Alien design

Alien design is an important,  if neglected, side alley in science fiction writing. This is especially true in military SF.

Any modern military could utterly destroy any army of even WW2 vintage with minimal effort (cf any number of Gulf Wars). Nukes are easiest,  but the list extends to fuel-air explosives, stand-off precision-guided weaponry,  ground-attack jets, apache helicopters and so on.

The aliens had better not be 50 years ahead of us - or 50 years behind us - or it's no contest!

John Ringo's Posleen are perfect. Somewhat modelled after the Chinese 'human wave' attackers  in the Korean War,  they have slightly-superior weaponry (galactic tech is available to both sides) and make up in vast numbers what they lack in intelligence. As one character points out: "Each of our soldiers has to kill 100 Posleen to give us any chance of winning. "

With this kind of non-human adversary only intelligence,  combat engineering and the clever use of terrain can compensate for massively inferior forces. What a fantastic basis for plot development!

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I have checked. There are quite a few listings of python-based resolution theorem provers on the net. It's apparently seen as a (hard) computer science exercise at undergraduate level.

But of course, there is no benefit unless you do it yourself.

Please, no jokes about building your own friends!  (The intention is to build friends for other people).

Good Military SF

Like Kingsley Amis in his later years, have you lost patience with formless literary fiction? Do you want to wallow in the warm glow of our military blowing enemy aliens to blobby shreds? Want well-written page turners featuring ever-so-slightly stereotypical characters?

What you need is good old-fashioned space opera; smart military SF starting with John Ringo and the war against the Posleen.

Book 1 of the Posleen war series

In four volumes: A Hymn Before Battle (2000), Gust Front (2001), When the Devil Dances (2002) and Hell's Faire (2003) you will fight with Earth's finest against the remorseless Posleen and their nefarious galactic puppet-masters. And two of the volumes are free on Kindle!

Then, after you emerge from the gore, it's time to hit space with The Praxis.

Don't trust those Naxids!

Walter Jon Williams wrote four volumes in the Dread Empire's Fall series looking at the aftermath of the death of the last of the galactic overlords, the Shaa. The alien races of the Shaa's empire are soon at war and our military heroes are Lieutenant Gareth Martinez, a very-smart-but-provincial peer, and Cadet Caroline Sula, the very-smart-but-with-a-shady-past head of the Sula clan: so no stereotypes there, then.

So, lock and load, hit dirt and enjoy!