The year is 1999, but this isn't the Mars we know. The Red Planet no longer lives up to its moniker, thanks to the arrival of automated alien technology in the 1950's that terraformed the planet and also "gifted" Earth with a trio of space elevator superstructures. Racing to take advantage of the key to the solar system, the great powers repurpose their submarines as ad-hoc spaceships, which return to their original role as they plop down into an alien ocean.
On this virgin world, the seas belong to all- superpowers like the US and Congo trying to claim their piece of the pie; pirates and revolutionaries running amok on a virtually lawless planet; and mercenary crews seeing the whole situation as a way to make bank.
The crew of Skipjack, a Balao-class submarine captained by Jackie Johnson, falls into the third category.
Written by Pineapple, Skipjack
is an Alternate History science fiction story that reads closer to the unholy fusion of The Hunt for Red October and The Expanse than anything else.
Tropes:
- Agony of the Feet: Jackie accidentally steps on her glasses after a pressurization incident, and an ''intact' lens gets embedded in her heel.
- Alternate History: Automated alien technology changed the world in the 1950's even without humanity being able to reverse-engineer it an iota. Humanity has a much larger space presence thanks to the considerable lift of the space elevators and Mars becoming hospitable, Congo is a world power due to having the only land-based elevator, and dialogue implies the Soviet Union has fallen to the wayside.
- Amicable Exes: Jackie divorced Trip years before the story began, but that doesn't stop her from keeping him on the ship as one of the crew.
- Boarding Party: Done by the Skipjack crew against some pirates in chapter 9.
- Cool Ship / Cool Starship: Skipjack manages to be both. It's a WWII-era attack submarine that can double as an interplanetary spacecraft with the right add-ons.
- False Flag Operation: The US plan is to stage attacks on the Japanese space elevator with Russian subs.
- Flooded Future World: Albeit a rare case where it's not Earth. Mars becomes an ocean planet with virtually no surface after the alien terraforming.
- Hot Sub-on-Sub Action: The story opens with such a fight between Skipjack and a pirate sub.
- Military Brat: Jackie is the daughter of a retired sub captain of the US Navy, and herself served as the XO of a Sturgeon-class.
- Nuke 'em: A pirate vessel launches a nuke at the Japanese space elevator on Mars and damages it, which prompts the crew of Skipjack to go bounty hunting for the culprit. Except it was really an American false flag.
- Only Electric Sheep Are Cheap: Genuine steak is quite expensive on Mars, doubly so if you decide to order the wagyu.
- Puppet State: Panama has been reduced to this by the United States, due to Uncle Sam wanting control of the space elevator.
- Ramming Always Works: Jackie has Skipjack ram a pirate sub in chapter 8.
- Ship Out of Water: Normally you wouldn't find a submarine in geosynchronous orbit over Mars, but with the magic of space elevators it's quite simple to hoist them up.
- Space Elevator: Earth has three along the equator- one in Panama controlled by the US, one in Congo, and one in the seas owned by Japan.
- Space Pirates: Though they are closer to real world pirates than anything, considering they are on maritime vessels that just happen to be on Mars.
- Terraforming: It's why Mars is an ocean world now.
