Abrubtly halted.

[El_Phil]

Comma use and splitting sentences. Meh! Never been my strongest point but I will take a stab at improving it.

OK Batchs I'm using because the navy is sort of based on the Royal Navy, eg xxxx Batch 2. Purely a personal thing.

El Presidente is just when I started I had a mental image of Marks taking over a corrupt bannana dictatorship sort of place hence the title. As for him getting the job, its going to be explained over the course of the story. I know how it happened and I'm saving it up for quiet moments.

Cick doesn't have to mean kilometers. In fact the few times I've heard it used it didn't, although I suppose I should have clarified what I wanted it to mean.

The ship selection section was re-written many times and so did suffer as I really couldn't face reading it through again. There was an explanation of potential piracy but it got lost in the endless (well it felt like it) changes. I really should have scrapped it and re-written the entire section from scratch. Hey ho.

The messages from other races was troubling me as well. You are right that some of the don't fit the story, but at the time I decide to go with them. I think I may take some artistic licence with the next round of messages unless they fit the story.


Here's what I got from the review and can do something about for the next part:
1. Commas. Thrice damned comma use.
2. Check on splitting up sentences as part of the spawn of satan that is comma use.
3. Throw in a few more explanations of assumed things/game mechanic events. Such as racing onto warp points, first contacts.

If there is something else you were trying to tell me that I didn't get please clarify.

[Ron_Lugge]

Only thing I'd like to point out is that, in general, it is a good idea to post to a writers forum or somewhere similar before posting in a place you feel requires a "finished" product. Personally, I consider any forum such a place

Just try to have a finished product before you put the piece to a website. So go ahead and and re-write those scenes!

And in case I forgot to mention it, that was a good story, even if I found a lot of problems.

And 1 / 2 are really part of the same thing, of course, so you need to work on them together.

[El_Phil]

Not a proper update, just an idea that have been rattling around for a while.

Intermission

Most stories are just concerned with the big stories, the epic tales spanning galaxies that change the lives of billions. Such stories however are little more than the sum of all the smaller stories, tales such as this one.

The Rolls-Royce R&D lab on Hope was the biggest off-world engineering centre in the Republic, and home to all their bleeding edge projects. The board would tell you that this was because of their comitment to the colonisation programme. Cynics might suggest that the lax safety regulations were a bigger motivation.
Ted Riley, freshly transfered from the research labs on Ocelotm, was looking at the readouts from the new Spey engine on the test bed.
"That's interesting."
His boss looked over at him, checked his display and then hammered a button. Across the lab sirens wailed out and blast doors slammed down as the safety lockdown procedure started.
"What did you do that for?" Riley asked in a shocked tone of voice
"Because you didn't." was the simple reply
"What?! All I said was 'That's interesting' and suddenly we're in lockdown, what was.."
Riley was interupted mid-flow by a muffled bang as several kiloton of prototype engine energetically re-decorated the sealed test bed area. After Riley calmed down he looked at his boss, who had barely reacted. In fact he was looking a bit smug with an 'I told you so' look on his face.
"OK, how did you know?"
"Simple, this is a development lab not a research lab." his boss, Jameson, replied
"So?" Riley didn't follow at all
"In research everything is overbuilt with huge safety margins, as the purpose is just to prove the concept right?"
Riley nodded, the first prototype had been massive and cost a large fortune.
"In development we have to produce something practical from all the great ideas. First thing to go are the huge safety margins, after all the research guys have ony passed it on to us because they understand the system. There is, however, one small problem with this system..."
"The research department never actually fully understands what's going on?" Riley interupted
"Precisely. So when we hear 'That's interesting.' something unexpected has happened. And unexpected can be explosively dangerous so we go straight to lockdown."
"So what now?"
"Order a cleanup crew to fix the testbed room, call supplies for a new prototype and send the data dump back to Ocelot." Jameson replied
"Then?"
"Knock off early and head to the pub for a few days, till the new engine turns up."
"Gravy!"

[narf poit chez BOOM]

...I doubt anybody wants to hear 'that's interesting' in a RL nuclear power plant either...

[Strategia_In_Ultima]

"Thet dinos" as in "them black people" to use a comparable term. Plus, I mean, come on, it's people talking you can't very well expect every single word to be fully gramatically correct and relevant.

"Ma'am" = madam = a female superior officer.

Phil, I think you erm..... overdid it a little. I mean, a full blank line after every single spoken sentence kinda takes the tempo out of the story.

[Fyron]

A new person speaking must be a new paragraph. Paragraphs should be delineated in some manner, either through indentation or line spacing. I don't think he overdid it.

B) "...reams of damage report data."? I don't think reams goes into that sentence right.

Just how detailed are these reports? If there are hundreds upon hundreds of pages of data, it would work.

[El_Phil]

Thus proving you can't make all of the people happy all of the time. The line spacing will probably stay and I think *** to separate sections works. So onto the comments:

Rooted, it's a bit of both really, nice bit of slang which also replaces the swearing the cheif would be doing.

The ships lost several decks, loads of engines and large amounts of extra damage. There's going to be huge amounts of data.

Yeah I wasn't ecstatic with some of the dialogue, especially Delap''s bit. I had a point to make but couldn't make it flow smoothly. Time really is a bit tight so I can't spend as long as I like writing and re-drafting. Bits are sometimes called close enough.

'manoeuvring' is perfect English. You colonials really need to remember how to spell

This section was written and then the line spacing added, so quite a few grammar bits probably sneaked in there.

Well thanks for the comments, but don't aim to high with the grammar. I'm not taking this anywhere near that seriously and the only other writing I do is technical reports. Easy rules there: Past tense and never mention 'I' or thinking. You always know or expect. Plus no-one is that bothered by grammar as everyone is equally bad at it.

[El_Phil]

Fallen back to page 4 in 20 days. How time flys...

Anyway I've been busy so this fell on the back burner. When I tried to restart I realised I didn't like where the story was, yeah the next chapter would be OK but beyond that I'm trapped in a story I don't really want to write. So options

1. Fight through the story to get somewhere
2. Write this story off and start again.
3. Jump ahead xxx years and carry on the story with the same background, characters etc.

I don't fancy 1. and don't want to throw away all the back story that 2. would imply I'm leaning towards 3.

But is it the writing style, the characters or what that people like about this story? Hence the question, I wouldn't mind any of the above options so what would people read? If I'm going to write something and post it I would prefer that someone read it.

[Ron_Lugge]

Option 2 is a necessity sometimes, but save it fora last resort.

#1 is a pain -- I'm stuck with it on a few stories.
#3 is a double pain, as you have to make certain to keep us straight throught the jump, but quite doable.

[El_Phil]

Can't face #1 and I am doing this for fun so that's out. Hence I combine #2 and #3. Same back story but a few years down the line and focusing on just a small unit. The grand story happens in the background. Give it a try, see if I enjoy writing it. So away with you, to the new story!