Jiro Maeda wrote:
Gundam Wing Alternate Story
Project Orion
Phase one: Discovery
In the coldness of space, an asteroid is seen drifting lazily, almost by
Don't say "is seen".
its own volition. Suddenly various mecha surround the asteroids. Not
What do you mean? They just pop out of nowhere?
mere mecha, they were Tauruses, OZ�s finest mobile dolls second in power
only to the Gundams of Lord Treize Kushinada and Lt. Zechs Marquise.
They have heard of a secret project in this region and so they sent a
team of mobile puppets to investigate, not wanting to waste vital
manpower over what they assume to be a wild goose chase.
The mecha circle the asteroid, their monitors mapping its surface
feeding it to the computer controlling them, it in turn orders the
"and feeding the information to the computer controlling them. It in..."
Wouldn't there be a guy in the loop somewhere?
drones to converge on a certain crevice of the asteroid, somewhat
curiously formed, suddenly one of the units ceased to exist apparently
"ceased to exist" is excessively passive for the action of exploding.
blown to bits by a direct hit from a beam rifle. Its compatriots return
fire on the crevice. A field emanated from it, blocking every one of
their shots. From the field, a mobile suit emerged, its twin eyes
blazing with barely hidden malice, from the humanoid design to the
"barely hidden"?
superior fire power, the computer at once surmised that this was no mere
Comma splice.
mobile suit and decided to catalogue the video feed it is receiving.
The Tauruses continue their assault, converging their beams on the body
of the alien mobile suit. Their shots bouncing uselessly on the field,
How can the shots bounce off the field if the mobile suit emerged from the
field?
they decided to attack directly, switching to close combat mode. The
Whoops, switched to past tense.
field dropped and the mobile suit's eyes turned from a blazing yellow to
a cold blue. The towers mounted behind its shoulders turned around.
The Tauruses simultaneously flick on their beam sabers and strike at
Amd back to present tense. Pick a tense for your story and stick with
it.
their target only to have the so called target to blur out of
existence. One of the Tauruses suddenly sported a hole in its body
melted through by a beam saber, another received a face full of rockets
completely destroying its head, still another was peppered with multiple
rounds of rapid fire beam discs rendering it incapacitated, all in a
span of 0.01 seconds.
Active voice is better than passive voice, particularly when describing
scenes of violence.
The computer, alarmed began to call for reinforcements, pinpointing the
co-ordinates of the strange mobile suit while continuing to monitor and
manipulate what remained of its expeditionary force. Inside the cockpit
the pilot appeared calm, in a distinctly female voice she uttered �Anima
mode.� And was answered by a very human �hai oniisan� by the Mobile
suit computer. The Mobile suit once again shifted forms, the towers that
rained missiles a few moments ago turned, the shoulder assembly each
opened hatches that were occupied by beam saber hilts, and the eyes of
the mobile suit turned from blue to yellow once again. The towers
When was it yellow before?
opened halfway and several round objects flew into space seemingly
having a mind of their own. Each selected a virgo and whizzed around
them circling, blasting, dodging and generally driving the computer to
short circuit due to overload of input. As the computer shut down so
did the mobile suits it was controlling.
Inside the cockpit, the pilot removed the helmet allowing her crimson
strands to cascade around her face. Ranma Saotome felt good for the
You know, really it's the bad guy mecha that should have eyes blazing
with "barely restrained" malice.
first time in a long time, ever since coming here she had bad luck,
Comma splice.
first she got stuck in her cursed form in a place she doesn't know, away
from family, friends and Akane. Then, as if fate weren�t cruel enough,
a child she dearly cared for, one that made her feel needed, died in her
arms; protecting the MS she now rode. After that incident they
Why is Ranma there? What is it about Ranma that makes you, the author,
think that she's more interesting in that cockpit than the guy who was
there in the original story? And for that matter, how does someone with
no background history in that universe get approved for access to secret
technology?
Incidentally, this method of exposition is clumsy at best.
couldn�t persuade her to pilot the thing, even if she was tested as
having the ability to command Gemini and unleash its full capabilities;
Semicolon splice.
so they did the only thing possible, they drugged her, put her in the
cockpit and flew off to space to test drive the new Gundam. When she
OK, so the guys in charge are certifiable idiots for putting a psychologically
unreliable, and very possibly disloyal pilot in charge of one of the most
powerful war machines they've ever built.
awoke she began raving and causing enough commotion that it was a
miracle the cockpit survived intact, (Actually she was weak from not
eating for several days otherwise the blows she rained on the sensitive
instruments would have broken them beyond repair.). That's when she
heard it, the voice, or to be more precise, her imouto�s voice. She
too wordy. "That's when she heard it, her imouto's voice."
thought it was one of those tricks they tried to pull on her before,
just so as to get her to pilot the damn thing. The voice (Reiko) told
her then about how her soul entered the computer because it was her
dying wish, not to mention that the project was important to her. The
voice then began pleading to her to cooperate begging her to pilot the
Gemini, her new body, believing that Ranma was the only one worthy of
being its pilot, that was when she believed that the voice really was
Comma splice.
Reiko, her adopted little sister, of whom the gundam project meant so
much to. While these thoughts and memories were running through her
A new paragraph would be nice.
head she began to gather the errant locks of crimson and began to braid
them. �Reiko, do me a favor and ask Jatou how we did." she said as she
flicked her pigtail, longer now than it was when she was in Nerima to
its usual position on her back. �Working oneechan, but I think there's
something fishy about those Tauruses we just polished back there." the
Always start a new paragraph with a new speaker.
computer responded. Ranma nodded to show she understood and began to
work off the kinks in her shoulders. An image monitor flared to life in
front of her, in it was a woman in her late teens, blonde, wearing
glasses and a greasy work suit. �Jatou, did we do good in the test run?"
Ranma asked. The girl, Jatou, blinked twice, checked her instruments
and said in a flat voice. �Commander, we haven't even started the test
run yet, we are still prepping the Leos you're supposedly terminating.�
Ranma scratched her head and made one of her Gemini's hands grab a
floating debris. �What's this then?� she asked gesturing at her outside
cameras, the hand of the Gemini clearly holding a MS Taurus� head.
Jatou shrieked �OZ.� then scampered off ordering her underlings to work
on getting away, she then turned to Ranma and said �Commander I suggest
you get out of there, we're going to do the same thing now so that we
don't get discovered.� Ranma�s face turned grim upon hearing the news,
with a curt nod she made her MS circle around the asteroid once so as to
see if there were more MS lurking around and then activated her
Gemini's powerful thrusters, taking them away from the area. By the
time reinforcements have arrived all they found were bits of debris,
More tense confusion, and a change in perspective calls for a new
paragraph.
floating around an uninhabited asteroid. The technicians surveyed the
overloaded computer and tried to salvage any data they could save. The
Exactly why would the computer have been "overloaded", just because it's
waldos were destroyed?
only file they could retrieve was a blurry image of what appeared to be
an unknown mobile suit destroying a contingent of Tauruses. They sent
They should probably have full film on the entire engagement.
this image to Lord Treize, high lord muckity muck and commander of OZ.
"muckity muck"? Doesn't work with the mood of the story as a whole.
Looking at the photo he said one word, �Gundam.�
After the fall of Sank and the rise of OZ, the proponents of Operation
Meteor began to fall. The Gundam pilots fell one by one beginning with
the pilot of Unit Zero Heero Yuy who the OZ believe to be killed in
action. Treize Kushinada soon after regained control of OZ, wresting
its control from the Romafeller foundation's puppet leader Releena
Peacecraft. Prior to that he had established contact with Zechs
Marquis, allowing him to regain the ace pilot's respect and
cooperation. At this time also another group rose, a rebel group
composed of former OZ soldiers and Colony subversives calling themselves
�White Fang Group�. It is now the eve of the year AC 196, a string of
unrelated events will soon change history as five individuals will form
the backbone of a third force. This is the story of Project Orion.
This is more than we need to know, and yet leaves us missing the things we
do need to know, such as "what is OZ?" and "who is Ranma working for?".
For example we don't need to hear about Releena Peacecraft or Heero, since
they are already gone unless they have a bearing on this story. When they
have a bearing on the story, tell us what bearing they have.