On 18th November 2017 from 1200 – 1700 EST, the United States Naval Academy Museum will host #NavyCon, a conference on how fleet forces have been portrayed in science fiction and how those apply to what the US navy does today.

Over many decades, a number of military SF projects, including Jack Campbell’s Lost Fleet novels (and now, a comics series from Titan Comics), have their roots in naval history and operations.

All the presenters are experts on naval issues and are selecting topics from their favourite SF shows, books, movies, or video games.

The museum only has 40 seats in its theatre and most of those will be made available to midshipmen, so the event will be live streamed so the general public and deployed sailors can watch it.

Videos will also be made available on the Museum’s youtube channel.

The speakers are:

• Commander BJ Armstrong, PhD, (USNA ’99) Department of History, US Naval Academy – “Bringing Balance to the Fleet Forces: Issues of Fleet Design in Star Wars and The Expanse“
• Claude Berube, Director, Naval Academy Museum, Instructor Department of History
• Captain Jonathan Bratten, US Army – “Non-State Actors in Space: The Case of Firefly”
• Doctoral candidate Tim Choi
• Congressman Mike Gallagher, who sits on the House Armed Services Committee (Seapower Subcommittee) and deployed to Iraq as a Marine – “Service, Citizenship, and Starship Troopers“
• Dr. Jerry Hendrix, CAPT (ret), Senior Analyst CNAS – “Fleet Operations and Tactics in the Honor Harrington series”
• Lieutenant Matthew Hipple, US Navy – “Why the Space Cadre Ought to be part of the Navy”
• NASA astronaut Captain Kay Hire (USNA ’81)
• David Larter, reporter, Navy Times on “Fleet Leadership in Star Wars“
• Jennifer Marland, Naval History & Heritage Command – “Why Old Tech is sometimes the Right Answer: The Case of Battlestar Galactica“
• Raymond Pritchett, owner informationdissemination.net – “Naval Irregular Warfare and Sci-Fi Videogames”
• Captain Mark Vandroff, Commanding officer NSWC-Carderock (USNA ’89)

• US Naval Academy Museum web site: www.usna.edu/Museum | Faccebook | Youtube

John Freeman

The founder of downthetubes, which he established in 1998. John works as a comics and magazine editor, writer, and on promotional work for the Lakes International Comic Art Festival. Working in British comics publishing since the 1980s, his credits include editor of titles such as Doctor Who Magazine, Star Trek Explorer (previously known as Star Trek Magazine) and more. He also edited the comics anthology STRIP Magazine and edited several audio comics for ROK Comics. He has also edited several comic collections, including volumes of “Charley’s War and “Dan Dare”. He’s the writer of "Pilgrim: Secrets and Lies" for B7 Comics; “Crucible”, a creator-owned project with 2000AD artist Smuzz; and “Death Duty” and “Skow Dogs” with Dave Hailwood.

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Tags: #NavyCon, downthetubes News, Naval Academy Museum