habitat (near Earth, I think) engulfed in civil war between dissatisfied lower and ruling class while experimental seed AGI observes and later, free, protects the children in habitat.

Ah, that is my adventure "My invisible friend" http://www.aleph.se/EclipsePhase/My%20invisible%20friend.pdf Got some good criticism in the original thread http://www.eclipsephase.com/my-invisible-friend that I ought to incorporate when I get the time.

—

Mon, 2012-06-04 20:34

Cynical Felidae Cynical Felidae's picture

Re: Dread Empire's Fall

One day, a few years ago, I picked up this book at a dollar general. I couldn't be happier with it. I love the situations and the conversations the main character has with 'himself' The way its all laid out on each page is a little confusing at first, but by the end its all flowing nicely. I'm rather sad there's not a series here, instead of just a awesome novel. "Aristoi" puts me in mind, more than any book I've read in recent memory, of Zelazny's 'Amber' novels. the shifting cyberspaces seem very Shadow-like. When I first found out about Eclipse Phase I was hoping it would be a lot like this book, that's how it sits in my mind anyhow. The example Arenamontanus uses above was amazing to read, and a fair bit confusing on the first time. They are dancing in a vr environment, speaking to each other with a mental style chat while the protagonist is conversing and analyzing his dance partner's moves and words, with his multiple muses, called daemons in universe. Subminds like Arenamontanus said above, its all explained in time. Gah! Now I have to go read it again, and beg a gm to do it like this! :points at book:

Tue, 2012-06-05 04:05

Arenamontanus Arenamontanus's picture

Re: Dread Empire's Fall

Cynical Felidae wrote:
Gah! Now I have to go read it again, and beg a gm to do it like this! :points at book:

Hmm, maybe a hyperelite campaign. Each PC is the owner of a major hypercorp, playing their political and social games. They have been doing it for years. They got to their position because they are the best at it, they have the best enhancements money can buy, their plans span decades. But now something is amiss... it seems that one of them is going rogue. But who? And what could anybody possibly have against the Consortium plan they all agreed on twenty years ago?

—