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Offline blood angel0987

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dark carnage
« on: August 18, 2007, 05:04:36 AM »
chapter 1 - drop

The marines were on board the thunderhawk dropship
Reaper ,en route to the tau held planet Pearl'os.They were ordered to set a bomb in the main tau
military base, to eliminate the tau commander,Shas'la T'au Kais, and most of his senior officers.
team rock knights were chosen because of there stealth capability's.

brother-sergeant rock of the blood angels chapter,sounded off in the dropships cramped interior.
''wall?''
''yo''
''uno?''
''yessir''
''pebble?''
''yes sergeant!''
''don't be a kiss arse''
''sorry yessir''
''and fred?''
''yessir''
''i'll go over the plan one more time. Sergeant Rages squad is already on-planet, and will stage a diversionary assault on the Tau base to cover us. The Reaper will drop us approximately a kilometre from the base, where we will sneak in Brother Fred will plant the bomb Chaplain Rokoko gave him, which will eliminate the Tau commander and most of the rest of the soldiers. We wll then retreat and renzevous with Sargent Rages squad at extraction point delta, where a thunderhawk will take us back up to the stealth cruiser in orbit. You all now the importance of this. With most the Tau army dead, the survivors will be headless and fall quickly to the air assault 3rd company are launching in 24hours. To positions!''
« Last Edit: August 22, 2007, 08:18:24 AM by blood angel0987 »
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Offline Heretek

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Re: dark carnage
« Reply #1 on: August 18, 2007, 05:16:21 AM »
This... This isn't a chapter, this is a paragraph. I'll give you a few tips, because it looks like you need them.

First off, when starting a sentence, the first letter is capitalised, like so:

Quote
The marines were on board the thunderhawk dropship[...]
Quote
They were ordered to set a bomb[...]


When writing a name, the first letter is also capitalised, like so:

Quote
Smile
Quote
Pearl'os
Quote
Tau
Quote
Greeno

Now, there are some non-grammar issues that could use attention.

First off, your Thunderhawk is called Smile, does that sound like an Imperial name to you? They call things Divine Wrath, or Imperator Dictio, not things that sound happy. Next Greeno? What's that about? Tau names usually include their birthplace, rank, caste, and a given name. For example:

"Shas'la T'au Kais"

Meaning:

Warrior of the Fire Caste, hailing from the world of T'au, Kais (lit. Skillful).
« Last Edit: August 18, 2007, 05:18:01 AM by Khemri, the Laughing Man »

Offline Or'es, Chosen of the Fire God

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Re: dark carnage
« Reply #2 on: August 18, 2007, 05:38:53 AM »
I'm going to make a list of everything I object to here.

Quote
chapter 1 drop

The Concise Oxford English Dictionary (5th edition) defines a chapter as "A main division of a book". If you are taking this as such a division, then in a short story of the length commonly seen here you will end up with about 400 chapters. As a man who used to write single chapters about twice as long as this thread (so far), I feel this is a little too small an effort from you.
Also, it should be "Chapter 1 - Drop" or "Chapter 1; Drop". You need something to seperate the one part from the other. I won't touch on the rest of your punctuation, as Khemri has already done so.

Quote
the thunderhawk dropship smile

I take it this is an attempt at some ironic humour. Fine enough, for Imperial Guard, but Space Marines are not noted for having an ironic sense of humour, or, indeed, any sense of humour at all. They are rather more the "Verbis Imperatori" or "Hammer of Dorn" type.

Quote
main tau camp

The Tau own this world. Surely they can afford better than a mere camp for their Shas'o. Or Aun'o. What kind of commander is "Greeno", anyway?

Quote
pearl'os
Quote
the tau commander,greeno

As Khemri has already stated, Tau names aren't really like this. For a single name form, like the one you are using, you have to include the rank of the Tau in question. To use Khemri's example, Shas'la T'au Kais becomes La'Kais. Thus, your "Greeno" should be "El'/O'Greeno."
As a side note, you would never find a Tau called "Greeno." Tau names are noted for a sort of grace or fluidity. "Greeno" does not, I'm afraid, take the cake. Pearl'os is a little more true to form, though.

Quote
and most of his senior officers.


Aiming too low. They're Space Marines. Why not kill everyone?
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Offline Ukos Sa'cea Rienn

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Re: dark carnage
« Reply #3 on: August 18, 2007, 08:24:18 AM »
Oh, BA0987...

While I could mention the grammatical issues once again, I think that they have been adequately addressed. My only suggestion is write this in microsoft word. That would probably catch at least half of your mistakes automatically.

What I am going to take more time about is the fact that your chapter is hardly more than a short paragraph. While it may seem to you while writing that these small segments are sufficient, they don't really cut it for the active reader. One reason is that they are simply too short to hold enough information to pull at our curiosities or interest. Here are some ways you could make this chapter longer...

Tell us why the Imperium wants this planet back badly enough to send space marines. It seems to me like they're just attacking a Tau planet for no real reason. It does have a Tau name, after all, and not an imperial one. Even if the reason is nothing more spectacular than "The Commander must die." You could coax at least a couple more sentences out in saying so.

Next, you could decide on which marines are on board the drop ship you mentioned, why they in particular were chosen for the mission, if there is a reason, as well as (as has been mentioned) what the commander is - Shas'O or Aun'O. I.E. Crisis Commander or Ethereal.

Also, you could explain why the spacemarines have been ordered to plant a bomb rather than just kill the commander and then kill whomever else they like, considering how Marines don't die, and how, if the commander really is in a camp, he can't be too well defended. If that isn't the case, then you could explain to us about the base in which he is hidden and the defenses that are being bypassed by the marines tactics, as well as any additional reason for actually going into the camp and trying to blow it up from there, rather than simply trying to launch an orbital bombardment at the camp - if the can get normal ships through the atmosphere, I'm sure they could clear a way through the rest of the tau fleet to launch one.

If you tried to explain to us even some of those points, I think that it would lengthen your story considerably, and give it some depth, making it more enjoyable to read for everyone.

Also, you don't need to separate your text into a new paragraph every couple words, even if that does make your story look longer.

Anyways, congratulations on writing a legible paragraph, and I hope you take what we say to heart and work on improving your writing.

-Ukos

P.S. IF you really don't want to change the name "Greeno" you could try to make it more Tau, as well as more appropriate to Rank by doing this:

"O'Green"

And then something like this:

"O'Grea'ne" While still not really a Tau name, it is much closer to one the "Greeno" Anyways, I hope this helped you.

P.P.S. You may not know this, but for a fiction topic, having a smiley face of any kind as the thread symbol gives a bad impression from the get go. I would suggest sticking to the traditional topic symbol, but that might just be me.
« Last Edit: August 18, 2007, 08:26:30 AM by Ukos Sa'cea Rienn »
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Offline Heretek

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Re: dark carnage
« Reply #4 on: August 18, 2007, 09:35:10 PM »
BA0987, if you're gong to just copy and paste the example name I gave you, you could at least change him to a Shas'o/Shas'el. Shas'la marks him out as a line soldier, the equivalent of a Private.

Now; remember what I said about names?

Quote
rock knights


Should read as:

Quote
Rock Knights


And generally, you only need to put the names of vehicles in italics.

Offline Derikari

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Re: dark carnage
« Reply #5 on: August 18, 2007, 10:07:28 PM »
Quote
Team Rock Knights were chosen because of their stealth capabilities.

Anything with a name has its first letter capitalised (Tau [or T'au if you go Tauish], for example). Capability’s implies that “capability” owns something, and there's a difference between there, their and they're. Type stuff up in Word, it really helps. Spell check will help you grammatically and spelling wise. If you are unsure about something background wise, look here for some background stories, or look in your codices.

Knocking out an enemy commander doesn’t seam to fit Marines. Even with a bomb it just feels too subtle for how they work. Assassination is for assassins after all… Scouts might be a bit more believable though, those guys are clad in carapace armour instead of being walking tanks... a bit more suited to sneaking around, don't you think?
« Last Edit: August 18, 2007, 10:12:34 PM by Derikari »

Offline Rusk

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Re: dark carnage
« Reply #6 on: August 19, 2007, 09:15:52 AM »
 Maybe... just maybe... they are like Alpha Legion were (before the Heresy n'all) and somebody else wrote a stealthy SM thingy (i don't remember who) and nobody commented on the way the Marines worked (i think). A lot of ''i think''s, i know, but i kind of have a good memory for useless facts nobody is going to need. Now, when it comes to remembering when the next German test is...
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Offline Heretek

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Re: dark carnage
« Reply #7 on: August 23, 2007, 07:07:39 AM »
When you add something new to your story, can you do it in a new post? Otherwise we can't tell.

Now, criticism.

brother-sergeant rock of the blood angels chapter,sounded off in the dropships cramped interior.
''wall?''
''yo''
''uno?''
''yessir''
''pebble?''
''yes sergeant!''
''don't be a kiss arse''
''sorry yessir''
''and fred?''

None of these are name normally associated with Space Marines. Their names tend to be Latin, or pseudo-Latin, things like Invictus, Maximus, Gaius, that sort of thing. And you're still not capitalising the first letters of your proper nouns or sentences. Also, no Marine ever, anywhere, would say 'yo'. They would yell 'affirmative!' or 'yes, Brother-Sergeant!'.

Quote
Brother Fred will plant the bomb Chaplain Rokoko gave him,

Again, this is not a name that a Space Marine would bear.

Quote
With most the Tau army dead, the survivors will be headless and fall quickly to the air assault 3rd company are launching in 24hours. To positions!''

First off, one bomb is going to kill most of the Tau army? What is it? Some sort of freakish, nuclear cluster-bomb?

Second, why would they launch the assault twenty-four hours later? That seems like more than enough time for the Tau to rally and prepare, this is a Tau-held planet, remember?
« Last Edit: August 23, 2007, 07:10:21 AM by Khemri, the Laughing Man »

Offline Or'es, Chosen of the Fire God

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Re: dark carnage
« Reply #8 on: August 25, 2007, 05:48:11 AM »
As has been said, please put new parts of the story into a new post. If you don't, we will be unable to see whether or not you've added a new installment to this epic saga.

Decent so far, for a first story, but there are a few things I'd like to address (again) for future reference. As your Marine names and general grammar have already been mentioned, I shall omit them for the sake of post length.

Shas'la T'au Kais

Shas'la? If Kais is important enough to be considered a 'commander' or targeted for assassination, he/she would be of at least Shas'el rank, and probably even a Shas'o. As you seem wont to copy-paste names or concepts from other posts, I will provide the proper forms for you.
When being addressed formally, your commander will be called Shas'o T'au Kais.
When being addressed by another Tau, it becomes simply Shas'o.
When being addressed by a friend or bond-brother/sister, it becomes O'Kais.

yo
kiss arse

What is this, the Imperial Guard? Space Marines are very formal in their speech. Slang like "yo" is incompatible with how they talk, swearing even more so. It's simply not their way. Though they were once normal people, able to say 'yo' and 'kiss arse' at will, any tendency to do this would have been very much drummed out of them during their genetic induction into a chapter and subsequent brutal training and lifestyle.

which will eliminate the Tau commander and most of the rest of the soldiers
With most the Tau army dead

1) Most of the Tau army dead.
2) I know this has already been given some mention, but; What? How can one single bomb wipe out almost the whole Tau army of this planet? The Tau defence force on Taros was estimated at eight to nine thousand Tau by Von Gustavus' tacticians, plus five thousand Kroot and over eight thousand Gue'vesa (renegade human auxilla). And despite this small size, they managed to fend off an estimated five hundred thousand Guardsmen and three companies of Space Marines, which means they must be pretty damn elite. Assuming this Tau army is of similar size, how can one bomb wipe out a force that even three hundred Marines and enough Guard to blot out the sun couldn't kill?
3) Surely the Imperium would be better off sending Scout Marines to do this job? Or, even better, an Assassin? Tactical Marines tend to be loud and noisy, Assault Marines even more so, and even the most dimwitted of sentries could not possibly fail to spot a Devastator Marine. The Imperium has much better resources for this task at its disposal than combat Marines, trust me.

Aside from this, as I said, it's decent enough and could even become a good story, with enough work.
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Offline Heretek

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Re: dark carnage
« Reply #9 on: August 25, 2007, 09:17:08 AM »
Well, the Codex Astartes does make provision for the use of infiltration tactics, something that both Tactical and Devastator Marines can benefit from, so that isn't entirely true, Or'es. I doubt Scout marines would be entrusted with so vital (and possibly suicidal) a task, they are the future of the Chapter, after all (Space Wolf Scouts being the exception). But you are correct, if the Imperium were to send anyone to achieve such an objective, it would almost certainly be an assassin. Probably from the Calidus Temple, as they are superb infiltrators, or the Eversor Temple, as on Taros, when they wanted to ensure the destruction of an individual.

 


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