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Post by Floyd Looney on Aug 26, 2009 3:02:25 GMT -5
I did a longer post in the general forum and linked a Rothbard essay or book or something
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Post by Floyd Looney on Aug 26, 2009 20:04:26 GMT -5
One by one the ships entered the Inter-Dimensional and Spatial Dilation Aperture. A wormhole. The trip would be relatively fast but time would be traveling two or three times as fast for folks on Earth than for us. There were several of these artificial wormholes but sometimes the exact location of the exit is unknown.
After out ship re-entered normal space it took a few minutes for the sensor equipment to locate the signal systems that had been put into place. Like bouys in the ocean to show the way to shore or to warn large ships of shallow water.
We were about three parsecs short of where they were waiting for us. There we would make another jump and another until we arrived in the remote, desolate colony world that needed us to defend it.
How would we defend a planet against enemy spaceships attacking from orbit or dropping neutron bombs? It made no sense to me but it was not my job to ask questions. People who questioned the Czar tended to die.
I would take my Carbine Needle weapon and do as ordered. I would stand guard duty all night at the opening of a mine shaft and wait for a bomb to hit from space, if thats the order.
The greenish brown world appeared on the monitors, it looked as if the planet had been attacked by giant cats. Colony Cochrane, once it had a population of 5,000 and now it had less than 3. But thousands of soldiers were about to arrive and turn it into Fortress Cochrane.
"Rubin, Marco" The CO yelled, he was making sure we were all paying attention. "Yes, sir!". The CO finished calling all of the names before addressing them.
"Our orders when we hit Cochrane is to patrol the southern sector below the Pioneers Valley. Every week or so we will be rotated to a different sector. Now check your gear and then strap back in for landing"
"Yes sir" "Praise the Czar!"
My stomach was queasy.
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Post by Floyd Looney on Aug 27, 2009 8:53:36 GMT -5
This is all non-linear stuff. Whatever comes to mind that might go into the story should I write it
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Post by Floyd Looney on Aug 27, 2009 9:16:55 GMT -5
The vehicle finally comes to a stop. I hear the hydraulics release as the vehicle lowers nearly to the ground. It would now be used as if it were a building, our local HQ. The vehicle had laser and missile launchers built into it and the hundred and fifty of us were supposed to feel better because of it.
We started doing foot patrols in platoons of ten led by a Lieutenant and a Corporal who was his second. The area we were patrolling was mostly rock and dirt but we could see a lot of vegetation in the distance at lower elevations. After a few days it occured to me that we humans had killed the vegetation of a large area before we colonized it.
Sometimes our patrols went right up to the rim looking down into the valley where we could see all of the mining machinery and processing complexes. All of this was there for the purpose of sending finished metals back to Earths moon or the other colonies for things to be made. Nothing was actually produced here save for some greenhouse vegetables on the far side of the valley.
Much of this metal would become weapons and ships. Of course this would be considered purely a military target for any enemy. The aliens would not even have to be very intelligent to figure this out.
It took less than a week for to figure out that it didn't take twenty thousand soldiers to defend such a small area. The only reasons they could need so many of us foot soldiers is because they thought the enemy might try a ground invasion. It never occured to me that the soldiers were being forced to do the mining and the processing. I guess I was being dense.
There was no local authority. There was no colony in any real sense. There were very few people here when we showed up. I would say less than a hundred and from the size of the facilities for the workers housing, there had never been more.
It had all been a lie.
Soon we were told we would be rotated from the southern sector to the interior. My stomach felt bad again. I just knew something bad was going to happen. That feeling was reinforced when they made us lock our weapons up, all of them, in the armory vault. We sat there staring at each other, I noticed a few others who looked as if they also knew something was wrong.
Soon our vehicle parked next to several others and I noticed two more off separately. I saw at least a hundred fully armored, fully armed troops drilling. I saw armed soldiers escorting unarmed people into the mine entrance. I saw a company of soldiers coming towards us and we were all unarmed. We were going to be working the mines, I told myself.
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Post by Attero Dominatus on Aug 27, 2009 19:53:39 GMT -5
Wow that is very good, especially the revelation that the alien invasion had all been a lie.
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Post by Floyd Looney on Aug 27, 2009 21:24:43 GMT -5
I hope I made their vehicles sound huge. These are rolling, armored barracks with self-defense systems. If I ever get serious about this story I will need better descriptions and more details.
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Post by Attero Dominatus on Aug 27, 2009 22:10:24 GMT -5
Any structure that has large amounts of weapons and can house 150 people is going to be pretty big. The ship that carries it to the ground would be even bigger but that would be possible with fusion or fission rockets.
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Post by Floyd Looney on Aug 28, 2009 0:51:24 GMT -5
After a couple of years working in the mines Marco began to gather allies among the workers and even some of the guards. There had been a couple of breakout attempts and riots but those had been on other shifts, each time dozens of bodies were strewn across the ground.
The Military Governor, he called himself the Viceroy, was Mack Dillion, he was a grunt of a man who had worked his way up the ranks. He wasn't as light on brains as his muscular frame might suggest, he didn't much need it for the jobs he did. He trusted his two Commanders to carry out the distasteful orders and concentrated on another hobby, exo-botany.
Viceroy Dillion liked to venture into the alien forest and study the unknown varieties and types of plants, trees and even bugs and animals. A phalanx of soldiers and a group of assistants always accompanied him on the trips. He didn't care about what was happening in the mines, he didn't consider it his problem. His problem was that this planet was his lifetime prison. Might as well explore it.
Dillion put the specimen on the sliver of glass under the microscope and immediately was immersed in cellular structure and the processes of cell life and growth and division. These microscopes were much more advanced than the ones he had as a kid. Kids in his day couldn't get to see things smaller than light, nor did the internal computer identify things for them. If it hadn't been a hobby he would have never thought to pack it.
The first day he had been chosen for the service the Captain in charge of his unit had ordered him to sneak out in the late night and break the leg of a man who had once stole a girlfriend. He had done it, the damage a weighted club could do to a knee was amazing. Only afterward did he realize he was now hooked into the position of henchman. There was no way to back out of it since his superior could turn him in for punishment.
Twenty years later, this is all he had to show for his services.
Yes, his own henchman were brutal from the little attention he paid to things, but how could that be helped? They had to fill the quota or they would be attacked by "aliens" and replaced.
He made sure that the workers were rotated from the mines to the processing complex and farm duty. He made sure they fed the workers enough calories to keep up their strength, even if his Commanders complained about it. They didn't like the workers to be strong.
If he thought they were dumb enough he'd throw the guards into the rotation too. Sometimes your a mine rat and sometimes your watching the rats. His Commanders had been horrified speechless by the suggestion. After he let it soak a bit he laughed in their faces as if they had been complete morons for taking it seriously. A little humor never hurt anyone.
Mack discovered that a small creature the size of a small fox were quite intelligent. After studying them for months he determined they were smarter than either apes or dolphins back on Earth. He saw them use tools, of a fashion and saw them work together, watch each others cubs. It made the Viceroy wonder if these creatures were intelligent enough....
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Post by Attero Dominatus on Aug 28, 2009 13:22:15 GMT -5
I think you should aim for making this into a full length novel. It has that potential.
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Post by Floyd Looney on Aug 28, 2009 14:24:14 GMT -5
The Viceroy could be an interesting character, probably gets killed by some side or another
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Post by Floyd Looney on Aug 29, 2009 3:23:04 GMT -5
remember this is a non-linear story treatment, brainstorming..
His shift was trusted more than the others, having caused no real problems since this all started. Marco had soon noted how the workers tended to form groups or cliques. He began to pass messages to the leaders of these cliques.
It was all part of Marco's plan to let the other shifts get all the attention for fighting back and resisting rules. The other shifts would have to be told of his plan eventually but it was too soon.
Keeping the shift 'peaceful' had added benefits. Better rations, extra off time. Guards even visibly relaxed when C-Shift was working the mines. Marco didn't have to try too hard to become acquainted with the guards.
After two years of networking his list of contacts was extensive and he had set his plan into place. It involved, although most didn't yet know it, more than 900 workers and 300 guards. The plans were detailed; he hoped he had taken everything into account.
Next week, just one lousy week, the Viceroy would be exploring an island archipelago on the other side of the world. His Guards would be in place in the guard towers, most of them as well as the weapons stations of the main vehicles. The armory vaults in the worker vehicles would be open and they would soon take control of the valley.
Two years those in charge had gotten more and more complacent, security more and more haphazard and the watchful eye of the Viceroys goons had become lazy eyes. Marco sensed that everything was going to work perfectly. Of course no military operation ever went perfectly. Plans almost never survive first contact with the enemy.
There were drawbacks. He had no contact with the thousands of troops in the other sectors that surrounded the valley. If those troops stayed loyal to the Viceroy it was going to be a heck of problem because Marco’s side would be the fish in that barrel.
His army, assuming they would follow his orders of course, would storm the administration building and take full control of the mines, ore processing complex and the rest of the important parts of the valley. They would command eight of the Beast vehicles as well as the artillery available to the Viceroy from his office on the top floor.
A lot of this was conjecture. Would the clique leaders stick with the plan? Would the cliques follow their leaders into battle?
Would everyone stay on the same team after they seized the valley or would they descend into in-fighting over who got more control? What would happen if the troops from the other sectors began pouring over the valley walls, outnumbering the defenders fifteen to one?
Assuming everything was successful and Marco became the leader of a council of some type, how long before a council member put a needle round into his head? Would they follow Marco at all?
There were so many variables. He wouldn’t spend any more time thinking about ‘what if’, the time had come for ‘what’s next’.
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Post by Floyd Looney on Aug 31, 2009 11:15:43 GMT -5
So what should happen? Marco becomes the ruler of the colony? Maybe a figure-head to a council of rival groups? Does the Earth Czar send in attack forces and try to wipe them out again? Does Marco somehow get back to Earth?
Does Marco end up the new Czar of Earth???
That might be a stretch, but it is science fiction.
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Post by Floyd Looney on Sept 1, 2009 18:47:11 GMT -5
I think I will copy these parts to MS Office and see if I am inspired to keep writing. But I am lazy and eassily distracted.
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Post by Attero Dominatus on Sept 1, 2009 20:19:04 GMT -5
I like it. Especially how Marco is planning an uprising. I am curious to see how that goes.
And in my experience, it is never good to force yourself too much (save that for when you have a contract with a publisher to produce sequels or a series). Just work on it a little bit each day if things are slowing down, even if its going back and editing, and you will find new ideas flowing into your mind and writing new material.
And by the way, I like the new logo you made for the board.
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Post by Floyd Looney on Sept 1, 2009 20:39:45 GMT -5
I noticed I don't have an old english font. weird. I made the banner with paint and saved as gif. Now if I could just figure out how to change the background =o)
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