The Chrishanger
The Official Website of Christopher G. Nuttall
Sufficiently Advanced Technology
Inverse Shadows - Book One
The Confederation, a multi-planetary post-singularity society,
desperately wants to know how to achieve transcendence into an Elder
Race. Their scouts encounter Darius, a lost colony world whose
inhabitants have apparently discarded the technology that brought
them to the planet, in order to adopt a virtually feudal culture.
But the scouts are shocked when they discover that the controlling
elite, in each of the major centres of population, exhibit abilities
that defy the accepted laws of physics. Although the population
appear to believe their leaders to be capable of performing sorcery,
the Confederation concludes they must in fact be using a technology
sufficiently advanced to seem like magic. Is it a technology left
behind by long-gone Elders, or an indication of an advanced race
trying to control the colony – perhaps one of a number of such races
who are intent on meddling in human affairs?
Either way, the need to understand and utilise such a technology
leads the Confederation Security Council to launch an urgent mission
to investigate Darius. Suitable specialists are swiftly enlisted to
create a team, including both scientists and AIs, but all under
military control. Protocol dictates that stealthy infiltration
should precede initial contact, but the lack of sufficient prior
observation and analysis will make it harder for the team to
establish a credible cover story. Although their ship can remain in
a hidden orbit, the research team will be on their own once they
land, especially as Confederation technology seems to be unreliable
or even inoperative on the planet’s surface. But they will soon
discover that the people on Darius are not all the simple folk that
they seem.
***
Sufficiently Advanced Technology was published in a digital edition
on 12 July 2013 and will be published in paperback on 8 November
2013. Download a
FREE SAMPLE and then buy it from the links on
this page.
