Chapter 2
Captains Log, 21st December 2228. Astrofleet Command has reassigned the Voyager from its initial mission of surveying gaseous anomalies and the gas giants in the Antues System to search for the GSC da Gama which Astrofleet Command has lost all contact with four days ago. The da Gama’s last known position was less than two and a half light years from the Klinzith border. The Voyager’s long range sensors has detected what appear to be debris at the last known coordinates of the da Gama, but we cannot determine the origin or the type of the debris unless we get a more detailed scan at a closer range. With the increasing number of hostile Klinzith incursion into Commonwealth territory, the debris that Voyager has picked up might be that of a destroyed da Gama. However, I hope that is not the case
“Computer, end log recording,” said the GCS Voyager’s captain, Matthew Kim. The computer gave out the distinctive chime that indicated that the computer has stop recording Kim. Kim picked up what used to be a piping hot cup of Trellisian sweet tea and took a sip from it before placing it back down on his work desk. Captain Kim who was of Korean descent was somewhere in his late forties and was given the extreme honour of captaining the first highly advanced Voyager class starships.
The chime of the internal communication system coming online echoed throughout Kim’s ready room before a female voice with a slight Scandinavian accent came from the other end of the channel. “Captain, we’re approaching the last known coordinates of the da Gama.”
“Thank you Commander,” thanked Kim over the comm channel,” I’ll be on the bridge momentarily.” Kim picked up his lukewarm cup of Trellisian sweet tea and took a sip out of it before getting up from his chair and making his way to the replicator to recycle the now empty cup. Kim placed his empty cup in the replicator and proceeded to press a button, Kim’s empty cup dematerialised in a swirl of energy. Kim straightened his uniform and made his way to his ready room’s exit and to the bridge.
Since it was currently Alpha shift on the GCS Voyager, the brightly lit ovoid bridge of Voyager was buzzing with activity, and many if not all the bridge stations were being occupied by on duty bridge officers.
“Good morning sir,” greeted Lieutenant Diego Ayala from his tactical and security station that was elevated from the command well, which was also happened to be the nearest station located to the captain’s ready room. Ayala’s tactical and security station was located starboard of the bridges master system display as well as the bridge’s starboard turbolift on the ovoid bridge of Voyager. From Ayala’s station, Ayala could control Voyager’s weapon and defensive systems, sensor array, tractor beam as well as the ship’s internal security systems.
“Good morning Mr. Ayala,” replied Kim with a smile to his chief tactical and security officer as he made his way to down to the command well where his command chair and where his first officer, Commander Ingrid Larsen was sitting.
“Good morning captain,” Larsen greeted as her slender body got up from captain’s command chair to move to the first officer’s chair that was located next to Kim’s chair and was separated by a miniaturised system display and console. Larsen was physically attractive by human standards, her slender body was a perfect fit with that of her Astrofleet uniform and her long blonde hair was tied up into a nice and neat bun as per Astrofleet regulations.
“Good morning to you too Commander,” replied Kim jovially as he sat down in his command chair. Larsen followed Kim and proceeded to sit in the first officer’s chair.
“How long before we exit warp,” queried Kim to his first officer.
“In about two minute sir,” reported Larsen to Kim. “I’ve instructed Lieutenant Rayya to begin scanning the system once we exit warp.”
“Very good Commander, thank you,” Kim said as he turned his attention away from his first officer and to his helm officer Ensign Ketram. “Mr. Ketram, what is our current speed?” queried Kim to his young Lyakorian helm officer who had just graduated from the academy just a few weeks ago and whose first posting was the Voyager.
“We’re currently cruising at warp factor 7 sir,” he reported from his station.
“The engines giving you any problems ensign?” Kim asked to his young helm officer. Kim remembered the time when he was just a fresh graduate out of the Academy and was posted on his first ship, the Intrepid. He was unsure of himself and lacked confidence in tough situations, but his former captain Catherine Jameson took him under her wings and nurtured him and trained him, which made him the officer he was today. Kim, who saw many of his traits from his younger days in Ketram, like his enthusiasm and thirst for adventure. Kim wanted to take Ketram under his wings and realise the ensign’s full potential.
“The engines are not giving any sort of problem sir,” reported Ketram, “in fact, they are working perfectly sir.”
“Excellent,” acknowledged Kim with a small grin on his face as he clasped both his hands together. Truly a remarkable ship, thought Kim to himself.
“Captain we are approaching the last known coordinates of the da Gama,” reported ensign Ketram from his helm station.
“Take us out of warp then ensign,” ordered Kim.
“Aye sir,” acknowledged Ketram as he brought Voyager out of warp. The distinctive hum of the warp engines as well as the slight vibrations in the deck plates disappeared gradually as the ship exited warp speed and slowed down to sub-light speed.
“Sir, I’ve picked up the space debris long range sensors detected earlier,” reported Lieutenant Alyn Rayya from her operations station that was located on the port side of the Voyager’s ovoid bridge and directly parallel to the Voyager’s tactical and security station, “I also have a visual on the debris field sir.”
“Put it on the main viewer,” ordered Kim to his Miranian chief operations officer.
“Image coming up on the main viewer,” acknowledged Rayya as her purplish fingers with intricately drawn white tattoos on it danced across her console to fulfil her captain’s order.
The main view screen of the GCS Voyager came online revealing a debris field that was not yet identified by Voyager. “Miss Rayya can we determine where the debris field came from?” Kim asked as he got out of his command chair and walked over to the operations station where Rayya was busy working.
“One moment sir,” Rayya said as her fingers danced across her station’s console, “I’m running a full sensor scan on the debris field. Data coming in now sir.”
“So what do we have,” queried Kim to Rayya as he walked up to the operations station which he was stationed for most of his career.
“Detecting traces of duranium, titanium and polyduradide alloy,” reported Rayya as she read the data from the console’s display.
That doesn’t really tell us much, Kim thought to himself as he viewed the debris field that the Voyager’s view screen still showed, most if not all ships are made of the exact same materials. We need to find something more conclusive.
“Those are typical materials that could be found in most ships,” said Larsen from the first officer seat, voicing what Kim had just thought to himself moments ago, “that does not conclusively tell us that, that debris we are looking at is the da Gama.”
Rayya’s aft console in her operation station which Rayya had programmed to take a high energy scan of the debris to detect minute traces of materials and particles that a normal sensor sweeps would not have detected let out a series of beeps, indicating that the high energy sensor sweep had picked up something.
“What do you have Lieutenant,” Kim queried as her turned his attention away from the view screen to face Rayya who had turned her attention to her station’s aft console.
Rayya moved away a stray fringe of her typical species wide white blonde hair that was irritating her before reporting her new finding to Kim and the rest of the bridge. “Sensors have detected small traces of perisium sir.”
“Perisium,” voiced Ayala from his tactical and security station, “that’s something that is only used in the construction of Astrofleet shield generators. Astrofleet has never shared that technology with civilian shipbuilders. Nor have I read any reports of any other power in the quadrant using perisium in the construction of their shield generators.”
“I guess we know what happened to the da Gama,” Larsen said as she looked over to the operation station where Kim and Rayya was.
Now we just need to know what happened, thought Kim to himself. Kim looked over to Rayya who was on his left. “Miss Rayya, is it possible to determine what destroyed the ship?” Kim asked to Rayya.
“I can carry out another high energy sensor sweep on fragments of the hull to try and detect any residual energy traces that might have specifically come from a weapon,” said Rayya to Kim.
“I can help you with that Lieutenant Rayya,” Ayala said from his station, “I just need the data feed from your station to be routed to mine as well.”
Rayya nodded as she proceeded to press a few buttons on her console, “Done.”
“Very good lieutenants, keep me posted,” Kim said as he made his way back to his command chair.
Kim sat down in his command chair and leaned close to his first officer to whisper to her, “What do you think commander?” asked Kim to his first officer who had also leaned closer to Kim.
“We’re close to the Klinzith border,” Larsen said, “a Klinzith ship might have come across the border and attacked the da Gama”
“If that’s the case, this would be an escalation,” Kim said trying to keep his voice down, “Klinzith ships have never attacked an Astrofleet vessel for over two decades, so far the Klinzith has only been targeting Commonwealth cargo vessels or our sensor probes that pass too close to their border, but never an Astrofleet ship.”
“Could this be a start to some sort of new Klinzith push in this sector?” asked Larsen to her commander officer. “The Klinzith have always stated that this sector and the next two adjoining sectors to be of Klinzith interest and under the Klinzith sphere of influence.”
“Perhaps,” said Kim as he stroked his chin, “but then again, this system and the systems adjoining to it have nothing of value. No planets or moons with abundant resources or any habitable planets that has not been colonised yet.” Then again, Kim knew that the Klinzith would not care if a planet had already been colonised, they would just evict the current occupants by force if the colonist tried to resist.
“A staging area for a future Klinzith invasion?” suggested Larsen to Kim, “If the Klinzith seize this system or the adjoining ones, they would be in striking range of three Commonwealth colonies as well as Outpost J-5.”
“Something I sincerely hope will not happen,” replied Kim to his first officer.
“Captain,” called out Lieutenant Ayala from his station, “Lieutenant Rayya and I have finished scanning the debris and we have detected an energy signature that matches that of a Klinzith disruptor.”
“How much of a match” Kim asked as he turned his head to face Ayala.
“A 97.3 % match sir,” reported Ayala. “The weapon signature is definitely that of a Klinzith ship.”
“Understood,” acknowledged Kim. “Miss Rayya, contact Astrofleet command and inform them of our discovery,” ordered Kim who had turned his attention away from Ayala and to Rayya.
“Aye sir,” acknowledged Rayya as she started to construct the message of Voyager’s discovery to Astrofleet Command.
Points:
Time spent:
Canary word: Present
Possible AI signals:
Original Text:
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125,029 Literary Works • 672,781 Reviews
Hello Megrim here as requested! Since this is the one you linked I'm just going to jump right in and have at it. I'm going to talk about technique things rather than plot things so it shouldn't make a difference.
My biggest impression here is that you're losing the plot and characters beneath too much wordiness. The chapter was slow to get going and I felt like I had to wade through a lot of small details for only small steps forward in the scene/action/plot. Right now my recommendation is to focus on your execution. Once the prose is cleaned up, the story will shine through better and the strengths and weaknesses of it will be easier to tease apart.
Firstly, there are a fair number of grammar errors, mostly surrounding punctuation. Missing commas were a big one I noticed, so you may want to review comma usage. Just one example is this line: "Captain Kim who was of Korean descent was somewhere in his late forties..." should be: "Captain Kim, who was of Korean descent, was somewhere in his late forties." Missing commas are particularly noticeable to me because they create run-on sentences, and I end up "breathless" when I read them.
In my opinion, the best thing you can do to improve you writing is to tighten it. That means cutting out extra words, simplifying, being efficient, but without losing any meaning/content. I found a lot of sentences overly wordy and bogged down with detail, which made it hard to read. Try finding shorter ways to say the same things. Also if there's a "that" AND a "which" in one sentence, or two thats or something, that's a good indicator that you might want to break that sentence up.
For instance, there was a lot of repetition regarding the tea. "Sweet Trellisian" only needs to be mentioned once, really, and if he sips it I will assume he picked it up and put it back down without you needing to waste the words on it. All I need to know about the dereplicator is basically that he dereplicated it--adding info about pressing a button or what have you only serves to slow the narrative down. Here's another example:
Try reading that out loud to yourself. Chair is repeated three times--is that needed? Here's a possible alternative: "...Larsen greeted as she slipped from the captain's chair back to her own." You could add something like, "swinging her slender body around the console between them" if you really wanted that imagery as well.
It's tempting to try and transcribe everything you picture in your head like a movie, but it's important to remember that novels aren't movies. Where a movie can place an entire room in an instant, full of atmosphere, we would need pages and pages to describe everything there one by one. It takes time, so then it becomes a decision of what's most important--what's worth the time to describe, where do you want the reader's attention in the scene?
Try to spend your real estate wisely. Think of words as having a cost or value. The more you use, the more important the idea should be. Passing thoughts or actions should similarly be given only a brief mention, or else you end up with this imbalance of the reader slowing down to try and picture and understand and focus on all these tiny minutiae, and unable to distinguish what's really important. You lose the forest for the trees, and also the big whammo moments don't stand out at all because they're kind of diluted or drowned out.
So the long and short of it is: try to be more efficient and use fewer words to say the same things. Save the long descriptions for things you REALLY want our attention on.
Good luck and happy writing!
PS: I agree with Meandbrooks that this read a lot like Star Trek fanfiction. When I saw "Astrofleet" I actually scrolled up to check if it had been listed under fanfiction or satire.
Hi there! Thanks for requesting a review.
I read through your prologue and first chapter. They were kind of shaky, but this is much better.
The first paragraph is, as others have said, a bit confusing. I'd put "Captain's Log" in bold and the actual log in italics, to distinguish it from the rest of the test. It should look something like this:
You have a few typos, but Sunshine1113 covered most of those, so I won't repeat them.
Overall, everything is pretty good. Your plot is moving along nicely, and it's obviously been planned.
I suppose my main problem is that this is rather generic. More accurately, it's rather Star Trek. As I read this, I keep thinking it's Star Trek fanfiction with the names and characters changed. It's a plot that would fit right in with Star Trek, at least so far, and you even use the same technobabble.
I'm not saying that this means you have to completely redo your plot or anything. What you really need to do is flesh out the answer to one simple question: What makes this novel idea strikingly different from Star Trek? Because no matter how well-written it is, there needs to be something new, or you may as well be writing fanfiction. While fanfiction isn't bad, novels that read a lot like fanfiction are generally not acceptable.
One way you could do this is describe more, especially the ship. That will help the reader form an image in their mind that doesn't look like the command deck of the Enterprise. You could also add little culture touches. Even in a futuristic world - especially in a futuristic world - the culture will be different from ours. Just by adding a few touches like that - the odd saying, a social taboo you wouldn't expect - goes a long way towards credibility.
Hope this helps! Good luck and keep writing!
Sunny here to review as requested!
I agree with Dracula about the first paragraph. It needs to be broken up a bit. It's rather long and you get a little bit lost reading it. Also I think it should be set apart from everything else using italics or bold. Just something to set it apart from the rest. Otherwise it kind of sounds like the MC is saying it and not the computer, which makes things a little confusing.
This sounded part didn't sound as "captainy" as the rest of the log. "We get" kind of made it flow weird. Maybe "Unless we obtain a more detailed scan" instead?
Get rid of Kim, it's redundant and we already know the computer was recording him. Also, slight grammar issue, stop should be stopped.
Commas!
Ready Room seems like an actual proper place, therefore because it is a proper noun, it must be capitalized.
Long and wordy. You need some commas and periods in here. It's already assumed that Ingrid his his first officer, so you do not need to restate "his". Command Well seems like something that would be a proper noun. One too many "where's" in this sentence, it's redundant and wordy and the "where" is already implied.
She is addressing her captain, it should be capitalized, it's a proper noun.
You need a comma between "too" and "Commander"
Use a semicolon when linking two independent clauses together.
Commas!! You need to break this sentence up with a comma.
I feel this would have a better flow if you used an actual question mark, rather than a comma.
Minor typo. Minute should be minutes.
It sounds like Kim turned his attention away from both of them. Get rid of the "and" replace it with a comma. Also "
hisfirst officer. One too many "him's" make it wordy and redundant. We already know it's his first officer, you don't need to repeat the fact.Very very wordy. This can be broken up into sentences. So "...queried Kim to his young Lyakorian helm officer. He had just graduated from the academy
justa few weeks ago and this was his first posting."Commas and proper nouns! Have anything against the two?
Capitalize the "I"
Commas are our friends
Doesn't is spelt wrong, and the entire first part should be in italics to show it is a thought. And again, I promise commas don't bite. A few in a paragraph don't hurt
A bit wordy. Break up the sentences a bit.
Run on sentence! *attempts to catch sentence* bad joke? >.> anyway you need to break this up a bit. It's wordy and the ready gets confused and bored halfway through.
After you say anything like "she said", "Larsen said", or "they said" you need to put a comma after it.
Again, when he is thinking to himself, put what he is thinking in italics.
I know I missed a few things that need commas, but I got a majority of them.
Overall, the plot is really interesting. You just apparently have something against commas
I really liked this, it was really Star Treky. But it seems a little too informative and tell-y. Break it up with a more vivid description of the ship, like what colors are the chairs? Are there bright flashing lights everywhere? Etc... Maybe a nervous habit the captain has. Like
idiosyncrasies (a mode of behavior or way of thought peculiar to an individual. a distinctive or peculiar feature or characteristic of a place or thing.)
I really enjoyed this, keep on writing!
~Sunny
Hello, yizhongt! Welcome to the Young Writers Society.
Astrofleet Command has reassigned the Voyager from its initial mission of surveying gaseous anomalies and the gas giants in the Antues System to search for the GSC da Gama which Astrofleet Command has lost all contact with four days ago.
Okay. The first paragraph. I pasted this sentence because it's a little too long, so just split it up and you'll be fine. What did I love about it? I automatically read it in a computer-y, serious voice. You've done a great job writing it; starting with Captain's Log was a good idea, because it showed me what sort of voice I needed to read with. I also like how you've created your own words.
Thank you Commander,” thanked Kim over the comm channel,” I’ll be on the bridge momentarily.”
There's just a slight editing problem here. You put a speech mark after the comma, when it should have been next to 'I'll'.
Kim remembered the time when he was just a fresh graduate out of the Academy and was posted on his first ship, the Intrepid. He was unsure of himself and lacked confidence in tough situations, but his former captain Catherine Jameson took him under her wings and nurtured him and trained him, which made him the officer he was today.
I'd love to see more flashbacks/memories! It really helps me to get to know the characters and how they think, feel and act. This memory was great. Keep including them in your chapters.
Sci-fi stories are great, and your sci-fi story is awesome! Having not read the previous chapter, I could have become confused. But you included enough information so that I could follow along. Well done.