machievelli Posted November 1, 2011 Author Share Posted November 1, 2011 Well, people, my computer crapped out so bad it won't even let me open it. I don't know how long I will be down, since the local library limits you to two hours a day, and I can't save documents there. The program to fix the problem costs $75 I don't have, and am not sure I can even get in the foreseeable future. I am stuck with running using the external memory and no links to any sites I go to. No news is not good news in this case; I will be back when I can be. I would ask one of our other mods to take over until I get back Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The_Catto Posted November 4, 2011 Share Posted November 4, 2011 Nooooooooooooo!!! I hope you get your comp fixed soon Mach! It just won't be the same if I post a fic and not having the one person I know that will critique it! Blasted technology. It's awesome when it WORKS. Good luck with everything! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
machievelli Posted November 12, 2011 Author Share Posted November 12, 2011 update on the situation as of 22; Will have to hustle to give plasma saturday (They are closed Thanksgiving day, my usual time) If I succeed, I am back up monday. If not, I will be up tuesday hopefully. Wish me luck... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
machievelli Posted November 23, 2011 Author Share Posted November 23, 2011 I merely updated my last post, so check it out Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
machievelli Posted December 3, 2011 Author Share Posted December 3, 2011 Back ujp, but again the computer had deleted about half of my postings for the last six months. This means I will be taking a week to gather them all up again to start where i left off. When I am fully operational I will be posting double articles as promised for the first three. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
machievelli Posted December 12, 2011 Author Share Posted December 12, 2011 Was able to get what I needed more rapigly then anticipated, but Yahoo which held all my bookmarked pages (including access to the posting side of Star Wars Knight where I also post) changed their system and deleted all of those bookmarks. (Sigh) So I will have it up as soon as an admin sends me the URL Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
machievelli Posted December 13, 2011 Author Share Posted December 13, 2011 Still waiting, but no reason why you guys should have to... The Coruscant Entertainment Center While I am starting where I left off some of the writers have added to their body of work, so I will review them in sequence, but add them to reviews of previous works so the readers can follow on. If there is more than one pick of the week, they will be marked separately both here and on the SWK site. A Living Instrument MsFicwriter SWTOR Continuation of TOR fic: Revelations about the find The piece explained a lot of what had gone before, and gives a chilling view of the Sith mentality. Pick of the Week. Followed by; Trust Me Regardless of her feelings and forebodings, the young Padawan is given over to a new master Except for one niggling problem, the piece is as good as what you have done before. That problem is the condition of Revan. As the Trandoshan pointed out, it is truly a shot in the dark, since you don't know if Revan is even alive. Without the cryostasis mentioned he would have died almost 300 years before. Pick of the Week. If you Want Peace... Under a new master, the Padawan's training takes a new slant The word 'this' in the sentence 'this in the training room' was redundant. Her question implied that meeting there was irregular already. The comments given by Alkonium are well thought out. I had the same feeling, as if her new master considered her old either incompetent or remiss. Suddenly changing the training regimen suggests that not all in the Order accept her new master's take on the situation. Very well done. Pick of the Week Duel of Fates Chapter 7 McClure777 Continuation of the ongoing work: After the crash, the pair struggle to survive. Since you consistently ignore the directions that would make the writing more comprehensible, I will merely make technical comments. One thing, Murky implies hard to see through. Water is murky, air is murky, trees are not. A bandage is not a prepackaged square of gauze or cotton, it it whatever you can use to bind a wound. The bandage was the first step in medical science that saved lives even when it was nothing more than boiled leaves plastered over the wound. A penetrating wound in the abdomen used to be a lethal blow. 90% of the dead on battlefields before the advent of surgery were belly wounds, yet you have two men, supposedly competent humans, one of them a combat veteran who ignore this damage, and don't even bother to reduce a sheet or sleeve from a shirt into something that might help. Then you give us the ominous comment about the wild life; right before they are attacked by all things, monkeys (And that is the correct spelling) about as non lethal as you can get, since there is no mention of claws or teeth. Duel of Fates Chapter 8 McClure777 Continuation of the ongoing work: New revelations about their captors It should not be local's, we know our party is unarmed, so just the mention of the spear is sufficient. The word is grimace, not grimmest. It is on their knees, not the possessive knee's. It's first (as in a sequence) not firth, which is a cove in a landmass. It is temblors (as in aftershocks from an earth quake) rather than trembles (as in the act of trembling). The way you had Gannor enter (diving) suggests head, not feet first. To go feet first he could have leaped or simply stepped off the edge. It is within, not with in, and dragged instead of drug. As for weapons, why pikes? The average pike is 12 to 16 feet long, making it too large to use when escorting prisoners. It is themselves, not them self's. With this piece you finally did something interesting, revealing a buried city and the survivors huddle around it. At least now we know how the locals have survived the so far not seen wildlife. I have been suggesting and suggesting to no avail about something as simple as common conversation and paragraph breaks. I think if I showed you what I have been saying all this time you might understand. Take just the part of that first huge paragraph as you did it, and visualize it like this... The spear's of the local's at their backs, Gannor and Arthur marched through the dense forest. "Where do you think they're taking us?" Arthur whispered, "Most certainly to their base." Arthur grimaced. “We need to get out of here!” “Shut your mouths!” One of the captors shouted as he jabbed his spear into Arthur’s back, Arthur gave a little cry as the sharp spear pierced his skin drawing blood. For nearly three hours Gannor and Arthur made their way across the forest, climbing over tree branch’s protruding from the ground, they pushed past rivers, getting drenched in ice cold water which only hurt more with the bitter cold now swooping over the moon. Arthur’s teeth chattered as he rubbed his arms in a attempt to keep warm, “How much further do you think it is?” Arthur mumbled. Gannor looked up at the sky to see the large moon, peering out from between a clearing of trees, it’s blue tint and glowing aura would amaze most travelers with out a doubt, he did not dare to look at Arthur as the captors would notice, he whispered back silently, “We’ve been moving for several hours, it can’t be much further, they don’t seem to be making any hint towards constructing a camp anyway.” Try it that way when you get the chance. It will make the reader's job less difficult. Across the Galaxy McClure777 A new series by the same author: Your first sentence is incomplete, and makes no sense. 'War was a disease, (So far, so good) a disease that the galaxy has no cure' should be; 'a disease for which the galaxy has no cure'. corrovet is spelled corvette, and as the Wraith Squadron book from the Rogue Squadron series pointed out a Corellian Tantive IV class corvette can only carry 4 TIE fighters, but could squeeze in nine X wings in the same space. It is supplies(Plural), not supply's(Possessive) have to be gotten planet side. You forgot lock when giving the order regarding the s foils during the intercept. Technical note: Rebel Academy? There has never throughout all of mankind's history been a rebellious force that bothered with creating a military Academy. Whether you say Mao, Ho Chi Minh, or Che, or for that matter Henry the 7th of England or George Washington, none of them had either the time or money to pay for an Academy. They were too busy fighting to win to waste the time and money on it. During even the more modern wars (Ho, Mao, and Che) the entire 'Academy' time was, 'this is your weapon, this is how you load it, and take care of it. Go forth and kill, my son'. In a rebellion like this you pick people to fly your fighters, and if they have even a smattering of training, have those who do know the systems get them up to speed. More like on the job training; you don't have the years an Academy would take for proper officers. West Point didn't start until 1802, nine years after our Rebellion ended. Our 'rebel Academy' was a band of advisers supplied by France led by Von Steuben and Kosciusko. The latter name came to fame again when the Russians invaded Poland in the 20s. Pilots from the US went there and fought as the Kosciusko squadron for the same reason Americans joined the Lafayette Escadrille during the first World War. Four fighters do not form a triangle, they form an echelon (Usually called a 'Finger four') or a diamond. The combat scenes were relatively well done, and the cockpit chatter was not to shabby. If you had been following and using my previous comments you would be edging up to my pick of the week, but all you get is an A for effort and a D for the work as a whole. A Tired Enquire to a Satire Type Entree.[/url Mr. BFA TSL on Malachor V: The final confrontation, and the Exile's poetry I enjoyed the middle part, but there is a reason I don't critique poems; mine are so bad that I do not feel qualified. The fight scenes were abbreviated, but that is acceptable, not everyone does a good action sequence. It's good having you writing again, kid. Squadron Legacy chapter 8 Sithspector Continuation of the Squadron Legacy storyline: After his crash, our hero evades pursuit Living beings or military units are decimated. Single people or fighters are not. The term was originally used by the Romans, who would enter rebel villages and kill every tenth man (Under Roman law, a man was at least 13, though there were instances of carrying it down to babies in cradles) while the more modern usage suggests a sizable loss. Inconsistently suggest no pattern to it, so it is not the correct wordage. I was surprised that he didn't notice the water temperature on his hands, since there was no mention of gloved hands scooping water. Technical note: The Chiss were not known to have been contacted until right before the Clone Wars. You had your character spend too much time destroying the ship. It would have been simpler to merely open the fuel tank as you described, then throw a flare into the pool of fuel which would have left him his helmet at least. Except for the comments above, the piece flowed well, and the beginning dream or memory set off his bleak situation very well. Pick of the Week Just Keep Running Chevron 7 Locke Requested re-review, originally reviewed 6 march of this year I enjoyed having Mission and Zaalbar rejoin the ship and the escape was icing on the cake. Only got as far as post 20, chapter V, but all in all it's an excellent read. Still don't know why Mical went to the dark side... Maybe they offered cookies? Pick of the week kotorfanmedia Training Rotgutt Pre Mandalorian Wars: Just an average training day... Not! The piece flows very well, the Exile (I assume) is a young self assured woman, with Malak as hot headed as ever, and Revan an amused spectator. Pick of the Week Acquisition Rotgutt Pre Mandalorian Wars: Two padawan are sent to collect a new hopeful The piece disturbed me because it harks back to the 'Jedi steal children' hype. The uncaring attitude toward the parent is also unjedilike. The child's reaction right down to throwing flatware with the Force was amusing though. Redemption ArchonDemetrus KOTOR on the Star Forge: The confrontation between Bastila and Revan The retelling is generic until Bastila almost falls to her death, and Revan saves her. From there it is very well done. His reasoning as to why he stays true to the light linked to one person, her. Pick of the Week Desuetude Rotgutt Post TSL: Confrontation between Bastila and the Exile at Revan's grave The piece goes from 'oh you knew him too' to a life and death struggle. The end is perfect because Atton wasn't there to witness why the Exile is so upset. Stargazing JoySweeper Pre Mandalorian Wars: Four young people spend the evening profitably, watching a meteor shower. The piece was light and fun, well written and polished. You can almost sit down with them and hear the interplay. Pick of the Week. The Fall of Revan, Chapter 1 - The Dxun Campaign Lambda237 Mandalorian wars: The battle of Dxun causes casualties as the Jedi begin to slip into apostasy The primary problem I had here was the Jedi fighting the war are falling to the dark side too quickly. This is after all the first battle of the war where the Jedi fought. The Paths We Take Starr Post KOTOR: Revan struggles with her nightmares I think you meant technically. You might have your auto-suggest on and merely accepted without noticing. Same with wondering instead of wandering and rein (Controlling harness for a horse) instead of reign (Time on the throne). Having this all play out in a soundproofed room makes you wonder if it really happened or was inside her head. Duty Jiara Pre KOTOR: Carth's last meeting with Saul Karath and the attack on Telos Technical note: As much as Starship Troopers uses the 'sir yes sir' pattern, having served in the military, the primary reason for using it was to make you remember to say sir to officers, and it isn't used outside of boot camp. The piece starts with the calm before the storm feeling, just two old friends meeting after a long time. But it moves swiftly to a full scale attack. Fanfiction.net Fate Pazaakgirl Post KOTOR pre TSL: Atton loses a bet, and ends up going to Peragus The piece is cute because there appears to be no reason in the game for Atton to be at Peragus. A Nice Day Louiseifer Post KOTOR: Carth and Revan visit Telos... sort of. Remember to do a sight edit; I think you meant suite (Room) instead of suit, though both would pass a standard spell check. I also wondered what you meant by groggy, again I think you meant foggy. The piece is slow and relaxing, and Carth adjusting and readjusting the climate controls for his own amusement were fun. While called slash by the author, a few seconds of editing would have made it hetero as there is little that reminds you of that fact. Reflections of a Dangerous Mind Red Ace Post KOTOR: Within Revan's mind a war is still going on, and we are not sure who will win yet Always remember to do a sight edit. When you are flying along typing your work, you might use the wrong word, and while it will be missed by a spell check, editing by sight usually catches it. I think you meant reassurance, not reinsurance. I'm not dinging you too badly on this; when I wrote my own version of TSL one of the people told me I had made a grammar error and it took me three WEEKS to find it, I was so sure she had been wrong. The piece is disjointed and confused. When you consider the character it makes sense that it would be; for the character is also confused, torn between love, and you will not love. Two thoughts resonated with me when I read it. First, that the two sides, Sith and Jedi are merely two different sides of the same coin, the other that loving this person might be the cause, and wondering who should take the blame for it. And Not to Yield Louiseifer Five plus years Post TSL (See Technical note): Carth decides to leave yet again The piece is poignant and sad, and not at all what I had anticipated. I was thinking of the late Harry Chapin and his song Cat's in the Cradle, where a man sees that his son has become a duplicate of himself earlier, but that is not what happened. Carth is there almost as a guardian for his son's family, and only when he leaves does Dustil understand that his father wanted him to stay with his family as Carth had not. The ending is perfect. Technical note: The reason I am ambiguous about how long it has been is because repairing all of the damage of a full bombardment leaving the devastation described in the game would be an enormous undertaking, almost terraforming the planet to return it to usability. That can take decades. Pick of the Week Tales of KOTOR The Onasi Legacy Dante-Raven Post KOTOR: Two men meet in a bar, one looking to kill Revan, the other to retrieve a family heirloom The piece surprised me a little. I thought for a while that the older man, Daggoth, was Carth in disguise; looking for a newly fallen Revan, but I was disabused when the newcomer named himself as Dustil. The idea that Carth's old blaster meant so much to him was poignant; we know Carth is dead, but the legacy goes on. There is more, four more chapters for those willing to expend the time. Unfortunately, I do not have it. Pick of the Week The very short Journal of Carth Onasi BlueFairyDust KOTOR on Taris: Carth's journal as the title suggests The piece was a riot! Carth is more worried about his Paranoid's Anonymous meeting to do more then mentally lambast the other members of the forming team, and even glosses over what happens. The escape from Taris is merely 'Finally got off Taris. Will spare you the boring details'. Another one I wish I had time to read all the way through. Pick of the Week Knights of the Old Republic The Jedi Order Hiromitsu Post TSL: Instead of going to the Outer Rim, the Exile stays to rebuild the order. Sweat and perspired are the same thing. Visas should feel vulnerable, not invulnerable. You're pushing the story a bit, making everything happening too fast. KotOR Don't Dis the Dark Lord LD Little Dragon KOTOR Among the Sith: When you read the title, you know it all... The piece was short and I was too busy laughing to notice it. The flow is so choice that you'll enjoy it immensely. Pick of the Week Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
machievelli Posted December 22, 2011 Author Share Posted December 22, 2011 The Coruscant Entertainment Heir to the Force Kado Sunrider Decades after Legacy of the Force: Luke's grandson is busy trying to pass his trials. The piece is well written, and intriguing. You do need to remember to sight edit for grammar, since the word is sic (As in setting the dogs on someone) instead of sick We have here the earnest young Jedi who hangs with a rather pushy friend. I was amused by his attempts to maintain his own virtue and just wondered if he was going to fall off the chastity wagon now that he's a knight. The Order of Darkness]The Order of Darkness Mr. Dad Centuries after the modern EU: A Jedi is sent to find a missing Ambassador as the Republic begins to break apart. Not enough to get a good feel yet, kid. But as MsFicwriter said, interesting take. Across the Galaxy Chapter II McClure777 Continuation of Across the Galaxy: A look from a ground pounder's view It's dyeing (Changing color) not dieing and here you should use the possessive planet's instead of the plural planets. Rains of fire, not the possessive rain's, and while the screeches belong to the wounded, using the possessive makes it sound like it is the other way around just as it appears the roar owns the cannon. Souls bear burdens, not expose them. A knock is a rap, not gazing at something in awe which is the definition of rapt. The sentence; 'She would nearly every night, have nightmares about the day she last saw her family,' is cumbersome. It might have been better as 'Almost every night was plagued with nightmares about the day she last saw her family,'. Rewriting the line will allow the work to flow better. Technical note: What kind of hide were the boots made from? Since Corellian means something from the planet, it reads as if they used some person's skin to make the boots. As much as the byplay between Zelka and the girl was amusing, I would call anyone who has fought since the age of 13 a veteran whether it has been four years or only two. It is a sad statistic that most combat deaths occur during the first 30 days of combat. That is why the US created the Advanced Infantry School at Fort Irwin back in the 80s, so fresh young soldiers face those first 30 days in a controlled environment rather than in real battle. It is also why you cannot wear the CIB (Combat Infantryman's Badge) without facing real combat; One man said it is the only medal you really need, because wearing it tells the onlooker that you have faced the enemy in mortal combat and lived to tell the tale. Setting up a rebel base facing off against an Imperial force like this does not make sense. In guerrilla wars, what they now call Asymmetrical warfare, the first two rules are; since your enemy is larger and stronger, you have to harry them, and that means no long term bases or mass attacks. How long would Al Qaida last if they had obvious bases? Also a rebel force requires supplies, and supplies must get through your enemy's blockade undetected. In the situation you've described, I as Imperial commander would simply blockade the planet with half a dozen Star Destroyers and their full compliments of fighters deployed long enough to drag a small moon (no larger than 6 kilometers, about two thirds the size of a Super Star Destroyer) and drop it on the planet. A meteor that big wiped out the dinosaurs, and would assure that the Rebels would have to move somewhere else, if they were smart. Second, you need to conserve your force while doing what you can to drain away your enemy's. Anyone who has survived as many years as have been mentioned (I'm not talking the decades since she saw her family, merely the years mentioned with Soul) would not eagerly agree to a plan that smacks of Douglas Haig (First Earl Haig) who lost over 2 million men because he consistently used tactics right out of our own War Between the States such as Pickett’s Charge but facing rapid fire machine guns. An officer who suggested a plan would not be an officer for long and I can't even see it being considered. You seem to have little grounding in warfare. Read up on the Battle of the Somme http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somme_1916 where due to poor Allied tactics, over a million men died in four and a half months, making it the bloodiest battle in recorded history. SW:TOR Friction MSFicWriter Chapter 11 of her ongoing work: Under a new master our heroine feels something is not right... I cannot see a Jedi master giving such an order. Stating that they are tool using beings but sentient sounds to me like the demonizing methods used by the Nazis and other groups that have practiced racial cleansing. It also smacks of Caedite Eos. During the Albigensian Crusade (Which has the distinction of being the only Crusade aimed only at Europe) where the Papal Legate, Arnaud-Amaury, when asked by a Crusader how to distinguish the Cathars from the Catholics, answered: "Caedite eos! Novit enim Dominus qui sunt eius" – "Kill them [all]! Surely the Lord discerns which [ones] are his". Or as a modern pundit during Vietnam claims an American officer ordered, 'Kill them all, and let God sort it out'. Like all your work so far, this is riveting and well worth the read. Pick of the Week Followed by: SW:TOR Part I Finale: Poetic Injustice Chapter 12 of the ongoing work: Our heroine is captured, and finds out about a traitor The piece surprised me only in that I did not see a Jedi master as a direct traitor. It flows well, and ends at that bleak note good horror does. Pick of the Week Followed by thew interlude before the next work: SW:TOR Interlude: Fatal Answers MSFicWriter Interim after SW TOR: CONFESSIANS OF A JEDI CONSULAR and TRIALS OF A SITH INQUISITOR: Enroute to her enslavement, Our heroine finally realizes the depth of her betrayal. The piece brings a lot of things together. It is almost as if except for her own master the entire enclave was part of the betrayal. Eagerly awaiting the next installments Pick of the Week She also scores a special Best of the Year nomination for the combined work. When I reached the end, I was reminded of a comment in a Teen Titan's episode. Brother Blood, who operated a school for criminal super students finds that the second best student he has ever had was operating undercover for the police. His best student, actually a Teen Titan named Cyclops had also been undercover. His frustrated comment to the revelation was 'didn't any of my students come here to study?' That was feeling I got from her Tython Jedi Academy. Smuggler's Return [CHAPTER 1] MrObiWan No specific Era given: A smuggler's new assignment may lead to his death. Remember conversation breaks. They will make the flow better for the reader. Not enough to get a good feel yet. Technical note: As I have mentioned to several writers, remember that not all of your readers will be game players. To grow as a writer, you must remember what is in the game, and what is canon. There are no stealth belts in the canon so far, and a med pac doesn't miraculously heal you. Smuggler's Return [CHAPTER 2] Continuation of Smuggler's Return: As the hero discovers that he has been set up, a bounty hunter is loosed on him. Again, conversation and paragraph breaks are needed. Technical notes: You have your character flailing around blindly, walking into one obvious trap after another. So let's take it from the top: You don't know where your cargo is. This is absurd, smuggling is a rapid turnover occupation; you pick up items at point A, and deliver them secretly to point B. You would not accept a commission where you don't know what you're picking up, or where it is located. Put it this way, if you're transporting military ordinance, you would know what you are carrying, and which specific base it is located in. Since this job also has snatch and grab as part of it, the man hiring you would have given the base, and any security arrangements you have to circumvent. What your character has done is accepted a blind commission being told only that it is at a base near the Capital city of the planet. Not very smart. Second; you merely walk into a local bar and ask 'which base has something valuable'. Again not too bright for a number of reasons. Undercover police also hang out at these local bars. It's like the scene in Star Trek IV where Uhura and Checkov (With that Russian accent) are asking passersby where the 'nuclear wessels' are. It was fun in the movie, but the motorcycle cop would have had them detained just because they are too flipping crazy to let them run around loose. If I were an undercover cop, I would have reported Baron, and before too long a lot of cops would be tailing them. Not every bar is linked into the criminal underground, and walking up to the bartender at Rave (A local nightclub) and asking this would get you escorted out. Also if it is connected, and you're asking that loudly, a local entrepreneur might hear you and decide to let you steal whatever so that he can then hijack it from you for his own sales. Even worse, any criminal organizations would be interested, because they would expect their cut. Read We Few by David Weber and John Ringo. In one scene the main characters, who are going to save the Empress by attacking the Palace runs straight into such a confrontation with the local mob. Their 'cover' would appear to the local police as a small time money laundering operation, which the police would only observe until they gather enough information. But the mob saw a money laundering operation that wasn't paying their cut as they should. This leads to their rescue starting eight to ten hours earlier then they had planned and at the same time needing to hire a hostage rescue team to save one of their members who has been taken as a lever to force them to pay up to the mob. Third: You leave your ship unprotected so it can be stolen. I know a smuggler would use the top of the line in security systems because most of the systems he would travel to would have hijackers ready and willing to steal his ship. Since you know this, and seem to anticipate that your patron is setting you up, you don't just park the ship and walk away. Not if you want it to be there when you get back. Fourth: Your villain wasted a lot of time setting the bounty hunter on his target. It's not like Jabba the Hutt or the Empire setting bounty hunters on Han Solo; they are being paid to do part of the Empire's job, to find their target. Your bad guy knows where the target will be and when. It would be easier to hire him before you set Baron up, and have him waiting at the docking bay to catch Baron when he returns to find the ship missing. It looks like I am going to have to write an article on Smugglers and Bounty Hunters now... Fifth: The local authorities would be very interested in why Baron is being hunted, and would have been glad to help, but not for money. They would have had a known smuggler in hand, who could help them break a smuggling ring. Fanfiction.net The Return Lord Europe Post TSL: Revan finally returns The piece starts out well, but then sort of lays there. The end was where it began to make sense. Technical notes: Coruscant, as you have mentioned, has thousands of ships arriving and leaving, but to have such traffic you would need traffic control. Anything smaller than a transport could break out of those lanes, and while it would be noticed, it would be like someone running a red light; noticed but except for a fine, not worth thinking about. But a ship headed for a specific destination, such as the Jedi temple would have to notify traffic control, and get permission, which means the temple would have been notified. Think of flying into LAX and changing course to land at John Wayne International in Orange County instead. You would have to get permission to leave the landing queue at LAX, then get permission to join the one for JW. If you tried to land without such clearance, you'd have police and the FAA on your butt. Second, since most of the primary enemies of the Jedi also have Jedi style powers, they would not have head blind security officers on their landing pads. So having him land illegally then use a mind trick to pass him would not have worked. The opening scene used as a teaser for TOR required a ship to be inbound that only had to make one mad dash to attack the temple, a lot easier to do than what you have described. Coruscant Knights XionIce No specific era given: A Jedi team foils an assassination, then find they have more troubles... The scenes were well written, but there were too many things I could not accept. To start with, you have three Jedi, and the tallest is only 7 inches tall. This is a mini-Jedi. I think you were going to make him perhaps 5'7”, which would have fit better. After all, a Jedi who is only 5” tall (The shortest one) would not cause a woman's heart to flutter, unless it is Thumbelina Organa. Second, such a meeting would have security, and no unauthorized personnel would be allowed in with weapons. It's true of Congress now, and it would be even more true with what Star Wars would consider as weapons. Technical note on Jedi: The idea of a Jedi Weapons master might fly in the game, but you don't see a character in the canon that matches this. I commented on the same problem with other such characters when someone used Jedi Sniper and Brute. It reminds me of an episode of the Japanese Anime Series the Slayers where the main character, Lina Inverse sees her sidekick escorting a young girl and she asks, 'What are you? The Barbarian Babysitter?' On Stealth: While stealth belts are common in the game, they are nowhere in the canon. To conceal a human sized form you would need too much energy. A full suit to make such a field would be more like the Predator, and people would notice a figure that matches the surroundings if he is moving merely in the ripple effect as he passes. On gravity: Assuming leaping down 23 stories of distance (assuming 2.5 meters per floor as in story) assumes 57.5 meters of distance and a standard Earth gravity of 9.88 meters per second per second, it would have taken him just under four seconds to fall that distance. No Jedi trick is going to violate the laws of physics that blatantly. It would have been more logical to have him hiding in her pod. The byplay between the brothers, as rare phenomenon in the genre was choice, and worth the read all by itself. I wish I had time to read it all. Moment Vikung-Fu KOTOR After Leviathan: As she goes into captivity, Bastila finally admits her feelings. A light year is a measure of distance, not time alone, just as a foot-pound is a measurement of both weight and distance. The piece is a brief interlude before Bastila is tortured into falling to the dark, and it is interesting that she is only willing to admit her feelings at this point. Pick of the Week Last Love Song Vikung-Fu Post KOTOR: On death watch for Helena Shan, The two ex Jedi consider what they have lost and gained. Few suggest that Bastila and Revan would leave the order after their adventure. Whether they return or not is not considered, only the moment. The last line is indicative of the mood; that Jedi are just like everyone else at heart is well considered. Pick of the Week The Liar http://www.fanfiction.net/s/2910927/1/Republic_Commando Republic Commando Sayukiz Fanz Remember to do a sight edit, you put in think instead of thing for example. Later on you have 'where not when you meant we're not. Also, watch comma placement. "Incoming Spider droid, Sev Blast that thing to hell" Should be "Incoming Spider droid! Sev, Blast that thing to hell" While a lot of grenade are round, describing it as a round thing first would suggest that no one knows what it is until Boss tells them. The escape made no sense because why would the enemy have left a weapon on a captured prisoner? The action is fast paced, but too confused to be real. You also have a problem I do, which is writing so fast at times that you forget words, like where you leave out man or merc or whatever when Tarful puts a bear hug on him. Star Wars Galaxies: Jahdi Asaji Star Wars, set during the Rebellion: A sheltered girl gets a serious dose of reality The piece was good and abrupt. It starts with someone reminiscing about what her father had said, and leaps immediately to a man dying before her eyes and the aftermath. It is far too short to gauge the author's skills normally, but the piece just reaches out and grabs you, ramming your face into what has happened as if saying, 'this is what war is all about'. Pick of the Week Regrets Dranzen Five years Post KOTOR: In a prison cell, Revan remembers her reconciliation with Carth on Manaan , her twins, and how she left Republic Space; all with no regrets. Remember to sight edit, especially for words you might have forgotten such as the line 'I couldn't (Hold) any of what had happened before against him'. The author admits that it is confusing, and it is. But it is almost a stream of conscious thought as she is imprisoned, and has nothing better to do with her time. Very well done. Pick of the Week The Masks We Wear Sandra Evans Post KOTOR: Beware what hides below the mask, even if it is merely her face... The piece delves deeply into why Revan (As dark lord) wore a mask, then, when she had been redeemed, why she had created a new flesh mask to hide what she is. The problem is, was Revan redeemed? Or is she merely the dark lord reborn? kotorfanmedia The Liar Bonds of Faith: Darth Revan, Dark Lady of the Sith HitokiriShadow Pre KOTOR: Darth Revan considers what has drawn her to this moment. The writer does some good technical work, yet the theme of it did not appeal to me. The True Sith come across like the Conspiracy theories about the Zionist World Conspiracy, the Masons, or the always pervasive Illuminati; every ill came from them. The main character claims membership, but is refusing to follow orders to the hilt. She has instead fallen in love with what her orders have commanded she destroy. As I said, good technical work, so it is worth reading. Beloved ArchonDemetrus Before Exar Kun War: Jolee meets the woman he will marry Remember to sight edit. You used tore when you should have used torn, where when you meant weren't. Technical note: The Chiss were not contacted until right before the Clone Wars. The tone of the story was fun. Even though adversarial, the byplay between Jolee and Nayama was cute. Both of them trying to one up each other right down to him carrying her because she refused to go with him. Pick of the Week A Smuggler's Story, Part 1, Endar Spire, Chapter 1 Darth Bubbles Pre KOTOR:A smuggler settles in on the Endar Spire Technical note: Read my article; Ship nomenclature, or; It's not a door, it's a hatch blast it! Over at Lucasforums Coruscant Entertainment Center, in the Resource centre. The piece was short, but cute. Most of what is happening is merely background so far. Sidekicks DarthJuma Mandalorian Wars on Dxun: Malak had to deal with HK, and does deal with him eventually The piece was all dialogue, and caused me to crack up several times. As Verna Jast commented, the idea that Malak came up with; that Revan had built HK to get even for him decapitating her doll as a child was fun. My favorite lines were: "Why am I even talking to you, droid? You aren't a real sentient being. You're a thing. A noun. An object. I might as well be talking to that tree, or those coconuts. Hey coconuts, are we going to show those mandos or what?" "Statement: Your logic is faulty, pet of the master. I am a protocol droid with exceptional communication skills, designed to resolve conflict between sentient parties. If you speak to me I can draw on over two thousand topics of conversation in major galactic languages. Whereas: If you talked to coconuts, you would be crazy." Then: "Mockery: Oh master, the Jedi council will throw us out for sure, but rip off your evil cape and be my Onderon beast rider! Grrr rarr!" "--and that sounds nothing like me." Followed after sound effects by; "In any karking case.. I'd make her leave the damn cape on." Pick of the Week Eyes of the Shadow Yagr Pre KOTOR on Taris: A mysterious stranger delivers wounded Republic troops to the clinic. The piece grabs you and takes you along as the arrival of the escape pods also heralds injured troops. The mysterious stranger never says who he is. Like the Good Samaritan, he delivers them and departs with a cryptic comment. Stricken RogueLadySabyne KOTOR after Leviathan: The Carth deals with Malak's revelation in a different manner. The piece is an alternate reality version of what could have easily happened. My own take on Carth after this was a killing rage, but still trying to justify it to the rest of the crew. This one has him not caring what anyone will say. But you're left hanging. Will he pull the triggers? Moving Out Ravenrand16 18 years post KOTOR: Revan considers all the memories a father has of his child The piece is upbeat and poignant, a daughter leaving home, and her father dealing with it as you would expect, by falling apart. Pick of the Week Unwanted Fall Jaina Solo KOTOR No specific period mentioned: Within her mind, Bastila fights to survive An excellent take on Bastila's mind. Helping or controlling how Revan's mind is saved must have affected her as well, and we get to see it here. Pick of the Week Coming Out of the Dark, Chapter 1 Trask has a Crush SilverSentinel21 Pre KOTOR aboard Endar Spire: In the calm before the storm, everyone goes about their business. The piece flows very well, the characters fleshed out to a T, and polished smooth. The unintentional interplay between the characters makes it a refreshing read; Trask leering at her, and her unwillingness to admit her empathy, Carth realizing that this unknown girl is secretly watching him, and the Jedi secretly watching her, even her willingness to break the regulations to finish her repair job and her anger at hoping to meet a Jedi, then finding the one she spoke with was short with her. The characters came alive, which is what a good writer is supposed to do. Pick of the Week Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
machievelli Posted December 25, 2011 Author Share Posted December 25, 2011 For all those interested, and those of you I have begged for assistance, I tried something incredibly simple, and am back up again. All right, everyone say together; Mach is a flake, Mach is a yo yo. If his brains were dynamite, he wouldn't be able to blow his own nose Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Writer Posted December 28, 2011 Share Posted December 28, 2011 How about I say something else? Something like, "Good to have you back, Mach!" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
machievelli Posted December 30, 2011 Author Share Posted December 30, 2011 The Coruscant Entertainment Center Knowing Moynal KOTOR: KOTOR meets Groundhog's Day The piece for any who have started, then began again after their character died fits what would happen if you had gone from the Endar Spire until you die on the Star Forge, then start again. The author makes changes, refusing to train as a Jedi, refusing to give Bastila information on Tatooine, then the carnage on both Kashyyk and Manaan. All because the character wants the love of Bastila. The story, laying it out as you have reminds me of the movie Groundhog's day where Bill Murray goes through the same day over an over until he finds that one perfect day. Very Well done for a first attempt. Welcome to the forum Pick of the Week Across the Galaxy: Chapter 1 and 2 (Edited Version) McClure777 Remember to sight edit. I think you meant yield rather than wield. It is each other's love. It's pursuing, not persuing. When you wrote 'You never had a girl in mind when at home Kyle?" Kyle chuckled, "Why?" He then laughed, "Might as well just find a woman I’ll hate in five months and give her half my money.' you forgot a conversation break at 'Kyle chuckled,' because the previous conversation was William speaking to Kyle. Technical note, in an airplane, and by extension a snub fighter, you push forward on the throttle to accelerate. The stick controls maneuvering. Please go back and read the reviews I did previously. Remember that a guerrilla force such as the Rebellion does not have time to send you to an Academy. Look at the first Star Wars Movie. Luke went from being some kid from a backwater planet to a fighter pilot in only a few days, because you do not have that kind of time. I thank you for understanding what I have been saying. The work is ten times as effective as it was before. While I cannot grade all of it so, for the space battle, I say, very well done. Pick of the Week kotorfanmedia Facade and substance BobGens0001 Post KOTOR: Bastila and her 'padawan' have an important mission to carry out The piece is fun in a skewed way. Mission equating this new planet to what she is used to in a negative manner, the explanation of why 'pet gizka' is a derogatory term, and the banter between Bastila and her love all counterpoint fun things ahead. I wish I had time to read the three follow on chapters! Pick of the Week Restoration Dinah Lance Post KOTOR: Bastila's assignment to Telos is more of a rest cure The piece flows very well. Carth is harried by his duties, worried about Czerka involvement, about the woman he cared about coming across as indifferent, then having Vandar dump her rehabilitation in his lap. A roller coaster ride. Scenes from Telos DarthJuma Post KOTOR: An old friend commands Telos station at the moment, and he's watching a new arrival... As other commented, this explains why Mical contacts Carth of all people when he meets the Exile. Having Him claim the name of Matale was choice, since I couldn't see Shen as a medic. The descriptions of the traffic, people going from here to there usually with one hand out to grab what they can, fits every bus station and airport I have ever been in. Sidelines SkyePrism KOTOR On Taris: Carth watches as Tatiana fights in the arena Technical note: The problem I have with the game is that things like healing are done with medpacs. You see I am an old gamer who cut my teeth on Dungeons and Dragons, and all a medpac in the game is in reality is a healing potion spell or scroll; I.E. magic. But using them that way in a story detracts from the flow, and give it an artificial feel. Beyond that the scenes flowed well, and the drunk commenting on the reactions of Carth before the fight, then to Tatiana after it was choice. Carth's reactions were of the 'lady does protest too much, methinks' variety. Reunion Revan Wannabe Post KOTOR: As everyone else's lives seem to have settled down, Bastila has to deal with finding her sister. Inserting another acrimonious relationship; this one between Bastila and her sister is merely icing on a heavily frosted cake. I'd like to see where it goes from here when a Jedi has to track down a bounty hunter. Talk about role reversal. kotorfanmedia PhoenixNovelist Pre KOTOR: The main character has a slightly skewed view of reality... The author creates a unique viewpoint. The main character is bound for the Endar Spire, but when she sees Bastila remembers Revan as her brother. Yet we, the outside observers know better don't we? A Single Star Ghando Pre KOTOR: Remember to sight edit. You used strait (Narrow) instead of straight several times, there instead of their, and noded instead of nodded. As others said, an interesting subject for a story. Rukil, the boy once of the surface, long before he became the one holding the legends of their deliverance when Revan arrives. Legacy Verna Jast Mandalorian Wars: Revan and many of the female Generals discuss the situation with a delicious twist The author's disclaimer; including that the Exile was NOT of this number threw me, then when I read it, it reminded me of my own Irreverent thoughts over at Lucasforums in the Coruscant Entertainment Center, specifically posting #6 Where Anakin is showing his 'love' of the people. I ended in my mind with one thought; were all those memories of a child just one mother or more? Silence Is Copper-toned Rose07 Originally reviewed 23 Dec 2007. That review is below listed as following ‘Future’s End” ”Slow Dissolve” and ”Lost and Found” by the same author, though it was posted before the last listed. With Katrina (Revan) going somewhere, her daughter by Carth Onasi reprograms HK47 with humorous results. She’s done it again! I have yet to read anything of Rose’s that I have not liked. I just wish I was as prolific. Reprise Pick of the Week For Her Own Good Prisoner24601 Pre Mandalorian wars: Maybe this is why they said Anakin was too old... When I saw the title, my first thought was of the song from Man of La Mancha 'I am only thinking of him', where everyone is thinking of destroying Don Quixtoe's dreams by replacing them with reality. And it did not disappoint. Like a lot of the author's works, this is head and shoulders above the competition. The ten year old Revan's grandfather trying to make this a business proposition, right down to trying to bribe the Jedi council. Her reaction, shredding his art collection even to his 'why did you think that' reaction when she says 'it's all because of what I have cost you', and his final 'she'll come back and take over' thought is both wonderful and appalling in it's manipulative tone. Well worth the read. In fact, the posting reminded me of another song from that same score, 'The Impossible Dream' which is what I see as Revan's attempt, both in falling and redemption to achieve the perfect world. It brought me to tears as I watched the youtube renditions, both by Peter O'Toole and Placido Domingo. Pick of the Week Abandonment Verna Jast Pre KOTOR to the Endar Spire: The evolution of one of the enemies The piece has an interesting Premise, that Darth Bandon was related to Dustil's love in the Academy. It flowed very well, the reason for the Sith landing and capture of locals well suggested. Having him be Selene's brother was just icing on the cake. Pick of the Week Activation Blaine Averre Pre KOTOR: The first few hours of HK's 'life' The piece flowed well, and HK is as much riot here as he is in the games. His comments about a father with children (That he should get life insurance) and an old nonthreatening granny {He'd bet on how many times she bounced if thrown down the stairs) is topped by the term we all know so well, created by of all 'people' HK himself. Pick of the Week Fanfiction.net The Shadow of the Hunt Jellianna Darquefyre During the Rebellion against the Empire: A bounty hunter collects his bounty, and another assignment As a reader I thoroughly enjoyed both the courier's reaction to Ienna and the 'distraction' of the pair on stage, but then I was confused by what film would call a 'fast cut' to Coruscant, then to the Emperor's entry with no notice. Such rapid changes in location should be avoided without notification, since the reader will have problems making the jump. Technical Note. The term staccato assumes more than one note, so a single shot cannot be staccato. The piece except for the flow mentioned before the technical notes is very well done. Each segment, if broken to allow the reader to follow would have been excellent. Pick of the Week Men Don't Cry Sandra Evans Five plus years post KOTOR: Remember to sight edit. You used the wrong words several times. I will not point out where, because it will be more fun to see how long it takes for you to find them. The piece is fun because you have two versions of Carth. You have the man who holds things together back in the Republic, then the man who lays in his bed, and has a dream of his love, who cries because she cannot be with him. Beyond the complaints about sight editing, it was wonderful! Pick of the Week Reflections Sandra Evans Six year post KOTOR: Revan remembers the past Remember to sight edit, and here I will give a clue: you have artifacts 'from' Juhani instead of for. The artifacts on her shelf suggests that others gave them to her, not the other way around. It's taut (Tight) rather than taught (Learned) The piece flowed but not as smoothly as it could. Her memories of what it was with overlays of what would be six years later when the Exile's crew had taken the ship, and Canderous, the unchanged element that infuses both. Well worth reading. Pick of the Week In The Twilight Kingdom Louiseifer Post KOTOR: After Revan leave to go to the unknown regions, Carth wonders what will happen next The piece is deep introspection to a T. The author has a lot to say about what war is and does to those who are part of it. The problem is, like a lot of the peace movement, the author acts as if every part of war taints the soul just because you survive it. The character, however seems to accept this, and merely hopes that when Revan returns, there will be something left to hold on to. kotorfanmedia http://www.fanfiction.net/s/2913844/1/Lunatic_Fringe Lunatic Fringe Cadillac Cowboy Pre TSL: Drinking to forget doesn't always help. The dream segues in so smoothly that you're not sure if the dream starts with the pazaak game or when she was drinking. Power Of Love JediSerenity82 Post TSL: Revan returns from the Unknown Region, unsure of what to expect Technical note: comatose is the state of being in a coma, not the coma itself. The piece has all the angst you might expect from returning after a long separation, with the added interplay with Atton being obtuse, and the Exile grinding her heel on his foot for his thoughtless comments. Carth dropping everything he has to do to spend time with her is touching. Heart of Darkness Louiseifer Pre Mandalorian War: Revan and the Exile hunt an animal on Deralia. The piece is confusing, making you wonder what is happening. The Jedi chase an enemy able to hide from them, and showing up when it wills, to only die far too easily. Return of the Exile SolidSnake19 Post TSL: As Bilbo Baggins said, won't the adventure ever end? You are not de ranked, you are demoted. A nice touch having Vrook demoted because of his treatment of the Exile. Question, how did the Masters survive? Having the masters ignore the 'there is no emotion' so blatantly was a bit hard to accept. Remember to sight edit; you used sacred(blessed) instead of scared (Frightened) I say this because you can use the wrong word, and if it is in your spell checker, the system will ignore it, such as when you used were instead of we're when Atton said 'we're in'. The more in 'Cause I'm more smarter.' is redundant. extended there should be their. Technical note; comparing their length when activated, a force pike would be more dangerous in close quarters (As in to each other) than light sabers would be. If it were a real battle, it would be better to have the lightsaber because it is easier to maneuver in close quarters. The piece is a nice slice of life following the game. My favorite part was the reaction of Atton when he loses his bet with Visas over the Exile's reaction to her being pregnant. The biggest problem is that you are dragging it out too far, having us go from arriving to 16 months later. This would have been better breaking it into a second chapter after Visas admits she is pregnant. A Funny Thing Happened to Me Kendoka Girl KOTOR aboard the Star Forge: A dead man switch? The piece flowed well, except for jumping back to the start once. The idea of setting up a dead man switch, that Revan had set up so that he would die, and destroy Malak's victory when he did was choice. However turning Malak Revan and Bastila into the three wise men was a bit much. The Chance of a Lifetime Bald As Malak TSL on Malachor V: The confrontation bewteen Atton and Mikal for the love of the Exile The piece flowed well, the fight scene very well done. However the end, one dead, the other now dying because Sion is on the scene fell flat for me. Couldn't the Exile have said something before he died? Sweet Dreams Ella Nutella KOTOR before Leviathan: Revan has an odd dream, and it goes down hill from there The piece was confusing starting with a dream of Brad Pitt and her attempts to get back to the dream is most of what is happening. By the end she has pretty much alienated every one in search of Brad Pitt. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
machievelli Posted January 8, 2012 Author Share Posted January 8, 2012 Last week I accidentally labeled The Quest For Absolution by PhoenixNovelist as Kotorfanmedia due to an improperly coded URL. However if anyone clicked the link, it went to the right place The Coruscant Entertainment Center SW: TOR: Trials of a Sith Thrall: Absence of Lies MSFicWriter Sequel to CONFESSIANS OF A JEDI CONSULAR: The Sith guarding our hero explains what will happen, and this disturbs her more than captivity The author is building on a foundation of good work, and doing it well. It could use a bit of polishing, but I would say that about anything I have ever read. The ending was intriguing, like Harcourt Fenton Mudd wiping out the android simply by saying 'I am lying'; do the Sith only lie? Pick of the Week Fanfiction.net Through the Looking Glass PhoenixAsending TSL Parody: The Exile runs head on into Wonderland... Who will win? Having enjoyed both fictions in my time, I enjoy how the author blended them. Having Visas as the dormouse freaking at the 'C' word, though the jam on her nose was never adequately explained. Having her kiss the Cheshire Cat (Atton) a number of places but never the lips until it is him again was very fun. Very good work. Pick of the Week Entanglement Louiseifer TSL aboard Ebon Hawk: Bao Dur and the Exile remember the steps that led from the war to Malachor V. The piece is very introspective from both points of view. Each forged in the fires of war, and made them inseparable. Hoth: Our Time In Hell AzureBlu Most likely before TESB: A soldier assigned to Hoth enumerates the frozen hell he inhabits. Yeti is an earth term; though though if someone wants to use it as the name of a creature, I won't complain. The piece is a vision of a slice of living frozen hell. The character wishes for whatever peace he can gain yet you can see it is merely surviving that is the victory. Tales of KOTOR: Chapelle meets KOTOR Dante-Revan KOTOR Parody: David Chapelle is inserted into KOTOR with surprising results The parody is cute, but my problem is Chapelle leaves me cold. Interjecting his humor into the situation does not interest me in the least. Assassin Darth Garak No specific period given: HK carries out one last mission Technical note: The sniper term is 'Good shot picture'. Not 'good aim'. The piece is fast paced with a killer trying to eliminate four targets separated by distance. The primary thing bothering me is why HK is suddenly working for a Hutt crime lord. A Silent Wish Vanish1318 Pre Mandalorian war: A young Jedi has her own unasked wish fulfilled The piece is a nice slice of life view of who I would assume will grow into the Exile. Seeing her as a girl who never thinks she will be good enough is a refreshing change. The only negative story wise is what I considered a circular argument regarding why Jedi students train to fight; They train to fight so that when they become Jedi, they can. However most martial arts instructors say that the training is not to fight, but to avoid the confrontation. Except for those that learned their skills in military training, most of the teachers I have met are calm people who could break you in half without breaking a sweat, yet see no reason to hurt you unless you force them. This is because they stress the discipline and control over the body count. kotorfanmedia Anniversary Jiara Mandalorian Wars: Carth gets that certain jacket, after forgetting his anniversary The piece flowed very well and we get to see not only Carth's reaction to the jacket, but every one else who see it too. You get the feeling of the love he had for his wife during the call. Technical notes: While rules are relaxed during off time, having an airman (low rank) attempting to strike an officer would not be allowed. Also even during off duty time, no airman would speak so disrespectfully to a superior officer as happened in the com queue. Having the officer delivering the mail demand that Carth open it in front of everyone was well done, right down to quoting the specific regulation. At first I thought Morgana had sent the jacket merely as a distraction until she seemed so enthused about it. Life Wish Allronix Pre KOTOR: Mical finds his true calling The piece is well done, but I would suggest studying manuals on emergency procedures. The first step is triage; where you separate out the ones likely to die, and set them aside. You do not do triage later when you have a survivor who has a sudden remission. The process sounds heartless, but if you have three people, one likely to die in minutes, another able to wait, and one who needs serious work, but can recover, you have the lesser injured wait, and set aside the one who will die unless you can save him in the minutes he has left. Remember that every second you spend working on a lost cause could have been spent working on someone likely to survive. Your depiction of Jedi creating a medical means to stunt the growth of a child's ability to access the Force seems more heartless than anything I said above. 'A master doesn't want to train you, so we're going to rip the Force away' doesn't sound like a Jedi attitude. To my mind the ones who had too small a count of Midi-chlorians would get this; too many to be normal, but too low to make a Jedi. Serpent Sublime Ethereal Pre Mandalorian wars: Was it seduction or simple unwillingness to resist? The piece is deep introspection, Malak looking back, and seeing his initial fall, but you come away still unsure as to why he fell. Telos Plutospawn Pre Mandalorian Wars: The family of young Carth Onasi has to get used to Telos instead of Corellia. An interesting look at the life of a young Carth Onasi, far separated from the wars that follow. Here it's just a young boy upset by moving. As someone who joking says if you can name a states west of the Mississippi I have not lived in (With the exceptions of Ohio, Alaska and Hawaii) I'll eat it without salt, I understand his irritation that home is not where you were, but where you are now. Life and Times According to Griff P. Vao Plutospawn Pre KOTOR: If only rationalization explained everything The piece is an interesting look at life when Mission was a young child being sort of protected by Griff. It makes you wonder what might have happened if Griff had turned out as a good guy. The Jedi Civil War - Part 1, Chapter 1 JCarter426 KOTOR On The Endar Spire: The adventure begins, with a twist The piece is too short to get a good read on the author's style. But long enough to say, more! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
machievelli Posted January 15, 2012 Author Share Posted January 15, 2012 The Coruscant Entertainment Center Star Wars: Dark Galaxy Christos200 Six years after Return of the Sith: A new threat arises The basics are good, but ease up on the exclamation points and question marks. To paraphrase Terry Pratchett in one of his DiscWorld books, using more than one of either suggests problems. In Point of Impact by Stephen Hunter, a letter written purportedly by Bob Lee Swagger, the main character was marked as a potential threat by the Secret Service because he used three exclamation points in it. but here's where I put on my technical hat... Technical notes: Question, why have Jedi supposedly joined your 'Blue Army'? It suggests perhaps their cause might be just, yet you end the chapter with the Jedi Council sending a 'hit Jedi' to assist. While 5 million troops for the bad guys sounds like a lot, on even a planetary scale, it's a drop in the bucket. The number drops into the mass of the population of even a single planet almost unnoticed. In fact it is within a few thousand of the actual police organizations of our planet as she spins right now, and are policing almost eight billion. As an example with combat troops; the Nation of North Korea today alone can field almost 11 million troops, and if you took the combined number of men under arms, reserves and emergency reactivation troops our own planet could field three quarter billion troops. compared to that a measly five million is chump change. I can understand your military commander's attitude. In my own Republic Dawn I made comments that 'no organized discipline military force is outnumbered by a mob', and that 'firepower can overcome even a massed charge'. Having this 'horrendous' army attacking even a modern (Circa 2011) army with wooden swords would result in massive casualties for the attackers, and almost none for the defenders. To get an idea of what would happen against a force armed with even semi advanced weapons, read On Basilisk Station by David Weber where a force of less than 2,000 well equipped soldiers (Mainly militia men, only about 500 odd were actual professional troops) with air support faced and defeated 40,000 primitive tribesman armed with antique rifles in what I estimate was less than half an hour. The mutiny of what sounds like one division of troops was ill-timed, and would be a reason to be worried, but not for the amount of panic shown. A division (10-17,000 men) would be rolled over easily by because you only need to detach about 60 to 80,000 troops to do so. I am not saying they would anticipate it, rather that military commanders capable of commanding what amounts to an Army group know the first law of war is Murphy's Law. Nice to have you back. http://www.lucasforums.com/showthread.php?t=209291]SW: TOR: Trials of a Sith Thrall: Unworthy MsFicWriter Set in TOR: Continuation of the Author's work The sentence 'What did I do to deserve this, or you?' is cumbersome, as if the character is asking what she did to deserve her companion. Would be better as 'What did either of us do to deserve this?' A 'space station' is an orbital platform. The correct term is space port. The scene reminded me of the Selection process upon entering a Nazi concentration camp, carried out by a true sadist. Some of those consigned to death seemed to suffer it merely because the Sith in charge was having fun. In fact, I am surprised anyone survived it at all. Very well done. Pick of the Week kotorfanmedia Trust Charmel Pre KOTOR on Telos: Carth meets the recently arrived neighbors The piece came off a bit contrived. Dustil throwing a tantrum because of the weather, Morgana coming across as lackluster. More effort was spent on the neighbors than on any other character in the story. A nice but generic read. Duel JoySweeper KOTOR on Taris: Our hero faces Starkiller Technical note; the parts of a blade are the point (First eighth of the blade) the foible (From the point to the last quarter) which is called the Forte. The description wasn't clear, though if she knows how to use a blade, she would block with the forte is at all possible. The fight scene flows well but felt drawn out. The constant 'he's better, I'm gonna die' became bothersome after a while, but the sudden zen-like diving into the Force made up for it. Minor Malfunction Dinah Lance KOTOR on Korriban: And you thought the organic characters had problems... This piece snuck up, sandbagged me, then ran off deliriously. Mixing the two characters, having them react to their new forms (Especially HK trapped in the T3 chassis trying to at least break skin) was a riot. Jolee merely accepting it and going with the flow was pure character. Pick of the Week Truth Jaina Solo KOTOR: Master Uthar and Yuthura face a unique predicament It's forward (Advance) rather than foreword (Beginning comment). The piece is well written, the scenes clearly defined and vivid the ending surprising. Pick of the Week Value of Beasts Nivenus Pre KOTOR: Two Wookiee we know very well from the games are captured. The piece flows very well, the two main characters clearly defined and portrayed. In fact the only negative I saw was that Hanharr thought the only way to save his people was to massacre them himself. As much as I was disturbed by Hanharr's Caedite Eos mentality, I enjoyed Zaalbar's attempts to minimize the older Wook's depredations. As others pointed out, a lot of the story was background that would not be important to the story itself, though I enjoyed the argument about what is sentient behavior. It reminded me of the argument in H. Beam Piper's Little Fuzzy when they are trying to rationalize a primitive burial as instinctive animal behavior because Piper's 'proof of sentience' boils down to they have to have a language and know how to build a fire. Manaan Part 1 Tankgirly KOTOR on Manaan: Remember to sight edit. You used the wrong word a few times, and as I know from experience, if the word is in the dictionary of your program, it will ignore that the sentence now makes little or no sense. Such as fast asleep when you meant fall asleep, or crammed when you meant cramped. The piece is well done all told, Skye's wishing the dreams would stop linked into her own desire to have them was well explained. The secretive glances she and Carth are sharing is kind of cute. Pick of the week Fanfiction.net When things come full circle Sandra Evans Reviewed 23 May2006 over at Coruscant Entertainment Center under Author Aminta Jae. That review is below: After KOTOR: Carth dreams of the woman he loves, and she dreams of him. The story is well done. You have the angst of being apart and why. The fear that perhaps what they had is no more, and the yearning to touch. Nothing wrong that a little polishing won’t cure. Over at Kotorfanmedia this got 12 thumbs up. Reprise Pick of the Week Nothing Zerbinetta Pre KOTOR on Malachor V: The birth of Darth Nihilus The piece is wild and chaotic as a battle would be. The feeling is of chaos personified, as Nihilus is. Very Well done. Pick of the Week Of War VampirePenguin Mandalorian War: Revan looks at the shambles he has become, but as the old saying goes, the ends justify the means. The piece is well done because you can witness his dissolution as it occurs. The reasoning for the mask fits the one I used (Though the author's Revan is male) that anyone who sees him would discount him merely because of age. Of Faith VampirePenguin Companion piece for Of War: Malk's view of what is happening to his friend The piece is interesting because you can seem the dissolution mentioned before with his friend wishing they could just postpone the war for even a week to save his friend The Life and Times of Bill and Fred Mister Frodo Set during Star Wars Battlefronts II: Two witless stormtroopers wander through a basic game. The piece started simply with a pair that you wouldn't trust to watch your car, and went down hill, from there. From arguing about what color means what, to kiling someone defined as Neutral, then discovering that they whacked the Emperor a movie early, and commiting suicide to get away from their boss, it rolls on inexorably, yet makes you follow along. Pick of the Week Starting point Clarlie TSL on Korriban: Atton's own trip through Ludo Kressh's tomb The piece is an interesting departure. In the game we only see the Exile's journey, but here we have Atton following, and his own view of what happens. The end, his choice, is the blue crystal he wakes with. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
christos200 Posted January 15, 2012 Share Posted January 15, 2012 Technical notes: Question, why have Jedi supposedly joined your 'Blue Army'? It suggests perhaps their cause might be just, yet you end the chapter with the Jedi Council sending a 'hit Jedi' to assist. Not all Jedi have gone with the << blue army >>. Half of them have gone and the other half stay with the republic. The entire galaxy is divided because there are 2 opinions: 1) Some poor men fight against the rich corrupt politicians, in order to get their freedom. 2) Some peasants did a revolution and they now want to kill, rape, steal and destroy democracy. So here there is no Just cause. There are just different opinions.. Also in the next update the << blue army >> will be destroyed. That << blue army >> story was just the prologue for the real story. Also thank you for the feedback. EDIT: The jedi who have joined the << blue army >> are rebels against the authority of the jedi council, so the jedi council wants to eliminate them. EDIT2: The mutiny of what sounds like one division of troops was ill-timed, and would be a reason to be worried, but not for the amount of panic shown. A division (10-17,000 men) would be rolled over easily by because you only need to detach about 60 to 80,000 troops to do so. You are right. But they were panicked because this division cut them from their supplies, and even a very good trained army without supplies and firepower can be easily destroyed by 2,000,000 men with wooden swords. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
machievelli Posted January 18, 2012 Author Share Posted January 18, 2012 So many things you don't understand... All right everyone Military and Political History 102 is in session. If history bores you but you expect to write well here, sit down anyway. Starting from the top... Not all Jedi have gone with the << blue army >>. Half of them have gone and the other half stay with the republic. (Later) So here there is no Just cause. There are just different opinions.. Reply; when you boil down the initial Jedi/Sith schism, what you have is one group trying to keep the pins in when it comes to society, and another trying to reinvent it in their own image. Considering the worlds you have seen in Star Wars, and the political entities described in the movies games and EU, this war your describe would be an ongoing thing pretty much constantly. Whatever society you are a part of, there are those who see it as weak will always try to tear it down. As for 'just cause' except for the Mandalorian Wars when has there been such split amongst the Jedi about what is right and wrong? In my own KOTOR excerpts (Which has the entire work) I pointed out that the reason the Jedi went to war against that authority was that their teachers had pressed over and over that the Jedi's first duty was to protect the Republic. Yet when the war started they were too busy paying attention to what might happen if they intervened; something not admitted until the Exile is told this in TSL. Reply to Later: The problem with politics is everything is colored by opinion. The modern US government is a perfect example; two main political parties who differ across the board fighting over who will run the country for the last 150 odd years. The last decent president we had was Theodore Roosevelt, and if I wanted to go back before the modern era the next good one was Lincoln. The entire galaxy is divided because there are 2 opinions: 1) Some poor men fight against the rich corrupt politicians, in order to get their freedom. 2) Some peasants did a revolution and they now want to kill, rape, steal and destroy democracy. Reply: That is a definition of revolution, and revolutions are always messy. In them you always end up with that small percentage that just enjoys the destruction. First, let us clarify; when you use the word peasant, I picture the serfs under Feudal Europe, people who have no rights under their society who rebel because they have no hope. There is no modern equivalent unless you consider the lower echelon workers who don't need an education to do their jobs. Lower level flunkies in other words. Such is rare in modern American society, since a minimum of education is needed in any job, and to get a better job, only a better degree of education is needed. After all, there are only so many jobs on that level. But without an education they can not expand into the upper portions of their society. So whether it is five hundred or five billion, they are a local problem. Using your measure Luke Skywalker is not[ a peasant whereas using my meter he is. EDIT: The jedi who have joined the << blue army >> are rebels against the authority of the jedi council, so the jedi council wants to eliminate them. Reply: Understood. But having them split down the middle is unlikely. From what I have seen of the governments portrayed the Jedi would have been split from the start of the Republic then again almost every time a new planet joins it. The laws against slavery alongside a legal ban on them is just the first possible point where the Jedi might have split. PREVIOUS PEASANT/SLAVE REVOLTS Historically there are only three to use; The third Servile war, led by Spartacus, the French Revolution, specifically the storming of Versailles, and finally the 1917 October Revolution. Even at the height of his fame, Spartacus never had much more that 70,000 under his banner. When the peasant women of Paris marched on Versailles their own history states 'thousands' made that march, not millions, though throughout the Kingdom I am willing to bet perhaps 5 million plus were also rioting. After all the population of Paris circa 1793 was just under 2 million. Now the real kicker; when the October Revolution broke out in 1917, according to their own history the entire city of Moscow rose in revolt against the Tzar. Yet even then the city of Moscow was a lot smaller than five million. Again Nationwide there were perhaps 5+ million that did so. So, no one had gathered a 'peasant' army of 5 million so far. The numbers and the weapons bothered me, and here is why: Revolutions, and schisms such as you portray would not happen to this depth or be unnoticed before they explode. Even in a planetary disagreement there are all sorts of warning signs. The Bolsheviks for example did not just rise from the ground like the teeth of the Hydra in the myth of Jason and the Argonauts; there was several decades of low level problems within Russian society pretty much as you described before the October Revolution. As much as the old Communist party wanted to claim all of the right for their side and that the 'people' had joined the class struggle they were merely members of a coalition when that occurred. It took six months of backbiting between the various factions before the Communists seized power in May of 1918. On the galactic level it would be even more noticeable. France had also suffered decades of misrule before the Revolution. And they didn't call the rebellion by Spartacus the 3rd Servile rebellion for nothing. It was merely the one with some training in combat that the others did not have which meant a better chance at success. Now, the political section is done, going on to merely military matters GATHERING THE NUMBERS If you took every Indian west of the Mississippi in 1976, an estimate of perhaps 12 million would be accurate. However you have to remember that in most primitive societies a third, in this case, about 4 million are children not considered adult, or the aged. Of the remainder half (Another 4 million) are women, and only the last portion, another 4 million are men (Or boys between 13 and 18, warriors in their own society) able to fight. Let us use these people as an example. Before you now point at at least a portion of your numbers, a lot of those tribes (Nez Perce, Cherokee, Zuni, Navaho, Morongo, Modoc, Chinook and Hopi were peaceful unless pushed to belligerence. There are more than enough tribes from Yaqui to Apache to Comanche to Sioux to Cheyenne to Arapahoe to make up for the others. So let us accept that the belligerent tribes equal the 5 million you postulate. And this occurs: After the battle of the Little Big Horn (September 1976) all of them react to a divine revelation given to Sitting Bull (No joke;almost a year before the battle, Sitting Bull had a vision that many soldiers would attack them and die, a perfect prelude to the battle, right?) And in this case all of those tribes are asked to send their warriors to destroy Kansas City Missouri, the Gateway to the West. Fine in the Old West where someone has to spot the approaching units and get that information to a telegraph. Small parties can still slip through even modern sensor technology to raid, but these are scattered over 5 million square kilometers, and it would take the better part of a month for all of them to reach their target, even if we put every man on a horse. There is no way that they could assemble without being noticed. Now shift to modern day, and see this problem: WEAPONS DISPARITY Your men are armed with wooden swords, you enemy is armed with everything the modern world has to offer in the way of destruction and detection. Instead of telegraph, which is a point to point communications system easily to disable as you pass through, you have radio and even satellite radio that can reach hundreds of kilometers to report your progress. They have vehicles faster than your horses even over rough terrain which means a military unit can find your columns and scout them in relative safety whether it's by satellite, drone aircraft, helicopter or just men in Hummvees. Even if you give them vehicles on par with the army the enemy still has those recon drones and helicopters to set down teams, or merely use their Longbow variant helicopters to use laser target designators to pick and choose targets for everything from JDAM to smart bombs to Maverick missiles. The drones themselves have this capability as well. Here at first they would not be using any 'army' weapons because they really don't need them yet. Two aircraft carriers is all they need, because one in the Pacific off Los Angeles, the other off the Gulf Coast near Mobile Alabama can strike that far inland and bomb you into scrap without even being scratched. Even without the carriers, the Air Force could do the same, and because their bases are closer, make even more strikes with more aircraft. One element of B52s (two) with the same tonnage of bombs as a wing of B17s(72) could devastate your separate force in one strike or the entire force if they waited until they formed up. One squadron of Warthogs with almost twice the payload of those two aircraft could do the same without needing such a huge target. Also, these resources are far enough away from the battle area that your cutting the local supply lines will not affect them. If they waited until your men are within reach of just the 'army' (200 kilometers) you would have helicopters and shorter ranged strike aircraft pounding them; with artillery joining in when you reach 20 kilometers, and long range rifle and machine gun fire when they reach 2 kilometers. This is even before your defensive infantry force has to fire a shot. And the enemy you face isn't armed with our piddling display of force. They have a technology about two centuries in advance of our own. So just forming them all together would be impossible. LOGISTICS: TRANSPORT Without transport (In the case of your blue army one hell of a lot of it) it remains a local problem on the continental let alone planetary scale, even though you claim they have taken over several planets. If a 5 million man army armed with swords was ravaging the Chinese country side we here in the US would not be alarmed; after all, that country has a four hundred million plus man army with much more modern weapons to boot. It took almost three years for the Allies to build up enough manpower and supplies (Stated in The Longest Day as 6,000 transports alone) to support the Normandy Invasion and not only a fleet of transports but another just of warships to protect it when they landed the first 170,000 troops. That was across less than 100 kiulometers of sea, not several light years. Yet such a massive fleet (You would have to quadruple it to move even part of a million men; figure 100,000 transports of the size used in TESB for the full load) requires things a peasant army would not have; trained pilots, trained naval personnel for both transports and warships, and all of the supporting personnel. Your army would be in the position some primitives faced during the Age of Exploration; seizing a sailing vessel of that time, and being unable to make it work. Oh, I'll admit that terrorizing enough of the people that aren't on your side could get it started, but one signal to the system you intend to invade would prepare them for your attack. Of course such a buildup would be noticed by any neighbors unless they are blind drunk. Let's use this example; your supposed peasant revolt starts on Taris before the KOTOR game. The first thing the government there is going to do is send ships to all the neighbor planets to let them know it's happening. Except for that, nothing else is done except trying to quell the rebellion on that local level. Most of the governments contacted do nothing, but shipping companies will start refusing shipments there. Then the ones that are still supplying goods will notice that their ships aren't going on to their next destination. The shippers send another ship, this time just to find out what happened to the first ship, but these don't come back either. By this time it appears the revolt is over, and you just have a new government in charge, but that doesn't explain where your ships went. All told less than two months have passed. So they send another ship to speak to the new regime, and it doesn't come back. At this point, the shippers contact the neighboring planets and competing shippers located there to find that suddenly Taris has become a black hole or like a roach motel. Ships go in, but they don't go out. At this point you have only captured a handful of ships, perhaps a couple of dozen. Assuming the best of luck you have perhaps a hundred ships all told. Considering how businesses would have to operate in the wilder regions of space, some of them would have to have warships of their own; even armed merchantmen, including ships designed for scouting in hostile regions. Any armed merchantmen would have come in expecting trouble, so it is unlikely you captured many of them. If you expect trouble you cannot be boarded in a surprise ambush. The gun mounted on the Millennium Falcon that we didn't see until TESB was an anti-boarding device, just like the similar gun on the Ebon Hawk. Some of the companies begin sending in scouts. These report that a few ships are still going in, but once they land are not being allowed to leave. The companies now contact any known or supposed smugglers, including criminal organizations. While not admitting that they are illegal, these have also been losing ships, and would have become alarmed enough to share that information, for a price. At this point the companies contact the Republic itself. Someone on Taris is seizing your vessels, but not even replying as to why because any ship you send in to contact them never leaves. If you look at it's structure, the Republic in Star Wars is best described as what the United States would have been when the original Articles of Confederation were used; member states that are still free agencies that interact through trade on their own with Federal government there only as a trade arbiter that collects it's revenues from tariffs. Such a government has no real authority except in that regard. During our time under such a government the only policing agencies on the Federal government level was the Revenue agents of the treasury department, and the Coast Guard. Our own experiment with such a government collapsed within three years to become the Federal system we know now. So now a ship from the republic goes, with a specific timetable; get down, find out what the hell is happening, and return immediately. It fails to return. At this point the Republic issues a warning sent to all companies that whatever is happening politically on Taris, no ships are to go there. At the same a few, perhaps six ships from the Republic's Trade Administration arrive, and picket the planet. They do not land or approach the planet. Instead they are placed to watch for anyone leaving or arriving, and warns any approaching of the danger. What little trickle of ships are still going there stops. Now you move to seize these pickets. Revenue Cutter A sees a ship approaching from the planet. It reports to the others, who also report that ships are approaching them. Worst case, they intend to grab these ships. One is chosen to accept this, and approaches to inspect the ship it faces while the others avoid contact, after all, there are a few possible scenarios where this is necessary, but these men are not stupid. Cutter A reports they are docking with the ship, though more likely they would send a shuttle with an armed boarding party. Let's assume this commander at least is stupid. He docks, and there is no follow up message. The others, still dodging their pursuers sees the revenue cutter now heading for Taris. At least one of the cutters now hypers out to report that it definitely enemy action. Whoever is in charge of the picket now turns not to rendezvous, but with orders to drive the now enemy ships away, or destroy them. All of the above takes about four to six months, but when it does stop you have captured less than a thousand ships. You are still far short of transporting your army, and the only way to get more is to send ships out to hopefully capture more. But every ship that did not return has already been reported to the various insuring agencies. The criminal and smuggling organization have already done so with their ships, so it would be very difficult to merely slip out, grab some ships, and slip back in with them. Even criminals are now giving Taris a wide berth. If any of the missing ships succeeds in escaping the patrol and reaching another system it will be noticed before you have time to steal very many ships because a group of people who have no knowledge of ships and transport coming off one ship, then snagging another one to transport them to oh say Corellia that fails to arrive would be noticed. Maybe not immediately, but the cutters, now forming not a screening action but a full blown blockade will definitely detect the ships coming in. They would begin destroying or capturing them, at the same time notifying planets these ships came from, and then every port anywhere in the Republic. With the best of luck you might get an additional thousand ships this way. But you now face a blockade. So technically you have a stalemate; transport for only about 2% of your revolutionary army, and no way to get more. The picket grow to become a full blockade which will remain until things normalize. Your Army is trapped on one planet and there things go from bad to worse. Let's look at history here under such a 'peasant' administration. Rhodesia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhodesia was a section of British controlled land until 1965 when it unilaterally declared itself free of the British Empire. During the next 14 years the nation struggled not only with the black majority, but also with the UN who refused to recognize their independence. South Africa refused to accept it primarily because Rhodesia was trying to find a workable government giving the majority at least an introduction to self rule that would not turn out as badly as the rest of the continent had. In Rhodesia the first election where black voters were allowed limited the franchise, allowing only blacks of a certain educational level to vote. But this was not enough. As much as 'freeing them from oppression' had been a nice idea, it had turned out badly elsewhere. Except for the oil states in the north (Where the governments had been controlled but not ruled by their foreign customers) and the south (Where South Africa had declared Apartheid and Rhodesia was trying only for a transitional administrative role with eventual majority rule) all of the other newly formed governments immediately fell into two categories; bloody rebellions that in some nations still go on, or strong man governments where there was exactly one election, the president then declaring himself President for life, and eliminated their opponents, sometimes down to the children of those men if they had not already fled. In Rhodesia, with the world ignoring their independence unless majority rule was allowed, Prime Minister Ian Smith at the demand of the UN led by the United States began to move to full majority rule. The government sat down with several leaders of the resistance including Robert Mugabe. I remember the press coverage of the events that followed; I especially remember an on camera quote from Mugabe. When a reporter asked how the 'give and take' was going Mugabe replied; 'There will be no more give and take, only take'. The negotiations ended with majority rule after the new government promised not to disenfranchise the white citizens, but less than two years later all properties and lands owned by white were seized, and most of the white population was expelled. Their properties, including factories were handed over to 'worthy black citizens', mainly supporter of various politicos. Unfortunately, these 'worthy' recipients had no knowledge of how the companies they now owned and controlled operated. Picture the local phone company handed over to someone whose experience is that he worked not as a lineman, not as an engineer, but as a clerk in the phone company office. Most of the engineers, white to a man, have been forcibly evicted, so when it begins to break down, you do not have people to fix it, not even to attempt to maintain it because while the linemen are probably all black, they don't understand the working of the main switching machinery. Putting a gun to the head of your last White engineer will not fix this problem whether you pull the trigger or not. As it stands, Rhodesia's economy is among the worst in all of Africa to this day and when things break down, the government literally had to hire people from other countries to fix them until enough of their people learned how to do it themselves. That is still an ongoing problem today. LOGISTICE: BBB As Napoleon said, an army moves on it's stomach. Or as a more modern pundit said, 'Captains learn tactics, Generals learn strategy. Excellent generals learn logistics'. BBB is military slang for what is needed to keep an army going; Beans, Bullets, and Black oil, or fuel. So let's now assume your 'blue army' does finally get enough ships to transport it from Taris to another world, say Desevro. You load up your army, especially their supplies. This (using your numbers, and using the Roman army supply system) is 5,000 tons of food per day. That was arrived at by using the Roman army diet. Each man was furnished with a pint (456 gm) of grains, a pound of meat, fish poultry or cheese (456gm) two ounces of olive oil (60 ml) and eight ounces of wine (250ml) per day. Rounding down it is one kilogram of rations per man per day multiplied by five million coming to five million kilograms or 5 kilotons. In this at least, your army is lucky, since all they have to supply is food. A modern army has to supply a lot more. The winner for most supplies needed to maintain the fighting force is the US, which supplies 55 kilos per man per day. A guerrilla force like the Taliban still needs 5 kilos a day in the field. As for foraging, (which I know you will suggest) ain't gonna happen. If the Republic commander on the ground has the brains to pour water out of his own boots, his men are going to be building fortifications even if it's merely blocking roads and setting his troops in buildings while the civilians still inside are scurrying around gathering every scrap of food in your target area and moving it inside. Then they are going to blow up every building outside their perimeter to deny you shelter. Before your army is even on the ground you will be facing what the French did in 1812 and the Russians did in 1942. Scorched Earth. Such a force would have to attack all at once to assure success, and that alone would cause massive casualties for your troops. While you are still approaching the navy will be destroying every ship they can, and your forces, even with warships of your own will not be able to stop this, merely limit it. This is because the navy you're facing isn't a bunch of men with weapons at their throats, so everything will be done efficiently, not halfheartedly. All you would need is one man on each warship in a position to delay or stop your response, which is pretty much any crewman you have suborned, to totally cripple your fleet before you even land. If just a dozen pilots merely set the navicomputer of their own ships to a different system you would be out 24,000 troops going to the wrong place. Sure you could then kill the men who did so, but that isn't going to get you back to where you want to go. That is only the tip of the sabotage iceberg. If a gunnery officer ordered the computer to do a full diagnostic of the weapons system, that would tie up the weapons of those ships for a couple of hours. The same could be done by crashing the computers aboard any ship, which would require technical expertise to fix that none of your men can supply. Read the book The Honor of the Queen by David Weber to see what I mean. In one chapter a group of religious fanatics grab a modern warship in that universe. Knowing it could happen, the Captain of that ship had set up a fail safe to at least interfere with their plans, and it takes their half trained crew of about 1200 and the 300 odd regular crewman they had captured two days to get everything up and running again. They have an advantage you do not. The fanatics have at least some training to fall back on. SWORDS VERSUS GUNS Unless your army are either religious zealots or completely mind controlled, arming them with just swords of any type is foolish. That is what I infer by their weapons, not their tactics. Every primitive tribesman who has faced a more modern weapon, be it a bow, musket, rifle, repeating rifle, or machine gun has only one thought on his mind; the same thought an American teenager has when he sees a muscle car slide by them: I want that! The English were so impressed by the Welsh longbow that they made their own copy of it. Natives in every part of the world where they faced guns quickly bought stole or took them off of dead bodies. One author commented about the African tribes that a man would grab a repeating rifle off a body, fire it until he ran out of ammunition, then throw it away since they did not have the knowledge and technology to manufacture more. But nowhere did they ignore them. Yet to take control of a planet with such weapons in abundance, yet set off for another world where they will face the same suggests mania whether religious or by mind control has to be implied. Historically there are only two battles I can think of off the top of my head where a poorly armed native force defeated a technologically superior one. They are the Battle of the Little Bog Horn http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Little_Bighorn and the Battle of Isandlwana http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Isandlwana the first in June of 1876 the second in January 1879. In each case the natives had help from their enemies, mainly their incompetence or hubris. At Custer's Last Stand you had 647 men armed with single shot Trapdoor Springfield model 1873 rifles against about 2 thousand hostiles armed mainly with bows, but with a few dozen armed with Henry and Spencer repeating rifles. I know the numbers would suggest an easy victory, but consider the following: 1: The Army had estimated their opposition as only about 800 braves. Custer believed that until the day before the battle, when his chief scout told him they faced between 1500 and 2500. 2: Custer was leading less than 20% of the force; another of 1000 men led by General Crook was two days away as was another thousand odd under Colonel Gibbons and another force led by Brigadier General Terry. When his scouts reported that the natives had found his force, he decided he had enough men for the job, since he intended to screen his troops using the Indian noncombatants and force them to keep cover and stay where they were until the other columns could arrive. Before this the Natives would disperse, so standing orders for the Army was to make them stand and fight. 3: Custer's regiment had both cannon and several gatling guns on their equipment lists, but Custer had left them behind because they would slow his men down. Unlike the other forces that could have been there, Custer led the only all cavalry force, the others had infantry cannon and gatlings. If the Natives simply dispersed, they would be able to outrun everyone else. 4: Due to budget restraints, the weapons used by the 7th as mentioned was the Trapdoor Springfield, However there had been reports from the field that if you fired them too often, the copper cartridges would jam in the breech. Since this rifle did not have a ramrod, you would have to pry the jammed cartridge out with a knife; not the best thing to happen in the middle of a serious fight. Brass cartridges, that would not have this happen, had been determined five years previously to be 'too expensive'. A brief aside; the author of the Trapdoor Springfield played a hand in making sure troops during the War Between the States had limited access to more modern weapons, That man was James Wolfe Ripley. As Master of the Ordinance for the Union Army he turned away Gatling and Agar who had developed machine guns, forcing generals to purchase them out of their own pockets. When ordered by Lincoln to examine the Rafael repeater, what John Ericsson called the most efficient weapon of it's type, Ripley bought four of them, sent them to the Harper's Ferry arsenal, and pretty much ignored them from then on. He refused the Henry rifle because it would 'make it easier for the infantry to waste ammunition' and only accepted the issuing of the Spencer because Lincoln ordered it. Both the Henry and the Spencer did not jam as easily as the Springfield so the Indians with them actually had superior weapons. If a trooper at the Little Bighorn had one of these rifles instead, it was because he had bought it himself. 5: Custer divided his force into three units under himself, Major Reno and Captain Benteen. Custer himself led 210 men. Since none of them survived, what actually occurred during the battle on Last Stand Hill is conjecture except that Reno and his men on Reno hill heard volley fire, a signal used in desperate circumstance meaning 'we need ammunition' at 4:30. But Reno along with most of the remaining force were almost 4 kilometers to the south. Captain Thomas Weir did approach close enough to see the Natives killing the wounded at around 5 PM. It wasn't until two days later when General Terry arrived that any other witness saw the scene. In the Battle of Isandlwana 22,000 Zulus under Cetshwayo confronted the supply base of the 24 Regiment, protected by Lieutenant-Colonel Henry Burmester Pulleine commanding 1350 troops, both white and colored levies, along with an undetermined number of civilian drovers. Again, hubris came into play; 1: Lord Chelmsford over all commander of the invasion of Zululand attacked at harvest time, assuming the Zulus would be dispersed into easily defeated tribal units. However the time he picked was when every Zulu warrior would go to the primary village of Ulundi. Think of the National Guard during the two weeks of training they do, not the one weekend a month. 2: When the British reached Isandlwana they did not follow procedure. It was standard practice to entrench, and laager the wagons (Think of a wagon train under Indian Attack from the movies) Chelmsford had decided it was not needed, since they faced poorly armed (True) and poorly led (So not true) natives. 3: A more senior officer, Colonel Anthony Dumford arrived, which would have caused problems because he was senior to Pulleine, but this officer described as the most experienced officer in the campaign ignored the deficiencies in the defense. Before the battle actually styarted he led men out to face the left horn of the Zulu advance (Some of the best men the Zulus had) and actually stopped it until his men ran out of ammunition. 4: The Martini Henry cartridges used at the battle were a rolled brass foil that had the same problem the Springfield had; the thin foil warped under heat if the weapon was fired constantly, as did occur. If you have watched the Movie Zulu, they were using the cartridges that later replaced the ones used at the time. 5: A chance occurrence, a solar eclipse occurred at 2:29 PM, allowing the poorly armed natives to close within killing distance. After all, a rifle can kill from a distance, but only if you can see your target. Most of the civilans and five officers in the green 'Patrol' uniforms survived. Primarily because Cetshwayo had said to kill the 'red' soldiers, but spare the 'black coated' men. In other words, leave the civilians alone. Almost 400 men survived. 6: During the court on inquiry into the battle, surviving soldiers reported that the quartermaster officer was refusing to issue ammunition without a letter or direct order from an officer. In a macabre amusing instance, one of the artillerymen cold-cocked the idiotic officer. When questioned during the inquiry, he apologized, not for striking the officer, but for breaking the rammer of his cannon when he did. Quote: The mutiny of what sounds like one division of troops was ill-timed, and would be a reason to be worried, but not for the amount of panic shown. A division (10-17,000 men) would be rolled over easily by because you only need to detach about 60 to 80,000 troops to do so. You are right. But they were panicked because this division cut them from their supplies, and even a very good trained army without supplies and firepower can be easily destroyed by 2,000,000 men with wooden swords. Reply: True. However my comments were based on two things; first, 'crap' happening is anticipated by any good military commander. Not that some of your own troops might suddenly change sides, but that supplies might be cut off. There is an old military axiom; don't plan for what you want the enemy to do, plan for what he might do that would hurt you the most. So there would have been contigency plans in place for everything from a possible mutiny down to a sudden thrust breaking through to cut your supply line and even to the ridiculous, mutant radioactive Gerbils eating them. MORALE AND LOSSES 2: As Napoleon said 'The moral is to the physical as three to one'. In other words, a besieged garrison with high morale will fight on even when hopelessly outnumbered. Bastogne during the Battle of the Bulge is a prime example. Another is the old hoary joke we Texans get upset at; that if there had been a back door in the Alamo, Texas would still be Mexican. If any of the three co-commanders At the Alamo had shown even the slightest hesitation, that would have been true. Yet at the attack, no matter how high your morale, it can be broken by sudden brutal losses. Even well trained armed and led troops tend to break off their attack when a third or more of their number have been killed in the last minute or so. With the weapons you have given your army, they have to resort to a a Banzai charge human wave attack, which stopped being chosen method except for fanatics and idiot officer long before the attacks of that pattern in Korea because all it does is cause massive losses for little or no gain. Instead of an example here, just watch the first battle shown in the movie Enemy at the Gates. You have about a hundred troops half of them issued rifles, and half of them given only a couple of stripper clips of ammo. The officer who is ordering, but not leading the charge shouts 'charge the enemy. When the man with the rifle is killed, pick up the rifle and continue to advance!'. What occurs next can't be graced with the term battle, it was a one sided slaughter. Those few who tried to flee were killed by the officer who ordered the attack and men armed with machine guns. You could try the same tactic, but since the men trying to stop them are armed with equivalent weapons, this fight would not be so one sided. In real battles, units are considered impaired when the loss ratio reaches 30%. Such units are pulled off the line if possible, and fresh troops sent in. But sending wave after wave at the enemy will deplete their ammunition but deplete your force more rapidly. If you assume only bolt action rifles against such a charge, remember that the man shooting at you can fire 5 aimed shots in the time it takes you to run 100 meters. If they have auto loading rifles (The M1 Garand) they can fire ten, and a machine gun (250[.50 caliber]-1,400 [German MG42]rounds per minute) can empty a 50 round box in the same time. The few times your plan succeeds ends up with perhaps fifty to a hundred survivors who are badly shaken by their survival. These would be easy to wip out by any troops behind the front line, and with a quarter million troops inside the perimeter, they would have ready response teams. Also, you have to remember that anyone even remotely close to the front just watched a thousand men reduced to either the survivors above, or worm food. They are not going to be willing to do the same thing. Their morale has already hit bottom just seeing what has happened. Even if you did, they get to see the bodies they have to clamber over to make the same charge. Part One of my reply Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
machievelli Posted January 18, 2012 Author Share Posted January 18, 2012 Part 2 In my own Return From Exile, I used the following scene; 'Fifty Aqualish, half of one company were approaching where I hid in ambush with the other fifty. I nodded, and the ‘men’ with me opened fire. We were using training weapons, so while there was the noise of a lot of blasters cycling, the flashes of light simulating the blaster fire would set off sensors in uniforms below rather than kill anyone. If they hit, the uniform would stiffen, and the man would drop to the ground. What you are supposed to do is dive for cover, assess the situation, then attack, rolling up the enemy using fire and maneuver. As I said, that is what you are supposed to do. There are three types in a battle like this. The ones that dive for cover before they are hit, the ones that freeze for a fatal second or two, and the ones that charge screaming at the enemy. I gave it five seconds. Then I tapped the siren, and everyone froze. Droids rolled down. At each place where a man was, they placed a targeting sensor. All one hundred of them now took positions up on that ridgeline. “All right, one magazine, lock and load!“ I ordered. Each man picked up a Corellian designed blaster. I signaled the droids, and suddenly we could see the men, not just a fifty, but a hundred advancing. “Fire!” A hundred men poured fire into the battlefield. Down below, the targeting sensors modified the scene. But what the men shooting saw was different depending on what the man had done. If he dived for cover, and it was something that would soak up blaster fire the target was just something the size of their head. If it was down, but not behind some cover, it was head and shoulders. If it was one of the frozen ones (And the droids had recorded who had frozen if only for a second) it was a man sized target. The charging idiots got targets half again normal size. Once the last round had gone downrange, the holograms froze. Every hit had been indexed by a red splotch. I stood up, and motioned for them to follow me. I pointed at a figure crouched behind a rock face. “Cover is important in battle. Notice that this man is not injured, even with almost a thousand rounds fired.” I walked to another. This one had ducked behind a bush. The first bolt had blown the bush into splinters. Half a dozen more showed as red marks on the chest and head. “If it doesn’t stop enemy fire, it isn’t cover.” I walked over to a figure that was normal sized. A rash of hits had ripped off both legs, an arm and the head. “If you want to be a target, fine, you’ll get your chance. But targets stay on the battlefield for graves registration to pick up and cart home. Your families get a nice letter that doesn’t end with ‘you were too damn stupid to duck.” I had saved one of the berserkers for last. The system had automatically stopped them after the first hit, and this guy had gotten maybe three paces before he died. But a bigger target means more fire gets aimed at you. I looked at the target for a long time then turned to the Aqualish. They were acting like a bunch of naughty children. I almost expected toes digging in the dirt. “If you want to be a hero, be one. But do it in someone else’s unit'. But you have left your army no other alternative. Oddly enough, in a short ranged 'hasty' ambush, such as the US faced in Vietnam, the standard tactic is to rush the ambushers because each man even with an automatic weapon will get off only 3 to five shots before you're among them and can retaliate. On the Defense you have your military commander, then the main character saying pretty much 'we're boned' where others can hear it. If the troops know the commander believes the battle is lost, they lose their morale. Remember my Alamo reference? If even one of those three men had shown that they felt they would lose, the garrison would have surrendered rather than fight. Another quote from Napoleon states: 'An army's effectiveness depends on its size, training, experience, and morale, and morale is worth more than any of the other factors combined'. So five million troops with primitive weapons is not going to keep charging just because you order it. At the Battle or Rourke's Drift http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rorke%27s_Drift following the Battle of Isandlwana the previous day. 4,000 Zulus attacked the 150 odd troops, 39 of whom were in hospital so you only had about thirty on each of the four defensive facings. Lieutenant Bromhead who actually commanded the force had intended to make it an open field engagement. But an engineering officer, Lieutenant Chard assumed command because of only two month's seniority, and instead ordered the men to build palisades of grain sacks. If you have seen the movie Zulu. You have an idea of what happened. The garrison survived, though the battle actually ended at around 4 AM. Two things; half of the men attacking Rourke's drift were unmarried men. A number of the troops who survived reported seeing warriors stabbing their spears into dead bodies. The reason this is relevant is that to be considered worthy of marriage, a Zulu man had to return from battle with blood on his spear. The other thing, more Victoria Crosses were awarded for this battle than had been awarded in any previous battle. One of them, to Henry Hook caused a friend of mine from the Renaissance Faire to chuckle. You see, Hook as mentioned in the movie, had been given a field court punishment of 28 days field punishment, meaning he isn't paid for those 28 days. The battle occurred during his punishment. Legally, Under British Military Law, he could have sat back. Instead he did fight, and that (According to my friend) is why he was given the award. RUNNING AN INVASION: I have enumerated all of the problems your army would face above, but you have ignored everything that would have happened before deploying your force on the ground. It's like seeing the men planning D Day way back in 1942 and jumping right to the army marching off the beach. I noticed in the original or the article that preceded this one that you had planned on using a droid army similar to the one used in the Clone Wars. They would be willing to attack as you have shown, after all as much as C3P0 acted human, most droids would notcare that they were going to be destroyed. So my last question is; Were your troops either religious fanatics or mind controlled? If so, read my Family of Choice where the Mandalorians face such an army about ten years before the war of Exar Kun. As to such an attack, read Gust Front by John Ringo, especially the battle of Fredricksburg, where 2.5 million aliens attack that city. The defensive force is nowhere near as heavy as you postulate, yet they are able to survive the day and night before dawn. In fact the battle of Richmond where 60,000 troops face the same aliens in equal numbers ends in a total rout of the attackers. In Ringo's book, the Posleen (alien attackers) have superior numbers and weapons, but only 1 in 400 is the equivalent of the average human being, with only 4 percent of their race is even remotely equal to a human imbecile. The remainder are well below what a human would call sentient, think of animals guided by nothing but instinct. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
christos200 Posted January 18, 2012 Share Posted January 18, 2012 Thanks for your reply. Also i wasnt bored because of history. I realy like history. Were your troops either religious fanatics or mind controlled? No. They are just some very poor crazy peasants that hope for a better future. Also when a soldier knows that he has other 5 million soldiers while the enemy on 50,000 then he will be expecting victory. Also the revolution started in multiple planets. That means that with a huge supplies and and shipyards they could take over a lot of planets. Also with the help of almost half the jedi knights, they have generals to lead. But the << Blue Army >> ended, if you read my last part. They were nuked. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
machievelli Posted January 19, 2012 Author Share Posted January 19, 2012 No. They are just some very poor crazy peasants that hope for a better future. Also when a soldier knows that he has other 5 million soldiers while the enemy on 50,000 then he will be expecting victory. Thank you for your kind attention. One thing I enjoy is a willing student. As fror why I asked, there was no rational reason for your army to be so badly equipped. As to 'knowing' you will win, I give you two quotes. The first is from my Return From Exile prior to the battle of Dxun. The Republic commander has accepted an honorable challenge, and this is the Exile's reply as second in command as a Jedi among the Infantry contingent: When told she has to take exactly the same number of troops as she faces. She can expect massive certain losses when a defender starts at needing two to one jjust by using available natural cover even before considering redoubts etc where it can climb to needing six to one to defeat them. “How the hell do you expect me to maintain an army this idiot is busy destroying to make himself look good in the history books!” “Then it can’t be done?” “Oh it can be done!” Marai shouted. “But the reunion will be ten or fifteen of them sitting around afterward because all the rest of us will be dead!” The other quote comes from the Movie Big Red One at the end where the men bust their humps saving the German sergeant that had been stabbed after the ceasefire had occurred. The narrator end the movie with this: Zab: [narrating] Saving that Kraut was the final joke of the whole goddamned war. I mean we had more in common with him than all our replacements who got killed whose names we never even knew. We'd all made it through we were alive. I'm gonna dedicate my book to those who shot but didn't get shot, because it's about survivors. And surviving is the only glory in war, if you know what I mean. What both are saying is this. My Exile is saying you can win, but remember the cost. The second quote boils down to surviving is the only goal of a soldier. For the commander is trying to keep as many of your own alive. You're still ignoring everything that could be done before your troops deploy. Whether a single planet or a hundred, you have to face the fact that such a poorly armed force is going to suffer massive casualties every time they go into battle and I cannot see any group of Jedi no matter how tainted leading them in this regard. The reason I suggested Taris for the starting point is simple, in an overly built up city with narrow and short approaches, your army has the best chance of assaulting enemy troops with better weapons, meaning more of your troops survive. Take for example, your army attacking Manhattan Island. I will allow that you were able to get them all into present day Harlem before the army reacts. Too many commanders are not going to think deep enough and high enough as it were; there are sections of Harlem where a 2 by 6 or 2 by 8 plank will get you to the next street over not touching the ground in between. For that matter, thanks to the narrow alleyways of that section of the city you can go through alleys and only touch streets when you cross them to get to the next block. You can walk in the front door of this street, out the back door into the alley, in the back door of the next building, and now you are on the next street over. As for down there are tunnels under Manhattan up to a mile down that have not been used in a century, and poorly mapped. So you can flank the better armed enemy, and eventually win, but what happens then? Also the revolution started in multiple planets. That means that with a huge supplies and and shipyards they could take over a lot of planets. Also with the help of almost half the jedi knights, they have generals to lead. Whether ten or a thousand planets, ignore what your enemy can do, and you will automatically fail. Let's use the US as an example. Somehow your army has defeated our army, and they immediately move to capture enough ships to invade other countries. But ships are not like used cars; except for the mothball fleets, you do not have ships just sitting at the dock for you to examine and buy. Even the cheapest derelict out of WWII is going to cost a couple of million dollars to buy, and there are enough small shipping companies out there that the only reason a working ship is still docked is that it is desperately in need of repair, in a mothball fleet, or judged as scrap. There are six mothball fleets, one at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, another at Bremerton Washington. One in San Francisco Bay, another in Mobile Alabama, Two more, one in Philadelphia Harbor, the last in Boston. So let's say you've started on refurbishing these ships. It isn't going to be immediate, these ships has rested since WWII and you have to open the shells, check what needs replacement, and fix them. Assuming a full wartime emergency General Haskins of The Third Word War fame said it would take a week to ten days to refurbish each group assuming every effort is used. Your own army would not be able to force this or speed it up, but it doesn't matter. The only question is how I, as the opponent would stop you? While you have conquered the nation, the 'wet' navy has not given up. The US has seven fleets with carriers supported by surface warships; one in the Med, one on the Indian Ocean Station, two on the Atlantic coast, three in the Pacific. Both third and seventh fleets (Pacific) can hit the West Coast and Hawaii, First and Fourth (Atlantic) can hit the East. They do so. Alpha strikes (Full assaults) hit Boston and Philadelphia, on the east coast, Two more alpha strikes hit San Francisco and Bremerton. All within less than five hours. A modern Nimitz class carrier (As portrayed in the Final Countdown) could duplicate what it took six WWII carriers to do in WWII. It could destroy the entire WWII Pacific fleet by itself. In each harbor, it devastates the mothball fleets plus every functioning ship and every shipyard. The only two remaining are Mobile and Pearl. While your army is working to move the ships somewhere safe, six hours after the first bomb dropped on San Francisco, the first bomb of Alpha Strike II is dropping on Pearl Harbor. Five hours later the Mobile mothball fleet is being blown to hell. This is not hyperbole, a carrier stationed fifty miles west of Los Angeles can strike San Francisco 400 miles north, Bremerton 1000 miles north or as far East as St Louis. It could also attack Pearl Harbor without moving. Not all at the same time, but in sequence. Two Carriers (7th and 3rd fleets in the Pacific historically) can do this. 1st and 4th fleets (Atlantic) could do the same in the Atlantic. The only reason for the delay for destroying Mobile in because after their first strikes, the fleets would have to steam south then west into the Caribbean. One fleet could launch a second alpha strike while the aircraft from the other used what is called 'hot decking'; They fly from their carrier, fully loaded, land on the second carrier, load fuel then launch again. The first strike hits, returns to their carrier, then, instead of staying there, flies to the other carrier after only loading fuel so the second strike returns to the first carrier. They have already destroyed you ability to expand beyond the Western Hemisphere, they just have to play 'musical strike groups' to get the proper aircraft back where they belong. In the Star Wars universe, I could just use something postulated back in the 70s here but never deployed. So on a world called Yurth, their military unveils this weapon. As your army starts to refurbish one of the fleets, suddenly hell reigns. It's called Tactical High Orbital Response, or THOR. Really all it is is satellites with a hundred kinetic energy weaons, nothing more than a hundred one hundred pound steel crowbars. They orbit between 300 and 1000 mile above the planet, with the aiming system using the Keyhole satellites in geosynchronous orbit. It is so simple that Reagan's Star Wars initiative ignored it. An artillery system using simple Newtonian physics to deliver hell. So as satellite A rotates into position it's payload is de-orbited. No explosives, no armor piercing sheathing or shaped charge warhead. With the gravity of the planet behind it, the 'crowbars' don't need it. Only orbital mechanics, gravity, and mass. As they paraphrased in the Treasure of the Sierra Madre, 'we don't need no stinking payload'. Each 'crowbar' has a rudimentary targeting system, and is aimed at less than 50 targets. Within an hour, these destroy the ships your army already has, and less than an hour later every shipyard joins them. Yet the constellation imagined back in the 70s is not expended. In fact less than 5 % has been used. Your Army cannot interfere, and the defeated are still fighting back. I submit that the army you postulate would be trapped on the planets it sprang from, never able to escape it by simple orbital mechanics. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
christos200 Posted January 19, 2012 Share Posted January 19, 2012 1) There are and some real << soldiers >> in the army. 2) There are people who can built spaceships. 3) Although i like realism, in my opinion star wars is a world of magic. Of a mysterious force. Of the great jedi knights of the old republic. I just want to write something that would make the others enjoy reading it. Remember, star wars is phantasy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
machievelli Posted January 20, 2012 Author Share Posted January 20, 2012 1) There are and some real << soldiers >> in the army. 2) There are people who can built spaceships. 3) Although i like realism, in my opinion star wars is a world of magic. Of a mysterious force. Of the great jedi knights of the old republic. I just want to write something that would make the others enjoy reading it. Remember, star wars is phantasy. 1; I know you had some real soldiers, otherwise the raid that blocked the supply lines would have failed. 2; any enemy is going to deny you the capability to proceed if they can. What I have described is what they would do, and they would continue to smash the attempts to build new ships for as long as it takes. While the Republic itself would proabably not be able to, the worlds around you would do it; after all, the ships and troops used by the Republic in KOTOR were more likely units of the member planets, since they didn't have an organized army until the Clone Wars. 3; enjoyment in reading calls for two things, a good story (If you had not divided the Jedi evenly then had your army armed with such inferior weapons it would have been excellent) and what an older writer called 'willing suspension of disbelief'. The reader has to accept that the world you create is valid; that magic and monster exist, that weapons made of nothing but energy will form a blade rather than merely a beam, that the Force works. We all suspended that disbelief when we decided Star Wars was a good movie and later a good series of books, games etc. We wouldn't be here if we had not. But that disbelief returns in full force when you throw something out that makes absolutely no sense. That is why I gave you two different versions of what peasant could mean. If they are old feudal style peasants, they do not have the skills necessary to complete even part of what you envision. If they are like I described, they would be able to do some of it. Note I did not deny you weapons and vehicles, only that the weapon choice made no sense. My arguments regarding transport was merely that it doesn't matter how many men you can field if you cannot transport them to their target and keep them supplied. In fact before the War Between the States, no army in history numbered even a million men; without railroads and later large trucks, you could not get the supplies to the men farthest from the supply source. Remember that while both sides fielded a million plus during that war, the largest battle of that war; Gettysburg, had less than 140,000 men maneuvering and fighting in the field. The reason the police are able to quell riots is not because they have the authority, it is that they are usually armed with better weapons and tactics. In military parlance, ranged weapons are a force multiplier. A man with a bow can kill men at ranges up to 500 yards and fire 12 aimed shots a minute, which means that in the time you take to run that distance, a good archer can kill eight men, meaning that he is worth eight line infantrymen with swords. By the same token, a man with a Spencer or Henry Rifle facing men armed with muzzle loading rifles was worth ten of them. And this is only on the infantry level. Muskets when they were introduced were better than bows only because the sheer terror of having a dozen fellows blown away in an instant (Along with an ear shattering soud) because you are facing volley fire will disconcert the people being fired upon. The Chinese used gunpodwer rocket and firecrackers to terroize the horses of their opponents, since the weapons themselves had little utility. But it did confuse the enemy enough for other weapons to take up the strain. There is an axiom in military strategy, not attributed to any specific General, merely a fact that can be seen by outside observers; An army is always training to fight the last war, not this one. Fully rifle equipped troops surprised everyone, because until the War Between the States, no military commander had considered how much tactics had to change because of them. In the Crimea, they just thought the difference was an aberration, so even the foreign observers during our war ignored that the tactics of Napoleon's day were no longer valid when Lee sent in Pickett's Brigade. Europe had still not learned this lesson before WWI, and the idea of fire and maneuver, which the Americans introduced during that war literally stunned both allies and enemies alike. The German introduction of out of line of sight artillery allowed them to keep at bay over twice their number on the Western Front, and machine guns which only had seen a lick and a promise in our War Between the States allowed the German army to reduce the size of the division from 25,000 to only 16 thousand even in the midst of the war. Every innovation that has stood the test of time has made armies smaller, more efficient, and more lethal. That is what I have been trying to show you, because even peasants of the feudal mentality can learn to operate and maintain bolt action rifles and simple revolvers. Peasants on my level can learn to operate a tank or aircraft. They don't need to be able to build them, only to operate them. But to build a ship from planning stages to completed model you need skilled artisans. You need men who can form the plating of their hulls, develop the guns, missiles, or whatever weapon they are armed with, the engines to power it, and the skilled crews who understand how the hyper drive works and be able to fix it to man them. As I said, if your army had been smaller (Say a quarter to half a million, with a corresponding reduction of the force being attacked) if you had not issued such pathetic weapons (A small reduction between them, say arming yours with projectile weapons rather than blasters) and if you had taken all of the additional countervailing factors into account, I would have judged your work adequate bordering on excellent. Adding the Jedi no matter how unrealistic your premise of why they joined the rebellion would have been acceptable as well. In passing, the reason I was accepted as Critic here was because of my own desire (Which matched those who hired me) that I not be merely a movie critic, telling everyone what you did wrong. Rather I was to act as a teacher, as if you are in High School (Middle school according to your location) who tells you, 'no, this does not work, try this instead'. I do not know if you have read it. but the book It by Stephen King shows what I mean. Bill (One of the characters) is taking a college level creative writing course. The teacher is hung up on what is called the underlying metaphor; what is the author really trying to examine in society, rather than what the story is about on the surface. Bill suggests that sometimes an author is showing exactly what he means in the story. The teacher acts as if this were heresy, ending his diatribe with 'until you learn this, you will never become a real author.' Bill's next story links to what had happened in his previous life, a young boy finding out there is a real monster in the basement, confronting and defeating it. The teacher grades it as C- if I remember correctly. Bill returns to his dorm room, and instead of accepting the teacher's advise, retypes the cover page for publication, and sends it to a magazine which promptly snaps it up. Overjoyed at his first sale as an author, he posts two things on the professor's bulletin board (Where someone dropping a class would post his request) nothing more than his class member card, and a copy of the check he received. The teacher marks his card with a bright red F then has the audacity to add, 'as if money is the judge of who is a good writer!'. In other words, my job is not actually to be a critic as people define the term. My job is to help you be a better writer and make reading your material more enjoyable for all of us. I happened to like the movie, and except for the obviously propaganda points (The shot down pilot lambasting the teens in question because they have better food than the survivors in Denver) it was pretty good. The dialogue between the Cuban commander and the KGB rep ((I used to be a Partisan, now I am merely a policeman) was choice. IMDB didn't think the quote worthy of a listing, but I did. Do not take my criticisms as bullying. I know as well as you that we are dealing with a fantasy world. But if you want your readers to enjoy your work, don't give them something that cannot be swallowed by them. To keep the readers, you have to create a vibrant world with realistic enemies and situations. To as I parphrase shakespeare, hold up a mirror to reveal what is there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
christos200 Posted January 20, 2012 Share Posted January 20, 2012 I know. Anyway: 1) The leaders of the << Blues Army >> had both the money and the people and the workers to built new spaceships. 2) Many planets joined the rebellion, without a peasant revolution happening. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
christos200 Posted January 20, 2012 Share Posted January 20, 2012 Also i forgot to say that the << blue army>> is a religious group. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
machievelli Posted January 21, 2012 Author Share Posted January 21, 2012 The Coruscant Entertainment Center SW: TOR: Trials of a Sith Thrall: Breaking Point MsFicWriter Set in TOR: Part three continuation of the Author's work: the main character uses her links to others to maintain her sanity, but even that might be a fragile hope The piece is an follow on. Her own view in her mind, that it is just a series of destruction tests, and that their tormentors will merely state they were unworthy no matter how many they faced was cogent. Her reaction to her own thoughts, that Vadym should kill the Sith who is setting up the torments makes her pause in her mind, as a thought you know is evil or wicked would. Pick of the Week Fanfiction.net To Be a Jedi Promised Flower After KOTOR: An young adult hopeful asks for Jedi training The piece has several chapters, and I didn't have time this week to read more than the first. The title in the chapter pull down amused me enough that I wish it wasn't the case. That title, 'Go bother a Krayt Dragon' amused me on two levels; first thinking of the famous W.C. Fields line; 'Go way my boy ya bother me', then as if the person had read my Return from Exile when my Exile is explaining how Jedi are chosen then suggests a sarcastic advertisement; ‘People wanted with special abilities to manipulate the world. Requirements, Midichlorian level 4,000 or more. Age, no older than seven. Intensive training required. Prerequisites; few. pay non existent, hours long, danger great. Apply at 2151 Jedi drive, Coruscant’. So yes, I think this is worth reading further. Pick of the Week Something's Up Noneko TSL on Nar Shaddaa; Finding out about Atton's past all because of a bet... Remember to sight edit; In the paragraph that begins; "Maybe you could be my cousin from off planet…" you forgot a conversation break. No biggie, but noticed. Later in the line 'In a corner of her mind' you forgot to finish the sentence, making us wonder what emotion Atton was showing. Technical note: You made the same mistake that George Lucas did in the first movie, the one place where anyone who knows science groans. A parsec is a unit of distance, not time. So saying 'I made the Kessel Run in less than 12 parsecs' means you didn't do it fast, but that the distance you traveled in doing so was less than anyone else. It's like a race car driver saying 'I drove the Indy 500 in less than 500 miles'. The piece was interesting in having Atton expecting the Exile to play an only partially spoiled little rich girl to his smooth talking swindler. Using her skills to read the players so he can win, then turning around and giving up the winnings for information, with her acting now as a Jedi lie detector. Her complaint that they didn't learn anything new doesn't fit a good general; all intelligence officers know there is either good data or bad data, or data that confirms which is which. His going from the role to punching her, then to being willing to talk makes him come across as she accused; a psychopath. In my own work I was more confrontational, not taking no for an answer at this point. Betrayal of the Sith Slashing StarScream Post KOTOR: Revan sends his apprentice to examine a clone army. But more is happening... The piece is too reminiscent of scenes from The Clone Wars and Revenge of the Sith. Having the primary ship turn into a giant robot ala transformers was a bit too much. However having your men slaughtering Sith everywhere was a nice touch. Possibly explaining why the Republic was able to come back after the Jedi Civil War. Technical note; As the old saying goes, There is nothing new under the sun. The only thing is that if someone had tried a clone army once before, there would be records of that fact. Obi Wan would have been able to discover this after being told that the Kamino are cloners by merely checking the Jedi Archives. The Struggle Toadal Faith No specific era given: On Dantooine a young Jedi makes the supreme sacrifice The piece was well wrought, the conflict clear and the outcome in doubt only because as the author points out, everyone had both light and dark within them. We never even learn the hero’s name or sex, only that the person used everything of themself to win. Pick of the Week The Dark Side Story Toadal Faith No specific era given: A new Sith hopeful begins his training. The piece is pretty good but you have the character learning too fast; it is like in the original Star Wars having Luke go from just the average farm boy to fighter pilot with no time in between. It works in a movie, because days or weeks can pass in a few minutes, but in a story there is usually something that shows time is passing. Your character goes from 'here's what you have to learn' (that does take all night) but the next 'days' lesson is skills quite beyond that. Nerves Selkit Ebon Hawk En route to Tatooine: How hard is it to say? The piece is a cute bit of fluff that makes the relationship between the pair a little clearer. A fun read. Pick of the Week kotorfanmedia Bastila's Lesson JoySweeper KOTOR on Rakatan Homeworld: Bastila's fall is complete. Remember to do a sight edit. During the segment when Revan is planning to go against authority, you forgot conversation breaks. The piece reminds me of my own KOTOR novel. When Bastila confronts my version of Revan, she lambasts the woman because it was the link that was dragging her down when she was being tortured, as that same link here is making Malak an old friend rather than just a Jedi she had known only in passing before. The start with the constant changing scenes is reminiscent of the treatment in the Lubyanka prison where the light stay on all the time, meals are served in a bewildering sequence of back to back then long periods in between, noises are piped in to make you wonder what time it is or that people are moving then deathly silent. Very well done. Pick of the Week I've Got Your Back Enigmatique Rakatan Homeworld on the beach: After slaughtering her one time allies, Revan discusses what will happen in the next battle An interesting take; Revan not as Dark Lord, not as Jedi rising above it all, but in between. All of her fellows are dead or fled except for Canderous and the droids; yet Bastila still lives. Her reasoning is interesting; she cannot save the galaxy as Jedi, not does she wish to destroy it as Sith. So Much for a Relaxing Vacation Sir Boss Pre KOTOR: A Jedi mission is interrupted by Darth Revan The piece is cute in a sort of Poseidon Adventure way. The captain upset that a neutral is being used to transport something for the Republic Military and the Jedi; the Jedi assigned to the mission being themselves, and the poor family from Coruscant who are looking at their first real vacation being disrupted by it all. As one of the reviewers said, I hope it's a short cliff, even if I don't have time to read on. Double Blind SvartKnytt Pre KOTOR: The test of Spirit A well done way to explain the test of spirit. I was unsure if the character was the Exile and he had a relationship with Bastila before departing, or if this is another character all together. T3-M4 Puppet Master Jlarissa Post KOTOR: When Revan gets cabin Fever, it's T3 to the rescue! The piece starts out simple, Revan just wanting to go wandering if only for a brief time. But when Carth starts throwing up things that would stop her T3 fixes the problem in an amusing way. Picturing T3 acting like a mob collection agent with Canderous as his bemused muscle, blackmailing half the station while suborning the other half makes for a funny ride. The ending and T3's revenge on HK is a riot. Pick of the Week Lot of Bit PlutoSpawn Post KOTOR: Pillow talk before Revan leaves The piece is short, and no earthshaking events occur, but you have a feeling of finality even before the next dawn Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
machievelli Posted January 28, 2012 Author Share Posted January 28, 2012 The Coruscant Entertainment Center SW: TOR: Trials of a Sith Thrall: A Rival Returns MsFicWriter Set in TOR: Part three continuation of the Author's work: Freed from the pit, the main character must decide if she still trusts an old rival The piece was short this time, but the scenes are etched clear. The only reason it is a bit unsatisfying is because if I were a Sith hopeful, and knew I was facing a skewed test at another's behest, I would try to enlist the aid of the main character. After all, she had been an upright member of the order, and naturally predisposed to help rather than hinder. That and the fact that all the evidence is hear say, and not verified. Also if I were the one setting up yet another hopeful for a fall, I'd use the droids and some other Sith to create a 'play' as it were to cause a possibly good hopeful to act out of line with the Sith teachings; asking for help as an example. The problem with Pfon is if he had been in charge when 'Revan' returned as a hopeful, the Academy would have been him in charge of the new intake, and all of the Sith teachers playing cards because there hasn't been a good hopeful in months... So it can go either way; her old 'friend' is lying, using her to monitor the teacher, or the teacher can use this link to kill two birds with one stone by breaking Per'dra's will at the same time that he kills off Tamara. Keep it up, kid. When I wonder this much, it's got to be good. Pick of the Week Magical Strike Force S: What Remains Chevron 7 Locke Set in an unknown (To me) Anime World: During a massive attack, a strike team is slowly reconstituting to fight on. Technical note; what type of division were they part of? Like a different science division or a military one? A military division is approximately 16,000+ men before casualties, not the five we see. As I mentioned to another writer a few weeks ago, the bandage is the simplest form of medical treatment because it can be created with anything from a poultice of leaves, a layer of mud, or even ripped up clothing. In the modern world they are so ubiquitous that you can get anything smaller than a military style compress at any drug or grocery store. You would only have to be seeking the hospital if you need things like compresses or painkillers stronger than say Tylenol or aspirin. Even the painkillers would not really be a hospital visit type problem; the average pharmacy in a drug store would carry bottles of stronger meds right down to laudanum, paregoric, and even heroin suppositories in various strengths, meaning you could use them on an unconscious patient. The piece flowed well, the flashbacks and character introspection helped to build the background of what sounds like massive destruction. The reason I listed it as an anime world was because of the verbal shouts before you fire a weapon. But if the reader (Myself) have never seen it, or played the game it is a part of, a lot of the foundation is not there. Like using the terms warp drive and phasers if you have never seen Star Trek. Revan 'Short' Story Devizz Set in TOR: Having been held prisoner in stasis for 300 years Revan returns to led the Jedi into yet another battle. Use quotation marks (“”) instead of hyphens (-) for conversations. First, because the hyphen, which you used correctly once, is for a break in thought, such as when he wonders if Master Shan is any relation. The term is three and a half centuries old, not three and a half hundred. Considering a standard generation (25 years) He would be her 10 times great grandfather (Meaning great repeated ten times before grandfather). It is overseeing (Administering) rather than overlooking (Seen from above). Remember to sight edit. You left out words several times, and the ones I mention below are only the ones I was willing to mark down; the word 'the' before Emperor, when his mind was ravaged, then again when you mention the Sith Emperor, (an) ancient race though the Rakata had disappeared from the scene 25,000 years earlier; 'all (the) known galaxy', 'aware of (the) devastating casualties and all (the) men lost', though the last part of this sentence is redundant; the men are the casualties. Also, check word usage. You said 'war that is about to wage' when you meant 'a war is soon to begin. You may wage war, or be ready to wage war, but the war does not wage itself. Technical note: After creating the Star Forge, there would be no need for the Foundry you describe. If it had been created first, for example, it would have been in the Rakatan home system; anywhere else it would be subject to a take over by a rival faction. If it had existed, it would more likely have been a primary target during their own civil wars, and relatively unprotected anywhere else. But if that is true, you would have dismantled and scrapped it once the Star Forge was completed. While the actual affect of being in stasis is never really explained, if you use the term as per modern Science Fiction, everything inside the field stops; that means you cannot access their mind while in stasis anymore than you can access a computer that has been switched off. Your Revan sounds more dark side than light; he is giving what amounts to a Caeditie Eos order, because even if as has been stated the bulk of the Sith peoples would prefer the Republic's rule, a droid army could not separate the wheat from the chaff, only destroy everyone. In one story (Not on this site) a military man wanted clarification on such an order, which under modern International law is illegal. When the politician is still not being clear (Trying to give such an order without actually saying it for the purposes of plausible deniability), the officer says 'well we can just kill anyone who happens to have a weapon in his hands', which is legal, but not what the politician had in mind. kotorfanmedia Frigid Verna Jast Post TSL, possibly four to five years: Atton never knew he needed that skill... The piece is almost as fluffy as a down jacket. Atton the novice ice skater dealing with Bastila who (of course) is a master at this as well. The scenes flow so well you don't really notice the transitions, which is a mark of excellence. Her picking his pocket to steal his Pazaak deck makes me wonder if she has something else in mind... Pick of the Week Wetwork Nivenus Pre KOTOR: Looking at his dissolution into nothing but a hired thug, Canderous sees his salvation arrive as Endar Spire is attacked over head Remember to sight edit. You used brash when you meant brass. (Historical note) For those that don't know what the title means, wet work is a euphemism for assassination. Though coined in the late 60s after the death of Lavrentiy Beria; considering how Trotsky was killed, I think 'Iron Felix' would have loved it. All of the events occur right before the first meeting of Revan's party with his in the Undercity. The piece looked long and unnecessarily drawn out at first but flowed pretty well. The in depth view not only of what Canderous is feeling and doing coincides smoothly with Davik's more direct approach. You can understand why Davik is treating him like an overpaid thug rather than a warrior, just as you know from what is described, that Davik is under utilizing his asset. The Gray Line Leelu Split between KOTOR after the Leviathan, and Jolee's past: A story from Jolee's past helps the present ex-Sith Lord feel better about her life. The piece is cute in it's own way. Picturing a 20 year old Jolee Bindo tearing up the town on his first time ever out of the Temple is balanced with HK's, “Statement: Halt, Bindo Unit. My master requires solitude while she attempts to reboot her hard drive.” Their using up the last of the Corellian whiskey from Carth's stash was just icing on the cake. Pick of the Week Calo Nord: The beginning SeraTerranova Pre KOTOR: Where Calo Nord began The piece is stark and unrelieved, but that style works wonderfully with the subject matter. You start with a betrayed child and end with cold blooded killer Nord became. Pick of the Week The Man For The Job GreenGrass1914 KOTOR on the Rakatan homeworld: What if Trask had gone on the mission instead of Carth? The piece is funny in a trip on a banana peel way. Trask shows here that he isn't even close to being half the man Carth was, unwilling to even say 'I love you' to Revan hoping to convince her to stay with the Light Side. With his waffling, it's no wonder Darth Revan returns. Ahto City Sonata PlutoSpawn KOTOR on Manaan after Leviathan: Revan deals with Carth's feelings and her recent sexual coupling with Canderous The piece is good in that when Carth turns away, she latches onto Canderous instead. She feel betrayed by a man who claimed to love her, but cannot accept a past she had not even known. It reminds me of Blue Moon by Laurell K Hamilton where Anita, the main character runs from a man she loves, who happens to be a werewolf, and ends up in the bed of another, who is a vampire. Fanfiction.net Man In The Box Rian Sage KOTOR en route to Manaan: A unique use for the box collected at Korriban... Remember to sight edit. The term is dire (Desperate), not dyer(Someone skilled in dying cloth). The piece is cute when you consider what she intends with it. The ending is fun in it's own way; Revan deciding to save Malak from death by trading useless lives )The original being in it then Malak for Tanis Venn. A well rounded way to save the one you love. KotOR Once a Jedi LD Little Dragon Pre KOTOR: Wait a minute, he is her father? The piece is too short to get a feel for the author's style but what we do have is fun enough to want to continue! Pick of the Week Something Real Aenzo KOTOR, no specific period given: Bastila fails, but who really failed? The piece is confusing; until the end we didn't even know who was the subject of the work. While the reader is floundering, you suddenly realize who is the subject. Does the premise fit? Yes, does it make the situation understandable? No. Who Now Is The Fool Cthulhu117 TSL on Dantooine: There is more happening than meets the eye... The piece is confusing; more Sith appearing, taking the place of two of the male characters with no warning. At the End of All Things VanillaLatte TSL on Malachor V: Will the Exile let go? The characters share their own views of what Ludo Kreesh taught, and the ends changes as he does. Tales From the Battlefront Ssorian Set in the Battlefront era: A few vignettes to chuckle over... The three pieces go from sublime to ridiculous. The one man running through the last two sections, chased by Darth Vader, was just too much. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
machievelli Posted February 4, 2012 Author Share Posted February 4, 2012 Coruscant Entertainment Center SW: TOR: Trials of a Sith Thrall: Complicity MsFicWriter 5th chapter in an ongoing work: The plotters plan, and fail miserably The piece continues to flow well. The evil triumphs again, setting the stage for her continued torment. Pfon from his actions here remains the sadistic little boy ripping the wings off of flies and we don't even have to see what happens to Tamara to know he will enjoy killing her. What will happen next? Like me, you'll have to wait to find out... Pick of the Week Fanfiction.net Excerpt From A Total Nobody's Life Mithostwen TSL on Telos: A murderer tries for redemption The piece is intriguing because I can almost see him doing it. Of course admitting at a yell that you were an assassin for the Sith is not, as Bruce Dern said in Down Periscope, a promotional bell ringer. KOTOR The Sith Civil War Exiled Forever Post KOTOR: The Jedi in the crew now has to face the Sith in combat yet again Remember to use the proper term. You mop up enemy resistance, not your own surviving fleet. In that case you reform and reconstitute. Technical note: I don't think the life debt is explored fully, because if is anything like similar oaths here on Earth it cannot be fulfilled without a life long commitment. Having each of the remaining characters looking at the same situation from their unique views is a technique I use, and this author uses it well. However Jolee's struck an odd chord. As if he is to be the next to fall. The Return Noneko Post TSL: Revan and the Exile return. But what will they find? The piece flow well, the guards acting as you would anticipate, and the Jedi as bored as any tourist on an excursion. How Darth Malak Got His Metal Groove PadawanMage Pre KOTOR: He lost his jaw how? The piece was a dueling circle challenge about how Malak lost his jaw entitled Malak and His Removable Chin, and was very amusing. Casting HK in his very first appearance as a mad dentist was funny. Triple Zero Dside ajremix Set in the Republic Commando Universe: Scenes you didn't see in the book Triple Zero The piece is a perfect counterpoint to the book mentioned because like a lot of wartime fiction, the book concentrates on the actual combat and barracks situations rather than social interaction. Even clones would need downtime, and seeing hardened troops fighting over food like a bunch of kids in one scene made my day. Pick of the Week Karma Auros Sopherai Post TSL: Another Malak and His Removable Chin entry, Remember to sight edit. You used weary (tired) instead of wary (Careful). The reason the words lipped through the cracks was because it is in the dictionary of your word processing program. The piece is a perfect byplay by the accused and the committee, even if it has no actual judicial authority. The pushing him to anger just for a sound byte reminds me of the McCarthy era red 'Witch Hunt' trials. Revan still comes across as an evil monster, because it was his own version of the Sith teachings that gave Malak the idea that his later actions were acceptable. Under Military law, a superior officer is judged as liable for all atrocities committed by his men, and under those precedents, Revan has admitted to this responsibility, regardless of any acts he undertook to redress it. I am reminded of the Athenia incident during WWII; the British accused the Germans of sinking the ship. Since the German orders regarding what ships were to be targeted during that war,, those rules communicated to the British before the U Boat war began, it would have been a violation of international law. The Germans denied it. Yet a few weeks later the U Boat that had sunk it returned from patrol. Instead of admitting it they censured and cashiered the captain secretly, an event that was later used during the Nurnberg trials as an additional crime. kotorfanmedia Everyone Has Their Regrets Ravenrand16 Post KOTOR: Revan deals with fatherhood, and Bastila's reaction to it. The phrase 'this Jedi had no inept mission' didn't make sense. Maybe you meant implied, as in people assuming why from his presence. I think the reason Revan reacted this way was because of Bastila's reaction when she told him. She reacted like a woman already planning to abort the child. The ending was good, in fact except for the one moment of self doubt, it was superb as all of your work has been to date. Pick of the Week Perfect KyLewin Post KOTOR: When he can't stay, Revan leaves her with a beautiful memory I think you meant it as a negative in the sentence 'even knowing that it could (Not) last forever – regardless of what he promised. The piece is excellent, Bastila remembering the past evening and every beautiful moment, only to have it shattered when he leaves. To quote the title, Perfect. Pick of the Week. Tales of a Mandalorian Malpense the Dark Mandalorian Wars on Occupied Taris: Canderous spends time in mourning Mando'a Style Remember to sight edit. Waring slips past the spell checker because it is a company name, the correct word is warring, grabbed (Gripped) instead of gabbed (Ran off at the mouth) The piece is excellent, making a mere meeting in a cantina part of a death ritual. Canderous reacts so well for a man in mourning; like the Spartans of our own pre-history it is a society that ignores the tears and longing of most societies, it's more that you must prove you still live, an affirmation of life rather than death. It is almost as if he were looking for a woman willing to complete it; someone willing to say by her actions, 'he may be dead, but as long as we, the one who remember his death and I the one who shows life goes on can still live and love, so does he'. Pick of the Week What Comes First Noneko Pre KOTOR: As the Master of the Korriban Academy is busy making sure Selene is eliminated, Yuthura has another assignment... I think you meant replied (answered) instead of relied(depended). This is an editing problem, so it's not a big problem. The style is what I expect when I see your name as author, and you have never let me down before. I agreed with the previous reviewers that the guilt she expresses is a bit much; as Plutospawn said, it's a short story, and a little bit of spice goes a long way. But beyond that, it's well written as always. Pick of the Week Tarnished Gold RogueLadySabyne Pre KOTOR reply to an Anti-Valentine's day Challenge: Jolee and Nayama fight when she falls to the dark side. The piece was an excellent little look into the situation. In each case, only love stays their hand, regardless of the doctrinal schism they now have. Pick of the Week Reforged Prisoner24601 Two years Post TSL: Revan faces her greatest challenge, how to return to a life she had given up because she expected to die Technical Note: The idea of a dimensional gate is not new to science fiction, but is to Star Wars. Recently John Ringo in the first book of what is now called the Hedren series has such a gate as you describe being projected across space, but his device has a distance limit on it a lot shorter than what you describe. When the Prisoner and Dinah Lance (Co-author) show up on the scene, it's like a professional cook showing up to serve you his idea of breakfast, and this work is no exception. The acrimony between Min (Revan) and the man who is not only Manda'lor but also her estranged husband and father of her child is perfectly done. I could picture a stereotypical Mando'a couple going at it hammer and tongs like these two. In fact in my own Family of Choice I joked about it, that the fights between my main character and her husband had almost become a national spectator sport. But as I would expect with my characters, and these: The make up sex must be amazing. Pick of the Week Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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