The Galaxy Tales - Dirk B. (Page 6 of 49)

As I mentioned in an earlier post, any tech we can up with will have a counter-measure, since the boarding has to happen for story purposes. The blocked latches is a good one, but my universe has explosives to force their way through locked doors. I use that in Act II.

The last battle chapter is up. I didn't have space for traps or delaying tactics, since the chapter is already too long. My story excuse is that they're waging battle chess, which has strict rules. No glue on the floors. No hydraulic-propelled nails through the eyeballs, either. A shame about that last one.

Go read my crap.

Thanks.
Dirk

I came up with the idea for the change a while ago, but was going to save it for v3. Yesterday, I figured 'what the hell.' Can't remember where the idea came from. My thanks if it came from you. Where do you use matched names?

Aphrodite will probably become Gaia in v3. Not sure yet. Technically, it's a Greek name, but it was also used as a praenomem for Roman women.

K.

Impressed by char(cough)...acter development.

From the man who wrote an entire book so he could get a character pregnant and bring the child into his plot-line. As said by a man who defines all humanity in terms of D&D character alignment.

Norm, take the compliment and run. Make sure to get a screen shot the next time K forgets and picks on you for LACK of character development. He's rather fickle, our K.

Does anyone have any suggestions for why a damaged starfighter would lead to the death of the pilot in, say, a minute? I need the pilot to sacrifice herself after she (Eve) realizes she doesn't have enough time for a rescue. I've already used the "losing air" bit in the previous chapter, so I was hoping to do something different this time. I was going to use a coolant leak from the power core, but another pilot has his power knocked out without an explosion, which suggests Eve should be able to simply take her core offline, too. Perhaps she can't take it offline? Seems hokey.

Thoughts?

No, she needs to remain in control of the ship long enough to crash into something. Basically, she figures out she's dead meat, then sacrifices herself to help the MC.

She suffered internal injuries in the torso and realizes she has just enough consciouness time to take one usedul action.

Getting warmer. Losing consciousness is not potentially fatal. One of the other pilots is adrift, so she could be too, both hoping for rescue.

I'm looking for some kind of looming fatal technology failure, since her fighter was damaged in battle. Air loss I did last chapter with a raider. I suppose I could make it so the power core is going supercritical because of lost coolant and she can't shut it down. Meh.

But there's no way for her to know if she'll die in one minute or fifteen or an hour. Even if I was coughing up blood, I couldn't predict my own time of death. If I know for sure that I've got maybe one to two minutes left to live, that would drive me to ram a shield emitter for the good of mankind. Otherwise, I'd be holding out hope.

How much do you know about fission reactors. Technically, the power generators in my fighters are not nuclear reactors, but the same principles might apply. Namely that they can go supercritical without coolant. One of my pilots is not losing coolant, but he's lost main power. The other pilot who sacrifices herself does so because she's losing coolant and the power generator will explode. How do i reconcile those? How is it that pilot A loses power without his generator exploding, while pilot B is about to explode because of coolant loss?

Ok... reviewed the section. hat I said about not having enough power to affect a direction change in time appears to stand. Should I draw out the diagrams?

Sure. Consider this conversation between Alice and Bob, the latter of whom has just emerged crawling from a fiery car crash only to collopse a few steps away.

Alice: Bob! Oh no! I think his heart just stopped. I'd better inject him with an unsafe amount of steroids
Bob: (wakes up): Alice! I should be dead!
Alice: I gave you a dangerous injection. You now have twenty minutes to live!
Bob: Twenty minutes!
Alice: Go to the hospital. Get help.
Bob: I gotta get back in that burning car and rescue other passengers
Alice: Are you crazy?!? I said you have twenty minutes to live!!
Bob: I will never leave my companions to die. Help me.
Alice: Yes, Bob. I will accompany you on this quest. Bob? Bob? What are you doing? Why are you sitting back down?
Bob: Alice... I wonder about my car's spedometer. Do you think it gave me an accurate representation of my speed?
Alice: Twenty minutes, Bob. You're going to die in twenty minutes.
Bob: I wonder how I can find out. What if we never learn the truth?
Alice: Look... while you get all existential, I'm going to go bake muffins.

I've added a little stress to this, but that's basically what happens. All the characters except one are acting with a high level of urgency. the one calm character (the M/C) somehow manages to cool them down to his level and even engages them on philosophical debate. What' missing in my example story is character C who will make a turnkey statement that allows Bob to change tracks .

Bob: I gotta get back in that burning car and rescue other passengers
Alice: Are you crazy?!? I said you have twenty minutes to live!!
Bob: I will never leave my companions to die. Help me.
Alice: Yes, Bob. I will accompany you on this quest.
Chris: Bob! I just ran a scan of the flight recorder. Apparently you broke the speed of sound!
Bob: What? *falls to his knees* That-- that's impossible
Alice: Bob? Bob? What are you doing? Why are you sitting back down?
Bob: Alice... I wonder about my car's spedometer. Do you think it gave me an accurate representation of my speed?

It's still a little zany with C but I hope you can see how C adjusts A's energy level.