1. ScreamsfromtheCrematory

    ScreamsfromtheCrematory New Member

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    A hopefully-pretty-cool overview of a story I have in the works.

    Discussion in 'Plot Development' started by ScreamsfromtheCrematory, Nov 20, 2011.

    Review, critique, advice, and so on is welcome. This is just something akin to a dramatic advertisement and the universe of this story will be fairly large but if there's anything you'd like to know about it in order to make things more clear, just ask.



    Summary

    Across a vast plethora of star systems and subsequent worlds, the various forces that compose the Trans-Space Coalition reign as the largest known interstellar empire in current history. Throughout the astral sea, the universal image of its silver armoured soldiers and the highly advanced urban landscapes they guard portray a powerful image, one highly alluring to up-and-coming planetary nations. The word of its highly modernized society has quickly built a far-spanning image as a bastion of civilization and a pillar of progressive thought.

    Yet beyond its boundaries however lies a far different world, one where immense asymmetries in quality of living and the balance of power paints a far less welcoming image. Empires, republics, monarchies, unions, and independent planet-nations churn and froth in a seemingly unending cycle of control and resistance. As the most powerful agents of change beyond the apex form that is the Coalition, the constant internal actions and their external consequences create a constantly changing playing field in which borders swell and fade within mere months and centuries old dynasties are voted out of power in just a few hours.

    Between the hammer and the anvil of this planetary dichotomy, the remnants of ancient conquests and expansions arose. Monuments to the triumphs and the disgraces of those beyond their control, they remain as hotbeds of controversy within planetary parliaments and private military briefings. Even after the ages when such worlds were helpless prey to the desires and needs of invincible powers, the consequences of their acts are anything but dead and buried. Sent to fight in the name of glories long past, the Coalition actively influences the rising tides of power and downfall, whether through the select usage of military and intelligence assets or the impressive might of its vast armies.

    However, there is one weapon of theirs to which they have had a history far darker than any backwater once-tyrannical planet-state. A nomadic nation of assorted arthropod races, their identity obscured to even themselves by a history they never knew. Their whole population is fully contained upon a fleet, best known for its four massive planet-ships. They are the world-less nation simply known as Funebrarum. They are morose and almost fatalist creatures, towering and morbid conquerors of segmented joints, harsh and jagged exoskeletal plating, with a grim disposition towards a duty most sacred and severe. Their dispatch unto those who oppose the will of their handlers is the death sentence of whole star-spanning regimes. Sometimes, the mere suggestion of their aggression is enough to terrorize dissenters into surrender.

    Without no world to call home, no history from which to orient the theatre of their existence, and no real threat to their barely-well being, they are a broken and wandering nation. Officially "convinced" to conquer for the ever-fleeting reward of a home-planet, they are in secret threatened with cruel poli-economic sanctions seeking to choke them unto submission. This has been their way of life for over one thousand years.

    In recent years, the cluster of ex-Coalition worlds known as the Helios system erupts into a violent maelstrom of civil violence. Boundaries of culture, religion, ethnicity, race, history, and territory bend and break and turn once-peaceful role model worlds into spheres of pure carnage. The massive mission puts the rest of the interstellar community on edge and the highest powers scream and roar for a T.S.C. response. They answer, congealing their most respected and experienced military minds across the five core races and creating a joint task force. Inevitably, due to the harshness of the situation, the Funebraran 13th War Swarm is selected as an extreme threat response group. A pseudo-elite unit, they have a strange working relation with the unofficial gathering of powerful Coalition generals, businessmen, and politicians simply known as the "Joint Command Group".

    Lead by the supreme commander or "Voivod" Acyziom Vyrczek, the Swarm is known for the strangely careful and some may even say worldly aware leadership it possesses and a constant sense of change in its policies. To Aczyiom, this is little more than another footnote of a conflict in a vast ocean of such things but before even their operation truly begins to heat up, the 13th soon discovers something far more foul creeping beneath the surface of this humanitarian action.

    Stretching far back to the days of turmoil and corruption that characterized the early days of Helios-Coalition involvement, forces both official and unofficial are fighting a war within wars. Disgraced generals, once-allied emperors, power-hungry tribesmen, high priests of esoteric belief, even the highest echelons of Coalition power, military or not, all have their "additional" reasons for aggression. Hidden upon each worlds are practically antediluvian remnants of civilizations long gone, reminders of forces that have shaped their history before they had even fully evolved. The advanced power and knowledge they contain are the keys to gaining the edge in a universe where chance is a king-maker and opportunity to be seized at any cost.

    In this case, the missing link to the past of a damned collection of races. The battle is only beginning but Aczyiom and the funeral warriors under his command are now facing the challenge of a lifetime. This time, their allies are as fickle as their enemies are ferocious. The Coalition and its major backers, the Solstice corporation, threaten to cripple the 13th as they grow closer and closer to revealing the past. The hidden hands of the sector's most powerful ruler back violent militias and defective militaries, growing increasingly hostile to not only the Coalition but also them as their search leads them deeper and deeper into the darkest domains of Coalition influence. As whole worlds groan and collapse underneath the weight of the bloody past and the blinding future, the funebrarans must use every single tactic, weapon, combative instinct and ounce of their iron will. An ancient force, a damnable and disgusting part of their very past, is arising and thrashing beneath the very veneer of civil war and deniable operations and it rises with each sacrifice made in the name of ancient hate and corporatist greed.

    If there is to be a present to salvage, only Aczyiom and 13th will be able to protect it.
     
  2. cruciFICTION

    cruciFICTION Contributor Contributor

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    I'm sure it's welcome, but I'm sorry to ask: what is it you want from us? Do you have a specific question?

    I don't want to sound overly harsh because you're obviously new. This forum is not here to validate your ideas. If you like the idea, write it.
    If you have a problem, we can help, but as far as I'm concerned (and very likely others, but I don't speak for them), it's unhealthy for your writing to do what you're doing. Write it and THEN ask what people think, because that's when it matters.
     
  3. Irontrousers

    Irontrousers New Member

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    Oh damn, that's a lot of words. Just tell me what the story is about in the space of one sentence. Asking me to spare more attention than that is unmitigated greed.
     
  4. Ixloriana

    Ixloriana New Member

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    Well-written but dry. That is quite a wall of text, I'm afraid. I read the first paragraph or two but couldn't do more than skim the rest. I can't see any plot in here at all, due to being bogged down in details of the setting, and the plot is the important part.

    What is going on in it? Who is the main character, what does he want, and what is stopping him from getting it? Start with this, not six paragraphs of stage-setting.

    And while I think one sentence might not do it justice, I do think that nine paragraphs of summary is practically a work of prose in itself. Try to cut it down to one paragraph -- if nothing else, it may be a useful exercise to distill your story down to only its most vital concepts.
     
  5. Ixloriana

    Ixloriana New Member

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    Pardon the double-post. D:
     

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