[General Battuta]

I have completed one! It is a short story, 9000 words, of at least decent quality (I can guarantee proper punctuation and good grammars, and sometimes I win awards, so I do not suck completely)

IT IS ABOUT

(i must redact key terms in case a future publisher googles them to see if I put the story online for free  )

[REDACTED] [REDACTED], marine grunt in mankind's ongoing war against a mysterious and unstoppable memetic weapon called the Loom, awakens from a three-month cryosleep to find herself mysteriously two months pregnant. Frozen out of combat operations, left to rot in orbit as her comrades fight a losing battle against an invisible foe, she begins the hunt for answers in the bowels of the cavernous warship [REDACTED].

THAT IS WHAT IT IS ABOUT

If I hope to ever publish it, I cannot put the full text here, but I can email it to interested parties. PM me with your address if you are interested! (I am particularly interested in feedback from certain Messrs. of keen and proven storytelling potency.)

This offer is subject to sudden cancellation if my beautiful legal adviser tells me it is unwise and would harm my chances of publication.  

[SpardaSon21]

How can she be two months pregnant if she was in cryosleep for three months?  That part is certainly mysterious.

Expect a PM since this sounds interesting.

[The E]

'tis indeed a good story. Definitely worth checking out.

[General Battuta]

How can she be two months pregnant if she was in cryosleep for three months?  That part is certainly mysterious.

Expect a PM since this sounds interesting.

IS IT NOT MYSTERIOUS?

Sent it to you.

I think this thread can safely be used for discussion w/spoiler tags.

[Dilmah G]

Hmm, Halo and System Shock 2 didn't by any chance influence your work did it Battuta?

No, but that's what came into my head when reading the OP.

[General Battuta]

Nopes. But there is at least one homage to a certain fairly transparently related science fiction classic. See if you can spot it!

[mxlm]

So, I liked it. Substantially more than I was expecting to, actually (sorry, batman!). And now I don't want to discuss it, because, uh,
 /me points at OP

I will say that the twist I was expecting was for

Spoiler:

the colonial marines to discover that, like, they were actually the infected (I'm not using their proper name, as I'm apparently more paranoid than Battuta ). Not that such a revelation would have made sense with all the INSANITY IS PART OF THE TIMES foreshadowing, but still

[Dilmah G]

Nopes. But there is at least one homage to a certain fairly transparently related science fiction classic. See if you can spot it!

Starship Troopers? 

[TopAce]

Invisible foe = Predator?

[redsniper]

Memetic kill agents and [REDACTED]? Sign me up!

[Topgun]

forgive my ignorance, but what does memetic mean?

[General Battuta]

forgive my ignorance, but what does memetic mean?

In general, a 'meme' is sort of an 'idea unit', a mental equivalent to a gene. A memetic weapon is a (so far purely science-fictional) thought or idea that can kill, harm, or forcibly alter people who think it.

The one in this story does not quite work like that, and in fact the story itself never uses the term memetic weapon. It's all explained in the text.

[Goober5000]

forgive my ignorance, but what does memetic mean?

Pertaining to memes.  This obviously implies that the web has become saturated with viral fads, with the resulting emergent behavior triggering sentience!  The Internet will kill us all!  A masterstroke of suspenseful dread by the pen of Battuta!

Spoiler:

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=memetic

I should very much like to read this story.


EDIT: Blast!  Battuta posted first.  Also, apparently the spoiler tag doesn't work on links.

[General Battuta]

New wave of stories just went out.

I got some vaguely spoilery questions that I would not mind discussing with people. I will post them LATOR.

[General Battuta]

Whurps. Minor story logic error corrected in my local copy. I'll see if anyone is clever enough to spot it!

[BloodEagle]

I'd like a look.  Might take me a bit to get around to it, though.

[Scourge of Ages]

Read the whole thing today (at work, don't tell anybody  )

Spoiler:

I figured out the gist of what the problem was about two pages before the main character, which left me feeling clever. That's a mark of good writin.'

I don't really feel like actually spoiling anything yet.

EDIT: My vote for "transparently related science fiction classic" is also Starship Troopers.

[Herra Tohtori]

I'd love to take a look at this as well.

[perihelion]

I'm interested.

[General Battuta]

I'd like a look.  Might take me a bit to get around to it, though.

I'm interested.

You dudes, like, gotta give me your emails, and stuff, man.