Some of my long-time readers may recall that I wrote a story entitled ‘The Remnant.’ Basically, there had been an interstellar war, mankind had lost and was under alien occupation. One starship survived to continue to fight the enemy, but was hopelessly outnumbered and couldn’t hope to win. They received help from an enigmatically powerful alien race that had its own plans for the galaxy.
To be honest, I didn’t like the ending very much. It didn’t work out.
So I had another idea. Basically, Earth stumbles into war with an extremely powerful alien race – and loses. Complete disaster for mankind, except one starship survives, along with a few thousand refugees. They take refugee with an alien coalition intent on blocking the enemy from taking other worlds, but always bear in mind that their ultimate goal is to free Earth. They are both mercenaries and freedom fighters…
How does that sound?
(I’d call it ‘Flag in Exile’ if it wasn’t already taken.)
Chris
The Chrishanger 
MerryPrankster from AH.com here. Titles cannot be copyrighted, so you could use “Flag in Exile” if you really wanted to.
Hi – long time no see!
Weber has better lawyers – and it’s a little cheeky if I try to submit to Baen.
I might play around with the pre-history. And add in that we joined a 2nd alien race who gave us tech and then we were both taken out by the 3rd opposing race. Then the space ship took off.
Although unless humanity was very limited in its FTL ships I find it hard that this was the ‘only’ ship to escape. Maybe the only one with thousands of people and a tech base. But surely other human merchant freighters might be plying the space ways in ‘safe’ areas.
Being mercenaries and/or freedom fighters would be a cool way to do it. Patriots forced into some situations they can take pride in and other where they feel like they’re fighting on the wrong side, all so they can get enough money to build a force/alliance large enough to have a prayer of re-taking human space.
Chris you often go for the large over arching, slam bam space empires clash. Plucky rebels with insurgent fleets that keep growing. I would take a second and consider this scenario. You could pull a pair or maybe a trilogy with our characters, fighting on multiple planets, in space as convoy guards, and in stations filled with the grey trade, smugglers and a few blackguard pirates.
Do a little like with the Vatta War series by elizabeth moon. Start smallish, build up and by the finally of the series its fleets smashing away at each other. First trilogy survive, work, build something and start to prosper. 2nd trilogy, swing into liberating earth. But its your story so do what you want.
The Deposed King
Hey, I like them
Actually, that is pretty much what I had in mind.
The problem facing Herald is that the Trolls are much more advanced than the standard human ships (apart from hers). A few dozen pre-war heavy cruisers won’t change the balance of power enough – imagine the German Nazi Army at its height trying to take on the US force that invaded Iraq.
I do intend to work with the RockRats and other human colonies to build an underground network/civilisation.
Chris
Write what you love. I enjoy reading your space empires at war/civil-war, so I’m not trying to critisize. I was just thinking of the potential for a privateer/adventure like vatta that morphed into space empires at war.
I didn’t realize this story was directly after the Troll war. I thought from reading it, there was one colony ship with a few thousand refugees. If this is directly after the troll war and involved a dozen ships… sure you have to keep the tone of the series just as you were originally going. My bad.
The Deposed King