Hard Light Productions Forums
General FreeSpace => FreeSpace Discussion => Topic started by: General Battuta on March 02, 2014, 03:56:32 pm
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Here it is. (http://clarkesworldmagazine.com/dickinson_03_14/) I've been in touch with Jason Scott about it as well.
*there are a lot of other equally fine magazines!
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I've been looking forward to reading this ever since it was announced, and wow was it a good read. Fantastic job, Battuta.
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Seems Luis Dias beat you to it, Slowtutta.
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Not-Bad-Tutta. Not bad. :yes:
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Super fine work as always, Battuta!
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Great work, Battuta, one heck of a way to bring attention to Freespace and Blue Planet, as well. =)
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Awesome read
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Just listened to the audio version, Fantastic work Battuta :yes:
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Awesomeeeeeeee
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Fun read, thanks for sharin' :yes:
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Half way though it and I'm liking it very much.
Planning on doing some more stuff BP-related in the future?
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Silly ass side note:
Out of curiosity how much linguistic drift exists now that there is recorded voice?
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Like, between people within the setting?
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Just in general, whether linguistic drift would be very prevalent in a society that maintains recorded audio visual. I wonder if much of our language is locked from too much change, even a hundred years in the future and a star system away.
I suppose this is terribly silly side discussion, sorry for the derail.
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No, it's pretty interesting. I think that the lesson of globalization has been - well, I'm not a linguist, but I'd hazard an opinion that drift never stops. There would be more common touchstones pulling people together, but there's also a larger raw number of people living in more diverse environments. You also get more dynamic interaction between different linguistic groups, leading to more slang and patois.
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Yes I can see how the merging and overlap of languages especially will be a strong force for change. I wonder if "traditional" versions of the languages, or at least the understanding of, will continue to exist? Granted something like Beowulf is barely recognizable English, on the other hand the availability and understanding of the written word was not particularly high in those times and probably not strong enough to cement the drift.
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Just a fantastic read. And I think the most mind-blowing part is, "Hey, I played this!"
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ahaha yeah
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Really enjoyed reading this. Thanks for sharing. Any intentions of transforming these vignettes into a fully-fledged bp novel? It definitely has potential. Just one small thing: »She opens a glove in invitation. “I’m with Federation wetwork.«. Shouldn't this be network? Sorry, I just couldn't resist pointing this out.
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I think wetwork in this context means assassination (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wetwork).
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thanks, you are right. The wonderful thing with the english language is that you can still discover new words after dozens of years of study...
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Really enjoyed reading this. Thanks for sharing. Any intentions of transforming these vignettes into a fully-fledged bp novel? It definitely has potential. Just one small thing: »She opens a glove in invitation. “I’m with Federation wetwork.«. Shouldn't this be network? Sorry, I just couldn't resist pointing this out.
I'm glad you liked it! We'd have to see what Jason Scott, my agent, and an IP lawyer think.
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Really enjoyed reading this. Thanks for sharing. Any intentions of transforming these vignettes into a fully-fledged bp novel? It definitely has potential. Just one small thing: »She opens a glove in invitation. “I’m with Federation wetwork.«. Shouldn't this be network? Sorry, I just couldn't resist pointing this out.
I'm glad you liked it! We'd have to see what Jason Scott, my agent, and an IP lawyer think.
Would be interesting to see. If its feasible put me down for a copy
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Um. Headdie? I think you accidentally the quote.
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:banghead: fixed
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Reviews :3
“Morrigan in the Sunglare” by Seth Dickinson
After an alien invasion successfully repulsed, the worlds of Sol turned inward and adopted a pacifistic lifestyle, leaving their interstellar colonies on their own. When the interstellar Alliance came to Earth for assistance in preparing for another alien assault, the homeworlders turned them down. The consequence is now war between the two human powers, with Federation pilots having to struggle to cast off their humane values in order to fight effectively. Those who “talk about why the war started, how it would end, who was right, who was wrong” are the ones who break. But Laporte, callsign Morrigan, loves it out there, the killing.
How could you think like that and then pull the trigger, ride the burst, guns guns guns and boom, scratch bandit, good kill? So Laporte gave up on empathy and let herself ride the murder-kick. She hated herself for it. But at least she didn’t break.
Laporte loves her commander, Simms, who has had to embrace hate in order to pull the trigger. After their ship is disabled and falling into the sun, they have time while dying of radiation poisoning for a long discussion of such questions.
A provocative work, the sort that makes readers wonder: just what is the author doing here? Because we are immersed in Laporte’s point of view as protagonist, witness to her embrace of the murder-kick, it seems natural to empathize, to congratulate her success, and I suspect a number of readers will do exactly that. “Monsters win”, so Laporte’s transition to a monster is a good thing, a necessary thing for victory. Cheer. Wave flags.
But I think the author is quite a bit more subtle here, or at least so I read it, as a deconstruction of the Laporte position. This is a horror story, a monster story, an anti-war story. This is largely because we can see, as the antagonists apparently do not dare, that it’s an unnecessary war – a war of choice, not survival. At first, people could engage with that proposition. They can think: maybe we should make common cause with each other for the sake of our common humanity. There is one scene where we see the combatants make a temporary, wary truce, only to have it accidentally blown away, to everyone’s secret relief. Peace is hard, war is the easier alternative; you don’t have to think. This sort of thing becomes its own end, self-perpetuating. We can see from this point into a future in which, like Bear’s Hardfought, humanity has remade itself to service the needs of a forever war with no discernible beginning or end – monsters.
And readers will have to wonder: what happens when the aliens return, as the Alliance is convinced that they will. Will the two factions of humanity be able to unite to face a common enemy in a true war of survival? Will this fratricidal combat prove to have strengthened them, transforming them into the kind of monsters that will be able to save the species? Or will it prove to have weakened them so that, the next time, they fall? Some readers may think it might be a good thing if the aliens did suddenly show up again, to save humanity from itself, from its own monsters.
–RECOMMENDED
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Some readers may think it might be a good thing if the aliens did suddenly show up again, to save humanity from itself, from its own monsters.
You don't say...
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It's kind of an interesting question, isn't it? That's how these stories end, right? Whether it's a TV show or a series of novels or a video game, readers start to attach to the antagonists. Spike teams up with Buffy. The cool Cylons join up with the Colonials. The EA signs a treaty with the GTVA. The reader learns to see both sides as protagonists, to value their perspectives and concerns.
So the Even Greater Menace arrives to prevent final reckoning, to make sure our newly sympathetic antagonists can set aside their differences and team up with the designated heroes. It's easier than letting the conflict play out, easier than forcing the reader to endure conflict between two sides they'd like to see set aside their differences. Team A and Team B can both be cool, they can both win. Let's gang up on Team C, the real bad guys: they're True Evil!
But it's a cheat. It's a narrative flinch. It hurts less than seeing the war run its course and knowing that someone wins and someone loses and maybe it's not clear which should have been which.
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for a moment there i was confused as to why captain Mence was Even Greater and what that had to do with anything else in that sentence.
Great read, and even greater when you know the things that were left unsaid... and I wonder, how do those readers react who never played BP?
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I'm very interested in knowing that too.
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There's the review above, a scrap of reaction/review at the end of the audio version of the story (linked from the text version) which I found rather touching, and a bunch of tweets from people who loved it but who rarely get into more depth than 'I loved this' or 'I love @sethjdickinson's writing, and his new military SF short is stupid-good' (not to say I didn't adore hearing that, especially coming from an incredibly talented person I totally don't have a crush on (http://i.somethingawful.com/forumsystem/emoticons/emot-allears.gif)). All in all it's had some pretty strong response for a piece of short SF.
Nobody has yet accused it of being a ripoff, whether of FreeSpace or Cherryh's Union/Alliance setting or anything else.
e: Also it's a really big deal to not only get into Clarkesworld but to get lead billing. Very exciting.
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But it's a cheat. It's a narrative flinch.
Personally I call it the "DragonballZ syndrome". And why should anyone accuse it of being a ripoff? Ripoffs only exist when the writing isn't brilliant, cue Picasso's line.
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But it's a cheat. It's a narrative flinch.
Personally I call it the "DragonballZ syndrome".
Really? I always called "Dragonball Z syndrome" when the heroes run into someone UNSTOPPABLY POWERFUL and get their asses kicked until one or more characters get a power boost, which either leads to the battle being won or the villain revealing (one of) their TRUE FORM(s), which repeats the process. I'm not sure what that has to do with the cliché being discussed, of two sympathetic warring factions joining forces against a third group who are more antagonistic... a situtation which applies to the plot of Freespace 1, I might add (well, depending on how "sympathetic" you find the Vasudans).
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ahah yeah that's also true, but I was going for the DBZ cliché of "I'm da bad GUYZZ untilyoudefeatmeandnowwe'rebestfriendsFOREVAH".
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ahah yeah that's also true, but I was going for the DBZ cliché of "I'm da bad GUYZZ untilyoudefeatmeandnowwe'rebestfriendsFOREVAH".
I think Nanoha has repossessed that cliche and made it its own. Prepare to be befriended.
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Whenever it happens in Naruto, my sister calls it "FRIENDSHIP NO JUTSU!"
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Jason Scott thought it was fantastic :3
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Jason Scott thought it was fantastic :3
Congratulations!
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Jason Scott thought it was fantastic :3
He ought to. Very well done.
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I am glad you referenced Darius and Blue Planet at the bottom of the piece. It'd be amazing if some readers googled what those words meant and found themselves here to play the mod for themselves. Sure, all of WiH part 1 would be spoiled, but I really don't think that hurts the experience at all.
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I am glad you referenced Darius and Blue Planet at the bottom of the piece. It'd be amazing if some readers googled what those words meant and found themselves here to play the mod for themselves. Sure, all of WiH part 1 would be spoiled, but I really don't think that hurts the experience at all.
This is almost true, in my case. The short convinced me to actually play Blue Planet, rather than keep going with the 'When it's finished, sure' line I've been using for years.
Definitely as excellent as I'd been led to expect. I was a little disappointed there weren't 'real' physics, to be honest, but there were enough threads in the game's narrative beyond Noemi and Lorena to keep me engaged, and enough to do that the foreknowledge of how the missions would play out slipped away during. (It also likely helped that I forgot the Argos was going to show up until the reveal, so that sequence still had a lot of weight)
The only thing that spoiled some of the experience, in my opinion, came with Act 3. The is-she-isn't-she game with Lorena didn't work for me at all after the short. I felt that her survival* was very strongly implied by the fiction, so the reveal was met with more of a 'finally' than any happy squeal. The rest of that act's narrative still worked wonderfully, though.
*Though I could just be projecting a 'science-fiction-y' expectation of their abilities, rather than the setting's extant medical technology.
Fantastic experience on the whole, and I'd love to see other shorts for the other acts.
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I was a little disappointed there weren't 'real' physics
Impossible while remaining in the Freespace universe, unfortunately (short version: "subspace is ~magic~").
Also, it's "Lorna", not "Lorena".
(It also likely helped that I forgot the Argos was going to show up until the reveal, so that sequence still had a lot of weight)
..."Argos was going to show up"? You've lost me. Do you mean the Masyaf, or was there a dramatic sequence with more than one Argo that I can't remember, and you just typed "was" instead of "were"?
My confusion notwithstanding... I, for one, am glad you enjoyed Blue Planet!
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He was remembering the tragic moment when the Wargods are shockjumped by a British catalogue retail outlet.
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Lorena, Argos
Yeah, I meant Lorna and the Imperiuse. I guess there was some mental crossover from the MS I was reading this morning. :(
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That narrator has a voice that makes me hold my breath.
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This was fantastic. Really enjoyed reading it and seeing a little more depth added to Simms and Laporte's relation. Can't wait for more incredible stuff from you guys!
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As a writer, you have my admiration. As a reader, you have me as a fan. And as a fellow Freespace player, you have all my respect and more.
To think that all of this had its origin with a space flight sim back in the 1998 is quite astonishing. Battuta, you are awesome for taking one of the best game and associated mod (go Blue Planet!) and immortalizing it with that brilliant short story. Seriously bro, you rule.
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Thank you!
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Very nice indeed General!
Thank you for helping and creating so much for this game!! Seriously you really have contributed so much to the free space universe. I can't wait to see more of your high quality work!!!
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I am in awe. This is some excellent writing right there. Great work Battuta!