This is not just a story, but a roller-coaster, and it was truly a pleasure to ride the twist and turns with you!

The premise is instantly hooking, the fighter pilots, this is a fantastic example of clear world setting, in just a few sentences, you describe an entire solar system, and so very well I could picture it. The contrast of mining rigs and luxury cities brings to mind the full span in between, and I could see nearly every floating rock claimed and colonised. A subtle reflection of the need and consumption of humanity.

The cheeky tie in to steemit and the blockchain does wonders for lightening the story, whilst also making it exceptionally relatable, taking something you know every single member of your audience here will understand and incorporating it in, feels like a flash into a possible future would could achieve, if we wanted. It almost feels like an invitation.

The actual story here is great, the fighter pilots and action, the way they speak to each other - causally and familiar, feels so natural, you bring in a depth of history and experience, they feel like they have done this together for a fair amount of time. Then the cut to the base on pluto, and the distant fighter missing his family and sending money back to them, you manage to give a feeling of closer to home, such a long way away from earth. A story so well known world over, told in a cosmic setting. The familiar aspect serves to highlight the advances and differences so very well.

The tone begins to shift as we get closer to the end, the family's use of steemit, and the expansion from the things we are all already so used to fulfils the prompt entirely, although this is more automation that smart tech, there is still that element.

People watching the family round the clock is so intriguing, and raises a whole host of questions about the level of control this society doesn't realise it's under. They could be control subjects, a family with a member on the front lines chosen at random to make sure no one is suspicious, or they could do this with the family of every fighter pilot, in this world of automation, it doesn't seem unrealistic that four people would be assigned to watch a family.

Then the actual ending, in a way a little reminiscent of starship troopers, although this time there is no enemy at all. In so little, you spark possible answers to so many of the questions you raise here. Who are the pilots fighting then and how far has their tech really come, could easily have the same answer, the motherships that appear, the smaller alien vessels that need picking off. Wow, the more I think about this, the better and the scarier it becomes. It feels very much like a world wide group has orchestrated this, the price of peace between man is an endless war. The old peace is war, war is peace. The inference that tech has been advancing at a crazy rate, yet people are still using the things we recognise from our current time, because that tech is being used in secret, to manipulate and control the entire species. It isn't a far-fetched notion at all, as generally nearly every war is in some way a front for another goal, at least this goal seems better intentioned.

Damn cye, I can always count on you for an enjoyable story, and there is the real thought provoking depth I just adore in this one.

~ Calluna <3