cqbseal

INCOMING: HISTORY:

In the far reaches of the known galaxy, three giant planets revolve around an enormous sun. These three planets, each with four moons, peacefully co-exist with each other. The three planets being the only habitable planets in that system. They have been settled by a race known as the Broder. The Broder are a human like race, bipedal and upright, looking much like a human, in fact indistinguishable from the human race.

Once they developed space flight in their fourth century of technological advancement, they reached out and established colonies on the other planets. Soon, these colonies flourished and became known for their exports and rich mineral deposits. A thriving shipping system grew from a fledgling meager fleet of experimental cargo lifters and upper atmospheric lifting bodies to the interstellar conglomerate it is now.

The capital planet, Broder Prime, the largest of the three, and most heavily populated, contained the regal senate and the executive leadership. This planet, diverse in environments, mostly agrarian, also housed the military academies and the majority of the armed forces. Each of the planets had an equal number of representatives in the senate and all decisions were made in a democratic forum, with the executive leader making the final decision. The military advisors to the senate were all highly decorated; combat experienced general officers that took their work very seriously. They knew that any decision to deploy their forces, no matter how small or what type of deployment, required thorough examination.

Broder Prime was also the preferred retirement planet for former soldiers, as they would be given a suitable tract of land, a position in one of the many academies,
teaching or instructing, or gainfully employed in one of the numerous military development companies.

On Broder Gamma, this world was home to all the high tech academies, colleges, trade schools and manufacturing facilities for the nano technology that permeated the planets. All computerization and robotics are done on this world. Not as heavily populated as the capital planet, yet still rich in resources, whereas
most citizens are scientists, professors, engineers or factory workers.

On Haven's Folly, named after the founding astronaut who thought of the idea of mining and exporting the rich mineral deposits, the population is smaller and mostly miners, bioremediation specialists and geo-engineers. Sparsely populated, it is mostly rocky and in some places, still volcanic.

Broder Gamma has a facility there that is developing a new robotic mining system, although still in the test stage. They have only just recently sent probes to the vast asteroid and debris belt on the edge of their system, which forms a natural barrier. The small military presence on Broder Gamma has been upgraded, due to the increasing problems that have occurred.

The source of these problems is a band of unknown raiders that have attacked several cargo haulers and then retreat to the relative safety of the belt. Broder forces have patrolled the area, but cannot find this outpost.

Broder patrol ships and heavy cruisers sweep the area looking for any sign.
What has been recovered from the raids, points to another system and
older technology.



The Broder senate has agreed to send four Dreadnought class heavy
cruisers with six Puma class frigates in support and a complement of
four troop transports, each containing fifty thousand soldiers to the
edge of that system. Traveling with this flotilla is a diplomatic envoy
to officially convey greetings, solicit a closure to the raids and, a
possible trade agreement.














CHAPTER ONE

The Archangel, flagship of the Broderian expeditionary flotilla, a
Dreadnought class heavy cruiser, in position at the center of the
formation, began sending coded transmissions to one of the forward
frigates, the McAfee. The radio and sensor operators turned their
units to maximum and began sweeping the approaching asteroid and debris
field. The remainder of the fleet slowed to half and spread out in a
skirmish line, the other frigates moving into blocking positions,
protecting the cruisers.

"Sir. Long range scans shows a path has been cleared through the field."
The senior detection officer announced. The captain and the admiral
both turned from their conversation and walked over to the sensor
station.

"See, sir, right here. Along this axis here, it appears to be cleared."

bobothegoat

Ugh... This is mostly a typical narrative prolouge. It's the type that I would likely skip. Upon reading it, it does get a me kind of interested though. However, I honestly don't care about the characters. At this point, I'm more concerned about how the Broder, who are essentially humans, came to come to this solar system AND have the same animals (pumas). Granted puma is a ship class, the name still must have come from somewhere. I'd hope that the story has some way of explaining this relationship.

As I said, the prolouge isn't all that interesting. I skimmed large portions of it to be honest. My suggestion would be to weave it into the rest of the story. First and foremost, you must get the reader's attention before you can expect the reader to care about all this information.

Anyway, that's just my take. I hope it helps.

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Bobo the Goat

Caeser

I read the whole prolouge and what you have for your first chapter. I have to say that this is very interesting too. I really like what you have so far. Although bobothegoat is correct, it is a little boring at the prolouge, I have to say it has incredible potentiol. Not trying to put down bobo, I really don't think that it's that big of a deal if they are so closely related to humans. That's just the way the story went. What I find very interesting, is that these people must be VERY intellegent to have the ability to go into space in their fourth century of intellegence. It took humans what, their 20th century, and then some (during b.c.)


Really, really great writing, I couldn't find many problems mechanically at all. But like I said, it is just a little tedious during the beginning. Grab their attention right off of the bat!

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"What we do in life, echoes in eternity..."

Maximus Decimus Maridius