I will admit, I was a bit worried that the italics might make it a bit difficult to read. If anyone else has a problem with it, then I'd be perfectly happy to edit them out of the post. Otherwise, glad you enjoyed it!
A little, but not enough to detract from the story, which was absolutely awesome :cool:
@ambassadormolari - That was a brilliant approach, turning the setup around and showing it from the attacker's POV. Very well executed. And excellent job showing just how quickly defeat can be snatched from the jaws of victory.
The italics were fine, and made sense once I realized it was a flashback. A header at the top to make that clear off the bat would have been helpful, something along the lines of "One Year Ago..."
Also, this:
"Aren't there any other ships in range who can carry out the patrol instead?"
"Yes sir. The I.K.S. Norgh'a'Qun, under General Ssharki. The General is the one who relayed the order to us."
Lynathru bit back the urge to curse all generals everywhere.
pleased me greatly. :cool:
...Oh, baby, you know, I've really got to leave you / Oh, I can hear it callin 'me / I said don't you hear it callin' me the way it used to do?...
- Anne Bredon
First off, sorry for my story being so short, I've read almost every LC but finally decided to jump into the action and post one for myself. I would like some feed back from the veteran posters. (I think mine is on page one of the LC)
That's not bad for a first entry. You have some grammatical things that need to be fixed, but nothing major. For next time, can you try to describe the environment and the officers' intentions some more?
Also, you'll probably get more feedback if you read and review other people's entries. Along that line, I have some more reading to do...
Was he inspired by the Simpsons character who had a life of woe? I just loved the image of Romulans coming in swinging billyclubs
To a limited extent, in that he actually has devoted his life to defending the Federation and making it stronger, and he often wonders what the common citizens of the Federation have done to deserve their comfort and security, much like Grimey's incredulous reaction to Homer's life of leisure. But unlike Homer's enemy Grimey, my Captain Grimes actually has a sense of humor.
...Oh, baby, you know, I've really got to leave you / Oh, I can hear it callin 'me / I said don't you hear it callin' me the way it used to do?...
- Anne Bredon
@ sparklysoldier - Yet. Another. Awesome. Piece! Poor Drake and yet, too bad Drake :P I agree that this was a side of Azera that was refreshing to see.
@danqueller - whoa. Tales from the afterlife - I think that's a new one. Very well written as a Captain's final log entry. You could change some of the wording to help the assault on the station flow better, but overall an enjoyable and excellent piece.
@fullofstars - Great story. I love the conversational tone of your piece. It's easy to imagine listening to it from an old space dog sitting at the bar at Quark's.
...Oh, baby, you know, I've really got to leave you / Oh, I can hear it callin 'me / I said don't you hear it callin' me the way it used to do?...
- Anne Bredon
@sander233: Thanks for the comment. That's just what I was aiming for. This particular piece was a challenge--I haven't contributed to these LC's for a while largely because I didn't have the time. But I saw the topic of this one, and had an image of the empty room, and decided I'd go for it.
This piece isn't as polished I would hoped. Most of what I've written from this character's perspective (I never actually identify him, but his name is Patrick O'Kennedy, and I have a blog of other fiction that I haven't contributed to in a while) has flowed really easily, but this one was a challenge. I guess that's because it's a major transition in his life. The stories he's telling aren't at all chronological so the next one is likely to be a little more lighthearted. I'll also likely come back and edit this one.
@everyone else: I'm happy to be back, contributing to these LC's. I'm working my way through everyone's contribution and I hope to have some comments and feedback soon.
To a limited extent, in that he actually has devoted his life to defending the Federation and making it stronger, and he often wonders what the common citizens of the Federation have done to deserve their comfort and security, much like Grimey's incredulous reaction to Homer's life of leisure. But unlike Homer's enemy Grimey, my Captain Grimes actually has a sense of humor.
When I saw the name, that was immediately who I thought of Glad to see that a sense of humor made its way into the Grimes Clan over the years, it'll definitely be good to read more about him :cool:
@ danqueller: Wow, that was not the ending I was expecting, but it really raises the question with the Klingon Afterlife, as to if it is actually a physical location, rather than a metaphysical one :cool:
@ fullofstars: Fantastic entry, nice to see you participating in the LCs again
@ fu11ofstars - you kept a good conversational tone in this.
@ chivalrybean - that was certainly amusing. I have wondered whether or not captains would do frequent, almost Twitter-like updates on their logs versus just documenting everything after the fact. I think my captain(s) would get irritated having to do incremental updates.
@ danqueller - you are the second person on this thread to start out with the captain not knowing the date. Why don't they just do the talking and let the computer automatically record the date? Maybe Klingons don't have the patience for these kind of details?
@sander233 - Thank you for your comments! I know the assault on the station was not covered as well as it perhaps should have been, but the problem of posting stories on a forum is that you start worrying about the length of text you have to work with, and I probably got a little concerned it was going to be too long as it was. Still, every story improves with editing and taking time to look it over. Glad you liked the piece!
@marcusdkane - Glad the ending caught you by surprise, as I was hoping I wasn't giving too much away with the first couple of lines. As to if the Klingon Afterlife is a physical location, or just a metaphysical one that is somehow linked to the physical one through the Klingon people, I think I'll leave that for future storywriters. After all, "subspace weapons are unpredictable...that's why they were banned!", so who knows what that device did when it fired?
@superhombre777 - Well, the Captain in the story didn't know the date because...well, what date would you call it in the underworld? Does Time even matter there? His ship was wrecked, he had no idea how long he was unaware of things, and he realized that following that part of regulations was pointless now. As to why ship captains state the date in audio logs, I would assume it is for the same reason the U.S. Navy keeps handwritten logbooks in an era with computer digital storage...to have a living person's certification of what the situation is as an additional check on the automatic records in case the automatics fail or are altered.
In the end, the Captain simply decided to do what you suggested and just tell the tale. Hopefully, he did so in the way a Klingon Commander facing his own eternal imprisonment would be expected to.
Thanks everyone for the comments and feedback! Hope to write more as I get time to do so (oh, the Writer's Paradox....need to work to get money, need money to get food, need food to be able to write, need time to write, can't write while you work....).
took longer than I wanted to get mine done, figured I'd go with the more light-hearted one and my slightly mad-science engineer Schrodi rather than the longer one that's more fitting for a court-martial sorta scenario.
"It may be better to be a live jackal than a dead lion, but it is better still to be a live lion. And usually easier." R.A.Heinlein
@sander233 - Thank you for your comments! I know the assault on the station was not covered as well as it perhaps should have been, but the problem of posting stories on a forum is that you start worrying about the length of text you have to work with, and I probably got a little concerned it was going to be too long as it was. Still, every story improves with editing and taking time to look it over. Glad you liked the piece!
Considering the last two stories I posted each ran 30 pages in MS word ( :eek: ) I don't think you need to worry about running out of room.
...Oh, baby, you know, I've really got to leave you / Oh, I can hear it callin 'me / I said don't you hear it callin' me the way it used to do?...
- Anne Bredon
@knightraider6: Thank you for that lovely mental image indeed... :eek:
What he said.
I Schrodi. Walking onto a station full of angry Gorn in your underwear with a plan to kill them in humiliating fashion takes serious guts.
...Oh, baby, you know, I've really got to leave you / Oh, I can hear it callin 'me / I said don't you hear it callin' me the way it used to do?...
- Anne Bredon
Well, I finally finished my story despite a malfunctioning laptop's attempt to kill it by shutting down and deleting the autosave. I reconstructed the story in handwritten form and intend to transcribe it tomorrow. Parts of it aren't what I'd hoped for due to the frustration and the rush job, but I hope that when it's ready, you'll enjoy it nonetheless.
Christian Gaming Community Fleets--Faith, Fun, and Fellowship! See the website and PM for more. :-) Proudly F2P.Signature image by gulberat. Avatar image by balsavor.deviantart.com.
I Schrodi. Walking onto a station full of angry Gorn in your underwear with a plan to kill them in humiliating fashion takes serious guts.
Or being seriously nuts, there are some in starfleet who don't think she's firing on all thrusters. Going deeper into that didn't seem to work, so will save that for later.
"It may be better to be a live jackal than a dead lion, but it is better still to be a live lion. And usually easier." R.A.Heinlein
@sander - Damn long and worth it all. I couldn't put it down (since I print out the LCs)! Grimes was my favorite in this one and I think that is because of his resistance to Nivek. I was really connected to your characters and I'm looking forward to read more
@jonsills - MOAR GRUNT! This guy is awesome and the Bastogne has so much character for not doing much :P
@ambassadormolari - I must know where you are getting your inspiration for Orion culture!
@sander: What can I say, the chain of command is a wonderful thing when you can fob off assignments to lower-ranking Captains. Glad you enjoyed it!
@cmdrscarlet: For the most part, my info comes from Memory Alpha, though I'm also making up quite a bit of stuff as I go along. Apparently, there's also an RP source book with a lot of background on the Orions, but I have no doubt it must be incredibly rare by now. I am willing to admit that, given my only basic knowledge of the Orions, there's probably a lot that I'm getting wrong.
Considering the last two stories I posted each ran 30 pages in MS word ( :eek: ) I don't think you need to worry about running out of room.
Hehe...well, I have a couple of stories that would run a good long time, and probably fill a novel or two. However, people reading a forum online don't usually have the eye stamina to deal with a 'wall of text', and they'd probably get a version of road hypnosis if I tried to commit those stories here, especially when we're limited to one entry (post?) for LCs. I also like to think part of the challenge is seeing how much you can do with a short page to work with.
On the other hand, if the Moderators could be pursuaded to reserve pages 2-50 on the next LC....:)
Hehe...well, I have a couple of stories that would run a good long time, and probably fill a novel or two. However, people reading a forum online don't usually have the eye stamina to deal with a 'wall of text', and they'd probably get a version of road hypnosis if I tried to commit those stories here, especially when we're limited to one entry (post?) for LCs. I also like to think part of the challenge is seeing how much you can do with a short page to work with.
On the other hand, if the Moderators could be pursuaded to reserve pages 2-50 on the next LC....:)
Or just post the whole story chapter-by-chapter in Ten Forward. People do it all the time.
...Oh, baby, you know, I've really got to leave you / Oh, I can hear it callin 'me / I said don't you hear it callin' me the way it used to do?...
- Anne Bredon
@sander: What can I say, the chain of command is a wonderful thing when you can fob off assignments to lower-ranking Captains. Glad you enjoyed it!
@cmdrscarlet: For the most part, my info comes from Memory Alpha, though I'm also making up quite a bit of stuff as I go along. Apparently, there's also an RP source book with a lot of background on the Orions, but I have no doubt it must be incredibly rare by now. I am willing to admit that, given my only basic knowledge of the Orions, there's probably a lot that I'm getting wrong.
That's part of the fun of writing for species with out a lot of canon source material (Orions, Gorn, Caitians, made-up aliens, etc.) They're a blank slate, and you can fill them in however you want to.
...Oh, baby, you know, I've really got to leave you / Oh, I can hear it callin 'me / I said don't you hear it callin' me the way it used to do?...
- Anne Bredon
@edinator96 - Great start. I really like they way you opened your entry.
You'll want to edit out the "?"s which replace quotation marks, apostrophes and dashes from a lot of word processors. I discovered that if you do your typing in Notepad and then transfer to MS Word or another word processor for spell-checking and editing you can eliminate the problem.
...Oh, baby, you know, I've really got to leave you / Oh, I can hear it callin 'me / I said don't you hear it callin' me the way it used to do?...
- Anne Bredon
@sparklysoldier: I loved the confrontation between Azera and Drake, and liked the interesting twist Drake pulled at the end to avoid imprisonment. Overall, a really cleverly-written piece that highlights just how resourceful-- and despicable-- Section 31 can be.
@ sparklysoldier - Yet. Another. Awesome. Piece! Poor Drake and yet, too bad Drake :-P I agree that this was a side of Azera that was refreshing to see.
Well, I finally finished my story despite a malfunctioning laptop's attempt to kill it by shutting down and deleting the autosave. I reconstructed the story in handwritten form and intend to transcribe it tomorrow. Parts of it aren't what I'd hoped for due to the frustration and the rush job, but I hope that when it's ready, you'll enjoy it nonetheless.
:eek: ...I'm sorry to hear that, and I'll look forward to reading it whenever you have it all pieced back together. Maybe in the process you'll come up with some ideas that you wouldn't have thought of otherwise, and it'll even itself out? That's what I try to tell myself when I lose hours of work to a moody computer...
I've read a few more stories, and hopefully by tomorrow I'll have at least one more to comment on...
@cmdscarlet: You'd talked before about preferring to keep your stories short, but you made this longer one work well! It moves quickly, keeps up a fast pace and has some great visuals of the ground fighting and space battle (something that's hardly ever easy). Kathryn's starting to worry me a little, but she's also worrying her crew a little, and that'll make for a very interesting story to come...
@khayuung: The presentation as a series of logs/files with some of the information redacted helps create suspense, and your characters have a much more military, combat-driven style of speech that's really engrossing and authentic. I admittedly had some trouble keeping up with what's happening, but that's probably because it's not finished yet. I'll look forward to the conclusion!
@ambassadormolari: Okay, that entry's really clever (and the italics were fine)! The inversion of the topic is very well done, and I like the way you explore the Orion society: it almost has kind of an ancient Egyptian/Arabian feel, with noble marriages, palace intrigues and assassination plots, that fits in nicely with Trek's cultural metaphors. I'd love to read more of your take on them!
Some parts of this did not come off as well as I'd hoped--or as detailed--due to lost data from my laptop crashing during the writing process...but I still think I've managed something decent.
A costlier battle than I anticipated writing, for sure.
Christian Gaming Community Fleets--Faith, Fun, and Fellowship! See the website and PM for more. :-) Proudly F2P.Signature image by gulberat. Avatar image by balsavor.deviantart.com.
@ambassadormolari - Well, you making Orion stuff up is becoming my canon because it works so well! Having said that, I understand the italics us as well and it worked for this piece (but I'm alos not reading from the screen). I like Lynathru and I hope to see more of him.
@danqueller - Welcome to the LC and great intro piece! The ending was an eye-popper and unexpected. Well done!
I'll get the rest read before the new LC and post up thoughts! Been looking forward to the next installment of Alyosha's tales!
Comments
Was he inspired by the Simpsons character who had a life of woe? I just loved the image of Romulans coming in swinging billyclubs
S.S. Doff Lundgren
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
The italics were fine, and made sense once I realized it was a flashback. A header at the top to make that clear off the bat would have been helpful, something along the lines of "One Year Ago..."
Also, this: pleased me greatly. :cool:
...Oh, baby, you know, I've really got to leave you / Oh, I can hear it callin 'me / I said don't you hear it callin' me the way it used to do?...
- Anne Bredon
That's not bad for a first entry. You have some grammatical things that need to be fixed, but nothing major. For next time, can you try to describe the environment and the officers' intentions some more?
Also, you'll probably get more feedback if you read and review other people's entries. Along that line, I have some more reading to do...
To a limited extent, in that he actually has devoted his life to defending the Federation and making it stronger, and he often wonders what the common citizens of the Federation have done to deserve their comfort and security, much like Grimey's incredulous reaction to Homer's life of leisure. But unlike Homer's enemy Grimey, my Captain Grimes actually has a sense of humor.
...Oh, baby, you know, I've really got to leave you / Oh, I can hear it callin 'me / I said don't you hear it callin' me the way it used to do?...
- Anne Bredon
Not enough time to read it all it seems :eek:
@fullofstars - Great story. I love the conversational tone of your piece. It's easy to imagine listening to it from an old space dog sitting at the bar at Quark's.
...Oh, baby, you know, I've really got to leave you / Oh, I can hear it callin 'me / I said don't you hear it callin' me the way it used to do?...
- Anne Bredon
This piece isn't as polished I would hoped. Most of what I've written from this character's perspective (I never actually identify him, but his name is Patrick O'Kennedy, and I have a blog of other fiction that I haven't contributed to in a while) has flowed really easily, but this one was a challenge. I guess that's because it's a major transition in his life. The stories he's telling aren't at all chronological so the next one is likely to be a little more lighthearted. I'll also likely come back and edit this one.
@everyone else: I'm happy to be back, contributing to these LC's. I'm working my way through everyone's contribution and I hope to have some comments and feedback soon.
@ fullofstars: Fantastic entry, nice to see you participating in the LCs again
@ chivalrybean - that was certainly amusing. I have wondered whether or not captains would do frequent, almost Twitter-like updates on their logs versus just documenting everything after the fact. I think my captain(s) would get irritated having to do incremental updates.
@ danqueller - you are the second person on this thread to start out with the captain not knowing the date. Why don't they just do the talking and let the computer automatically record the date? Maybe Klingons don't have the patience for these kind of details?
@marcusdkane - Glad the ending caught you by surprise, as I was hoping I wasn't giving too much away with the first couple of lines. As to if the Klingon Afterlife is a physical location, or just a metaphysical one that is somehow linked to the physical one through the Klingon people, I think I'll leave that for future storywriters. After all, "subspace weapons are unpredictable...that's why they were banned!", so who knows what that device did when it fired?
@superhombre777 - Well, the Captain in the story didn't know the date because...well, what date would you call it in the underworld? Does Time even matter there? His ship was wrecked, he had no idea how long he was unaware of things, and he realized that following that part of regulations was pointless now. As to why ship captains state the date in audio logs, I would assume it is for the same reason the U.S. Navy keeps handwritten logbooks in an era with computer digital storage...to have a living person's certification of what the situation is as an additional check on the automatic records in case the automatics fail or are altered.
In the end, the Captain simply decided to do what you suggested and just tell the tale. Hopefully, he did so in the way a Klingon Commander facing his own eternal imprisonment would be expected to.
Thanks everyone for the comments and feedback! Hope to write more as I get time to do so (oh, the Writer's Paradox....need to work to get money, need money to get food, need food to be able to write, need time to write, can't write while you work....).
"he's as dangerous as a ferret with a chainsaw."
Considering the last two stories I posted each ran 30 pages in MS word ( :eek: ) I don't think you need to worry about running out of room.
...Oh, baby, you know, I've really got to leave you / Oh, I can hear it callin 'me / I said don't you hear it callin' me the way it used to do?...
- Anne Bredon
What he said.
I
...Oh, baby, you know, I've really got to leave you / Oh, I can hear it callin 'me / I said don't you hear it callin' me the way it used to do?...
- Anne Bredon
Christian Gaming Community Fleets--Faith, Fun, and Fellowship! See the website and PM for more. :-)
Proudly F2P. Signature image by gulberat. Avatar image by balsavor.deviantart.com.
Or being seriously nuts, there are some in starfleet who don't think she's firing on all thrusters.
"he's as dangerous as a ferret with a chainsaw."
@jonsills - MOAR GRUNT! This guy is awesome and the Bastogne has so much character for not doing much :P
@ambassadormolari - I must know where you are getting your inspiration for Orion culture!
@cmdrscarlet: For the most part, my info comes from Memory Alpha, though I'm also making up quite a bit of stuff as I go along. Apparently, there's also an RP source book with a lot of background on the Orions, but I have no doubt it must be incredibly rare by now. I am willing to admit that, given my only basic knowledge of the Orions, there's probably a lot that I'm getting wrong.
Hehe...well, I have a couple of stories that would run a good long time, and probably fill a novel or two. However, people reading a forum online don't usually have the eye stamina to deal with a 'wall of text', and they'd probably get a version of road hypnosis if I tried to commit those stories here, especially when we're limited to one entry (post?) for LCs. I also like to think part of the challenge is seeing how much you can do with a short page to work with.
On the other hand, if the Moderators could be pursuaded to reserve pages 2-50 on the next LC....:)
Or just post the whole story chapter-by-chapter in Ten Forward. People do it all the time.
...Oh, baby, you know, I've really got to leave you / Oh, I can hear it callin 'me / I said don't you hear it callin' me the way it used to do?...
- Anne Bredon
That's part of the fun of writing for species with out a lot of canon source material (Orions, Gorn, Caitians, made-up aliens, etc.) They're a blank slate, and you can fill them in however you want to.
...Oh, baby, you know, I've really got to leave you / Oh, I can hear it callin 'me / I said don't you hear it callin' me the way it used to do?...
- Anne Bredon
You'll want to edit out the "?"s which replace quotation marks, apostrophes and dashes from a lot of word processors. I discovered that if you do your typing in Notepad and then transfer to MS Word or another word processor for spell-checking and editing you can eliminate the problem.
...Oh, baby, you know, I've really got to leave you / Oh, I can hear it callin 'me / I said don't you hear it callin' me the way it used to do?...
- Anne Bredon
Thanks!
I'm glad you liked it!
:eek: ...I'm sorry to hear that, and I'll look forward to reading it whenever you have it all pieced back together. Maybe in the process you'll come up with some ideas that you wouldn't have thought of otherwise, and it'll even itself out? That's what I try to tell myself when I lose hours of work to a moody computer...
I've read a few more stories, and hopefully by tomorrow I'll have at least one more to comment on...
@cmdscarlet: You'd talked before about preferring to keep your stories short, but you made this longer one work well! It moves quickly, keeps up a fast pace and has some great visuals of the ground fighting and space battle (something that's hardly ever easy). Kathryn's starting to worry me a little, but she's also worrying her crew a little, and that'll make for a very interesting story to come...
@khayuung: The presentation as a series of logs/files with some of the information redacted helps create suspense, and your characters have a much more military, combat-driven style of speech that's really engrossing and authentic. I admittedly had some trouble keeping up with what's happening, but that's probably because it's not finished yet. I'll look forward to the conclusion!
@ambassadormolari: Okay, that entry's really clever (and the italics were fine)! The inversion of the topic is very well done, and I like the way you explore the Orion society: it almost has kind of an ancient Egyptian/Arabian feel, with noble marriages, palace intrigues and assassination plots, that fits in nicely with Trek's cultural metaphors. I'd love to read more of your take on them!
A costlier battle than I anticipated writing, for sure.
"The Interdictor"
Christian Gaming Community Fleets--Faith, Fun, and Fellowship! See the website and PM for more. :-)
Proudly F2P. Signature image by gulberat. Avatar image by balsavor.deviantart.com.
Sigh.
Good story, though.
@danqueller - Welcome to the LC and great intro piece! The ending was an eye-popper and unexpected. Well done!
I'll get the rest read before the new LC and post up thoughts! Been looking forward to the next installment of Alyosha's tales!