500 words of sci-fi prologue

[Sapheron]

Well, what do you think? Not meant to be totally serious, nor be totally realistic, nor even really to make sense. Enjoy!





“Prepare for a hyperspacial acceleration!” shouted The Chief’s voice over the speakers he hung onto all day. Dug sighed. Everyone sighed. One of them would have to shut the window. Of course it wasn’t open, with them being in outer space and all, but the shutters were open to give a view at the stars. The weirdness of hyperspace messed with people’s heads, so you had to shut the shutters. No one could be bothered. It was normal.

Everyone, sat safely with eyes screwed shut, waited impatiently. A massive shudder ran through the ship, and a distant explosion in the engine room heralded that all was fine again. Everyone opened there eyes to the pitch blackness of space. Everyone sighed again. Dug noted that the whir of the air recyclers was gone. The air would get stale in a couple of days now.

“Who’s got the remote?” Tayla asked from somewhere off to the left. A click sounded from in front, and then the TV came on. The light of the screen let everyone see… a little. “That was the same as happened last time, wasn’t it?” Tayla said after a moment of thinking.

Gontz nodded. “Sure was; one of the power supplies melted its wires and blew up. We need to use bigger ones with the next one we put in.

Dug sat back and watched TV. Thank god this thing had a separate power supply of its own. No one would ever know what exactly the program was though; some weird thing in a language no one aboard could understand. At least as far as Dug knew. You learnt something knew and alarming everyday about this place.

Not that this place was anywhere. Middle of space, light hours from the nearest habituated planet, and floating dark. If it was like last time, and the time before that, then they had no movement and couldn’t go anywhere. When you’re out there in space and the air recycles got taken down with it that isn’t good. Someone would need to form a search party to look for the right place. That meant going a mile or two through corridors and rooms that were infested with gremlins. Not fun for whoever ended up doing it.

The Chief slammed the door open as he came down from the bridge. A sickly yellow torch case a strange glow across his face. “Alright ladies! I’m off to bed! We, by which I mean you, will be able to go fix it tomorrow!” With that he disappeared into his cabin, through the door nearest to the one he had come through.

Yep, thought Dug, as he put his attention back to the TV, life was good. Well, it was terrible really, but around here it kept you on your toes well. Yep, life was utterly stark raving mad, but the TV was on, so the crew was happy...

Until they had to save their very lives from the terrible fate of suffocation on their own over used air. That, however, could wait till tomorrow.

[jrudder]

Alright, this is constructive criticism, so don't take it harshly:

1) Your sentence structure is good in some places, but atrocious in others. The "good in some places" part is the important part, as it shows you know how to do it, but you just aren't doing it all the time. Just improve the sentence structures of your other areas, like this:

Dug sighed. Everyone sighed. One of them would have to shut the window. Of course it wasn’t open, with them being in outer space and all, but the shutters were open to give a view at the stars. The weirdness of hyperspace messed with people’s heads, so you had to shut the shutters. No one could be bothered. It was normal.

2) How does an explosion make everything fine again? Wouldn't they be a bit upset that something in their ship just blew up, they hadn't jumped to hyperspace, and that their air recyclers went down?

3) How do they get TV channels light hours (I'll get to that later) from the nearest habitated planet (habitated, not habituated)?

4) I presume a light hour is a speed much, much slower than light speed, because light speed goes with light years, which is the distance light travels in a year, and an hour is 1/8760th of a year. Did you mean to use light year, or was light hour intentional?

5) The ending lacks a hook for me to want to keep reading. You didn't make the characters' plight real enough to me. They seem totally calm with what's going on, and that's a bit boring, huh? Make something exciting happen to draw us in and make us want to read more.

Good luck and keep writing.

[Green]

Light hour is a distance, not a speed.

[Sapheron]

Indeed it is. We are seven light minutes from the Sun. Light Hours would put you millions of kilometres from something.

jrudder, thanks. Not taken harshly at all. I'm thinking maybe the image I'm trying to promote doesn't work. I'll have another look.

[jrudder]

Light hour is a distance, not a speed.

I understand that, just poor wording on my part. The rest of that part should've made it a bit obvious, though, as I compared it to a light year, also a distance.

Alright, then, good luck.

[Glitch]

I find it an interesting read, from your characters reactions this all seems very regular and dare I say normal, even with air recyclers not working the characters don't seem particular interested.

I had an interesting image in my head while reading it, but it feels more like a journal entry than a story.

What is the image your trying to promote, a day in the life of Dug or do you intend something more sinister to happen?

Maybe we're all spoiled by Hollywood where the action happens before the title sequence

[pyan]

Originally Posted by Sapheron

I'm thinking maybe the image I'm trying to promote doesn't work. I'll have another look.

Don't rush to change it yet, Saph (do you mind Saph? because Sapheron is a lot to type every time!) or at least keep a copy in the original form.

I'm thinking maybe the image I'm trying to promote doesn't work

What image is that? Is it a short story in itself? You call it a prologue - to what? A novel, a novella?
I'll tell you why I ask - because, as it stands, it reminds me very much of a style of short story that I have found recurring in compilations for many years - and not, by a long chalk, the worst example either.

It reads like an anti-technology story - the ship is held together by string and glue, the crew are not the brightest sparks around, - not stupid, but limited, and only the captain is a "proper" starfarer .The crew are slaves to the tv - the first dialogue from the crew is "where's the remote"!

As a short-short story, I like it - doesn't need a hook, if that's all there is, and it has a sort of laconic quality to it. The bit jrudder didn't like is, to me, quite evocative - of course the crew aren't bothered, and the short sentences bring out the laconic style I mentioned earlier.
I just wish that I could remember the authors that it reminds me of - Pohl? Simak? - that era, anyway.

[Sapheron]

Well, it all gets more encouraging after I agree with someone about how it is bad. Such is life. Don't worry, I've been thinking, not changing and no, I don't mind 'Saph' at all.

Right, first of all, it is meant to be longer than this really (though I have written only another 200 words or so at the moment...)

The idea I was trying to create was one of normality; Glitch was just about spot on. I'll describe the world a bit.

This world, while futuristic, is not so great. Several larger Empires dominate roughly half the galaxy, and are utopian type places. Everywhere else is 'wild west' style, where people go about doing what they want, in general. Law is shakey, at best, and petty empires and nations rise and fall. Of course, this is where the story is set.

Technology is advanced, but generally isn't understood (just like now- I don't have a clue how my computer makes this work). It is also, though powerful, not infallable, and not all that efficient.

The ship the story is based around (yet to be finally named), is a thing nearly a kilometre long, and shaped like a brick. Out in the outer systems (ie, non utopia places) that's what you need if you want to travel between systems in less than a week. It is older than most of the crew, most of it is uncharted or forgotten, a lot doesn't work. The crew only live in one small section. The Gremlins (the one sentient extraterrestrial life form in this) are technological geniuses, who fight an ever lasting clan war over possession of the uninhabited areas of the ship. Generally they maintain and repair it (much like humans are now trying to stop global warming... ie half assed) and keep it alive.

The crew is a mix of extreme talent and extreme normality. These guys aren't totally motivated, totally cool, nor totally awesome. They can't think of a joke for the right moment all the time, and they can't hit someone in the head with a handgun at seventeen million miles. They're meant to be human. Even the captain is basically just some eccentric guy, who is better at seeming to lead than actually doing so. Most of them, however, do have a degree of competance.

As for the TV... well lets just say if you managed to get something that can recieve TV channels from lightyears away from a station I'm sure you'd value and use it as well. That and it's a big screen. Real Big.

As for happenings... well the air recycles have gone down several times recently, and there's enough air to last days on the ship, due to its size and the plant-like lifeforms that the gremlins farm for food (they use photosynthesis, but convert heat energy rather than light). In other words, there isn't really a need to worry. They have time and they know the drill. It's just an inconvenience.

The story, as a whole, is planned as starting off being completely irrelevant. What is happening is actually quite random, and seemingly meaningless for a few chapters (though the first, after this prologue, has a bit more meaning and action in it: the painful and traumatising, though not really all that dangerous, run through gremlin territory to fix the power supply). However, it develops more of a storyline quite quickly after that, and becomes more like the storyline you would expect a book to have (underdogs struggle against sinister and seemingly unbeatable enemy, eventually winning through due to teamwork and loyalty and all that).

So, there we go. The two main problems (as in other than the actual writing part), are naming the ship, and naming the book as a whole. Obviously the latter can wait, but I'd like a nice name in my head to call it.

[Talysia]

An interesting read, Sapheron. I like the idea of normal, day to day running of life aboard a spaceship - the kind of downtime when the characters aren't facing life or death situations. Little bits of story like that make it more interesting - for me, at least - as a kind of counterbalance. That's just personal preference, though.

[Glitch]

Originally Posted by Sapheron

So, there we go. The two main problems (as in other than the actual writing part), are naming the ship, and naming the book as a whole. Obviously the latter can wait, but I'd like a nice name in my head to call it.

If you come up with a good name for the ship you can use that as the name of the book, I've noticed that in Sci-Fi ancient words tend to get used for ship names.

[Sapheron]

Ah, but once again I want something a bit different. If possible, a clever pun of some sort that you'll only notice the second time you think about it. On the other hand, The Chief, as the captain is called, could name it, in which case it will be rather easier, rather more impressive a word, and rather less fitting to the story...