Beyond Our Reach (the Stars Did Form)
- Thread starter ensou
- Start date
- Original Sci-Fi
- Location
- Queensland, Australia
Well, this has been an interesting chapter... And yeah, it's definitely something that messes with Dimensions, Gravity, Celestial Objects and distances. Just one question @ensou
You said this:
I'm going to assume the 'straight down' is pointing towards the gravitational centre of the planet we're on, like the characters suggested in the chapter. This makes the planet about half as large as Earth with a diameter like that. Anyone mind double-checking that that size would give the... 1.3Gs that we're told the planet has?
But the other distance. The one towards the Sun of this system... Is it meant to be just over half the distance from Earth to our Sun? Because this is what I believe Earth to the Sun is:
You said this:
I'm going to assume the 'straight down' is pointing towards the gravitational centre of the planet we're on, like the characters suggested in the chapter. This makes the planet about half as large as Earth with a diameter like that. Anyone mind double-checking that that size would give the... 1.3Gs that we're told the planet has?
But the other distance. The one towards the Sun of this system... Is it meant to be just over half the distance from Earth to our Sun? Because this is what I believe Earth to the Sun is:
ensou
Magical G̶i̶r̶l̶ Servant Mordred-chan
- Location
- NEW YORK CITY!??
- Pronouns
- She/Her
- Location
- Queensland, Australia
'Looks back at what I looked at to get the radius of the Earth'
Why are you still using the idiocy that are miles? Kilometres are so much better... Grrrr... Stupid people and stupid Imperial system...
And huh. That's... interesting.
... For some reason I was reading that as her talking about the star and the next nearest star. I don't know why.
PAGDTenno
Verified Warmind. Probably on fire.
- Location
- South Carolina
Because inertia. Also because for day to day life, I hate to break it to you, but metric is not meaningfully better.
No one needs to convert the distance from New York to Orlando from miles to feet. And feet and yards work perfectly fine for short distances.
Similarly, if you're used to Fahrenheit, Celsius does not provide meaningful advantages for day to day life.
No one needs to convert the distance from New York to Orlando from miles to feet. And feet and yards work perfectly fine for short distances.
Similarly, if you're used to Fahrenheit, Celsius does not provide meaningful advantages for day to day life.
- Location
- Queensland, Australia
You'll note that I wasn't being entirely serious with my comment. Note the
smiley at the end.You obviously need to be using bigger explosions, then! If it leaves a mess it wasn't big enough!
- Location
- Europe
This mistake was much less costly than other space-related metric mismatches.
People have probably heard this before, but a number of years ago NASA launched the Mars Climate Orbiter, a probe to gather data from the surface of Mars.
NASA uses the Metric system for all its space-related calculations. But the group who did the software for the thrusters worked in Imperial.
The result was a project costing over $300 million crashing into the surface and being destroyed.
- Location
- Europe
Well this is certainly something else. I'm liking how this story/quest is shaping up, though I'll have to wait further judgement until it really gets going. The characters act their age, seem like real people, the setting is relatively unique and the writing doesn't get bogged down in minutiae. My only slight worry so far is the relatively low degree of voter participation when it comes to social situations. I'd personally prefer it if the voters had a bit more influence of Amy in those situations but that's just me. Not a deal-breaker of course.
That's not true. I convert between different metric units all the time in my day to day life. The most obvious and frequent example is when I cook.
- Location
- Ohio
This so much... also, I find centimeters and meters to kind of have a... gap between them. A meter is often unwieldy, and centimeters too granual, there's no good "it's about a foot" ballpark measurement units
- Location
- Here
Decimeters are technically the thing that fills that gap, though as they don't seem to get much use, it seems your opinion is not the norm.
I had to binge read this twice over three days to catch all the awesome. The first time I missed this bit...
For a moment, you have a sense of around you and quiet whispers that aren't, but then it's drowned out, your focus stolen by the thing below you, and the other thing so far away, and you know that you can change their hold.
Little Amy doesnt just move herself. She can change how celestial objects hold each other. This likely means that she is a human version of centerpoint station from star wars. The girl can MAKE uninhabitable planets habitable by pulling them into the goldilocks zone. She could make entire star systems! That is If she manages to avoid killing herself and everyone on the planet... She might just become the most important human to have ever lived as far as insuring the survival of humanity goes.
So eager to see more of this. I want to see it published and I want to buy it. If you want a beta please pm me.
For a moment, you have a sense of around you and quiet whispers that aren't, but then it's drowned out, your focus stolen by the thing below you, and the other thing so far away, and you know that you can change their hold.
Little Amy doesnt just move herself. She can change how celestial objects hold each other. This likely means that she is a human version of centerpoint station from star wars. The girl can MAKE uninhabitable planets habitable by pulling them into the goldilocks zone. She could make entire star systems! That is If she manages to avoid killing herself and everyone on the planet... She might just become the most important human to have ever lived as far as insuring the survival of humanity goes.
So eager to see more of this. I want to see it published and I want to buy it. If you want a beta please pm me.
Good spot, but that's not what I'm getting from that. To me it seems more likely that those small whispers are the gravity waves given off by the people, buildings, etc. and is just getting drowned out by the planet they are all sitting on almost immediately.
Other things she could potentially do.
Start Interstellar wars. Planet bowling. Bobbing for planets. Asteroid mining. Stopping interstellar wars by moving opponents apart. Move galaxies, pull galaxies closer and go galaxy bowling. Threaten to move a planet into a star. Move the moon so that the gravitic pull causes chaos. Move Venus into the habitable zone.
Quite seriously be considered a god by later generations.'
Start Interstellar wars. Planet bowling. Bobbing for planets. Asteroid mining. Stopping interstellar wars by moving opponents apart. Move galaxies, pull galaxies closer and go galaxy bowling. Threaten to move a planet into a star. Move the moon so that the gravitic pull causes chaos. Move Venus into the habitable zone.
Quite seriously be considered a god by later generations.
'I'm really not sure where you're getting these ideas honestly. We haven't had any mention of her being able to feel like she could move the planets or stars she feels. It is likely she can teleport, she has stated she feels like she can move, and while she did bring the wheelchair and clothes she was wearing with her we don't know if she has any particular limit on what she might be able to anchor to herself while Shifted (feels like a good, easy label for describing how she shifts into [what is probably] a higher dimension). Or, more likely, we don't know what her limitation is.Other things she could potentially do.
Start Interstellar wars. Planet bowling. Bobbing for planets. Asteroid mining. Stopping interstellar wars by moving opponents apart. Move galaxies, pull galaxies closer and go galaxy bowling. Threaten to move a planet into a star. Move the moon so that the gravitic pull causes chaos. Move Venus into the habitable zone.
Quite seriously be considered a god by later generations.
For example on one end of the spectrum it might be that she can only take what she can carry and/or anything that masses less than her body on the other end she may move by dragging herself around using the gravity wells as both the anchor points and way-points for her travel, so she might very well be able to drag two stars into each other.
And, uh, you seem very eager to completely destroy solar systems.
- Location
- Up there somewhere. (Im a bit lost)
It seems we have a leak from the SB debate threads.
And Amy noticed she could alter the "hold" of a celestial object, so she can certainly do something to them.
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Diazo
Can you tell me how to get to Sesame Street?
- Location
- Daniel Tiger's Neighbourhood
Wow, that escalated quickly..... [insert meme here]
More seriously, I interpreted that line of "change their hold" to me that she can affect how something's gravity well effects something else, not affect the thing itself. Pretty much what you said, true, but all the power she has that which is contained in her tiny, little body. (When talking in AU, even tiny is probably too large a measurement.)
On earth and want to fly? Have the moon overhead? Change the hold of earth's gravity (reducing it) on your body so that the moon's gravity pulls you upwards for a more reasonable example IMO.
That doesn't explain what the observes saw from the outside though, in D&D terms I'd say she traveled to the Gravity Plane, but in story I suspect we are going to see a more conceptual control of the Space part of Space-Time.
Note that I'm sure there are hard and fast rules to how her power works, but as they haven't been revealed yet that's as specific as I'm willing to guess. (And limited by my very limited understanding of said Space-Time, and related, concepts.)
I also loved the Tower series of books that inspiration is being drawn from, but things are obviously not lining up exactly so I don't want to draw too many parallels either.
Keep it coming, I'm following anything you write at this point and can't wait for more.
D.
More seriously, I interpreted that line of "change their hold" to me that she can affect how something's gravity well effects something else, not affect the thing itself. Pretty much what you said, true, but all the power she has that which is contained in her tiny, little body. (When talking in AU, even tiny is probably too large a measurement.)
On earth and want to fly? Have the moon overhead? Change the hold of earth's gravity (reducing it) on your body so that the moon's gravity pulls you upwards for a more reasonable example IMO.
That doesn't explain what the observes saw from the outside though, in D&D terms I'd say she traveled to the Gravity Plane, but in story I suspect we are going to see a more conceptual control of the Space part of Space-Time.
Note that I'm sure there are hard and fast rules to how her power works, but as they haven't been revealed yet that's as specific as I'm willing to guess. (And limited by my very limited understanding of said Space-Time, and related, concepts.)
I also loved the Tower series of books that inspiration is being drawn from, but things are obviously not lining up exactly so I don't want to draw too many parallels either.
Keep it coming, I'm following anything you write at this point and can't wait for more.
D.
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- Location
- NY, NY
Wow, thanks for doing this (and linking it from your other fics, that's how I found it) - it's a very good read so far.
I haven't read _To the Stars_ yet, but you've certainly done justice to the McCaffrey inspiration.
I'm enjoying the level of detail so far - it's not overwhelming, and the info-dumps feel painless. The setting is extremely cool.
More please!
I haven't read _To the Stars_ yet, but you've certainly done justice to the McCaffrey inspiration.
I'm enjoying the level of detail so far - it's not overwhelming, and the info-dumps feel painless. The setting is extremely cool.
More please!
ensou
Magical G̶i̶r̶l̶ Servant Mordred-chan
- Location
- NEW YORK CITY!??
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Could you explain a little more about what you'd like for social interaction? Like, say, one or two places in one of the recent entries where you would have liked to see other choices offered?
I'm not averse to having shorter segments with more votes, especially social ones if that's what people would like to see. This is my first quest, and I'm kind of writing it more like what I'm used to with my fics.
I think he means about us, as the voters, having interaction with the other characters through our MC. I.E. we're the one controlling her (significant) responses and choices in the dialogue.
Which itself can vary depending on the QM. Some have every little thing be decided by the players on what the character is going to say (never ever let SV/SB provide direct quotes, just the spirit of what we want to convey because we kind of suck at that) while others will have the character basically be fully set and the players provide nothing on that front (Seeing Red comes to mind in a fashion).
You lean heavily towards the latter and that's fine. Expected really given your background with writting fics. The difference with Quests is that they are one part story, one part game (at the very least).
*silently prays someone will come and help explain my bumbling*
- Location
- Europe
Basically, it's what @ShadowAngelBeta said. It's sometimes quite obvious when fiction writers decide that they want to write a quest because they have a tendency to write large updates with few votes, which result in the QM letting the voters pick an initial option only to then run the "scenario" or "arch" to it's logical conclusion. That's not necessarily a bad thing, as too much voter control often turn what should've been unique or flawed characters into mouthpieces for the voters instead. This is the phenomenon that's also fairly present in (bad) fanfiction where the MC or another character is just there to communicate whatever the author feels about a particular situation or character.
Anyway, I do understand why you would be hesitant to relinquish too much control to the players this early. Not only is the setting unknown to us but the character is also a pre-gen, which makes it difficult to give players agency without having the MC do a bunch of stuff that's blatantly OC. What I'd suggest would be trying to figure out what range of actions you view as being possible within the framework of the character and then letting us chose a course of action without any possibilities for write-ins(or only with your approval). For instance you could've put one of these at the end of the previous update:
- How much Amy tells the others about her powers
- How she reacts to the trauma
- How she feels about her powers
- Chose a general, non-binding answer to the "what do you want to focus on" question.
- Ask Peter and Natalie some questions
- Decide what we want to do now
Of course, you'd have to figure out the range of actions that'd be IC and let us chose from the list, which can complicate an arch if we decide to do something you didn't expect. I want to stress again that this is just a personal preference of mine and not something that would make the quest objectively better. The Laurent is writing an excellent and popular Star Wars story called Jedi Initiate that has about the same level of voter participation as this and he has written several quests in the past so I don't think you have to worry about doing something "wrong" as a QM.
Regardless of what you do, I look forward to the next update.
WolfKit
Pay no attention to the fox behind the keyboard.
- Location
- [█████]
- Pronouns
- They/Them
My 2 cents is that there's a spectrum of how much player control a quest can offer, and no single correct answer. However, at the 'almost none' end of the spectrum "why is this a quest instead of non interactive fiction?" becomes a valid question.
I don't believe this quest is in that category overall, but going 3 story posts and 2 months without a vote does start feeling a bit non interactive.
- Location
- Plato's Cave
>laughs in BAHHSCQ
In all seriousness though, this is what the QM said three updates back:
Since then, we've had 7.9k words of updates (approximately). If the QM feels there is no good place to break for options/voting in there, then I'm inclined to just let them run and enjoy the show as it continues.
ensou
Magical G̶i̶r̶l̶ Servant Mordred-chan
- Location
- NEW YORK CITY!??
- Pronouns
- She/Her
My priorities shift around, and I have limited time and a lot of stories that people ask for updates on. In the last month I've written over 21k words for ongoing stories, and that's not including drafts that get thrown out or cut down. 5k for AFHB, 13k for Transposition, 4k for Paradoxical, etc.
I really want to explore Amy more, but for one, I feel terrible about letting updates slide as long as they have on my 'primary' stories, and two I'm trying to figure a way to have a faster yet consistent turnaround on the quest updates. I'm a big proponent of "show, don't tell", but I also realize I can't show everything here. We're already over 30k words into this and we haven't even gotten to Amy's first school day, which doesn't feel sustainable. So I'm trying to think about out how I'm going to do this going forward. I have/had a plan for social interactions that would mean each chapter after the first day of school would cover an entire week of classes and be about 4-7k each, which might be workable. It'd just mean this becomes a really long story that's divided into segments and sub-segments like "High School: Year 1" and "University: Year 3" or something. I wouldn't mind that. I rather miss having a truly long story. The last one I worked on was three and a half year ago, and that got up to nearly 200k words, and it's not even half-way done.
I do want to get back into this, which means I'll probably devoting a day or two to writing this per week, which'll let me do about 4-7k words. And updates might be smaller than that, too.
Sooooo it really depends on what you guys want to see, I guess.