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Hey guys. This is my first post on the forums. I'm writing a story and I want some critique. I want to know what you think of this prologue, what you think the story will be about, how do you think it will progress what do you think my character and the Universe the story is set in.

Prologue

Soon incredible things will happen. I have killed, maimed, tortured, stabbed and even broke the enemy with my own two hands. I have ensured Humanity’s survival and saved many hundreds, maybe even thousands of lives. These acts have granted me the privilege to be part of the Fleet. All the things I have done, they make me feel jaded, incomplete. I have taken lives and by keeping some alive, granted life. My acts of barbarism weigh heavy on my mind and my acts of heroism help sustain me on the path ahead, but it is my desire for revenge that drives me. I have seen millions of innocent people killed at their hands, yet, I long for one and only one life: Hanna‘s. The demons of my past still chase me throughout my skull. At night I have nightmares of what happened when they came to us. The sounds of their screaming, the smell of the rotting flesh and the look on her face...it’s more then I could take and stay the same. The things that I have seen and done has turned me into a killer. It is pure cold anger and desire for revenge that drives me. It made me the soldier I am. My past is a gaping black hole that I tried run away from. I tried to run but that only made it bigger and faster. I can’t win the war raging inside my mind so I try to run away from the battles. I bury my past deep inside myself when I am awake, but, it is when I sleep that they surprise me. I am not happy but who cares? Humanity never asked me to be happy. It only asked me and the others around me to be brilliant because they needed us. Since the war started a lot of people had to be brilliant. A lot of people had to sacrifice themselves because of those who weren’t brilliant. Since I joined I have had to be brilliant, I had to be brilliant first and take happiness in small doses as I can manage it. But why? Why did we even have to be brilliant in the first place? Why couldn’t we have been left alone and serve happy, normal lives? We had our act together. We finally stopped fighting amongst each other. We were at peace with ourselves, war no longer existed, famine was killed and poverty destroyed. Then we found it. A substance, who’s ability to generate energy was so great that they saw fit to commit xenocide over it. At first we held our own against them. They didn’t know what we could do so they were playing it careful. They never launched any major attacks against us for a few months. Mostly just ship-ship affairs. Only two or three real fleet actions. We were so arrogant that we believed that this was all they had. We were also too naive to believe that they could ever use this time to figure us out. They figured us out alright. They thought of ways to disrupt our communications, jams our missiles, destroy our ships but most unfortunately they figured out tactics that would out-smart us at nearly every turn. They disappeared for a while but when they came back, they did so with a bang. No explanation offered, no negotiation, no post-it on the fridge. They took us planet after planet. They came and kept coming until they beat us...nearly. We’ve had a few victories but nothing that’s really helped us. Our worlds that once prospered and served as a home for billions of people outside Sol are now no more then radioactive wastelands incapable of supporting life. Our fleet is gone. What we thought was a collection of weapons with unimaginable destructive power was systematically destroyed by an enemy who’s power far exceeded our own. While their weapons were more powerful and their ships faster, their real power came not in weaponry or in numbers, but in sheer intelligence. We tried to prepare for what they would do next but in the end they came up with things we didn’t even imagine. Ships and soldiers are important things to an army. Without them an army cannot exist, but what is it all in the end? An army cannot function without a leader. With officers and generals to guide the troops. True war is fought by the ones in command of a fleet or an army. True war is fought with a person’s mind, not rifles or bombs or starships but with the chemical reactions and neuron flashes inside a skull. Intelligence in a battle can overcome almost any obstacle. Intelligence, if great enough can win any war. In the end, that was the problem. How can we hope to compete with an enemy that could out-think us? The enemy was ruthless. They would destroy one world and then move to the next. They would destroy our ships and we would pulled them back. They would kill our population and we retreated. They would rape our species of it’s right to exist and we retreated. They were simply too intelligent to beat. No more. We drew the line and pushed back. The enemy is very smart but they didn’t expect one thing. They didn’t understand that the ruthless rulers or destroyers of history all ended with the same fate. They caused oppression, submissiveness, sadness and fear. They also caused anger, hatred, loathing and desire. Their enemies thought of ways to unseat them. Their enemies thought of ways to destroy them. They thought of a way to get something better. You can never achieved victory if you dominate totally and you cannot have peace if you rule with an iron hand. Total domination leads to arrogance and arrogance to mistakes. Their great destructive power and will to use that power against us, encouraged us to do the most dangerous thing that could happen: think. We were beaten. We were corned like some dying animal in the wild. Animals get all the more dangerous the closer they get to extinction. We learnt from the enemy where we were weak and we improved. We learnt where we were strong and we became stronger. We learnt new things from the enemy. Only an enemy can teach you these things. Only the enemy can make you strong. We thought for a long time about things we could use against them. Things we could use to poison their worlds, kill their people and destroy their empire. We succeeded. But they have also had time to think about things they could use against us. Things they could use to poison more of our worlds, to kill more of our people and in the end exterminate us. It was a quid pro quo. We learn from you but you learn from us. Only a handful know, but everything we have built, everything we have invented, everything we could think of, is now ready. Ready to strike back. Ready to destroy their worlds, annihilate their fleets and to kill their people. We have an army. We have ships and fighters-all the equipment an army needs. The one thing that we need to make it all work is people and unfortunately we don’t have that. Wait, no, that’s not entirely true. We have some people, if you could call them people. What we do need is people to fight. We have our leaders but now we need people whom the leaders can trust. People who will fight and sacrifice themselves as necessary. Not just to win...but to win thoroughly.

crzywriter

AHHH! ONE BIG PARAGRAPH!!!!

Seriously, break it up, and I'll really actually finish it.

The Man in Black

Breaking it up would help, I got a little tired half way through. The story basis seemed good, but there were a few things that I didn't like, I'll come back when I have some more time. One thing that I did like though was that first sentence, I loved that.

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The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed.

Hodge

Also, you should critique some other members' works and introduce yourself in the forum of the same name. You can critique mine, it's in the fiction forum... I promise if you do I'll come back and take a look at yours.

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Science

Anarkos

Hodge speaks the truth.

And, uh, so do the others. Well, Crzy does. I can't comment on tMiB's post, as I barely made it past the first sentence.

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My latest work: Bags - The Hooker - Going Rogue - Flashing Out - The Problem with Being a Grifter
I always appreciate fair criticism, and will endeavor to reciprocate.

Hand

What they said.

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Once upon a time in the future ....

Ben

Great first sentence