Some people may be wondering about the origin of this ship’s name.  It’s derived from Mr. John A. Warden III, a retired US Air Force colonel.  He changed the course of history during his days at Pentagon, especially the first Gulf War.  I cannot fully explain all of his accomplishments and career so I asked our friend Flint Dille who came up with the idea.  Here is his unedited comment:

Ed Neumeier and I met John A. Warden when he was Commandant at the Air Force Command and Staff  College in Montgomery, Alabama—a kind of graduate school for top mid-level officers. In any case, Ed smuggled me an invite to a conference called ‘Connections.’  It was a visionary idea at the time. The idea was for the Air Force to talk to people in the film and game industries to encourage creative thinking. I figured the conference was going to be about how to get better graphics for simulators, or better A.I. or something like that. Then, while we were talking to Col. John A. Warden at the icebreaker, he said, ‘what would the effect on the enemy be if a giant hologram of Nebuchadnezzar emerged in the desert saying, ‘Saddam Hussein is a false prophet, a blasphemer’ — or some such.  I realized, at that moment we were on a whole different ride.

We talked about things like deploying food from the air rather than bombs — applying nitrogen to the situation. That kind of things.

Then, I discovered that John A. Warden had been the architect of the Air Campaign in the first gulf war.  Wow! It was him that was behind the fact that Saddam Hussein had no command and control of his troops after the first 7 minutes of the attack and that’s why the army didn’t do anything. 

There were more connections conferences and over the years we got to know John well.  I even collaborated with him on a game. Three publishers died on that journey, but as recently as yesterday, we were talking about using some of those ideas in an iPad strategy game.

Anyway, John A. Warden is the real deal. The real deal. He’s probably the most brilliant strategist alive.  Nowadays, he is consulting corporations on how to reverse engineer his 5 Rings Strategy in order to build (reverse the destruction process to build a system).  It is and has been an honor to know him.  Since heroes don’t get airplanes named after them, the way Admirals get ships named after them, we figured it would be fitting to name a Starship after him. After all, he’s half way into the future most of the time, anyway.

Hence, the John A. Warden.

Flint

Amazing, isn’t it? So, our story revolves around this ship and thus his name will be called out many times. For more information on Mr Warden, please refer to http://www.facebook.com/pages/Venturist-Inc/131606206894849?sk=wall.

As for the design of the ship, as previously mentioned, it is in line with the former ones but with much more firepower. It also happens to look a little like a Bug. Below are the conceptual designs.  

Enjoy and much more to come!  Happy New Year and prepare for Summer!!!