Help please. I'm in the process of rewriting my mock Starfighter Battle chapter, and there are lots of issues:
1. All eight delegates from Joseph's table are currently involved in this chapter. Don said he couldn't separate so many pilots. Problem is, I need at least five for the chapter to work (plus one to even the initial odds, yielding three per team). That being said, I figured there wasn't much difference between six and eight pilots, as long as I knock out three right away, leaving the required five. All eight contribute to the chapter, even those I kill off quickly.
2. I have no good way to help the reader keep track of which of the eight delegates are on which of the two teams. The v2 draft references them all by name, but there are too many of them. I could use call signs for the two teams (e.g., Robo One for Caligula, Homo One for Joseph, etc.), but, as K noted, that doubles the number of names from eight to sixteen. What if I always combine the call sign with the character name (e.g., "This is Homo Four," Stephanie said over the intercom)? The advantage of this approach is that I always remind the reader which team (Robo or Homo) each delegate is on as they read through the battle. Robo team is led by the Caligula, who has the cyborg face, and Homo team is led by Joseph, who gave another male delegate a very public kiss the night before, so it should be easy to remember who the team leaders are on.
3. Can I get rid of the explanation of how it's possible for starfighters to engage in dogfights in space even though there is no atmosphere? I had an explanation, but it's total crap, and Amy says it brings the chapter to a screeching halt. Star Wars never explained why dogfights work, unless they came up with some bogus physics in one of the later books.
4. Since this is meant to be mock combat, shields are always at maximum and novas (lasers) at minimum in each ship. This requires an explanation that the builtin combat simulator gives false readings (e.g., shields are down to 50% even though they're not). Technically, this works since the simulator can decide that a ship with 50% simulated shields can sustain more simulated damage (e.g., thrusters go dead) from additional nova blasts than if the ship had 100% simulated shields. Explaining this and picturing adds complexity, though, to the chapter. Not sure how to get around this.
Thanks
Dirk
