Top Ten SciFi settings

Hey Y’all. To promote my book and connect with audiences better, I’m going to be doing top X number posts leading up to April 10th when Armored Warrior Panzerter releases on Amazon.  So to start, here are my top 10 Favorite SciFi settings. 

10. Star Trek

10. Star Trek -Star Trek comes in the bottom purely because I only recently came to appreciate it. DS9 stands out as probably my favorite out of the franchise and it’s got a pretty loyal fandom. I mean, The Lower Decks happened and they’re still around.

9. Star Wars Legends

Yep, everything from Dark Empire, to the old Thrawn Trilogy, to the New Jedi order series. If there’s anything this continuity mastered it was using incomparable threats to overcome power scaling. So you beat the Emperor? Now deal with the best strategist the Empire ever had. Beat Thrawn? Now Palpatine is back, younger, stronger, and with a goatee of evil. Beat him again? Now aliens from outside the galaxy who are so cruel and genocidal the force cut them out are trying to take over. Beat the Vong? the war corrupted your nephew and exposed issues with the government, now he’s killed your son and leading a dark side army. Did his twin fight him to death? Abeloth happens. Not everything was grade A material, but a lot of it was memorable. Particularly….

8. Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic

Is it cheating? Not really, it’s my countdown and this particular story straddles the line between cannon and Legends. For me and my brother, these two games set the gold standard for Scifi storytelling, let alone star wars stories. It managed an original story in a familiar setting and succeeded incredibly. Still waiting on the remaster though. And don’t confuse this for that High Republic nonsense. 

7. The Renegade Star Universe

I came upon the series on kindle unlimited fairly recently. I’m still about halfway through the main series, but it’s twists and turns are nice. The concept of humanity expanding so far and so wide Earth became a myth is a fascinating one and I’m glad to see it play out.

6. Dragonlance

So super cheating, because it’s 97% a fantasy universe. Except the part where the planet was moved to a different solar system and it messed up the magic system. And the genetic experiment monsters that are the Draconians. So it tangentially counts. Definitely my favorite fantasy series, but against SciFi, it’s only six. 

5. Battletech

I got into this via the xbox game mechassault, a game that lacked many of the franchise’s iconic mechs, the feudalism in space, or Space AT&T (if you know, you know). It did however feature the badass mercenaries known as Wolf’s Dragoons. 

4. Worldwar series by Harry Turtledove

This whack series where aliens invade in the middle of WW2 managed to accomplish three things: got me back into reading when I’d stopped for a few years, introduced me to the awesome genre of Alternate history, and showed off a practical use for the Schwerer Gustav Railroad gun. It will always be special to me dispite its goofy premise.

3. HALO

In spite of what the games have become, it doesn’t change the fact me and my younger brother bonded over the Co-op play in Halo 2. Every time a new game was announced up through Halo 4, my brother and I got hyped every year.

2. Godzilla

The 8 year old version of me wouldn’t be able to shut up about all the new movies, books, comics and anime coming out about the King of Monsters. Granted, he couldn’t shut up about movies that were over thirty years old, and got made fun of a lot. In a way adult me is getting the best of both worlds with GvK being the blockbuster everyone’s talking about while the anime Godzilla: Singular Point is a love letter to the era of movies I loved as a kid. 

1. Gundam

When Gundam Wing came to the states in the early 2000’s, along with the original series, 0083 Stardust Memory, and 08th MS Team, Tiny Tyler got hooked. I constantly asked my mom if she could buy me gundam stuff, and naturally, being a 26 year old woman in 2000, had no idea what the hell I was talking about. As I got older, I began to notice things that I’d missed for the cool robots as a kid, and I liked it more. 

Well there you have it! Naturaly, each of these settings is going to have some influence on how i write as my personnel philosophy is to write stories I would enjoy. Armored Warrior Panzerter will be available on Amazon April 10, 2021.

The Panzerter VII "Lowe"

The GPZTR (Gerpad Panzerter) Mark VII is the seventh panzerter built by the Republic of Tharsis. Developed by Steyer Defense in competition with OHM to develop the new “Heavy Panzerter” for the Tharcian army, SD decided to simply build a well rounded panzerter with technologies that wouldn’t be available for a lighter model. With the lessons learned from the War of 2112, the Tharcian General Staff requested a heavier model to supplement the next generation of panzerters. This model was required to be specialized in destroying other panzerters while maintaining the ability to fulfill the standard urban combat role of panzerters. 

Equipment

 The Lowe is equipped with Mk 2 Nuclear turbine generating 100,000 horsepower. This 100% increase in power output allows the Lowe Early-Type to make use of it’s primary weapon: a 120-mm Railgun. While a light railgun by naval standards, it’s inclusion allows the Lowe to bring the equivalent firepower of a destroyer to surface warfare. To deal with the weapons absurd recoil, SD decided to mount the weapon over the left shoulder, a detail that allows the pilot to use a different weapon in its right hand. 

It’s secondary armaments include twin mounted Model 2188A3 .50 caliber machine guns in it’s head.  This allows the Lowe to bring accurate machine gun fire to multiple levels in an urban environment as well as shoot down drowns or incoming missiles. For close quarter combat, the Lowe is equipped with a panzerter-sized longsword known as a Tesla sword. The blade is made of superdense, highly conductive alloys that when extended, electrify, extending the effective length and width of the blade while also shrouding it in a superheated electrical current. 

For protection, the Lowe uses lightweight and strong materials in it’s armor. While the exact nature and composition of the materials is classified, it is rumored that some of them are highly flammable. This necessitated the Lowe’s revolutionary thermal dampener coating. Originally a paint designed to protect spacecraft on reentry, SD developed a version for the Lowe that wouldn’t create toxic fumes.  This coating gives the Lowe it’s black coloration and renders it nearly immune to most laser weapons used by the Union of Mars. 

Because of it’s massive engine output, the Lowe is surprisingly agile for it’s size and weight. This makes the Lowe one of the most dominant panzerters in close quarter combat, and enables to powerful machine to run at speeds of up to 75 kilometers an hour, though those speeds would be a rough ride for the pilot. 

However, it’s sensitive controls, deceptive agility, and advanced systems make it far to difficult for a novice or even average pilot to reliably control. To this end, the Tharcian general staff barred the use of this advanced machine to enlisted pilots, believing arrogantly that they were somehow less skilled then their officer counterparts. This sentiment would be proven wrong time and time again as the war progressed. 

Future

As the Red World War drags on, the Tharcian army is investing increasingly in developing specialized variants and advanced models. A commanders version, as well as a space type were already underdevelopment when the Garden City Tech campus came within striking distance of the front. Another proposal calls for attaching Lowe type armor plating to the exterior hill of standard Panzerter IVs. 

Summery

Model: Panzerter VII-A “Lowe” Early production type (Reporting name- Black Knight)

Known pilots: 1st Lieutenant Paul Reiter

Armament: 1x Class 1 Mod. 30 Railgun, 2x Model 2188A3 .50 Caliber HMGs, 1x Shield, 2x Tesla Sword Mk-1

Ratings

Firepower: 9/10

Protection: 8/10

Mobility: 6/10

Melee: 7/10

Sensors: 7/10

Height:  45 ft (13.72 meters)

Weight: 70 tons