Go for orbit!

Tight Beam Volume 21 September 2025

Hello, welcome to September’s issue of Tight Beam, We’ve been super busy, gotten so much done, and while there isn’t a lot to talk about, the stuff we do have to talk about is really big! The biggest and most important thing, that we must tell you first, is that the ACX review process finally finished and as of August 27^th the Audiobook format for Altar of Scales is available Here’s those all important links for the audiobook release.

Please give the audiobook a listen and pass word along to your friends who may also listen, download this new science fiction audiobook so you can listen to it anywhere. If you hurry, you might be first to leave a review, start the journey today.

While we were waiting for the final review, we kept plugging away at the second book too. The final draft of the manuscript has been wrapped up, and we’ve started recording and editing the audiobook for the second book, Cave in the Sky! As of this writing the first eight chapters have already been recorded and edited!

much news, much progress, so wow

We plan to keep chugging away at the next audiobook and hopefully we can bring all three formats of Cave in the Sky to you before the holiday season gets into full swing this year. Paperbacks always make great stocking stuffers.

Now for your next big lore dump from the author, we’ve got another super cool timeline, but this one covers a shorter time span, in more detail, as humanity sets up their permanent first colony in the 22nd and 23rd centuries.

After the recent timeline I dropped, of the expanded lore in The Descendant Saga, I had some questions about the expansions and colonization in the earth solar system before humanity spreads out with FTL, so here’s a chronological outline of man’s expansion into space

-2080-2120: The Russian Federation assumes responsibility and support of the economically crippled European states and in a desperate bid for resources starts the first off earth mining systems, sending small probes and drones to near-earth asteroids to start mining fresh water and rare minerals to help with technologies manufacturing. They build a space station in low Earth orbit, becoming the first place not on the surface of earth, dedicated solely to the purpose of manufacturing. They pioneer techniques and technologies for 0 gravity manufacturing, letting the newly formed European Federation (EF) leap forward with exotic materials, 3D printers and material handling procedures and equipment and technologies.

The emerging corporate and technical powerhouse of the United Systems around Earth (USAE) establishes its own manufacturing station in LEO, building off the things the EF discovered and developed the hard way. Allowing for more efficient and complex 0G manufacturing.

-2122-2130: With the technological and material edge the EF has gained from their asteroid mining and orbital factory growing, the Asian Australian Collective Republic (AACR) decides to make a bold move, a political stunt, not just to catch up to the EF but to make a big step forward and exceed them in space. Creating the second space race, as they announce their plans to colonize Mars. Details of this will be in the book “The first frontier” in which the AACR builds a space station in high earth orbit, boosts it into a Hohmann transfer to Mars. Becoming the first manned space station over mars, serving as a local control hub for drones and robots as they set up infrastructure on Phobos, Deimos and the set up equipment on the surface of Mars, which leads to the establishment in 2130 of the first nominally independent and self-sustaining colony with 150 people, on the surface of Mars, and the first baby born, not on earth. Politically, putting AACR ahead, and making humanity a truly interplanetary species.

-2130-2150: In a bid to catch up on the colonization front, the EF builds the first of a series of O’Neil cylinders and pushes it out to one of Earth’s Lagrange points. This large revolving cylinder, is the first orbital colony has a population living on the inside of the sealed container, with soil built from pulverized asteroid rock and seeded with microbes from earth, creating the first farm land not directly on earth, and housing a larger population than the slowly growing colony on Mars.

At the same time, the USAE makes a bid for more local dominance, building a manufacturing and research station in orbit over the moon. That serves as a weight station, sending and receiving all the probes and drones used in the mining operations of near-earth objects, allowing for the expansion, sending and receiving mining bots to the asteroid belt beyond Mars.

-2150-2180: As they gain access to even more resources, the EF builds their own reactor powered heavy space station and boosts it out, past Mars to the asteroid belt, where it synchronizes its orbit with Ceres, allowing the first human settlement on the dwarf planet Ceres and this serves as depot for the asteroid belt mining operations. Resources from the Ceres system are sent back to the lunar station, where they are distributed to Earth or one of the multiple orbital manufacturing stations.

The lunar station expands and needs more staff to handle such an operational load. USAE builds a settlement on the moon to house station personnel. Water ice on or near Ceres helps local fuel refineries and serves not just as a control hub for the asteroid belt mining but unlocks travel deeper too the outer solar system.

-2183: AACR builds another station and pushes out to Jupiter, refueling at Ceres to boost out to Callisto and establish the first colony outside the asteroid belt on Callisto and launch a science outpost to Europa with a small technical team. Building a colony farther away from Earth than ever before, to prove they’re better than the EF.

-2191:The EF builds a bigger O’Neil cylinders at Earth’s other Lagrange points, housing more people, growing more crops. To prove they are better than the AACR.

-2195:USAE using the Ceres fuel and relay station, bounces signals through the Callisto colony and starts mining Trojan asteroids in Jupiter’s Lagrange points with unmanned probes.

-2207: The EF seeing the success of the USAE Trojan mining operations, decides to push even deeper into the solar system, headed for Saturn. Building massive stations and fuel depots over Titan and Enceladus with skeleton crews of technical personnel.

-2211: Hungarian mathematicians proves existence of parallel dimensions.

-2218: First successful interdimensional jump made by a reactor powered probe moving from lunar orbit to Neptunian orbit in less time than it took to receive the confirmation signal from Neptune at Titan station.

USAE builds small aerostat station in Venus’s upper atmosphere to scoop resources out of the atmosphere, small crew, dangerous, highly profitable.

-2223: AACR builds new Oniel cylinders near Jupiter, creating first orbital colony outside the asteroid belt.

-2230: EF has the first functional, repeatable jump ship, and sends the ship with a small science crew to Alpha Centauri.

It is around this time, as the solar system becomes fully populated and infrastructure increases, a small ship and private enterprise “pirate” colony (not affiliated with any government/corporation) is hidden in the canyons or Miranda (moon of Uranus) using the strange magnetic fields of Uranus and rough terrain of Miranda to remain hidden and carefully, quietly sustain itself with resources from Uranus moons and probes out to Oort cloud objects, doing their best to go, unnoticed. Becoming the first “off grid” colony.

-2235: Jump ship returns from Alpha Centauri with samples and comprehensive map of major celestial objects there.

-2241: AACR capitalizes on this proof of concept and sends jump capable colony ship to Alpha Centauri. Establishing the first interstellar human colony. Being sure to have the first baby born in another solar system, sending jump probes back to facilitate FTL communication.

-2247: Shamed by AACR establishing the colony builds a fleet of 3 colony ships, each for 300 people and preparing an interstellar colonization campaign, launching for Trappist 1E in 2247 and for Tau Ceti in 2249

-2253: In 2253 the 3^rd ever EF sponsored interstellar civilian colony ship disappears after making an interdimensional jump bound for Kepler 452B and is never seen again, the loss of so many women and children provides the social pressure for the combined governments of the USAE, EF and AACR to develop and build the first Projector stations and create the network of massless tunnels for routine travel between solar systems.

Leading to the USAE building the habitat colony on Pluto/Charon with a massive space elevator physically connecting the two celestial bodies together. This was expensive and time consuming. But this facility, known as the “P/C relay station,” serves as the control and service center for the growing network projector stations, filled with highly paid and trained personnel to service the massive reactors that power the projector stations.