Skonar's Fan Fiction comment thread.

[Skonar]

--- Forum Post Storage, recovering avaliable data now.

 

--- All data classified to the highest levels. Unauthorized viewing of this data in a manner that harms the operational security of StrategyCore is considered Treason.

 

--- Checking Credentials.

 

--- Credentials Confirmed.

 

--- Compiling Fanfic works, Author: Skonar

 

1. X-Com Chronicles : Twilight

 

2. X-Com Chronicles : Gearhead

 

3. X-Com Chronicles : Prophet

 

4. X-Com Chronicles : Siege of New York

 

--- Done. Have a nice day.

[Skonar]

I'm just opening this because I love and adore feedback. Any feedback would be totally appreciated.

 

'Gearhead' is up for replacement in relatively short order once I manage to finish up the current rather more interesting writing project I have for X-Com Fanfic... "Data Canister 927, X-Com Archives. Siege of New York, 2000."

 

I'm also seriously thinking about rewriting Prophet in total and eventually finishing it. Which I'm sure would be nice.

 

Incidentally if anyone wants to engage me in debate on stuff relating to X-Com, that's totally cool. I get a kick out of discussing how big skyrangers should be and why Chryssalids have teeth.

[FullAuto]

If Chryssalids didn't have teeth, what would they do with all those toothbrushes?

 

I happen to agree with you about the Skyranger. I'd love to zipline down from that baby.

[Skonar]

Teeth nothing, they're MANDIBLES I TELL YOU! MANDIBLLLES!

 

Ziplining out of a skyranger would take specialist equipment to avoid getting burned to death under the damn things lift. (See an early attempt at such a thing in Twilight!) XD

[FullAuto]

I don't know, you go pretty fast on a line, and most combat overalls these days are fireproof. Ok, the air would be hot, but there could be a nice little zone of coolish air around the arse-end of the 'ranger, with the right design.

[The Veteran]

Skonar wasn't it me and you who spent like three days deciding how big the raner was in the first place? Look in the data canisters there's one in there and then we (me and someone!) debated size and it kept getting bigger and then smaller again... I tink we ended up happy

[Skonar]

Indeed it was...

 

I would say we defeated the alien threat with our incredible size-warp technology!!!!

[FullAuto]

I always have fun wondering about the different alien races. I've always imagined the Mutons to come from a high-gravity world, and having extrmeely dense bones and muscles as a result.

Snakemen, being actually cold blooded, and hence being more formidable to fight in the desert than in snowy tundra.

Love stuff like that.

[Pete]

Well a few X-COM Alliance fan fics would sort that out wouldn't it?

 

If you're extremely lucky, I might even dabble ina bit of fic at some point in the future.

[FullAuto]

I'd also like to know just how do Ethereals survive, when their bodies are so knackered? I mean, yes, ok, all their abilities (incluing normal bodily ones like digestion and perspiration etc) are being enhanced by their psi powers, but still.

I mean, come on, what sort of superior race needs to use their telekinetic abilities when it's time to go to the toilet?

[Skonar]

In the Diane Duane novel, it was posed that Ethereals have an impossibly metabolism... like, the only thing keeping them alive is their psi.

[FullAuto]

Well, yes, exactly, that's pretty much what the ufopaedia section in EU implied. That their bodies couldn't survive without constantly being enhanced and reinforced with psi. So, do they sleep or what? Or do they just hook themselves up to something when they need to rest, which performs all of their bodily functions. Which is damn unlikely.

[Skonar]

Your heart never rests till you're dead. Why should Ethereals be any different with Psi?

 

While you are asleep you're still burning calories, etc.

[FullAuto]

But how can they be using their psi powers to keep their body going when they're asleep? Are you implying that their psi powers are like the mental equivalent of cardiac muscle? I suppose that'd work.

[Pete]

It'd certainly make them even more formiddable. But you're making a few assumptions here - hav you seen an Ethereal blink before? So how do you know they even sleep?

 

(I'm going off the assumption thqat since we're all related to them - as per the end game text where the alien brain put life on our planet - the ones that actually sleep will have eyelids.

[JellyfishGreen]

I mean, come on, what sort of superior race needs to use their telekinetic abilities when it's time to go to the toilet?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

... in spaaace

 

man, that's a bad mental image. glowing blue auras, hovering teleporting...I'll stop.

 

Maybe they just have a lot of mind-controlled nurses from the 'lesser' races to mind petty things like their bodily functions, when they come off shift. They don't telekinetically clean themselves, they mind-control a lackey to clean them. Sort of a queen-ant structure. Which they've become totally dependent on.

 

"mind-controlled nurses" slap me.

[Skonar]

Herin follows a snippet out of the fic I'm working on currently.

 

I thought I might as well pimp myself out for some attention, as I am an attention whore.

 

-------------

 

 

14. --- Nova Scotia, X-Com Base 'Nova Scotia': XF-37, X-Com Intelligence Services Control Hub 7, December 23rd 2000, 12:10 EST.

 

 

Alana Bryant stared at the computer screen for several shocked seconds at the 'disconnected' icon, flashing brightly over an automatically generated transcript.

 

 

Yes. I need to know the print number of your copy offal kitt. It's a situation Thirty-Twelve, red, New York City.

A little numbly she reached up and corrected 'Offal Kitt' to 'of- Oh fuck it.'

 

She saved the transcript, placed it into the automatically designated folder, and pulled up the codebook file, hoping she was wrong.

 

 

Section thirty - Encounters of the Third kind, confirmedly hostile in nature, belonging to races under groupings A through E.

That was inclusive of everything from sectoids to silacoids.

 

She ran her cursor down the list, untill she found the twelvth entry. She pinched the bridge of her nose.

 

 

Type Twelve - Species Group D-2 Nonsentient Parasitic Terror Weapon / Chryssalid

The colour code attached to the entry was similarly understated.

 

 

Code Red - Active Infection in open environment.

Alana took a long breath before closing the codebook file. She took the time to print out the transcript with an appended codebook translation and give it to the watch supervisor. She then left the watch room, ignoring the protestations of her watch supervisor, went to her bunk and pulled out the photograph of her two children, aged Four and Nine years old respectively, and took the time to kiss each of their faces, both shining at the eldest's birthday party last june, back in Queens.

 

She then unholstered her service automatic, pulled back the slide to chamber a round, and shot herself through the right temple.

 

Her body, while found almost immediately, was not put into the morgue untill twelve hours later, long after the emergency klaxons had stopped ringing.

[Skonar]

*Sniffle.* I whore myself out for attention and this is the response I get?!

[FullAuto]

You love it, you whore.

 

Addendum: We get a fair few readers, but only a few commentators, so don't be downhearted!

[Skonar]

Well, yes, I do.

 

And I shouldn't be! But I'm 30 000 words into Siege and I've only made it to half past three on day one. Slightly overwhelming, given that there's still another twelve to go.

[Slaughter]

Just read the preview from August. Had a huge smile on my face reading the last two sentences (not sure if that's the proper reaction, but...). Always wondered how I would react myself if we ever had an alien invasion / infestation. I'll see about printing your story and reading it after I finish my A+ certification.

 

Slightly off topic, having read more or less no X-COM fan-fiction, what would be a good first story?

[Skonar]

I'd reccomend FA's 'The Grey Man', though a recent board muckup has made the formatting a bit whiffy, it's still (in my opinion) one of the best works up here. It's short, very sharp, and quite emotionally engaging.

 

(Edit: Cleared up now!)

Edited March 22, 2007 by Skonar

[Alpha_Monkey]

Just read the new Siege Of New York material, Skonar.....good stuff, very good!

 

I like the general narrative direction (chryssalids being seeded among the homeless population as a prelude to full-on invasion), but most of all I like the characterisation. Specifically the investigative duo.

 

Connors is quite obviously a guy with many layers to his character, most of which are barely hinted at. A mystery.

Boris, on the other hand, is just plain likeable. Instantly. I think it's his speech patterns....the stuff he says, and how he says it. A very nice counterpoint to his partner. Hell, I'd be tempted to say he was almost his comic relief, if he wasn't blatantly such a stone-cold killer....

 

Top stuff, dude.

[Skonar]

He's the comic relief if you're psycho. (And, face it. You are. 'I can only shoot you twelve times now' is just gigglefit material.)

 

I'll be posting additional numbered segments wednesday and sundays. I figured this thing was just getting too long, and I needed to start getting some of Siege out there.

 

Conners is an interesting case. You can find him in the Canister Archives if you look closely, along with Twilight. In fact, if you look closely, you will see other recurring peeps and events as time goes by...

[Alpha_Monkey]

!SQUEEEEEEEEEE!

 

Getting better by the moment. Excellent pacing, both in terms of narrative, and frequency of posting. The hospital scene is something that was obviously coming, and something I've been looking forward to. Chryssalids always make for great reading material. Particularly liked the description of their deaths-head like appearance.

 

And although it was a scant couple of lines, I liked how the Laser Rifle sounds very....rudimentary, almost prototype-like. Sounded exactly like a weapon that'd been hurriedly developed and built, without the usual extended design time to add cosmetically or even ergonomically.

 

Thought it's sure to be a long way off yet, I personally can't wait for the introduction of the Powered Armour. Judging by previous mention in Gearhead and Datacanister entries, it seems like you've taken some artistic licence with both the design, inception and introduction to front-line forces. Nice to see it so fleshed out.

 

Keep up the good work dude.