“The Trajectory of Johnny Winger”

In my series Tales of the Quantum Corps and in my serial Nanotroopers, the main character is a fellow named Johnny Winger.  With the next novel in Tales, the story of Johnny Winger will be coming to an end, excepting Nanotroopers, which ostensibly ends at Episode 22, early next year.

This post will look at the trajectory of Johnny Winger’s life during this series.  We’ll call him JW, for brevity’s sake.

JW started out as one of three children to Jamison and Ellen Winger, of Pueblo, Colorado.  This is detailed in Episode 1 of Nanotroopers.  When JW was a child, Ellen Winger died in a terrible car accident.  Jamison Winger became depressed and withdrawn after this and Johnny and his siblings had to take over operating the family ranch, the North Bar Pass ranch.  But JW wasn’t really cut out for ranch life and so when an opportunity to do something more adventurous came along, like join a new organization called Quantum Corps, he jumped at it. 

Finishing nog school (Quantum Corps Academy) as a newly minted Lieutenant and nanotrooper, JW dived into the world of warfare at the scale of atoms and molecules.  He also got to become acquainted with a highly capable nanoscale robot called ANAD.  Over the course of (soon to be) seven novels and innumerable serialized episodes, ANAD evolved to become a friend, a competitor and in some ways, the companion that JW never had growing up.  All this with a bot some sixty nanometers tall. 

One of my strongest memories as a child was how much I enjoyed the series Tom Swift Jr.  When I sat down to outline what I wanted Tales and Nanotroopers to become, I had Tom Swift in mind: a young scientifically-oriented explorer who gets into all kinds of adventures, in exotic locations, against nefarious, vicious and devious adversaries, and who overcomes them with pluck, luck and sound knowledge of science (or pseudo-science).  Plus there were lots of neat gadgets as well.  A ten-year old boy’s wet dream come true. 

Jonny Quest was also an inspiration for ideas, plots and locales for this series.

But during the story arc of Tales, JW evolved, sometimes in ways I never expected.  He did all the things I originally envisioned, battling a cartel called Red Hammer, winding up in exotic locations on and off-Earth, using his abilities as a nanotrooper (atomgrabber) to overcome these adversaries, using neat gadgets in the process and learning and interacting in more and more complex ways with his robotic sidekick ANAD.  Think of JW as Batman and ANAD as Robin.  On second thought, don’t think of that.

During the story arc, the growth of molecular assembler technology around the world and all that could mean was a major backdrop to the stories.  I tried to show that such technology would have problematic impacts on society,that Humans would have a love-hate relationship with their bots and that at the very heart of this relationship, there lurked an existential threat to Humanity that would require some very hard decisions by JW and others in the end.

The nature of this threat has become, by the time of Johnny Winger and the Europa Quandary, very evident and very menacing.  It will play out fully in the final story, Johnny Winger and the Battle at Caloris Basin.  An outgrowth of ANAD technology has been the development of a social-political and philosophical movement called Assimilationism.  In this movement, adherents believe that the Old Ones (the main bad guys) are truly coming (back) to the Earth and it’s our job to be ready to be taken up and absorbed into the Mother Swarm.  Moreover, this development has left JW with a real conundrum of a decision to make.  Also, Assimilationism has developed and evolved in concert with the spread of angels, swarms of nanobots configured to closely resemble humans and the rise of these angels as a nearly parallel civilization alongside our human civilization has introduced additional conflict to the story and into JW’s life. 

The decision JW faced in Europa Quandary was whether to allow himself to be disassembled into a swarm of nanoscale bots, knowing that returning to his natural form was unlikely, so that he could battle the approaching menace of the Old Ones more easily.  Or as ANAD itself put it: to become a multi-configuration entity, to go anywhere, be anything you have configs for, rather than stay as a single-config entity like us humans.  Winger makes this decision and as Battle at Caloris Basin opens, we shall see how his decision plays out. 

The trajectory of Johnny Winger’s life spans his beginnings as ranch hand and neophyte atomgrabber, to his growth as an officer and commander in Quantum Corps, eventually to the top position of Commander in Chief, Quantum Corps, and ultimately to his decision to let ANAD disassemble him into something like an angel so he can work against the Old Ones and help defeat this existential threat to Earth. 

This decision is in some ways similar to that made by OSS agents and Resistance leaders in WWII Europe who worked behind Nazi lines to defeat Hitler from within.  Winger’s idea is to defeat the Old Ones from within, literally from within the Mother Swarm.  The big difference is that, in order to do this, JW had to assume the form of the Old Ones, assume the form of a swarm of nanoscale bots, yet somehow retain his identity and memory enough to complete his mission of espionage and sabotage.

That’s the story of Battle at Caloris Basin. 

The trajectory of Johnny Winger ultimately takes this former ranch hand and rookie atomograbber to a point in his life where he has to fight to keep his very identity, memory and personality intact against overwhelming, unearthly odds, and in the process, he has to learn just exactly what it is that makes Johnny Winger…Johnny Winger.  It’s a form of self-learning and maturity that none of us will ever face, done in extraordinary circumstances where his very survival is in question.  All of this: identity, memory, courage, survival, loyalty and curiosity mingle together to create what I hope will be a memorable reading experience…and has been a memorable experience over the course of the six previous stories in Tales.

And you can read even more exploits of Johnny Winger in Nanotroopers.

 

Word Shed will take a short hiatus over the Labor Day holiday.  The next post will be on Monday, September 12.

Until then, have a great holiday.

Phil B.