Hello all!

I am trying to describe a first encounter with a particular alien species. I've included a touch before it for context (not that context matters much in this case). There is a lot more background, but I've bolded the key section that I'm worried about. Note that I have obviously not decided on names, and since the creature actually is an 'it', does it get to have "it's" or still just "its" for possessives?

The question is, what does this description convey to you, or basically does it do the job? Links to related images after the piece.

Thanks for any help and thoughts.
-Matt

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"Glad that's taken care of," he ground out. The suit had administered localized anaestetic, but it only cut the pain - it didn't remove it completely. He rolled over onto his back and took in the room, grimacing as bolts of agony shot up and down his arm from the epicenter where he'd been hit. The room was covered in a green gel-like gore. He started to sit up, but a shadow passed quickly over his head and something landed on his face and torso. He fought a moment of panic as he took in a swarm of legs and double rows of pulsing holes on what looked like a giant thorax. He heard a boom and the creature disappeared, the weight on his upper body gone with it.
"Bugs," came <>'s voice, "why did it have to be bugs?"
Mitchell scrambled up and self-medicated. This particular drug had once born more than a passing resemblance to caffeine. It would artificially increase his pain tolerance and work synergistically with the non-narcotic painkillers to help keep him functional. The floor was littered with orange, yellow, and rust colored chitinous body parts. "Thanks <>," he said, glancing at the creature that had been blasted off of him. They could examine these things later. "Secure the corridors. How's <other guy who got hurt>?"
"I'm ok L.T." <other guy> had moved out of the lock and it was cycling behind him. He was already on his feet. "Beam really heated up the suit, and then it caught a joint. Lucky shot. Lost hip power for a second there. Secondary is online, but the suit's still radiating." The suits could take a beating but the energy still had to go somewhere. The outer skin could disperse most of a beam weapon, but what it didn't disperse would heat up the interior. Each section of skin could only disperse or absorb so much energy. A sufficiently powerful and narrow beam could overwhelm the skin's limits in a given section. Once that limit was reached, the weapon would punch through the other armor layers and finally into the meaty center.
The lock spun open and Top rushed into the room with the other <4?> platoon members. "Are you all right Lieutenant?"
"Fine Top," he said, then added in a bad British accent, "It's just a flesh wound."
From the right tube access, <> called out. "Nothing coming, L.T., but look at this thing." He nudged a mostly intact insectoid body, then jumped back and brought up a weapon when it twitched at the contact.
Mitchell quickly held up a hand. "Wait!"

<person> backed a few more steps away and they all watched a jumble of limbs sort itself out. The creature looked like a praying mantis crossed with a grasshopper. It had a short vertical torso segment. Near its head was a pair of barbed arms extending from either side of the torso. Complex colored marking were inset - artificially, it appeared - into the chitin. It reached up with the left arm and gripped the wall, then pulled the legs underneath its body and pushed, wobbling, into a standing position. The elongated body hung between its two sets of legs as if it were being carried, front legs keeping it higher off the ground while the rear of the body hung low. Thick, sturdy, powerful-looking rear legs jutted up above the body to a joint before a long section reached to the floor below. The front pair of legs were smaller, but still looked sturdy, though the chitin was cracked. One arm hung limp from its "shoulder". As the creature moved Mitchell saw that the arm was detached and hanging from a string of tissue.

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Vratix:
http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/starwars/images/thumb/5/57/Vratix_UAA.jpg/250px-Vratix_UAA.jpg
Those big legs would be in the rear on my creature. Shorter torso and more body slope.

Mantis:
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_Pk3jJ8hnWXo/S8_8-993UDI/AAAAAAAADM4/OMzy8I8aDP8/s1600/praying_mantis_india.jpg
Shorter torso, slightly less elongated body, much thicker legs, otherwise about right.

Hi all!

Meant to post this a while back. Went to DragonCon, it was awesome, and by the way when did Jim cut his hair? Threw a bunch of people off!

Anyway, spent a lot of time on the writer's and sci-fi lit tracks, so I thought I would post my notes.

The ones listed with "Session <Roman Numeral>" are from Michael Stackpole's sessions. The others are varied, and I've tried to include the names of the panelists in each document.

Regardless, even if not everything is useful, there are a few good pieces of info strewn about. Hope the notes are helpful!

(Please forgive the clutter - this is just a junk home page for other things I'm doing. Document links are in the center of the page.)
http://www.novusimperia.net/

Hey all!

Just thought I'd throw out a quick question. Anyone going to DragonCon in Atlanta this September? I'm going and very excited, though much of my focus will be writing groups. Looks like Jim is on the guest list though, so I'll be keeping my eyes peeled for him!

Anyway, here is the web site.

DragonCon
http://www.dragoncon.org/

Take care!
-Matt (prophet224)

Hi all!  This will be similar to some other questions I've seen, but I still want to throw it out there.

Basically, how close is too close as far as following a similar build-up, at least, in a story, to what a major author has already done/used?  I am not talking about intentional copying, but how certain elements are common to a given genre or situation.

More details:

So I was back reading one of my favorite author's (John Ringo) first books.  Definitely the first in his most major series, but perhaps his actual first book.  I started re-reading it because I like his style and how he accomplishes certain things like avoiding exposition, so I wanted to sort of take a look at his style again.  Ok, and I just really like it.

Anyway, he writes a lot about near-future alien invasions of Earth, and he writes from a very 'down-to-earth' viewpoint, generally at or near "grunt" level, if you will.

An author (who is occasionally mentioned in Ringo's books, as it happens) in a similar vein is David Weber, who tends to write far future space navy battles.

My story contains elements of both, in a mid-future timeframe.  However, upon re-reading I am discovering certain common elements that in many cases must be there: presidential address to the nation(s, in this case), power armor, cabinet-level briefings, ship workups and more. 

So how bad is this little discovery, have others encountered it before, and what things in other genres (or this one - scifi) do you find are common and almost required elements?  Thanks!

I just have a quick question... I was looking through the character creation rules, and I saw that the 'submerged' level was 10 refresh.  I thought that refresh was out of 10 max, at which point you are no longer playable and are ruled by nature.  Or is it truly as written "when you reach 0 refresh you are no longer a playable character", such that if you are playing an 8 refresh game, you can only go up to 7 in powers and stunts; after that you would be at a net 0, and therefore non-playable?

Help! And thanks!

This is a stalemate in my own head about a fundamental background aspect of the story I'm working on, and I'm hoping that getting some other people's thoughts will help.

*******************************
Premise:
Earth has discovered via experimentation that there is a barrier of some sort around the solar system.  The barrier blocks patterned transmissions (i.e. communications) and disables drive systems. 

Long story short, long ago humanity was out among the stars and was part of the galactic community.  We ended up at war with several of the major races, and were eventually beaten back to our home planet.  There the galactic community forced the opposition to hold off our extermination, as they value the rarity of intelligent life in the universe.  However, all of our technology was wiped out with nanites and we were knocked... <ahem> back to the stone age, basically.  We were nicknamed the "Destroyers" over the years for our ferocity and used to scare children at night. 

The story is about humanity's escape from the Barrier via a jump drive that tunnels through space instead of actually moving through space, and the politics of various alien races that wish they had helped us before, and intend to do so this time.  The first jump ship is also destroyed by a force stationed around our star, and of course Earth knows nothing about what has happened before.

*******************************
Question:
I originally wanted to set this in a few hundred years from our time.  The problem is that that requires at least some explanation of how this actually fits into our own known timeline.  However, I don't really want to make this into an Atlantis story.  That shouldn't be the focus.

The other option is to make US the ones that get out and fight, and have the story set several THOUSAND years down the road, and learning about us.  This would remove the need for explanations, but create the need for a whole new world, set of governments, military structure, economics, etc.

Both of these are attractive, but I particularly like the idea of it being in our time. 
What do you think are the pros and cons of both approaches?  I'd certainly appreciate any other thoughts as well.  Thank you. -Matt

Hello all,
This is mostly done, barring some formatting and links.  Skills aren't linked correctly, but you can access them from the top of the skills page (or the "Endurance" skill, which does work).

http://www.novusimperia.net/FATE_SRD/Fate3SRD.php

It's only up as long as I'm not told to take it down.

On that note, I'm very glad this (the SRD in general) exists.  I just happen to kind of actively dislike pulp... it's nice to be able to get a look at the system that will be used (sort of) for Dresden.

-Matt
 a.k.a "Prophet"