Young Writers Society

It was a fateful day when the Congress of Man gathered for the last time.
I remember quite well the shuttle ride down, passing clouds of other shuttle vessels. Every species of human were attending; the Congress had not seen such an important congregate since the last emperor had died.
I was assigned seat B17. As I walked down the curving aisles some members came suspended in vats of bio-liquid, their bodies too used to weaker atmospheres and gravities to withstand the pressure of Aerith’s atmosphere. Robot couriers wheeled them into their positions and then retreated to the wall niches. Two or three were conversing with other
My seat was located one of the least prestigious areas of the Sphere. Most of the other members near me were proto- or sub-humans, and it shamed the red-blooded human in me to sit amongst them. An unbearable throb of conversation was constant and exasperating, even though my inner-ear transplants strove to dampen the roar. Even worse, I had to crane my neck painfully to view the center of the Sphere where the speakers and witness were called up.
The Voice awoke, cutting the conversational buzz in the sphere like a knife. Minature speakers behind every chair made it sound as though the Voice was an omnipresent being.
“All council members present. The Sphere calls forth Balon Tor to the speaker.”
Balon Tor was an elder congressman, having held his chair for nearly four decades consecutively. No one knew how he had managed to remain in power for long. Balon rose into the air, hovering dramatically for a few moments. His perfect head of white hair moved not one centimeter, and his purple robe hung about him like a dead thing. He was taken up into the center of the sphere where he rotated slowly, facing each area of the Sphere in turn. All eyes were trained on him.
“Congressmen: Humans, proto and sub,” he began, making doubly sure to insult the lower races in his booming voice. “The start of something great has come upon us. Mankind is poised yet again at the lip of some drastic void.” He paused for affect, and fixed the congress with his bright black eyes. “Succumbing to this fall may break some of us, but ultimately, good will triumph and rise from the ashes.”
I scrunched my nose in confusion; what was he talking about? We came to discuss the growing anomalies of our world. What was all this nonsense about a fall?
“The Sphere calls forth Jaemin Kyll to the witness speaker.” The Voice said, responding to some unseen signal from Balon.
A thin, light-blue skinned sub-human stood up feebly and paled noticeably when he floated upwards. He had obviously never felt the grip of an anti-grav beam; backwards sub. He was close enough to my area that I could see him clearly.
Balon stopped rotating and looked down to where Jaemin was situated: well below the center of the Sphere.
“Speak, sub-human.” Balon commanded, curling his lips back.
“I-I am…my people…” Jaemin stuttered. He coughed nervously and tried to carry on. “Four years ago strange blue lights have…um…well, you might say blue lights have been bothering our colonies. There was no worry at first, most planets have, ah, peculiar atmospheric phenomena, but ours seemed different. We had recorded events of these blue lights often harming colonists and damaging property. One of these blue lights even attempted to attack a supply ship destined for other colonies.”
He swallowed hard, the dark blues stripes on his throat bobbing down. Obviously, his colony had been accused of making the attack. Stealing from a supply ship, especially a colony supply ship, was considered the worst of crimes in the growing galaxy. None of the colony leaders could survive without a regular stream of supplies, and cutting even one link in the chain could destroy an entire colony.
The blue sub continued, attempting to calm his voice.
“Since then, we have attempted to find the source of these blue lights, but our every try ends in failure. These curses from Miar are like ghosts: undefeatable, untraceable, and completely evil.
“Two years ago, we lost an enterprise fighter to a brace of these lights. They now patrol the skies in small groups, forcing all our aircraft to be grounded almost permanently. It was only by the miracle of Miar that I made it to-.”
“Cease,” the Voice commanded.
Jaemin was returned to his seat, sweating light blue liquid.
“The Sphere calls forth Phorpes Scylica to the witness speaker.” The Voice thundered.
A slim woman, neither proto nor sub, rose to the position vacated by Jaemin, but we all could see that she was a few meters higher and closer to Balon than the sub.
“What is your witness, human?” Balon asked courteously.
“It’s simple enough. Foolish even.” she said in clipped tones. “Our particle generators have been going haywire for the past months.” She sniffed, peeked at the reader on her palm, and then continued. “Forty of our generators detect strange new objects with properties un-heard of. Twenty other generators have been offline intermittently, and we believe they cannot handle the stream of new substances pouring into our universe. Finally, we even have two generators that record set patterns in the particles paths.”
It seems as though the generator’s strange behavior only occurs when the generators are in the dark side of the planet. Solstices and eclipses as well cause shocking results. If I-”
“Enough.” The Voice ordered.
I sat back in my chair. So far, no real evidence. Balon was definitely building up to something with these futile reports, but what?
The witness reports are boring. Cut or shorten. Definitely need revising.
“The Sphere calls forth Greymin Haldo to the witness speaker.” The Voice declared.
I sat up again; the name Greymin was known to every being in the universe. It was said he could read minds through some special non-physical plane.
The quivering, bald head of Greymin lifted up above the crowds. He rose until he was almost level with Balon. His purple-blue eyes swept the whole sphere and I felt as though I’d touched a specter. Rough scar lines covered one half of his face; the other was smooth as porcelain.
“The phenomena are not erratic,” said Balon. “They are patterned, and all things regular can be observed. Eventually, we can learn to control these phenomena.”
As he spoke, Greymin waved his hands in the air, his eyes glinting like dark stars. I felt my stomach lurch forward out of my chest, coupled with the deadly tightening similar to what I’d felt when called up as witness.
“In fact, I believe partial control has been gained already,” Balon looked to Greymin, nodding slightly. “Members of the Congress, hear this: Magic has entered our world.”
Greymin lifted his arms above his head and closed his eyes. Immediately, Greymin’s hands were enveloped by a dark green cloud that clung to his hands. Green flickers like welding sparks flew out, striking the unfortunate members of congress directly below Greymin. Murmurs and shocked protests rumbled through the Sphere.
“What sort of parlor-games does he think he’s playing?” the congressman to my right mumbled.
“We must embrace this new force in our galaxy,” Balon boomed out, oblivious to the growing roar below him. “All the world is at our feet: we need only grasp it.”
Greymin clapped his hands and the smoke suddenly disappeared. A sigh rumbled in the throats of a thousand humans, and I realized we had been holding our breath without knowing it. The worst, though, was not over yet.
Greymin began chanting something strange, some exotic mantra that made my veins burn as though they were gushing with sulphur. His hands rotated around an invisible object,
I felt a pull on my shoulder as though someone were trying to drag me out of my chair. I gripped my armrest and rotated my head quickly. The sub beside me felt something too, for he too gasped and turned to his left. Nothing was there, however, except the sea of faces, each one turning away from me by some invisible hand. As I watched, horrified, everyone in the Sphere began moving along slowly, as though the anti-grav beam were pointed on all of us. The subs and protos grasped their chairs, but their fingernails ripped out of the cushioned seats, mine included. The bio-vats rolled along with the rest of us, spilling their liquid contents. The occupants of the vats flopped uselessly about; some lay still, looking as though their heads and bodies had exploded.
Legs and arms twisted together as we were cast about like leaves in a storm. The blu-skinned sub whooshed past me at a frightening speed. His head connected with the wall of the Sphere and snapped back, blood gushing from the wound.
One congressman, obviously from a large planet, bounded off the wall and attempted to pierce the center. Purple lightning forks struck him and he hit the floor, a sizzling, gruesome mass. The smell was horrifying.
Out of the chaos the Sphere had become, I could barely see the center anymore; congressmen were whipped in and out of my view, rendering an image in flickering frames. Other bodies knocked against mine as we made a hectic circumnavigation. I was kicked in the mouth by a frenetic congresswoman, shortly before she collided with a knot of other humans; the wuh! sound of the air whooshing out of her lungs a fullstop to her screams.
Bright light shone from behind Balon and Greymin’s heads.
“Bow.” Balon commanded, and every human was immediately frozen where they were, forced to bend on one knee towards Balon.
“I announce the end of the New Age,” Balon said, with all the authority of a Galactic Emperor. “And the beginning of the Age of Magic.”

............you do know that the deadline for the contest is June 1st, right? (I'm in it too.)

I remember quite well how humans from across the galaxies shuttled down in as many species of inter-galactic craft as there were passengers.

I see what you're trying to do here, but this sentence feels long and gangly. (I have a tendency to write those, too.) My nit-pick is this: each ship hold AT LEAST two, maybe three passengers, right? And that would be a small, personal ship. I understand what you're trying to convey-- that there are many different ships and many different people.

However, if there were literally as many ships as there were people, there would be one person per ship. I don't think there's room for that, even in a really big space station, when the gathering is of a large scale. XD

Basically, I'd suggest rewording this, maybe breaking it up into two sentences. There's more than one way to say this-- play with it. (I say that a lot, but it's because I really, really think that's the key to good creative writing. You play with words in your mind so much because you're interested in them, and because you're interested in them, you stick around long to become good. But I digress.)

Three or four specters attended,

When used in this context, I've usually seen it spelled "spectres", but that's a matter of preference.

yet he still craved more power

Leave out still. It's not necessary.

He seemed not to care

I assume that's just a typo.

lasting through the Dark Age

I think you should add the "through". Not 100% sure, but it seems better that way to me.



I'm gonna stop nitpicking and give someone else a shot.

Overall, I think this was a really good piece. You just need to go back over and polish it a bit to bring out its full potential. Hope you do well in the competition! We have some fierce competitors.

Hey Jenthura!

I really liked this. I loved the whole atmosphere of it. The strange planet, the new technology, your characters, the sphere. You did a really good job creating a world, and in addition, making it believable. I was absorbed.

I do have a few suggestions. The first and biggest, has to do with your ending. I really didn't like it. I felt like you had this great build up, people are missing, something is wrong with galaxies, the tension increases. Then, at the end, we find out, that it's just magic, everything is well. Kind of anti-climatic you know? Also, Baron's reaction to the magic seems uncharacteristic to me. Baron seems to be the person who needs to be control, and further, needs to show he is in control at all times. Quickly annihilating anyone who dares to oppose him. Now if this mind-reader comes up, snubs Baron first of all by not waiting for his go ahead to speak, and then displays this magic, I don't think Baron would be too pleased. Frankly, I think Baron would be scared. Here is this man, who know how to control something super powerful, something he does not know how to control. This man is a major threat to his authority and power right? What do you think Baron is going to do?

The other suggestion I would have is to make the mind-readers magic fantastic, maybe even so fantastic that the mind-reader has some trouble controlling it. As they say, "go big, or go home." I would make this man do the impossible, surprising the crowd, maybe even surprising himself. I think it will really increase the impact of your piece. I also might describe the sphere more, the species in the crowd, the set up in the middle, the utterly shocked reactions, maybe some screams, the chaos, the colours. Try and put the reader in that sphere.

So last, small suggestion. At the beginning of this piece, your MC mentions that fourteen people are missing, for some unexplained reason. By the end of this, that question isn't answered. Why are they missing? Can they get them back? What magic put them there? I think the simple answer of "magic" is not enough. I want to know more, I want to know specifics, as it stands, I am left with a bunch of questions.

So those are the big things I noticed. I really liked this piece! You did a great job with it. If you edit it, mind letting me know? I would love to see where you go with this! You have quite a bit of time I think, Azila's contest isn't over till the first of June. If you have any comments or questions, feel free to PM me!

Audrey

A fun idea you've got going here. Shame you've used blue beams - my "element" for the current contest was to have the colour blue play an important role in the story, and I was also going to use beams. Shall I think of something else? ...naaaw.

Let's talk about the world first. It's an unusual world, yours, because it seems like a mishmash of all sorts of sci-fi and magical elements. It's as if you took a whole bunch of ideas from a whole bunch of works, poured them into a jar, shook that thing like your life depended on it, then poured the resulting mass on paper. You do explain that you borrowed a lot of elements from other books, but that doesn't wholly excuse it, I think - there's just no coherence. The difference between the various humans is not something I critique. Rather, it's the existence of these different humans and your mention of colonies in "other galaxies". Think about it for a second.

Why were people different on Earth? It was because of a lack of reliable and quick communication. Turn back the pendulum two thousand years, and you will see all sorts of different things different people did differently. Lack of communication. Now look at today's world, and find me a country where no-one is wearing jeans and there is not a single sign in a Latin alphabet.

Having colonies in different galaxies implies some kind of subspace travel, or space/time travel, in other words, a very quick and a very reliable method of communication. Yes, you could make the excuse that people look different because of different planetary conditions, but even that idea has problems. Why would anyone want to stay on a planet where you have to genetically modify yourself to breathe methane? If people did, for whatever reason, want to stay there, then they probably had the technology to just build shelters rather than turn themselves into abominations. Just my thought.

However, I get the feeling that your piece wasn't really about the world, so let's look at what happens instead of where it happens.

I like the idea of magic not really overflowing or destroying humanity's technology, but rather being a major interference; rather like a strong solar storm than an EMP bomb. A very nice touch. This gives magic a real feeling of being a resource, something natural - a stupid wild animal that can be tamed and not an unstoppable, unknowable force. It's simply a different resource, and this really shows.

So. This resource has been making people's lives difficult in various corners of the Galaxies, and so representatives of humanity and witnesses of these mysterious events are summoned to talk about this. Now, when you say "colony" in another galaxy, I presume you mean a colonized planet, otherwise very much like Earth. Six billion people living off of it or so. --so you must understand how much my suspension of disbelief starts to strain when the leaders, the representatives of these colonies come to the council completely without escort, unsecured, and unsupervised. The Sphere itself didn't seem to have much of a security to speak of. What Greymin did should have already been done like fifty times by various space terrorists, crashing space airliners into space Pentagons. [ too soon? :S ]

Now, let's assume that either the security was there and you didn't write about it, or everybody is a space hippie and there can be no talk of bombing meeting places of a lot of space presidents. As I've touched on before, your magic seems like a resource, kind of like nuclear power today, than true unexplainable "magic". So why didn't security just shoot Greymin? Surely their space guns would have eventually overwhelmed him, given enough time. Even if it didn't, at least they could have tried.

I also feel this story could be a little bit more dramatic, what with ushering in a new age of humanity. I recently had a dream that went something like this (prepare for a bit of rambling). It was North Korea, at night (except a carbonCore version of North Korea, in which Kim Jong-Il lived in a humongous skyscraper with an equally humongous courtyard). I fought my way through countless minions while I made it up to the elusive top floor. Finally, my team uses their plasma cutters to cut a path through 10 meters of solid steel into Kim's throne room, and I enter. We have a showdown (long story short, I win), I haul the near-dead Kim to the 100 meter window behind his throne overlooking the courtyard. I kick out the window, and the whole 100 meters crumbles. Outside and below in the courtyard there are thousands and thousands of people, pitchforks, torches, all silent, all looking at me. I take out my knife, cut off Kim's head, hold it up, scream "This is the head of a traitor!" and throw it into the crowd. They go wild.

Don't know what you thought about all that, but it was one of the more epic dreams of my life. And I was just overthrowing the leader of one country. You've got a dude taking over the Universe, more or less - multiple galaxies at the very least - and yet, everybody is civil and robe-clad, even the dude himself. The worst thing that happens is a couple of jars fall over, and the Sphere moves. Is that really the right way for a power-hungry maniac to take over the Universe? Hmm.

I loved the allusions, though. I only read later that Greymin was supposed to be the Antichrist, but I already got that impression. Head injuries, indeed! Though he was less a false messiah and more a maniac, but hey. Whatever works.

I'll finish off the review by saying that despite the things I found, this was still very well written. You've got a gift for descriptions, which you do not abuse (lest your work reads like a soup of purple prose). This is the second piece by you that I've read (after The Lonely Radio), and it seems that I was not mistaken to add you to my follow list. Work a little bit on the content, and you'll be golden - you've already got half of the piece nailed.

Your space reviewer,
cC

"It was a fateful day when the Congress of Man gathered the CXXXIVth time." This doesn't exactly grab me. It feels like you're trying too hard to be dramatic and make a big deal about the fact that they've met a bunch of times.

"Most of the other members near me were proto- or sub-humans, and it shamed me to sit amongst them sometimes." Why does he have to sit amongst them? Is he considered to be one, but HE doesn't consider himself to be one? If you were trying to make the reader ask questions like this, then kudos to you. If you weren't, then maybe this should be more clear.

" yet he still craved more power and control over the galaxies." I think this might work a little better if you said that he craves even more power and control...

The Blacks... Is this supposed to be an allusion to race discrimination or something? Making a point? I'd be careful there... *shrug* Idk. Maybe I'm reading too much into it.

"Today, we were gathered for a discussion over some of the less physical planes of matter and energy in our galaxies, something disputed for the last four centuries." A discussion... 'Even the most remote planets sent delegates'... For a discussion. I'd use a stronger word. A vote, a conclusion. Something...

"...not be found physically, despite the fact they perceived themselves to still be in our physical plane." So, what happens if someone in their physical plane goes to visit this other place. What does it look like to the missing planets?

" to a mere force of utterly lights." :/ Phrased oddly?

Wouldn't the 'spectors' be considered anomolies, too? When were they discovered legitly, when were they acknowledged enough to join a congress, and why aren't they counted along with all the other weird stuff going on.

I really enjoyed the last part of this, and I didn't really notice anything big there... Hey! Were the hologram-present colonies affected by the pull?

Anyway, I think you did a really good job with this, and building suspense (especially in the last part). The more info you gave us, the more I started to feel pulled into the story. Good job! Just needs a little polishing here and there, but that's true of pretty much everything.

Keep writing.

Thanks so much for the reviews, guys! I'm replying to each one of you individually.

I remember quite well how humans from across the galaxies shuttled down in as many species of inter-galactic craft as there were passengers. I remember thinking about how important this gathering was, for even the most remote planet had sent delegates, and members who almost never attended were completely and wholly present.

You may want to use a different beginning for one of the two sentences.

He seemed not care that any and all congress members would bow to his bidding until their spines snapped.

Congress should be capitalized.

Today, we were gathered for a discussion over some of the less physical planes of matter and energy in our galaxies, something disputed for the last four centuries.

The comma after today isn't needed.

Through the aeons, those laws remained stable and relevant, lasting the Dark Age, the Pre-Modern Age, the Modern Age, and finally into this Age; the New Age.

This sentence doesn't make sense. I think you are missing a word around lasting.

So many other rumors and scuttlebutt reached my ears,

The so at the beginning of the sentence isn't needed.

but I could not point out truth and fiction among them: it was up the Congress to find out which was which.

The colon should be a semicolon.

They could not be found physically, despite the fact they perceived themselves to still be in our physical plane.

This sentence is worded strangely. You may want to reword it.

That was one story I knew to be completely true, fourteen council members absent on the most important day of gathering was enough to prove anything.

The comma should be a semicolon.

His perfect head of white hair moved not one centimeter, and his purple robe hung about him like a dead thing.

The bold part sounds a little strange. Did you mean did not move one centimeter?

"The Sphere calls forth Jaemin Kyll to the witness speaker." The Voice said, responding to some unseen signal from Balon.

The speaker tag should connect with the first sentence so it will look like this:
"The Sphere calls forth Jaemin Kyll to the witness speaker," the Voice said, responding to some unseen signal from Balon.

"Forty of our particle generators detect strange new objects with properties un-heard of.

Because the rest of the story is in past tense, detect needs to be changed to detected. Un-heard needs to be unheard.

"Enough." The Voice ordered.

The speaker tag should be connected to the first sentence so it will be this way:
"Enough," the Voice ordered.

I sat up again; the name Greymin was known to every being in the universe.

The semicolon should be a period.

"All the world is at our feet: we need only grasp it."

The colon should be a semicolon.

A sigh rumbled in the throats of a thousand humans, and I felt myself join them: we had been holding our breath without knowing it.

The colon should either be a semicolon or a period.

"I announce the end of the New Age," Balon said, with all the authority of a Galactic Emperor. "And announce the beginning of the Age of Magic."

There should be a comma after Emperor and the and should be lowercase.


The ending seems a little too quick and forced. You may want to redo the end and add more emotion and thoughts of the character.

Besides minor grammar problems, the story is good. It keeps the reader's interest and makes me want to read more. This would be a great prologue for a longer story.

Hiya, apologies for getting back to this so late. Life has been insane.

His perfect head of white hair moved not one centimeter, and his purple robe hung about him like a dead thing.

This sentence isn't very evocative. Add some metaphors! Some flair! "Tor's white hair, purple robes, and a face that managed to look smug without showing any emotions made him look like a messianic crane."

growing galaxy

I don't think that's very realistic. Galaxies don't exactly grow. The human colonization might grow, but the galaxy? Not really. It might grow at a rate of one star every hundred thousand years, but that's too slow to call "growing".

None of the colony leaders could survive without a regular stream of supplies

Why not? Isn't the whole point of a colony to be self-sufficient and send something back to the parent nation? Besides, these are *planets* we're talking about. Surely a planet would have any kind of resource its inhabitants would want?

The witness reports are boring. Cut or shorten. Definitely need revising.

o_O? Is that part of the story, or one of your own notes? And I disagree. Giving the reader a taste of what this great force is capable of will make their heart pump real fast once the mage starts causing mayhem.

His purple-blue eyes swept the whole sphere and I felt as though I’d touched a specter.

Again, not evocative enough. "His gaze, perhaps only for a second, met with mine; it was as if a spear of ice pierced my body and mind." or "His purple-blue eyes swept the whole sphere, but a wave of something else accompanied his gaze - something that felt like the frigid touch of a specter."

His hands rotated around an invisible object,

Two or three were conversing with other

What's with all the unfinished sentences?

looking as though their heads and bodies had exploded.

So... were they exploded? 'Cause I think it'd be difficult to look like you exploded without actually, you know, exploding.

Okay, this was pretty cool. You've revised it a bit, but some of my previous concerns still stand. The question of security comes to mind. Why is it a congressman that tries to stop the guy and not one of the guards? Are there any guards at all? It'd seem weird if there weren't.

New question: Was nobody even listening to Tor in the beginning? You know, when he went all cryptic about a new force upon the universe. Wouldn't somebody ask a question what the hell he's going on about at this hearing? I thought the hearing was about new phenomena. When Tor says something like that, you think one of two things: a) he knows something, or b) he's crazy. Either of these would prompt his removal from his speaking place, or at least a few questions. So why was nothing done? Was everyone too busy playing sudoku?

Another new question. Why does Greymin follow Tor? Wouldn't it be silly for someone with so much power to follow someone else? I'll answer the question for you: it's not silly. However, you need to be able to tell me why it isn't. There are definite reasons why somebody like Greymin would follow somebody like Tor, but your story doesn't make the reasons for this obvious. Or do both of them have magic? If they do, I'm expecting one to backstab the other about 5 seconds after your story ended.

Aaaaand, once again, I don't think you've given the story as epic of a feel as it deserves. Put some bite into your words, you know? Play with similes and metaphors, play with words and their meanings, play with sentence structure. Pump raw emotion through your sentences. "Bow." was pretty good, but that's at the end of the story. Spread something like this through the whole piece to make it a bit more exciting.

If you've got any questions, feel free to drop me a line on my profile.

Your mage,
cC