Newbie Crit

[TacticalLoco]

OK friends, this is my first post for critique and I'm pretty freaked out.

I just started working on this yesterday and this is what I have so far.
It's supposed to be a hard SF story. Let me know what you folks think.
******************************************************

Persephone Phillips settled herself into the pilots chair of the Lucifer. It was her first ever shift at the ship's helm, but that did not bother her too much because it was also only the fifth FLT piloting shift in human history.

The Lucifer was forty seven days outbound from Earth and precisely 32 hours of that time had been spent traveling at greater than light speed. She, on the other hand had spent the past 2 years of her life studying, practicing and waiting for his moment. She had however, met the eyes of the fourth shift pilot Saul Meyers as he was leaving the bridge. He looked tired.

"Keeping all four forces balanced is the key." the taut man standing beside her intoned almost religiously.

She restrained the urge to remind her CO that she was qualified, "Aye aye, Captain."

Besides he was absolutely right. Keeping the ship moving at speeds defying both Newton and Einstein was literally a juggling act. F=ma and E=mc^2 both played a simultaneous role in interconnecting and cheating space-time.

"Just keep in mind Lieutenant, there are no worm holes or fictional warp drives here. We are moving though real space on a superliminal vector."

"Yes sir. I understand." She said, and responded more directly by making a slight adjustment to the local ship mass, compensating for the steady shift of gravitational forces surrounding them.

Benjamin Sidhain nodded his agreement and allowed himself to return to his own console.

Before this mission's training, she could not have even imagined gravity fields as variables. But she recalled, that was before the aliens gave us the Magi field and all it promised.

According to their exotic and largely unknown benefactors this technology allowed direct manipulation of mass. Not to mention the side effects of controlled momentum and inertia. By maintaining a delicate equilibrium between variables is was possible to change the ships movements quickly and radically or to keep it moving though space faster than matter should.

For the next six hours seventeen minutes of her shift that's what pilot Phillips did. The Captain sat at the sensor console, monitoring her, the ship, the surroundings, plus she suspected, catching short cat naps. She didn't blame him or even think of reporting him for it. He had not left the bridge since hyper 'c' velocity had been passed. He couldn't have slept much, if at all those two days.

A small mass was entering the field, she altered the force matrix in that direction to bypass it. Looking at the visual monitors she couldn't see anything, but that was hardly surprising. The massive Doppler effect was another reminder that they firmly remained in normal space.

Ahead of the Lucifer, the stars all crowded into the center of the screen, blue shifted into a dull glowing blur. The rear screen showed the same scene in a red shift motif. Using a combination of star charts and computer enhancement she could zoom in for much greater detail, but it was not really relevant to her job now. The irony of it all made her grin, here she was one of the very first people to fly a ship FTL, and she was already bored with the view.

Something odd! That small mass was still closing on their position. She adjusted the forces again to move away from it. Beyond belief the object continued to advance. That was definitely not right, no debris could do that. In fact, no object of normal mass could do that.

"Oh my god!" Her gasp was as involuntary as the twitching of her insides. "We got company!"

Persephone wondered if she should nudge the Captain awake before hitting the all hands alarm.

 

[Nik]

Nice piece of 'Hard SF', the 'impossible' FTL tactfully hand-waved as a gift from aliens...

Couple of typos (IMHO):
pilots / pilot's
Earth, and
hand, had
had, however (Consider re-phrasing to lose one or other near-by 'had' ?)
key," the (Something I've too-recently learned ;-)
understand," she
all, those
matrix in that direction ( I'm not sure about this phrasing...)
belief, the
god / God (??)

I'd also query why such long shifts. Even without potty and meal breaks, alertness soon flags. It would make more sense, especially for a Noob, to have a few minutes, then half an hour, then an hour, then two at most, at least until she gets the hang of it...

Okay, she's probably got a thousand hours in the simulator, but never in Unknown Space with ship and crew at the mercy of her reactions...

 

[chrispenycate]

[/quote]

OK friends, this is my first post for critique and I'm pretty freaked out.

I just started working on this yesterday and this is what I have so far.
It's supposed to be a hard SF story. Let me know what you folks think.
******************************************************

Persephone Phillips settled herself into the pilots

pilot's

chair of the Lucifer. It was her first ever shift at the ship's helm, but that did not bother her too much because it was also only the fifth FLT piloting shift in human history.

The Lucifer was forty seven days outbound from Earth and precisely 32 hours of that time had been spent traveling at greater than light speed. She, on the other hand had spent the past 2 years of her life studying, practicing and waiting for his moment. She had

Comma

however, met the eyes of the fourth shift pilot Saul Meyers as he was leaving the bridge. He

had

looked tired.

"Keeping all four forces balanced is the key.

Comma rather than period

" the taut man standing beside her intoned almost religiously.

She restrained the urge to remind her CO that she was qualified,

Period rather than comma.

"Aye aye, Captain."

Besides

comma

he was absolutely right. Keeping the ship moving at speeds defying both Newton and Einstein was literally a juggling act. F=ma and E=mc^2 both played a simultaneous role

"played simultaneous rôles", perhaps?

in interconnecting and cheating space-time.

"Just keep in mind

Comma

Lieutenant, there are no worm holes or fictional warp drives here. We are moving though real space on a superliminal

Um, don't know if this was intended, but wouldn't it be "superluminal"?

vector."

"Yes sir. I understand.

Comma instead of period, and the following "s" lower case.

" She said, and responded more directly by making a slight adjustment to the local ship mass, compensating for the steady shift of gravitational forces surrounding them.

Benjamin Sidhain nodded his agreement and allowed himself to return to his own console.

Before this mission's training, she could not have even imagined gravity fields as variables. But

Comma

she recalled, that was before the aliens gave us the Magi field and all it promised.

The use of first person (even if plural) "us" here would only be justified if these were her thoughts, rather than a recounting of them. You return to "their" in the next paragraph.

According to their exotic and largely unknown benefactors this technology allowed direct manipulation of mass. Not to mention the side effects of controlled momentum and inertia. By maintaining a delicate equilibrium between variables is was possible to change the ships

ship's

movements quickly and radically or to keep it moving though space faster than matter should.

For the next six hours seventeen minutes of her shift that's what pilot Phillips did. The Captain sat at the sensor console, monitoring her, the ship, the surroundings, plus

Comma

she suspected, catching short cat naps. She didn't blame him or even think of reporting him for it. He had not left the bridge since hyper 'c' velocity had been passed. He couldn't have slept much, if at all

Comma

those two days.

A small mass was entering the field,

Comma splice; perhaps a semicolon. I assume that gravity propagates faster than light in this story, so they can detect things by interaction of the gravity field? Otherwise the impact would arrive before the information.

she altered the force matrix in that direction to bypass it. Looking at the visual monitors she couldn't see anything, but that was hardly surprising. The massive Doppler effect was another reminder that they firmly remained in normal space.

If you were in fact superluminal you wouldn't get a Doppler effect; a supersonic aeroplane can't hear its bang. The Doppler only works up to near light speeds, and it's obvious that from behind no light can catch up with them. I suppose some space might be dragged along with them containig a few photons, but essentially they would be flying blind, depending on information from before they broke the light barrier, needing to slow down every so often to let light match speeds so they could get to see where they actually were, rather than where they calculated they should be. Which means the next paragraph is inaccurate.

Ahead of the Lucifer, the stars all crowded into the center of the screen, blue shifted into a dull glowing blur. The rear screen showed the same scene in a red shift motif. Using a combination of star charts and computer enhancement she could zoom in for much greater detail, but it was not really relevant to her job now. The irony of it all made her grin,

Comma splice; semicolon?

here she was one of the very first people to fly a ship FTL, and she was already bored with the view.

Something odd! That small mass was still closing on their position. She adjusted the forces again to move away from it. Beyond belief the object continued to advance. That was definitely not right,

comma splice

no debris could do that. In fact, no object of normal mass could do that.

"Oh my god!" Her gasp was as involuntary as the twitching of her insides. "We got company!"

Persephone wondered if she should nudge the Captain awake before hitting the all hands alarm.

 

[alchemist]

Chrispy's done the details, so just a couple of points.

"Keeping all four forces balanced is the key." the taut man standing beside her intoned almost religiously.

At first I thought this referred to Saul. It took me a second read to realise it was Ben.

The Lucifer was forty seven days outbound from Earth and precisely 32 hours of that time had been spent traveling at greater than light speed. She, on the other hand had spent the past 2 years of her life studying, practicing and waiting for his moment. She had however, met the eyes of the fourth shift pilot Saul Meyers as he was leaving the bridge. He looked tired.

The "2 years" comment seems misplaced here. Perhaps add it to the bit about her being qualified. It might also be an idea to make her apprehensive when she sees how tired Saul is.

After that, it trots along quite nicely.

 

[J Riff]

Wow, only one science nitpick from Chris, must be pretty good.
Superliminal vectors!

 

[Boneman]

Aha! Fresh blood!! Good to see you've bravely plunged into the deep end of the pool - you should know how warm the water is, as you've contributed in the 75 word challenge, amongst others. Here's my (highly personal) opinion. It's no more than that, and as a fellow aspiring writer, feel free to ignore anything that doesn't gel with you. What do I know? I won't bother with the punctuation as Chris has done an excellent job, already.

OK friends, this is my first post for critique and I'm pretty freaked out.

I just started working on this yesterday and this is what I have so far. Seriously, to get the best from the critiquers, put up a piece that you've worked a lot more on; that's not a criticism of your writing, (as it's pretty damn good) but you want more than 'editing' from us. If this is a first draft, then it's impressive, but if you post too soon, there's a tendency to be knocked off-track by all the suggestions you'll get from others. Which can be confusing for you, when it contrasts with your original idea, and you can end up writing to please others and not yourself. Lecture over...
It's supposed to be a hard SF story. Let me know what you folks think.
******************************************************

Persephone Phillips settled herself into the pilots chair of the Lucifer. It was her first ever shift at the ship's helm, but that did not bother her too much because it was also only the fifth FLT piloting shift in human history. I had to read this a couple of times. We should all know that FLT means faster than light, but maybe the first time we meet it, it might be better to call it by its full name and then use the abbreviation? There's a lot in the sentence: first ever shift, the ship's helm, the bother, the 5th FLT, and human history. It's a good opening, but just a little wordy (remember this is just my opinion...). I think she should be, if not bricking it, at least a little apprehensive. It's only the 5th shift (don't ever use those two words close together) and her first time. The responsibility must be enormous - it's hardly a tried and tested routine, is it? But to go with your words, maybe if you broke up the sentence a little, viz:
It was her first ever shift at the ship's helm. It was also only the fifth FLT piloting shift in human history.
That way you leave the reader to make up their mind whether she should be nervous or relaxed. And you're going to bring in her thoughts any second now, which gives the reader more clues.

The Lucifer was forty seven days outbound from Earth and precisely 32 hours of that time had been spent traveling at greater than light speed. She, on the other hand had spent the past 2 years of her life studying, practicing and waiting for his moment. She had however, met the eyes of the fourth shift pilot Saul Meyers as he was leaving the bridge. He looked tired. There's something about 'She, on the other hand' and then 'She had, however,' that needs a tweak 'On the other hand' and 'however' and interchangeable, and I think that's what jars - which of the actions do you want to bring to our attention more? Personally, I'd drop the last sentence - there is confusion about the taut man, anyway. She'd have run through thousands of hours of simulation before being let loose on a FTL ship which is probably worth billions, so she'll know what to expect.

"Keeping all four forces balanced is the key." the taut man standing beside her intoned almost religiously.

She restrained the urge to remind her CO that she was qualified, "Aye aye, Captain."

Besides he was absolutely right. Keeping the ship moving at speeds defying both Newton and Einstein was literally a juggling act. F=ma and E=mc^2 both played a simultaneous role in interconnecting and cheating space-time.

"Just keep in mind Lieutenant, there are no worm holes or fictional warp drives here. We are moving though real space on a superliminal vector." Erm, this is for the reader, to inform them, but it makes it look like this is the first time Percy has heard it. BUT, it's only the 5th shift at FTL, so it could be brought in by a nervous captain, who hasn't slept, by him trying to make a joke of it, to calm his nerves, as much as the new shift. The 6th shift's 6th sheep's sick....

"Yes sir. I understand." She said, and responded more directly by making a slight adjustment to the local ship mass, compensating for the steady shift of gravitational forces surrounding them.

Benjamin Sidhain who? Where'd he come from? nodded his agreement and allowed himself to return to his own console.Where'd this pov come from? We were with Percy a moment ago. Just change it to 'nodded his agreement and returned to his own console', and we can stay with the delightful Miss Phillips.

Before this mission's training, she could not have even imagined gravity fields as variables. But she recalled, that was before the aliens gave us the Magi field and all it promised.I like the Magi field... sounds wise and magical at the same time.

According to their exotic and largely unknown benefactors this technology allowed direct manipulation of mass. Not to mention the side effects of controlled momentum and inertia. By maintaining a delicate equilibrium between variables is was possible to change the ships movements quickly and radically or to keep it moving though space faster than matter should.

For the next six hours seventeen minutes of her shift that's what pilot Phillips did. The Captain sat at the sensor console, monitoring her, the ship, the surroundings, plus she suspected, catching short cat naps. She didn't blame him or even think of reporting him for it. He had not left the bridge since hyper 'c' velocity had been passed. He couldn't have slept much, if at all those two days. That's good... but she should have got up for a wee, at least. Unless they're wearing reclamation suits, of course...

A small mass was entering the field, she altered the force matrix in that direction to bypass it. Coming to the significant moment of the piece, and perhaps tension could be added by removing the passive voice?
A small mass entered the field. She altered the force matrix in that direction to bypass it.
Looking at the visual monitorsIs there another kind of monitor to look at? she couldn't see anything, but that was hardly surprising. The massive Doppler effect was another reminder that they firmly remained in normal space.Normal? I thought it was superliminal, and moving faster than matter should?

Ahead of the Lucifer, the stars all crowded into the center of the screen, blue shifted into a dull glowing blur. The rear screen showed the same scene in a red shift motif. Using a combination of star charts and computer enhancement she could zoom in for much greater detail, but it was not really relevant to her job now. The irony of it all made her grin, here she was one of the very first people to fly a ship FTL, and she was already bored with the view. Erm, I'd move this para to before the one that starts 'A small mass', it would flow better by staying with the mass, rather than moving away and then coming back to it. I think.

Something odd! That small mass was still closing on their position. She adjusted the forces again to move away from it. Beyond belief the object continued to advance. That was definitely not right, no debris could do that. In fact, no object of normal mass could do that. I like the tension, but the almost conversational 'Beyond belief' and 'that was definitely not right' (unless it's really indignant) pulled me out of it. Whatif?
Something odd! That small mass was closing on their position. She adjusted the forces again to move away from it. The object continued to advance. No debris could do that. No object of normal mass could do that.
D'jer think it has more by having less? Rather than Percy telling us, we make our own minds up... I did, anyway.


"Oh my god!" Her gasp was as involuntary as the twitching of her insides. "We got company!"

Persephone wondered if she should nudge the Captain awake before hitting the all hands alarm.The words 'wondered' and 'nudge' are a little weak, given the context. This is high drama, and she's only wondering?? She should just hit the alarm, and maintain the tension you've so admirably brought in... [/QUOTE]

And that's my sixpennyworth: All my own opinions, and not to be taken as though I know any more than you do. Great to see the work, and well done for posting it. It gets easier, the longer you're on the chrons...

 

[TacticalLoco]

Thank you all for the tender critique. It is much appreciated.

I fixed the typos, comma splices (after I learned what they were) and more importantly, the super liminals.

Nik, you are so right about the shift lengths. I wasn't thinking. They have been shortened.

Chris, you are well spoken the grammer king and clearly I need a ruler.

alchemist, also correct about confusing the reader early on.
I have rewritten the opening and I think it's clearer and stronger.

Boneman, very good suggestions all around. Your ideas were part of the redone opener.
Most of all thanks for catching the POV switch, just lack of experience there, I hope.

*****************************************************
Finally, I'd like to include some notes on my notion of future science since
I have not yet been able to effectively get it across though the text.

Part of the Magi field includes tachyon based sensors. The field itself is a set of standing tachyon waves.
This is what allows FTL sensing of objects and EM waves.

In addtion, I keep coming back to the fact that the ship never leaves normal space-time.
What the drive does (I hope) is reduce mass as a means to overcome the implications of Special Relativity.
Because the ship is not in hyper or warp or worm hole space, the Magi field can observe data and create sensor read outs.

If that doesn't hold plasma, please let me know where I'm off in my science so I can work on it.

Much gratitute again for the help,
Tac

 

[Boneman]

Hmm... excellent propositions, and you've obviously given a lot of thought to it. But, the only thing that I'd question is this:

by Tactical Loco
In addition, I keep coming back to the fact that the ship never leaves normal space-time.

Surely the essence of FTL is that it involves going back in time? Engage FTL drive at 1430 hours and 59 seconds and shortly you've passed 1430.58,57,56,55 and so on. The light projecting those times has been overtaken. I think, if I remember correctly, that Frank Herbert got around it by having the navigators fold space - essentially jumping from one wave to another. Since planets are only viewed by the light that projects from them, there's a danger you'll run into one, if you don't see the light! But if there are tachyon waves, then Herbert's principles could apply just as easily. Let's face it, The enterprise travelled at warp speed, but had to do a slingshot around the sun to achieve time-travel, so the techyon filed will hold up just as well.

In the end it doesn't matter: the reader will accept "Engage the tachyon drive!" and the ships jumps space, without being told how it works... But if you have an idea fixed firmly in your head, your writing will appear entirely logical within the constraints of your universe. I'm looking forward to discovering more.

 

[Jake Reynolds]

Heya, I started doing a blow by blow, but then I realised that something was bugging me. I feel like we’ve joined the action too late. If I might be so bold, I’d suggest that you start with Phillips arriving at the ship, looking at it from the outside, meeting the crew and so on. It just kinda feels a bit rushed.

One point though- would notoriously superstitious ‘naval’ folk be a little apprehensive about naming the first FTL ship the Lucifer? Cool name, but not sure if it would be suitable for a flagship. They’d likely go for something inspiring, such as, ahem, Enterprise. Unless it is named the Lucifer because people don’t know whether they can trust ‘the aliens’ and so it reflects their concerns about the altruism of this “tempting” technology?

 

[Chaoticheart]

Isn't lucifer latin for light bringer or morning light? Perhaps that's why the name was chosen. The dawn is often a sign of hope or inspiration, so the name could work.

 

[TacticalLoco]

Isn't lucifer latin for light bringer or morning light? Perhaps that's why the name was chosen. The dawn is often a sign of hope or inspiration, so the name could work.

Yes, this was exactly the rational for the name.
However, to avoid any misunderstandings, I have decided to change the ship's name to Prometheus. They are very much in the same mythic role, but that name has no negative cultural baggage.

What do you think?

 

[The Judge]

Well, it's not exactly original for a star ship, unfortunately. There's at least one in the Star Trek canon, and it's an important vessel in Stargate. And it does bring the unfortunate connotation that it will end up chained to a rock with its innards being eaten!!

While I had no problems with Lucifer, there are other light-bringer myths which might throw up some less common names for you -- I'm a firm believer in trying to incorporate elements of non-european-derived cultures in SF to avoid the impression that only the West and its civilisations count by the time we reach the 23rd or whatever century.

While I'm here, though, can I ask you to think again about Persephone Phillips? I love the name Persephone, but (although I don't suppose it matters unduly) as sure as eggs is eggs lots of people will read it as Percy-phone not Pur-seff-on-y -- unless you intend to have a comic aside at some point with her correcting the name when someone reads it (or someone deliberately mispronounces it to wind her up). More to the point does the name arise out of her family background/situation/culture, or is it one that you've imposed on her because it fits in with the mythological elements you want to bring in to play? Anyway, at least reconsider her surname if you keep it -- the two together sound more than a little ridiculous, to my ears at least.

 

[TacticalLoco]

Thanks, Judge.
Actually the idea was to make her mythic and mundane at the same time.
Caught between two worlds as it was.
And either way the Lucifer or the Prometheus will definately lose it's liver. LOL.

StarTrek? Saw some of it but don't get any redo. Tell me if I'm horribly off.
Stargate? Never saw it. But I clearly do not want to repeat mythologic plot lines there...
More research and more help to come, I hope...

 

[Jake Reynolds]

Also, Ridley Scott's latest Alien related project is called Prometheus:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1446714/

 

[Boneman]

You could always call it Promestheus - sounds better, anyway!!

 

[The Bloated One]

I find this very interesting. I've two space ships in my novel and four years ago I named them Prometheus and Pandora....!

TBO

 

[TacticalLoco]

I've decide to damn the photon torpedos and return to calling her The Lucifer, it fits the story better anyway.