I feel compelled to share yonder recentmost piece of scribery with the lot of you. 'Tis part of a project I've been working on. Critique, especially regarding the realistic-ness of an Earth Torus as well as the writing style, is very welcome. - The August Torus is the culmination of the UN’s Global Defense programme, aimed at securing planet Earth against any sort of external threat. Construction began on a series of armed defense stations in geostationary orbit in 2068, immediately after the signing of the Reykjavík Treaties on August 13th, and the Torus itself was declared completed in 2283, on August 22nd, although improvements and expansions are likely to be ongoing for as long as the Torus is used. The initial concept was that of a ring of space stations that would serve as defense posts and fleet bases for the Earth defense armada; however, as time went of, each station was expanded, until someone decided to connect them together with the increasing number of space elevator anchors and industrial asteroid-mining stations, resulting in a multi-layered structure that acts as a city, with everything from food production and power generators to transport systems and biodomes. As imposing and grandiose as the ring is, its structural stability and overall utility has been called into question; it is however undeniably useful for ferrying large amounts of material via the maglev trains of the innermost ring, which is directly connected to the elevator anchors. The second innermost ring is dedicated to spacer habitation, administration and research; a large particle accelerator was constructed from 2287 to 2291, to take advantage of the Torus’ unique size and configuration for science experiments. The second outermost ring is wholly dedicated to industrial stations, with zero-gee microfabs and nanofoundries, as well as docks for captured asteroids. This is also where the shipyards building most of the Sol system’s ships are located, including military ships; in its entirety, its industrial output equates to about 70% of all industrial output in all of human-occupied space. This is also where most of the power is generated. Initially, the Torus’ power was beamed from planetside, from dedicated fusion and fission stations; as the technologies involved became ever more miniaturized however, more and more power stations were moved to the Torus, until the ring itself generated more power than the combined output of the planetside stations (and, indeed, most of the planet). At that point, many of the stations began to beam power to the surface, leading to the decommissioning of many planetside generators. The outermost ring is the most prominent, and is entirely dedicated to docking stations and military installations. Most of these are autonomous armed platforms mounting every conceivable weapon from missile platforms and point defenses to bomb-pumped nuclear lasers, as well as 13 displacement projectors powered by their own nuclear stations, by far the most potent arsenal in known space at the time; subsequent discoveries at what was to become SN 2155E put those claims down quickly however. One weapons system that is not included is the magnetic accelerator cannon (ironically, one of the first space-employed weapons created). The extreme power of the Earth Defense MACs gives the stations a certain instability which was deemed to be too hazardous for the Torus’ integrity, which is why they were never connected to it, and remained as individual stations. Because of this, most of the Earth is actually guarded by the less-prominent MAC stations, even though the Torus is widely considered the symbol of Earth’s supposed impregnability (for this reason, the Fleet’s emblem was modified to include it around the traditional Earth-and-eagle image as soon as 2263). By 2319, the ring was so well established that its cultural image was inseparable from the Earth’s, and neither would be represented without the other. Also around this time, in light of the events at SN 2155D, Horsead 12-8 and Arcadia, Imperial High Command began to consider further defensive options in the event of a full-scale attack. Two of these were implemented. The first was the supplementation of the Torus’ Amethyst generators with additional nuclear and Vacuum/Nilling reactors, and the construction of a dissemination network of satellites, that would spread the Amethyst field around the Earth, enveloping it in the shield (which, if fully activated, would have around thirteen trillion sides, +/- 8 billion). The second option was to use the Torus as a locus for a theoretical attempt to jump the Earth to a new location via a dedicated teleportation system of unparalleled size. The Amethyst sats would provide the other two loci, and the planetside power stations would be used in conjunction with the Torus reactors and the Nachtsonne station in Solar orbit to provide the necessary power for the event. It goes without saying that, as of this writing, such a thing has not yet been attempted; it is not even known if the system is ready for deployment, or what the consequences of such an act would be for the planet and its population. One projected outcome, however, is the certain loss of Luna, Earth’s moon, which would be left spinning alone through space. Not even this is an absolute certainty, however. Given the extreme importance the Moon has for the Earth’s economy and defense, it has been claimed quite insistently that the Fleet is in the process of fitting it with a transit circuit as well, one that would be situated beneath the lunar surface, to maintain its secrecy. Fleet officials have just as insistently declined any comment on the matter.
That good, huh? I have another 19 pages of this stuff, there's no shortage, but none are ready for release. However, I'm more interested in some criticism.
Please include details of the clean-up of near-space from the stray spanners, paint-flecks and fragments of Chinese weather satellite...
It feels like a Wikipedia article on something in recent history. While it isn't exactly bad per se, I'm having trouble thinking of this as an actual story. I would consider adding this as the "codex" to a chapter, although I'm not sure that you want to lead with this.
Seems interesting, I am wondering however, what would warrant the building of the Torus, since from the dates given at the beginning, it took over 200 years to build. Such a major committment (and an apparently unified world) implies that there must have been a very serious threat
This is a background piece, this isn't a story. A timeline perhaps, and certainly interesting, but this doesn't qualify as a story in its current incarnation.
Of course it is but a background piece. The actual stories aren't quite coherent enough for any sort of release. I'm looking for some early reviews of the overall concepts, tone and whether or not the sentence structure is acceptable to the outside viewer (since those are the only things that can be reviewed from this piece, I'd wager). Any guess on why it's called August? I also like belton180's comment.
70% of total insdustrial output in human space seems kinda unrealistic, just how big is it exactly? Also, august could be defined as majestic/imposing/distinguised, which makes sense given how the Torus is being viewed
It's huge; has 70+ asteroids of various sizes integrated. Also, "human space" is kind of what you'd call underpopulated. Most of the action is still happening on and around Earth and Sol, for reasons best kept unstated. I tried to emphasize the fact that, even though space wealth can give rise to unparalleled industrial capacity, human numbers and expertise have yet to catch up.
I would say it is rather good for a codex entry. As others have said, it does read as a Wikipedia article. It also seems to act as if the reader has prior knowledge, so it's good as an in-universe document. Most of the things that are unexplained can either be found out from context or make me want to find out more about the setting. You tell me just enough to get me interested and get a basic picture, without revealing the whole thing. Yeah, that's generally how I think a mildly plausible midfuture setting would handle population, with earth's planet-bound and orbital population being on a completely different scale than pretty much everything else. You seem to be thinking this out and making an interesting setting. The ability to make planets go FTL raises a lot of questions, such as how they would take into account all the gravitational effects and how they would go about ensuring that it achieves a stable orbit. This seems like a very high-powered setting. Personally, I think that humanity encountered some inhuman threat, either aliens or a Von Neumann horde, and they went into a decades/centuries long arms-race and a bitter war for survival. The implications that Earth becomes an empire also raises a whole lot of questions. This seems like it will be very difficult to do right, but if you do manage to pull this off and make a coherent, interesting, and semi-plausible story, then the payoff will be great.
Jesus Christ man it's been over a year! The theme of my setting is threat escalation. There's never just one threat. But, as I said one year ago, you're right in assuming that we found something that scared people. They like to call it an empire and be all "retro-classical" about it, with the currency being nano-alloyed gold composite coins called sesterts... but it's really a militaristic parliamentary democracy. Haven't written on it in over a year... damn MLP draining my creative juices.
