Thanks for the C&C.  To be honest, since this IS a repost of Chapter 1
and I'm already 10 chapters into the fic, it's too late in the game to
change many of the points you've made beyond the grammar fixes, but I
may be able to write satisfactory explanations in future parts of the
story to 'explain away' some of the problems.


----- Original Message -----
From: "Richard Lawson" <nouma@msn.com>
To: "David A. Tatum" <desaix@anifics.com>; <FFML@anifics.com>
Sent: Tuesday, May 27, 2003 6:48 PM
Subject: Re: [FFML] [Voltron][repost, minor revision] The Alliance Is
Dead, Long Live the Alliance, Chapter 1

Author's Notes (revised 5/23/03):  In this fanfic, I use characters
and equipment from Vehicle Voltron.

Argh!  Vehicle Voltron is the devil!

Okay, it actually had a much better plot than the Lions, but the

characters

are completely uninteresting.  For me, characters > plot mostly.

That's why

I like KOR so much.  =)

I'm afraid of saying this for fear of sparking a character debate, but I
actually found the characters in Vehicle Voltron much more interesting.
Especially the villains - I don't think there's a more interesting
character, or one who grows quite as much - as Hazar does.  But that's
just me...

(Honestly, I think my interest for lion Voltron nowadays lies solely in
the Voltron fanfics I've seen on the net, where the characters are more
developed then in either series, and plots are almost always better.
But hey, these things are relative...)

The unusual precautions taken for this Alliance meeting were
stunning, to say the least.  Each council member was sequestered
into a special room, where no-one could see who they were.
When someone spoke, their voices were distorted to prevent
identification.  The vote was also to be in secret.



Anonymity was essential to this particular session.

Big big whitespace between paragraphs.  Is this intentional?  It's

kinda

hard on the eyes - disrupts smooth reading of the fic.

It's a problem that comes from copy\pasting my fic into a non-html
e-mail.  It doesn't happen all the time and when it does I don't know
why it happens because it LOOKS, when it's going out, that there's only
one line between paragraphs.  I've been trying to fix it for a while,
but I can't seem to isolate where the problem is happening or what the
cause is, so... *shrug*

She continued explaining her plan.  When she was complete, she
called for a vote....

Hmm... kinda don't like descriptive paragraphs ending off with a

trailing

ellipses.  I know you're trying to build suspense, but use your words,

not

punctuation.  Just end this paragraph with a period and it will have

the

same impact.  Stronger, even.

I think that's actually an artifact from that being the end point when
it was just a teaser.  I never got around to changing it because I
didn't really need to, but I may go back and do it.

Meanwhile, on Planet Arus, Pidge relaxed into the main seat
at Castle Control.

No need for a seque like this.  Let us find out for ourselves where

Pidge

is - we'll be able to figure it out soon enough.  "Pidge relaxed into

the

main seat at Castle Control" is a good enough start.

*nods*  Will change.

And I wonder if Sven and Romelle are back from their
latest diplomatic mission!"

Woot Sven!  I love that guy with the completely hokey accent!  =)  I

was

glad when he came back and re-joined the Voltron force, however

briefly.

He's going to be in the new Voltron comic which is coming out.  I don't
know if, or how, they're going to do his accent, though.
In the show, as I recall, he all but married Romelle before the end.

Occasionally, she had questions for him, and he had
questions for her, but perhaps they were sitting just a
touch closer than was needed to discuss their various
studies.

Nice description.

Thanks.

"What kind of 'compromising position,'" Allura asked,

"What kind of 'compromising position'?" Allura asked,

I'll probably put the question mark before the ' but other than that,
will fix.  (Both ways are legitimate, depending on which style manual
you're looking at...)

We have loaded up a massive refugee fleet, and
will be abandoning the planet as soon as possible.

Hmm.  Evacuate billions upon billions of people?  That would require
millions of ships.  This seems technically infeasible, unless the

Alliance

is planning on abandoning the population there as well.

Well, the way I see it is, the Alliance has hundreds, if not thousands,
of planets.  Each planet probably has its own frieght industry, defense
force, etc.  Each frieghter, transport, etc, is likely to be able to
carry thousands of people.  If the Alliance is taking all of its fleet
outside of that region of space (which is what it's actually doing --
concentrating everything in the Arussian side of the universe), it's
more feasible then you might think.  Each planet outside of Earth is
being left on its own.  As to why Earth is being singled out for
evacuation, well... that's in a future chapter.

"Earth has over seven billion people, Pidge," Hunk said.

Just a thought: it took 11 years for Earth to go from five billion to

six

billion people.  Imagine what it will be like a hundred or two hundred

years

from now.  20 billion?  30 billion?  Of course, you could talk about

drastic

population control measures and the exodus of excess population to the
stars, so you can rationalize just about any figure you want to come

up

with.  Still, seven billion seems low to me.

7 billion is a number taken directly from V. Voltron series.  (I'd
misremembered 8 billion, until I actually found the reference on a
tape).  And Earth was apparently overpopulated... makes me wonder why.
Perhaps a topic for another fic, but not this one...

"The marriage of the Princess to... to that ruffian!"

Well, that was predictable.  I'd've liked to have seen the

conversation

between Allura and Keith that lead to this decision.

The rationale is given, but I'm afraid that discussion won't take place.
I don't want to get into the trap I've gotten into with other things
I've written where I have the same explanation for an event given over
and over and over again, with at best minor variances, by different
people to different people.

A promising start; it's a shame you won't be able to follow up on it.

The

Eh?  Why won't I?  I mean, I'm already through 10 chapters (and just
started Chapter 11).  I've got very clear plans through at least the
first third of the story, and rather general plans (still in the
refining and detailing process) for the remaining 2/3s.  It'll be long,
yes, so it may take forever to finish, but I wouldn't say it's not
possible.

only real problem I see is the impossibility of transporting seven

billion

people across interstellar space.  Sit down and try to calculate the

raw

numbers some time - how many ships would be required, how much time it

would

take.

About 700,000.  I do make mention, at one point later in the parts of
the fic written so far, that the evacuation fleet can't approach earth,
en masse, for fear of the tidal damage they would cause by their
combined gravity.

It might make more of an impact to say that Earth was going to be

abandoned

to the tender mercies of the Drule empire.  That could lead to all

sorts of

angst.  =)

It could, but I'll leave that to the hundreds of other planets the Drule
are going to snap up having only system-based static defences to stop
them.  Earth is being abandoned for a reason, and not necessarily for
the one that's being handed to you on a silver platter right now.

Anyway, look forward to seeing more, if there is any.

There is.  Chapter 2 came out before I got this, and chapter 3 will be
going out soon after I send this reply.  Or you could just check my
website for the (unedited, unrevised) version of this fic.  (still
having issues with updating that since I moved, which prevents me from
making changes to my web page... although now, I know how to fix it, but
it'll involve taking apart the desktop and replacing the ethernet card
inside, so that it'll be compatible with the in-house network, from
which I can use my only liscenced copy of an FTP program).  Which means
I need to budget the time when I can make the fix... which, by the way,
has proven damn near impossible.  I'm only able to work on my fics when
I've got insomnia (a frequent occasion for me, it seems), at this point
in time - and I can't work on my computer, then, because it'll wake up
everyone else in the house)

-Richard

-------------------------
David A. Tatum
http://davecon.anifics.com
desaix@anifics.com


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