Critical Asset
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 Cover of first edition | |
| Author | Ian Tonnessen |
|---|---|
| Illustrator | |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Military science fiction |
| Publisher | Hardshot Publishing |
Publication date | 2021 |
| Media type | Print (hardback & paperback) and eBook |
| Pages | 380 |
| ISBN | 978-0578909134 Search this book on  . |
Critical Asset is a 2021 speculative fiction novel by American intelligence analyst Ian Tonnessen. Set in 2065, the story presents an international crisis which threatens to turn a second cold war into a worldwide conflict. Unusual among technothrillers, the story mixes international conspiracy thriller elements with hard science fiction.
Plot[edit]
Political background[edit]
By the 2060s, the world is over thirty years into a second cold war. Following an uprising against the Saudi royal family, populist revolution spread across much of the Sunni-Arab world, culminating in the proclamation of a new caliphate. After electing a reactionary government, Turkey withdrew from NATO and formed an alliance with the United Caliphate and other nations, the Hras al-Mumnyn (HM). Other nations formed military coalitions and trading blocs in response to HM encroachment and in response to the economic protectionism of the times. NATO was succeeded by the Democratic Alliance (DA), a military and economic partnership that includes Russia. As during the first cold war, many leaders in the DA and HM see a major war as almost inevitable, and some in the DA are eager for it. In Turkey, an underground cadre of Kemalist rebels quietly plans a coup.
Technological background[edit]
An American research lab reached a major milestone in 2032: the advent of the first singular artificial intelligence (SAI), a supercomputer able to improve upon its own capabilities. With U.S. consent, international law assumed oversight of SAI power limitations and thus of the profound scientific advances they could generate. After analyzing particle physics data, some of the resulting SAI-generated technologies included dramatic advances in spacecraft propulsion. The DA invested in the facilities necessary to begin interstellar travel. The colony ships under construction are dependent upon cheap mass-production of antimatter and other forms of exotic matter, which for safety reasons is illegal on Earth. All production occurs at Dirac Station, a large DA-owned research facility orbiting the Sun at the L3 Lagrange point exactly opposite from Earth. To maintain the upper hand against the HM in the event of war, the DA has also built a small fleet of orbital strike-capable warships.
Synopsis[edit]
It is December 2065. A team of Turkish commandos, accompanied by physicist Aydin Demirci, infiltrates a Russian spaceport and stows away aboard the supply craft Kostroma, hijacking it during its transit to Dirac Station. The commandos have orders to raid the station and steal a quantity of antimatter for use as a deterrence weapon. Demirci, however, is actually a member of the Turkish underground, as is the commandos’ superior officer who ordered their covert task. Demirci’s true plan is a suicide mission: he will destroy Dirac Station while still aboard, falsely throwing blame onto Turkey and guaranteeing that the DA launches a war and brings about the quick downfall of his government. However, Demirci’s organization left clues pointing to possible foul play on the Kostroma. On the warship USS Lincoln, Captain Jaana Pierce is ordered to take her ship to Dirac and investigate the status of Kostroma, which will dock before the Lincoln can arrive.
As the raid at the isolated station begins, the DA and HM go on alert and edge closer to war. The commandos are initially blocked from Dirac’s particle accelerator area, and fighting erupts on the station as the Lincoln docks. On Earth, a small group of conspirators in the U.S. president’s administration is revealed to be behind the entire scheme. They expect to win a quick and decisive war, but they also desperately fear the consequences of the “soft replicator” technology being developed in one of Dirac’s labs. The raiders seize the accelerator area, but Demirci realizes that it is sabotaged beyond hope of repair. Pierce becomes jaded upon discovering Dirac’s classified replicator project, which includes an SAI that far outclasses those legally allowed to exist. The U.S. conspirators pressure the president into joining them, and she consents to secretly aiding in the destruction of Dirac. With their help, Demirci is able to carry out an alternate plan for sabotaging the station. He kills most of his comrades and rigs the station and its huge stockpile of antimatter to self-destruct.
Pierce, along with over two hundred survivors from Dirac Station, have enough time to flee onboard the Lincoln to the far side of Venus before Dirac Station explodes. Lincoln is protected from the blast by the planet, but the tremendous energy wave becomes visible across Earth’s skies, sending billions of people into a panic. The DA and HM intensify their alerts to their highest levels. Upon arriving near Earth, the Lincoln receives DA-wide orders to prepare for strikes against HM targets. The third world war is about to begin. Pierce, having deduced Demirci’s true loyalties and knowing that the HM are not at fault for Dirac’s destruction, attempts to disobey orders and defuse the war. She is promptly relieved of command and confined to quarters by her hawkish first officer and other crewmembers. She overcomes the revolt with the help of a loyal officer. Pierce broadcasts a message as she maneuvers the Lincoln, including all of Dirac’s survivors, into easy range of HM anti-space weapons. The HM leadership takes the opportunity to stand down their alert, and DA forces are compelled to follow suit. The war is averted.
Unknown to most of the public, the aftermath is bittersweet. Pierce is a world-renowned hero, but will be forced into retirement. Turkey and other HM nations crack down on dissidents. The American president and conspirators were shielded from suspicion, and they plan to restore Turkey’s underground. Dirac’s replicator project team managed to save their data when they fled the station, and begin rebuilding their device with no oversight.
Technology[edit]
Nearly all technologies depicted in Critical Asset are already either plausible concepts or are in various stages of development.
Space Warfare.[1] is central to the story, incorporating directed energy weapons (nicknamed "softshots" in the book") such as high-energy lasers and neutral-particle beam weapons, orbital kinetic bombardment weapons ("hardshots") launched by coilgun and railgun systems, weaponized satellites, and orbital command centers.
Spacecraft propulsion and related concepts include aneutronic fusion power, magnetized target fusion, antimatter rockets, exotic matter, VASIMR, and interstellar micro-probes[2]
Key technologies in operation or under development at Dirac Station include large-scale antimatter production via particle accelerators, and soft replication (aka mechanosynthesis).
Various other technologies playing smaller roles in the story include telomerase drugs, maglev vehicles, picofilament lines, medical nanosensors, contact lens displays, WiMAX, weaponized ultrasound, flexible display screens, helias stellarators, claytronics programmable matter, synthetic gravity, microdrones, singular artificial intelligence, penning traps, hypersonic missiles, and scramjet aircraft.
Themes[edit]
The novel explores subjects such as moral ambiguity, how nations can descend into authoritarianism and how their people may react to it, the militarization of space, geopolitics of the mid-21st Century, cold war, the fallibility of a military chain of command and the ethical limits of duty, preemptive war, the corruptive natures of power and religion, the implications of artificial intelligence, the dangers of post-scarcity economics and technological utopianism, and the Pandora's box of a new technology.
The novel's title comes from the U.S. Department of Defense Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms, which defines a critical asset as "A specific entity of such extraordinary importance that its incapacitation or destruction would have a very serious, debilitating effect on the ability of a nation to continue to function effectively."
Reception[edit]
Critical Asset received a 5 out of 5 stars review from Reedsy,[3] with the official review stating "This is an excellent novel. It has blockbuster movie written all over it.". OnlineBookClub.org[4] rated it 4 out of 4 stars, calling it "enjoyable from the first page to the last." The novel currently rates a 4.47 out of 5 on Goodreads.[5]
References[edit]
This article "Critical Asset" is from Wikipedia. The list of its authors can be seen in its historical and/or the page Edithistory:Critical Asset. Articles copied from Draft Namespace on Wikipedia could be seen on the Draft Namespace of Wikipedia and not main one.
