So. The next issue of APR has an article on the Large Orions. Prominently included in this is the “Orion Battleship” concept, armed with 5-inch naval guns and 500 20-megaton offensive nukes.
In all the years I’ve written APR, I’ve never delved into fiction. But I thought it’d be a neat little lark to include a half-page or so “scenario” depicting the Orion battleships in action. Note: half-page or so. So I started scribbling last night. At 5 AM I packed it in with six pages written, and only just now getting to the good stuff.
Back in my college days, I was a prolific writer of really quite aweful sci-fi stories. Cranked out probably a novel or two’s worth of utter rubbish. Since graduation in ’95, my fiction writing dropped to approximately nil. So I’m rusty; I’ll have to do some massive trimming. I still think the half-page little story’s a good idea.
One thing that’ll have to be lost in the edit: details of just what the hell’s actually going on. The Orion battleship was meant to fight World War III, and was equipped with the ability to lay waste to the entire Soviet Union. A vehicle like this would not be used for trivial problem; it would not be used over Grenada, or Panama, or Afghanistan or Iraq. It would only be used to fight global thermonuclear war, with hundreds of millions if not billions killed outright. It’s just a little difficult spinning that background into a lighthearted yarn.
8 Responses to “Gah. It never fargin’ ends…”
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with 500 x20-megaton offensive nukes.
that 10000 Megatons by ONE SHIP (of a fleet)
Damocles would better name for those Battle Orions
or is perfect word for it: Doomsday weapon ?
Dan Simmons had an Orion-style warship in his novel “Olympus”, built by the moravecs to check out Earth…
I’m curious to read what the opponent’s fleet (Soviet, I think) would comprise… MHD-diriven space battlecruisers with X-ray laser guns ? With no less enemy it had been futile to build an Orions fleet… ICBMs would suffice.
You could use that Orion battleship against Eldritch Horrors From Beyond Space. Then it’d be *preventing* gigadeaths. See Charles Stross’ “A Colder War” for a look at deterring Lovecraftian horrors with our strategic arsenal.
http://www.infinityplus.co.uk/stories/colderwar.htm
> I’m curious to read what the opponent’s fleet (Soviet, I think) would comprise… MHD-diriven space battlecruisers with X-ray laser guns ?
The Soviets have a fleet.
I’m not sure that I’ll wind up including the little story in the article. It’s been a long time since I’ve done fiction, and what I’ve got so far is bad. Not “an author is his own worst critic” bad, I mean “this sucks” bad. It can be made to work, though… just not sure it’s worth the effort.
Plus, it’s depressing. A lighthearted technical romp through Ragnarok just doesn’t seem feasible without getting silly.
In his nonfiction books, Tom Clancy has written short stories to show the described hardware in action.
I’m not Clancy, sad to say. I’ll give it my best shot, but if my best shot sucks… out it goes.
So use your Orion fleet to take out all the “bad guys” coming in from the Oort Cloud. No need to fricasee the homeworld to a fare-thee-well. (Kinda fits into the 50’s bug-eyed monster as Red Peril genre anyway!)