Freshmen Share
At the officer's academy on Port Newmar during my freshmen year:
-- I had a roommate who grew up on a ship, but hadn't ever crewed on. I taught him about being a crew member, he taught me about life as a spacer.
-- Bev and Brill were roomies, though I spent a lot of nights over.
-- Pip and Brill dated a lot, and a lot of different people.
-- The four of us went out with whoever Pip and Brill were seeing, and have a grand time.
-- During second semester, Pip and I started making a little money. By then, Pip had a good model of the financial market of the Port, and we started speculating. We'd arrange to sell a cargo at a specific price, and buy it from an incoming merchant ship at a lower price. We made profit without much overhead. It was a few kilocreds.
-- During the summer, we had our first summer in space! At the time, I was head of the class, so I was Acting Captain. Bev, Pip, Brill, and Pip and my original roommates were all on the cruise. As cadets we weren't paid, but we did help the ship make money. It was a big ship, like the Lois.
... What can I say? I just finished Full Share, and I want to know about academy life. Whatcha think, Tony Lower-Basch and Josh Mannon?
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If you're going to address that time period, you need to address the big thing that Lowell skipped over:
ReplyDeletePip? At the Academy? Don't they have ... you know ... written tests there?
Freshman year especially. Pip needs to prove competency in, I dunno, engineering, deck, steward, and space philosophy.
ReplyDeleteI will, indeed, need to find a way for him not to fail.
I also don't love the idea that everyone comes out as a third mate. What about specialists like engineer, trade, and steward? Why is everyone in Deck?
That's almost got to be an issue for Brill. She's wasted as a boot third.
ReplyDeletePip and Brill both discovering their bisexuality (I've gotten that sense from both of them from time to time.) and through that, and their mutual affection, polyamory.
ReplyDeleteAn academic rivalry where Ish must choose between being the best in the year and devoting time to help Pip with both classes and financial projects.
A professor who seems overly interested in the team's financial side projects and Bev keeps dodging who turns out to be a relative of hers and former cargo master and station supply officer.
Alicia Alvarez returns to Port Numar to visit with Sefu Numar and Ish manages not to bungle the encounter after way too much naval gazing probably with a swift punch to the arm from Bev. This gives him a bit of leverage in the corporate world he's about to enter.
The thing that makes the series work are the slow burning problems a relentless mind like Ish can work out. They don't change the galaxy, only they do. I'd salt the relationship drama in for two books before making it the focus and the same with Bev's relative, use Ish's academics as the focus of the first year and AA as the focus of the last.
Josh Mannon AA?
ReplyDeleteOh. Alicia. Nevermind. I'm a dummie.
ReplyDeleteand yeah, i had a couple different ways in mind for them to make bank:
ReplyDelete-- As mentioned above, market speculation. Old as time.
-- Automating that in Sophomore year under a faculty member, where Ish and Pip get a share.
-- Ish and Brill working on automatic astrogation updates with a faculty member, with Ish and Brill getting a share.
-- Each year, I was planning to put them on a smaller ship until we get a family sized ship. I was going to promote Bev to 2nd mate, Ish get's third. Pip is Trade Master, and Brill is the Engineer. They'd need a Captain and an XO, but they for sure have family who'll do that.
The bisexual angle's not bad, Josh. There's a lot of straightness in the books, and making that less normative is a thing.
ReplyDeleteAlso, everyone gets into a martial art of some variety.
... and Bev spends a lot of time eye-rolling at all the martial arts newbies?
ReplyDeleteslash, she has a couple different belts and starts at a higher level.
ReplyDeleteJust like the academy isn't gonna make Ish take intro to Ship's Systems.
... and i may not even set this in the same universe, but one across the hall where space suits are a lot better, and family sized ships operate in swarms.
ReplyDeleteYou mean like how the tech level in the Diurnia Sector makes for an entirely different economy (particularly as regards crew-numbers of cost-effective vessels) than the tech level in the Dunsany Roads Sector? Maybe those changes happened in suit-tech, rather than hull-design, and our focus characters get to figure out what that means.
ReplyDeleteyeah, something pretty major happens in the tech level in the ~15 years between Full Share and Captain's Share. Those Tractor's are ridiculous when compared to the Lois. And the Iris? omg.
ReplyDeleteI'm thinking each year in school Ish automates or figures out a better way to do a new thing.
And I figure Port Newmar is more CMU than OU, with partnerships with faculty-students-industry. While when Ish was Crew and everything he invented belongs to FF, now everything is a parternship between students, the university, and possibly industry.
At the end of the four years, Ish has pushed for major advances in all major categories. Within a few years, smaller ship's (and far better space suits) start coming on the market. Ish, Pip, Bev, and Brill are able to leverage the money they make from their share in the underlying technology to buy a ship or two.
Small ships, a couple kiloton of cargo or a few passengers or hauling a container or two.
Heck, maybe that's Graduate Share: Ish and friends help design a new ship, and are able to buy one of the first off the line at cheap rates.
ReplyDeleteOr they design it in one book, then in the next book somebody's actually built a prototype, which they get drafted to crew ... which means that every single problem that they need to think of inventive ways to make better, is a problem that they know for a fact the designers had no way of seeing coming.
ReplyDeleteShakeout cruise with a bunch of cadets on a new breed of starship, eh?
ReplyDeleteYeah, no way that can go wrong.
I can imagine Ish routing all ship's computer systems through a centralized database reachable from the bridge, so you can go down to one watch stander.
ReplyDeleteLike the Iris.
And then something goes wrong. Something in propulsion, i think, so they have time to fix it so long as environmental keeps in alignment.
And with the hive or colony of small ships, each ship could have a real small amount of crew, right. Like 2-5. A family.
ReplyDeleteThey'd have a smaller burleson limit and would be ridiculously fast packets. And with a fleet of small ships operating together ...
I'm getting ahead of myself, that's for sure. I do like the idea of a prototype that they have to test out, and it being suitable for a real small crew. Close quarters, maybe only a couple of bunk rooms.
But hey, maybe Bev and Ish could have a queen or king size bed.
I feel like I need to read these books now.
ReplyDeleteI can bring you the first three some thursday night, Edward Hickcox. I won't be there for a couple weeks, but can do so after. They tickle me, but they aren't for everyone.
ReplyDeleteWilliam Nichols Maybe just the first one and we'll see how it sits with my particular sci-fi aesthetic.
ReplyDeleteAlternatively, it's like five bucks on kindle, or you can get an ebook.
ReplyDeleteamazon.com - Amazon.com: Quarter Share (Trader's Tales from the Golden Age of the Solar Clipper Book 1) eBook: Nathan Lowell: Kindle Store
I believe it started life as a podcast. The book really becomes itself when Ish makes coffee.
I'll check it out! What I'm reading right now is actually absolute garbage. I don't know why I'm continuing to punish myself with it.
ReplyDelete