[Fan Fiction] Looking forward to the Mirror (Completed)

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dragoongfa
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Re: [Fan Fiction] Looking forward to the Mirror (Completed)

Post by dragoongfa »

JQBogus wrote:
Arioch wrote:The 20 to 1 ratio is also only for the Navy, ignoring all of the other armed forces, and all of the other government and administration duties that are performed by the Loroi warrior class.

The 400,000,000 number for which 20 to 1 ratio applies is also only the Navy, which, in this example, is only 1/100th of the total number of Loroi warriors. I figure the other armed forces, government, and administration functions are covered by those other 39,600,000,000 Loroi Warriors.
With the marginalization of the civilian caste I think that a lot of the professions and duties we deem 'civilian only' are instead 'warrior only' for the Loroi. Adding in the various telepathic professions that may exist and the numbers may come out like these.

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Re: [Fan Fiction] Looking forward to the Mirror (Completed)

Post by JQBogus »

I've thought about it some more, and recognized a flaw in my assumptions.

The proportion of all Loroi warriors who are in naval castes at the start of the war should have been much, much lower than even 1 in 100. If the standing fleet didn't have jobs for 400 million sailors, they wouldn't breed 400 million sailors.

If they had 1000 ships in service, and the capability to produce another 200 per year (if they were building all-out) and it takes 8 years to birth and train up a new sailor... They'd keep crew and logistics support sufficient to crew and support 2600 ships (the existing 1000 ships, plus the 1600 that could, theoretically, be produced before any new sailors could be raised up)

So.. The Union navy should have had about 30 million members, total. Loroi naval castes should account for about 1/1500th of all Loroi warriors, not 1/100th.

If the Union navy then proceeded to take 20% casualties per year (which they can just barely replace) for 25 years...the navy at least, would have about 0.4% (1 in 250) of its pre-war sailors left alive. Even less, if naval support castes can't transfer to shipboard duty.

This makes the situation seen on Tempest, in regards to so many young warriors, make sense.

Breeding and distributing billions of ground-pounders doesn't make much sense, though, in a war that will be won or lost in space. Unless your goal is to force your opponent to glass your planets instead of invading them. Kind of a 'scorched earth' and 'holocaust' policy combined...

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Re: [Fan Fiction] Looking forward to the Mirror (Completed)

Post by dragoongfa »

JQBogus wrote:
Breeding and distributing billions of ground-pounders doesn't make much sense, though, in a war that will be won or lost in space. Unless your goal is to force your opponent to glass your planets instead of invading them. Kind of a 'scorched earth' and 'holocaust' policy combined...
The problem in this assumption is that unless one's fleet is completely decimated orbital control will always be contested and as such space support is bound to be erratic for both the attacker and the defender. Blowing the civilians and the visible army concentrations from orbit is easy when you have undisputed space superiority but challenging when contested.

They key for victory then is who controls the most important assets on the planet, which aren't the civilian centers (although they are juicy hostages if the population isn't dispersed) but the industry and important infrastructure which in a total war situation are goods that one wants to secure in order to have the planet be of use. When contested and with no visible end to the contest it should be reasonable to send an overwhelming amount of ground forces in, especially if you really want something on the planet intact. This adds a sense of urgency to the defending fleet that has to force combat in order to turn the tide on the ground.

In short, standard ground fighting plays a role when there is still a fleet out there dissing damage. Which is probably why the siege of Seren lasted for 3 years.

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Re: [Fan Fiction] Looking forward to the Mirror (Completed)

Post by JQBogus »

The thing is, 50% of the population on any Loroi world will already be warriors. Spending the resources to breed and possibly move to other star systems several billion more doesn't seem like that good of a return on investment. Is 60 or 70% of the population being warriors really going to tip the balance over 50% being so, in case of a planetary landing?

Just how many troops do you think the Umiak can land? The only troop transport the Insider lists is the Loroi Anvil class, which carries 300 troops. If the Umiak Fleet is 5 times the size of the Loroi fleet, fully half of it is made up of troop transports, AND those troop transports carry 10 times as many troops as a Loroi transport... that's still only 7.5 million troops. Hardly an overwhelming amount of ground forces compared to 50% of a planetary population.

The natural 50% warriors is plenty if space is contested, and no number is enough if it is not.

As to the idea that the Loroi need many billions of ground troops standing by to invade/occupy Umiak space... just how are they going to move many billions of ground troops? Even if the Loroi could move 10 million ground troops simultaneously, the trip to Umiak space is a long one. Probably longer than a month, round trip. But even if it is only a month, the troop transport fleet could make 12 trips/year, moving only 120 million troops/year. So the Loroi ground troop production pipeline only needs to deliver that many per year. Any more just stand around doing nothing. Given that conception to fully trained is ~8 years for a Loroi, a single developed planet with a population of 2 billion could easily provide all the ground-pounders the fleet is capable of moving. Indefinitely.

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Re: [Fan Fiction] Looking forward to the Mirror (Completed)

Post by Arioch »

I think the estimate of the size of the Loroi fleet at 1000 ships is on the low side. There are individual battles with more ships than that. The comparatively minor action at Naam involved more than 300 vessels on both sides.

In peacetime the total fleet would have been smaller, but the Loroi had multiple crews for each ship competing for the right to deploy.

The Anvil is a relatively small Rodger Young style LST, equipped for dropping a small number of troops directly into combat. Larger numbers would be dropped from carriers, and for simple ferrying of troops from one system to another, conventional passenger transports would be used (the largest of which can carry more than 10,000 passengers). It's true though that you don't need to land a billion ground troops to invade a planet. Even if the enemy world has a billion troops defending it, the vast majority won't survive the bombardment that precedes the invasion. The population of Seren was only about 50 million when it was captured, most of whom were civilians (the majority of the population had been evacuated prior to the invasion).

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Re: [Fan Fiction] Looking forward to the Mirror (Completed)

Post by JQBogus »

I was going with the Union war fleet being ~1000 ships because that's the number Dragoongfa mentioned. And yeah, an invasion force can be relatively small if the planet gets a thorough orbital bombardment first, but it seemed to me that Dragoongfa was arguing for invasion without significant bombardment in order to preserve the industrial works on the target planet.

In any case, even if conventional civilian transports are used, carrying 10,000 troops each, how many of those could the Union possibly have? If the military fleet numbers in the thousands, then the civilian fleet probably numbers in the tens of thousands, at most. And most of those will be busy supporting the normal commerce of the Union, the logistic needs of the fleet, and won't be large passenger transports anyway.

In my previous example, I was already assuming a generous number of civilian transports were being used, since I gave the Union a 10,000,000 troop lift capacity. That is 1000 large passenger transports at 10,000 troops each. I wasn't assuming 33,000 Anvil class assault ships at 300 each.

Really the only way to justify needing many billions of extra warriors for an offensive is to either up the number of large transports available by a lot, or seriously decrease the turnaround time to their destinations. Two weeks there and two weeks back already seemed short to me, given the need to make many jumps across the steppes, and given that civilian passenger transports probably don't have military level acceleration.

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Re: [Fan Fiction] Looking forward to the Mirror (Completed)

Post by dragoongfa »

The last argument that I can provide are the needs for the occupational administration of the soon to be subjugated species.

Which would probably explain the anger issues since the Loroi grunts were promised a fight and all they got was a stupid job pushing papers at planet Tridsselesu in star system Erehfotuoemteg while making sure the Jaba the Hut look alike aliens know were their new lavatories are...

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Re: [Fan Fiction] Looking forward to the Mirror (Completed)

Post by Zakharra »

Ok. I read the last parts of the story, and I can say; Damned good job dragoongfa! I greatly enjoyed it and have a lot of curiosity about the ending. You put in a lot of tantalizing information on the actions of the Loroi Union and the humans, but left out mention of most of the other aliens of the Union. The Barsam and what happened to the Historians (what you implied would hurt the Historians politically/diplomatically) and some of the others. What of the Orgus? Did they get their world back (with humanity getting good trade concessions)? Did any Loroi warriors emigrate to the Confederation or was it all civilians? A lot of intriguing questions people want to know! :D

I'd like to ask what world building did you put into this? How much effort, was there a plan for it? How much detail did you plan out before starting writing? Or during writing?

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Re: [Fan Fiction] Looking forward to the Mirror (Completed)

Post by Arioch »

JQBogus wrote:And yeah, an invasion force can be relatively small if the planet gets a thorough orbital bombardment first, but it seemed to me that Dragoongfa was arguing for invasion without significant bombardment in order to preserve the industrial works on the target planet.
You can attack military ground forces from orbit with conventional weapons in the same way that we use close air support decisively today; there will be moderate collateral damage (moreso if the enemy dispersed in civilian areas), but it's not necessary to glass the planet in order to substantially reduce the enemy defending forces. It's very difficult for a conventional ground force to do anything useful while the enemy has space superiority.
JQBogus wrote:Really the only way to justify needing many billions of extra warriors for an offensive is to either up the number of large transports available by a lot, or seriously decrease the turnaround time to their destinations. Two weeks there and two weeks back already seemed short to me, given the need to make many jumps across the steppes, and given that civilian passenger transports probably don't have military level acceleration.
I just noticed a few points of fact that I thought I should clarify; I haven't been closely following the discussion, so I'm not arguing for or against anyone's position (because I don't know what those positions are). If your point is that the Loroi can't shift around billions of troops at will, that's correct, and they don't have much need to, because they don't have billions of troops, and most Loroi colony worlds do not have billions of inhabitants. All Loroi warriors are trained to fight, but only a tiny percentage are posted as infantry; there simply aren't that many ground battles going on. Those invasions that did happen were highly asymmetrical; when your fleet loses control of a system, you evacuate as many people (military and civilian) as possible, and then try to regain control of the system with your fleets as soon as you can. To leave a large ground force on a planet your fleet can't hold is to throw them away; in a case where invasion of a planet is imminent, all available transport is moving people away from that planet, not towards it. Infantry aren't useless in this setting, but they're not decisive. It's similar to the situation with modern ground and air forces today: American infantry units are necessary to take and hold territory, and they're superb fighters and very professional, but they're not decisive -- airpower is. It's almost impossible for even the finest modern infantry to win a battle while the other side has air superiority.

The large percentage of the Loroi warrior population who are not in direct combat roles are not "extra troops." They can fight as ad-hoc infantry units if their planet is invaded and they have no way of escaping, but that's not their primary function. In addition to the various military support roles, almost all government, administration, civil service, police, higher education and science positions are considered military and are filled by those in the warrior class. Many may dream of being transferred to combat roles, and some may eventually get their wish, but if the Umiak invade a populated planet, any warriors who were not able to be evacuated would be facing a grim situation. Most of the Steppes worlds that were invaded by the Umiak promptly surrendered when it became clear that they would not be soon relieved (though insurgents continued to fight a guerrilla war). In this late stage of the war, a planet in a system that the Umiak took control of would probably be bombarded rather than invaded.

Pardon the disruption of the discussion. You can see why I generally don't post in the fan fiction & RP threads.

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Re: [Fan Fiction] Looking forward to the Mirror (Completed)

Post by dragoongfa »

@Zakharra

Let's get the easy ones out of the way. I didn't mention the aliens because the epilogue's theme was centered around the Human-Loroi relations and how they turned up, I thought that it was easy for someone to imagine how things turned out for the aliens from the little details that are there however.

The Neridi, Pipolsid and the Delrias certainly got a lot of the trading and reconstruction spoils but the proud Barsam would certainly have issues with the way the Loroi were openly hostile to the obvious. However if only they out of all the Union species are caring about that they may end up being marginalized as a result; the politically savvy Loroi probably told the Barsam leadership not to push the subject or they would find themselves out of the distribution of the loot. The Barsam ,being alone on the matter since the others didn't care about it, did a lighter repeat of what they did with the Mannadi, accept their inability to change the route of the subject and instead be part of the new order. Certain religious zealots certainly remained vocal but since the Barsam as a political entity didn't make waves while happily accepting their trade deals offered to them, the Loroi didn't see any reason to silence the zealots and just accepted them hearing their drivel now and then.

The lack of any further Historian mention should be a clue that they elected to cut themselves completely from all outside matters, electing an extreme isolationist approach. The Union left them be since they did come clean as to what they did and gave them significant military help during the battle that destroyed the Lotai Incursion (and still being a very dangerous enemy). I will come back to them during the explanation of world building.

The Orgus as a subjugated species were granted a limited Union membership and extensive help with their reconstruction efforts by the Union. As traders they would of course be ecstatic of being able to trade with everyone in the Union and they undoubtedly had some initial good trade relations with the humans. As a Union member though they were tied to the chariot of the Loroi and where they went they followed which includes the trade sanctions.

The various Union species reacted mostly negative to Human piracy, it was a destabilizing factor and costed money but most of all highlighted the human ability to launch a Lotai Incursion of its own in Union space (something that warlike Loroi Warriors pointed at every opportunity). The Incursion force hurt several Union trade hubs as its intent was to force the Loroi fleet to disperse defending them in order to be defeated in detail by it or a follow up force should the Union fleets show signs of collapsing. It was in essence a carbon copy of 'Sherman's march to the sea' with the the twist that those doing it wanted to force the Union fleet on a certain course of action instead of burning down everything. Some prominent alien assembly members supported a Loroi attack on humanity and its violent subjugation, both for the shake of continued pirate free Union prosperity and access to the rich territories that humanity was 'foolishly' granted; it was nothing personal from their part; just business.

It is without doubt that some Loroi warriors who thought that they were targeted for elimination by the Imperial faction did travel to the Confederation and petitioned it for asylum, their request getting granted as a matter of course but they were the most extreme of minority. Barely a couple of dozens in the span of a century and thus inconsequential to the numbers of Loroi civilians who were exiled and later migrated. Every political opponent of the Imperial faction knew that there would be repercussions for their family in defecting and as thus many of those who knew that they were in mortal danger elected to stay, preferring to face death rather than to 'betray' their families in such a way. However bear in mind that the vast majority of political opponents were left as they were, only those who were advocating for something violent were targeted for elimination.

Now mental planning and backstory...

Oh boy, this one is a biggy...

The mental story and world building I did for this is a little over the top, I had the basic premise nailed down from day 1 of writing it but a lot of stuff changed in some way as I wrote it and I even left some mental plans completely out. For example I initially thought of having the Marines and the Loroi in a more violent standoff when they would first run into each other; the basic premise being that the marines were quickly forced into a corner by a violent reception and had to take some wounded Loroi as hostages in order not to get killed. This would lead to Shadowcloud trying something stupid like in the form of herself and Razormist getting dressed as Doranzers to check the wounded hostages as a sign of good faith by the marines, attacking the invaders by surprise at the first opportunity. However when I started writing the Loroi POV I realized that the whole premise would be a stupid dead and elected to follow the approach as it is written down now.

Humanity also got a semi detailed back story plot for the Armored Assault Troops that was left unused because it was useless . The premise being that they were first deployed by Russia during a 'false war' between Russia and China in the mid 2050s for the Russian Far East. Insurgents supported by China and a heavy Russian crackdown which lead into a limited conflict like the Battles of Khalkhyn Gol in 1939. There the Russian ASTs were revealed and were such a decisive factor in the battles that China backed down instead of escalating the conflict further.

The interesting part is the very name of the story and the parable by Captain Asteios. The name was initially supposed to be explained by Captain Asteios during his first meeting with Shadowcloud, with him retelling a life lesson that his father gave him with a Mirror, something like 'Make sure not to have something to be ashamed of today in order to be able to look forward to the mirror the next day'. In the middle of writing the story I elected to change this in order to highlight how much similar the Humans and Loroi are, similar passions, similar fears and similar ways of doing stuff. The ending parable was meant to be humanly awkward and easy to understand because of this, making it plain for those who read it that the best way for Loroi and Humans to relate to each other is to treat them the same way that they wanted to be treated.

Now the interesting part I completely left out because frankly it had no way to be made a part of the story is the backstory of the 'control organ' that the Umiak used on their Farseers.

To put it simply the Historians are not a political entity made up of a singular species but the cooperation of two species; in this case the Historians and the Pol. They are both sentient and cooperate with each other for the greater good. The 'Historian' humanoids as depicted by the Hologram offer the manpower and the manual labor of everything while the Pol actually offer the technology.

I worked in this story with the assumption that the Pol are the Soia-Liron race that fulfills the niche of advanced, long term databanks. In essence the Pol are live computers which hold a lot of the technological secrets of the Soian empire. I worked with the assumption that the Pol in Historian territory don't have the entire knowledge base of the Soians but were some short of a backup library for the technology that the Soians would give to their subservient races (tech levels 12 and 13 stuff). The Pol either found a way to uplift the humanoid Historians by slowly teaching them technological stuff from the bottom up or they were discovered by the humanoid historians when they got their Jump drives and started exploring.

In either case they cooperated and formed a symbiotic relationship which propelled both of them to the tech level they are now, in essence both of them are the 'Historians'. This peaceful and symbiotic relationship led to them being somewhat naive in their dealings with aliens which led them trying to uplift several races in the local bubble, a futile effort which lead to a variety of wars and the isolationism policy of the Historians when they finally realized the damage they did and in how much danger both species were if someone was to find the truth about the Pol.

The problem is that the Pol have a telepathic control mechanism put in place by the Soians, which allowed them to be a living hard disk for the Soians, this is the control organ that the Umiak have implanted on their Farseers. The simple story behind this is that the Umiak attacked the Historians after learning of the true nature of the Pol and wanted to get the technology they had in their minds for themselves. The Historians had neglected to invest in a sizeable defensive fleet which led to them losing a lot of ground and several prominent colonies. The later Historian counterattack would have been able to push the Umiak out of their territory if the Umiak didn't hold a sizeable Pol population as hostage (somewhere around a million). The Umiak certainly tried to mine the captured Pol for knowledge but since they had no knowledge of how their brains worked while only having a limited amount of Pol at hand it was obvious to them that they could NOT have the same successes they had with the Loroi (they had started working on Loroi brains since after their first contact and the experiments they run on Loroi captives during the war had killed hundreds of millions before providing results).

In the end a certain Humanoid Historian faction agreed in providing adapted copies of the control mechanism to the Umiak in exchange for the Umiak stopping their experiments onto the captured Pol. The Historians believing that only Loroi were able to use telepathy thought that the control mechanism would be a tool used by cooperative Loroi captives to keep others of their kind cooperative and not be the key for the Hierarchy getting their own Farseers. The Historians as a political entity backed their chances on the Loroi and the Umiak collapsing before anyone of them could claim victory and had prepared a sizeable fleet to ensure that both populations would be effectively quarantined in their native planets after their collapse in order to allow the other species to thrive freely.

After the Loroi victory that large fleet was used by the Historians as a very effective deterrent against the Loroi Union that was unwilling to start an other massive grinder of a war that they could lose even if that meant a possibility to secure a Pol population.

TL;DR:

I had done some more brainstorming but this is how I worked during my writing:

The first idea is usually stupid.
Always have details ready in case they are needed.
Never force myself to write everything planned, down.
Leave stuff to the imagination of the reader.

EDIT: Forgot something.
Last edited by Guest on Wed Feb 24, 2016 10:39 pm, edited 5 times in total.

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Re: [Fan Fiction] Looking forward to the Mirror (Completed)

Post by dragoongfa »

Arioch wrote:snip Only a small percentage of Loroi warriors fight in the war snip
But I wanted Outsider 40K mass battles between smart Tyranids Umiak and sexy Eldar Loroi :(

Billions of them duking it out in battles of supremacy whose legends would be sung until the galaxy dies of heat death. :( :P

Oh well, this is why my first ideas are always stupid :oops:

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Re: [Fan Fiction] Looking forward to the Mirror (Completed)

Post by Arioch »

This is where being able to make up your own rules helps. Somehow excluding orbital vehicles from ground combat (like through some kind of planetary bombardment shield) makes ground forces more important. The dominance of aircraft is still a problem, though I guess you could say that in a post-stealth technological era, aircraft have to stay close to the ground if they want to live very long.

In such a case, transport of colossal numbers of troops would become a major logistical issue. Monster fleets of troop transports would become as important as battleships.

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Re: [Fan Fiction] Looking forward to the Mirror (Completed)

Post by dragoongfa »

That's actually something I worked on for an original fic of mine which has taken a backseat due to how big of a premise it turned out to be. I am going to get my mass battles but unfortunately there won't be real pretty elves in it :( :P

Still even with the current clarification as to the numbers of troops on the field I don't think that what I have written becomes implausible. Even a relatively small number of disenfranchised warriors can become a major political force if they have gained prominence through accomplishments on the battlefield. Much like how the various Roman politicians gained fame and influence through their successful campaigns and the veteran legions they commanded and had the loyalty of.

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Re: [Fan Fiction] Looking forward to the Mirror (Completed)

Post by Zakharra »

OOhhh.. Thanks dragoongfa. That was a good explanation of things. I love details. :D

I asked about the world building because I am in the process of writing my own fanfic of my own (based in a different version of World of Warcraft), that has a good amount of worldbuilding to put into it, and I got another story bouncing around in my head on a fanfic set in the Star Trek universe. Which requires its own amount of world building. I am writing stuff down so I can keep what I know straight.

What I am not though is a fast writer. Sometimes it takes awhile to get a scene/chapter out, and my chapters can run 30 pages. :| I am 21 chapters into the WoW story and have yet to start in the second, but I am running the scenes over in me head again and again so I know what will happen. The problem is getting the scenes out of my head and onto paper/the keyboard. I should be able to start writing that one this spring though. I hope. And get some more chapters for the other one churned out. I need to sit down and just write more.

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Re: [Fan Fiction] Looking forward to the Mirror (Completed)

Post by dragoongfa »

World building is an interesting mental exercise but I agree that the most difficult part is putting things down on paper. The advise I can give you is how I managed to get somewhat disciplined in my writing, if your imagination is working overtime and you have ideas and the problem in putting them down is discipline.

I know that every writer is different but the method that has worked for me is to organize myself, both in practical and in mental terms. For a reason that becomes obvious later I noticed that I got 'better' in writing various stuff after I started organizing in practical terms. The first realization struck me when I started writing with pen and paper instead of directly on a computer, some people are the exact opposite but it works wonders for my output. In practical terms it takes longer to first write an initial manuscript (A raw draft) and then transfer that manuscript on a computer while correcting and doing some minor rewrites for clarity and consistency(The first draft), I have been told that it almost doubles my workload but the key is knowing that the raw draft is something that will never see the light of day and as such I have no problem writing stuff down as it comes out. Just letting things out without a care for typos, structural consistency and sometimes even proper order works wonders for me; thinking about making the my initial output consistent and presentable always overwhelmed when I wrote and I ended up writing very little. Writing with pen and paper also removes the siren of distraction that is called a computer. Cutting out the distractions is vital for me, I go to an other room I have prepared and I even use wax earplugs to cut out any noise.

As an accountant I also learned the value of keeping my writing organized by using a variety of office supplies. I found out that I cannot write without a proper writing surface; I use a faux leather clipboard that also acts as a folder, keeps the paper stable at all times and allows me to keep the unfinished manuscript safe from accidents (and they happen A LOT). After that I organize the produced manuscript in folders with a cataloging system of my own; using color coded folders, plastic slides to keep the paper from being damaged, library boxes for long term storage; you get the idea. I found out that being organized in the practical terms gives me a peace of mind in regards to what I write. Knowing how to find what I am looking for quickly saves not only time when looking for something but also gives me a perverse sense of accomplishment for some reason.

The final obstacle for getting things on paper is mental discipline. It takes some willpower to get my ass to the writing chair but when I am there I have to force myself to look at the paper in front of me, write down a header, numerate the page and then start writing. I found out that starting with a simple phrase usually gets me started, like a spark plug that starts a car.

In the end I always remind myself that if I have something on my head then I have no writer's block. As long as my imagination is working I can write it, provided that I am not too tired or something is distracting or bothering me.

Some simple advice that sometimes I fail to follow myself:

1) If something looks like it is writing itself then let it finish itself. Never stop a good streak when you are writing for any reason, spontaneous writing is not only quick but is also very rewarding in either quality or ideas.

2) Never slip up on writing. Write a minimal amount of words every day, personally my minimum limit is two pages of A4 paper. This is important in order to keep a writing discipline.

3) Vary what you are writing. Abandoning something for a day or two to work on something different allows to approach the initial project from a fresher perceptive which is important if you want to find something that you may have missed.

4) Never, never postpone something for later.

5) A persistent writer's block is cured by writing pornography, there is no need to be read by anyone else but writing something so base often clears the mind.

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Re: [Fan Fiction] Looking forward to the Mirror (Completed)

Post by Zakharra »

dragoongfa wrote:World building is an interesting mental exercise but I agree that the most difficult part is putting things down on paper. The advise I can give you is how I managed to get somewhat disciplined in my writing, if your imagination is working overtime and you have ideas and the problem in putting them down is discipline.

I know that every writer is different but the method that has worked for me is to organize myself, both in practical and in mental terms. For a reason that becomes obvious later I noticed that I got 'better' in writing various stuff after I started organizing in practical terms. The first realization struck me when I started writing with pen and paper instead of directly on a computer, some people are the exact opposite but it works wonders for my output. In practical terms it takes longer to first write an initial manuscript (A raw draft) and then transfer that manuscript on a computer while correcting and doing some minor rewrites for clarity and consistency(The first draft), I have been told that it almost doubles my workload but the key is knowing that the raw draft is something that will never see the light of day and as such I have no problem writing stuff down as it comes out. Just letting things out without a care for typos, structural consistency and sometimes even proper order works wonders for me; thinking about making the my initial output consistent and presentable always overwhelmed when I wrote and I ended up writing very little. Writing with pen and paper also removes the siren of distraction that is called a computer. Cutting out the distractions is vital for me, I go to an other room I have prepared and I even use wax earplugs to cut out any noise.

As an accountant I also learned the value of keeping my writing organized by using a variety of office supplies. I found out that I cannot write without a proper writing surface; I use a faux leather clipboard that also acts as a folder, keeps the paper stable at all times and allows me to keep the unfinished manuscript safe from accidents (and they happen A LOT). After that I organize the produced manuscript in folders with a cataloging system of my own; using color coded folders, plastic slides to keep the paper from being damaged, library boxes for long term storage; you get the idea. I found out that being organized in the practical terms gives me a peace of mind in regards to what I write. Knowing how to find what I am looking for quickly saves not only time when looking for something but also gives me a perverse sense of accomplishment for some reason.

The final obstacle for getting things on paper is mental discipline. It takes some willpower to get my ass to the writing chair but when I am there I have to force myself to look at the paper in front of me, write down a header, numerate the page and then start writing. I found out that starting with a simple phrase usually gets me started, like a spark plug that starts a car.

In the end I always remind myself that if I have something on my head then I have no writer's block. As long as my imagination is working I can write it, provided that I am not too tired or something is distracting or bothering me.

Some simple advice that sometimes I fail to follow myself:

1) If something looks like it is writing itself then let it finish itself. Never stop a good streak when you are writing for any reason, spontaneous writing is not only quick but is also very rewarding in either quality or ideas.

2) Never slip up on writing. Write a minimal amount of words every day, personally my minimum limit is two pages of A4 paper. This is important in order to keep a writing discipline.

3) Vary what you are writing. Abandoning something for a day or two to work on something different allows to approach the initial project from a fresher perceptive which is important if you want to find something that you may have missed.

4) Never, never postpone something for later.

5) A persistent writer's block is cured by writing pornography, there is no need to be read by anyone else but writing something so base often clears the mind.

All of that is excellent advice. I have a small spiral notebook I take to work with me so I can write down notes and any ideas that occur to me (which happens fairly often). I do agree that making oneself write is key and I will get a page or two done tonight on my main story (gnomes, night elves and explosives WHEEE!). I am going to make myself write something every day. Even if it's not good, it will spark an idea and if need be, I can always rewrite it.

This made me laugh though: 5) A persistent writer's block is cured by writing pornography, there is no need to be read by anyone else but writing something so base often clears the mind. :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: I do write some porn (WoW based), and I think I'm ok at it. I like writing stories that have plot in them too.

It's all good advice though. And well taken.


Absalom
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Re: [Fan Fiction] Looking forward to the Mirror (Completed)

Post by Absalom »

Arioch wrote:This is where being able to make up your own rules helps. Somehow excluding orbital vehicles from ground combat (like through some kind of planetary bombardment shield) makes ground forces more important.
So, 40k void shields or equivalent? Sounds about right. "Forget the promise of progress and understanding, for in the grim dark future there is only impracticality."

Now that I think of it, I'm surprised that city-sized attack fortresses aren't an Epic 40k thing. Seems like absolutely a 40k sort of idea.

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dragoongfa
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Re: [Fan Fiction] Looking forward to the Mirror (Completed)

Post by dragoongfa »

Certain Titans could be classified as such, the problem for going that big is that they are problematic to fit on most tabletop battlefields.

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Grayhome
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Re: [Fan Fiction] Looking forward to the Mirror (Completed)

Post by Grayhome »

MOO2 has several flavors of planetary shields. Arioch has dropped hints as to some type of super-tech planetary shielding used on radiated worlds by the Soia so as to make planets hospitable enough for further terraforming. I think planetary shields sound like an awesome sci-fi technology!

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