Operation Stellar Shrine: Notes and Credits

http://www.thehelper.net/forums/showthread.php?t=137647 for list of chapters.

Inspired by Tom Clancy's "Red Storm Rising" and "StarCraft" and the fuss about SC2.

I wanted to make something like Red Storm Rising in space, but canon only allowed for so much. And canon > me. Fighting may be too much, but that's a largely military fanfic for an RTS.
I generally avoided including things that belong to human history, but could not have been sent into space along with Doran Routhe's 40 000 exiles. It would be cool for Paskirov to have an old family AK-47 or to have him quote too many military thinkers, such as Klausewitz, but it would be un-canonical and anachronistic. The compromise are the names of the science vessels and the battlecruiser Graf von Moltke. Note that "Graf" is a title, not his first name. The guy is called Helmuth (von) Moltke, and he becomes a Graf (~ Count) by the end of his life as a reward for his military service fur ze kaiser.
I also simplified the NATO map symbols for the illustrations. Think of the little squares on the sheets as the grid :). Most of the letters in the top left-hand corner are just random and mean nothing.
But then, while writing the last three chapters, I realized that it actually felt easier and less constrained if I used the original thing (so I did).

Needless to say, any matches with real people's names are entirely coincidental.
Except for the new chars in Wings of Steel.
Paskirov was inspired by Pavel Leonidovich Alexeyev from Red Storm Rising. He looks like Derek Almond from "V for Vendetta."
Williams = inspired by Dolph Lundgren
Carla = arithmetic mean of Joanna from "American Dad" and Nova

The Sei'Tara carriers lack the "fins" visible on the canon carriers belonging to the Khalai in the game.
Also, the Sei'Tara do not have corsairs. But they do have Templar Archives. And are much better developed overall than most other Dark Templar tribes. Explaining the heavy ships.
Sei'Tara elite guard, and especially Avissian, inspired by http://jtsubconscious8.deviantart.com/art/Starcraft-2-DarkTemplar-126925578


The battlecruisers' bridges look similar to those of the StarWars star destroyers.
The eagle mission badge of the fleet looks like the arms of the Holy Roman Emperor (ante-1368), i.e. the thing in the middle of the the shield in the blog picture. With a stylized picture of Umoja above it, like the weird stars above the U.S. eagle.
All ships' color-bearing sections are black with a yellow/gold border.
All infantry's combat suits and all vehicles' steel armor are painted the same way, with the occasional mission badge.
The nukes, especially the second one, bear similarities to the nukes in the Ivy Mike and Castle Bravo tests during the first years of the Cold War.
At the end, when the Zerg are deploying for the last time, there are special, bigger breed of overlords shown. But, I guess that particular evolutionary branch wasn't very effective for the Zerg.
Zerg make their warp portals when many overlords come together and focus their psionic abilities to make a wormhole. No? I know, it just sounded sound and sense-making.

Yea, what's with the scrolls... ^^

Thanks to:
http://starcraft.wikia.com/
(you guys made it possible!)
James Phinney, Chris Metzen and others for the job well done
eventually TAFKAL80ETC for "Terran up the Night"
NATO for declassifying APP-6A
Kevin Ojeda a.k.a. BANANAMAN (@ TheHelper forums) for precious battle knowledge and pro skillz
Vladi for technical advise
Science and instrumental reason for improving human life.
Miltiades, Themistocles, the Byzantines, Charles Martel, the philosophes and the US presidents from Truman to Reagan for helping preserve the Graeco-Roman tradition in this world.