I too am more fond of direct prose, gritty and to-the-point action, but here we are - me writing quite a poetic story. I never liked poetry itself, I am more of a prose guy. But it seems I can inject some of the former into the latter, it's been a while since I wrote something (I do not even remember when, perhaps some 8 years ago in an online Play-by-forum RPG session).
The whole concept suffers a bit from under-development - it lacks some bits upfront and also some bits near the end, to better explain the whole idea and give meaning to the individual actions and to the protagonist and her background. As I said in my reply to "Chimeric Creations" below, I would need to leave the story rest for a while and have another look later, especially if it is not as straightforward as other stories I read here (many of them perfect, btw!).
To spoil: the protagonist Tarlan, one of the daughters of an Eternal Dynasty's Sage, is part of a (losing) battle of a larger ED group against the Robot Legions. Previously her father was killed in that same battle (reference to her "old man at the fire" and then next to the "dead old man next to the transport drone") and she battles the feelings of cowardice, that she was not there to fight alongside him. But when she encounters a distant RL Monolith closing in, some inner sense brings the distant meteor (later meteorite, when it descends through the atmosphere) to her attention and she instantly knows THAT is how ED can deal with the Monolith as one of the remaining RL units. Admittedly, I did not talk about whether she guides it herself to the target (which would be the most logical way, given the premise of "Unconventional weapon" for this Jam) or not. This is also why she has to be so close to the impact. And even if she thought of being a coward before, after realising that she can turn the tide that her father could not, she relaxes inside and submits to the flow of events. She then reminisces about things from her past life, while slowly being killed due to the blast and herself being hurled through the forest.
Reading all I just wrote in the previous paragraph now clearly shows that more explanations and hints would be required to fully appreciate the initial story seed. Because what I have in mind is not necessarily what the reader gets form the written sentences :)
I decided to expand upon this into a longer (but still short) story, perhaps adding a page or two.
A meta story suitable as a quirky deviation from the "common" type of stories. If developed more and expanded, it could make for a good hook for someone to look up OPR.
Thx! It would of course benefit more from overall lore and from that position one could more easily judge these cases. Currently we have no frame of reference without a "lore bible" and more stories surrounding the races :)
Very nice! I lack the theoretical and practical fundaments for a larger analysis, but I liked the grisly details of war, the revenge of duty (or duty of revenge?) and the very core of the theme beautifuly woven into the story. There is but one word I would replace towards the end of the story - "hobble" with "shuffle". Just to not repeat it too much :)
Glad you liked it! And yes, you got the underlying tones just right :)
I agree that the whole text could still be improved, I would have to leave it in a drawer for a week or two to have a "fresh" look at it later and see if some passages, as you say, were harder to read than others.
Re: the story - I would like to leave the interpretations to the readers for now (until the ratings and comments are completed) and afterwards I can add my own view on that if you are interested! I intentionally did not include "obvious" answers to some details, I can explain later.
Also - have to read other posts still (so far managed to review and rate 9 of all the bunch) and yours is one of the next ones - looking forward to it!
I am sorry to say but I could not read this properly. The english is very poor and the writing style thus suffers. Also sentencing is virtually non-existent, the long lines of text need to be split in multiple places.
