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Of Zombies, Astronauts, and Paradise:
The Hard Science Fiction of Across an Ocean of Stars
by Robert E. Hampson

Twelve years ago, in the days when I wrote under the pseudonym “Tedd Roberts” I wrote a nonfiction article for Baen entitled “A Terrible Thing to Lose—Zombie Science and Science Fiction in John Ringo’s Under a Graveyard Sky.” John had decided to write a zombie story his way; which meant that the zombies were believable based on current day events, science, politics, and lacked the “mystical” nature of zombies popular in fiction up until that point.

Keep in mind that 28 Days Later was a relatively obscure film in 2002, not gaining a lot of popular attention until the late ‘oughts, which is about when I Am Legend came out. The Walking Dead didn’t even have a pilot until late 2010. So, when John started writing Under a Graveyard Sky in 2011(-ish), the genre of “virus zombies” wasn’t that well known. Mind you, I’m not ignoring Resident Evil, but that movie went so far into mutant monsters, rather than zombies, that it’s not really fair to class the game and movies with the others.

I had been corresponding with John for about five years by that point. He’d consulted with me on The Last Centurion and a few elements of the Live Free or Die series, but this was the one in which John specifically sought out my neuroscience expertise. One night in 2011, John and I spent a couple hours on a teleconference call—Skype, I believe. After much giggling and scheming, I had coached him through how a virus would have to act on the brain in order to rob a human of all higher brain functions, leaving only rage and violence.

In exchange, John made me a target.

No, he didn’t redshirt me—not explicitly—but he managed to do so with the story, rather than in it. In Under a Graveyard Sky, there is a young “basement biologist” who figured out the dual RNA/DNA-expressing virus, and is sought after as a subject matter expert. The FBI knocks down the kid’s door and arrests him, using the logic that a subject matter expert is also a suspect!

So, what did John do, given that story element? Acknowledge me in the front of the book as teaching him everything he needed to know about zombie virus effects on the brain! That way, if there ever is a viral zombie plague, the FBI is likely to come find me first.

Gee, thanks, John.

The thing is, we treated the zombie apocalypse as hard science fiction, and that’s what I’ve done with Across an Ocean of Stars. To me, hard SF means that if it is possible for a reader to look up something from the story (i.e., it actually exists in the present day), then that reader should encounter the same, accurate (as possible) information as in the story.

Then again, that almost backfired on us. John and his editor Gary Poole like to tell the story of an alpha reader who works in international disease research and was shocked by the virus distribution method originally written for Under a Graveyard Sky. All I will say is that we had come up with something the “experts” hadn’t considered—and it scared them. The method got changed for publication, and no, I’m not telling what the original method was (see FBI risk above!).

“Now that’s hard science fiction with a vengeance!” —Publishers Weekly, about my novel, The Moon and the Desert

The Science of Zombies

[For this next part, I am going to reiterate some points made in the 2013 Baen website article.]

To a psychologist, zombies represent fear of “the other”—the foreign, even alien, presence that steals away our home and family; or that zombies represent fear of death or ending. On the other hand, to a “prepper” (and the CDC!) preparing for a Zombie Apocalypse represents the preparation for any disaster, natural or man-made. To a sociologist, storylines that involve preparing to defend against the loss of all we hold dear, represent uncertain times that threaten jobs, homes and our very lives.

Whatever the appeal, zombies and the zombie apocalypse are prevalent in modern fiction—from Max Brooks’ World War Z (and the movie of the same name, but derivative story) to the popular TV show The Walking Dead. The modern zombie story/zombie movie genre owes a lot to George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead—but it can easily be argued that Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein founded the concept of the metaphysically reanimated corpse. In Baen’s own fiction, Larry Corriea’s Monster Hunter International novels invoke (and dispatch) zombies by the hundreds and thousands. In fact, the image of seasoned Monster Hunter Earl Harbinger chopping and puréeing zombies through use of industrial snow-clearing machinery has led to a popular convention panel, “Messiest Ways to Kill Zombies.”

It is notable that many present-day zombie stories (Monster Hunter International, excepted) have departed from the Haitian voodoo concept of magical reanimated corpses and skeletons. Instead, the modern zombie story often focuses on a bacterial or viral source of infection, and that infection can either reanimate a corpse, or transform a living human into a ravenous, brainless creature. Such is the premise of Ringo’s Under a Graveyard Sky. I experimented with this theme myself in “Neural Alchemist,” a short story published in Science Fiction by Scientists (Springer, 2017) with the zombieism resulting from a stem cell infection (strangely prophetic given my recent move to a tissue engineering/stem cell institute).

However, there are several ways to establish a scientific basis for zombies. We’ll first set the stage by looking at different types of zombies as represented in Science Fiction and Fantasy.

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Taxonomy—Types of Zombies

In movies and novels, zombies are either mindless horde animated by evil magic, or “animalistic sub humans created by evil technology.” Zombies in TV film and literature fall into approximately 4 categories with some overlap between them:

1. Zombies are magically animated dead creatures
2. Zombies are dead creatures that have been brought back to life through a combination of science and/or mysticism;
3. Zombies are essentially living creatures that have been infected with a disease, virus or spell which turns them into a basically dead creature.
4. Zombies are living creatures that are “hag-ridden” by parasites that over-ride the host’s consciousness and take control of the body.

The current pop-culture concept of insatiably hungry killing machines is a recent development in literature and can largely be attributed to George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead (1968). This movie clearly falls into Category One above. In this instance, the zombies are corpses which have been reanimated; however, there is a considerable element of the “ghoul”—a creature which may or may not be dead, but which inhabits graveyards and eats human flesh. In contrast, the classic monster, Frankenstein is basically a zombie, in that it is composed of cadaver parts and animated by a mad scientist, but lacks the modern concepts of hunting and feeding on humans. Consider, for example, the humorous zombies of Piers Anthony’s Xanth series: The Zombie Master is a human sorcerer who reanimates corpses as servants. The corpses are constantly losing parts, and present no real danger to humans, but only one individual can repair or even create zombies in the first place.

The hybrid crossover produced by Romero in Night of the Living Dead is very important to the more modern notion of a zombie craving brains or feeding off of human flesh. The Resident Evil video games and movies feature Category Two zombies which are dead humans brought back to life after being infected with a virus. Max Brooks’s World War Z, The Walking Dead, and of course the “Infected” of Ringo’s Under a Graveyard Sky are examples of Category Three, in which the victims of the mysterious virus first fall into a fever or coma and seemingly “recover” hours later, but as a mindless, virtually unkillable creatures (largely because they feel no pain, and are thus not stopped until they can no longer move). Likewise, Category Four zombies need not start out as corpses—they may be perfectly healthy humans prior to infestation—but the sentient, infesting agent such as The Flood in the game Halo, takes over the bodily functions and effectively kills the body and/or human consciousness. In many ways, Category Four zombies are a variation of Category Three except for the implication that rather than a virus, the infection is by a symbiote or parasite that has its own consciousness (e.g., Robert A. Heinlein’s The Puppet Masters, or Larry Niven’s “Night on Mispec Moor”).

A feature of many zombie stories both in film and print is that the “zombie infection” is spread by a bite, causing crossover between different categories of zombies, as in the Will Smith movie I Am Legend in which it’s not clear whether the zombies were precisely dead creatures reanimated or living creatures infected with the zombie virus. Of course, there’s always fun movies such as Bruce Campbell’s Army of Darkness, which to be honest, is not really a zombie movie, since the primary creatures are reanimated skeletons (of the Ray Harryhausen Jason and the Argonauts style) and not corpses per se.

So, what makes a zombie (scientifically speaking)? In the particularly Haitian voodoo mythology, voodoo priests could turn living humans into mindless servants through their magic, which in reality consisted of a combination of pharmaceuticals, which suppressed higher thought functions. One of the chemicals used, traditionally, was tetrodotoxin or TTX. TTX is well known in neuroscience: it is a chemical which blocks sodium channels, preventing the depolarizing sodium entry into neurons necessary for the formation of an action potential. In the presence of tetrodotoxin, neurons are unable to receive and transmit the neural signals which underlie information processing of the brain. TTX is an extract from puffer fish, the same fish used in the risky Japanese dish known as fugu. The chef must take great care not to break the poison gland, which contains the TTX, and would kill anyone who consumes the dish. On the other hand, just the smallest amount of TTX will cause a slight numbness to the tongue and lips and give the sensation of daring and risk to aficionados. A dosage high enough will block all nervous system and muscle activity, while moderate doses will block some brain activity, but not all. The use of neurotoxins is hardly unknown, considering that the neuromuscular blocker curare was first discovered in use by South American native tribes on their blowgun darts to disable large prey. So it is not unheard of that primitive medicine and ritual may very well have developed the use of tetrodotoxin as a medicine for suppressing violent and aggressive behaviors. It is only a small step from such use to much more serious cases of deliberately suppressing higher mental function, leading to legends of the Voodoo zombies who functioned as slaves for their evil masters.

About ten to fifteen years ago, there were urban legends of people visiting other countries (typically South America or Southeast Asia) who discovered they’d lost several days to amnesia. During this time, they . . . got robbed, robbed banks, got into bar fights, assaulted others or were assaulted themselves . . . and generally did things they would never do on their own. Per the legend, the individuals walked through a slight cloud of dust, and lost awareness soon after. The “cloud of dust” was supposedly pollen or spores from a “Solanum” plant (sic), or powdered “borrachero” shrub flowers, yielding “Devil’s Breath,” a form of scopolamine. The truth is, that the ingestion of scopolamine in this manner is unlikely to act as described, leading many to believe that this urban legend is actually based on the stories of Voodoo zombies.

On the other hand, there are a number of other possibilities from a scientific perspective for the classical “mindless, reanimated dead.” Aside from the fantastical gimmick of magical reanimation, science fiction authors have toyed with the idea of zombies created by alien organisms, viruses, stem cells, and nanomachines. The primary requirement is simply a way to provide energy (molecules) to muscle and nerve cells, and trigger their normal functions. The energy doesn’t even have to be glucose and oxygen: anything that can deliver molecules with high-energy bonds which can be consumed to provide mitochondrial energy would suffice.

The most intriguing notion comes from recent studies with stem cells. As medical research increasingly looks to the possibilities of stem cell therapies for tissue regeneration and growth, one question that is often asked is what will happen if the stem cells begin to grow in a manner that was not planned for? While the most obvious result would be cancerous tissue, another possibility is that stem cells could result in a restoration of dead, necrotic tissue. If enough of this tissue is restored to a near living state, would this not make zombies? Still, the problem is one of reanimation of the brain tissue, but even that seems to be yielded to modern medical findings of patients “brought back to life” after many hours as long as the body and brain are kept very cold (but not frozen) and well oxygenated.

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Zombie Behavior

It is an interesting contradiction in fictional literature that zombies are essentially brainless, yet the only way to effectively defeat a zombie is to destroy the head and brain. Reanimation of neural tissue should require the ability to not just provide glucose, oxygen and other essential nutrients to the neural tissue, but also a way to restore the electrochemical activity. Perhaps it is most telling that what we think of as memory and personality is primarily the result of the synaptic connections that are neurons make with each other. When an organism is killed, the once-living cells undergo a process of necrosis. Essentially what that means for our zombies is that the cells no longer have intact intracellular mechanisms, nor do they have the same connections between cells. If we extend this now to the brains of humans, we begin to understand the very soon after death the synaptic connections between neurons would break down. With the loss of synaptic connections, the knowledge, skills, memory, and personality of that human would also be lost. Thus, if we reanimate the body, the “mind” would still not be functioning. Nonetheless, control of the muscles which allow the zombie to moving walk would still reside in spinal cord and brain stem with some residual signal coming from the motor cortex.

Thus, the idea that zombies represent some form of reanimated corpse necessarily brings with it the idea that brain function could or would not be restored, and reanimated corpses would be able to do little else than lurch and moan. On the other hand, transfer of pharmacological or infections agents could very well affect living humans to the point that they exhibit the same characteristics as the living dead.

What I find most amazing about reader comments on Under a Graveyard Sky were the ones claiming that a “mere infection” couldn’t result in the animalistic, primitive behavior of the Infected. That complaint usually amounted to “nothing would change the behavior/personality so radically and not kill the subject.”

My response at the time was: “Really? Based on what science?” I invite those same readers to investigate the case of Phineas Gage who had extensive frontal lobe damage—and walked away under his own power to the medical station (http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/Phineas-Gage-Neurosciences-Most-Famous-Patient.html). There are many reports of people walking around with head injuries—maybe not walking well—but the myth of the “instant off switch” in the brain is just that, a myth.

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Spreading the Disease

Communicating the zombie condition from one individual to the next is quite frequently central to the zombie story—although not strictly essential. While arguably not “zombie” stories, any “mummy” tale is essentially a Category One zombie produced by a mystical curse. In particular, with mystical/magical zombies, the originals must be cursed or subject to mystic forces, even if the subsequent spread is via scratch, bite or simple contact. Most zombie stories, however, treat the “zombie curse” as a simple disease, even if we never learn much about the infectious agent. In the Will Smith version of the movie I Am Legend (from a 1954 book of the same name, written by Richard Matheson) the infectious agent is a virus supposedly developed to cure cancer. In Shaun of the Dead, the agent is an extraterrestrial virus, and in Under a Graveyard Sky, it is a unique “dual-expressing” virus. As is rather typical for John Ringo, he treats us to considerably more background on the origins of the “Infected” in his novels; thus, we have a bit more to work with when it comes to real science ideas regarding zombies.

Most readers will have no problem with the concept of an infection spreading from person-to-person via contact. However, the remaining criticisms of the approach amount to one of two issues: (1) how to get the disease to spread rapidly enough to reach epidemic (infecting people faster than it can be treated) or even “pandemic” status (epidemics not limited to a single location), and (2) why should a disease affect behavior? We already addressed issue #2 in the previous section, so we’ll concentrate on concentrate on transmission of the disease in this section. Infectious diseases can affect behavior if either the infectious agent directly affects the cells of the brain, or if the infectious agent produces a toxin. Examples of the former include rabies virus or the bacteria (spirochetes) which cause syphilis and Lyme disease.

Bacterial or mold toxins (such as the ergot alkaloid Lysergic acid—similar to LSD) can alter behavior by substituting for normal chemical “neurotransmitters” of the brain. Bacteria and molds can easily spread through the air, water, food and via contact on surfaces, but they are not very good at spreading from person-to-person. The best means to spread infection rapidly is by virus, and the best way to spread a viral infection to a large number of people at the same time is via airborne viruses such as the ones that cause various forms of flu. Viruses that work best for spreading via direct contact (especially by blood or saliva) are blood-borne. Further, while rabies can affect the brain, the viruses with the greatest affinity for infecting brain tissue are the viruses associated with herpes, smallpox, chicken pox, and shingles. Unfortunately for our purpose, those viruses are structurally very different from either rabies or most airborne viruses. Influenza viruses are “RNA viruses” meaning that the infection really consists of a small piece of RNA-based genetic code that enters a host cell and starts making the components of more viruses. Herpes-Like viruses are “DNA” viruses in which the genetic code uses the normal cellular machinery in order to replicate, since they “hide” in normally present genes of the cell.

As a society, we have become painfully aware of issues with DNA and RNA in this post-COVID world, even though much misinformation remains. There are those who will claim that any insertion of RNA (or DNA) via vaccination is hazardous, and if a “real zombie apocalypse” occurs, my money will be on an infectious agent delivering a DNA payload.

To understand why this is important, consider how DNA and RNA normally operate: Normal cell function is to use DNA as a master copy if it were a template. DNA consists of two strands, and each strand is a mirror image. When DNA is “copied” into RNA, it can form two new strands—a “positive” copy, and a “negative” copy (from the mirror image strand). The positive RNA contains the actual code for making proteins, while the negative RNA likely has no function. Positive RNA is then used as the template for assembling whatever a living cell requires. When a DNA virus such as Varicella (chicken pox) infects a cell, the viral DNA substitutes for normally present DNA, and fools the cell into making more viruses instead of healthy cell parts. There is some new evidence that the complete code of human genes actually contains inactive pieces that were picked up from some prehistoric viruses! With an RNA virus such as West Nile, the virus contains a single strand of positive RNA that can be immediately used to make more virus copies. However, viruses such as Influenza A (the HxNx flu viruses) have negative RNA that has to be copied into a positive RNA strand before it can start making more virus. Retroviruses such as HIV (AIDS virus) have both strands of RNA, and use them to reverse-engineer the original DNA and insert into the genes of a cell (like those prehistoric viruses above). Negative RNA viruses and retroviruses can only make their copies because the respective viruses also carry along an enzyme called “transcriptase” which makes the positive RNA, or “reverse transcriptase” which makes DNA.

Sound familiar?

The twist developed from Under a Graveyard Sky and the rest of the Black Tide Rising (BTR) universe is that the Haole Flu virus contains both DNA and RNA. The RNA virus, H7D3, is a typical influenza virus, and is spread much the same way as cold or flu. The DNA payload manifests after the “flu” runs its course. The new virus, D4T3 (in my terminology) expresses the DNA payload in the blood which infects the prefrontal lobes of the brain (and hence the higher cognitive functions). Since this is essentially a new virus carried in the blood (and saliva) it is transferred via bites or open wounds, and extremely hard to detect or treat until it has already robbed the individual of their humanity.

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Zombie Fuel

Unlike many of the existing zombie tropes, Black Tide Rising “Infected”1 don’t crave brains.

They eat . . . food.

In fact, they eat whatever food is available, and drink whatever water is available. When they don’t have food and water available, they go into “torpor,” a state of reduced activity and metabolism. They also eat and drink the nastiest, most contaminated stuff available, such that BTR zombies can survive under many conditions that humans would or could not. The idea that a “rage zombie” doesn’t feel fear, pain, or injury, and wouldn’t be stopped by mild illness, is a standard of the genre, and can be used to good effect in storytelling.

BTR zombies do not crave brains. Brains are just a “food of convenience” since bashing a human over the head repeatedly will expose the brains, but also skin, muscle, bone (and bone marrow), and blood.

BTR zombies will eat (and drink) anything!

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Curing Zombies

Most protagonists in a zombie story would rightfully argue that the only way to truly cure a zombie . . . is to kill the host, thereby also destroying the disease. Yet no matter whether we hypothesize a mystical or disease source for the zombie “curse” (and provided the victims are actually alive, and not walking dead), there should be some means to “cure” those zombies. If the zombie condition is indeed a magical curse, finding and eliminating the source of that curse should be sufficient to restore the zombie to humanity. Surprisingly, the scientific approach to a zombie “disease” starts much the same way, although it will require additional steps to apply and spread that cure.

The best way to cure or prevent any disease is to let the human immune system take care of the job for you. When bacteria, viruses or alien organisms invade the human body, it forms antibodies that assist in destroying the foreign tissue. Often, however, it can be a race between creating enough antibodies to cure the infection before the foreign material replicates enough to seriously sicken the host. Thus, a mechanism is required to produce antibodies prior to infection—in other words, a vaccine.

I always come back to Niven’s “Night on Mispec Moor” at this point. His “broad spectrum cure” was a combination antibiotic, antiviral, and antifungal. Spraying it on the reanimated battlefield corpses killed the mysterious agent that provided the reanimation. Of course, that all presupposes that (A) one doesn’t run out of the curative agent, and (B) that the cure works fast enough to keep oneself from being overwhelmed. A vaccine is not an acute treatment, and even in Under a Graveyard Sky, Faith needed a large dose, and more frequently than a simple vaccination. The presumed mechanism was that more vaccine provided more of the inactivated virus to prompt more (and faster) antibody production. Those were especially needed to prevent the RNA virus from converting to the DNA form, and keeping the disease in the “really bad flu” form. This is also (presumably) the mechanism by which natural immunity allowed a victim to resist the bloodborne phase, as I have included for a few rare individuals in Across an Ocean of Stars.

A vaccine alone can really only stop progression or transmission of the disease, it doesn’t actually cure it, and a general trope of the zombie apocalypse genre is that zombieism isn’t curable. That’s true in the Black Tide Rising universe, too. Curing the infection is possible—we see it play out in the story. Unfortunately, curing the virus cannot reverse the damage that has already occurred. The best we can do is render the zombies non-infectious.

However, that brings up something unique to the BTR universe—beta Infecteds. John postulated that the rage exhibited by the Infected requires massive output of the adrenal cortex and autonomic nervous system. What would happen if an individual suffered from adrenal insufficiency? If the rage zombie form is an “alpha,” betas would be those without the rage and aggression, but still without higher cognitive functions. John wrote of Faith’s first encounter with a beta in Strands of Sorrow, and again in the short story “The Meaning of Freedom” in the anthology Black Tide Rising. While the actual mechanism of the disease course was never specified, we may speculate that adrenal insufficiency allowed enough time for the body’s natural immunity to combat the virus, but only after the cognitive damage was done.

Betas present some interesting problems for the survivors . . . and I’ll come back to the subject later.

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Defeating Zombies

No description of “curing” a zombie plague would be complete without at least a passing discussion of defeating and killing zombies in combat. The best answer I can give to “how”—is from as far away as possible. Isolating from contact—what medical professionals call “universal precautions” should be the first “realistic” preparation for combat. Any zombie hunter should be very careful not to become a victim themselves.

The next step involves knowing exactly which “injuries” will stop a particular type of zombie. It has always amused me that the traditional attack on “undead” creatures, is always to go for portions of the body that are supposedly lacking or nonfunctional—the brain in zombies, the heart in vampires. Given a mystical zombie curse, the only defense is typically to render the zombie into small enough pieces that it is no longer a threat. For reanimated corpses, it makes as much sense to target the brain as any other body part, since the reanimation force likely substitutes for brain activity—separate that from the rest of the body and again, it becomes no threat to the Hunter.

For “living” zombies and infected, brain and heart become the major targets, since the lack of higher thought processes means that pain or any lesser injury would not interrupt the zombie attack. Once the brain or heart are severely disrupted, the zombie should finally cease the attack, unless one is very, very unlucky (or in a Larry Correia novel). In the process, though, a good hunter remembers to use a caliber sufficient to incapacitate the Infected—a lesson largely lost on Max Brooks when he incorrectly assumed in World War Z that a mere .22 caliber round would penetrate the head from more than a few feet away. Hunters! Be like Faith Smith and insist on large caliber ammo!

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Zombies in Paradise

Part science, part fiction.

I’ve been accused of writing in many different styles and genres, but what comes most naturally to me is a blend of science fiction and hard science. That stems from the fact that I am a scientist with a touch of engineering experience. The best hard science fiction seems to include exactly those elements: solid science, a touch of engineering, and more.

I also believe that if some element of the story is real or based on reality—particularly scientific reality—then it is my responsibility as a writer to ensure its accuracy. At the same time, a purely scientific treatise would have little to no appeal to most science fiction readers. The science, therefore, must blend seamlessly with the story. To do it right, it needs to be a compelling story, but the science, even if it doesn’t drive the plot, must remain an important component.

In Across an Ocean of Stars, the story actually began with the concept of beta Infected, and several questions raised by John Ringo. He had introduced a beta-form of Infected for Strands of Sorrow and in his short story “The Meaning of Freedom” for the Black Tide Rising anthology. John wondered if “betas” could be trained for rudimentary tasks such as cleaning, sweeping, agriculture, or handling self-maintenance problems—essentially to aid in the rebuilding of civilization. Fortunately, betas (even lacking higher reasoning) could assist humanity in the task—couldn’t they?

Could betas provide a workforce in a world severely depleted of functioning humans?

There was a problem with the concept, though. Betas couldn’t protect their own interests. Without consent, would using betas be any different from slavery? In 2016, at LibertyCon, the authors of stories in the original Black Tide Rising anthology had a roundtable discussion about the stories. John raised the question about what to do (or could be done) with the betas. I began to get an idea of how one might structure a society around betas. My wife and I had recently toured the former leper colony at Kalaupapa, Molokai, Hawaii. The island had once hosted a leper colony administered by Father Damien Veuster, a Belgian priest of the Catholic Church assigned to Kalaupapa to minister to the lepers. Father Damien helped bring order and community to the once lawless colony, until he, too, succumbed to Hansen’s disease.

Perhaps it was the similarity in between my name and that of the disease, perhaps it was simply that the memory of the tour was recent, but I got a faraway look (I was later asked what had captured my attention), and had the very first inkling of a story in which a Father Damien-like character man took it upon himself to care for and minister to the betas, and build a community in which those individuals would not be slaves, but rather free persons.

The genesis of the idea lingered in my mind. Initially, I had planned for it to be a short story title “Go Tell It on The Mountain”, possibly for submission to the second BTR anthology. However, the concept grew beyond the confines of a short story and ultimately became a novel. The story’s premise involved survivors learning to adapt in the aftermath of a catastrophe, relying on practical skills rather than technology, which was often lost or inaccessible.

My wife and I travel regularly to Hawaii, and I’ve become fascinated by the history. Hawaiians are Polynesians—descended from voyagers and explorers—and come from a rich history of sustainable practices. In fact, there are many organizations and companies scattered throughout the islands that promote preservation and revival of cultural heritage, such as the Kualoa Ranch (Oahu), Parker Ranch (Hawaii Island), and Polynesian Cultural Center (Oahu). It seemed likely to me that some vestige of those groups would likely endure an apocalypse.

Again, these thoughts factored into the story, although it would take me many years to develop my writing habits and fully flesh it out. Still, it grew way beyond the beta colony/Father Damien story into a novel. I discussed the ideas with John Ringo a few times, and then pitched the idea to Toni Weisskopf after The Moon and the Desert.

The initial version, as pitched, differed considerably from the version I submitted, and that differs quite a bit from the finished product. As I continued to spin ideas for post-apocalyptic Hawaii, and discover more of the islands, the concept grew larger than (I thought) would fit a single book. One of the casualties was the original short story—not lost, just consigned to a possible second volume. Toni convinced me that the story needed a better sense of closure, and the best piece of closure was, “Go Tell It on The Mountain.”

I’ll save that for a bit, though, because it became much more than a simple short story, but embodies the heart of Across an Ocean of Stars.

Part One: Explorer—the Astronaut Simulation

Around the time I developed the original premise for Ocean, I had been reviewing proposals for several government and foundation funding agencies. One of these funded research related to outer space and space travel. During this process, I encountered a description of a space habitat simulation called Hawaii Space Exploration Analog and Simulation, HI-SEAS. It’s a Mars-and-Moon-simulated habitat located high on the slopes of Mauna Loa. This simulation has hosted missions of four to twelve months, and is configured to provide an environment to not only mimic the confines of a spacecraft or lunar/Martian habitat, but allow the “simunauts” (in NASA-speak) to experience an otherworldly environment outside their habitat domes.

This inspired the idea of a simulated astronaut experience, where participants undergo a communication blackout, only to discover that a zombie apocalypse has occurred outside. This concept became the foundation of a story in which a long-duration space simulation transformed into a post-apocalyptic survival tale.

In creating the fictional habitat for my story, I drew on real-world examples such as Biosphere 2, MARS500, and HI-SEAS. Biosphere 2 was not specifically a space simulation but rather a study of closed ecosystems. The habitat included plants to provide food and fresh air, and replicated a complete ecosphere with air, water, soil, plants, and recycling, with limited small animals and insects. While not a successful experiment in humans living in an isolated environment, it has taught many important lessons in the biological configuration of a closed-system. A more successful habitat simulation was MARS500, which simulated a 520-day Mars mission, complete with separate chambers mimicking the spacecraft, surface habitat, and surface excursions. HI-SEAS specifically added experiences in working outside the dome on the high-elevation volcanic terrain which, frankly, looks like it belongs on another planet.

For my fictional Hawaii Island Space Long-Orbit Planetary Exploration, HI-SLOPE, I took some creative liberties. First, I moved it to the slopes of Mauna Kea, increased the elevation by 2,000 feet, and placed the whole facility inside a cinder cone so that the 25 inhabitants would not have any visual reminder of being on Earth. With a reversed day-night schedule, they would only see the night sky, allowing the HI-SLOPE founders to program a full simulation of the isolation and mishaps that might occur during a three-year mission to Mars or the asteroids.

Many of the concepts came from discussions with other reviewers and researchers about the existing space simulation experiments, and what experiments those researchers would run if such a facility were available (with volunteers to inhabit it!). I was also able to draw on studies of high elevation on human physiology, the dynamics of interpersonal relationships in closed environments . . . and even a bit of research on organic decay in the cold, dry air above 9,000 feet. These details shaped the setting and characters.

People often ask me if there’s a little bit of myself in Hamilton Forsyth. After all, Hamilton might be a derivation of Hampson, and I live in Forsyth County. The first part of my answer is that no, I wouldn’t want to be a psychologist. Second, I use a random name generator for many of my character names (unless I’m tuckerizing and redshirting—and there’s a bunch in there). Third, I’d like to think I’m a bit less pedantic and dysfunctional and volatile than Ham. Still, I can’t deny some personal influences based on the science.

One of my only regrets is that, despite several visits to Hawaii, I’ve never made it to the summit of Mauna Kea to see the telescopes firsthand. I’ve been to the Maunakea Visitor Information Station at 9,200 feet elevation, and found out how thin the air was. It’s about 75 percent of sea level pressure, and certainly demands respect! For the summit, I relied on literature, websites, and satellite images. Air pressure is down to 60 percent of sea level at the summit, and not for the faint of heart (literally).

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Part Two: Seafarer—From Ni’ihau to Molokai

The past several years, my wife and I have taken day-trip tours of Kauai. Many of the small details of location, harbors, coffee plantations, etc. come from those trips. There’s not much to add to the “hard science” aspects of Kauai except to reassure readers that both the Kauai Coffee Company and noni fruit are real. I’m a big fan of KCC, and they produce 50 percent of the coffee shipped from Hawaii. Given that Hawaii is also the only state in the U.S. producing coffee for commercial sale and export, that makes KCC responsible for 50 percent of U.S. domestic coffee production! They are an eco-friendly enterprise, and they lean toward propane and alcohol fuels to keep pollutants down, so there is some hope for continued operation after the Fall (as long as they can scavenge propane or have it sent over from Barber’s Point). They really are as big as stated in the book!

Ni’ihau is called The Secret Island, and modern myth says it is reserved for native Hawaiians to practice a return to their cultural heritage . . .

Nope. Sorry. It’s a privately-owned island, and the only folks who live there are members of the Robinson family (or their guests). It really doesn’t have farm land. In 1940-1941, large ruts were plowed across the limited farmland so that foreign planes couldn’t use the fields as a staging area for an attack on Pearl Harbor—yes, they were expecting it, just not exactly when it happened. A Japanese Zero even crashed there, and the remains are in the Pacific Aviation Museum on Oahu.

The island is largely overgrown, with only the family houses visible. There does not appear to be any significant agriculture on the island (as evidenced by satellite imagery).

The LCM-8’s are real, and visible on Google. For that matter, all ships and ship types are real . . . just maybe not at the exact time and place of the story. The ketch and Monte Fino can be seen in images of Ko Olina harbor, and I even saw the ketch sailing off of Waikiki in May 2024. I took some liberties with the trimaran, though. There’s one in Ko Olina now, but it wasn’t built until 2020. The Kuroda, LSV-7, was in pictures of Kawaihae Harbor in 2017, and I have a picture of the USNS Yukon in Pearl Harbor circa 2013. There’s reference to an odd houseboat used by the Kauai clearance teams off Hanapepe that had a slightly bigger role in the story, but which was edited out for story flow. It’s an Orsos Island (look it up), a really odd craft intended for floating resorts. It was an interesting footnote, but ultimately didn’t serve the plot.

Off Kaena Point and around Oahu, a few place and business names were changed, but again, they all exist, even the “submarine” and its tugboat. Which brings me to the sea battle—and back to hard SF. I’m not great at describing fight scenes and combat. Mostly I try to write the impact of battle on the POV character, rather than the battle itself. For the pirate battle though, I had to draw out the positions of the ships, create side-elevation diagrams, and try to figure out who could see what from which angle. For the rest, I trusted in fog-of-war. James Young and Phil Wohlrab were a great help with the weaponry of the pirate battle.

James really did tell me he swam like a rock.

For Pearl Harbor, I wanted an incident that would keep people out of the harbor proper, some explosion or mishap that would contaminate the area, without falling on the old trope of “reactor meltdown” (which wouldn’t happen). Michael “Sub Dude” Gants clued me in on the resin exchange, and I confirmed the details with my submarine subject matter experts.

Details and sightlines in Pearl Harbor were confirmed on the basis of “been there, saw that.” May 2024, I had the opportunity to tour the control tower on Ford Island at the Pacific Aviation Museum, and was able to see and measure those sight lines and obstacles. By the way, that’s a beautiful view, and the docent’s narration of the events of Dec. 7, 1941, while looking out over the harbor, gave me goose bumps!

Hurricanes really are rare in the Hawaiian Islands. The water conditions aren’t uniform, and the currents are wrong to bring a storm directly over the islands as described. However, island landfalls occur every 10 years or so. Tropical Storm Iselle grazed the southern tip of Hawaii (island) in 2014; Hurricanes Linda (2021) and Darby (2022) followed tracks similar to my fictional storm, but were weakening tropical storms by the time they reached the islands. Surprisingly, there were three tropical cyclones aimed at Hawaii in the summer of 2024, but only the first one, Hurricane Hone, made it to the islands. It passed south of Hawaii while it was still strengthening to Category 1, and the Big Island was affected by wind, rain, and high surf.

The really big hurricane news was Iniki in 1992. It directly hit Kauai, due to an abrupt northward turn two days prior to landfall. The storm had formed well to the east of the island chain, and appeared set to pass more than 300 miles south of the Big Island (as a Cat 1). However, the storm turned abruptly north and strengthened, striking the west coast of Kauai two days later. The northward track, passing west of the islands is common for “Kona Storms” which are essentially the Hawaii equivalent of “nor’easters” (and not hurricanes). Again, the track is mainly controlled by water temperatures and atmospheric conditions.

I leave it to the reader to find out more about Hurricane Iniki, and its history as the strongest hurricane to hit the Hawaiian Islands in recorded history. However, I will tease you all with the factoids that damage to farms and chicken coops by Iniki is why Kauai is overrun with chickens!

As for the former leper colony on the Kalaupapa peninsula on Molokai, I’ve told much of the hard SF details already. It is absolutely true that the colony is difficult to reach from most of Molokai, with thousand-foot sea cliffs separating the peninsula from the rest of the island. Around sixty people are permanent residents of Kalaupapa, Makanalua, and Kalawao (combined) and they really do get all of their supplies once a year by barge. Barge Day occurs every year in September—again, I took just a small liberty with dates and timing for the story.

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Part Three: Iron Man—Ranchers of the Big Island

Parker Ranch

This section required a fair amount of research, both in person and through online searches. It’s hard to visit the Big Island of Hawaii without learning about the several of the key features of the island—volcanoes, coffee, and ranching. Some of the most fascinating bits of Hawaiian lore involve the geography—and geology—which play an important role in setting up elements of the story. To understand this significance, we must first talk about the volcanoes: Kohala, Mauna Kea, Mauna Loa, Hualalai, and Kilauea. Further, we need to talk about active, dormant, and extinct volcanoes.

Kilauea is an active volcano, and responsible for the 2018 eruption and current activity. The “summit” of Kilauea is Halemaumau Crater, located on Mauna Loa’s southeastern slope. Because of this, Kilauea is often thought to be just a vent of Mauna Loa (which is also is active, with major eruptions within the past century and minor activity in the last five years). However, the two volcanoes have separate—active—magma chambers, indicating that Kilauea developed next to Mauna Loa, and actually contributes independently to the growth of the island. While much of the southern and southwestern extent of Hawaii was formed from eruptions of Mauna Loa, the southeastern and eastern edge of the island owes its development to Kilauea.

Kilauea consists of three main active regions. Halemaumau crater, currently shows active lava presence, and forms the summit caldera of the volcano. Pu’u O’o is a volcanic cone in the East Rift Zone—a network of fissures, cracks, and underground magma channels—which hosted the longest continuous eruption, from January 3, 1983 to April 30, 2018. The Lower East Rift Zone was the site of the May 3 to September 4, 2018 “Lower Puna Eruption” which included the spectacular lava fountain from Fissure 8 (now named Ahu’ailā’au) in the residential area of Leilani Estates. Eruptions returned to the summit caldera in 2021, 2023, and a new eruption began December 23, 2024, and carried into January 2025 (at least).

Mauna Loa is also considered active, with its most recent eruption for 16 days in late 2022. Prior to that, Mauna Loa erupted in 1984, 1975, and twelve eruptions from 1900-1950. While Mauna Loa doesn’t erupt often, it still erupts, and is thus an active volcano. Hualalai, to the west of Mauna Loa, and looming over the town of Kailua-Kona, is also active, although it last erupted in 1801. Recent activity is mostly seismic, with earthquakes in 1929 and 2006.

The geologic record for Hualalai suggests that it erupts every 200-300 years. The last eruption was 224 years ago—is an eruption imminent? Or has Hualalai finally slipped from the active category to dormant?

The next volcanic mountain is Mauna Kea, with the highest peak in Hawaii. It lies north of Mauna Loa, and is thought to be about the same age as its neighboring volcano. Mauna Kea (sometimes written as Maunakea) is definitely dormant, however, with its last eruption more than 4,000 years ago. Two features distinguish Mauna Kea from its neighbors—snow on the summit, and the presence of numerous (dormant and extinct) cinder cones along its flank, particularly the southern flank adjacent to Mauna Loa, but there are many bumps and cones recognizable on all faces of the mountain.

Northwest of Mauna Kea, at the extreme northwestern tip of the island is Kohala, an extinct volcano. Its last eruption was over 100,000 years ago, and much of the volcano has weathered and eroded. The Big Island’s northern and western regions are comparatively stable. The windward side (eastern shore) receives abundant moisture from the trade winds, supporting lush rainforests and cloud forests at higher elevations. The leeward side (western shore) is drier but can still receive rainfall and runoff, creating ideal conditions for coffee cultivation on the slopes of Hualalai and macadamia nut groves south of Hilo.

Between Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa is a high pass known as The Saddle, with an elevation over 6,000 feet. In contrast, between Mauna Kea and Kohala lies a broad, flat plateau at 2,000—3,000 feet elevation. This temperate area, with gentle rains and fertile soil from old lava flows, supports the agricultural bounty of central Hawaii. The Parker Ranch is one of the oldest and largest operating cattle ranches in the U.S. It was established in 1847 by John Palmer Parker, on a land grant from King Kamehameha I. It is older than most Texas ranches by at least 30 years.

Parker Ranch spun off its cattle company in 2014. The Paniolo3 Cattle Company started with 1,400 cows, and now has over 15,000. The ranch also boasts 240 horses4, and an untold number of sheep, goats, pigs, and boars. In fact, the ranch runs hunting tours for big game and turkey.

The ranch has grown significantly over the years and has some history tied to the U.S. military in Hawaii. During WWII, part of the ranch formed Camp Tarawa, training Marines for the assault on Iwo Jima. After the passing of the last of the Parker family heirs in 1992, the ranch has been operated by a trust, and owned by its own paniolos. This was the genesis of the name “Paniolo Ranch” I used in Ocean.

The astute reader would likely correct me that the vast cattle operation didn’t exist at the appropriate timeline for the BTR universe. However, Parker Ranch was part of the Ulupono Initiative founded in 2009. The initiative gathered investment in renewable energy, expanded local agriculture, and re-established dairy and grass-fed beef industries (including what would become Paniolo Cattle Company). Thus, the effort was already there, and under the authority of the ranch. I stretched authorial license only slightly to alter the name without needing to alter the timeline (much).

Thus, in 2013, when most of the story takes place, the ranch would have had approximately 1,500 head of cattle managed by a maximum of 20 paniolos. In present day, the numbers have considerably increased, and the ranch is worked by a combination of horseback, jeeps, ATVs, and even ultralight aircraft. For a post-apocalyptic world, I imagined that horse-mounted paniolos would provide the bulk of workforce. For Paniolo Ranch to survive, they’d need additional cowboys and horses.

Where might these horses come from? To start with, Parker Ranch has been breeding working horses for as long as it has been in existence. In addition, when one explores the Big Island beyond the typical tourist attractions, it becomes clear that the southern and northern regions of the island are replete with farms and ranches, including ranches specializing in raising horses. Parker Ranch may be the largest, but it is far from the only ranch. Numerous smaller ranches and farms thrive here, particularly near the eastern sea cliffs of Honokaa, north of Hilo, and on the northern slopes of Kohala. Many farms in the central plateau, such as Lalamilo Farm and Big Island Farms, use sustainable agricultural techniques that honor Hawaiian and Polynesian traditions . . . If any part of Hawaii could survive and thrive after an apocalyptic event, it would be the central plateau of the Big Island.

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The Garrison

The Saddle, a pass between Mauna Loa and Maunakea, forms a direct route between Kailua-Kona and Hilo. Here lies an army garrison called the Pohakuloa Training Area (PTA), though it’s often referred to simply as “the garrison.” This facility, located over 6,000 feet in elevation, includes high-altitude training grounds and an artillery test range.

During World War II, the U.S. military established Camp Tarawa on about 91,000 acres of Parker Ranch. After 1946, the land was returned to the ranch, but the need for a firing range and high elevation training remained. The garrison and Bradshaw Army Airfield were established in 1955, and are still in use to this day. In Ocean, there is a hint of friction between the ranch/Waimea, and the garrison. This is again (mostly) fictional, but stems from the fact that the military didn’t really want to give Camp Tarawa back to the ranch in 1946.

Supplies for the garrison really are brought in by barge and LSV, and the SSGT Robert T. Kuroda (LSV-7) was commissioned in 2005, and is currently home ported in Honolulu. It can carry up to fifteen M1 Abrams tanks—and does, when delivering the tanks to Kawaihae Harbor and the garrison. There’s a tank trail ascending the mountains, paralleling Route 200, the Saddle Road, that accommodates vehicles that need to experience a mountain climb, as opposed to being ferried to the top on a transporter.

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Lee Eller

Into this mix, Ocean introduces Lee Eller, triathlete and Ironman competitor. Lee is inspired by friends in my running circles who encouraged me to walk and participate in fitness events, including a few 5K races (which I walked rather than ran). Their camaraderie was incredible, and Lee is a composite of several people I knew, including two young men who lost significant weight as they took up walking, running, and competing in other sports.

For research on the Ironman Triathlon, I referred to the Ironman website and spoke with locals from my running/walking group, including one person who competed in the Ironman World Championship in Kailua-Kona, held annually in October. In the post-COVID era, the men’s championship remains in Kailua-Kona, while the women’s championship moved to France in 2022. I also talked to the locals for more of that—dare I say it—local flavor!

In The Moon and the Desert, I created a more extreme variant of the Ironman, adding an uphill cycling component. Instead of sticking to coastal roads, I wanted my character Glenn Shepard to bicycle up to Waimea, on the central plateau. This fictional event, called “Extreme Iron,” also appears in Ocean, providing the rationale for Lee Eller to remain in Hawaii to train for the competition.

I have driven (and walked) the same roads and trails as Lee. In September of 2023, I was doing author’s edits of Ocean, and tried to ensure I had all of the details correct, including walking around Waimea (Kamuela) and Kawaihae. I drove and had my wife take notes of which points along the roads the lava rock turned to soil, where grass grew, and where the goats were located! It was in May 2024 I noted that Kawaihae was visible from almost every point along the Hawaii Belt Road (Route 190) from the Waikoloa Road, past the Saddle Road (Route 200) to the airport on the outskirts of the town of Waimea!

It’s a tough job, but I do it for my readers.

By the way, the town is named Waimea, which means red water (wai = water, mea = red). That’s also the name of the canyon on Kauai. Again, the rock strata are often red, and the Waimea River often runs red with silt. In addition, there is a beautiful location of red dirt and rock with waterfalls along the Waimea Canyon Drive on Kauai. It’s very popular with families, because all of the rock is rounded and the pools are shallow. I’m thinking it would be good for a picnic someday.

Hawaiian names get reused because they are descriptive. Wailua means two waters—on Kauai, that’s both a twin waterfall, and a river with two branches. Waiwai, or “water twice” means wealth, as an abundance of water brings riches.

There’s already a Waimea post office on Kauai. The USPS can’t have two post offices in the same state with the same name, so the post office in the town of Waimea on Hawaii island is named “Kamuela.” Again, a bit of artistic license had the locals in Ocean embracing Kamuela as the new name for their broader region. In reality, only the USPS uses the name on the Big Island!

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I’m indebted to so many people who provided input to Part 3. It ranged from friends who’d actually been to the garrison, a friend who helped me figure out LSV-7, local shop owners and managers (such as Humpy’s Big Island Alehouse, and Big Island Runners), museum docents and park guides at the Parker Ranch. Hawaii Volcanoes National Park and Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum in Oahu, and a few local fans who clued me in to local sights and features.

Once again, for the battle scenes, I used a combination of “been there” and drawing out maps based on satellite imagery. Elevation became very important, and it was necessary to get out and see the sights in order to figure out what Lee Eller could see, and where he had to stand to see it.

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Part Four: Kahuna—The Place of Refuge

Kahuna is derived from my original short story “Go Tell It on the Mountain,” although been considerably modified from the original version. For a time, I’d thought that Kahuna wouldn’t fit in the current volume, and that I’d need considerably more words to tell this portion of the story. Thanks to the best editor in the business, Toni Weisskopf, I realized that I could tell the essential story by teasing the main subject throughout Ocean, then using Part Four, “Kahuna,” to wrap up those threads.

John Ringo wanted the Black Tide Rising stories to have a message of hope. He and Toni have instructed authors that stories considered for Black Tide Rising anthologies should not rehash the fall of civilization, but rather focus on stories of rebuilding. In my mind, that also means a good BTR story should have include hope, faith, and, to a certain extent, love. We see this in the “Letters in a Bottle” written by Ham Forsyth, to the individual identified only as Abi. The purposeful implication is that Abi is a loved one, but readers won’t learn exactly who Abi is until much later in Ocean. I won’t spoil it here, but threaded through those letters and Forsyth’s writings is an acknowledgment that he understands that he lacks faith, and needs to rediscover it. Faith thus becomes a major theme of Part Four, “Kahuna.”

Another thread woven throughout Ocean are the deep ethical questions with respect to the victims of H7D3, such as treating them as victims rather than as mindless zombies. It’s a theme that threads through most of the books in the series, and the settings and situations of Ocean allow it to be examined in a bit more depth. In particular, there is a pointed ethical question of the beta Infected, as to whether betas can or should be treated as persons . . . or property. Given that the entire genesis of the novel was how to handle (and care for) the betas, the ethical question is worthy of inclusion, and I hope readers will agree with my treatment. It’s also worth saying that the resolution of the question is both not what I originally intended, and exactly what I wanted from “Go Tell It on the Mountain.”

Part Four was a way to bring together many of these threads: the need to have faith, the need to take an ethical stand on how the betas (at the very least) would be treated, and the attitudes toward and treatment of the Alphas among the infected. These ideas manifest primarily through Dr. d’Almeida, who carries through from Part 1 as the chief medical officer of HI-SLOPE. We also have Captain Bubba Gnad from Part 2 and Lee Eller from Part 3, all contributing to resolving the story and uncovering more about the nemesis that has been hindering their efforts to recover and rebuild.

The backstory behind “Kahuna” delves deeply into Hawaiian customs, particularly the Ali’i (the rulers) and the various laws constraining the common people, including the kapu laws. One notable tradition is the concept of places of refuge. Pu’uhonua O Honaunau, the refuge referenced in Ocean is a real site on the South Kona District coastline.

The Pu’uhonua was more than just a site of refuge, it included the Hale o Keawe heiau (temple) where the ruling monarchs of Hawaii were buried. The larger site constituted the Place of Refuge, where an individual who broke kapu could seek absolution. It is one of the more notable and best-preserved historic sites on the Big Island (and one of only four sites in the islands where it is legal to fly the Hawaiian flag without the American flag).

Throughout Hawaiian history, if a commoner offended one of the Ali’i (rulers, or elites) or was found guilty of a crime affecting them, their family, or their lands, they faced a death sentence. However, a criminal who entered a Pu’uhonua and claimed sanctuary was entitled to a sanctification ceremony, performed by a kahuna (priest), which essentially commuted the death sentence and allowed the individual to rejoin society. There were rules, though: once sanctuary was rejected, it could not be reclaimed. However, if the individual committed another crime against the Ali’i after being sanctified, they could be tried and executed for both crimes. Furthermore, restitution for the original crime might still be required once the individual left the Pu’uhonua.

Note that Pu’uhonua is the title or descriptor for a place of refuge. The particular place referenced in the story is Honaunau.

Interestingly enough, the grounds just outside the Great Wall in Honaunau were home to several generations of great chiefs. So, an offender could seek absolution if they could get to the Pu’uhonua, but getting there held many risks. An individual making it to refuge certainly earned their chance at the sanctification ceremony.

The term “kahuna” has many definitions. It refers to those who (directly) serve the king and courtiers, which could mean healers, navigators, builders, prophets/temple workers, and philosophers. However, in this context, it refers to a member of a religious hierarchy. For story purposes, this sets up an intriguing rivalry between Father Bart, modeled after Father Damien of the Kalaupapa leper colony history, and Wizardbear, a Hawaiian native priest whose beliefs combine Polynesian mythology with animism. To round out the interdenominational nature of the ceremony, I added Abraham Krebs, a gabbai (essentially a Jewish lay leader who determines which Torah passages are read in synagogue).

When writing the outcome of the sanctification ceremony, it didn’t go exactly as I had foreseen, but I am proud of how it turned out, and I hope readers will like it. This was one case where my interest in Hawaiian sites and legends had to rely heavily on museum websites and satellite images. Honaunau is somewhere I hope to visit but have not yet been able to.

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On the subject of hard science fiction and the military side of the genre, I’ve written a few stories that touch on those themes. I am indebted to friends with helicopter experience, who helped with scenes involving the Super Stallion. There are hints of the backstory throughout Ocean, suggesting parallel events taking place elsewhere around the Hawaiian Islands. That story is told in part in “Ghost of Kaneohe,” a short story on the Baen website. It teases events around Honolulu and Oahu during the worst of the H7D3 infestation and progression. Without spoiling the story for anyone who hasn’t read Ghost or Ocean, I’ll say they don’t need to be read in order, but I encourage readers to explore both, as they help tie up loose ends and bring closure to the threads in Ocean.

The final battle draws a few parallels to the final battle in which Kamehameha the Great (Kamehameha I) fought the final battle in the unification of the Hawaiian Islands. I did have to change the locale, as even in the present day, Waipio Valley is so hard to reach. I also dug fairly deep into the Hawaiian pantheon for the events as well—but again, those details are best left for the reader to enjoy.

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It is my sincere hope that readers enjoy Across an Ocean of Stars and appreciate the effort to bring a hard-science approach to a zombie apocalypse story. While I know there may be errors, I ask for understanding, as I dearly love the subject matter and have tried hard to ensure accuracy. If something can be looked up, I hope readers will find it matches the book.

In my opinion, it makes Ocean unique among the BTR novels, and I appreciate this opportunity to pull back the curtain and show readers a bit of the world-building of Black Tide Rising and Across an Ocean of Stars.

1. My term from Across an Ocean of Stars. Ringo referred to it as the Red Flu at one point, and it is expected in the broader BTR universe that H7D3 would have regionally specific names.

2. The name does not reference an earlier experiment, rather “Biosphere number one” is Earth as a whole. Biosphere 2 was intended to see if Earth’s ecosystem could be replicated in miniature.

3. Hawaiian for “cowboy.”

4. Yes, they have an annual rodeo!

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Robert E. Hampson is a neuroscientist, professor, and science fiction author who spends his days decoding how memories work and his nights trying to remember where he left his keys. With a Ph.D. in Physiology & Pharmacology, he’s been on a lifelong quest to figure out what’s going on inside our heads—though he’s still baffled by how people can willingly watch bad sci-fi with terrible science. When he’s not mentoring students or conducting cutting-edge research on brain-computer interfaces, he’s crafting hard science fiction that’s as accurate as it is fun.

In 2015, Dr. Hampson turned his love for science fiction into a writing career, proving that yes, scientists can do more than just stare at lab equipment. His stories, which often involve futuristic medical tech and military adventures, have earned him praise for being “hard science fiction with a vengeance”—but he swears he’s really a nice guy.

As a professor at Wake Forest University School of Medicine, Dr. Hampson teaches science communication, ensuring young scientists know how to explain their research to the public without sounding like they’re from another planet. With over 30 short stories, several novels, and countless lost pens, he continues to explore the exciting—and sometimes baffling—worlds of both science and fiction.

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