Baen Books Archives -

Christopher Weuve is a naval analyst and wargame designer. He spent six years at the Center for Naval Analyses (did you know the Combat Information Center of a Burke-class destroyer would make an excellent starship bridge?), and then five years on the faculty of the US Naval War College, of which he is a graduate. After a decade as an intelligence analyst, he’s now back to designing wargames, and is the co-founder of the Connections Online wargame conference, held every April.

Outside the day job, Chris is a co-founder of BuNine (David Weber’s Honorverse analytic visualization team), and has also consulted with Chuck Gannon, Walter Hunt, Alec Peters, Tom Harlan, John Lumpkin, and others. His work has been featured by Baen Books, the US Naval War College Review, Foreign Policy, and the Discovery Channel. Since May 2020 he’s been the co-host (with Pat Doyle) of Starfleet Tactical on the Ares Studio channel on YouTube.

Chris is (to the best of his knowledge) the only person ever interviewed (twice!) by the journal Foreign Policy about science fiction warships. His hobbies are naval history, science fiction, and not speaking for his employer.

Phillip Pournelle is a science fiction author, war game designer, operations analyst, and military strategist. He served in the United States Navy as a surface warfare officer, operations analyst, and planner for 26 years. He served on cruisers, destroyers, amphibious ships, and on an experimental high-speed vessel. He served on the Navy Staff conducting campaign analysis, in the Office of the Secretary of Defense doing mobility and naval analysis. He worked for five years at the Office of Net Assessment diagnosing the future of conflict and competition. He designs and executes war games, conducts modeling and simulation, and analysis on modern warfare for the Department of Defense and other organizations. He has written and spoken on the ethical use of Artificial Intelligence in warfare. He is currently a senior war game designer and operations analyst at Group W, a defense and analysis, modeling, and research company. He teaches war game design for the Military Operations Research Society. He wrote a chapter on the use of war gaming, modeling, and simulation in the book Wargaming and Simulation published by Wiley Press in 2022. He contributed to Jerry Pournelle’s last Janissaries novel Mamelukes and recently submitted the second draft of the sequel to Baen books. He has had several short stories and articles published on the themes of future conflicts. His latest short story “The Rules of the Game” was published by Baen Books in the Robosoldiers anthology.