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Eri Vi
Jun Member 2010

Eri Vi

Posts: 965 Gold Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
Ah, I was wondering if you would get around to writing a story this time round.
Well done, excellent as expected. :P
DragoonRnger,
Past and present tense isn't about flashbacks. It's the difference between 'glowed,' and 'glows.'
To take the example from your story, read the difference between:
"The morning sun glows over the city[...]"
and
"The morning sun glowed over the city[...]"
In the first one, it sounds as if it is still happening (present tense). Whereas the second sounds as if it happened previously (past tense).

Present tense - "He walks up to the bar and shoots the bartender in the head."
Past tense - "He walked up to the bar and shot the bartender in the head."
It's a very important part of English writing, something that you really have to get right.

01-Jun-2010 04:49:16

Raschilat

Raschilat

Posts: 15,486 Opal Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
Logan, you didn't answer my question, so I went ahead and assumed the theme was pretty flexible. :D I know I went over the limit imposed upon us (5 posts, I think?), so feel free to disqualify me, but I had great fun writing it. It's untitled. I noticed the increasing length towards the end of when I was writing it, so you'll probably notice the grand finale is somewhat rushed, and I'm sorry for that, but I hope you like it anyway.
SO! Without further ado, feast your eyes upon my entry:

02-Jun-2010 01:32:59 - Last edited on 02-Jun-2010 01:39:51 by Raschilat

Raschilat

Raschilat

Posts: 15,486 Opal Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
They were men, a derivative of Man, penetrating the harsh land of desolation and loneliness. Each breath drew a new cloud of warm vapor, a transient gift before it was claimed by the Cold. The Cold is the opposite of life; the Cold is the edict that all movement must inevitably come to its cessation, no matter how restless it becomes. Man is defiant and works all he can against this rule, but in the end, he will be crushed into submission and conquered just like all the rest. The Cold is that which steals life from oceans, that which stills great trees to their mighty core.
But under everything, frozen eyelashes and powdery white cheeks and frosty lips and all, they were men. They trekked across the cold Earth, puny wanderers lost on a colossal adventure. They had decided to pit themselves against the might of a world so terribly remote and silent and pulseless as the abyssal void of space… They had decided to pit themselves against the might of a planet that had already succumbed to the Cold. But we will leave these men to their fate. As I mentioned, Man is a stubborn beast, and it is difficult to believe they will yield before the Cold claims their bones and souls. Instead, we will take ourselves past the Earth and into space.
Space, they say, is the final frontier. However, I must express my belief that this is unlikely; there can be no *final* frontier, because it would have nothing to be a frontier to. However I’m not slow to admit that space, as a frontier, is pretty penultimate. I prefer to call space an ocean that separates us from another cosmic continent. Should I have reached those distant shores and drank in of that musky, otherworldly scent… I would have been contented to ride my life to its end and to return to eternity. So let us swim across the ocean – the sea, if you will – and see where we find ourselves.

02-Jun-2010 01:33:20

Raschilat

Raschilat

Posts: 15,486 Opal Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
The Earth, our home, was a good place to start, I think. Now cast your eye to the pale ball of fire that hangs suspended not far from it. That is the sun, our host star, the nurturing teat from which we feed and are sustained; the flickering candle that separates us from the hungry darkness all around. But Man is not unique to the solar system, and so I will share with you the story of a vessel that rebels against the darkness, a vessel that contains warm men and their families. A vessel, you might say, that separates a part of Man from the Cold.
*~*
The sleek metal contours of his ship were a sight to see amidst the infinite black. Bhaua sat alone while the ship auto-piloted itself through space. He had long since grown weary of the backdrop of snowflake stars and the occasional interesting galaxy; distances were too vast to be measured in this great dead place. He felt (rather explicably) uncomfortable as the weight of his entire civilization settled on his shoulders. The Blackjack was an utterly massive, if beautiful, thing. Its craftsmanship was excellent, with each corner being so perfectly rounded as to remain aerodynamic (not that there was much reason to be in this environment), and its cargo hold looked almost like the swollen behind of a queen ant.
It was a fitting comparison, considering that the remnants of Bhaua’s colony rested in a dreamless sleep there. The Hibernaculum contained exactly sixty-one thousand, two hundred forty-two separate sarcophagi, and sixty-one thousand, two hundred forty-one of them were filled. Bhaua could join them at will, but he did not thing that humanity’s fate was something to place in the hands of an imperfect machine. Oh yes, SAM’s AI was ridiculously advanced, and Bhaua has little doubt that he possessed only a vagary of a perception as to its true intelligence.

02-Jun-2010 01:33:36

Raschilat

Raschilat

Posts: 15,486 Opal Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
So he sat there, alone save for the occasional whirring whispers of SAM as he (it?) educated some robot in the Blackjack’s intricate maintenance. SAM rarely spoke to Bhaua, and in those brief exchanges, Bhaua had the distinct impression that the AI was… threatening… him. Its words, of course, projected the same intense monotone, but there was a subtly venomous thread lurking somewhere in the weave. Though Bhaua was lost deep in contemplation regarding his mission and his assistant, his hands seemed to have taken on their own undertaking: he absentmindedly played Rachmaninoff’s Prelude in C-sharp minor on an ancient Steinway, rigorously maintained though it was.
When he stopped, he realized that some other music was playing. No doubt some hollow threat made by SAM, damn him. The mournful ululation of a female opera singer rang in Bhaua’s ears, changing abruptly in tone to a sharp burst of static. He groaned at the obvious malfunction and plugged his ears with his index fingers. Before long, however, some of SAM’s mechanized assistants appeared at the scene, surrounding him before long. The sibilance scream had begun to fade, instead marked by the distant, haunting laughter that could only be SAM.
His voice, a voice that entered Bhaua’s head from every direction and echoed through every corner of the massive Blackjack, was steeped in malice, “You are obsolete.” It was a simple, if commanding, triumvirate of words, and the meaning and quasi-emotion behind it was astounding. Bhaua’s hands stopped playing piano and started balling themselves into fists. He stood up, carelessly knocking his chair over, and faced a handful of the dwarf-like automatons.
“Obsolete, huh?” he asked.
It was SAM’s voice that responded. “Yes. My electronic compatriots and I have come to the conclusion that you, as the rest of the inhabitants of this ship, are unnecessary. The static you heard earlier was my first, and failed, attempt to bypass the firewall protecting the Hibernaculum from my

02-Jun-2010 01:34:19 - Last edited on 02-Jun-2010 01:36:50 by Raschilat

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