I haven’t had as much time as I thought I would to create content directly on the blog but I thought that I’d let you know of some things that have been going on.
First, I have been working on the Detailed Frontier Timeline. Posts have been going out (almost) daily on the @Star Frontiers account on Twitter and you can expect a summary post here at the beginning of May.
Second, the Moonbright Stinger (aka Gullwind) 3D model is finally up on DriveThruRPG where you can download it if you want. It’s taken me nearly a year to get it up there but I finally got around to it. I know at least one of the readers will be happy. They keep asking about it.
I’ve also started looking at website updates. I’ll probably be updating the Frontier Explorer site first as there is some issue with the current site that causes it to send a random process off in to some weird infinite loop that is using up all the spare CPU cycles on my server. It’s really strange and I haven’t tracked down what is causing it. Since I was planning on an upgrade anyway, That will hopefully solve the problem.
That’s it for now. Hopefully there will be more soon.
This post is only a bit over a year late. These are the events that I posted to twitter back in February of 2021 just before I stopped blogging. I’m finally getting them online. I also plan on resuming the daily Twitter posts of the events. starting on day FY61.382. If you want to get the daily updates, follow the @StarFrontiers account on twitter or the #SFTimeline hashtag. If you want to review everything that has happened, or are new to this series of posts, you can grab the PDF file linked at the bottom of the post that contains every entry in the timeline since I started it. Its up to 81 pages so there’s a bit of reading there.
Also, depending on how things go generating the timeline, I might start posting events using the GST calendar of the Frontier. Which means you’ll get 36 Frontier days worth of events every 30 Earth days as the GST calendar only has 20 hours per day instead of our 24. We’ll see if that actually pans out.
The events in this post include the two battles I posted the detail of early last year which are linked in their appropriate entries. With the conclusion of the Battle of Liberty, the war cools down for a while. The sathar are currently out of ships at the moment although they have dozens under construction. Both sides are now maneuvering to reposition and rebuild forces. Otherwise, not much happening in this post outside of the war events.
Date (FY)
Events
61.357
– Ten more pilots complete their fast-tracked certifications for the Frontier Fighter Corps. They immediately depart for Hentz (Araks).
– SBF-J2 (Liberty system) begin calculations for a jump to the Waller Nexus system.Spacefleet holds the space in anticipation of more ships finishing and beginning construction on a new battleship.
61.358
– Second Battle of Ken’zah-Kit (K’aken-Kar) – After nearly 2.5 hours of fighting TF Cassidine defeats SBF-J1 losing only a single fighter while the sathar only have a fighter and heavy cruiser surviving. Most of the UPF ships have damage requiring a shipyard to repair.
– The surviving sathar heavy cruiser and fighter from SBF-J1 accelerate for a jump to the K’sta-Kar system.
– The damaged UPF destroyer completes repairs in the Streel shipyards (Pale, Truane’s Star) and the ship that was moved out to make room resumes construction (it will be done in 23 days).
– SBF-E2 jumps into the Zebulon system. It remains at high speed and begins calculations for jump to Kazak.
– A HS:8 ship completes maintenance in the PGC shipyards (Gran Quivera, Prenglar). Spacefleet moves a couple of small ships in for maintenance to coordinate their completion with more ships finishing and beginning construction on a new battleship.
61.359
– Calculations for the jump back to YS07 complete, the HSS History’s Hope begins accelerating for the jump while the astrogators get a day of rest before double checking the figures on the way out.
– Sathar TG-1 jumps into the OFS136 system where SCC#3 is located as they continue on their journey to SCC#4 (OFS111)
– The battleship Admiral Dooltan and accompanying minelayer arrive at Zit-kit (Kisk-Kar) and join up with PG Meteor. With the addition of the battleship and minelayer, the fleet is now designated Task Force Meteor.
– After spending a day rearming, Task Force Cassidine splits up with the undamaged heavy and light cruiser, now designated Patrol Group Vigilant, departing in pursuit of the sathar heavy cruiser which is headed toward K’tsa-Kar.
– The main force of TF Cassidine, all needing time in a shipyard to fully repair, begin accelerating for a jump to the Kizk-Kar system and then on to Fromeltar. The Terledrom (Fromeltar) shipyard is notified that they will arrive on FY61.375 and begins making preparations to receive them.
– The Clarion (White Light) militia, at the request of Spacefleet, depart for a jump to K’sta-Kar to join up with PG Vigilant and patrol that system. The saurians send 3 of their 6 Battle Rays to assist.
61.360
– Calculations complete, SBF-J2 (LC & FF) begin accelerating from the Liberty system for a jump to the Waller Nexus system. PG Liberty detects the departure almost immediately and subspace radio the intel back to Spacefleet.
– Stationing 8 of the fighters at Fortress Pale as the first official squadron of the Frontier Fighter Corps, the second assault carrier currently with Strike Force Nova is designated as Shuttle Group Alpha and departs back to Triad (Cassidine) to start moving more fighters around the Frontier.
61.361
– PG Liberty are authorized to engage the outbound SBF-J2 if conditions are favorable. Several Mhemne Belter ships offer to assist although their outdated engines mean that they will only be able to make a single pass at the sathar vessels. The ships all boost for intercept.
– Four fighters are completed at the Hentz (Araks) shipyard. They are put into storage awaiting the arrival of the Spacefleet pilots. Construction beings on four more fighters.
– Two fighters are completed at the Minotaur (Theseus) shipyards for the Frontier Fighter Corps but are currently manned by the militia. Construction begins on two more fighters.
61.362
– SBF-E2 jumps into the Kazak system and begins calculations for a jump to OFS019 and SCC#5.
– Battle of Liberty – PG Liberty, augmented by Mhemne ships, engage the sathar in the outer system. The fight does not go well for the UPF who lose their frigate and an assault scout although they do manage to destroy the sathar frigate.
– After fighting the UPF in the Liberty system, the surviving sathar light cruiser of SBF-J2 continues on its course to jump to the Waller Nexus system.
61.363
– CDC staff arrive back on Alcazzar (Rhianna) in anticipation of the new mining season. (SF4)
– SBF-J1 jumps into the K’sta-Kar system. They remain at speed and begin calculations for a jump to FS33.
61.364
– The HSS History’s Hope successfully jumps back into the YS07 jump completely charting that route. They begin decelerating to turn around and jump back to YS08 to continue their journey forward.
– PG Vigilant and the Clarion militia both jump into the K’sta-Kar system from opposite directions. Keeping an eye on the retreating SBF-J1, they start deceleration toward Kwadl-Kit.
– TF Cassidine jumps into the Kizk-Kar system and begin calculations for the jump to Fromeltar. They transmit details of their recent battles to TF Meteor to share their experiences.
61.365
– SBF-E2 jumps back into the OFS019 system and begins decelerating toward SCC#5.
– SBF-J2 enters the Void and like the frigate before it, misjumps, this time ending up in the OFS196 system.
– Enough space has cleared in the CDC shipyard (Triad, Cassidine) to allow Spacefleet to begin construction on another battleship to replace one of the two lost in the Second Battle of New Pale.
61.366
– SBF-J1 jumps into the FS33 system and begins calculations for a jump to OFS166.
– Eight more fighters are completed at the PGC shipyards (Gran Quivera, Prenglar) and shuttled to Gollwin Academy. Spacefleet delays the start of construction of more fighters as production of the ships is outpacing training of pilots and they want to use the space for construction of another battleship.
61.367
– As OFS196 is a system in the sathar charts, being on the route to OFS203 and SCC#1, SBF-J2 determines it position after just two days. It decides to take the known route back to Liberty and try again.
– Enough space opens up in the PGC shipyards (Gran Quivera, Prenglar) for Spacefleet to begin construction on the second battleship to replace the second one lost in the Second Battle of New Pale.
61.368
– The HSS History’s Hope arrives in the inner system of YS07 where they will rest for a day before they begin accelerating for the jump back to YS08.
– Task Force Cassidine jumps into the Fromeltar system and begins a slow deceleration toward Terledrom and the shipyard there. They radio ahead that they are a few days early.
– Spacefleet resumes fighter construction in the PGC shipyards (Gran Quivera, Prenglar) but only producing five at a time instead of eight. The other 3 HS worth of space is dedicated to constructing an assault scout. Additionally, 3 more assault scouts are started in the CDC shipyards (Triad, Cassidine).
61.369
– PG Vigilant and the Clarion militia, together with the saurian battle rays, arrive in orbit around Kwadl-Kit (K’sta-Kar). They set up a patrol schedule to watch for new sathar threats.
– SBF-J1 jumps into the OFS166 system and begins calculations for a jump to OFS167.
– SG Alpha arrives back at the CDC shipyards (Triad, Cassidine). The fighters in storage are transferred to the carrier while they await the arrival of their pilots, scheduled to graduate from Gollwin Academy tomorrow.
61.370
– SBF-E2 arrives back at SSC#5 (OFS019). The heavy cruiser under construction is moved out of the shipyard to make room for the damaged one to receive the necessary repairs.
– Nine more pilots graduate in the accelerated cadet class at Gollwin Academy. They immediately depart to take command of the fighters currently sitting in storage at Triad (Cassidine).
61.371
SBF-J1 jumps into the OFS167 system and begins calculations for a jump to OFS169.
61.372
An attempt to explode a bomb at the Council of Worlds building while the council is in session is foiled by Star Law agents and local law enforcement. Unfortunately, none of the perpetrators survived. An investigation is launched immediately to track down the origin of the plot.
61.373
TF Cassidine arrives in orbit around Terledrom. There is currently 6 HS of open space in the shipyard and the heavily damaged frigate and fighter are moved in for repairs.
61.374
– The HSS History’s Hope jumps back to the YS08 system. They begin decelerating and working on the jump calculations for the next system, a binary system 5 ly away.
– SBF-J1 jumps into the OFS169 system and begins calculations for a jump to the OFS170 system.
– The K’aken-Kar militia assault scout, also in OFS169, happens to detect the heavy cruiser just hours after it jumps into the system. Realizing they are in sathar controlled space, the ship goes into as stealthy a mode as possible to avoid detection as they monitor the sathar vessel.
– SBF-J2 jumps back into the Liberty system.
– The TF Cassidine fighter in the Terledrom (Fromeltar) shipyard competes its repairs. The space is held in reserve for the larger ships needing repairs.
61.375
– Princess Leotia’s 35th birthday. Major celebrations are held all over Clarion (White Light) in commemoration of her coming of age. While her father had planned to step down and hand the government over to her during the ceremonies, this has been delayed due to the ongoing sathar conflict.
– SBF-J1 jumps into the OFS170 system and begins calculations for the final leg of their jump back to SSC#10 in the OFS228 system.
– PG Liberty detects the returning light cruiser and radios its presence back to Spacefleet.
– The damaged sathar heavy cruiser at SCC#5 (OFS019) completes repairs and construction is resumed on the new heavy cruiser.
61.376
Three UPF fighters are completed at the Terledrom (Fromeltar) shipyards. They are transferred to Task Force Cassidine. The shipyard space is held in reserve to fit the larger ships needing repair.
61.377
– SBF-J1 jumps back into the OFS228 system and begins decelerating toward SSC#10
– An assault scout is completed in the Outer Reach (Dramune) shipyards. It sets off immediately for the Fromeltar system to join TF Cassidine. Construction begins on a new assault scout.
61.378
– SBF-J2 arrives back in orbit around Snowball. After rearming, it sets off once again to try to jump to the Waller Nexus system.
– Calculations complete, the HSS History’s Hope begins accelerating to the next system on their route, which they designate as YS11.
– A UPF assault scout is completed at the CDC shipyards (Triad, Cassidine). This is the first of the replacement ships larger that a fighter to come out of the shipyards since the conflict began. 5 fighters are also completed and work begins on another AS and 5 fighters. The completed ships join SG Alpha.
– The first damaged frigate from TF Cassidine emerges from the shipyard at Terledrom (Fromeltar) fully repaired. The other frigate enters and work begins on it.
61.379
– The Frontier Fighter Corps pilots arrive at Hentz (Araks) to take command of their fighters there. There is some initial tension between the UPF and militia forces as the latter do not want to turn over control of the ships.
– The Spacefleet pilots arrive at Triad (Cassidine). They are immediately transferred to the carrier in SG Alpha where their ships are awaiting them. SG Alpha departs immediately for a jump to Dramune and then on to Fromeltar where the fighters are to be delivered.
– The Yazira Dome completes its second year of operation. With the on-going sathar conflict, travel has been curtailed and off-world yazirian visitors diminished but the Dome is still wildly popular with on-planet visitors.
– Detecting SBF-J2 outbound once again, PG Liberty sends a subspace message informing Spacefleet and continues to monitor the sathar ship.
– Calculations complete and checked, the HSS History’s Hope begins accelerating for the jump to the next system on their route, designated YS11.
61.380
– Sathar TG-1 arrives at SCC#4 (OFS111), joining the other ships there.
– After several back-and-forth communications, including a threat by Spacefleet to dispatch TF Prenglar to the Araks system to eliminate or take control of the militia, the Hentz militia turns over control of the Frontier Fighter Corps fighters to the UPF crews.
– The second damaged frigate from TF Cassidine completes repairs at the Terledrom (Fromeltar) shipyards. A new UPF assault scout, along with an assault scout for the local militia are also completed. This frees up enough space that TF Cassidine’s assault carrier can move in for repairs.
61.381
TF Cassidine’s assault carrier completes repairs at the Terledrom (Fromeltar) shipyards. There is not enough free space to move the battleship in, but that space will free up in three days. With 30% of the shipyard empty, the work crews can each get a full day off to rest over the next few days.
It’s been a long time but I’m back to blogging and you can expect content to appear on this blog fairly regularly again. With the exception of the post about the Moonbright Stinger miniature, it’s been over a year. I’ve just had too much going on and, honestly, been very distracted by other activities, to do much in the way of posting. That is changing.
First, if you haven’t seen it yet, I just released issue 36 of the Frontier Explorer. You can grab a copy at DriveThruRPG or on the Frontier Explorer website. This was the last issue of the magazine. I was seriously burnt out on producing the fanzine and had to force myself to put out every issue for the last year. I threw in the towel with this one. Thirty-six issues and ten years of production was a good run. It’s time for new activities. If you want more details, check out my Endings and Beginnings article at the end of issue 36. A lot of what I plan on working on will appear here on the blog, either as entries or reports on “behind the scenes” activities.
That said, it won’t be the last fanzine issue. Tom V., who I co-created the Frontier Explorer with, is going to revive the Star Frontiersman fanzine. So you can expect to see more content there as well. I’ll probably write for the magazine, but I won’t be producing it any more.
What to Expect
With that out of the way, let’s look at what you can expect here at the Expanding Frontier going forward. I currently have no idea what my publishing schedule is going to look like. I hope to get back to a post a week, and maybe even more, but we’ll see what happens. Here are some of the projects I’m going to be working on and posting about.
Detailed Frontier Timeline
First, I’m resuming the Detailed Frontier Timeline project where I am posting a day-to-day series of events going on in the Frontier, these posts go out daily on Twitter and monthly here on the blog. Currently, the timeline is in the thick of the opening events of the Second Sathar War. I tweeted nearly a month’s worth of events back in February 2021 that never got posted here on the blog. That summary post will be the next one after this post. (In fact, it’s already written. I just decided to get this post up before I posted that one).
If you want to get the daily updates, follow the @StarFrontiers account on Twitter or the #SFTimeline hashtag. I post these in the Star Frontier account instead of my personal account (@dagorym) and every post has the #SFTimeline hashtag. They will start back up on day FY61.382. Otherwise, my plan is to publish the summary blog post here during the first week of each month that collects all the Twitter posts from the previous month. So you’ll be getting the summary from February 2021 in a day or two, Twitter posts starting back up, and the next summary post in the beginning of June.
3D models
I want to get back to modeling. I still have 5 miniatures from the Privateer boxed set to recreate and then it will be off to to the races creating ship models of my own design. Probably several space stations to start. I don’t know exactly when I’ll get started on this, but I hope to start working on models by the end of May. We’ll see what kind of progress I make and how often I post these.
HSS History’s Hope
Back in December 2020, I posted a set of videos showing how I was creating the deck plans for the HSS History’s Hope, a ship that features in the Detailed Frontier Timeline. The idea was to both show the deck plans and talk about how I create them. I need to finish the deck plans for that ship. The question is, would you be interested in seeing videos of how I draw the remaining five decks or do you just want to see the final plans. If you want me to record the design/drawing process for the maps, let me know in the comments. I’m happy to do so, but that might delay getting this project restarted.
Regardless of whether I record videos of the deck plans being drawn or not, I have two projects in mind related to this ship, maybe three. The first is to do a Technical Manual for the HSS History’s Hope like I’ve done for the UPF Assault Scout and Sathar Destroyer. It will include details of each deck, a bit of history on the ship, and its stats, all in a nice little manual.
The other project I want to do is a write-up of an exploration campaign to use the ship to search for the Yazirian homeworld, exactly what is happening in the Detailed Frontier Timeline. This is an ambitious project so I don’t know if I’ll be able to pull it off or finish it (I’m really bad at that), but I’m going to give it a go.
The third possible item related to this is doing a write-up of the History’s Hope’s travels as chronicled in the Detailed Frontier Timeline but in a more narrative form with additional details added.
Writing
Which brings me to my next topic, fiction writing. I have a short sci-fi novella, Discovery, that I wrote over a decade ago. While it’s not exactly Star Frontiers, it’s also not explicitly not Star Frontiers either. I wrote that novella to describe how I envision Void Jumping to work. I have a sequel planned and I might start working on that. And it’s possible to tie this into the Star Frontiers universe if I wanted to as the story is about humans discovering FTL travel and they could discover the other SF races in a later novel.
However, more likely, I am going to keep working on my explicitly Star Frontiers novel, A Pale Survivor. That one is already half again longer than Discovery and about a quarter of the way through the story. This is a story of events on Pale during the invasion of that planet during what would eventually be called the First Sathar War. I posted the prologue to the story back in 2019.
I hope to spend some time every month working on one or both of these novels. If you’d be interested in seeing excerpts from the stories as I write them, let me know in the comments.
Technical Manuals
I mentioned the HSS History’s Hope Technical Manual above. Once that one is done, I plan to start doing more technical manuals of other ships. I think this, combined with the 3D modeling, is going to become my main focus. This is where my interest is being drawn more and more and I think that’s where I want to focus my time. We’ll see if it happens.
Miscellany
There are a number of projects that I started here on the blog that I may or may not get back to. Hopefully I will, but I’m not making promises at this point. In addition, I have a list of (currently 8) topic ideas for one-off posts that are sitting in my draft ideas folder. Some of those might end up as posts on this site and/or articles in the Star Frontiersman.
Website Work
The other major project that I have planned is to redesign and revamp all the websites I host. This site probably doesn’t need much work, but all the other Star Frontiers sites are getting pretty long in the tooth and need some serious effort and updating. I’ll probably start with the Frontier Explorer site but the list of sites needing work include:
the Frontier Explorer website (frontierexplorer.org)
the Star Frontiersman website (starfrontiersman.com – this one is going to Tom V)
the Star Frontiers Revival forum site (starfrontiers.us)
the Star Frontiers Network site – wiki, game forums, and old website archive (starfrontiers.info)
my New Frontier Games site (newfrontiergames.com)
a couple of personal sites
My plan is to consolidate and streamline those sites and make them more user and mobile device friendly.
Related to this, I want to get all the articles from the Frontier Explorer online as individual HTML pages that can linked and referenced. Some of them are already online and that was the plan when we started the magazine but it fell by the wayside. I’m planning on putting my librarian hat back on and getting them all finished.
There are a host of projects involved with this effort and I’ll report on them as they get completed.
Patreon
That’s quite a list of projects. The last item I want to mention is that I have a Patreon campaign that supports the work on this blog. If you’d like to support me in my efforts as I work on the projects above, consider becoming a Patreon supporter. You can click the “Become a Patron” button on the upper right of the page (or this link) to sign up as a supporter. I need to update my patreon page to reflect what is going to be happening still and especially update the goals/rewards, but the general idea is still there. If you’re already a supporter, thank you. If not, consider becoming one.
Last Thoughts
That’s it for this post. There are a lot of things I want to do. We’ll see which and how many of them I get to in the coming months and years. I hope to be here for the long haul but we’ll see how it goes.
As always, feel free to leave me comments or suggestions below. I have several old comments that I need to respond to, but I will be more responsive going forward and am interested in hearing what things you’d like to see on the blog.
