Rewrite of my space opera (355 words)

[Shane Enochs]

I think I took what everyone said and made a better intro. Let me know if I'm still not getting something / infodumping.



Aboard the starcraft carrier Advent

Commander Gabriel Young walked around the small ship, touching the cold metal of the landing struts. Inky-black and windowless, it looked more like a drone than a vessel meant to be piloted by men. Its long, arrowhead-shaped body was very aerodynamic, obviously built with atmospheric flight in mind. "It's beautiful."

"First of its kind," Fleet Commander Arnold Smith said proudly. "The SR-78. One deck; maximum crew of five. It's got four pulse detonation engines with a maximum air speed of Mach 8. It's also equipped with the latest stealth technology."

Gabriel nodded with approval. "It's a short-ranged scout ship."

The old man grinned. "Not quite." He let his words hang in the air for a moment. "It's actually capable of opening slipstreams."

"This tiny thing?" Even the smallest vessels equipped with FTL drives were huge in comparison. It took an enormous amount of energy to create an aperture into slipstream.

"Yeah. Listen, Gabe," Smith's tone turned abruptly serious. "I wouldn't normally ask you to do this, but this is from way above me."

Gabriel's stomach started twisting. "Sir?"

"Two months ago we received intelligence that a colony on Cyprus has been building unregistered ships, so we sent drones in to investigate. They never returned." He suddenly avoided Gabriel's eyes. "I need you to take this ship and scout the planet. Purely a recon mission. If they are building ships, we need to know about it as soon as possible."

Damn, Gabriel thought. Building unregistered ships was a capital offense, especially if they were capable of interstellar travel. If the intelligence turned out to be true, Earth would send in dozens of battleships and bombard the planet. Nothing would be left alive.

"The plan is to drop out of slipstream in the nearest system, and then you and your crew will travel the rest of the way. It'll take the better part of a day to get there, but it should allow you to get in unnoticed," Smith said confidently.

Gabriel nodded. "When will I be launching?

"We'll be dropping out of slipstream in an hour. Be ready."

[springs]

Haven't time for a full crit, sorry. I like it lots better, though. Much smoother. (not sure about dang, though...)

[alchemist]

I was going to comment on the other one, but dang you're fast.

Originally Posted by Shane Enochs

I think I took what everyone said and made a better intro. Let me know if I'm still not getting something / infodumping.



Aboard the starcraft carrier Advent

Commander Gabriel Young walked around the small ship, touching the cold metal of the landing struts. Inky-black and windowless, it looked more like a drone than a vessel meant to be piloted by men. Its long, arrowhead-shaped body seemed to be very I think it would be better for him to be more definitive i.e. Its long, arrowhead-shaped body was aerodynamic...aerodynamic, obviously built with atmospheric flight in mind. "It's beautiful."

"First of its kind," Fleet Commander Arnold Smith said proudly. "The SR-78. One deck; maximum crew of five. It's got four pulse detonation engines with a maximum air speed of Mach 8. It's also equipped with the latest stealth technology."

Gabriel nodded with approval. "It's a short-ranged scout ship."

The old man grinned. "Not quite." He let his words hang in the air for a moment. "It's actually capable of opening slipstreams."

"This tiny thing?" Even the smallest vessels equipped with FTL drives were huge in comparison. It took an enormous amount of energy to create an aperture into slipstream.

"Yeah. Listen, Gabe," Smith's tone turned abruptly serious. "I wouldn't normally ask you to do this, but this is from way above me."

Gabriel's stomach started twisting. "Sir?"

"Two months ago we received intelligence that a colony on Cyprus has been building unregistered ships, so we sent drones in to investigate. They never returned." He suddenly avoided Gabriel's eyes. "I need you to take this ship and scout the planet. Purely a recon mission. If they are building ships, we need to know about it as soon as possible."

Dang, Gabriel thought. Building unregistered ships was a capital offense, especially if they were capable of interstellar travel. If the intelligence turned out to be true, Earth would send in dozens of capital the capital offence and the capital ships jar a little ships and bombard the planet. Nothing would be left alive.

"The plan is to drop out of slipstream in the nearest system, and then you and your crew will travel the rest of the way. It'll take the better part of a day to get there, but it should allow you to get in unnoticed," Smith said confidently.

Gabriel nodded. "When will I be launching?

"We'll be dropping out of slipstream in an hour. Be ready."

I liked the other one and I like this one better. It's got a nice pace and we're straight into the action. Just a point on the SR 78 -- I presume you're referencing the SR 71. With science having advanced this far, wouldn't they be using different nomenclature i.e. if they were going to have an SR 72, SR 73 etc, wouldn't they have reached the SR 78 long before now?

[Shane Enochs]

Originally Posted by alchemist

I was going to comment on the other one, but dang you're fast.



I liked the other one and I like this one better. It's got a nice pace and we're straight into the action. Just a point on the SR 78 -- I presume you're referencing the SR 71. With science having advanced this far, wouldn't they be using different nomenclature i.e. if they were going to have an SR 72, SR 73 etc, wouldn't they have reached the SR 78 long before now?

I'm not sure. It's been 50 years and we still don't have an SR-72. I can change it though. What might be a good name for my little ship?

[alchemist]

In that case, will they ever get to the SR 78? I still think you should distance it, though.

If it's one-of-a-kind, you could give it a proper name; after a bird of prey or an animal. Otherwise, maybe some other number/letter combination. Nobody else may mention this, in which case, ignore me.

[Shane Enochs]

I was actually looking into birds of prey and other animals. All the cool names are already taken by real life aircrafts =\

Edit - also changed capital ships to battleships, and made it a little more definitive.

[kaal]

Originally Posted by alchemist

In that case, will they ever get to the SR 78? I still think you should distance it, though.

If it's one-of-a-kind, you could give it a proper name; after a bird of prey or an animal. Otherwise, maybe some other number/letter combination. Nobody else may mention this, in which case, ignore me.

I was going to mention this, too, as it was the only thing left in the passage that caused a bit of disruption (for me) in the flow.

@Shane:
If you're not happy with any bird/animal names (given that, as you say, most of the cool ones are used, similarly weather), perhaps either a completely different (made up) number/letter combo or a short phrase saying that it's the latest in the Stealth-Reconnaissance craft which started with the SR-71.
Then again, as it's more along the lines of a cruiser class ship than a 2-man stealth plane, perhaps a different type of name would, indeed, be better...

[Shane Enochs]

What do you guys think about "Shadowfox"?

[kaal]

It's cool. I might be tempted to add some description of the ship "seemingly drinking in the sunlight" or light just falling into its skin, or sim'lar, with a name like that...

[Bakerman]

I like this much better than the previous version. You conveyed pretty much all the same information, but with much more interesting action involved. The last intro really reminded me of old video games where you'd sit through a text/speech briefing, and then go fly the mission. This one actually feels a lot more engaged, and engaging.

I somewhat appreciated the SR-71 shoutout. I like the idea of continuing current designation conventions into a sci-fi setting, especially given my bias towards spacecraft being more similar to aeroplanes than ships. Although the SR-71 doesn't seem to be an example of the convention I linked to (according to Wiki, SR stands for 'strategic reconnaissance'), to differentiate your spaceplane a bit you could come up with a modified designation scheme and translate into it. Or, just call it the Shadowfox ;P.

If I had one criticism, it'd be that you've swung too far away from the briefing of the previous intro. Would the Fleet Commander really drop this sort of mission on Gabriel with an hour to go before launch? It was a small bump for me in an otherwise silky-slick scene.

In summary: bravo! I'm looking forward to reading more of this .

[Hex]

This is more engaging (and also well-written). Yey!

Just to be awkward right at the start, I liked the first person voice of the last piece (but then I like first person). I especially liked these lines:


I leaned back in my chair. Building unregistered ships was a capital offense, especially if they were capable of interstellar travel. It wasn't an assignment that I was particularly thrilled about. "What am I commanding?"

The underlined bit made me like the character and feel I was going to enjoy his story more than 'Dang' does in the current version.

Originally Posted by Shane Enochs

Aboard the starcraft carrier Advent

Commander Gabriel Young walked around the small ship, touching the cold metal of the landing struts. Inky-black and windowless, it looked more like a drone than a vessel meant to be piloted by men. Its long, arrowhead-shaped body was very aerodynamic, obviously built with atmospheric flight in mind. "It's beautiful." [you could probably make it tighter by losing 'it looked' and 'obviously' -- e.g.: 'Inky-black and windowless, more like a drone ...']

"First of its kind," Fleet Commander Arnold Smith said proudly. "The SR-78. One deck; maximum crew of five. It's got four pulse detonation engines with a maximum air speed of Mach 8. It's also equipped with the latest stealth technology."

Gabriel nodded [with approval]. "It's a short-ranged scout ship."

The old man [old? really?] grinned. "Not quite." He let his words hang in the air for a moment. "It's actually capable of opening slipstreams." ['actually' feels a bit wordy -- how about 'It's slipstream capable.'?]

"This tiny thing?" Even the smallest vessels equipped with FTL drives were huge in comparison. It took an enormous amount of energy to create an aperture into slipstream.

"Yeah. Listen, Gabe," Smith's tone turned abruptly serious. "I wouldn't normally ask you to do this, but this is from way above me."

Gabriel's stomach started twisting. "Sir?"

"Two months ago we received intelligence that a colony on Cyprus has been building unregistered ships, so we sent drones in to investigate. They never returned." He suddenly avoided Gabriel's eyes. "I need you to take this ship and scout the planet. Purely a recon mission. If they are building ships, we need to know about it as soon as possible."

Damn, Gabriel thought. Building unregistered ships was a capital offense, especially if they were capable of interstellar travel. If the intelligence turned out to be true, Earth would send in dozens of battleships and bombard the planet. Nothing would be left alive.

"The plan is to drop out of slipstream in the nearest system, and then you and your crew will travel the rest of the way [what's 'travel' rather than 'slipstream'?]. It'll take the better part of a day to get there, but it should allow you to get in unnoticed," Smith said confidently.

Gabriel nodded. "When will I be launching?

"We'll be dropping out of slipstream in an hour. Be ready."

[Bowler1]

Commander Gabriel Young walked around the small ship, touching the cold metal of the landing struts. Inky-black and windowless, it looked more like a drone than a vessel meant to be piloted by men. Its long, arrowhead-shaped body was very aerodynamic, obviously built with atmospheric flight in mind. "It's beautiful."
It’s a good opening, SE. Obviously - well, not to me as this is the first time I’m reading it! Obviously is a word I don’t like, other members might, but it feels like telling and pushes me out of the storyline.

"Two months ago we received intelligence that a colony on Cyprus has been building unregistered ships, so we sent drones in to investigate. They never returned." He suddenly avoided Gabriel's eyes. "I need you to take this ship and scout the planet. Purely a recon mission. If they are building ships, we need to know about it as soon as possible."
Nice build-up of tension and done very quickly, very good, SE.

Damn, Gabriel thought. Building unregistered ships was a capital offense, especially if they were capable of interstellar travel. If the intelligence turned out to be true, Earth would send in dozens of battleships and bombard the planet. Nothing would be left alive.
A little OTT for me, destroying whole worlds! But the idea of controlling access to space is very good.

"The plan is to drop out of slipstream in the nearest system, and then you and your crew will travel the rest of the way. It'll take the better part of a day to get there, but it should allow you to get in unnoticed," Smith said confidently.
So they can travel from one system to another and cover a number of light years in a day? Why bother with slipstream then?

A minor point on your technology that felt odd to me was the speed of spaceships, but this is your story and this could be my ideas impinging on yours. Destroying whole worlds pushed my sense of realism as well. So these two points stood out for me and made it difficult for me to suspend my sense of realism and sink into the plot you’re presenting. Otherwise I liked it and it was for me well written. Where have you been hiding till now?

[ctg]

Right, you want harshness.

Originally Posted by Shane Enochs

Aboard the starcraft carrier Advent

The first imagine I get from is a lego-space craft and a chocolate bar. Who in the wide universe would call their carrier something like that? Also could you drop the starcraft, please?

Commander Gabriel Young walked around the small ship, touching the cold metal of the landing struts.

Is Gabriel Young going to sing some songs in eighties style and also when did carriers become small? They used to be capital ships even if the fleet has a couple dreadnoughts in the ranks.

Inky-black and windowless, it looked more like a drone than a vessel meant to be piloted by men. Its long, arrowhead-shaped body was very aerodynamic, obviously built with atmospheric flight in mind. "It's beautiful."

Right. I think you've underestimated the power of the headline. It sets the tone, and the reader if they've been pulled out from the nothing and landed in a capital ship, expect to get capital ship details weaved among the smaller ships. You have forgotten that the little details make a huge difference. So, please go back and rewrite whole para.

"First of its kind," Fleet Commander Arnold Smith said proudly. "The SR-78. One deck; maximum crew of five. It's got four pulse detonation engines with a maximum air speed of Mach 8. It's also equipped with the latest stealth technology."

Fleet commander, you mean the admiral as there's no such a position as a fleet commander.

Gabriel nodded with approval. "It's a short-ranged scout ship."

Wouldn't say short-range if it's going to do an atmospheric jump and get back to the carrier. And what would be the point of having a short range in a vessel that's meant to gather viable information about the enemy movements? You could do that same thing with drones and satellites.

The old man grinned. "Not quite." He let his words hang in the air for a moment. "It's actually capable of opening slipstreams."

O.O

Slipstream. n.1. The turbulent flow of air driven backward by the propeller or propellers of an aircraft. Also called race2.
2. The area of reduced pressure or forward suction produced by and immediately behind a fast-moving object as it moves through air or water.


ookay....

"This tiny thing?" Even the smallest vessels equipped with FTL drives were huge in comparison. It took an enormous amount of energy to create an aperture into slipstream.

"Yeah. Listen, Gabe," Smith's tone turned abruptly serious. "I wouldn't normally ask you to do this, but this is from way above me."

A fleet commander is asking a favour. I wonder if you've mixed up a wing commander with your fleet commander. If that would be so then maybe he could ask a favour.

Gabriel's stomach started twisting. "Sir?"

Ominous. Maybe he's getting **** scared about what's coming next.

"Two months ago we received intelligence that a colony on Cyprus has been building unregistered ships, so we sent drones in to investigate. They never returned." He suddenly avoided Gabriel's eyes. "I need you to take this ship and scout the planet. Purely a recon mission. If they are building ships, we need to know about it as soon as possible."

There, your first big sin. Head-hopping. Seriously, the reader would be now focusing on fleet commander's speech, and bringing in an action descriptor in the middle of the dialogue and putting it that way can be considered as head-hopping.

Not good. If anything, you need to rewrite the para, and if needed, you can write longer narrative to explain thoughts and feelings so that you need to expose the information so much in the dialogue.

Damn, Gabriel thought. Building unregistered ships was a capital offense, especially if they were capable of interstellar travel. If the intelligence turned out to be true, Earth would send in dozens of battleships and bombard the planet. Nothing would be left alive.

"The plan is to drop out of slipstream in the nearest system, and then you and your crew will travel the rest of the way. It'll take the better part of a day to get there, but it should allow you to get in unnoticed," Smith said confidently.

Gabriel nodded. "When will I be launching?

"We'll be dropping out of slipstream in an hour. Be ready."

Why do you need to suddenly expose the information about Earth frowning upon building unregistered ships in deepness of the space? How would they know so fast? The whole thing feels like an info-dump and something that shouldn't be there in the first place. In fact, I'd say that whole piece feels as if you haven't considered all the implications about what you're writing and hence it reads to a knowledgeable reader like a joke.

If you don't want this to be read by serious minded people, then ignore my comments, please. Otherwise, please consider carefully what I'm saying.

[Cosmic Geoff]

Originally Posted by Shane Enochs

I think I took what everyone said and made a better intro. Let me know if I'm still not getting something / infodumping.

It's not awful, but reads like an undistinguished piece of space-opera.

Aboard the starcraft carrier Advent

Commander Gabriel Young walked around the small ship, touching the cold metal of the landing struts. Inky-black and windowless, it looked more like a drone than a vessel meant to be piloted by men. Its long, arrowhead-shaped body was very aerodynamic, Too much detail: if it's pointy, it's presumably aerodynamic and capable of atmospheric flight. obviously built with atmospheric flight in mind. "It's beautiful."

"First of its kind," Fleet Commander Arnold Smith said proudly. "The SR-78. One deck; maximum crew of five. It's got four pulse detonation engines with a maximum air speed of Mach 8. It's also equipped with the latest stealth technology." We don't need all that detail.

Gabriel nodded with approval. "It's a short-ranged scout ship." Would he really say that? Even the reader could figure out what it's for.

The old man grinned. "Not quite." He let his words hang in the air for a moment. "It's actually capable of opening slipstreams." Reader thinks "What does that mean?"

"This tiny thing?" Even the smallest vessels equipped with FTL drives were huge in comparison. It took an enormous amount of energy to create an aperture into slipstream. So you tell the reader at unnecessary length.

"Yeah. Listen, Gabe," Smith's tone turned abruptly serious. "I wouldn't normally ask you to do this, but this is from way above me."

Gabriel's stomach started twisting. Good. he's scared. "Sir?"

"Two months ago we received intelligence that a colony on Cyprus has been building unregistered ships, so we sent drones in to investigate. They never returned." He suddenly avoided Gabriel's eyes. Good "I need you to take this ship and scout the planet. Purely a recon mission. If they are building ships, we need to know about it as soon as possible." I think you need to justify why they don't try the drones again, or some old-fashioned spying.

Damn, Gabriel thought. Building unregistered ships was a capital offense, especially if they were capable of interstellar travel. If the intelligence turned out to be true, Earth would send in dozens of battleships and bombard the planet. Nothing would be left alive. Seems a bit drastic on the basis of a fly-by recon!

"The plan is to drop out of slipstream in the nearest system, and then you and your crew will travel the rest of the way. It'll take the better part of a day to get there, but it should allow you to get in unnoticed," Smith said confidently.

Gabriel nodded. "When will I be launching?

"We'll be dropping out of slipstream in an hour. Be ready."

Apart from the mention of 'stealth' there is little here that wouldn't be in a space opera written in the 1950's. I recently watched a sci-fi anime where much of the ship-to-ship combat was conducted purely by cybernetic warfare. It was like a breath of fresh air compared with 99% of previous space sci-fi.

[Jammill Khursheed]

Aboard the starcraft carrier Advent
[If you're not going to start every chapter with a place setting drop this completely... If you are something like "Carrier Advent" would work better... I like the name btw, especially if you are being portentious with it...]


Commander Gabriel Young walked around the small ship, touching the cold metal of the landing struts. Inky-black and windowless, it looked more like a drone than a vessel meant to be piloted by men. Its long, arrowhead-shaped body was very aerodynamic, obviously built with atmospheric flight in mind. "It's beautiful."

"First of its kind," Fleet Commander Arnold Smith said proudly. "The SR-78. One deck; maximum crew of five. It's got four pulse detonation engines with a maximum air speed of Mach 8. It's also equipped with the latest stealth technology."

Gabriel nodded with approval. "It's a short-ranged scout ship."

The old man grinned. "Not quite." He let his words hang in the air for a moment. "It's actually capable of opening slipstreams."

"This tiny thing?" Even the smallest vessels equipped with FTL drives were huge in comparison. It took an enormous amount of energy to create an aperture into slipstream.

[The above two paragraphs could be condensed into one and loose the info-dumping quite easily... i.e. "It's the smallest ship in the fleet with engines powerful enough to open slipstreams" to end the first para and then just cut the second...] [Also - 'Slipstreams' doesn't work linguistically (ctwg pointed that out), so just change that to FTL travel which you also mention within this scene]

"Yeah. Listen, Gabe," Smith's tone turned abruptly serious. "I wouldn't normally ask you to do this, but this is from way above me."

[The above dialogue only really works if Gabriel and Smith are good friends, and its not stated anywhere before this that they are...]

Gabriel's stomach started twisting. "Sir?"

"Two months ago we received intelligence that a colony on Cyprus has been building unregistered ships, so we sent drones in to investigate. They never returned." He suddenly avoided Gabriel's eyes. "I need you to take this ship and scout the planet. Purely a recon mission. If they are building ships, we need to know about it as soon as possible."

Damn, Gabriel thought. Building unregistered ships was a capital offense, especially if they were capable of interstellar travel. If the intelligence turned out to be true, Earth would send in dozens of battleships and bombard the planet. Nothing would be left alive.

[Put that information in dialogue but make it more ambiguous, i.e. just have Smith note that it's a capitol offence in his previous dialogue, and don't mention the stuff about planetary bombardment here... I'm assuming that Gabriel ins't too happy about that happening so have him deliberate about it later... It just seems a little too much here...]

"The plan is to drop out of slipstream in the nearest system, and then you and your crew will travel the rest of the way. It'll take the better part of a day to get there, but it should allow you to get in unnoticed," Smith said confidently.

Gabriel nodded. "When will I be launching?

"We'll be dropping out of slipstream in an hour. Be ready."[/QUOTE]

The idea behind this is an interesting one (a centralised, presumably human, empire, controlling their colonies by leaving them there and banning them from having their own ships) and it shows a lot of promise...

As for info-dumps, they aren't technically info-dumps if someone SAYS it out loud for a relevant reason... It also leads to you being much more concise with the language (because the average contents of an info-dump, written as is, don't sound like realistic dialogue, and making it so that it does cuts a hell of a lot of it)...


Jammill


EDIT - Calling a restive colony Cyprus might have political conotations that you aren't aiming for... The country Cyprus is split into a Turkish side and a Cypriot side with the British military operating what is basically a 'de-militarised zone' between the two... Unless this is something you are planning to include on your own colony I would suggest changing the name