The Happy Time
Printed pages 131–145. Records documented in this chapter; later article sections may include subsequent events.
Showing introductory records. Switch to Full archive above to include later names and revelations.
Aconcagua weapons facility
The Aconcagua weapons facility was a covert Flaxen military research and manufacturing installation inside the Andes. Its protected location forced Echo's people to use a ground assault.
Andes Mountains
The Andes Mountains concealed a Flaxen weapons facility beneath Mount Aconcagua. The depth of the installation protected it against conventional air raids and the orbital weapons available to Echo before its refit.
Breaching gel
The Marines used a transparent gel to cut rapidly through thick metal doors. A selected x-ray frequency ignited it, burning through inches of cast iron in less than half a second.
Camp Skadi
Camp Skadi is a Flaxen prison and forced-labor camp commanded by Colonel Jaakobah Flint. Its inmates endure hunger, disease, overcrowding, violence, and the threat associated with the red circles.
Colonel Hastings
Colonel Hastings is a United Earth Tier 1 special-operations officer carried aboard Echo. Captain Eastcott places him in command of the reconstituted volunteer force.
Combat crescents
Combat crescents were transparent devices worn around the eyes by Echo's Marines. They combined enhanced vision, tactical displays, communications, translation, and weapons control.
Cyrus Eppleston
Cyrus Eppleston is United Earth’s Minister of War during the struggle against Flaxen conquest.
Death chambers
Flaxen death chambers were heat-based execution facilities used against captive Humans. Their operation depended on capacitors that required time to recharge.
Departure
Departure is the Flaxen euphemism for murdering prisoners deemed unfit for work. It forms part of the occupation's system of forced labor and extermination.
Destruction of the Venus convoy
Two scorpions destroyed a Flaxen convoy carrying components required for the infrasound weapon from Venus to Earth. The convoy was escorted by ten small missile-armed warships.
Dream influence
Serilda could influence other minds during sleep, introducing suggestions and memories and encountering their dreams. The effects could persist in a person's feelings and decisions without direct recall of the transferred memories.
Earth
Earth is humanity’s homeworld and the birthplace of United Earth. Almost ten thousand years after Echo’s departure, it is divided by the war against Flaxen conquest.
Earth intelligence service
Contemporary United Earth's intelligence service is a major source of resistance to the Flaxen advance. Echo judges human intelligence capabilities substantially superior to those of their opponents.
Earth reconnaissance satellites
Satellites remaining from before Echo's departure for Copious provided reconnaissance during its return to Earth. Echo reestablished communications with them and used their optical and infrared feeds to support military operations.
Echo
Echo is a United Earth starship and the self-aware artificial intelligence who operates the vessel. Commanded by Kip Eastcott, he carries roughly one thousand people on the Copious expedition.
Echo's first orbital campaign
For two weeks after the infrasound program's destruction, Echo's people attacked factories, barracks, and weapons caches across Flaxen territory from orbit. No friendly lives were lost during that sequence of strikes.
Energy-absorbing combat boots
Hastings's Marines wore boots whose soles absorbed the energy of each step, reducing the noise of their approach. The soles could not absorb the ground shock from the explosives that destroyed the Aconcagua facility.
Flaxen combat knives
Flaxen soldiers carried combat knives with yellow handles bearing their black glyph. The four prisoners taken at Aconcagua had knives concealed in ankle sheaths.
Flaxen emotional intensity
Serilda described Flaxen emotions as markedly more intense than those of other Humans. Their capacity for joy, love, and compassion existed alongside extreme hatred, envy, disgust, and pride.
Flaxen escort warships
The Flaxens used small missile-armed warships to defend transport convoys. Ten escorted the shipment of infrasound-weapon components from Venus that was destroyed by the scorpions.
Flaxen insignia
Flaxen insignia combined yellow, white, and black with a distinctive black glyph. Aircraft displayed the glyph inside a white circle on yellow wings, and combat knives bore it on yellow handles.
Flaxen transport ships
Flaxen transport ships carried materials and components from Venus to support the infrasound weapons program on Earth. Their convoy traveled with ten small missile-armed escort warships.
Flaxens
The Flaxens are the people of Venus who claim a separate and superior identity to humans. Their state wages a campaign of conquest on Earth.
Formidable
Formidable is United Earth’s flagship and the self-aware artificial intelligence who operates the vessel. Captain Steve Thomas commands the ship on the Copious expedition.
Heated camouflage clothing
The Marines' white camouflage clothing included an internal heating system lasting up to five hours. It allowed them to operate in snow at minus fifteen degrees Celsius during the Aconcagua raid.
Hubritians
Hubritians is the name later societies give the people of the advanced pre-Titan civilization. Their legacy is interpreted first as an example of sinful arrogance and later as a model for scientific recovery.
Huel Jenkins
Private Huel Jenkins was a Marine killed during the assault on the Flaxen weapons facility beneath Mount Aconcagua. He attempted to flank two Flaxens under a conveyor belt and was shot.
Human–Flaxen hybrids
Human–Flaxen hybrids are people with both human and Flaxen parentage. Some possess unusual mental abilities that contemporary United Earth uses in intelligence work.
Infrasound weapon
The Flaxen infrasound weapon was a secret program intended to kill large numbers of United Earth troops with destructive sound energy. Flint claimed it could end the war within a year.
Jaakobah Flint
Colonel Jaakobah Flint is the Flaxen commandant of Camp Skadi. He exercises authority over the camp’s guards and its imprisoned population.
Lillet Corazon
Lillet Corazon is Serilda Corazon's human mother. She recognizes her daughter's mental abilities during childhood and keeps them secret.
Marine rifles
The rifles carried by Hastings's Marines combined a silent microwave beam, conventional kinetic ammunition, and guided rockets. Their flexibility supported covert entry and open firefights.
Molecular explosives
The timed explosives used at Mount Aconcagua stored enormous energy in dense materials with many molecular bonds. Five devices released energy comparable to a small tactical nuclear weapon without its lingering irradiation.
Mount Aconcagua
Mount Aconcagua concealed the Flaxens' secret infrasound weapons facility. Hastings's Marines destroyed the installation with five advanced explosives, causing the peak to collapse and cease to be the highest in the Andes.
Raid on Mount Aconcagua
Hastings led almost fifty Marines into the Flaxen weapons facility beneath Mount Aconcagua and destroyed it. The operation disrupted the infrasound weapons program and produced four Flaxen captives.
Scorpions
Scorpions were small combat craft carried by Echo, named for their insect-like shape and pincer-mounted plasma cannons. Originally designed to fight in swarms during the six years' war, they retained weapons during Echo's conversion for colonization.
Serilda Corazon
Serilda Corazon is a woman of human and Flaxen parentage imprisoned at Camp Skadi. She cares for her friend Megan and the other occupants of hut seven while strange visions of a starship trouble her sleep.
Serilda's father
Serilda's father was a Flaxen regional colonel of the Corazon family. Once feared for his cruelty, he gradually became kinder under the influence of Serilda and her mother.
Six Years' War
The Six Years' War is the conflict between United Earth and the secessionist Martian Confederacy. It ends in United Earth's victory five years before the Copious expedition departs.
South America
South America contained a covert Flaxen military research station deep in the Andes. Serilda's intelligence identified it as a center for manufacturing the new infrasound weapons.
Tier 1 special operations
Tier 1 special operations is an elite branch represented among the former Marines aboard Echo. Its members specialize in covert combat.
Translation matrix
Echo's translation matrix converts between the expedition's English and the changed languages of contemporary Earth and Venus. It enables live diplomatic conversation despite almost ten thousand years of linguistic change.
United Earth
United Earth is the human government resisting the Flaxen conquest of Earth. Its institutions include a presidency, armed forces, and intelligence services.
Venus
Venus is the terraformed homeworld of the Flaxens. Earth and Mars transform it from an extreme environment into a habitable planet before the Titan.
Zoons
Zoon is the dehumanizing term Flaxens apply to humans and captives of mixed ancestry. Its use reflects the occupiers' belief that non-Flaxens are inferior beings.