The New Haven Chronicles WIP Thread - Sketchup

[Jon May]

A bit of an introduction.

The New Haven Chronicles is an original universe, military speculative fiction drama. I liken the series to Band of Brothers or Generation Kill, but set in the Twenty-Second Century and extending into space. The universe developed for this story is one in which great care has been taken to balance a fine line between hard science and compelling military drama.

To this effect, humanity doesn't cruise around space in huge ships, but rather slow moving fusion rocket powered vehicles that lack advanced artificial gravity generation. Manned space flight has yet to venture beyond the Asteroid belt, there are no FLT's, no aliens, and military technology is shown as a progression of current cutting edge technology, with battles in space evolving slowly over great distances.

By the mid 2160's, the United Nations has risen to power as a fledgling global government, in the face of overwhelming Corporate monopolies. The Allied Corporations control much of the tech and infrastructure required to support the human presence in space, going so far as to largely abandon earth in their pursuit of complete economical freedom. As such, the UN is out matched in most fields other then pure man power.



My immediate goal for this project is to get the story out through vignettes, short stories, and episodic novellas, most of which will appear online in some form. Visually, my immediate goal is to produce reference images of the various machines of war inhabiting the Universe belonging to each faction.

My long term goals are a bit more...ambitious. I hope to be able to create a 3d animated series, starting with a mock pilot and producing regular installments in the form of 30-60 minute episodes. My aim is to shoot for roughly the quality currently seen in most top tier video game trailers, such as the recently released Mass Effect 3 trailer and the Knights of the Old Republic trailer.

I realize that's a tall order and is well beyond my current abilities and will require more work then one person (me) can do. As I said though, this is a long term goal and I'll cross that bridge when I get to it.

The image in the attachment is the UN Titan Main Battle Tank, lovingly referred to as a 66 tonne eviction notice. It's main armament is a 140mm rail gun, capable of firing both guided and unguided munitions.
The model is still missing a few major components, like tracks, a remote weapons platform, and a mine plow, but those are all in the works.

The image below, is of the Essex Class, UNV-Ticonderoga.


The Essex Class serves as the Command Ship of for the UN's newly formed Expeditionary Strike Groups, intended to provide Earth with the ability to project military authority across the inner solar system. However before the doctrine could be completely realized, the Allied Corporations launched a preemptive strike against the Colony and shipyards on Luna, taking control of both. The Ticonderoga Strike Group (2nd ESG) can now be found in Earth Orbit, attempting to repel Allied Attempts to land personnel and supplies to the Allied Soldiers on Earth.

And as a bonus.....a pic of the Tico, docked with the Kirov, a dedicated heavy guided missile cruiser. The Kirov class helps to form the backbone of an ESG's offensive capabilities.


I'll stop there for now, though more is certainly to come. I welcome all questions and comments, so if there is something you want better explained or need clarification on, or see spot some glaring mistake that I've somehow overlooked until now, then by all means speak up.

Thanks for taking the time to have a look.

[Merlin1701]

I must admit i started to read through your timeline for your universe...and I really liked it. your ships have a firefly feel

[Barroth]

Really good to see a new Thread here ^^
Your both meshes are nice done, but are these Cruisers finished? ^^

The tank is a really nice mesh ^^, would be great to see that animated

[SDL]

Seen your work around... looks good...

[Jon May]

Thanks guys. I really need to try and finish the timeline soon. I've been putting it off for some time though and just haven't gotten around to it. I have it all worked out in my head, but haven't taken the time to write it all down.
I have to say that I don't recall anyone comparing New Haven to Firefly before, not that I mind of course. That's certainly a comparison I can live with, which come to think of it, may be even more evident once the Corporate Alliance ships are introduced. They're more vertical then horizontal.


And no, the cruisers aren't finished, far from it actually. I just wanted a shot of them side by side for comparisons sake.

For the UN side of space technology, I'm trying to make things looks as though they are less advanced. Obviously more advanced then current tech, but not to the point where everything is contained within a single combined hull. The ships are still based to some degree, upon combining individual components. Hopefully this will help lend a a bit of realism to things and make it all a bit more believable, as the ships will hopefully convey a sense of space craft which could actually be built.

I should also say now, that because this is a WIP thread and it's more of a universe then just a single model, I tend to jump from one model to the next, depending upon whatever I feel like working on at any given time. Lately however I've been doing that week by week, trying to devote at least a week worth's of work to one concept before moving to something else. So everything I post will be a work in progress. The Titan is the closest model I have to being done, and it still needs a fair amount of work.

So here is something other then spaceships and tanks. This is the UN Complex, where you can find much of the UN governing body as well the military leadership represented by Solar Command (SOLCOM). I'm not sure where this is supposed to be yet, (likely Mediterranean though) however the idea is that when the UN began to regain power, they took over an entire coastal town to build this self sufficient city as a base of power.

This is a very early shot in my construction of the city, just to get a sense of how to block out the major components that surround the main complex....the complex consisting of the large central tower and the immediate surrounding structures. Still a lot of work to do on this one.



And for tomorrow, I'll post the project's namesake, New Haven Island.

[Merlin1701]

well im willing to help model something for you if your an active member...after all you are a fellow sketchuper!

[Jon May]

Thanks, I'd definitely take any help I can get. Though to be honest, there's so many concepts for this project, I'm not sure what to ask for help with first. It my be best if you took a look through my 2-d and unfinished 3d concepts and see if something looks interesting. So if you're game, you check out my DA gallery and see what you might peak your interest. http://jimi-james.deviantart.com/gallery/10458726

On a somewhat related note, I started a model of Jorge's Heavy Machine Gun after Halo Reach came out but didn't really plan on finishing it. However someone over at SFM, asked me to finish it so they could use it as a bases for a papercraft model. I finished up the basic model today.

[RJB]

I'm really liking the original look to your designs and the wide range of models from space ships to vehicles and even some buildings.

Keep up the great work.

[Jon May]

Thanks.

The buildings and cities are relatively new, so they're not all that developed compared to the Essex Class, which has been in development since 2007 to some degree and has seen multiple revisions and no less then four complete shifts in direction. Needless to say, while the story feels original to me (and hopefully to the people that take the time to read it and with any luck eventually watch it), the look of things has taken a lot more work to come up with something that's truly fresh and original. I try to keep things grounded in real world designs as much as possible, but a lot of times I'll see something that catches my eye and just start drawing or modeling with the idea in mind to see where it goes in hopes that I might be able to use it.

As for the wide range of models, it's all part of my attempt to show a truly believable military force, in this case a UN led joint coalition of armed forces, consisting of ground, air, and space units. (in New Haven, naval vessels have largely fallen out of use due to advances in fusion powered drivers allowing unmanned vehicles to reach orbit and deliver a pinpoint attack against ground targets, faster then any naval battle group could reach the same location.)

One of the things that's always bothered me with sci-fi military’s, is how quite often one or two units are depicted as being the lone type of military craft in operation of a military force. Take BSG for example, there were two Vipers, (three counting the stealth) a Raptor, and a shuttle that was used so infrequently you would have missed it if you blinked.

Granted, the budget is largely to blame for this, but regardless we're still led to believe that in the entire colonial military, those two vipers and the Raptor make up the bulk of the colonial fleet. The same can be said of the battlestars. Only three classes in service that we ever saw? Not likely.

Compare this to most modern military's where there are multiple types of units filling every role. In the US, we don't have one strike fighter, or air superiority fighter, or fighter bomber, we've got at least one dedicated plane for each role and then a couple more which can do all three roles. The similar mindset applies to ships.

This speaks to military spending and the development of military technology as a whole to some degree, so the story of New Haven definitely speaks to that type gross military spending over every other clear responsibility. (it doesn't come right out and say that, but it's there between the lines if you know where to look.) So as a global military force, with ground, air, and space capabilities, the UN operates multiple units for every conceivable mission profile.

On the flipside though, the corporate military is very much, every egg in one basket, with highly advanced military units which can perform a variety of roles. However as the war drags on, they begin to see learn that for some things, a dedicated unit that can do one thing better then any other unit on the field, is the way to go. This works in conjunction with the widespread use of remotely operated vehicles, which is primarily how the Corporate Alliance is able to stand up against the overwhelming numbers the UN can throw into any single engagement. While the Alliance might lose more units in a battle then the UN, they almost always lose fewer actual lives because only a fraction of their actual military personnel are actually on the battlefield, in this case Earth.

All this variety is meant to help feed back into conveying the sense you're witness an actual global war, (with participants that haven't really learned the best ways to conduct a space war yet) rather then a conflict which is dominated by any one nation. In any given battle, not only will you see the standard set of UN vehicles, but a plethora of units from various UN members. So you might see three different tanks all belonging to the UN, or multiple types of UCAV's providing ground support.

Just to throw it out there, there are no fighter aircraft in the traditional sense, in the New Haven Universe. By this time remotely operated vehicles (UAV's & UCAV's) have replaced almost all manned aircraft, except in roles in which combat forces are being transported into hostile action, though even that role is on the decline. (A number of special forces units still prefer to use manned aircraft.) Unmanned vehicle operators are referred to as Drivers and the few actual Pilots still flying tend to look down on them, and vice versa.

I'll stop there for now. I could go on, but I think that's enough for one post. lol

[RJB]

Yeah that post was almost a book. lol

I think you point out what I like most about your designs. Like when I do my own modeling I try to achieve a functional look to the designs and in doing so I feel this helps add to there believability and gives them a more original style.