From QM 3.0  U.N. Quantum Corps Field Manual (Operations)

I.               Tactical Tips 1: Deception and Concealment

 

1.     Nanoscale assemblers and robots with quantum processors have the ability to make relatively quick configuration changes.  Swarms can look like clouds of dust, rain storms and hordes of flies or bees, even structures like buildings, cars, etc.  These config changes provide a ready-made source of deceptive countermeasures for concealment, allowing a typical ANAD unit to infiltrate and spring a surprise on even the most suspicious adversary.  The Russians call this tactic maskirovka. 

2.     The whole point of deception and concealment is make an ANAD swarm look like something else.  Swarms of nanobots produce signatures that can be detected.  Atomgrabbing generates heat, leaving a thermal signature that can be quite distinct and revealing to properly tuned detectors.  Additionally, atomgrabbing requires atoms and molecules to be separated and that puts out detectable electromagnetic, even acoustic signals that can give away ANAD’s presence or purpose.

3.     Since nanobotic swarms can change their configurations, it’s not hard given the right template for a swarm to resemble any number of local environmental phenomenon.  Let’s set up an example:

4.     Suppose you want to assault a prepared fortification but the enemy base is located on an open plain, devoid of trees or brush.  Bare ground exposed on all sides might make the base vulnerable but it also makes an assault difficult to pull off without being detected.

5.     Suppose we configure our ANAD assault swarm to resemble dust motes, or flies or even rain drops.  We’d have to make this config change out of sight of the enemy.  We’d also have to make sure ANAD is optimized for fast config changes, so that after we’ve sent our swarm into the base disguised as something indigenous to the area, we can change configs back to a pattern more suitable for assault operations.  In this way, we can direct our swarm into close proximity, perhaps right inside the base, without triggering alarms.  Of course, this all depends on absolutely strict emissions control (emcon) so as not to tip off any sensors or detectors.

6.     An often-effective variant of deception and concealment tactics are tactics that fall under the heading of diversions and feints, covered in the next section.

 

II.             Tactical Tips II: Diversions and Feints

1.     The Chinese general and strategist Sun Tzu claimed that “all war is based on deception.”  Feints and diversions are part of the same toolkit.   Quantum Corps uses swarms to conceal a main axis of assault, or to confuse an adversary as to where the main assault will be.  This is a relatively straightforward task in nanoscale warfare.  Just replicate a few trillion bots, configure them into something the enemy expects and send them in the direction the enemy is anticipating.  If your intelligence is good, the enemy will react to these moves and weaken himself along another axis.  The ability to replicate quickly and form swarms to resemble any structure or form gives ANAD-style units unbeatable capabilities.

2.     Again, an example is worthwhile.  Let’s say we’re assaulting that same base stuck out on a bare, windswept plain with no trees or brush for cover.  From intelligence sources, we know the enemy expects an assault to be made from the air.  To give the enemy what he expects, we fabricate a small swarm in routine assault configuration and make plans to do exactly what the enemy expects…drop the swarm on them from the air.

3.     But we don’t stop there.  We’ve also fabricated another swarm, this one configured to resemble a nest of ants.  Ants are ubiquitous.  They’re everywhere.  Who would ever expect a convoy of ants to turn into something else?  Ants don’t move that fast, but as long as our befuddled enemy is defending against our aerial swarm, who cares? 

4.     While the enemy is engaged with aerial bots, the antbots creep inside the base and re-config into assault formation.  A modern twist on the tale of the Trojan Horse.

 

III.           Countermeasures

 

1.     One result of the ability of nanobotic swarms to resemble anything and change configs to a nearly infinite choice of forms, is that an enemy might (rightfully) come to expect that literally anything could be a threat.  When anything can be a threat, the enemy’s resources and readiness can be stretched to the breaking point.

2.     Suppose we decide to defeat the enemy through attrition rather than frontal or full-scale assault.  It doesn’t take much imagination to figure out a plan of attrition involving dust motes that re-configure themselves as nanobots, followed by a rain storm that does the same and an endless columns of ants or a swarm of flies with the same result.  You wouldn’t even have to use very big swarms, just big enough to make the enemy think they were being assaulted from all directions and cause him to expend his weapons, troops and other resources defending threats that aren’t really that threatening.  Think of it as a sort of latter- day siege warfare.

3.     As Sun Tzu, that great nanowarrior, likes to say: “The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.”

4.     All it takes is a few flies and ants.

 

These tactical tips are excerpted from the Quantum Corps Field Manual.  More excerpts will be coming in future posts to Quantum Corps Times.

 

The next post comes on February 1, 2017.  In this post, we’ll look at the history and traditions of some of the more illustrious units of Quantum Corps.  We’ll start with the original Atomgrabbers themselves, 1^st Nanospace Battalion.

 

See you then.

 

Phil B.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Year End Summary”

This will be the last post to The Word Shed until January 9, 2017.  I thought this would be a good place to summarize what has happened in my writer’s life in 2016.

In my first post to The Word Shed, in the fall of 2015, I gave this as my reason for starting this blog:

I intend for this blog to be a "peek behind the curtains" of what it's like to imagine, create and bring to life the stories that people read, especially my readers (come on: I know you're out there). I have a number of books published through Smashwords and available at Barnes and Noble, Apple iBooks and other fine retailers. In future posts, I'll talk about them, how they came to be and where you can buy or download a copy. If you do buy or download, I'd sure appreciate it if you write up a review of what you have read, good or bad.



So here we are in mid- December 2016.  Here’s an interesting bunch of statistics.  I now have collectively 27 works up on Smashwords for download.  Since February 2016, 5519 downloads have occurred across all titles.  Somebody out there has been taking a look at my work. 

And, this week, I’m about to upload Episode 18 of my serial story Nanotroopers.  All episodes have in total seen 3640 downloads.  One of the more heartening developments is to watch what happens in the first 24 hours after I publish an episode at Smashwords.  Often, the episode will generate 30-40 downloads that very first day.  And Smashwords tells me that 6 readers have elected to be notified immediately by email when a new episode goes up.



What’s it been like this year?  A lot of work.  Writing takes discipline.  I’m currently still employed at a full-time job but expect to retire from that by September 1, 2017.  I am working on two stories on any given day: another Nanotroopers episode and the first draft of Johnny Winger and the Battle at Caloris Basin.  Splitting my imagination requires some mental gymnastics and some hard thinking and imagining when I’m not writing, like when I’m driving home, showering, working out…I’m always thinking about what comes next in one or the other of the stories.  Both stories are reasonably well outlined but I haven’t hesitated to veer from the outlines significantly if I think the stories demand it.  That adds to the work.

In recent posts, I’ve laid out what I plan to do in finishing Nanotroopers, Tales of the Quantum Corps and starting another Farpool novel.  These activities will occupy much of 2017, especially the first half. 

In a way, I’ll be sorry to say good-bye to Johnny Winger.  Battle at Caloris Basin is the final installment of Tales of the Quantum Corps.  Doing a serial like Nanotroopers, which explores how Winger came to be in Quantum Corps and some of his early adventures, has been a good experience for me, since I committed myself to a schedule of uploads and I’ve managed to stay on that schedule through Episode 17 (of 22).  The discipline of having to put words down and move a story forward and do it to a schedule has been very revealing to me as a writer, in terms of what is required in work habits etc.  You don’t have any time to fool around. 



Do I make any money at this?  In a word, no, and I don’t really expect to.  I do it because I enjoy it, and I’m gratified that there are now over 8000 downloads of all my titles, free and not-free, on Smashwords from May/June 2014, when I uploaded my first ebook file.  I feel a certain responsibility to my readers and that helps motivate me on those days when I really don’t feel like putting words down on paper.  Someday I must explore this idea of writerly motivation a little deeper.  I’d be curious to know what works for other writers and authors.



I write for the joy of expressing myself in words.  I write for the satisfaction of crafting a story and seeing it come together.  I write for the thrill of seeing readers download my work and wonder if they’re getting what they want from it.  Since I started keeping weekly statistics on downloads at Smashwords, I’ve seen many weeks where the total number of downloads has exceeded 100.  That has been an eye-opener for me this year.  That makes it all worthwhile, if I can bring some entertainment to a few people through my writing.



A couple of good reviews and one good unsolicited verbal review from a friend of a friend haven’t hurt either.



That’s what 2016 has been like.  I’m looking forward to 2017, retiring and doing what I love this full-time.  I still have to get my home office in shape, buy a good laptop and printer and look into what needs to be done (like updated covers) to juice up my downloads even further.

Have a great holiday and I’ll be back with you on January 9, 2017.

Phil B.

“Writers and Their Myth-Conceptions”

Myths are all about stories and writers are story people.  Wikipedia defines myths as “any traditional story consisting of events that are ostensibly historical, though often supernatural, explaining the origins of a cultural practice or a natural phenomenon.”

Writers use myths as story material all the time.  Science fiction writers could be thought of as trafficking in myths about the future.  For example, Star Trek (now 50 years old) has given us communicators (we have them today), tricorders (we may have them soon) and the Holodeck (possibly later VR technology). 

Recently, I read an article in Scientific American by Julien d’Huy about myths and how they originated and spread.  It turns out that it’s possible to use a statistical technique common in evolutionary studies to track myths, where they started, where they went and how myths across peoples and cultures compare.  This technique is called phylogenetic analysis. 

D’Huy breaks down various myths into structural elements that he called mythemes, a term which comes from anthropology.  He uses phylogenetic analysis to compare myths from various cultures and has found that the structure of mythical stories, which often remain unchanged for thousands of years, closely parallels the history of large-scale human migration, from Africa to Asia, Europe and the Americas.

For example, the Greek version of a familiar myth starts with Artemis, goddess of the hunt and protectress of young women.  Artemis demands that Callisto and her other handmaidens take a vow of chastity.  Zeus tricks Callisto into giving up her virginity and she gives birth to a son, Arcas.  Zeus has a jealous wife, however, named Hera who turns Callisto into a bear and banishes her to the mountains.  Meanwhile Arcas grows up to become a hunter and one day happens on a bear that greets him with outstretched arms.  Not recognizing his mother, he takes aim with his spear but Zeus comes to the rescue.  He transforms Callisto into the constellation Ursa Major or “great bear,” and places Arcas nearby as Ursa Minor, or “little bear.”

As the Iroquois of the northeastern U.S. tell it, three hunters pursue a bear.  The blood of the wounded animal colors the leaves of the autumnal forest.  The bear then climbs a mountain and leaps into the sky.  The hunters and the animal become the constellation Ursa Major. 

Although the animals and the constellations may differ, the basic structure of the story does not.  These sagas all belong to a family of myths known as the Cosmic Hunt.  Every version of the Cosmic Hunt, which spread from Africa to Europe and Asia at least 15,000 years ago, shares a common story line—a man or an animal pursues or kills one or more animals and the creatures are changed into constellations.

D’Huy has analyzed major mythical types and has been able to show that the structure of myths closely tracks the migration of humans from their earliest origins in Africa, lending additional support to fossil and genetic evidence that we all came from a small group of proto-humans in that part of the world. 

There are many myths: the Cosmic Hunt, the Pygmalion myth, the Polyphemus myth of a monster in the cave (think Cyclops and Sinbad tales).  In reading this article, I realize I have subconsciously followed the Polyphemus myth myself in placing my great adversary Config Zero (from Tales of the Quantum Corps) in a cave atop a volcanic summit called Kipwezi in east Africa. 

Writers traffic in myths, intentionally or not.  If you tell a story that aligns with one of the great myths of human history, you’ve got a ready-made foundation that will lend your story even greater power to its readers, because it will resonate with ideas and stories already embedded in their consciousness.  I’m convinced this is why the Harry Potter stories have been so popular.  They speak to powerful undercurrents in our story consciousness. 

And we all know that we are hard-wired to love stories.  In my October 24, 2016 post to The Word Shed, I quoted California neurobiologist Paul Zak this way: “…as social creatures who regularly affiliate with strangers, stories are an effective way to transmit important information and values from one individual or community to the next. Stories that are personal and emotionally compelling engage more of the brain, and thus are better remembered, than simply stating a set of facts.”

And to that, we can add that stories that align with powerful myths are especially compelling and likely to really grab a reader by the throat and draw him in.  Every writer wants to do that. 

Stir up the oxytocin receptors with myth-conceptions and you’ll have your audience hooked.

The next post to The Word Shed will come on December 19, 2016.

See you then.

Phil B.

“Update on Tales of the Quantum Corps, Nanotroopers and The Farpool”

Below is an update on ebook downloads via Smashwords as of November 28, 2016…

Title	Week Ending 11-28-16
JW & the Serengeti Factor	773
JW & the Amazon Vector	584
JW & the Hellas Enigma	556
JW & the Golden Horde	490
JW & the Great Rift Zone	489
JW & the Europa Quandary	456
Final Victory	102
The Eyeball Conspiracy	150
The Peking Incident	172
Root Magic	79
The Farpool	529
All Nanotroopers Episodes	3508
TOTAL	7888

 

As you can see, the Tales of the Quantum Corps stories, with the Nanotroopers series and The Farpool constitute 94% of all downloads.  Not surprising since all these titles are listed on Smashwords as free ebooks.  Plus all these titles are listed as science fiction.  I am currently working on Nanotroopers Episode 18 (of a projected 22) and just today uploaded Episode 16, which already has 10 downloads after being posted to the site for four hours.

I am currently about halfway through the final installment of Tales of the Quantum Corps, entitled Johnny Winger and the Battle at Caloris Basin.  I expect to be done with this in mid to late spring 2017 and you’ll see it at Smashwords on or before June 1.  Also I expect to be concluding the Nanotroopers series on or about March 31, 2017.

Which leaves The Farpool.

My next title in this projected series will be The Farpool: Marauders of Seome.  Projected start date is June 8, 2017.  In a previous post to The Word Shed, I’ve given a brief outline of this story.  For those of you who might have missed it, here it is again:

1. The Farpool: Marauders of Seome
   The Ponkti send mercenaries and agents through the Farpool and wind up in mid-20^th century Earth.  They hook up with the Nazis.  The Ponkti have stolen Omtorish technology and have modified themselves to operate as amphibious beings.  The Ponkti are very interested in German U-boat technology and especially their torpedoes.  For their part, the Nazis are interested in what the Ponkti can to do to help defeat Allied sonar and assault Allied convoys.  Chase and a rejuvenated Angie, along with their Omtorish friends Kloosee and Pakma, have to stop the Ponkti and the Nazis from nurturing each other’s evil ambitions.
   I anticipate doing additional stories in the world and time of The Farpool.  Here is a synopsis of what is coming.
    

1. The Farpool: Exodus from Seome
   Seomish engineers and scientists determine that their own sun Sigma-Albeth B won’t last much longer.  But Farpool still works.  A decision is made, after discussion, to begin a mass exodus of Seomish kels and people through the Farpool, to the oceans of 22^nd century Earth.  They don’t tell the humans about this planned immigration.  When the humans realize what is happening, conflict develops.  Ultimately, they allow the Seomish to come.  Now two intelligent races, one terrestrial and one marine, must learn to co-exist on Earth.  But what is worse: the Seomish have unwittingly left a path for the Coethi to come through the Farpool and menace 22^nd century Earth, even as they are menacing 28^th century Uman worlds around the Galactic Halo and Spiral Fringe.  A greater threat may be coming.
    
2. Additional titles and story ideas (there may be a total of 7 titles including the original The Farpool)
   1. Human and Seomish deal with conflict and learn how to live together on one planet (Seome is destroyed when their sun Sigma Albeth B supernova’es) (The Farpool: Terran Union)
   2. Human (22^nd century) and Seomish work together to deal with approach of the Coethi (more battles and wars in voidtime and alternate time streams using the Time Command) (The Farpool: Coethi Diaspora)
   3. Possible genetic/technological blending of human and Seomish physiology.  Hybrids develop, able to live on land and in the ocean. (The Farpool: Convergence)
   4. Coethi infiltrators threaten historical Earth time streams.  Human-Seomish  hybrids must combat changes to Earth’s past by combating infiltrators in periods and locales of ancient or future Earth history where amphibious hybrid troopers could make a difference. (The Farpool: Temporal Sabotage)
3. Additional titles for use in story ideas involve amphibious hybrid troopers battling Coethi timestream terrorists (stories should be set in locales where amphibious troopers could make a difference).
   NOTE: Hybrid troopers are symbiotically blended human/Seomish/AI-robotic beings
   NOTE: Farpool Troopers will be a continuing serial of adventures involving blended human/Seomish/robotic warriors (similar to Nanotroopers). See 4.d above.  They work for Time Command.
4. Potential serial story titles
   1. Menace in the Maldives
   2. Assault at Aldabara
   3. Rescue at Europa
   4. Victory at Vesta
   5. Mystery at Ganymede
   6. Disaster at Amalthea
   7. Skirmish in the Solomons
   8. Ambush at Triton
   9. Conspiracy at Callisto
   10. Decision at Io
   11. Triumph at Eros
   12. Tragedy at Trafalgar
   13. Incident at Proxima Centauri  (possibly, this will be Episode 1)
5. Important naval battles could also be a setting, including…
   1. Salamis
   2. Lepanto
   3. Jutland
6. Coethi timestream terrorists are trying to close down critical time streams in human space (21^st to 28^th centuries) to force human/Uman expansion away from the Galactic Halo back toward Solspace.  The Coethi want to take over star systems in the region of the Galactic Halo and along a considerable arc of the Perseus Arm of the Milky Way.
7. Farpool Troopers must confront and defeat Coethi attempts to alter critical human historical time streams, on Earth, and throughout the settled solar system and even further out in interstellar space where humans (later Umans) explored, fought each other, settled and colonized other worlds. 
8. Farpool Troopers are deployed soldiers of Time Command.  They use jumpships and travel through voidtime to various time streams in their missions. 
    
   So, as you can see, I have a great deal of potential work to do and a lot of stories to tell.  I hope to make The Farpool into  both a continuing line of novels and branch off from that line to do a serial like Nanotroopers, but focused on the times and adventures of the people of Earth and Seome and their hybrid descendants. 
    
   The next post to The Word Shed will be on December 12, 2016.
    
   See you then.
    
   Phil B.