Forging Ahead (GURPS Interstellar Wars/Celestial Forge)

[TroyX]

I didn't think the stranding was a bad move, and was looking forward to seeing how Sophia handled it, but if you felt like you couldn't make it work after all, then you did what you had to do. I still like seeing more of how she interacts with the Confederation too, so no complaints here either way

 

[Faralis]

Ouch, I just read Blade4 info on the enemy ( you should have spoiled that, but well ).

That was a tough thing to write, IMHO, I did not dislike the deleted chapter, but I can see how that could be difficult to continue the plot, without a veritable ass pull from the Celestial Forge...

 

[Vrenze]

SO I guess the question becomes where is the primary struggle, is it internal or external. Internal sounds like a good idea since its already foreshadowed, she wanted to live a normal life but got told effectively by God that war was coming and if she didn't do anything her entire reality would be destroyed. She's been shown some crazy things and had to make a tough decision about a relatively unstoppable "I Win but at what cost" button that was a struggle for her to put down and destroy. Now, the pressure is off, God has said "good enough" with that comes an implicit "now rest" and now all the pressure she's had to deal with and ignore is gone, she's weightless and rudderless. Unfortunately she's also in a position where everyone will want to use her to make the Next Big Thing because she is effectively a supercomputer with natural language capability with her perfect memory, wide ranging education, and Collation ability "Surely if we just feed her more and point her in the right direction...". So it becomes does she want to do more, should she do more, does she NEED to do more and for who? Why? Unfortunately this way will inevitably lie madness with many coming out of lurking to cry and hew "why isn't she doing more?! I don't want to read angst!"

 

[Blade4]

Ouch, I just read Blade4 info on the enemy ( you should have spoiled that, but well ).

That was a tough thing to write, IMHO, I did not dislike the deleted chapter, but I can see how that could be difficult to continue the plot, without a veritable ass pull from the Celestial Forge...

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Yeah i am a fucktard. That part now in spoiler. Not that it matters that much now...

 

[Knaka]

Again, I'd like to thank you for writing this cliff.

While I'm here, can I suggest that if you still have a copy of it, that you should post the deleted chapter 8 as a non-canon branching path or something like that. While I am one of the readers that disliked the sudden change in the story, I am also a reader that likes to let their mind wander on what-ifs. Even if it won't be canon to this story, I still like your writing and enjoy imagining different ways stories could go.

I'm not sure if QQ has an apocrypha option like SV, but if not you can just put it in something like extras.

I appreciate reading stories like this and hope that you get good inspiration for writing.

 

[cliffc999]

Sadly, I did not keep a copy of it. Sorry.

 

[Gregory Crey]

Sad to hear, you obviously put a lot of effort into that chapter, I am sorry it didn't work out.

I wish you luck with the rewrite!

 

[Kahalah]

good luck with the rewrite cliff. Maybe later on that Genocidal familial slaughtering asshole might show interest in Humanity when they advance at a hyper advanced way. It could make him assume a data cashe or one of his children left something behind? just an idea for later on.

 

[MissileTeatime]

Sadly, I did not keep a copy of it. Sorry.

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You deleted the post content, and didn't just remove the threadmark? Ooh, ouch.

 

[LZB1285]

Sadly, I did not keep a copy of it. Sorry.

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If you talk to the staff a copy might be recoverable from the database backup. IIRC QQ's backend uses a ?SQL? database which doesn't like deleting entries so just tags them as not showing. So unless you edited the contents of the chapter it might still be there.

Up to you.

 

[Leafy503]

In hindsight, the sudden shift at the end of chapter 8 was a stupid idea. Nothing like realizing that you hadn't spotted a major plot hole in your intended future plot until after you already started its first act. *le sigh*

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I'm sure you can come up with other obstacles for our protag to come against. Maybe something with the K'kree or the Vargr?

So I'm taking chapter 8 down, and will repost a revised chapter 8 at a later date. The Abductor now vanishes back into the land of non-canon, to maybe be hauled out later and maybe not. We'll see.

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That's fine. I'm sure most readers would be fine with a couple chapters of teching up before any ancient shenanigans,

 

[012345]

Okay, having thought it over, the idea that I'd thought I had working fell apart on me - repeatedly - while I was actually trying to write it. In hindsight, the sudden shift at the end of chapter 8 was a stupid idea. Nothing like realizing that you hadn't spotted a major plot hole in your intended future plot until after you already started its first act. *le sigh*

And while I really don't like retconning myself, I like being a fucking idiot who wrote himself into a corner even less.

So I'm taking chapter 8 down, and will repost a revised chapter 8 at a later date. The Abductor now vanishes back into the land of non-canon, to maybe be hauled out later and maybe not. We'll see.

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Will you be also fixing your explanation of HPG's? Plus also remember there isnt actualy any diffrences between class of HPG's. All of those cycle at the same rate and they do it much faster than Is think they are. Its just Comstar lieing to drive up prices.

 

[Waste]

I'm glad it's getting revised. I wasn't too happy with chapter 8 either. It's like in video games when you're fighting a boss character and he ass pulls an escape in a cutscene that you can't do anything to stop AFTER you beat him. A little more foreshadowing would have helped it seem more consistent. Blindsiding your protag is good, but blindsiding the reader usually isn't. Unless it's some kind of twist. Like what the reader thinks is happening actually has more subtle background to it, or it's actually just a deception.

 

[ShaperV]

The thing is you said this fic is about exploring empire building right? So why are you pushing a plot line that prevent empire building? A empire is more than one person. Even one people frankly. Sophia is a catalyst and critical one but she does not have to stay at the center of the story as the plot moves on and the changes she makes percolate. You have blown the setting wide open so why not extrapolate and say tell a story of the Confed trying to rapidly expand and build even as the Vilani slowly wake up to the fact that the Terrans have nuked the library they live by?

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I had a similar thought. I mean, I'm certainly not going to complain if cliffc999 wants to turn this into an adventure story. He's pretty good at those, and I'm sure it would be interesting. But it's already been noted that Traveler is not the kind of setting where it makes sense for a researcher or leader to be engaged in a lot of personal adventures. So if this is supposed to turn into an empire building story there's a need for at least some plot arcs to center around something other than the heroic shennanigans you'd normally expect in an adventure story.

Since Sophia is a scientists my first thought was to focus more on the process of her research, and the work that goes into making things happen, instead of just glossing over the details. I could easily imagine a story where developing the FTL com was an entire plot arc, introducing a bunch of character who work at the skunkworks and detailing their struggles to bring this crazy new tech to fruition. But alas, the Celestial Forge is probably too powerful for that. It's hard to work up any tension around the question of whether Sophia succeeds at any given project when her cheat power is handing out guaranteed success, after all.

The other option I can see would be to focus more on the organizational issues, where Sophia doesn't have any massive cheats doing the work for her. Introduce enough problems and poor decisions on the part of the government that Sophia feels she can't just stay in the lab and leave all the big decisions to the 'experts'. Then there could be plot arcs built around her trying to collect friends and allies, learn how the system works, lobby for policies she believes in and generally working to carve out some ability to act independently. But that would require having a lot of chapters that are about Sophia socializing, playing office politics and trying to work the system, rather than going out someplace she might get shot at

 

[cliffc999]

To all the people who have graciously offered me copies of my deleted chapter 8 first draft, thank you, but I would rather it stay deleted. If I remotely thought it was working and worth reading I wouldn't have taken it down.

 

[Mgunh1]

Only very tangentially related, but why did nobody tell me Industrious existed before today?

Man, so much for my dropping out and trying again with an Inspired Inventor fic. I would have to bring my A-game to even begin to match this, and my fickle muse means that I'm quite often writing with my B-game. My A-game only comes out under the right phases of the moon or some shit.

BTW, the simple brilliant device of slowing the charge rate down to 1/month fixed a whole ton of shit that I had trouble with re: Inspired Inventor in the past. Well done, Slayer Anderson.

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Well, what if you sort of blend Celestial Forge's rules with Inspired Inventor's?

Basically, you get one charge per X arbitrary time period, where one charge is worth the minimum CP value (50).
You only roll on the forge if you spend your charges. The more charges spent the better the results. But it is still random, so you don't really know what you'll get, only that it will be worth the amount you spent. Spend 600cp, get 600cp worth of perks. Might get a 600cp perk, might get 6 100cp perks.

Becomes a sort of economics management mixed with gatcha. Waiting means you'll get better/more stuff later, but you might need something now and there's no guarantee of actually rolling anything good.

Eh. Its an idea. Nothing more.

 

[Leafy503]

But it is still random, so you don't really know what you'll get, only that it will be worth the amount you spent. Spend 600cp, get 600cp worth of perks. Might get a 600cp perk, might get 6 100cp perks.

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The randomness was the problem in the first place. A roll too OP might destroy the pacing. Like it almost did with cliffc999 last Celestial Forge fic.

 

[ryune]

The randomness was the problem in the first place. A roll too OP might destroy the pacing. Like it almost did with cliffc999 last Celestial Forge fic.

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The randomness actually helped with the story itself I think. It's one of the things that helps stir up ideas. It's also something that needs constant supervision and curating, sure, but it also helps a lot in defining the... personality of a particular person's forge, for lack of a better term.

I think this might have been part of why the other forge fic was so successful. The MC there needed his supporting cast and they played off of each other really well because he couldn't just pick up something from the forge for a given problem or pick up things that were as omnidiciplinarian as Well Researched on his own initiative.

I think that might be a bit of a sticking point for myself on this fic now that I've sitting down and thinking about it. It feels like Sophia has been... not railroaded but more like lead around by the nose by the forge. One of the very first things that it did was give her a quest to "save the world as she knows it" and that's been her driving force since pretty much day one. As a result... we don;t really know much in the way of her motivations. Oh, we know that she's very driven... when she has a quest to save everyone she knows. We know she's a bit nerdy. But we really don't know that much about her that we really should have known after 3 years in her head. and it feels like Sophia is kind of lost on that front too after spending 3 years with that quest living rent free in her head.

 

[Leafy503]

The randomness actually helped with the story itself I think. It's one of the things that helps stir up ideas. It's also something that needs constant supervision and curating, sure, but it also helps a lot in defining the... personality of a particular person's forge, for lack of a better term.

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A Inspired Inventor or Tinker of Fiction would be much easier to steer the story as tech wanks go anyway. Celestial Forge fic tend to either die young or get muddled up in a bunch of heavy exposition.

 

[cliffc999]

A Inspired Inventor or Tinker of Fiction would be much easier to steer the story as tech wanks go anyway. Celestial Forge fic tend to either die young or get muddled up in a bunch of heavy exposition.

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Yeah, I took a few days off for the holidays but I have been thinking about it, and I've been starting to come to the conclusion that you guys are correct. Well, that's why I said that this was my second experiment at working with the Celestial Forge. Not all experiments suceed, and right now I'm starting to conclude that even if other authors can make it work for them, I don't 'click' at making it work for me. "Light of the Forge" was really me getting lucky, in hindsight.

I'll still see about trying to get this story to some kind of conclusion before I consider trying to do something else.

 

[ryune]

Yeah, I took a few days off for the holidays but I have been thinking about it, and I've been starting to come to the conclusion that you guys are correct. Well, that's why I said that this was my second experiment at working with the Celestial Forge. Not all experiments suceed, and right now I'm starting to conclude that even if other authors can make it work for them, I don't 'click' at making it work for me. "Light of the Forge" was really me getting lucky, in hindsight.

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I think part of it was that you were experimenting on two different tracks. The first was the obvious one in using the forge but the other was trying to do an empire builder. And I honestly think it was proceeding fairly decently apace until the last chapter honestly... on the forge side of things.

Empire building? Not so much. Until the buy of the IS tech base she was running into some pretty decent challenges with interpersonal issues that were genuinely interesting and the character interactions really came through but... she didn't tend to build lasting relationships. And those relationships that she did build were barely referenced later on. She wasn't building a power base of characters that she could go to for favors and do them in turn and she didn't need to because of the genius patrol. She wasn't fighting against her own personal Robert Kinsey for funding, she wasn't butting heads with a Carter or Mckay. Just "welp, here you go! FTL comms ahead of schedule and under budget!"

Just to be clear though, I actually liked the direction it was going up until the jump cut. Having an entire arc dedicated to Sophia trying to figure out "what now?" without impending doom hovering over her head would be really interesting! Maybe have her get roofied and kidnapped by a human trafficking ring or get caught up in some other personal scale drama for a bit!

EDIT: I think that is really missing is an "Inciting Incident" for Sophia to build that power base. Incompetence on the part of superiors, corruption and nepotism, base level sexism or just an "I'm going to shown them all" power trip. Almost all of it was obviated by the GP just basically handing Sophia all the resources in the world because she made a super battery.

 

[Vrenze]

Incompetence on the part of superiors, corruption and nepotism, base level sexism or just an "I'm going to shown them all" power trip.

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Not sure something as relatively petty as "Base level sexism" is a good enough reason to create a breakaway polity when you know a major galactic conflict is about to kickoff.

As far as combining CF and II: an idea that admittedly leans more II than CF would be that the MC would get X charges in a period, or as effectively quest rewards, sans acknowledgement or not as you please. Those charges are used in either general knowledge/skills and the CF side could be something like randomly rolled, pre-selected author choice, or quest rewarded (again sans ack or no). CF things would either only give a piece of tech or require II charges to buy knowledge from what the perk would give. To perform some game like balance lets say the MC gets Starcraft Terran tech from CF with a modifier of 0/10. Those charges could be used to get blueprints, and lets say that an SCV, basically a fancy dock loader with tools, costs 6 total charges because it is fancy and has a lot of moving parts. Maybe their gauss guns are 3 cost, leaving 1 charge, they could start another tech but unless it is deemed super simple or they grab general knowledge from the setting they could not complete it...until it gets rerolled. Now I also mentioned the possibility of getting whole items, lets take the Terran rifle for example, it costs 3 to get the blueprint for it but if they opted to get the item whole hog, like say there's a life threatening event they need a gun NOW not how to make it, well then the item costs 6+ for the rifle and an extra magazine of ammo. But that is entirely based on if the author wants to hand out physical items at all.

With this, it limits what CF can do while still allowing for a character that doesn't know every fandom ever to still get neat things from different places. Basically a jumpchain protag that doesn't need to have been to that world to be able to whip up/out something from somewhere else.

 

[cliffc999]

Not sure something as relatively petty as "Base level sexism" is a good enough reason to create a breakaway polity when you know a major galactic conflict is about to kickoff.

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It's also the 22nd century in an interstellar future where mankind is just a few percent south of the Starship Troopers level of total militarization because they're outnumbered over a thousand to one by an interstellar empire that's attacked them multiple times and once orbitally nuked the Earth.

At this point they're not going to do anything that cuts the available manpower pool in half for no good reason.

 

[ryune]

Not sure something as relatively petty as "Base level sexism" is a good enough reason to create a breakaway polity when you know a major galactic conflict is about to kickoff.

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I was more referencing anything that would be a detriment due to her gender. Something on the order of a superior trying to use their position to get her to do favors for the things they could provide or something to that effect but I take your point. I was just listing off things that I could see being reasons for her to want to start on her own "clique" or in group that could later be leveraged... even if they were overly petty in practice, or even if the motivation was overly petty on her side of the equation for an imagined slight.

 

[Blade4]

Yeah, I took a few days off for the holidays but I have been thinking about it, and I've been starting to come to the conclusion that you guys are correct.

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I think you are selling yourself a bit short. You were doing good until you swerved to make Sophia go into a adventure story. Give it more time and perhaps try several paths and see what happened.

 

[ShaperV]

Yeah, I took a few days off for the holidays but I have been thinking about it, and I've been starting to come to the conclusion that you guys are correct. Well, that's why I said that this was my second experiment at working with the Celestial Forge. Not all experiments suceed, and right now I'm starting to conclude that even if other authors can make it work for them, I don't 'click' at making it work for me. "Light of the Forge" was really me getting lucky, in hindsight.

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I think Light of the Forge got a big boost from the fact that the MC was living in a chaotic environment full of random danger and adventure. When your protagonist and his group are basically an adventuring party who do a little science on the side, that makes it a lot easier to write their adventures. Instead of showing the inventing process, and trying to make it interesting, you could always gloss over it and write the party using the results in a fight. But it's notable that the story bogged down on the transition from 'wandering adventuring party' to 'science guy in the lab saves everyone'.

 

[cliffc999]

Yeah, sorry. At least this time it's no one's fault except mine. I decided to try an experiment of writing outside my usual comfort zone, and I combined that with my usual plan of trying to wing it re: plot, and doing both at once was overly ambitious to say the least.

So after I stalled on that I listened to the excellent suggestions that were being made after I pulled the failed chapter 8, and tried to implement them, but when I spent the past couple of days getting zero inspiration on so much as 'designing a regular NPC for Sophia to play off of' (it was going to be her new bodyguard, because she was getting to where a security detail for their new golden goose was a thing)... well, when you can't touch the slightest bit of inspiration for so much as creating a sidekick, that's when you know your muse is giving up.

Fuck it, I really want to make a tech-wank fic actually work sometime given that this is my third failed attempt after "A Ghost of a Chance" and "The Light of the Forge", but I am going to have to figure out how the hell I do that before I actually do that. And given that I am a classic seat-of-the-pants writer (every time I have attempted to create a full story outline before posting the first chapter online, I haven't come up with anything except such fragmentary puree of shit I never tried to post it at all), well, I'm going to need to figure out what kind of story best plays to my strengths instead of trying to write directly into my weaknesses.

Ah well, I've never pretended to myself to be a top-tier writer like, well, ShaperV (thank you for your feedback) or several others, even if I do consider myself to be a solid mid-carder, so I'm not really that disheartened at finding that out nope, not really.

tldr; As I have the reputation of 'the author who quits stories because the fans drove him nuts', let me underline yet again that this is not happening this time. I'm giving up on this because I'm stuck, no other reason, I freely admit it.

Thank you all for your support.

 

[Faralis]

And, this is where it stalled completely out when I couldn't so much as get a mental image of who she was going on vacation with or where, and after several days of failing to I realized that my muse just had given up on trying to make this go anywhere. Damn fickle things, muses.

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Well, thanks for the story anyway, cliff. It was a good one.

I honestly understand that the idea block is a difficult one to break, but well, it's a god damn shame, that's for sure.

I would have suggested either a big time skip ( to after the war, for example ), or even switching protagonists for awhile, but it's okay in any case.

You did a very good job with this story, IMVHO.

 

[cliffc999]

You did a very good job with this story, IMVHO.

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Eh, at least 85% of the worldbuilding had already been done for me by the extremely excellent Steve Jackson Games' setting team, because GURPS Traveller is fucking banging for fans of the setting, IMO. They take the skeleton of the original tabletop RPG and really put detail and texture into the cracks the original left for you to fill in yourselves. All I had to do was add a few more details to focus on the micro-level of stuff they didn't have room for in a 128-page supplement.

Like, Public Service and the Draft? Canon. My take on the exams, the whole detail of administration, and the Genius Patrol? Me. High Frontier Development and the billionaire who ran it? Canon. The Skunk Works? Me. Etc, and so forth. That's an example of how much worldbuilding I had to do here... and how much I didn't have to do because I was piggybacking on an existing franchise.

Which, okay, we're fanfic authors on this board, we do that all the time. I'm just gonna be honest, one of the reasons I picked Interstellar Wars is because I was giving myself a leg up at the start instead of having to do a huge design of the whole framework myself from the ground up.

Which, in hindsight, might have been an error of laziness, because if I'd had to do more work at the outset, I'd have had more to riff off of mentally when immediate inspiration out. Or at least, that might have been what happened. At this point I'm not sure.

Oh well, if I can identify at least one goof of mine for every story I've had to abandon, and actually fix at least some of the goofs I've previously identified later in life, then that's still progress! (however slow) Here's hoping I actually improve later.

 

[Gregory Crey]

Well, it was a fun ride until the end.

Thanks for all of your efforts Cliff, and good luck in your next endeavor.