Fan Fic: Advent Interdiction

?? (Maybe working title)

from Sins Forums
Prologue

"This is Market Analyst Marcus, can anyone read me!" he said in an exasperated tone. Fear slowly trickled into his body, mind, and soul; to think this entire mission could be a complete waste of valuable life if he couldn't get this communications array up and running.

Suddenly behind him the door crashed open. It was his last remaining colleague Cassandra… What a mission it was just one accident after another until three of his four fellow analysts were all dead in mysterious accidents. At first he believed they were just accidents but the coincidences just kept mounting; it was clear to him now that they were no accidents but malicious attempts by the authoritarian government of this planet to
cleanse its soils from meddling outsiders. His theory however, now appeared to be true as he realized Cassandra was clutching her hand to her chest in an attempt to stem the blood from a lasgun strike as she boarded their coalition transport. She would not have much time.

"What has happened" Marcus proclaimed in a crazed tone.

"It would appear that they got tired of toying with us," Cassandra said as she revealed her bloodied hands to Marcus and slumped against the wall.

"How do they think they can do this! We are protected ambassadors under Coalition code 2571 Article 5."

"Marcus quiet yourself I do not have much time, for that matter we do not have much time for they will surely come for you next," she said, " Here, take this last data cube and transmit it to the Board of Directors; they must see the disturbing taboo sciences that this culture is researching! It is appalling the things they do to the lower castes and what they do to their own bodies. This data will change everything!"

"What have you found" Marcus said as he took the data cube and inserted it into the computer

EMERGENCY – EMERGENCY Hull Breached – We have unidentified intruders entering from engineering

"Computer lock down all passages leading to this room and activate anti-personnel counter measures"

Yes Marcus performing requested actions please wait… actions complete standby… Marcus my sensors have detected high energy las signatures and the magnetic fields of high grade plasma explosives… I cannot hold them for long

"Give us some time that’s all we ask… Cassandra stay with me"

Marcus it is to late my sensors indicate that her vitals have flat lined... I am sorry

Marcus turned to the computer his fingers moving feverishly across the console as he tried to establish a direct connection to the Directors. It was no use however this damn planet was too far from the core worlds to establish a direct connection. Explosions rumbled behind him and he could feel his time was about out. Marcus THINK. this information had to get into Coalition space it had to get into the hands of someone who could get the message to the Directors and that’s when he remembered the small Coalition listening outpost three phase jumps away orbiting a resource asteroid in the Parital field. He plotted the communication address and hit enter beginning the communication upload. Almost there he thought to himself.

Marcus transmission Error the array was destroyed with only 64% data transmission

"Damn it!" Marcus shouted aloud as he slammed his fist against the console

Marcus I am afraid I have worse news yet, the intruders are one door away from this com room.

"Computer clear the safeties on the reactor and bring this ship to critical overload."
Marcus that is suicide you would surely die in the explosion as well as the entire surrounding four miles around this space port.

"That’s the plan computer, if they want to fight and play dirty well we’ll give them one hell of a fight"

Yes Marcus critical overload in 10 seconds

Friends I’ll be seeing you shortly. I am sorry we couldn’t make it through this but hopefully bringing down a some of these bastards and crippling a space port will show them the Coalition is not one to be messed with.

5 seconds

4 seconds

3 seconds

2 seconds

1 seconds -- Marcus com room breach… Now

The last thing Marcus saw was a blinding flash of light before he met his endProlo
19,640 views 13 replies
Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top
Question Irishfury: are you interested in some ego stroking, or would you rather I take my hammer out and start, well, hammering at the flaws for you (to help you become a better writer)?
Reply #2 from Sins Forums Top
Please sir point out my flaws I just went from a rough outline to this in 2 hours and really didn't spend much time editing because I got lazy and this probably is not final. This is also the first time I have ever tried writing anything of this sort I normally just do essays and literary analysis and what not in school. So by all means point out flaws I know they are there. But if you want to stroke my ego I suppose that is ok too!
Ashes of the Singularity II
Reply #3 from Sins Forums Top
I just went from a rough outline to this in 2 hours
End of quote


Well, I already know one problem with this piece, and so do you!


"How do they think they can do this! We are protected ambassadors under Coalition code 2571 Article 5."
End of quote


Query: Did you mean for this guy to come of as an annoying, the-book-is-everything idiot? If not, rephrase to drop out the unnecessary numbers and the like -- e. g. "we're protected ambassadors under diplomatic codes!" or "under the coalition codes!"

"Marcus quiet yourself I do not have much time, for that matter we do not have much time for they will surely come for you next," she said, " Here, take this last data cube and transmit it to the Board of Directors; they must see the disturbing taboo sciences that this culture is researching! It is appalling the things they do to the lower castes and what they do to their own bodies. This data will change everything!"
End of quote


Trite. It looks like your aiming for high style, but the fact is high style is A) very, very difficult to use correctly, and B) so overused that even in the hand of a master it comes out clichéd.

"Marcus, shut up! I don't have much time, and they're undoubtedly coming for you now," she said. "Take this last data cube, transmit it to the Board of Directors (note that your use of a semi-colon was incorrect here, you could make a case for either a full colon or a comma however), they must see the taboos this planet is breaking! It is appalling what they do to themselves, this data will change everything!"

Of course, she is dying -- you might want to consider completely rebuilding that entire paragraph so she's hacking, coughing, breaking in the middle of sentences, using abnormally short sentences, you know, sounds like she's dying...

"Marcus... shut up. I don't have much time, and-" she broke into a spate of coughing, blood spitting from her mouth in a crimson flow. "Take this data cube, the Board must see... These people are monsters! The taboos they break..." she broke down again, blood gushing forth in wet, throaty coughs that sickened Marcus.

"What have you found" Marcus said as he took the data cube and inserted it into the computer
End of quote


Again, sounds like an attempt at high style, but comes out trite, poorly written -- a more natural form would be "What did you find?".


EMERGENCY – EMERGENCY Hull Breached – We have unidentified intruders entering from engineering
End of quote


Is this supposed to be the computer speaking? This, and all other "computer" lines, need to be somehow pulled out of the next -- either give the computer a special font, or go ahead and put its text inside quotation marks as well. Something needs to be done there.

Marcus THINK. this information had to get into Coalition space it had to get into the hands of someone who could get the message to the Directors and that’s when he remembered the small Coalition listening outpost three phase jumps away orbiting a resource asteroid in the Parital field. He plotted the communication address and hit enter beginning the communication upload. Almost there he thought to himself.
End of quote


A) Instead of "Marcus THINK" try "Think marcus!" or "Marcus, think!. Overuse of capitol text is common, and normal, but on forums, and doubly so in stories, its better to use italics to indicate emphasis.

B) that second sentence is a bit of a run on, isn't it?

"Computer clear the safeties on the reactor and bring this ship to critical overload."
Marcus that is suicide you would surely die in the explosion as well as the entire surrounding four miles around this space port.
End of quote


OK, maybe the computer wouldn't understand that he's deliberately suiciding right away, but you don't need to establish that for us -- rewrite this part!

"Computer, override saftey protocols and bring the reactor to overload!"

Warning: order will result in complete destruction of this vessel and surrounding environs!

Friends I’ll be seeing you shortly. I am sorry we couldn’t make it through this but hopefully bringing down a some of these bastards and crippling a space port will show them the Coalition is not one to be messed with.
End of quote


Again, you need to somehow bring this text "out" of the rest to indicate its a thought -- either that, or learn how to push the thought part back into the rest of the text, but thats a pretty advanced technique that while I've read it often enough, I can't duplicate myself much less help you there.

Also, its a little poorly written.

Friends, Marcus thought, staring into emptiness, I'm sorry we couldn't get out of here together, but hopefully I'll take some of these bastards with me. And crippling this space port will show them the Coalition is not to be trifled with..

See the difference?



The last thing Marcus saw was a blinding flash of light before he met his endProlo
End of quote


What is that line, other than some badly written "tag" line that got typo'd out of existence?
Reply #4 from Sins Forums Top
Touché my friend you make some good points that I missed in my all to hasty attempt at getting this out. I should have spent a lot more time reviewing grammar and appropriate diction for the circumstances. As for all formating issues I do have all of the computer part separated and all of Marcus' asides done in different font in word but when it transfered over to the forum it stripped all formatting and well I couldn't quite figure out how to re-italicize items and what not. As for Cassandras last dieing moments I had though of doing what you said and adding in coughing and blood splattering but I was not quite sure how to go about it. I see now with your example a what it should look like. As for the last sentence it is more of a closing to this phase of the prologue where next I will introduce the protagonist of the story and give him a section of similar size followed by another transition into a following antagonist. Once that was done I was going to lead into the first chapter and see where this took me. As for you, if you don't mind me asking how old are you and what is your profession. You seem relatively well versed in literary structure and well quite simply very good at noticing flaws. Most young people are not going to see these items.
Reply #5 from Sins Forums Top
This is an interesting take on what happened when the 'advent' where first discovered.
Reply #6 from Sins Forums Top
As for all formating issues I do have all of the computer part separated and all of Marcus' asides done in different font in word but when it transfered over to the forum it stripped all formatting and well I couldn't quite figure out how to re-italicize items and what not.
End of quote


When I write a story, I store the text inside a .txt file to help with transfer issues. First off, forums can not utilize the text formatting that word uses, as their boxes only accept the "raw" text. To create italics, bolds, and the like you have to use their own forum-specific coding. On most forums, placing square brackets around an "i" will start an italics section, while placing them around a /i will end it.

E. G. [i]Text here[/i] would be text here. You can also use bold (b) font on most forums, and most forums will allow you to modify size and font color, though the tags for that vary. Some forums instead of using the bracket based BB code will use something else, including HTML based coding with and to control italics and the like.
As for the last sentence it is more of a closing to this phase of the prologue where next I will introduce the protagonist of the story and give him a section of similar size followed by another transition into a following antagonist.
End of quote


My point was the formatting was bad, you got half of prologue clipped out, and no spacing whatsoever between the beginning of prologue and the end of end -- not even a punctuation!

As for you, if you don't mind me asking how old are you and what is your profession. You seem relatively well versed in literary structure and well quite simply very good at noticing flaws.
End of quote


23 years of age. Its a combination of a college class in English, and having someone (far better at this than I am) doing the exact same thing to me.
Reply #7 from Sins Forums Top
This bothered me so I decided to point it out. Don't say "Marcus, quiet yourself," say, "Marcus, shut up," or even just "Shut up". In this case less is more.
Reply #8 from Sins Forums Top

This bothered me so I decided to point it out. Don't say "Marcus, quiet yourself," say, "Marcus, shut up," or even just "Shut up". In this case less is more.
End of quote


Yeah -- the phrasing looks like an attempt at high style, but as I've pointed out, high style just doesn't work anymore. Pieces such as The Lord of the Rings have used it effectively, but its just not something worth even attempting.
Reply #9 from Sins Forums Top
Most people are not able to spell or just don't care, either way an enjoyable read.  ;) 
Reply #10 from Sins Forums Top
Sorry I have read every Lord of the Rings book multiple times including all the lesser works so I suppose phrasing of sentences in High style/passive voice (I think thats passive voice) is something I fall into doing. I also pull on Frank Herbert's Dune books a lot since I am a huge fan of everything Dune. Hence some of the technology stated like lasguns are actually a Dune item.
Reply #12 from Sins Forums Top
if your skillful with it, it can be a good thing.
having someone (far better at this than I am) doing the exact same thing to me.
End of quote

oh I know the feeling...
Reply #13 from Sins Forums Top
Just to clarify: I wasn't referring to anyone on this forum, but to a person on yet another forum.