Research Notes

The Refuge:

The refuge design was based on the Biosphere 2 project in Arizona. According to the Biosphere 2 website, the facility was built in 1986 by Space Biospheres Ventures to research and develop space colonization technology. Cool, huh? Two missions in 1991 and 1994 sealed in researchers to test survivability. Biosphere 2 has 3.14 acres, 7,200,000 cubic feet of sealed glass, 6,500 windows, is 91 feet at highest point,  and is sealed from the earth below by a 500-ton welded stainless steel liner. They have an ocean with a coral reef, a mangrove wetlands, a tropical rainforest, a savannah grassland, and a fog desert. You can learn all sorts of cool facts about it here!

Of course, the refuge doesn't have that many ecosystems, but it does contain farms (with cows, chickens, pigs and goats), a hydroponic garden, maintenance rooms, and living areas, including bedrooms, kitchens, dining area, chapel, offices and suites.


Avenging Angels:
The Avenging Angels are designed to be stealthy, fast and maneuverable, and to perform both in the atmosphere and in space. They have a hybrid jet/rocket engine and a variety of space and atmospheric based weapons. They are V/STOL (Vertical and/or Short Take Off and Landing) aircraft.

My main source of information for fighter combat came from Fighter Combat: Tactics and Maneuvering by Robert L. Shaw. It contains information about weapons, basic fighter maneuvers, a variety of combat situations (one v. one, two v. one, section tactics, division tactics, fighter missions, tactical intercepts and basic fighter performance), as well as a large number of fantastic quotes by some of the world's greatest fighter aces. Here are some of my favorites:

"Success flourishes only in perseverance, ceaseless, restless perseverance." Baron Von Richtofen (aka The Red Baron)

"Aggressiveness was fundamental to success in air-to-air combat and if you ever caught a fighter pilot in a defensive mood you had him licked before you started shooting." Captain David McCampbell, USN

"A MiG at your six is better than no MiG at all." Unknown US fighter pilot

"I scooted for our lines, sticky with fear. I vomited brandy-and-milk and bile all over my instrument panel. Yes, it was very romantic flying, people said later, like a knight errant in the clean blue sky of personal combat." "W.W. Windstaff" (Anonymous US WW-I Ace)

"The only proper defense is an offense." Air Vice-Marshal J.E. "Johnnie" Johnson, RAF

"If your attack is sudden and aggressive, the enemy will be at a disadvantage regardless of his numbers and position." Lt. Colonel Gerald R. Johnson, USAAF

This song always makes me want to write fighter combat scenes. =)

The Nengwoonts'eng:

The Nengwoonts'eng are a group of renegades led by Kwetoo'unuv Walker, a Paiute Indian. After receiving a remarkable vision from the Great Wolf, Toovuts, Kwetoo'unuv gathered fellow survivors of the invasion and taught them to live after the ways of the old ones--his ancestors. Hidden in the bowels of a coal mine, the Nengwoonts'eng stay safe from the watchers and slaves.

My main source of information about the Southern Paiutes came from the book Southern Paiutes: Legends, Lore, Language, and Lineage by Lavan Martineau. It is a wonderful collection of stories, legends, language and general information about the Southern Paiutes.

Kwetoo'unuv means "master wolf" in Paiute

Nengwoonts'eng means "people."

Toovuts is the Great Wolf, or God to the Paiutes.

Martineau writes, "Paiutes had but one real God, Toovuts. He was the one that was resurrected . . . Paiutes believed in ghosts, evil spirits, Tookoov, Kainuhseev and water babies whom they feared, and would sometimes try to appease. Some medicine men had spirit helpers, but these were not gods. In reality the Paiute and Ute religion was one of the simplest of all Indian religions, with far fewer superstitions that most other tribes. They do not worship the wolf, nor the coyote, in animal form." (Southern Paiutes, pg. 3)