>>65204221
>What are some interesting examples of fictional military actions where the author attempts to approach them realistically?
In sci-fi I think that Lost Fleet is one of the few examples of that sort of story that actually went anywhere. Considering how different relativistic physics and actual sci-fi tech would be it has to be the main focus of the story if you're making it realistic, otherwise it just turns into a story filled with magical plot devices. Most writers can't stick to the restrictions of physics/reality, especially as a lot of it just gets in the way of the story (unless you set it up properly), and it's much easier to pretend that Space Captain Smith's ship is just a WWI battleship restricted to a 2d plane out in the void.

Wasn't the impetus of that series the author purposefully creating a mary sue superior officer

>>65204260
No you're thinking of Honor Harrington.

>>65204294
>Hemry acknowledged in an interview that The Lost Fleet was inspired by Xenophon's Anabasis, detailing the return march of the Ten Thousand, and myths about kings returning to save their nation. In the same interview, Hemry, based on his own military experience, found Geary to be his ideal commanding officer.
Looks like I was putting words in the author's mouth somewhat, but I was thinking of the Lost Fleet novels

>>65204249
>Most writers can't stick to the restrictions of physics/reality, especially as a lot of it just gets in the way of the story (unless you set it up properly),
A Fire upon Deep been such exception. Author crested completely original physics for existing universe, stuck to its boundaries making it main plot device.
Another one is The Vang: The Military Form. Very humorous and tacticool body horror. It's like /k/ rewrites The Aliens to make it a real deal. But before /k/ existed. Recond very much.

>>65204221
I like sci-fi, but if you want to focus on military there are so many memoirs to choose from first. Then again, I've only read Starship Troopers and Neruomancer.

Your post implies scifi, but since you didn't specify it I'll bring up fantasy. The first two Malazan books by Steven Eriksson have some of the best medieval fantasy military writing I've encountered. Particularly the second book, Deadhouse Gates, of which large parts are dedicated to following an army trek across a continent.

>>65204359
What possessed you to make this post?
>>65204374
I tried to get into Malazan but dropped it on the first book due to fantasy name overload and the absolutely obnoxious perspective switching at rapid pace.

>>65204294
That started as Horatio Nelson/Hornblower in space, but the author himself said he chose not to let the protagonist die.
And she became a Mary Sue in the end.

>>65204302
Geary is a kind of perfect commanding officer in the books, but I think he is kept from becoming Gary Stu by realizing he doesn't know everything, can't be everywhere, and needs other people who are more more skilled in their areas of expertise.

That being said, both of these universes do have interesting space combat, and they keep it consistent and coherent.

>>65204319
>Another one is The Vang: The Military Form. Very humorous and tacticool body horror. It's like /k/ rewrites The Aliens to make it a real deal. But before /k/ existed. Recond very much.

Vang? B.V Larson, the mech series? An underrated modern american author imho. Sort of the modern Heinlein. Another underappreciated classic SF american author who died a while ago was Jack Vance. If you want to learn higher grade english, read Vance and have a dictionary handy.

>>65204788
>but I think he is kept from becoming Gary Stu by realizing he doesn't know everything
I enjoy the Lost Fleet books a lot, but there are definitely times when Geary comes right up to within about a Planck length of the line of becoming a Gary Stu, especially with the number of times he's confronted with 'bad choice and worse choice' and manages to find a 'secret good choice that definitely wasn't pulled out of my ass' at the last second.

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>>65204221
In Hammer's Slammers there are flying tanks and it's cool as fuck.

>>65205112
Oh, absolutelly. I still think Geary doesn't become the Uber Hero that wins everythhing all the time, unlike Harrington.

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>>65204221
Pic related is Coast Guard in spaaaace. There's a fairly realistic fight between the US and chinks in lunar orbit. Gunpowder Moon was also good.

I want to throw in The Human Reach series, set in a fairly realistic scifi system where the space battles revolve around missiles and lasers that perform pretty close to reality with the added spice that if your sensors are good enough and you can set up the vector then you can destroy pick off enemy weapons accurately enough that lasers are kept in armored silos, and in duels it grows into a sort of shell game about opening a silo to fire only when you think you can get away with it. Not to mention that the author will throw in things to skew battles to force the protagonists to adapt, my only real issue with the series thus far is that the main character is a spook so there's usually space combat at the beginning and end of each book but the middle is almost wholly taken up by political intriguing/black operations, and while I appreciate that it's pretty well written it's not amazing.

>>65206550
I was just about to mention those books. Some of the best space boom boom I've read since the expanse and it's a shame that we have no idea if the next book is even coming out

>>65204788
>the author himself said he chose not to let the protagonist die.
Didn't he say he wanted a series of like 4-5 books but the publisher made him write more since it sold too well to drop?

I've got this idea that has been rattling in my head for a bit. Needs some fine-tuning. Mind if I pitch it here?

>>65204392
Yeah it's a bit of an acquired taste. Once the series gets going though it settles in on a few characters, but overall it's almost deliberately confusing and overwhelming with all the lore.

>>65209310
As long as you don't mind utterly amateur critique

What's the consensus on the (novels) Mobile Infantry?
>year long brutal training
>everyone gets power armor
>integrated shoulder-mounted rocket launchers that can target independently
>they can also shoot tac-nukes
>jump jets let you leap buildings and go sanic fast
>drop into battle via orbital drop pods that shit chaff everywhere as they disintegrate
Ironically I mostly dislike how they're visually represented in most depictions
>>65209310
Why the fuck not?

>>65209347
You mean Mobile Infantry from the novel Starship Troopers? I haven't read it in a long time, but it's pretty awesome iirc.

>>65209314
>>65209347
Aight.

The meat of the idea is that there is a soviet-style interstellar empire that maintains control over its various worlds by keeping the actual nature of the empire a secret. Almost every planet thinks that it is alone in the cosmos, with only a select few people on the planet in the know about where most of their goods go. The ruling party of the empire, who have the exclusive use of their complete technology and space-travel, takes the resources and destributes them as they see fit. There are "aliens" (genetically modified humans who live in hostile environments) who are trying to take over parts of the empire. The technology they used to change themselves didn't work exactly right and their bodies aren't holding together as good as the generations pass. So, they need earthlike habitats to return to -- almost all of which are in the empire's control. They end up with a few, but they are now locked in a long conflict with the empire.

The main story is about Greg, a boy who found his sick mom dead in their bloc-apartment after he was jumped on his way back from buying medicine. After selling the medicine he had hidden away to a local gang, he is smuggled out into the country, only to be caught in a bust by the police. He ends up being saved by the "aliens," and when he grows up Greg joins the army to fight in the interstellar war.

Every invasion against the empire is also first-contact with a non-spacefaring civilization. Every fight is against pressganged recruits who are thrown at enemies they think are literal demons. Every planet thinks they have no help or backup, so they all choose the most desperate options for their survival.

>>65209561
>Every fight is against pressganged recruits who are thrown at enemies they think are literal demons.
What makes them think they're demons? Are the rulers indoctrinating everyone, and if so, how?
>Every planet thinks they have no help or backup, so they all choose the most desperate options for their survival.
If the Aliens behave appropriately and taut out evidence they'd be at least sometimes able to supercede this, no? Or is there some thematic reason why this is not the case.

And by soviet style, elaborate? Do you mean one overparty ruling over technically distinct entities?

>>65209561
>only a select few people on the planet in the know about where most of their goods go
Exporting goods from planets generally speaking doesn't make sense. It's fine if this happens in your fictional setting, just be aware you're most likely handwaving something on the level of "why do all/almost all the aliens breath earth standard atmosphere perfectly fine?"
>So, they need earthlike habitats to return to -- almost all of which are in the empire's control.
Simply building earthlike space habitats would be infinitely easier, see above it's fine if you handwave that just be aware you are doing so and make sure it serves a purpose.
>He ends up being saved by the "aliens," and when he grows up Greg joins the army to fight in the interstellar war.
I read that as 'savaged by the "aliens,"' and was extremely confused lol.
Anyways why do people keep acting like they'll be exterminated when they see the last city wasn't exterminated? Overall, interesting premise.

>>65209561
I'll try to separate my thoughts into worldbuilding and plot areas. From the worldbuilding side, my biggest questions would be on what are the empire's motivations in maintaining its secrecy and power structure, how the empire administers its planets, as well as the imperial navy. In any setting involving interplanetary war I think having the naval and transportation component be well accounted for is crucial because ground victories are useless if you can't account for orbital bombardment.

As for the plot, I would question why Greg stays with the cyborgs and what his motivation for participating in the war is. Are they just invading random planets and massacring the populations to take the world? Fighting over and over against people confronting an invasion for the first time is a cool hook, but if they aren't consciously part of the empire, aren't they somewhat innocent? While I get that people like grimdark books, that does not seem to be a very sympathetic cause to get behind as the reader unless you can sell it through his character and that of the army he is with.

>>65205198
Hovercraft. And I should add that they are ground-effect vehicles, do not fly, and since they are armoured with osmium, will not float in water.

>>65209347
The novel M.I. are very cool. Shame that it's basically its own separate entity from the movies, tv shows, and games.
>>65209561
>actual nature of the empire is a secret
Why?
>Each of the world's believe themselves to be alone
How and why if the empire is spacefaring
by its very nature?

Personally I would change it so that the Not!Space Soviet Union's leadership is the one that is kept in secrecy so that none of the serfs really know who is in charge outside of a vague and heavily propagandized figurehead. I'd also change the other idea into "they know that there are other inhabited worlds out there, but only a select few people are allowed to leave the world that they are born on"

The Third World War (1978) and The Third World War: The Untold Story (1982), by General Sir John Winthrop Hackett.
Jack Wodhams' "Future War" (1982), in particular his short story One Clay Foot.
The War in 2020, by Ralph Peters
Body Armor : 2000, edited by Joe Haldeman
Space-Fighters, edited by Joe Haldeman
Hammer's Slammers.

>>65204221
I read the entirely of the lost fleet series, since I got it for dirt cheap.
The author is terrible at Show, Don't Tell, and generally does the exact opposite with the main character.

Every time there is an important moment, it is immediately followed up with page of the inner thoughts of the main character, explaining I'm detail how and why he reacted as he did. It's like it was written for autists, but the rest of the book isn't really like that.

Luckily the inner thoughts are all in italics, and my enjoyment of the series rose after I just stopped reading anything written in italics.

>>65208778
Iirc, at some point he got paid by the page, so he just kept writing shitlosds of books in the series.

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>>65204221
pic rel's spacial propulsion causes distortions making targeting very difficult, so they focus on guns/canons and getting in close to the target along with boarding actions

it's not perfect but unlike other scifi, it doesn't leave me wondering why the retards don't hide behind an asteroid and plonk each other from half the solar system away

>>65209561
While I instinctively was intrigued by the concept of a shadow empire, the more I think about it the more questions I have that I'm not sure have answers.

How was this empire established? Did every planet get seeded at a prehistoric tech level then advanced as nor- wait no that wouldnt really work since there's people that know about the Empire. So there'd almost certainly have to be a relatively modern starting point for the colonies. But if thats the case, then every planet's history is essentially nonexistent, AND would have to have an utterly insane population boom (of strictly ignorant people) in order to breed enough people to have sufficient manpower to actually do anything.
>only a select few people on the planet in the know about where most of their goods go
Oh, so we're exporting resources on a planetary scale but nobody is wondering where to?
>Every invasion against the empire is also first-contact with a non-spacefaring civilization. Every fight is against pressganged recruits who are thrown at enemies they think are literal demons.
The idea of having an empire where nobody knows theyre part of an empire, and at the same time that empire is somehow able to control the masses seemingly uniformly seems to clash.

>>65209629
>>65209643
>>65209656
>>65210119
Rather than go point-by-point, I'll just dump out what has coalesced in my head after reading the questions. Nothing about this is sacred, I will kill my honeys with glee.

There was a precursor civilization of humans that colonized the stars, but a Dark Age effectively wiped the details of this civ away and the Empire took its place. By mass-kidnapping children and putting them in government-curated academies for several generations, almost all history before the Empire was erased/rewritten, with a few surviving myths that are allowed to exist as superstition. Nobody knows what the real homeworld was. The civ left behind a lot of megastructures, of particular note the city-planets that make up the Empire's political core. Everyone on the city-planets know that the Empire is interstellar and keeps the serfs in Plato's cave. Colony worlds don't have typically have the structures, like space elevators and such, but those that do write them off as the accomplishment of the proletariat. These planets in particular may have some knowledge of some movement through their solar-system, but think they aren't at a level they can go to other planets regularly yet. Terraforming is thought by people outside the Empire and by party members within the Empire to either be a lost technology, heavily controlled by the Empire, or impossible.

The Empire is heavily based on the Soviet Union, with all that entails. Space-flavored communism, the doughnut-economy, vodka, etc. The doughnut-economy is why planets are left unaware of the interstellar nature of their government and their tech-level is kept at around 1920's era. You don't complain about rare-earth metal refinement or RAM shortages if you think steam engines and typewriters are the zenith of technological accomplishment. Food is redistributed by government officials on Empire planets, typically meaning processed into something non-perishable and shoved into a spaceship's hold. (1/3)

>>65212007
All sentient creatures are human, or human-derived. This means they can interbreed, live in the same atmospheric conditions, eat the same food, ect. Even the heavily-modified humans that exist outside of the Empire are human enough that they can live on an earthlike world without much worry. The citizens of the Empire are just plain human, since their planets are the most earthlike. Whatever process that was used before the Dark Age to modify the "aliens" was imperfect, fastforward many generations later and now these separate races are dealing with very similar genetic diseases. While they do have pieces of the technology to make them default-human again, it only partially works on their children in eutero, and their homeworlds do not play nice with normal people. I'm debating on how weird the "aliens" should be, but my first concept for one of the races is horned-lizard people covered in bone-spurs.

The Alien Coalition began as a bunch of infighting system-states until their collective genetic-disease issue forced them to unite. The Alien Coalition initially tried to negotiate with the nearest Empire-worlds, showing off their cool technologies, but because this was a breach of the interstellar-secrecy decree, the Empire immediately sprung into war. It didn't help that at this point, they were only starting to undo their genetic modifications, so the government quietly exploding their own people and then blaming the weird-looking monsters worked. The Empire initially dominated through big-ship power alone, but the Coalition had more experience in interstellar battles thanks to their history fighting each other, while the Empire's CO's never actually fought with their ships ever since they outlawed private ownership of starships. The Coalition won some worlds, but now they are in a constant border-war with the Empire. (2/3)

>>65212013
Former Imperial-citizens tend to prefer the Aliens over the Empire, since it hikes up their quality-of-life by a couple thousand years of technological advancement. So the Empire is in actual danger of planets flaking away, and they don't like that. But they can't easily smash the Coalition like they should, because, like the Soviet Union, a lot of their interstellar weapons have become degraded and need replacement.

From here, I'm thinking the Empire would move towards drip-feeding new tech into the systems on their border with the coalition, so militias would have AK-47's with their M1911's and water-cooled machine-guns. Rather than going in guns blazing, the Coalition sneak in commandos onto planets to slowly introduce themselves instead of kicking in the door while blasting "With Catlike-Tread, Death-Metal cover." Empire introduces their people to the 3-Body Problem and Independence Day, Coalition tries sneaking in Project Hail Mary and the Avatar movies. From here the first-contact game begins, and is about when Greg's story takes place.

Like I said, I'm keeping things fluid, I'm trying not to get attached to any particular ideas, so please rip into it if you find something particularly flawed or lacking. (3/3)

>>65212007
>1920's era
Another point, this is less of a definite technological era, and more of a rough estimate of their infrastructure within planetary bounds, with certain industries given some leeway, like agriculture.

>>65204221
I enjoy it, read many of the series, but it is slop.

>>65208778
He wanted Honor to die in book 6 or 7, I forgot which exactly.
Then her child(ren?) might have gone on after a 20 or so year timeskip, with the officers that served with her now in command or flag positions as captains and patrons or mentors.

But the books became bestsellers, and the publisher said killing the popular protagonist was bad for business.
This kinda fucked up the timeline, some plot happened very fast, some political weirdness got written in to hide the missing 20 year timeskip.

Also, later books suffer from cast bloat.


I still love the space combat, it has the autistiic llevel of dettail that begs fr a indie videogame implementation.

>>65205508
>myke cole
Lol nah

>>65215114
I've never heard of him, what is your issue with him?

>>65215138
Are you trying to do discord spoilers

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Everyone laugh at the freak

>>65215148
Yes I went full retard. Too early to think and I barely post since the new captcha.


I liked the frontlines series from Marko kloos. [spoiler]I love a story where humanity || is on its last legs and has to fight for survival||. [spoiler]Also the fact that the aliens are giants so it hits a bit like attack on titan but in space[/spoiler]
Some of the books feel a bit like filler but the most recent one is from last year so I hope he finishes the story.

>>65215161
anon, spoilers don't work on /k/

little tip for newfags
press ctrl+s in the reply window

>>65215155
He didn't waste any time deleting that shit

>>65215161
Yeah, I hope he writes some more and we find out more.

My shame shall stay then. Should have lurked moar. Fucking gookmoot should really have feature parity between boards by now.