{"body":"12:02 PM <%red3> Alright, well while we wait for others to finish up, how about we give our opening thoughts on this article?\r\n12:03 PM <+cybersqyd> i like the style enough even if the substance feels a touch lacking\r\n12:04 PM (I'm back just now, so I think I will mostly check what you said while I'm read it)\r\n12:05 PM <%red3> A lot of the writing here was really dense. It tried to pack in technobabble, constant flipping between past and current events, and a confusing amount of detail which left me confused at what was actually happening most of the time.\r\n12:07 PM Personally I enjoyed this for its technobabble. Considering I read a lot of science fiction, I appricate the authors that go into detail about the tech used in its works or how they would function. Although yeah the flipping was a bit disorienting\r\n12:08 PM → DrFullham joined (uid409800@synIRC-1B85FEDD.brockwell.irccloud.com)\r\n12:08 PM <%red3> I'm also not sure what is even happening in this tale. I assume that the space probe is creating some sort of spacetime bubble and that time moves slower within it.\r\n12:09 PM <+cybersqyd> I think it's more like it's like, a spacetime bullet that causes regular spacetime to flow around it so it can travel faster than light\r\n12:09 PM <+cybersqyd> which i guess is equivalent to making time move slower in the bubble\r\n12:10 PM → DianaBerry joined (uid373168@diana.has.been.recalled)\r\n12:10 PM Pretty much, yeah. That is how most FTL travel is written in current science fiction. Like the Enterprise I believe uses the bubble so while your moving at lightspeeds, the crew and tech inside remain in the same timeframe as when they first jumped if that makes sense\r\n12:12 PM <%red3> Yeah, that type of narrative device does have a place, but this article feels like it's using that too much to the point where there is little story outside of it. Besides the small glimpses to the past which seem very out of place considering that this is the beginning of the story where characters and setting should be getting introduced. Outside of that, the only thing this article seems to focus on is the coolness \r\n12:12 PM <%red3> of the FTL travel, which isn't enough to satisfy me.\r\n12:14 PM Hmmm I guess that is fair enough to say but it is a prelude and I'm a sucker for those to go into the technobabble and the FTL stuff\r\n12:14 PM Yeah, I've finished and... I just understand the main synopsis of the thing, which is about a faster-than-light travel.\r\n12:14 PM But all the other things... bleh.\r\n12:15 PM if i recall correctly, the next piece in the series was the first written; this one had been posted after-the-fact as a means of set-up for it and introducing the characters\r\n12:15 PM Complete Martian for me and I think I should reread the AAPA hub for a better understanding, because now, I'm like \"Eh. OK. What was that, already?\".\r\n12:18 PM <%red3> I can somewhat understand the problems that this faces considering that it is a prelude and was written after everything else was posted, but judging it in isolation, it's not a very good introduction to the characters or the main plot. I understand one of the main devices that's most likely going to be used again (FTL travel and spacetime bubbles) and I know the protagonist (Watts) but I'm not given anything more than \r\n12:18 PM <%red3> a name. It feels more like an entirely independent article than anything that's connected to a larger story.\r\n12:21 PM <%red3> Does anyone have any other major thoughts they'd like to throw out?\r\n12:21 PM Nope\r\n12:24 PM <%red3> Alright, well this is going to be a downvote for me for the reasons that I stated. This is a poor introduction into the series and I didn't really gain much besides some shallow characterization and a bloated explanation for how one of the main plot devices work.\r\n12:25 PM I'm gonna novote this for now. While I am singing praises for the author to use technobabble and give us the imagery, I still have no idea where this series might go, hence the novote\r\n12:26 PM Novote. I prefer to wait and see if the next parts of the story are less \"technobabble-y\" and more understandable, at least by me.\r\n","name":"Faster-Than-Light Prelude","extension":"txt","url":"https://www.irccloud.com/pastebin/R9SCVgcm/Faster-Than-Light+Prelude","modified":1594409199,"id":"R9SCVgcm","size":4266,"lines":25,"own_paste":false,"theme":"","date":1594409199}