Tenebrae Chapter 1 Part 1

Good Morning/Afternoon/Evening/Night(whichever one it is in your part of the world),

Hi! I'm here to leave a quick review!!

First Impression: Well, this sounds like a lovely start to this story here, definitely gets your attention right away and makes you want to find out more about what might happen to those poor people on the expedition there.

Anyway let's get right to it,

Forty years after the portal disaster (better known as hell’s invasion), the now defunct UAC discovered a peculiar planet in an obscure part of the galaxy. Completely covered in fog, the planet was ignored at the time due to restraints and lack of interest. It remained unknown until recently, when an exploration probe passed it by. While the probe was scouting around that sector of the galaxy, its scanner began picking up abnormal activity on the planet. Following its programming, it took a detour from the planned path and decided to go where the dragons lie, once it was close to the surface, it was greeted by hundreds if not thousands of corpses stuck upon pikes in the ground. Seeing this, the probe got to work immediately, skimming the grotesque graveyard for hours. The corpses appeared to be of many species from all over of the universe, the bodies on the pikes all had injuries on them – stuff like arrows in the head, sliced in half, burnt to a crisp – things of that nature. One, horrifyingly enough, appeared to be melted. Strange, but not surprising, of all the species recorded, the human species was absent.

Once the probe reached what seemed to be the center of the death garden, the blurry silhouette of a small structure could be seen. The probe ignored the corpse of a Blaserion it was analyzing and flew towards the building. The structure was like a small one room castle, or better yet, a small square keep if you will; it was shack size, appeared to be made of stone, was rectangular and had protruding merlons up top. On this side of the structure was a rectangular shaped carmine pink frame; within it was a black portal with hundreds of white dotes scattered upon it. The probe made its way around to look at the front of the structure. Up front, there was an oval shaped frame with a portal, two figures built into the stone curled around it; they were effigies of slender, black beings with huge elongated heads. One figure on the left curled around the frame downwards while the other was on the opposite side, curled upwards.

After observing all of this, the probe took off and went back into space; it was only allowed three detours with twenty four hours’ worth of time for each. Two months after the probe sent its footage back to Earth, a team of scientists and soldiers were sent in to further investigate the planet they then named “Tenebrae.”

Salutations! I'm here for a review!

"Completely covered in fog, the planet was relatively ignored until recently." This seems a bit unrealistic to me, because that's the type of thing I think would catch the human species's eye. I recommend changing that a bit just so it's a tiny more realistic.

"The probe ignored the corpse of a Blaserion it was analyzing and flew towards the building." I don't think you need Blaserion here, the reader probably doesn't care what type of alien(?) it was. (However, you could use that to ease the reader into the names you're using, and that's okay).

"...they then named “Tenebrae.”" This is actually what caught my attention in the first place (your use of it in the title), and sadly, not in a good way. I saw tenebrae and the first thing I thought was "That's the Latin word for darkness, isn't it?" I only know that because I began a story where the villain was named that, and I remember I got the word from Google Translate. I'm going to warn you now, using Latin in stories is a long, dark, dangerous road ending in regret. My sister used almost all Latin words in naming her world, and she regrets it so much. I'm not going to tell you to change it however, because it is your story and you can name the planet whatever you like. It makes more sense here, because Latin actually exists in this world (This is futuristic, right?) but maybe you should tweak it some. I know when we name things after Latin or Greek in the real world, we change the words a bit...That's just my thoughts.

I will say that this is interesting and will bring in people like GrayLynx. I wish you the best of luck on this!

-TigersMoon

I really liked this piece. Even though it was short, it drew me in and I wanted to know more. I sense a good story in the offing, and this piece is perfect to be the prologue to the story. I like how descriptive you are in describing the planet and what the probe saw, really well written.

Spelling and grammar wise, I see nothing wrong. The length is perfect of that of a prologue, not too long and it also draws the reader into the story. I love sic-fi stories like the one you are writing right now or about to write. I am definitely waiting for thru next part of thru story to be published.

I'm writing a space opera at the moment on the site and it would be nice if you could take a look at it if you have the time. Cheers !!

It's not a bad prologue. Pikes my curiosity enough. The gore imagery is lovely. I love slasher fiction, and I think you pulled it off in a way that was very reminiscent of ID Tech's Quake and Doom.

I do no have much advice as of now other than to just continue writing the story. We know what kind of story this is gonna be, and I certainly can tell it's the sorta thing that's right up my alley. It's gonna be a hyperviolent science-fiction adventure romp with things like FTL space travel, planetary warfare, Starship Trooper invasion scenes and every once and a while some brief investigation scenes where scientists are scratching their heads trying to find out what's going on.

I love the early Quake and Doom games, and I look forward to the continued chapters of this.