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Thanks, but the scene was too gratuitous for v3. I've been dialing down explicit violence since chapter one. The same number of people get killed, but I show only what I really need to accomplish the story goals. If I follow Neuer Mond Treaty rules, I can still burn/hurl a lot of teens without killing (m)any of them, otherwise it's an overt act of war. I'll also trample some in the resulting stampede. Law enforcement, on the other hand, are like stormtroopers, just dying to be shot.

I seem to have hit a brick wall in one of my chapters. I've generally reduced the violence in v3 to broaden the potential audience down to age 14 (from 16 or 18). However, I have a scene from v2 that I need to keep for story/character reasons, but the major event in that chapter is a deadly attack on a parade square filled with teenage cadets. There were some gratuitous elements from v2 I can definitely get rid of (body parts strewn about, birds circling, flies buzzing), but I can't think of a way to further reduce the violence. The attackers are pissed about the hanging of their comrades, so I'm not sure they would be merciful enough to use non-lethal weapons, especially since the guards protecting the parade will shoot to kill. Perhaps some shoot it out with the guards, while the rest set their weapons for "burn" rather than kill? Meh. I suppose all of the attackers could set their weapons for burn in spite of the fact that the guards are shooting to kill, based on the idea that they don't want to bring down the wrath of the government on their families and friends. Iffy. Another possibility is for the attackers to shoot guards to kill, but they throw some form of non-lethal explosive at the cadets in order to cause panic and show what they could have done. Again meh. Or just go with the deadly attack minus the gratuitous elements.

Thoughts?

Boiling fluid sounds cool. :-)  I think my problem may be that I'm calling them crispers, which suggests burning. As far as I can find online, burns can leak a lot of fluid, but there's no discussion of bleeding.

Amy, I have a question about burns. My characters use crispers in battle, which are basically my version of blaster rifles. In chapter one, I used one to blow the arm off a colonel, who then goes on to bleed profusely from the wound, eventually dropping dead from blood loss. Can a severe burn go on to cause profuse bleeding like that? I have a new scene to write with a lot characters getting hit. I'm wondering how much to make them bleed, if any.

Thanks
Dirk

Here's the revised version: Caesar, this procedure is excruciating. Replicated tissue produces a flood of uncontrolled nerve signals for hours, causing intense pain. It’s like being burned alive. It completely overwhelms any safe dose of narcotics I could give you. You must not attempt this without anesthesia.

I'm going to put some of that in. The biggest improvement is that I now have consistent growth of nerve cells across both medical scenes.

Thanks, njc.
Dirk

Caligula convinced Nero to forbid anesthesia for Apollo. He either has to live with the scourging scars or undergo the procedure while conscious. I even added a medication he has to sip to protect his vocal cords while he's screaming. The doctor tells him the medication is referred to as sewage by patients and that the stomach rejects it, causing the patient to vomit as much as they drink. Seabrass thought the medication was over the top. :-)

Now I just need a way to reconcile the two aforementioned medical procedures (one creates nerves while the other destroys them), all while making the scourging treatment excruciating. One option would be for the scourging treatment to cause pain by some other mechanism than burning existing nerves in nearby healthy tissues.

Amy, help!

4017 human cell replication problem:

As you may recall, Apollo burns off his arm in Act III and orders the doctor not to reattach the nerves when she regrows his arm, which takes only a few days. I can stretch the regrowth indefinitely timewise, since the arm is useless without the nerves, so he doesn't really need it right away for story purposes. However, I'd like him to have a normal working arm eventually, which means nerves can be regrown under the right circumstances.

The problem arises in my latest chapter, Apollo Gets Spanked. Apollo is forced to undergo an excruciating procedure to rapidly treat/heal many scourging wounds on his back without anesthesia. The procedure uses rapid cell replication to fill in and bind the wounds together like a zipper. But what makes it excruciating? Tentatively, I have the procedure burning away at existing nerves in adjacent healthy tissue.

These two forms of cell regrowth strike me as inconsistent. The first can regrow an entire arm, including nerves, whereas the second destroys nerves. The only reason I destroy nerves is to make the procedure painful. Can anyone suggest a different/better reason why treating the scourging wounds would be excruciating?

Thanks
Dirk

I need to get you to name new characters for me. Yours are cool. I have a character named Maximilian Hunter. I like the first name, as it's important to my short story, but Hunter is crap.

Aussie has masterminded an attack on the Royal Family, resulting in 12 dead Royal Guard officers.
She's about to plan an attack on a parade of teenage cadets. In v2, it was a slaughter. Not sure how to write it for a PG audience.

My next chapter, Apollo Gets Spanked, is up. This is mostly new unless you were around for my aborted v1.

Quick, go read!
Dirk

P.S. Counting my short story, I'm actually 2-3 posts ahead of some of you. How cool is that? Amy gets a pass because she's on chemo. As for the rest, I owe some reviews, so write something!

No worries. I'm not allowed to cross the border anymore. The details are hidden in my autobiography, Into the Mind of God. :-)