[FFML] [Fic][SM][Continuation]newStory5Ch1v0.5

[Miashara]

That was actually pretty good. I recommend 3ft for your formatting problems. 
If you can't get it direct, a google search should find it pretty easily, 
let me know and I can send it too you. It's a small program.

All C&C is in my opinion. I reserve the right to be right, wrong, critical, 
or completely flub something up. If at any point you find this not useful, I 
recommend you tell me to go boil my head and ignore everything. Also, I 
think I'm funny.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "d rat" <duneratfics at gmail.com>
To: "The Fanfiction Mailing List" <ffml at chez-vrolet.net>
Sent: Friday, October 10, 2008 3:13 PM
Subject: [FFML] [Fic][SM][Continuation]newStory5Ch1v0.5


> Sorry, don't have a title yet.  i'll have one by next revision.

Then we shall call it "Doctor Saturnlove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying 
and Love the Silence" because it sounded cool.

> Sailor Moon and all of it's affiliates were created by Takeuchi Naoko,
> and are used without permission.
>
> C&C please.

Okay!

> i apologize in advance about any formatting errors, i cannot acquire a
> formatter from out here (Access Denied).

See above.

> --dunerat
>
> *************
>
> "Are you sure?  It's not a mistake in the telescope data or something?"
>
> "Yes ma'am, we're sure.  We exited hyperspace at the correct point, but
> Sol is not where it should be.  We have, however, identifies a nearby

identified

> system that should be Sol, given it's relative position, similar number

its

> of gravitational objects, and other data."

In media res. Good start.

> "I see.  Well captain, move us into position above the system as though

Well, Captain, move us...

> it were our actual destination.  We will make discrete observations and
> try to confirm our location before we do anything else.  Will this
> require another Jump, or can we make it under normal power?"
>
> "It will require a Jump, but a short one.  It should only take a few 
> days."

Jump but a...

unless you want the comma to represent a pause in the speakers cadence, 
which I don't think you did.

> "I'll be in my quarters then.  Let me know when we reach our position."
>
> As promised, the trip took only three days, while her skeleton crew
> conducted functional checks of the ship's systems.  She wandered through
> the labyrinthine passageways of the ship, musing on how it reflected the
> mind of her designer.   She was also grading areas in terms of 
> maintenance,
> or even outright damage control.  Most of the ship was in good working
> order, but there were some disturbing lapses, including a whole 
> compartment
> that had inexplicably suffered a hull breach.  Most importantly though, 
> she
> was interacting with the crew, trying to boost morale a little now that
> they were supposedly home.  She resisted the urge to teleport to the 
> bridge
> when her first officer announced that they had reached their destination,
> the nadir point of the ecliptic sphere.
>
> "Captain on the bridge," announced the helmsman, a young man from Jupiter.
> He'd been hit hard by the death of his Sailor, she remembered.  Well,

Oh, excellent. Starting off with a body count. I like it.

> they all had, actually, all the more so since it had been Jupiter, Uranus,
> and their entire teams.  But especially the Jovians and Urani, since
> Sayuri and Oleander had been theirs.  He'd bounced back fairly well,
> she thought.
>
> "Carry on.  Commander Crusher, what do you have for me?"

Since you didn't disclaim Star Trek, I'm assuming this is just a 
joke/homage?

> "We've arrived, and this is almost definitely Sol, but..." he trailed off.
>
> "But what, captain?"

No point it continuing to mention this. Captain, when used as a proper noun, 
is capitalized. Examples:
"Blah blah zippity do!" said Captain Vokus.
"Blah blah hee-haw!" the captain said.
"Hey, Captain!" called Ed.
"Get the captain!" Astroboy exclaimed.

I pulled these off a ROF forum. If you google Capitalizing Captain, it 
should be the first link and is a very thorough discussion.

> "Well ma'am, there's some things missing, for one.  Also, we've had no

Well, Ma'am, there's

The ma'am thing is a bit more flexible, and you can probably get away with 
leaving it lower case if you really want. I wouldn't though. Mainly I wanted 
to suggest adding the comma.

> response to our hails as yet."

Did you want that to read "as of yet" instead?

> "What do you mean missing?  Bring it up on the main screen."  He
> complied, and she gasped.  The system was... dark.  The star in the
> centre was bright enough, of course, but there were no lights on any
> of the planets.  Several of them were discoloured, though they were not
> yet close enough to tell why.  The most glaring problem, however, was that
> one of the planets was missing entirely.  "Locate Luna.  Bring it up on
> maximum magnification!"
>
> The view shifted.  "Passive scans also do not detect any holowave
> transmissions at all, not even a beacon," Crusher said.  The moon

suggest: Crusher replied. Reason: try to change the tempo up and not use he 
said, she said a lot

> came into view, split half and half by it's own shadow.  He cycled

its

possessive of 'it' is 'its'; contraction of 'it is' is 'it's'

I make that mistake a lot and certain people on this list yell at me for it.

> through several modes of reception, including heat and exotic radiation.

Is that like the Playboy channel broadcast?

> In all views, however, the surface stayed cold and dark, save the natural
> heat of the light side from the sun.  Even at maximum magnification, from

Uh, you mean the reflected light of the sun? I'm pretty sure the thermal 
radiation of the moon's surface is negligible compared to that.

> this distance the moon still only occupied the middle third of the screen,
> not enough to make out surface details.  But what they could see was

What they could see-

Don't start formal sentences, aka narration, with conjunctions

> disturbing.  When they had left, Luna had been a green world, mostly 
> plains
> and famous for both its beef cattle and its cheese.  Now it was white and
> gray, with craters large enough to be seen even from here.

Where's here?

> "This...  this can't be right.  Fifty years is not enough time for this 
> much
> change!"  She was starting to come loose, she knew.  The general wrongness
> of the situation had been piling up, starting with the nagging feeling 
> that
> something was missing she'd had since being Awakened.  This was pushing 
> her
> limits.  Even the debacle at Gamma Orionus hadn't been this bad, there at
> least she knew that she'd done everything possible.

bad; there

  Not quite fully Awakened
> themselves, her bridge crew was too shocked to make much sense of it. 
> Rumours
> would be starting soon, she knew, and then her hard earned morale and
> confidence would plummet; her grasp on the multi-planet crew would vanish.
> "Send probes to the other planets.  Get a definite hold on where we are 
> and
> what happened here if this is home.  The Awakening is on indefinite hold 
> until
> further notice.  Awaken only minimal required staff and the other Sailors;
> have them meet me in my ready room as soon as they are able.  Maintain 
> skeletal
> crew requirements until minimal crews are one hundred percent.  Let me 
> know
> when the first probes start reporting.  Commander Crusher, you have the 
> conn.
> I'll be in my ready room."  She turned and headed into the small room 
> adjacent
> the bridge as her first officer acknowledged the conn and began
> passing orders.
>
> Once inside, she allowed the stress of the mission and the recent setbacks 
> pile
> up and wash over her.  She sat down, laid her head on the desk, and 
> shivered
> uncontrollably for a few minutes.  She was famous for being calm under 
> pressure
> and collected under fire, but only she and her closest friend knew how
> much she'd
> paid for that reputation.  Saskia Holtzclau, the 876th Sailor Venus and 
> Captain
> of HMS R.Batty, was secretly an emotional wreck who constantly second and 
> third
> guessed herself, and suffered through each and every loss every time she 
> laid
> down at night.

First of all, liked the continued hints at bad stuff in the past. Good 
description of Saskia. Her mental state is established early and has a lot 
of potential.
Second, I don't think you need the comma after herself, but I'm not quite 
sure where you were going for there.
Third, the HMS R. Batty? Really Batty?
> *************
>
> Sabine Mendel, 763rd Sailor of Mercury and the ship's Chief Engineer, 
> slowly
> Awakened.  She didn't immediately recognize her surroundings until one of 
> the
> ships nurses came into her view.  The events of her life rushed in then, 
> all
> trying to reconnect to her consciousness at once.  She mused quietly on 
> how
> much she hated the process, despite being quite proud of inventing it with
> her friends Sayuri and Katrina.  She swallowed hard at Sayuri's memory and
> tried to sit up, only to be shushed back down by the nurse.
>
> "Not quite yet, ma'am.  You'll have to let the restoratives work a little
> longer yet.  And I'm afraid you'll still need that cane for a while."
>
> "Something's happened."
>
> The nurse looked nervous for a moment before continuing: "I don't know 
> what
> exactly, just that the Captain is quite perturbed."  He wasn't lying, 
> exactly.
> But he also remembered Sabine's sharp tongue when her work had been 
> questioned,
> so he hesitated to comment on what seemed to be a malfunction of the 
> systems
> she had designed.
>
> That information was enough for Sabine, however.  She knew of Saskia's
> reputation
> as an unflappable, levelheaded leader even in the direst of circumstances.
> She'd help build that persona, after all.  Saskia had to be close to 
> cracking
> for the crew to know anything of her secret self.  "Where is she?  Is 
> someone
> hurt?  An accident?  Why wasn't I Awakened immediately!"  Her voice was 
> dry and
> scratchy; she immediately started coughing.
>
> The nurse handed her a sippy cup of water as he tried to explain.

A sippy cup? Don't they have IVs, direct osmotic fluid transfers, or straws? 
A sippy cup?

> "I'm not sure,
> ma'am.  I know that the Awakening was halted by the captain and
> changed to essential
> personnel only.  She's waiting for all of you in the ready room; you
> should be able
> to leave in about ten minutes."  Before he could continue, a blue
> light began to
> flash from the recovery room's alert panel accompanied by a muted
> alarm from the
> main sickbay.  The nurse barely gave the door time to open, leaving
> Sabine alone
> to ponder.
>
> *************
>
> In her ready room, Saskia received a similar alert, paging her to medical. 
> Her
> mind whirled in fear as she raced through the ship.  'Please, mother,
> not another
> one!'  Arriving, she was quickly shown into the Chief Medical
> Officer's office.
> Her friend Katrina wasn't there yet, herself still being Awakened, but she 
> knew
> enough to manipulate the view screen to see what she needed.  She was
> struggling
> to recompose herself when one of the doctors joined her.
>
> "I'm sorry ma'am, we did everything we could for her."
>
> "What happened?"
>
> "Her Pre-Awakening went normally, but when we moved her into Awakening
> State and
> her own systems should have taken over her functions, she immediately went 
> into
> a massive seizure coupled with total cardiac failure and respiratory 
> distress.
> We were unable to calm her brain or restart her heart.  The cause will
> be subject
> to an immediate investigation, though the staff here has conducted 
> thousands of
> Awakenings, so I can't believe it was an error.  However, given that she 
> had no
> history of seizures or heart trouble, coupled with the fact that such a
> catastrophic systemic failure as a result of Awakening is practically
> impossible,
> I can't give you a time estimate."
>
> Saskia hid her face behind her hands, utterly failing to hide her
> tears.  'Mother,
> why?  I was almost home, why are you still punishing me?'  "What of
> the others?
> Are they alright?"
>
> The doctor's face grew pained.  "All but one ma'am.  I'm afraid that the
> containment failed on Princess Uhuru's hibernation capsule while everyone
> was in stasis.  She is dead.  I am sure it was quite painless, however."
>
> Unfortunately she could see right through that lie, and they both knew it.
> "See to it that the remaining Sailors are fully recovered and then join me 
> in
> my ready room as soon as possible afterwards.   Not less than thirty 
> minutes
> from now.  Dismissed."
>
> "Yes ma'am."  As he turned and left the room, she laid her head on the 
> desk and
> wept for her dead.

Yes, ma'am

> *************
>
> She tried to maintain her determined facade as she watched her friends 
> enter
> her ready room.  Sabine was first, as always, grumbling about the injury 
> that
> still required her to use a cane months after.  She was followed my 
> Madelena

Is that 'my' the beginning of a proper name? You may want to capitalize it.

> de Santos y Rios and Jeanne L'Seine together, of Mars and Saturn 
> respectively.
> Close to each other even in childhood, they were also her Tactical and
> Operations Officers.  Her CMO was next, Katrina Yesbek of Neptune.  Lastly
> came the Ship's Counselor, Jillian Busch of Luna.  She was in a daze, 
> trying
> to find her centre amid the wash of feelings from the crew.

Can we get a bit more on the counselor? Perhaps not now, but what type of 
feelings, how they're affecting her, and why she can read feelings? I'm 
getting a pretty strong ST vibe, so I'm prepared to buy it, but since 
ostensibly this is just a SM fic, a little bit of explanation would help.

> "Everyone get something to eat, and then have a seat.  We have a lot to 
> cover,
> though there isn't much information.  But we need to all be on the same 
> page
> for the sake of the crew."  They all nodded and quietly made their turn at 
> the
> replicator, thinking of what they needed to ask, and wondering why they 
> were
> still short two faces.
>
> Jillian was the first to speak, her concern echoing everyone's
> apprehensiveness.
> "Saskia, where are Trill and Uhuru?  Are they not yet awa-"  She broke 
> off,
> Saskia's stricken face telling her all she needed to know.  "No..."
> she whispered,
> her face falling.  "Not them too...."
>
> Everyone realized it what it meant at once.  Then the questions all came 
> at
> once, overlapping each other.  "What?  Whappened?  Where-"

What's the point of the hyphen after where? I assume the other questions 
were interrupted, so there's no point in just pointing it out with the last. 
Shouldn't it have a question mark?

> "Quiet please!"  Saskia commanded.  'Mother, give me strength....' 
> "Although

A couple other times you quote her thoughts without the single quotes, but 
here you use them. Either is fine, but pick one.

> I would have rather gotten to this later, as Captain, it is my first duty 
> to
> inform you of the deaths of two of our sisters.  Princess Uhuru was found 
> dead
> in her hibernation capsule, apparently the containment system failed 
> somehow.

capsule; apparently

> It was a painless death," she perpetuated the lie, knowing it wouldn't 
> last but
> needing to hold the shock as long as possible.
>
> Sabine half rose out of her chair, livid.  "That 's inconceivable.  I 
> designed
> those stasis capsules.  They have an operating lifespan of nearly two 
> thousand
> years!  There is no possibility of containment failure on a mere fifty 
> year
> mission!"
>
> "Sabine!" Jillian interjected.  "We all know and trust your skills and 
> those
> of your people!  And I know that you are upset by her majesty's death, but 
> let's
> have all the facts first, shouldn't we?  She hasn't even told us where
> we are, yet."
>
> Deflated, Sabine nodded slowly and sat back down, mumbling an apology.
>
> "Saskia, you said two of our sisters.  Please continue," Jillian asked.
>
> Saskia nodded, understanding of Mercury's outburst.  Her pride in her work 
> was
> a flow they had all grown used to and even come to rely on, especially 
> since
> it was rarely misplaced.  "Yes, Lieutenant McMillan suffered from a 
> massive
> seizure combined with cardiac arrest immediately upon Awakening.  She died
> about half an hour ago."

Was the LT a sailor? If so, why is she called LT instead of what I'd assume 
is the higher ranking title. Else, why is she a sister?

> Katrina started, her mind racing to find a possible explanation.  She knew 
> her
> staff, she knew their skills, and she knew Trill's history, yet could find 
> no
> obvious explanation.  Not even skipping steps in the Awakening process 
> should
> cause such a catastrophic failure.

God hates you.

> "The rest of my news is almost as bad, I'm afraid.  We're certain that we
> exited hyperspace at the proper coordinates, but everything is in the 
> wrong
> place, including the sun.  We're already working on it, but he had to move

but we had

> to obtain the proper nadir point that we should have had at re-entry.
>
> "How far," Sabine asked.
>
> "Huh?"
>
> "How far did we have to move?"  Sabine's mind was really churning now. 
> One
> error was absolutely inconceivable.  Two was impossible.  But if she knew 
> how
> far they'd had to move, she could figure out what had really happened. 
> True,
> Sayuri had been far better at this sort of thing, her purely
> scientific background
> having a huge advantage over Sabine's own applied sciences in these 
> matters,
> but since the Jovian Sailor's death it had fallen on Katrina and
> herself to fill
> in as best they could.
>
> Saskia could immediately see what her friend was thinking, and hoped it 
> would
> start to bring some semblance or normality to the ship.  "Ten point
> three parsecs."

In solar rotation about the glactic center, my math gives me about 130,000 
years.

Your stasis capsules have expired. Still, lasting 65 times expected lifetime 
is damn good engineering.

> The number meant little to most of them without context, but between 
> Sabine and
> her inherited Navi-Tography staff, she knew an answer wouldn't be long
> in coming.

Cool. Am I right?

> "Which brings me to my next piece of news: no one is answering our hails. 
> Not
> Starbase Catena, not Selene City Starport, nor anyone else.  No ships,
> not even a
> police cruiser.  We can't even detect any signs of life.  Luna has turned
> grayish-white, and we could see craters.  We are still waiting for the
> probes to
> start reporting from the other capitols."

Godzilla attacked?

> Cacophony struck.  Saskia waited a few minutes for it to subside
> before speaking again,
> suddenly extremely pensive.  "I have also reached a decision.  After
> losing two of
> our sisters and a full fifth of our crew at Gamma Orionus, I know that
> confidence in my command has been low despite having an otherwise
> successful mission.
> The price was too high.  And as you know, I have never really thought
> of myself as
> a good commander.  Having now lost another one of our sisters, the
> princess of Terra,
> and quite likely even more of our crew, coupled with the navigational
> error that we
> now face, I no longer feel able to continue as Captain of this
> expedition.  I would
> tender to you my resignation and submit myself to your judgment.  I
> would like to
> nominate Sabine to take my place."

Cool. Internal conflict. I say we burn her at the stake for incompetence.

> This time, there was absolute silence, shock clear on every face.
> They all knew
> that the Venusian was much shakier internally than she appeared.  They 
> also all
> knew how much Sabine had coveted the position and how outraged she had
> been when
> the Queen had appointed Saskia instead.
>
> Sabine spoke first: "Captain, we all know that i was both the first

I

> and the most
> fervent doubter of the Queen's wisdom in appointing you to a position
> I felt was
> rightfully mine."  Saskia swallowed hard.  "But having served with you 
> over the
> course of this mission, I can also say that the Queen's wisdom is both
> far-seeing
> and right-acting.  Of all of us, only Princess Uhuru could have
> rivaled you as our
> commander, and none could surpass you.  I refuse, both your
> resignation and your
> nomination.  I am flattered, but you really are the best choice."  The
> other women
> quickly added their assent to Sabine's declaration.  "Besides honey,

Besides, Honey, we're

>we're almost
> home now, right?  It's a bit late to be backing out now!"  She laughed
> a little,
> in spite of herself.

little in spite

And aww. Couldn't we have a little mutiny? Just for old time's sake?

> Abashed, Saskia assented.  "Well, since that seems to be everyone's 
> position,
> I suppose I have no choice but to accept.  Now I ask you to finish 
> recuperating
> and return to your sections as soon as possible.  We have a very capable 
> crew,
> but it will help morale a lot when they see us working with them
> again.  Jillian,
> if you could please head to Medical with Katrina?  The other essential 
> staff,
> especially the Terrans and Lilim, will need your support.  Everyone
> else, you know
> what to do.

Lilim in reference to the people of Luna? Or NGE style of refering to 
humans?

> "Aye, ma'am!" they spoke as one.
>
> *************
>

Again, all in all pretty good. My advice on grammar is always suspect, but 
take it for any use you get out of it. That being said, you use a lot of 
ellipses and semicolon conjuntions. I would definitely advise paring down 
the former, and less strongly the latter as well.

Starting out with big problems is good. It was a little Trekky, but if 
that's the feel you want go ahead. It isn't cloyingly so. You've got a 
seriously unified crew, which is fine, but I'd like to see a pretty bad bad 
guy to counter out all this getting along. Where's the conflict?

Miashara
www.deepfriedpuppies.com