Young Writers Society

This is the prolouge to the start of my story.....

It is the 41st Millenium and the Imperium of Man is under constant attack. The God Emperor of Mankind sits on his Golden throne ever unmoving.

In the far eastern corner of the Galaxy a new threat to the Imperium has arisen. The Tau are a young dynamic race whose empire already spans across several star systems. The Tau are protected by the fierce warlike Fire caste, the Earth caste construct starships,cities and weapons, the Water caste act as diplomats to other races, the Air caste are the pilots and messengers of the Tau and the Ethereal caste preside over them all.

On T'au in the midst of the great desert a sheet of sand quivers and shakes, the sand then begins to move slowly but surely to reveal a dark shaft leading to the an ancient tomb complex far beneth the surface of the planet. A black Obelisk inlaid with gold moves towards the planet surface, it rises slowly out of the darkness and begins to position itself on a bank of sand not far from the shaft. The Obelisk begins to radiate a green light calling the wind to it which whips around the Obelisk blowing the sand away to reveal....

I'm going to see what you all think before I carry on

Hey - an interesting start.

Is

It is the 41st Millenium and the Imperium of Man is under constant attack. The God Emperor of Mankind sits on his Golden throne ever unmoving.

actually part of the prose or just you filling us in before we read the piece? If it is a part of the story, you might consider leaving it out, as the openning line

In the far eastern corner of the Galaxy a new threat to the Imperium has arisen

lets the reader ponder the situation, rather than being hit with all the facts to start with. Alluding to something is sometimes more interesting than openly saying it.

Also

a sheet of sand quivers and shakes, the sheet

and

black obelisk inlaid with gold moves towards the planet surface, the Obelisk rises

both repeat the subject within the sentence; try and find an alternative word, or else remove the second noun e.g 'the sheet quivers and shakes, moving slowly but surely...' etc.

An intriguing start - I am already wondering where this will go, and eager to meet your main character.

The problem with this is that the two starting paragraphs are not yours. Games Workshop came up with that. As far as I can tell, the third paragraph is some sort of "mysterious" green obelisk. The Necrons randomly appearing has been done before.

So far there's nothing of yours, nothing original in this piece. When you come up with your own ideas, I'll be more interested -- make up some characters, your own story, make me care. I could have read this in the Tau Codex over and over again if I wanted.

And that has funky pictures.

1. Im a Tau Empire collector and have based all this on the Necrons appearing on T'au

2. This is only the Prolouge

3. I am trying to fill the reader in if they have never heard of games workshop or warhammer 40,000

Sorry about the double post

4. The Necrons don't randomly appear, they have been hanging around in ancient tomb complexes beneath the planets

5. Thanks for the comments

Shadow, you can edit your own posts if you want to add something so you don't have to double post. It's the edit button on the upper right.

I haven't heared of games workshop or played warhammer, so you can have the perspective of someone clueless. If this is fanfiction for them, though, there's a section for that.

You say 'The Tau' a lot. Maybe you could use some different wording in some places?

On T'au in the midst of the great desert a sheet of sand quivers

Is this a typo? T'au instead of Tau?

Obelisk is a very cool word, but I think that the more you say it, the less interesting it becomes. I'm used to it by the end. Try not to be so repetitive!

I prefir prologues that throw the reader right into the action, but it's up to you. If you're going to have a less active prologue, then maybe you could at least explain what some of the things you mention are.

Parts of this held my attention longer than others. The second paragraph was my favorite.

Good luck, I'll look for the rest.

First things first...

thank you for all your comments

to explain everything

T'au is the homeplanet of the Tau, it is the origional Sept(colony/planet) and if you want to know more about the Tau or see what they look like go to

http://uk.games-workshop.com/tau/

anyway know im going to carry on

to reveal a peice of black marble with a strange design on it, the Obelisk lowered and set itself in the centre of the design (go to here to see the design http://uk.games-workshop.com/necrons/necron-obelisk/4/ )which produced a sickly green light that engulfed the Obelisk as it began to turn and lower itself into the ground, producing a loud screeching noise.

Suddenly the green light ceased and an unnerving silence settled on the area. A strange clicking began and a rusted metal hand thrust itself out from the sand, the hand shivered for a second, then metal body burst out of the sand soon followed by another arm and a pair of legs. The Necron lord rose to its feet and surveyed the area emotionlessly as the others brought themselves out of the sand. The Necron lord raised its staff and thrust it into the ground, a green light burst forth from the crystal at the staffs tip and then alomst immediatly seized. The staff needed more power. The C'tan would not be pleased.....

On the singal moon that orbitted T'au the drone monitering the Desert, recieved the data,beeped alarmingly, engaged its thrusters and took of to look for the Shas'ar'o. When the drone raced into the circular chamber the Shas'ar'o was engaged in a meeting of the Shas'ar'tol discussing the threat on the southern front of the Empire.

The drone projected a hologram into the centre of the chamber, the hologram showed the Necron lord thrusting his staff into the ground. The room was silent for some time until Shas'o C'larik'an spoke "the Necrons have established a presence on T'au, we should contact the Ethereals".
"No" Shas'ar'o Gra'rik overuled "we will send in a small detatchment from Vior'la to eliminate the Necron power source". "We would need a strong commander" Shas'o Ala'ik said quietly. "We need someone who won't ask questions" Shas'o Ret'eray replied. "We need Dak'e'shi" Shas'ar'o Gra'rik said.


Chapter 1

"Shas'la, form up!!" Shas'el Dak'e'shi ordered. The Shas'la of fire warrior blue team formed up into two ranks, "Preeesent!". The Shas'la brought their pulse rifle butts into their shoulders, "Taaake aim!" The Shas'la each selecterd a target, "Fiiire!!". The Shas'la fired at the approaching Tyranid swarm decimating the first rank of guants ( pictures of the Tyranids here http://uk.games-workshop.com/tyranids/m ... e-gallery/ ) but that hardly mattereed there would a thousand more waiting to replace each guant killed "Fire!" The second rank was obliterated, "Fire!!" The third was destroyed, "Fire at will!!!" The Tyranids were being slaughtered but they gained ground, it did not matter how many died more would be spawned to replace each Tyranid that died.

more to follow later....

For translations to the words I am using go to:

http://www.cygnusx1.info/tau/lexicon.asp

or

http://www.minivault.com/Tauglossary.htm

Shas'ar'o = Military High Commander

Shas'o = Military commander

Shas'el = military colnel

Shas'vre = Military major

Shas'ui = military captain

Shas'la = military private/soldier

C'larik'an = sharp minded

All of my story so far together:

It is the 41st Millennium and the Imperium of Man is under constant attack. The God Emperor of Mankind sits on his Golden throne ever unmoving.

In the far eastern corner of the Galaxy a new threat to the Imperium has arisen. The Tau are a young dynamic race whose empire already spans across several star systems. They are protected by the fierce warlike Fire caste, the Earth caste construct starships, cities and weapons, the Water caste act as diplomats to other races, the Air caste are the pilots and messengers of the 5 castes and the Ethereal caste preside over them all.

On T'au in the midst of the great desert a sheet of sand quivers and shakes, the sand then begins to move slowly but surely to reveal a dark shaft leading to the an ancient tomb complex far beneath the surface of the planet. A black Obelisk inlaid with gold moves towards the planet surface, it rises slowly out of the darkness and begins to position itself on a bank of sand not far from the shaft. The Obelisk begins to radiate a green light calling the wind to it which whips around the Obelisk blowing the sand away to reveal a piece of black marble with a strange design on it, the Obelisk lowered and set itself in the centre of the design which produced a sickly green light that engulfed the Obelisk as it began to turn and lower itself into the ground, producing a loud screeching noise.

Suddenly the green light ceased and an unnerving silence settled on the area. A strange clicking began and a rusted metal hand thrust itself out from the sand, the hand shivered for a second, then metal body burst out of the sand soon followed by another arm and a pair of legs. The Necron lord rose to its feet and surveyed the area emotionlessly as the others brought themselves out of the sand. The Necron lord raised its staff and thrust it into the ground, a green light burst forth from the crystal at the staffs tip and then almost immediately seized. The staff needed more power. The C'tan would not be pleased...

On the single moon that orbited T'au the drone monitoring the Desert, received the data, beeped alarmingly, engaged its thrusters and took of to look for the Shas'ar'o. When the drone raced into the circular chamber the Shas'ar'o was engaged in a meeting of the Shas'ar'tol discussing the threat on the southern front of the Empire.

The drone projected a hologram into the centre of the chamber, the hologram showed the Necron lord thrusting his staff into the ground. The room was silent for some time until Shas'o C'larik'an spoke "the Necrons have established a presence on T'au, we should contact the Ethereals".
"No" Shas'ar'o Gra'rik overruled "we will send in a small detachment from Vior'la to eliminate the Necron power source". "We would need a strong commander" Shas'o Ala'ik said quietly. "We need someone who won't ask questions" Shas'o Ret'eray replied. "We need Dak'e'shi" Shas'ar'o Gra'rik said.


Chapter 1

"Shas'la, form up!!" Shas'el Dak'e'shi ordered. The Shas'la of fire warrior blue team formed up into two ranks, "Preeesent!” The Shas'la brought their pulse rifle butts into their shoulders, "Taaake aim!" The Shas'la each selected a target, "Fiiire!!” The Shas'la fired at the approaching Tyranid swarm decimating the first rank of guants (pictures of the Tyranids here http://uk.games-workshop.com/tyranids/m ... e-gallery/ ) but that hardly mattered there would a thousand more waiting to replace each gaunt killed "Fire!" The second rank was obliterated, "Fire!!" The third was destroyed, "Fire at will!!!" The Tyranids were being slaughtered but they gained ground, it did not matter how many died more would be spawned to replace each Tyranid that died.

Please feel free to comment on this......

I thought that was well written. But you did you write it?

Hello Shadowsun .

1) Pick your target audience. At the moment you seem to be in a sort of limbo, unsure if you're aiming this story at people familiar with Games Workshop, or everyone else.

My advice - aim this at people who already know the basic outline of the Warhammer 40K background. They will, after all, be the people with the most interest in the story.

That means cutting out any sort of 'It is the 41st Millenium, and...' stuff, cos your audience will already know this.

2) However, this doesn't mean cut out any descriptions you have. In fact, might I suggest you have more? At the moment, you say the 'Tyranids', rather than give any sort of description at all. This is dull.

Don't give the background info of the Tyranids (unless it's absolutely needed), but describing what they look like can help give the story more atmosphere.

3) Avoid info-dumping. This is giving lots of background information close together. It is dull to read through.

4) Avoid repeating words. Lookit this: ""Shas'la, form up!!" Shas'el Dak'e'shi ordered. The Shas'la of fire warrior blue team formed up into two ranks, "Preeesent!” The Shas'la brought their pulse rifle butts into their shoulders, "Taaake aim!" The Shas'la each selected a target, "Fiiire!!” The Shas'la fired at the approaching Tyranid" The repetition of "Shas'la" pretty much kills this paragraph.

5) Don't give links to pictures. Not only does this break up the flow of the story, but if you need to give pictures to show the scene, you're not doing your job as a writer.

Hope that helps .

I thought that was well written. But you did you write it?

yes I did

Lets try again then....

All of my story so far together:

On T'au in the midst of the great desert a sheet of sand quivers and shakes, the sand then begins to move slowly but surely to reveal a dark shaft leading to the an ancient tomb complex far beneath the surface of the planet. A black Obelisk inlaid with gold moves towards the planet surface, it rises slowly out of the darkness and begins to position itself on a bank of sand not far from the shaft. The Obelisk begins to radiate a green light calling the wind to it which whips around the Obelisk blowing the sand away to reveal a piece of black marble with a strange design on it, the Obelisk lowered and set itself in the centre of the design which produced a sickly green light that engulfed the Obelisk as it began to turn and lower itself into the ground, producing a loud screeching noise.

Suddenly the green light ceased and an unnerving silence settled on the area. A strange clicking began and a rusted metal hand thrust itself out from the sand, the hand shivered for a second, then metal body burst out of the sand soon followed by another arm and a pair of legs. The Necron lord rose to its feet and surveyed the area emotionlessly as the others brought themselves out of the sand. The Necron lord raised its staff and thrust it into the ground, a green light burst forth from the crystal at the staffs tip and then almost immediately seized. The staff needed more power. The C'tan would not be pleased...

On the single moon that orbited T'au the drone monitoring the Desert, received the data, beeped alarmingly, engaged its thrusters and took of to look for the Shas'ar'o. When the drone raced into the circular chamber the Shas'ar'o was engaged in a meeting of the Shas'ar'tol discussing the threat on the southern front of the Empire.

The drone projected a hologram into the centre of the chamber, the hologram showed the Necron lord thrusting his staff into the ground. The room was silent for some time until Shas'o C'larik'an spoke "the Necrons have established a presence on T'au, we should contact the Ethereals".
"No" Shas'ar'o Gra'rik overruled "we will send in a small detachment from Vior'la to eliminate the Necron power source". "We would need a strong commander" Shas'o Ala'ik said quietly. "We need someone who won't ask questions" Shas'o Ret'eray replied. "We need Dak'e'shi" Shas'ar'o Gra'rik said.


Chapter 1

"Shas'la, form up!!" Shas'el Dak'e'shi ordered. The Shas'la of fire warrior blue team formed up into two ranks, "Preeesent!” They brought their pulse rifle butts into their shoulders, "Taaake aim!" The fire warriors each selected a target, "Fiiire!!” They fired at the approaching insect like swarm decimating the first rank of guants but that hardly mattered there would a thousand more waiting to replace each gaunt killed "Fire!" The second rank was obliterated, "Fire!!" The third was destroyed, "Fire at will!!!" The Tyranids were being slaughtered but they gained ground, it did not matter how many died more would be spawned to replace each that died.

The numberless horde kept on advancing, each guant having four legs and two arms that scuttled along the floor, making an eerie rattling noise that would have made even the most stalwart Imperial Guardsman turn and run. But the Tau were not like the Imperials, they did not conscript or press citizens into service, they had the Fire caste who were genetically designed at the dawn of their creation to be warriors.

The fire caste would fight to the death for the Greater Good, they would do whatever the Ethereals bid to bring the light of the Greater Good to the galaxy. "Permission to fire" a voice crackled over Dak'e'shi's comms unit. "Granted" Dak'e'shi replied. An ionic blue pulse demolished the centre of the Tyranid swarm and two Hammerhead gunships hovered into view, each armed with an Ion cannon, their Ion cannons began to whir to life and send wave after wave of destruction from their gun barrels. The Tyranid swarm quickly adapted to this new assault and a carnifex tore through the first Hammerhead gunship obliterating it in a ball of fire. The carnifex emerged from the ruins of the Hammerhead amazingly unscathed by the blast and started to run towards the second Hammerhead floating only a few yards away. Dak'e'shi saw this happening and engaged his jet pack which propelled his Battlesuit into the air and on towards the Carnifex. Dak'e'shi dropped out of the air in front of the Carnifex blocking it from reaching the HAmmerhead which still unleashed blast after blast of Ionic energy into the Tyranid swarm.

The Carnifex roared and charged at Dak'e'shi, Dak'e'shi stood calmly and raised his plasma rifle his targetting array locking onto the Carnifex giving him a clear shot at the Carnifexs head. Dak'e'shi fired, a command was sent to the plasma rifle from the neural link between the battlesuit and its pilot, the command travelled through the link from the battlesuits HUB and down to the plasma rifle, in charged and sent its energy down the barel which collected stray particles and formed into a stream of brilliant blue plasma which streamed out of the plasma rifles barrel and towards the carnifexes head. All of this happened in one nano second.

The Carnifex a huge beast, a monstous creature acid dropping from it body sized jaw, let loose a bone chilling scream and fell to the ground dead. But this did not stop the Tyranid swarm, their locust like bodies rushing towards the thin Tau line that was laying down God like firepower onto them. The fire warriors were operating like a well oiled machine calmly performing their duties by destroying wave after wave of the Tyranid swarm with cool precision. But the Tyranids kept on advancing, Dak'e'shi knew from experience that the Tyranids would keep advancing to reach what the HIve mind wanted. The Tyranids were vunerable to fire however and Dak'e'shi had prepared a team of battlesuits equiped with flamers and burst cannons to land in the centre of the swarm and cause as much mayhem and destruction as possible. At the instant that Dak'e'shi had killed the Carnifex the battlesuit team had landed in the centre of the horde crushing several guants as they did so, they then began to procede to burn away any trace of the swarm and unleash pulse fire on anything that came to close to them. The Hive mind adapted to this new threat and sent an uncountable number of Genestealers to deal with the battlesuits which were gradually overcome one by one until the third and last member of the team remained.

The blood-lust shone brightly in the eyes of Shas'vre Vior'la Kaj'inal, he unleashed searing flames on anything that neared him and drove backthe Genestealers with his burst cannon fire. The swarm began to pull back to eliminate this stubborn warrior who refused to die. Any who approached Kaj'inal were killed instantly, Kaj'inal had long ceased to tell the differance between freind or foe, he was surrounded by a red haze that enraged him and drove him on to avenge the deaths of his team. His team were bonded by the talissera ritual, they were closer than brothers to him, they had fought years of combat together and now they were gone. Kaj'inal was maddened by the fact that he had let them die and turned his rage on the surrounding Tyranids, Dak'e'shi's voice on his comm system failing to breach the rage that possessed him as he killed the Tyranids one by one.

Tell me what you think before I continue ...

I liked this and keep writing

"Kaj'inal, Kaj'inal!" Dak'e'shi roared over the comms system "fall back, you are no longer needed there". But nothing could penetrate the red haxe that surrounded Kaj'inal, the black and yellow locust like swarm surrounding him advanced towards him. They were each killed by the raging flames that were cast out of Kaj'inals flamer. One after another the Tyranids aproached him the scuttling claws moving across the ground towards him and one after another they were killed.

A black speck moved across the sky, it slowed and began to fall getting bigger and bigger as it fell. Finally it landed crushing several guants it the process, it was a huge creature, larger than the carnifex, with wings the size of a Pirahna, it wielded huge talons, had a it had a streamlined head the size of a bodie and was a sickly black and yellow colour. It was a Hive Tyrant.

The Tyrant approached Kaj'inal and screeched a challange to him. The scream penetrated Kaj'inals red haze drawing him away from the blood lust that threatened every Vior'la fire caste warrior. The Tyrant screeched again and started to charge Kaj'inal, who turned and faced the Tyrant and with cool efficency opened fire on the monstrous creature approaching him. Kaj'inals burst cannon whired to life and pulse projectiles were thrust out of the barrel towards the Hive Tyrant, his flamer let lose its searing flames which leaped out to strike the Tyrant.

The Tyrant kept coming towards Kaj'inal emerging unscathed from the flames. The burst cannon having no effect on the Tyrant, Kaj'inal cut power from reaching it and redirected it towards the Plasma Sword in his battlesuits fist, which flared to life shoering his battlesuit in a brilliant blue light. He engaged his Jet pack and was projected throught the air toward the Hive Tyrant.

Plasma charged blade met living talons producing sparks and a tremendous amount of heat, that made the air shimmer around the two combatants. Dak'e'shi watched from the thin Tau line in amazement as Kaj'inal clashed with the Hive Tyrant. The line kept advancing towards the combat pouring fire into the oncoming Tyranid swarm. "Shas'la, halt!" Dak'e'shi ordered. Fire warrior team blue halted standing in front of the swarm, pouring fire into the Tyranids from the two ranks they stood in. "Carbine men, to the front rank!". The Shas'la equiped with Pulse carbines moved to the front rank. "Fire photon grenades!". The small circular grenades burst forth from the carbines landing in the midst of the swarm creating, purple and green explosions.

To be continued later not enough time to continue

"Shas'la, advance!", the fire warriors started to advance towards the swarm. "Halt!" The Shas'la stopped. "Present!" They took up firing positions. "Take aim!" they each selected a traget amongst the swarm. "Fire at will!" The Tyranids began to die, pulse projectiles flying towards the swarm obliterating them.

Kaj'inal watched as the Hive Tyrants talons were destroyed by his Plasma Sword, the Plasma reaking havoc on the living tissue that covered the talons. The Hive Tyrant shrieked in pain and fell back from Kaj'inals battlesuit. Kaj'inal raised his burst cannon and targeted the open wound. Kaj'inal fired. The Hive Tyrant writhed and screamed the burst cannons projectiles destroying it.

The Tau line watched in amazement as the Tyrant slunk away from Kaj'inal and then lay still on the groung in front of him. The guants suddenly seemed to lose focus when the Tyrant died, as if the will to fight had left them, they stared mindlessly into space unable to tell what was happening.
Dak'e'shi was astonished by the feat Kaj'inal had accomplished, he had cut of the head and the body had died.....

more to come later

feel free to comment

If you want more replies, try critting other people's work.

Technically, you shouldn't have actually posted any of your own work yet, as the rules say you should crit two other pieces before posting your own.

I'd comment on yours, but I'm afraid I don't have the time (coursework).