[El_Phil]

Starhawk said:
Okay so I let someone (names won't be mentioned here because it's rude) read my story to give me a review just for kicks and here's what they said!

Okay (my name) I'm going to try and be polite here but I'm not going to tell you something is good just to spare your feelings.
Here are some points I want to make about your story that I spotted and disliked right off the bat:

1. Your "Icaran Empire" is a cheap carbon copy of the Star Trek "Terran Empire" and anyone who's an ST fan will likely point this out right away....I'm just waiting for a Kirk to come in to play "KHAAAAAAAN!"

Neh. I can spot alot of influences in the Icarans, but it is no carbon copy. There's always going to be some deliberate or unintended parallels and similarities as its damn hard to be totally new.

2. What the hell is with this "Religious Zeal" your people seem to have? If anything an Imperial culture would be more agnostic or down right atheist because religion tends to be for ignorant people who don't understand science, which obviously your Icarans do.

Bollocks. Loads of engineers and scientists are god botherers so ignore this point.

3. "Icaran" does that honestly sound like a name a human culture would give themselves? Where does it coem from? It hints to no cultural or historical background and is just wierd sounding I mean let it roll of your tounge a few times "Ic-ar-an" heh change it.

So he doesn't like the name. Meh.

4. Your characters contradict your Empire, they are all relatively good people yet they are at the same time bloodthirsty conquerers? Figure out which way you want to go and go there don't keep pulling it around like that either make them "Bloodthirsty conquerers' or make them "good guys" don't have it both ways.

It seems pretty straightfowards: There xenos so you can kill 'em as they're not people. I do admit the wars on other human empires do need fixing a bit as the approach is inconsistent.

5. Ross and Lin, come on "my name" why did you throw a stupid romance into the story "oooh Lin I've known you since we were fifteen oooh I love you...
"Oh Ross take me"
That's just dull drudgery that authors constantly throw in to fill bad stories with some interest if I were you I'd have avoided the romance totally.

I've gotta agree with him here. I did just skim that bit and wouldn't recommened you do it again. There are better ways of getting human interest in there. It was slightly cheesy sorry.

6. Your guys seem invincible I mean they've only suffered a handful of casualties compared to what they inflicted on others, yet you constantly portray it as them struggling to win the war....get over it they are winning easily and you seem to point to that time and again!

Again he does have a point, I can't offhand think of any reason they might be losing the war, other than some unsupported dialouge. There may be reasons but they weren't obvious.

7. Conquered worlds would hardly be pascified so easily I mean that's like saying if Canada rolled in and invaded the USA we would just switch sides, stop portraying your guys as godly heroes that everyone loves if your also going for the blood thirsty conquerers that everyone's afraid of.

Game mechanic problem there I think. SEIV ain't that realistic on that front. There would be long running guerilla type problems, unless you have some clever reason to fix it OR the old rule by fear OR something.

8. Your Praetor/Nobility thing makes no sense, what is it a monarchy or a Despotism? the two are mutually exclusive you can't have the "Praetor as the Ruler of mankind and all of nobility" and yet have the Nobles it just makes no sense.

Uhhhh I think he's just plain wrong here. Read some British history and understand what a monarchy actually is.

9. OMG broadsides that's just friggin BORING! and LAME there is a reason Star Trek and Star Wars have ships zooming about all over the place, people don't want to see a few massive warships just line up and fire into one another or go broadside to broadside they want to see big ships fly about firing guns all over the place!

10. Why are all your warships Dreadnought and Bigger? I mean I know that you are using the old "ship of the line" strategy which would render the smaller ships useless but let's face it again space battles involving only big ships are boring as hell.....throw in space fighters and small ships for entertainment value.

9 and 10 are game mechanics things. Don't describe combat as SEIV does, describe it as it should/could/might be. Loads of fighters, semi-suicidal bombing runs, NO talismans, something like that. Just a suggestion.

11. Yawn....periods of peace aren't worth wrighting about when your looking at it from your "Bloodthirsty" conquerer point of view throw in the riots and [censored] that you mention offhandedly.

Meh, personal preference think. Depends what you want to do with story and were you take it.

12. SS OMFG don't tell me you threw in SS and have them as disciplined good "Policemen" man if you throw in anything with the name SS have them be freakin SKULL breakers and kill people or something.

You are always going to get hit with this. No matter how carefully you explain the dozens of SS acronyms that aren't Nazis some people will just jump to that conclusion. I think you will need to change it or accept that.

13. Stormtroopers LOL I hope they can hit something for a change of pace eh? And I do hope you got rid of that lame white armor lol.

Well laughing at Stormies is funny. No idea why he put it in here. Ahhh watching the emperors finest being beaten by teddybears. It still makes me smile just thinking about it

14. If your going for an epic scale don't stick to 400-500 ships have a 400 or 500 ship FLEET! that's right make your navy thousands or even tens of thousands of ships like every other sci-fi does because the more ships you've got the more bang for your battle so to speak!

Game Mech again. Although 400 ship fleet would be frankly unweidly, it would be difficult to have any real grasp of what would be happening everywhere. Now you could just focus on one small group of ships or a ship bet then you'd lose the whole epic scale. On the other hand a big fleet means pages of description and a risk of lack of connection. A ship you've never heard of gets blown up. Meh. A fleet in the dozens say you can get at least some connection to the ship, even if its just the flagship or carrier or whatever. It's a decision you'll have to take.

15. What is up with the 18th century way of naming infantry units? I mean 1st Icara, 1st Kyra, 1st Brandenburg for when and where they were raised? What is up with that don't you think most interstellar Empires would prefer training multi-planetary infantry units?

He has no sense of history, no tradition in his soul clearly. Ah well. Local units=better morale, or so the last UK defence reviews said. No reason it shouldn't apply in the future.

16. What's with the Psuedo chinese feel man? the Icarans struck me as European/American in origin do you honestly think they would have such a "multi-cultural" feel when it comes only to Asians? What about black people or the mideast why don't you have any India culture thrown in? For example, you should probobly pick are you going for an asian feel or a European feel to your Empire because the two don't mix well in a story it seems mish mashed.

Gotta sort of point here. You say Icaran you think Greek. Almost all the names are western, yet there are the odd eastern name/reference thrown in. Little jarring at times and seems a little vauge in the story. I'm sure the backstory is solid but it doesn't come across well in the writing.

17. Uh I don't mean to be rude here but your characters don't sound like very intelligent people, I mean not one but three Admirals that I can count led their fleet's into pretty obvious Ambushes and suffered heavy losses because of it.
Not to mention their overal quality of speech seems to be slightly eight graderish.

Game Mech again. Last comment is just a bit cruel but again the glimmer of a point. The speech does need a bit of sharpening in places. For very senior admirals some, not all by any means, but some bits didn't seem to fit.

18. Dropping the shields to fire guns? That makes no sense man you could just alter the shield's harmonics to allow your own weapons through yet keep the enemy weapons out, I mean I know this is why you explain the broadside tactic but it's just not beleivable.

When was that mentioned? I can't recall off hand any shield dropping to fire weapons. However if it was there it shouldn't be, or a damn good reason why. Consistency is important and will wind people up.

19. DECADES in space going from warship to starbase to warship again? Do you honestly think anyone would live that way.....it's just dumb.

Yeah the long periods without leave are going to kill morale. Of course if you've got a long distance/emergency campaign its OK, but as a general rule long periods without planet side leave do seem silly.

20. What the hell is up with Lin's name? Yu Lin, what does her whole family just like naming their kids Yu! is that like George Forman with all his kidss named George or Georgenia! For [censored]'s shake she's a woman take off the Yu.....(rolleyes)

No idea about naming, he could be right, he could be wrong. Absolutely no idea at all. Sorry

21. What is up with your ship names I mean "Tyrant, Oppressor, Conquerer, Cyclops, Deadeye" yeah that's gonna make your conquered subjects feel safe (rolleyes).
Names like "Venture, Protector, Defender" would be better for the propoganda standpoint.

Style thing, if your going rule by fear the names are good, if not then you do need the nice propaganda names. Plus don't name every ship and make sure that the ones in combat have suitable names for whatever your going for.

22. Credits, Crowns? Pick one I got confused when your mentioning the cost of a superdreadnought in that one chapter.

True. Fix it. But it's a minor point. If they mean the same thing then say so, but really its not important how much a ship costs, its how much blam it can deal out

23. I was happy to see Fowler go to tell you the truth she bugged the crap out of me and whined almost endlessly.....though now it seesm you have Babcock taking up her whining career.

Ummmmm I am a bit torn on this one. On the one hand its what the charchter is, there will be some people who are whining about it. And the alternative is to have someone who is enjoying being in deepspace killing people. On the other hand - Admiral and a war for ages. They probably should at least not mind it as they can't complain everything has changed. But a character who is, well not enjoying the war, but appreciating it has to be done, liking the adrenlin/challenge/defending people. Not all your senior staff are going to want to get it over with and go home. Honestly I'd probably have to re-read it all for a proper comment on this part.

Sorry if I offended you at all but that's just my opinion and I think it will be the opinion of a lot of the smarter sci-fi readers above the 8th grade reading level....though for kids it might make a good light read.
Once you improve the people and overall universe I'd read it but for now I just have to say don't send me any of the updates because I just want to slap your Icarans upside their heads and shake them till they explain what the hell is going on.

Uhhh "smarter sci-fi" readers..... And you just know he's including himself in that don't you.


OK overview: It ain't perfect, there are problems and I do think certain viewpoints/charchters and quite a few other things have drifted over the course of the story.

However drop the game mechanics, read and inwardly digest the usefull comments and start again with no reference to this (except the backstory). It has drifted and certain contradictory views need to be either tied down, or kept and explained how you end up with the two sides. A proper review would require me re-reading it and sadly I ain't got the time.

In summary your not going to please everyone and there will be people who don't like it, so take the usefull criticisms, ignore the rest and keep on trying.

Edited for lots of reasons really.