Damion Fitz Intro

[Joshua Jones]

Some things are a bit "on the nose", like "We Irregulars are expendable; his weapon isn’t." It is a bit Basil Exposition.

Also, using terms like "power armor" is simply borrowing someone else's concept by referring to it by name. If you want to build a world, build it from the ground up without using borrowed tropes. You can use power armor, but invent it with fresh language or by simply letting the reader figure out what the character is wearing by what he experiences. You wouldn't simply borrow "death star", so maybe avoid the SF shortcuts.

You may well have a common coms channel, like Emergency Guard, that doesn't come with ID. But maybe say it was over that channel because your readers will make the same objection as the Judge - electronic tagging is cheap compared to Mach 15 space suits. There's just so much you can strip things down before it becomes unbelievable that a spacecraft doesn't have running water, for instance.


My suggestion is to tell the reader less exposition and demonstrate it instead. Use fewer descriptive words for the facts of the universe and more action to describe how the objects and events shape events. Give the reader credit for understanding how expendable the troopers are by the Sgt ordering "Dump him and secure the armor". What isn't said is more powerful than spelling it out.


"Negative G" usually means a rapid decrease in G toward zero, like going into freefall in an elevator, or G that is upside down to the orientation of the person or vehicle. So someone who spends a minute at -1G is someone who is upside down. Is there a reason that he would be oriented upside down?


I agree that the piece seems emotionally detached. Mainly because it seems to offer the character's internal state, yet he seems about as inconvenienced as someone who's coffee cup needs refilling. There's nothing wrong with not depicting how the character feels at all, or having a character that doesn't care about what's happening to them. But you have the character both involved and detached in a way that doesn't feel realistic.

Fair enough, thank you for your feedback.

I will say that "Irregulars are expendable" is something of a motto for this group. They are kind of like the USMC in that way; they pride themselves in being able to accomplish more with less than the much better equipped "Regulars". That, and the fact that their expendibility is drilled into them from the moment they step on the training/penal planet means they can either embrace and take pride in it or be crushed by the weight of it. The latter typically don't survive training, which also leads to the normalization of comrade death for the former. All that being said, I think I can do a better job of showing this in this section.

And, truth be told, they don't really care about the armor either; that is obsolete tech and dead weight. Not having a grenadier reduces unit efficiency, so all they really care about is the weapon. If there was a chance of Givens still being alive, the squad would likely try to stabilize him and put him somewhere reasonably safe until the area was secured and they could get him back to base. But, with him surely dead, efficiency is all that mattered.

Also, to be honest, the "powered armor" is an edit I did to make this more understandable here, as this armor is introduced a few chapters back as the "Minotaur APCA mk. 12", typically just referred to as "Minotaur armor". Regulars, btw, use the mk. 16, while Irregulars get whatever is surplus, with NCOs getting the less obsolete ones. There is another class of armor called the Centaur PPCA, which is for marksmen and has pneumatics designed more for fine movements than raw strength. All this to say, I agree with your concern about borrowed tropes, and I think I leaned on this too much in the pre-combat dialogue, but in this particular case, it is for clarity to the present audience.

Other than those points of clarification, I think your feedback is spot on, and I greatly appreciate your taking the time to look it over.

 

[Joshua Jones]

Would there be any interest among those who reviewed this in reviewing a revision? I have been working to incorporate the suggestions you have made into this section, and I think it is improved a fair bit. Significantly more emotion, more setting, and that sort of thing.

 

[Onyx]

Fair enough, thank you for your feedback.

I will say that "Irregulars are expendable" is something of a motto for this group. They are kind of like the USMC in that way; they pride themselves in being able to accomplish more with less than the much better equipped "Regulars". That, and the fact that their expendibility is drilled into them from the moment they step on the training/penal planet means they can either embrace and take pride in it or be crushed by the weight of it. The latter typically don't survive training, which also leads to the normalization of comrade death for the former. All that being said, I think I can do a better job of showing this in this section.

And, truth be told, they don't really care about the armor either; that is obsolete tech and dead weight. Not having a grenadier reduces unit efficiency, so all they really care about is the weapon. If there was a chance of Givens still being alive, the squad would likely try to stabilize him and put him somewhere reasonably safe until the area was secured and they could get him back to base. But, with him surely dead, efficiency is all that mattered.

Also, to be honest, the "powered armor" is an edit I did to make this more understandable here, as this armor is introduced a few chapters back as the "Minotaur APCA mk. 12", typically just referred to as "Minotaur armor". Regulars, btw, use the mk. 16, while Irregulars get whatever is surplus, with NCOs getting the less obsolete ones. There is another class of armor called the Centaur PPCA, which is for marksmen and has pneumatics designed more for fine movements than raw strength. All this to say, I agree with your concern about borrowed tropes, and I think I leaned on this too much in the pre-combat dialogue, but in this particular case, it is for clarity to the present audience.

Other than those points of clarification, I think your feedback is spot on, and I greatly appreciate your taking the time to look it over.

I would say that repeating your motto to the in group is not realistic.

You probably should not make writing choices based on the fact that you are posting an excerpt. It would be better to explain the pieces that are found in the rest of the text than trying to make an excerpt answer every question.

I'd enjoy reading your re-write.

 

[The Judge]

Would there be any interest among those who reviewed this in reviewing a revision? I have been working to incorporate the suggestions you have made into this section, and I think it is improved a fair bit. Significantly more emotion, more setting, and that sort of thing.

Put it up -- in a separate thread is best -- and see who wants to chime in!