The Demise

[Strategia_In_Ultima]

I felt like a fictional (i.e. non-game) SEIV story, so here goes Will be using several mods/universes in one, including stock, Capship, Proportions and the upcoming HWM. In short, a rag-tag collection of sci-fi all related to SEIV in some way. I have no idea how the story will turn out, but I named it "The Demise" as I think (as of this moment) that I'll write about the decline and end of an ancient galactic council or republic or something, or the demise of an ancient race that have been in our galaxy for millenia or longer. Heck, I don't even know if I'll stick with one main character !

edit: Slight change, going to make it a "freestyle" SEIV story. It'll be tied into the SEIV universe, but will also feature other things. For example, destroyed capital ships leave wreckage which you can salvage like in HW2.

Anyway, here goes.



---------------PART ONE: SECRETS AND PERILS---------------

-----CHAPTER ONE: THE ROOKIE-----

Commander Elsee Tamarillho was very proud to assume command of the new, top-of-the-line scrap hauler. "Geez," she thought to herself, "what have I done to deserve this? Insult a fleet CO or something? The least they could have done was give me a few administrative shuttles, or a light defense battery....." The ship, the NKCS Star Asteroid, or the Scrap Vulture as the crew had nicknamed it, had just been completed when Commander Tamarillho had been assigned to its command. Her first orders were simple - "Go to the site of the latest skirmish in the Tangey System, collect as much scrap as you can - preferably from capital ships - then head back to Port Royale." There, at the frontier space port on the colony named "Port Royale" by its inhabitants, the scrap would be unloaded and processed into usable construction materials. The materials thus acquired would be transferred to the nearby Tortuga Yard, where the construction workers needed it to complete the latest patrol/defense warship to be designed by the R&D people.

The Vulture was ready to leave the orbital construction yard for the first time. Tamarillho felt uncomfortable. Sure, she had been on civilian missions before. Sure, she had seen some combat action. She even experienced the terrible sensation of knowing you're about to lose a ship under your command, but this was different. What caused her greatest concern was the fact that her new crew consisted solely of fresh rookies, rejects from the Commonwealth Naval Academies. They had been trained in handling small, fast-maneuvering fighters which reacted virtually instantly. Yes, they had also received some training in the control of slower-maneuvering capital warships, like the Light Dreadnoughts patrolling the Commonwealth-Union border, but flying an old crap hauler like the Vulture would be vastly different. Being about the size of a Light Frigate, it maneuvered like a crippled Assault Dreadnought. On top of that, all of these old ships had their own unique quirks, which could cause a young helmsman like Ensign Durryn to panic at his station.

"Ensign Durryn, take her out," she ordered the fresh young cadet - he seemed to be 18 years old, 19 at best - manning the helm controls.
"Aye aye ma'am, ahead one quarter, point five m-clicks to free space, structural supports holding," the rookie replied.
"Ensign, she's got a slight deviation to the upper right quarter, compensate."
"Yes ma'am, one P extra thrust to lower left."
"Ensign, you're giving it too much power. Cut by one-quarter P."
"Cutting lower left,one quarter P."

As the Vulture left the construction bay, Tamarillho felt nothing but relief. Her helmsman had guided them out without colliding with one of the BSY's structural supports, even though she guided him the whole time, alerting him to deviations and over-thrusting he should have noticed himself. He had performed far beyond her expectations.

"Well, it looks like the life boats'll have to stay moored for a little longer, then," she mumbled to herself.
"Ma'am?" her tactical officer inquired.
"Oh, no, it's nothing." she replied.
Tamarillho had served on many civilian transports, all equipped with light defense batteries. On all ships her comms officer also controlled the batteries, making him Tactical Officer. Even though the unarmed Vulture only had a comms officer, she still called him her Tactical Officer out of force of habit.

***************

As the Vulture approached her first ever warp point, Tamarillho felt she would need to guide her helmsman through the warp procedure as he got their approach angle slightly off. It wasn’t much, but he should have noticed it. If they tried to enter the warp point on this course, their engines would blow up, their cargo hold would rupture and the life support generators would have been sent flying into space. Tamarillho didn't want to die that way. If she died, she didn't want it to be the result of a young recruit's incompetence.

"Ensign, one-Q lower central."
"I'm sorry ma'am?"
"Oh, of course. Divert course one-quarter CC regarding ship's central axis."
"Aye ma'am."

"His "Aye, ma'am," is starting to get on my nerves," she thought to herself as she observed the approaching warp point in the bridge viewscreen. Even though he was a rookie, and needed to learn the more intricate phrases of space maneuvering, he did do his best. Indeed, she saw him correcting for the ship's deviation to the upper right as the event horizon approached.

Then, a bluish blankness enveloped Tamarillho.

***************

Emerging on the other side of the warp point, she needed a second to get back to her senses. Her crew, however, needed more time, as they had not experienced warping as often as she had.

When he regained his senses, which took about ten seconds, her TO reported on the ship's status.
"She's looking good, ma'am. No damage reports. Warp succesful. Transponder bouy indicates Devonshire. We made it."

-----END OF CHAPTER ONE-----

edit: posted revised version

[TurinTurambar]

Is my style of writing terrible?

Is your sense of self-worth so low that you have to beg for approval with passive-aggressive prostrations?

No. Your style of writing is fine. Who can critique style anyway? It's yours, and there's "no accounting for taste." I would say that your efforts here show promise, if it's the "rough draft on a lark" that it appears to be. There are several typos, a bit of phraseology repetition, etc. but hey - that's what rough drafts are for.

Two suggestions:
1.) Print it out on white paper in Times New Roman with double-spaced lines and wide margins. Go over it once and check for spelling errors and punctuation oddities.
2.) If you're writing a passage this short, there is plenty of room for more background character information than you have here. Use the wide margins to make notes. (ie: "Insert 'such'n'such' here" etc.)

I already like Tamarillho; I see her as a young Capt. Janeway. If that's not what you're going for, give us some more info.

My $0.02 since you asked for it,
Turin[img]/threads/images/Graemlins/icon42.gif[/img]

OH and BTW "thanks a lot" for pimping my underground adventures at the B&G... sheesh...

[Strategia_In_Ultima]

It is indeed a sort of "rough draft" as of yet. Will edit it. I only made it this short since I had to shut down the computer when I was pretty much in the middle of the story.

Well, opinions so far? Is my style of writing terrible? Please, tell me.

I meant this to be longer, in the sense of "Is my style of writing terrible? Are my characters less interesting than a Redshirt?" etc. but I couldn't really think of anything then, and I had to go anyway.

I like the "young Capt. Janeway" comment, hadn't thought of her that way yet thank you for your advice really appreciate it.

Sorry Turin, but I just wanted to execute a little self-mocking procedure. And btw, there's nothing stopping you from telling yor story at the bar

[dogscoff]

Well, you've not really written enough for us to really comment on your characters, but you've done well with the few hundred words you've used.

I like your style, and I'm extremely glad to see more fanfic breaking away from actual games- so often game-led fanfic ends up as an endless series of dull reports on routine colony ship launches and tech advances, peppered with the odd Weberesque combat description.

Looking forward to more.

[Strategia_In_Ultima]

Little background (simply because I like to write background information for my stories ):

When Tamarillho ordered her helmsman to take the Vulture out, he replied with "ahead one quarter, point five m-clicks to free space,". This means that the ship accelerated to one quarter of third-degree max speed. Third degree speed is the maximum allowed speed for (civilian) ships near stations, asteroids or planets. Second-degree is for interplanetary space close to planets - up to one sector out, to say it in game terms. First-degree is long-distance interplanetary space. This explains the awful scale of SEIV systems. Third-degree max speed is 5000 kph, second-degree max speed is 150.000 kph, and first-degree is 2.5 million kph.

M-clicks are "micro-clicks". This are, again, third degree clicks. 3-clicks (for short) are 100 km. 2-clicks are 5000 km. 1-clicks are 100.000 km. 3-, 2- and 1-clicks are not directly related to the same degree of speed.

When approaching the warp point, Tamarillho orders her helmsman "Divert course one-quarter CC regarding ship's central axis.". What she said was to divert the ship's cource one-quarter of a Course Counter in "heading 000 bearing negative" to use Trekspeak. Course changes are measured along two circular planes (like the Trek heading and bearing), with each plane divided into 100 CC in both directions. Directly ahead is 0 CC, a "180" is 100 CC. CCs do not work in the same way as degrees; say, a 90-degree turn left is 50 CC left, while a 90-turn right is 50 CC right. Simple, no? This standard has been set universally (ok then, galactically) to make maneuvering go more smoothly. Also, this overcame the "cultural" difference between races in this area - you don't want to know how difficult it is to convert Xiati Try'lyin (speak: [trylian], like a single word) to Terran (OK, and Kytheran) degrees.

When the ship enters the WP, Tamarillho "blues out" as it is called in space travel. This is a result from both the gravitonic distortions when they go in, and from her being yanked into a different space-time "plane" - think subspace or hyperspace.

Tamarillho and her crew are from an Empire called the "New Kytheran Commonwealth". The original Kytheran Commonwealth originated from a Terran deep-space colony, founded by a sleeper ship. When the ship landed, the colonists would be declared independent anyway, so their spreading across the galaxy was a logical result.

Perhaps more to explain as the story progresses

[El_Phil]

Ahhh jumping in right in the middle. I also think the freestyling is good.

As for the style, I'm not the best person to ask I think, but it's good for a rough draft.

I'll pass on the Captain Janeway comparison, for I despise her with an unjustified vengance. I'm fully aware it's unjustified but can do nothing about it.

[Strategia_In_Ultima]

Who, Tamarillho or Janeway?

And indeed I thought it's be fun starting a story in a middle/late era, with highly developed technology (note the fact that I mentioned Assault Dreadnoughts, which are the third larget ships in Capship, and take a helluva lot of research to acquire) and large empires spanning lots of systems.

Revised "Part One", better? (I didn't modify a lot, as I personally like it this way)

[El_Phil]

Janeway. *spit*

Tamarilho has great potential, it'll be interesting to see what happens to her.

[Strategia_In_Ultima]

Well, as of yet, I have no idea. I do know something, however; but I won't tell it just yet. Perhaps she'll die in the execution of her mission, perhaps she'll get captured by an enemy ship, perhaps this'll be a story thread about the exciting adventures of an unarmed garbage scow I really have no idea whatsoever.....

[Strategia_In_Ultima]

-----CHAPTER TWO: THE FIRST REVELATION-----

As the Vulture set a course for the next warp point, the second in the line of seven warpjumps that had to be made to reach Tangey, the TO said he’d picked up an incoming transmission. A directed transmission.

“Commander we’re receiving a call from “C-Alpha 5 Devonshire” directed specifically at us. Fleet Governor Cho on the line, he wants to speak with you.”
“Business or personal?”
She spotted the helmsman and the nav officer exchanging a look, but decided to ignore it. These were fresh rookies, who probably were all under 20 years of age.
“Business, ma’am. He says he needs to alert you.”
“Very well put him on screen then, it’s impolite to keep a ranking officer on the line for so long!”

The image of the twin suns of Devonshire, small specks of bright light at this distance, the planets invisible, flickered for a moment, then the face of Fleet Governor Yuang Cho appeared onscreen. The senior commanding officer in the Devonshire system, over sixty years of age, with a lifetime of combat action behind him, looked stern and impersonal. Tamarillho flashed on the thought that she heard a rumor that even on his wedding day, Cho looked like a statue or a robot, distant and emotionless. Oh well. He’s earned the right to have that look on his face 36/10. He’s the guy who singlehandedly saved the lives of sixteen million colonists when his ship was crippled. He’s lucky he survived the ramming maneuver.

“Commander Tamarillho, your new…. command,” the slight sarcasm with which Cho said the last word didn’t escape anyone on the bridge, “is going well, I assume? I must say, I had expected to be forced to deploy a recovery unit to get you back to a repair station after you completed your warpjump.”
“Well sir, looks like you were wrong. We’re still in one piece. You don’t even have to refill our supply of lifeboats yet.”
The corners of the FG’s mouth seemed to curl up very slightly, but it could also be a random muscle twitch.
“Now that the….. formalities are behind us, I have news for you.”
“Let me guess….. no new Exeter-class freighter waiting for me?”
“No, sorry to disappoint you. But, I do have something else waiting for you.”
Tamarillho clasped the arms of her seat. It couldn’t be? They were actually giving her command of a warship?
“No, no, Commander. I can see what you’re thinking. No. I’m sorry. But we ARE giving you other….. toys.”
“Like what, Sir?”
“A single squadron of five Wasp-class interceptors, and a heavy combat scout to escort you.”
“Why?”
“We’ve picked up evidence of unknown ship movements around Tangey, possibly enemy. We don’t want to lose you.”

This was the first moment Elsee Tamarillho realized she wasn’t just on a salvage mission, and she had been placed on the Vulture because of her previous commands, not despite them.

“I’m touched by your concern.”
“Not my concern, Central Command’s concern. Not that I don’t care about a promising young Commander, of course.”

Central Command? The central body of Grand Admirals which controlled any and all combat action and war fleet deployment? Now she knew for certain this wasn’t a simple fly-in, salvage, fly-out mission. Now she knew she was in trouble. Potentially BIG trouble.

“You are to proceed to New Carina at one point five max first grade speed.”
“Sir, besides the fact that civilian authorities are going to give me – and you – hell about this, I doubt this thing is even capable of reaching full first-grade max speed, let alone one point five.”
“I believe your helmsman might know the answer.”

Puzzled, Tamarillho looked at Ensign Durryn. He looked as baffled as herself. An 18-year-old Academy reject? What could he possibly do? OK, some of her previous engineers and helmsmen were able to work wonders – she still vividly remembered the day she outmaneuvered a Pirate Faar-Chi-class Hunter with a fully loaded London-class heavy freighter – but this young, inexperienced man – no, boy? He even had some pimples left.

A look of slow realization crept across the young man’s face.

“Ohhh….. Of course….. Setting course for New Carina, one point five max first grade.”

Fleet Governor Cho closed the comms channel. Tamarillho went over to the helm console. She was utterly at a loss for words.

The console in front of her wasn’t a standard-issue Star Hauler-class helm console like she had expected. It looked a little like the helm consoles she had seen on pictures of the bridge of the latest model of Soyuz-class destroyer.

In fact, it looked exactly like a Sojuz-class helm console.

-----END OF CHAPTER TWO-----

Well?