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Desolator12
03-05-2004, 01:25 PM
A Desolate Life

Chapter One


Betrayal


Rushing past the refinery, spewing smoke and turning the ore and gems we harvest into profit, I headed for the Briefing Room. Who am I? I am what the Soviets call the Desolator. Later, you will know why they call me that. Anyway, upon reaching the upper floor of the briefing room, I was met by my commanding officer, General Vladimir. He was laughing menacingly, and I noticed something sinister in his eyes. Behind him was a full squadron of Tesla Troopers, the units that shocked people with electric bolts from afar, and damaged them or killed them before they could fire off a single bullet. Then I realized it. He said to me, “Dezolatorz are uzelezz. Tezla Trooperz vil rule ze vorld!” then, like the coward he was, he ran off. The Troopers were starting to charge their tesla mechanisms, and I knew I had to act fast. Dropping to the ground, I put my Radiation Cannon, RAD Cannon for short, to the floor and launched a sickly, green beam of radiation. The effects were instant. The building turned a sickly green, and the people inside, except me, turned into a green puddle of radioactive goop. Before the last trooper went down, I felt an electric shock. One of them had managed to pull off a shot before they too succumbed to the deadly effects of the radiation.



After the last Tesla Trooper drew his last breath, fell down onto the floor, melted, and flowed into an air conditioning vent, I decided to de-activate the RAD cannon and leave the building. More likely, Vladimir would be back with reinforcements. I exited the building, and just when I was about twenty feet away from the building, I heard an earth-shattering explosion as the building behind me was destroyed. Then, out of the dust and debris, I saw something that truly sent a shiver down my spine…two Apocalypse Tanks.



As their barrels swiveled towards me, I knew I had to run or be destroyed in the inevitable explosion. There was a reason why I feared these tanks. The shells that they shot were so powerful they were equivalent to a miniature atomic bomb. Then, before the shells were fired from the tank, I remembered something. All tanks have a limited firing area, starting from about five feet in front of them. If I could get into that 5-foot area, they could not attack me. Also, they were slow, so the chance that they could run me over was unlikely. The cannon on the tank fired, and luckily, the tank’s aim was off. If it wasn’t I would have been dead in seconds. I decided to use this chance to run up towards the tanks. I knew that people would come out of the top and try to shoot at me with their own side arms, but I knew I could take them down. As I reached the tank, a gunner manned the pintle-mounted machine gun and tried to get a good shot off. Unfortunately, it’s hard for people to aim right when they’re glowing green and melting back into the tank. The other tank’s commander, not anticipating that maneuver hesitated to fire at me, not wanting to risk the loss of a perfectly good Apocalypse tank. I took this reprieve in cannon fire to get inside the tank’s heavily-armored shell. I got into the turret control station, swiveled the turret towards the tank, and before the commander in the other tank could respond to this, a shell hit the tank right on the cannon, rendering it a useless pile of shrapnel. Then, aiming again, I fired the last shell on the tank, aiming for the treads. The shell exploded, sending tons of dust and debris into the air surrounding the tank. When the dust cleared, I realized the shell had missed its intended target and instead cratered the area where it hit. However, the damage to the tank was sufficient enough that it could not fire. Apparently, the tank’s commander had not realized this and ordered the cannon to fire upon the commandeered apocalypse tank. The shell fired, exploded in the barrel, and destroyed everything inside the tank.



Upon exiting the metal behemoth, I surveyed the scene. One apocalypse tank had been destroyed, and another was not. I decided to take a few tank shells and wire them to explode the second the tank’s engine was started. On the horizon, I noticed a small black dot, and a droning engine sound. I realized this was my life, and that I needed to run it. Not some General, not another commander, but me. I turned up my RAD cannon full blast, and made everything within a mile of me green… nobody is going to kill me anytime soon. I’ll make sure of it.

Artificial Idiot
03-08-2004, 12:05 PM
Hmm, well Deso I have to say it's not a good start. You're writing style seems rather crushed up, having large blocks of text without spacing.
Also, there is no motive behind it. It just seems to be General Vladamir walking on saying "all your base are blong to us" and then running off, and everything that happens afterwards is just your main chracter doing a "Neo" on everything.

Just a bit of constructive criticism, no offence :\

Desolator12
03-08-2004, 08:54 PM
I'm telling you the truth on this one... A Sci-Fi writer, Sally Lowenstein (sp?) came to our school for teen read week... I gave her my story and, well, she wants to see the finished product :p

I'm working on a Prologue... that was one thing she didn't get... about the soviet union still existing and all that (curley) Jazz...


Hi Mark,

I am so sorry it's taken me all this time to write you about your story. Life got a little too full and I wanted to have time to write you more than just a line.

You are an excellent writer! Your use of vocabulary, the rhythm of your writing and the your imagination are wonderful. And those are three prime elements needed to be a good writer. I really liked both your story title and the chapter heading. They were both very evocative, and although people don't always think about it, such things are important as part of both structure, transition and mood-makers.

I know that the story isn't finished and so I don't want to get too specific yet. It's important to get to the end of the story and then rewrite and rework and in science fiction, it's important to reread for consistency, because without it, your story will fall apart. Because SF writers are writing about things that are not yet, they need to be very careful that everything is believable. That sort of brings me to the one thing I think would be worth changing in your story. The Soviet Union no longer exists and so setting the story in the future with the Soviets as the enemy is sort of odd. Also, don't spend too much time on a battle scene right at the beginning unless it is to give us insight into how the central character feels about the death and destruction of such a scene. We need to care about our characters right from the beginning, which means, early on it's important to know how our characters feel.

On the other hand, the scene is well described, the sequences clear with strong visual imagery. And that is a real accomplishment. I can't wait to read more of this story, which also means you have nabbed my interest and that too is important.

I hope this helps. I know how important it is to have other people read your work. You should definitely keep writing if this is an example of what you are doing. Are you interested in being a writer someday? Have you read much SF? Who is your favorite SF author?

I hope to hear from you again. Thank you for sharing your work with me. I feel privileged.

Sallie Lowenstein <--what she wrote to me...

sterio
03-09-2004, 05:34 PM
That is not a bad story at all. However, I've never been a fan of War Stories, or FanFic based on games (yes, that means I don't like most stories here...), but that aside, it's not bad at all...

Toxic10x
03-16-2004, 09:20 PM
hehe- sterio, i just read that post, then immediatly looked at ur sig- it was amusing :D

anyway deso, i hafta agree with AI. It's too haphazard. What are the characters motivations? who are they really? why are they fighting? Also, it does seem to be too... well, yeah, haphazard. For example-

" I am what the Soviets call the Desolator. Later, you will know why they call me that."

wouldnt that sound better as- "The soviets call me 'The Desolator'; you'll find out why soon enough." The wording needs to be reworked in a lot of places imo... (hmm, hoped i used teh semicolon properly... prolly not :p )

another example-

"Then, aiming again, I fired the last shell on the tank, aiming for the treads."

This time you may wanna make 2 sentences, or use a similie for aimiing perhaps, ie-
"I took aim again, and prepared to fire the last shell on the tank. This time, I targeted the enemy's treads."

anywho, keep workin on it ;)

Artificial Idiot
05-27-2004, 12:07 PM
Deso, something I thought of awhile ago but...

"Because SF writers are writing about things that are not yet, they need to be very careful that everything is believable. That sort of brings me to the one thing I think would be worth changing in your story. The Soviet Union no longer exists and so setting the story in the future with the Soviets as the enemy is sort of odd."

You mean to say she's a published SF writer and doesn't have a grasp of alternate time-lines/changing history? That strikes me as very odd, as it's a dominant theme in many SF novels. :rockbrow:

Sorry, for bringing this up, I just found that very, very odd.

Blue Aurora
05-28-2004, 07:29 PM
Nice...however it gives the reader too much of the RA2 feel, and it doesn't seem to have much of a story. :cool: :rockbrow: