Forging Ahead (GURPS Interstellar Wars/Celestial Forge)

[Serran]

Nice new chapter, thanks for the update.

I think that Sophia tries to prepare for a worst case scenario befor she was really working on the more realistic one. The more likely one is that the local noble tries to conquer the Confederation again. An unstoppable Wave of ships to drown them in is explicitely unlikely. They would likely need to gather this Fleet from Ressources outside the local area.
Since the previous War left the Vilani with the impression that a large fleet of their own can just roll them over.

Even if her upgraded technology (whichever form it takes) is reasonably readily reverseenginered it will still need to be captured and delivered to a facility where that can be done. Than these upgrades need to be implemented. Under absolute ideal circumstances I would still have this take a year barring something like the forge. Sophias own abilities might give her tunnel vision.

Any major fleet reenforcement by the Vilani that are strong enough to counter an initial advantage by the Confederation will take long enough that Sophia can tech up further. She doesn't need to hand out the uncounterable perfect tech, though I can certainly understand the desire.

As an extension of a previous point, I find the idea of the Vilani reverseengineering a vastly upgraded or completely new technology that Sophia introduces in any meaningful time pretty much unlikely, just from what I read in the story.
The Vilani do not seem to have any foundational research or advancement for more than a millenia. They just refined what they had. Sophia should maybe consider in depth what that means.
First of, that any personal initiative by a company or private person has been actively suppressed or at least prevented from getting actionable results. Otherwise someone would have tried advancin technology to get an advantage themself. The political System of the Vilani seems to support this conclusion.
Second of, that there is no one with the training to do the research, on account of no one inpower being comfortable with their very existence.
There was apparently some tech from Earth that the Vilani bought, which is a very sad statement for a stellar power of that age. I would expect they got the scientific explanation alongside the products they bought.

For the reversengineering to happen the Vilani need to:
1) Capture an intact version of the supertech and bypass all attempts to scuttle it.
2) Overcome the political inertia against Research to get started.
3) Find personal interested in doing the research after this impulse has been actively supressed by them
4) Train and equip these people with what they need rather than what the politician thinks they need.

Realistically I would expect each of these goals to take month for local efforts smaller than a modern country has and years to be of any real use. With at best marginal overlap in Implementation time.

On the writing I found this chapter a little bit to much tell and not enough show. In all previous major segments we got a human touch on who she was interacting with. Scenes to flesh out the world. Here we learned only a single persons name (the Professor she didn't meet) and didn't see or even read about her interacting with anyone. Even if it was just a transitionary station in her life and Sophia ignored everything but her advancement that should be mentioned.

The draft is going to be interesting. The Genius patrol must be pretty certain that she will be receptive to it and not make it a problem. Though Sophia is at least implied to be interested. Even more importantly they must be certain that they can keep her engaged with them and not alienate her with whereever they are going to stick her. I am looking foward to how this turns out.

The Forge side also seems to be kind of weird. She had 400CP for many month or almost a year and nothing wortwhile dropped?

 

[cliffc999]

I think that Sophia tries to prepare for a worst case scenario befor she was really working on the more realistic one.

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As the Genius Patrol's chairman specifically lampshades in conversation, Sophia tends to approach large decisions from the POV of Pascal's Wager. Which to sum up is 'It doesn't matter if the odds of X happening are low, if the consequence of X happening is "GG no rez" then you don't risk X if you have any other choice.'

The Forge side also seems to be kind of weird. She had 400CP for many month or almost a year and nothing wortwhile dropped?

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She's waiting for enough +CP to roll in that she can look at 600cp options. Also, remember that her strategy for a good chunk of that year was to pace herself and focus on 'know thy enemy' research instead of dropping new science bombs, at least partly because she wants people to see her as a leading genius and not a horrifying freak of nature.

Then the Genius Patrol rolled up, and now she's finding out that sometimes life makes plans without asking for your input.

 

[Faralis]

"Exactly." he nodded to me. "Sophia Anna Nowak, you've been drafted."

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I agree that they need to be very careful how they draft her. She wants to help, yes, but putting her as a butterbar is probably a massive mistake on their part. Having a ton of commanders that do not understand what she is doing is a recipe for disaster.


IIRC during WWII the US Army put certain scientists as full colonels directly so they could actually argue their decisions to their command chains without being automatically silenced... although I'm not sure they will be motivated enough to do something similar.

 

[Kris-71854]

From what we've been shown, the Vilani aren't the bad guys. The Confederation isn't bad guys, they are merely the human faction with Earth and all that. We are supposed to cheer for them.

Everything that we've been told, the Vilani border incidents are all on Earth's fault. It was the last guy that finally said enough was enough and figured that they'd just annex the rouge planet.

To be honest, the only reason that he lost was due to domestic politics. If the timing of that was a bit different, he'd have control of Earth while needing to go back himself to manage politics.

It shouldn't be about how the MC and the Confederation can tech up and take down a feudal society. It should be about how to culturally assimilate Vilani or avoid coming to Vilani noble's attention.

I honestly can't say that I've seen that much wrong with their civ. Compared to Dune, WH40K, or even Asimov's Foundation and it's Empire, the Vilani don't seem remotely bad. We've just not really seen inside their culture enough.

Another point that annoys me is that science supposedly needing great scientists to do anything. That's not exactly how it works. Science depends more on basic engineering and such being part of our standard of living and all that. They've likely hit roadblocks to most of their science questions a few thousand years ago. It's not easy and shouldn't be expected that a faction could just figure out new tech every few generations if it wants to. No, long-term cultural stasis is the human norm.

I can entirely believe that slight engineering improvements every few years are where their best results have been. It's not a lack of scientists or trying on their part. They likely have legitimately run into roadblocks that they have no idea how to get around, remove, or leap over.

I'm curious about how much the MC will be able to improve the Confederation with their existing tech base rather than depending on outside context CF tech bases.

I've been enjoying the view into this setting.

My only real complaint about the fic is her internal logic at picking the ceph thing for her first item. I was horrified that she didn't have a lab or remotely proper storage for it. Delicate to her and a bomb on it, might not have been delicate to the ceph. She destroyed it due to a personal moral issue. I can't wait for the forge to troll her with bringing it back on her desk or something at the oddest times.

 

[cliffc999]

Everything that we've been told, the Vilani border incidents are all on Earth's fault.

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I yet again repeat that common international practice is that if a civilian aircraft violates another country's airspace and flies directly at a military base, transponder off and refusing to answer questions on the radio, it is actually the fault of the civilian aircraft that it got shot.

I also point out yet again that the Vilani's first response to a border accident was to send a fleet and shoot people. Sophia is not mentally skipping over attempts at Vilani diplomacy in her recounting. There genuinely weren't any.

My only real complaint about the fic is her internal logic at picking the ceph thing for her first item.

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Remember that items rotate on and off the purchase menu. If she chooses not to purchase something now, she risks it being unavailable later.

Delicate to her and a bomb on it, might not have been delicate to the ceph.

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If the perk description says X, that is not a clever code for 'it's not actually X'.

 

[LiteraryChangeling69]

The story is a bit frustrating to read since It's a mary stu with negative charisma able to run circles around designated characters but moronic when it comes to social intrigue. Despite how smart she is she's still subject to the human condition in contrived introspective segments and I think it's because it's the authors way of setting a relatively slow pace. I'm guessing that zofia will learn as much as she can of Vilani culture and use her tech to perform clandestine operations to manipulate the political climate in their conformist ways not to fuck with human civilization and then something cliche happens right after with a bigger adversary appearing. Since zofia doesnt want to lose her mind creating weapons that's how I think she'd go about it in a clean way with a deadline of half a decade.

 

[ryune]

Its just reqlly really hard for me to suspend my disbelif about the trillions of people not doing any innovation. I get its whats canon but it rankles and is really hard to swallow.

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Honestly, given the sheer number of technological advancements int he world that were funded by the US government... I have very little trouble being able to see a government with the will to do the opposite being incredibly effective. The Vilani are a stratified social structure with people that are invested in staying in power at the top. I could very easily see them making and being able to maintain an education system that emphasizes caution and reliability to the point where new and innovative things just don't get the investment to get off the ground and those that do just never get adopted as the teething issues sour the public to them. From there, well the public gets comfy and cozy and just moves on with their lives working for advancement or to provide for their families.

 

[Faralis]

It's a mary stu

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I honestly don't see her as a Mary Sue, unless you consider all the Celestial Forge users Mary/Marty Sues/Stus...

 

[Acolyte]

Honestly, given the sheer number of technological advancements int he world that were funded by the US government... I have very little trouble being able to see a government with the will to do the opposite being incredibly effective. The Vilani are a stratified social structure with people that are invested in staying in power at the top. I could very easily see them making and being able to maintain an education system that emphasizes caution and reliability to the point where new and innovative things just don't get the investment to get off the ground and those that do just never get adopted as the teething issues sour the public to them. From there, well the public gets comfy and cozy and just moves on with their lives working for advancement or to provide for their families.

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Humans aren't like that. They want better thing always, which is a main thing in capitalism but it is also a part of basic human nature so its not just cultural.

 

[Vrenze]

I honestly don't see her as a Mary Sue, unless you consider all the Celestial Forge users Mary/Marty Sues/Stus...

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The one constant I see alot and personally maintain as an absolute necessity for a Mary Sue is that everyone like then, including villains, unreasonably. And anyone that doesn't like them is themselves a 1 dimensional irredeemable asshole.

No one who likes the character has done so for unreasonable reasons. Everyone favorable to her doesn't even act like they really like her (not to say they dislike her) more that they appreciate her capabilities. The two people that have actively disliked her have been reasonable in their dislike, one having the same problem they would with anyone who "jumps the social line" which was furthered by his own very reasonable phobias. The other was someone caught up in the social hierarchy she had lived in for months, again not unreasonable if not totally reasonable. We have also had no villainous characters to measure against.

Everyone that wants her, i.e. the genius squad, does so for incredibly reasonable reasons: because it is their job to find, mould, and likely contain genius individuals. Not a one so far has seemed to express a personal liking for her, neither any personal dislike.

At some point you have to accept that the MC will be exceptional in some way. In the case of a CF story it has to be that they will be very techy/intelligent and people will covet them in some fashion, benignly or not.

 

[cliffc999]

Humans aren't like that. They want better thing always, which is a main thing in capitalism but it is also a part of basic human nature so its not just cultural.

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There actually is an explanation in-game - two of them, in fact, that mutually reinforce each other - but, spoilers.

 

[SemiSaneAuthor]

Okay, I apologise, but I'm about to go on a rant and I don't know when I'm going to stop. Apologies, people.

It's a mary stu

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Firstly, It's Mary Sue or Marty Stu, not a mix of the names. Which she isn't but we'll get to that. [/If you're going to use language, then at least try and use it accurately]

with negative charisma

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Secondly, with Adults she gets on fine. With a bunch of fuck up teenagers on what seen as what was the arse end of nowhere by those teenagers she didn't get along. As even people of her age group, teenagers are stupid hormonal idiots. The particular Fuck ups that were in her age group because they were in the arse end of nowhere?

Does the person who is claustrophobic basically going to what is a Moon Base in another Solar System because they didn't tell anyone about their claustrophobia sound like someone who isn't a fuck up teenager? It's like someone that is scared of birds going to work at a pet store that sells canaries. It's not just a bad plan ... to use Girl Genius terms this is a plan where you lose your hat.

So, Idiot Squared fuck up Teenager who is attractive, leading a bunch of other fuck up Teenagers who are going on with that idiot because he's hot? Can you see a way to defuse that properly with The things she has had from The Forge? Where does Well Read equal to use Worm Terms a true Social Thinker? She has some idea of social situations, but before the Forge she was just a hardworking young person who was ordinary.

run circles around designated characters but moronic when it comes to social intrigue

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I've covered the part about social intrique, and I've covered the part of fuck up teenagers for half of them. But, the designated characters aren't being run around or designated characters. They're reasoning adults who have discovered someone who is at least a once in a lifetime genius. Someone who is figuring things out due to the freaking Celestial Forge.

The Forge, even on hard mode of this fic, is basically being a Kryptonian from a tech and intelligence point of view. It's just a sliding scale from more reasonable cartoon Kryptonians and more reasonable live action Kryptonians instead of being the bullshit of Easy Mode Celestial Forge which is basically going full High Level Comic Kryptonian.

Would you watch Supergirl and then start complaining about how she can fly and save crashing planes calling her a Mary Sue because of that? Or would you realise that Supergirl is a Kryptonian and thus made of bullshit. The Celestial Forge being like this, even when Cliff is stopping it from competely breaking the setting? It. Is. Bullshit.

Having the Celestial Forge is basically like being a version of Lex Luthor added to Reed Richards added to Iron Man and if you allow the magical feats in a softer easier mode also being Doctor Doom and Doctor Strange and Doctor Fate.

That Cliff is writing a Celestial Forge fic and making it work, is a credit to his writing. As if you don't put it on the hard mode of this fic, then it will utterly break a setting like a car crashing into a concrete wall at a hundred miles an hour.

Despite how smart she is she's still subject to the human condition in contrived introspective segments

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Firstly, not contrived. She's gone from being an ordinary person to being a Chosen of The Forge (to come up with a term to explain it), she is realising that she could break all the things if she's not careful.

Secondly, if she stops being subject to the human condition and becomes a perfectly SB Protagonist Person? Then she would be a Mary Sue like you accused of her.

If to use a Kryptonian as a metaphor, if you were writing a story about Superman and he has to choose between saving a two carriage train full of people or a bus full of people and he can't save both, and there's people important to him on both the train and bus? And you just have him make a choice without agonising and then afterwards being completely fine? Then you have screwed up with writing.

Her thinking things through and agonising over them is her being human and being a Chosen of The Forge.

and I think it's because it's the authors way of setting a relatively slow pace

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Um. What? This is, to use an old SB Term even if we're on QQ, being multiple Hivers per day with how quickly we get chapters (A Hiver being an old measurement of around a 1,000 words per day). We're getting a lot, and we've going through her starting steps. Did we have half a dozen chapters about the journey on the Beowulf mostly with cahracters that are unimportant to the plot for the most part? Did we have a dozen chapters about her time on a planetary terraforming project with people that are unimportant to the plot for the most part? Did we then have a dozen chapters about MIT with people that are unimportant to the plot for the most part?

Just because the updates are being in multiple Hivers per day doesn't mean that we haven't basically we've been motoring along.

I'm guessing that zofia will learn as much as she can of Vilani culture and use her tech to perform clandestine operations to manipulate the political climate in their conformist ways not to fuck with human civilization and then something cliche happens right after with a bigger adversary appearing. Since zofia doesnt want to lose her mind creating weapons that's how I think she'd go about it in a clean way with a deadline of half a decade.

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Where exactly are you getting your unfounded, out of your arse, guestimate from? She's not being conformist, she was trying not to freak people out. Like, to use this example again, a Kryptonian not going The Punisher on people and pulping them into bloody smears. Just the Forge equivalent and not making people freak out with what she's doing.

And, where are you thinking this bigger adversary going to come from? Please, show your workings on why you think that is going to happen unless you consider it a guestimate.

And she's not anti weapon, she's deciding not to commit Genocide on a scale never seen in the Recorded History of her culture.

Killing Trillions of people, with a plague she considered would at least kill 99% of them, which as she noted would outshine The Black Death in the Oh Holy Shit We're Fucked Chorus that the survivors would sing.

It might be because you're human and can't guage the numbers of the deaths of trillions compared to numbers you're more likely to encounter.

So, imagine a plague that killed every single person you've ever met, every family member, every loved one, every friend, every person you could ever meet. Imagine being on a dead Earth that went from eight billion people to just you.

That is what she would be doing to thousands of worlds if she comit Genocide on a scale that as humans we can't properly comprehend.

So, please stop comparing not becoming the biggest monster in recorded history, to not making weapons.

Also, I do wish smartphones could allow for me to rant like this so I could have done this when I was at a coffee shop. Instead of waiting to get on my netbook. Also, again, I apologise for ranting.

 

[Ame]

Okay, I apologise, but I'm about to go on a rant and I don't know when I'm going to stop. Apologies, people.

*snips well written diatribe*

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This. 110% this. This is a well written response to another's word vomit that I'm sure they would try and call constructive criticism. Comments like the one they were referring to are not constructive criticism as they offer no suggestions for improvement, they cite no examples to correct. They merely slam down a negative opinion and come off as entitled about it.
And honestly, having read it 3 times, I have to wonder. Did they read the same story I read? Cause it doesn't seem likely.

Cliff? I may not always agree with your character's decision making, but I can still understand thier views.

 

[ryune]

I guess there are four possible solutions to this;
*snip*

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Yeah, this is pretty much why I've been suggesting biotech. It's a sweet spot in tech that the Vilani wouldn't want to pursue, tech that's production can be black boxed but not necessarily the proliferation, and would be a nightmare to standardize. Can you imagine a fleet of armed Leviathans from Farscape that need a human to pilot? Or bioware cybernetics that would need a complete rebuild to function for Vilani?

The alternate is something that would be a complete poison pill for the Vilani political climate like a EP style Cornucopia Machine and recycler. Something that just lets anyone build anything they have the design and feed stock for would be the end for any society that depends on suppressing people.

 

[Narwhale]

In other words, the best tech for Sofia to pursue is Zerg…

Ha, no, bad idea.

 

[Blade4]

She needs to stay away from a lot of bio tech. It is so different from the confed tech base it will turn heads unless she is very careful in what she introduces. She needs to keep doing what she is now introducing qualitative upgrades and plausible innovations that give her people major advantages. Let her people's spooks and engineers worry about black boxing. Though her new moly circuits should be pretty blackbox now unless the empire can get access to the underlying proofs to understand how they are doing what they are doing.

 

[D King Hecht]

With her graduation coming up is she officially getting her PHD or is it a bachelor's degree?

 

[Blade4]

With her graduation coming up is she officially getting her PHD or is it a bachelor's degree?

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... Depends on how public they want to be. She has very much earned that phd but they might only publicly credit her with a bachelor's and then assign her some minor work officially when unofficially she is a rising star doctor in a confed lab.

 

[WheeledWriter]

Not that it particularly matters when they apparently stopped doing fundamental science research

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All empires/companies/countries will always eventually discourage innovation because it upsets the status quo, which makes it a threat to the organisation's stability - and the ability of those at the top to stay at the top.

This is short sighted, but almost all human organisations past about a decade or so of existence start doing this, because the ambitious and self-focused sort that always climb to the top of any power bloc work hard to prevent that which gives them power from changing - they don't care about improving things - they care about threats to their power base.

 

[Ralyx]

As much as I agree with her decision, is it particularly mean of me to now hope that Sophia's further efforts fall just short of sufficient, leaving her to watch helplessly as her parents are killed and her homeworld is conquered, all while dealing with the agonizing certainty that she could have saved them?

 

[Domino]

As much as I agree with her decision, is it particularly mean of me to now hope that Sophia's further efforts fall just short of sufficient, leaving her to watch helplessly as her parents are killed and her homeworld is conquered, all while dealing with the agonizing certainty that she could have saved them?

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Dial the spite back, Wildbow. While I'm sure you would have loved to read the story about how the hero was totally a psychopathic mass murderer all along, just waiting for a change to exterminate an entire interstellar empire and plunge the galaxy into total chaos, some people don't want to read that kind of thing.

 

[Dextority]

Eh, there are legitimate reasons to criticize Cliff's writing, in that it tends to predictable plus there seems to be legitimate sympathizing with authoritarian structures as long as they aren't incompetent and aren't hurting more than they are helping (you can see it here quite obviously with the Confederation, but his other stories also contain this same problem, even when they are the antagonist). This isn't that bad and is common in most rational fiction due to core misconceptions built into the 'rationality' movement's structure by its membership (overwhelmingly middle-to-upper educated professional class which tend be very inclined towards clinical technocratic elitism for obvious reasons) and its very nature. He is better and worse in some ways due to his willingness to concede SB competence in favor of the narrative, but you can still see it clear as day.

I think way more people come to Cliff's stories to see his extrapolations on how powers/perks work in situations, as well as how he world-builds and world-expands which is where he really shines. There are obviously questionable decisions in regards to his 'genius patrol', which he has repeated many times in his stories. In real life there are absolutely talent scouts, but even with a highly connected, bureaucratic and formal system which has records of everything, there are still limits to the degree in which one can find it. Plus, the myth of geniuses tends to be formed by other people, especially after fact, in spite of their discoveries and innovations being built upon others' work. In a fictional setting, there are the aforementioned mythical geniuses, but this is more a result of not being able to write intelligent characters well.

There are also some technical mistakes in his work beyond my matter of opinion, because you can clearly see where he writes a chapter to cover his ass after getting some fire under him by criticism. This isn't that uncommon with writers who post chapter by chapter, because it's very easy to get instant feedback which can both help and hinder a work in equal measure. Even if you write it in advance, if you aren't posting it all at once, you are still susceptible to the desire to rewrite it all over again. I experience it as well, so I can't fault him that much for it, beyond saying that he should commit more to his plot-lines rather than aborting and rationalizing them after the fact with readers' replies.

I'm obviously looking forward to the next chapter regardless and I'm sure others are too regardless of its flaws. They are what give it its character.

 

[SemiSaneAuthor]

Hopefully this rant will be shorter than the other one, and I apologise again for ranting. Even if I'm feeling less waspish with this rant. Even if I might still be a swarm of angry wasps when writing this.

in that it tends to predictable

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Um, can you give an example of that? It might be because I haven't woken up properly, but that I don't find it predictable.

plus there seems to be legitimate sympathizing with authoritarian structures as long as they aren't incompetent and aren't hurting more than they are helping (you can see it here quite obviously with the Confederation, but his other stories also contain this same problem, even when they are the antagonist).

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When did being Lawful Good become a flaw? For either a character or author. And just because someone is the antagonist doesn't make them the bad guy. You don't need to be a villain protagonist for the antagonist to be the good guy. There are ways that you can be against the local lawful structure without it being bad.

To give a fictional example so I don't get in trouble, the Jedi Order can still be the good guy but you can still be clashing with the Jedi Council as a protagonist. That is, just because someone is part of the good guys doesn't mean they can't work with other good guy organisations without butting heads.

This isn't that bad and is common in most rational fiction due to core misconceptions built into the 'rationality' movement's structure by its membership (overwhelmingly middle-to-upper educated professional class which tend be very inclined towards clinical technocratic elitism for obvious reasons) and its very nature.

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Why is being Lawful Good a bad trait even if you're claiming that it isn't that bad? Honestly, don't most people want society and people they run into to be Lawful Good? Um, What??

Also, when did Cliff claim to being a rationalist? Because I can't remember that, and it doesn't have the ... Well, my attempt to read rational fics has me hating them, so I'm not going to insult a genre, but I don't like them. And Cliff's writing doesn't ... well it doesn't have what I would describe as bad writing, bad science, and instutional arrogance of Rationalist Fic.

He is better and worse in some ways due to his willingness to concede SB competence in favor of the narrative, but you can still see it clear as day.

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While is it worse to drop SB Competence when it usually impacts the narrative in a bad way and why I don't usually read stories for it. And no, if this is as clear as day for you then I'm wondering why I'm currently living under a volcanic eruption when my country has no volcanoes near it to blot out the sky Mordor style.

I think way more people come to Cliff's stories to see his extrapolations on how powers/perks work in situations, as well as how he world-builds and world-expands which is where he really shines.

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While yes, world building and world expansion is a hallmark of Cliff's writing, and yes how powers/perks work are fun?

Don't claim that when I generally everything abot Cliff's writing, from his characters, to how he makes competent enemies that have to be opposed. And that I can acknowledge that sometimes I can't help being annoying in a way that annoy's Cliff when he's not asking for suggestions, or that I lock onto one thing and annoy him that way. Which, I'd just like to take the moment to apologise for, but it's a part of me that I can't remove from myself no matter how much better it might be if I could.

There are obviously questionable decisions in regards to his 'genius patrol', which he has repeated many times in his stories. In real life there are absolutely talent scouts, but even with a highly connected, bureaucratic and formal system which has records of everything, there are still limits to the degree in which one can find it.

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Someone hitting the 99% percentile of people on The Planet and being the best person in their country taking the mandatory test is something that is meant to be hard to find? Especially when they were just seemingly a hardworking ordinary person before that?

That's a firework in the middle of the Arctic Winter when there's no Sunlight for another 30 days. It's rather hard to miss, and even then, the Genius Patrol didn't swoop in right after the test, but were discussing it when Sophia was on the terraforming project and moved in afterwards.

Plus, the myth of geniuses tends to be formed by other people, especially after fact, in spite of their discoveries and innovations being built upon others' work. In a fictional setting, there are the aforementioned mythical geniuses, but this is more a result of not being able to write intelligent characters well.

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You're complaining about something fictional hitting fictional tropes that exist in so much fiction that it's everywhere? And, unlike most settings, with most writers, I find Cliff writes intelligent characters well before you possibly imply (SSA Unit needs more tea and to wake up properly before trying to figure out if people are implying or not implying things, something I find hard most of the time anyway) that Cliff doesn't write intelligent characters well.

There are also some technical mistakes in his work beyond my matter of opinion, because you can clearly see where he writes a chapter to cover his ass after getting some fire under him by criticism. This isn't that uncommon with writers who post chapter by chapter, because it's very easy to get instant feedback which can both help and hinder a work in equal measure. Even if you write it in advance, if you aren't posting it all at once, you are still susceptible to the desire to rewrite it all over again. I experience it as well, so I can't fault him that much for it, beyond saying that he should commit more to his plot-lines rather than aborting and rationalizing them after the fact with readers' replies.

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So, do as I say, not do as I do. [Sarcasm] Yes, what a lovely notion [/Sarcasm] that you're not willing to follow through on yourself yet are complaining that someone else is doing. Humans, are humans. And you're complaining a common trait of a serial story is bad? This has been a thing since people were writing serials in newspapers and such. Followed by people writing letters to the paper to complain.

The internet just makes that a lot easier to do.

I'm obviously looking forward to the next chapter regardless and I'm sure others are too regardless of its flaws. They are what give it its character.

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I'm not going to say anything is perfect, perfection is something you aim for in writing even when you know you'll fail. That if you aim for the stars then you might just make it to the moon when you fail. Or at least to orbit with a nice spacestation and some satellites.

But, as someone looking forward to the next chapter, I'm not claiming I'm reading it in spite of it's flaws. What gives it its character is that it is a great story that I heavily enjoy. That occasionally has the twenty second century dates being written as twenty first ones as a slighly amusing foible, but an understandable one as we're living in the twenty first century.

Also, again. Apologising for ranting. Now, if you'll excuse me, I need more tea to wake up to.

 

[Prince Chrom]

don't most people want society and people they run into to be Lawful Good

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Certainly most people would prefer society to be some flavour of Good, even if some think that Lawful Good is not the best option.

when did Cliff claim to being a rationalist?

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Never that I've seen, and I've read most if not all of the stuff that they've published.

 

[cliffc999]

Also, when did Cliff claim to being a rationalist?

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For the record, that would be the second Tuesday of never.

I will admit that I don't like writing incompetent thuggish authority figures because it strains my credibility to imagine any such people obtaining and holding on to positions of power for any length of time, unless we're talking about warlords in some kind of rogue state/breakdown of society era at which point you do historically get that sort of thing. But that's a far cry from 'rationalist!'. That's just... normal.

I'll also point that this story in particular is in the genre intersection between hard SF and space opera, and both genres generally operate from the baseline of 'The side that the MC is working for are not the bad guys'.

 

[Faralis]

Well, my attempt to read rational fics has me hating them, so I'm not going to insult a genre, but I don't like them.

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Maybe because most "rational" protagonists make John Galt's ( the protagonist from Atlas Shrugged ) an humanitarian pacifist by comparison?

 

[Prince Chrom]

I will admit that I don't like writing incompetent thuggish authority figures because it strains my credibility to imagine any such people obtaining and holding on to positions of power for any length of time, unless we're talking about warlords in some kind of rogue state/breakdown of society era at which point you do historically get that sort of thing. But that's a far cry from 'rationalist!'. That's just... normal.

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It's almost counter 'rationalist', because in all the 'rationalist' fiction I've ever read any authority that isn't the main character makes the Ministry of Magic seem competent.

 

[SemiSaneAuthor]

that isn't the man character makes the Ministry of Magic seem competent.

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I know that should be main, but that misspelling seems better and makes a great pun.

 

[Velk]

Random guess: Since Sophie is being drafted, there is a non-zero chance that they are going to throw her into the Engineering department.

 

[Ralyx]

Dial the spite back, Wildbow. While I'm sure you would have loved to read the story about how the hero was totally a psychopathic mass murderer all along, just waiting for a change to exterminate an entire interstellar empire and plunge the galaxy into total chaos, some people don't want to read that kind of thing.

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Way to completely and epically fail at reading comprehension. My comment wasn't even two sentences long, so how did you manage to read nearly the exact opposite of what I typed?