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hboff
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Joined: 25 Jul 2004
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russ687
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Joined: 06 Aug 2004
Posts: 720
Location: Daytona Beach, FL
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 Posted: Fri May 13, 2005 3:18 pm Post subject: |
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Pretty good.
| You wrote: | | "So in conclusion we think that the Covenant will use this planetary chain as their main "lock" (Line of Communications) for further actions in the system," said the Commander of ONI in the System, a good General. |
With this being your opening dialogue for that particular section, you probably should have added a few things, and in addition, you made a few writing mistakes in there. It should be closer to this:
| I wrote: | | "...So in conclusion, we thing that the Covenant will use this planetary chain as their main 'lock'—Line of Communications— for further actions in the System." The ONI Commander said. |
(Changes in bold.) You needed that first comma, to change the full quotation in the middle of the dialogue to single quotation marks, and take of the parenthesis and add another form in there (the one I would have used is M-dashes). Be aware of the sutff I pointed out here.
1. No quotation marks inside a quotation; use single quotation marks instead.
2. No parenthesis inside a quotation, use commas or M-dashes instead.
Note: I've noticed a good number of authors doing this, but they use N-dashes (the short ones) where an M-dash (the long one) is really needed. Make sure that you use the correct one for any given instance.
| You wrote: | | "Ok," said the Marshal with an uncharacteristic smile. "That is our target," he leaned on the table. "This is my plan," when he finished explaining the bold, better, crazy plan all officer's jaws dropped. |
One thing to watch out for is repetition. Aside from the some teaking that could be done to this, using the term "all officer's jaws dropped" is not a verbatim repeat, but a repetition of a lesser scale. Use a different phrase to describe their surprise.
| You wrote: | | "Prepare to fire," the Captain calmly barked as he sat watching the screen, the low resolution image gave him a small picture of the Covenant formation. |
"Calmy barked" isn't the right description for this, since they are contradicting. Remember that describing tones and reactions are very important, and must flow as well as make sense in a technical matter. I understood what you meant, but there's a better way to describe stuff like that (i.e. "...the Captain said purposefully, his voice strong but silent...").
| You wrote: | | "All four Magnetic Accelerator Cannons are at one hundred per cent stretch, Heavy Explosive Armor Piercing rounds are in the chambers..." |
For starters, it's percent, not "per cent" (they have different meanings), and second, how can you have a Heavy Explosive Armor Piercing round? I know there are munitions known as "bunker busters" that dive through the ground and structure of a bunker and then explode, but when you're dealing with shields, how do you ensure that it won't prematurely explode (since a shield doesn't fail very time it's hit by a MAC)? It's not that big of a detail, but perhaps have them fire an AP round first and then an HE from the second Cannon to follow it up.
| You wrote: | | She watched closely the radar display; the Covenant had gone berserk after the loss of their capital ship and she loved it, as soon as the large green dot turned to pieces celebrations filled every compartment of the ship |
One thing to point out is that berserk, derived from the word "berserker", is of a man or force that goes crazy and charges the enemy; in your context you were using it as a substitue for just "crazy". That's just a minor detail you should watch out for. If the Covenant are suddenly charging the Fleet, that's fine, but I didn't notice you say that, so use another term for "crazy".
Overall, pretty good. Still noticed some GPS in there, most notably Grammer and Punctuation, so keep working on getting those aspects down. The content is pretty good, and your military dialogue (once again) is excellent. I felt a slight similarity to Red Storm Rising, the way you switched to the scene of that Major running from the enemy, so I enjoyed the piece. Keep up the good work.
-Russ |
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Andres
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Joined: 03 Jan 2005
Posts: 151
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| Posted: Fri May 13, 2005 9:26 pm Post subject: |
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| russ687 wrote: | For starters, it's percent, not "per cent" (they have different meanings), and second, how can you have a Heavy Explosive Armor Piercing round? I know there are munitions known as "bunker busters" that dive through the ground and structure of a bunker and then explode, but when you're dealing with shields, how do you ensure that it won't prematurely explode (since a shield doesn't fail very time it's hit by a MAC)? It's not that big of a detail, but perhaps have them fire an AP round first and then an HE from the second Cannon to follow it up.
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Yes, well sorta. There are HEAT (Heavy Explosive Anti Tank) rounds, basically a big shaped charge that was designed to kill tanks in the 60s and 70s before the APFSDS round came into play (APDS not being liked by most tankers).
Unlike HE, HEAT will proyect the blast forward against the target instead of "bouncing" on it. So I think it is the best round that a MAC should have, after all I think there was a "heavy" round described in TFoR. |
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Wiley K.
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Joined: 24 Dec 2004
Posts: 254
Location: Neutralizing the guards to 1000+ post land. They don't seem too competent.
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| Posted: Sat May 14, 2005 12:48 pm Post subject: |
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One minor detail:
The Captain said after the secnd salvo of MACs that if the Covies had sonar, they'd be screwed. No sound in space, so sonar would be useless. Seems a little primative for the Covies anyway.
Other than that and the aforemantiond GPS problems, excellent chapter.
9.3/10 |
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Andres
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Joined: 03 Jan 2005
Posts: 151
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| Posted: Sat May 14, 2005 2:05 pm Post subject: |
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Wiley,
exactly my point there. There is no sonar, I was refering to the loud sounds generated by the MAC shooting, a... joke... sorta. |
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Helljumper
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Joined: 31 Jul 2004
Posts: 298
Location: Pittsburgh
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| Posted: Sat May 14, 2005 3:18 pm Post subject: |
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I enjoyed reading it, the grammar did take away but the story is going well. YOu did a good job of showing the reader wats going on and how the battle is planned. keep it up
ODST |
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Anonymous
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| Posted: Sat May 14, 2005 5:49 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | "Nay sir, seems the MAC rounds took out the ship's ECM suit out," said with a sense of joy the Electronic Warfare Officer. The Captain slightly punched his armrest. "Right full rudder Helm," he relaxed on the chair and smiled. For what he knew the Covenant had not detected them. |
couple things wrong with that, first of all, I dont' really think in the military they say "nay" alot, try negative sir, instead.
Also you say right full rudder, there would be no rudder on a spaceship because space is a vacuum. If you wanted to indicate a sharp manuver say maybe, reverse berring 180 degrees and proceed at flank speed out system.
lastly for this section, how the hell could the Covenant not have detected them, they just blew up a capital ship and were proceeding at flank speed?
Now this next comment is sorta broad, but there were too many subsections in your chapter, you'd like write a paragraph then switch. The last big section was good though, but next time, try to beef up each individual section to at least 3 or 4 paragraphs. |
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Mainevent
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Joined: 30 Jul 2004
Posts: 796
Location: Mobel, Abalama
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| Posted: Sat May 14, 2005 6:38 pm Post subject: |
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Anyone here seen the last of the Mohicans?
If you ever wonder how a lesser armed foe can just get away with stuff, that movie proves it.
The british just took it up the butt in that movie. |
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Andres
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Joined: 03 Jan 2005
Posts: 151
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| Posted: Sun May 15, 2005 1:42 am Post subject: |
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"couple things wrong with that, first of all, I dont' really think in the military they say "nay" alot, try negative sir, instead."
The military don't the navy yes.
"Also you say right full rudder, there would be no rudder on a spaceship because space is a vacuum. If you wanted to indicate a sharp manuver say maybe, reverse berring 180 degrees and proceed at flank speed out system."
Its an expression, meaning that the ship will rotate as fast as they could.
"lastly for this section, how the hell could the Covenant not have detected them, they just blew up a capital ship and were proceeding at flank speed?"
The ship was on station dangerously close to a star where radiation makes imposible for active tracking as far as I know. |
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Odin of SoS.
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Joined: 27 Nov 2004
Posts: 85
Location: Iraq
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| Posted: Sun May 15, 2005 2:47 am Post subject: |
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| good job. looks like everything i noticed was mentioned. i just submitted a fic. dunno bout it though. been quite some time. keep writing killer |
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JCDentonCZ
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Joined: 14 Oct 2004
Posts: 381
Location: The Netherlands
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| Posted: Sun May 15, 2005 4:16 pm Post subject: |
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| Wiley K. wrote: | One minor detail:
The Captain said after the secnd salvo of MACs that if the Covies had sonar, they'd be screwed. No sound in space, so sonar would be useless. Seems a little primative for the Covies anyway.
Other than that and the aforemantiond GPS problems, excellent chapter.
9.3/10 |
I would like to forget that there is no sound in space, It just sounds...dull. A little unrealism cannot harm a story, if it only does good things, right?
- JC
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