Young Writers Society

This story is just the beginning, but I hope somebody can enjoy reading it as I enjoyed writing it. I know it gets a little sketchy in places, but I hope you can understand it and help me improve it:

Jonathan Davis sat down, took a sip of his coffee, and opened the morning paper. New York Times read the title, March 5, 2109. Top story: President Gives $10 Billion to AI Research. He took a sharp breath, realizing how much the world had gone through since he was born 32 years ago: World War II, the perfection of solar power, political scandals, and so much more.
Now the technology that would supposedly save the world was being researched constantly and was still turning out useless. The United States’ finest scientists were working every day on Artificial Intelligence (AI). So far they had gotten nowhere. The concept was to make robots smart enough to solve our problems, but in the end they have just been smart enough to answer given questions: robots that could almost fake being human, but couldn’t really think like us. The best of them could only manage about 100 responses.
And of course the military had to get their little bit, finding a way to make weapons better somehow. In this attempt, the SM12 was created, the Smart Missile, Version 12. They had faces like sharks, made out of a kind of malleable plastic. The end product: a shark-faced explosive that can change expressions. And what tells them when to change expressions? Their “AI” technology, which would make them, supposedly, enjoy blowing up and killing.
Jonathan had decided a long time ago that this was useless research. The world had no need for improved bombs and intelligent machines; they needed a real solution for the ever worsening global warming, the ability to solve world hunger, and help for the recently oppressed Swedes.
He let out his breath, one he hadn’t realized he was holding, and finished his coffee. He got up and walked outside. It was a cold day, overcast, probably going to rain later in the day, but right now he could walk outside happily and go to work. Rain and sunlight had been major problems ever since Jonathan was born. Rain was always deathly acidic, and sunlight caused skin cancers and heat strokes easily. Jonathan had always dreamed of a time he heard about in textbooks, when the sun wasn’t burning to the skin, when people looked forward to rain. Sadly, that time no longer existed.
Jonathan started walking; he tried to avoid looking at the sky, where the air was populated with commercial aircraft and Smart Missiles patrolling the sky, protecting the aircraft and the city from terrorist attacks and the like. It was a depressing thought, but those were the only ones Jonathan had nowadays. The Earth was being destroyed by global warming and pollution and soon it would be a lost cause.
Jonathan walked for ten minutes, when suddenly the area around him darkened. His first thought was that a cloud went over the sun, but no, it was an overcast day. He looked up just in time to see the first explosions.

* * *

Seven-thousand feet above New York City a battle was raging. Enormous puffs of smoke were sent up in the atmosphere. The Smart Missiles had encountered a “terrorist” in their minds. In reality, nobody knew what they were fighting, but the SM12s were losing.

* * *


The ships communicated with each other at the speed of light, coordinating their velocity, entering a swarm formation that would block out the sun. They flew into the air above New York City faster than humans have ever traveled.
The front of the line were met with the smiling faces of sharks, ready to bite. Their bite packed half a ton of explosives with it, but a bite all the same. These sharks destroyed 37 of the foreign ships; that meant there were 9,963 left, 9,963 to destroy all humans on Earth.

Welcome to YWS! This speaks.Its really good.I love the way you talk about global warming.(I am a tree hugger myself) The only part I find out of place is

robots that could almost fake being humans

Besides that, and it being short.Its amazing.

I thought the paragraphs that described the newspaper article the MC was reading were way too tell-tell. They were boring and I lost interest. I think you can mix in the facts of what's happening in Jonathan's world without him sittting down, reading an article, and outlining the article in the next few paragraphs. You have some powerful futuristic ideas within those paragraphs, though.

I thought the two breaks and transitions were very awkward. You need to blend this a lot more. (at least in my opinion)

The last sentence was good, and overall I liked it. You have wonderful ideas (such as the sharks); you just need to show them in different ways to capture the readers more. I especially liked the description of the sun's effect and the rain. That was good.

Your story, the Slavation of Earth, I found very interesting. You used great ideas, such as (as noted previously) the sharks and global warming. I also liked the fact that you added in originality. The S12s (or Smart Missiles, I believe that is what they were) were an interesting idea for protecting the human society.

One think that I will have to tell you, is that, you go from using the third person to the second person.

The concept was to make robots smart enough to solve our problems, but in the end they have just been smart enough to answer given questions: robots that could almost fake being human, but couldn’t really think like us.

Make sure that if you are going to use third person, you use only third person. Nothing more, nothing less. An easy change could be, "...but couldn't really think like them," (not second person "us").

Otherwise, the story was very clean and to the point. Keep up the great work!

I think it was great. The ideas you came up with like the weather and the Smart Missiles. The very start dragged on a bit, i think you could of slipped them in the story, to make them shorter and not as dragging.
I think the other details have already been said so i don't wan't to drag on saying what's been said. I say keep writing - or else! haha.

Fang

This is a very interesting picture of the future that you paint. Some of the problems are completely understandable and forseeable, but the thing about the opressed Swedes was so completely random it made me laugh a little. Good job on that.

I can't really see anything wrong as far as grammar and spelling are concerned. The last two paragraphs really seemed a little out of place though. If these are alien spaceships, you made it both a little too obvious and yet not obvious enough. I'll try to explain. You say that the SM12s are fighting what they percieve as a terrorist. What are the parameters they use to determine what is a terrorist and what is not? Have these aliens made any hostile actions, or is this going to be a big misunderstanding? I realize that's not a very good explanation. Pm me if you want something a little better.

But all in all, this has the potential to be a good story. You just need to fix it up a little. Let me know if you ever decide to continue it, as I will be very interested in how it plays out.

As was said before in the other posts, this is a very interesting story. I found the last paragraph was specifically well written. One thing that caught my eye, though, was a typo.

He took a sharp breath, realizing how much the world had gone through since he was born 32 years ago: World War II, the perfection of solar power, political scandals, and so much more.

I do like this story, and hope you will continue to write it. Keep it up!

And of course the military had to get their little bit, finding a way to make weapons better somehow. In this attempt, the SM12 was created, the Smart Missile, Version 12. They had faces like sharks, made out of a kind of malleable plastic. The end product: a shark-faced explosive that can change expressions. And what tells them when to change expressions? Their “AI” technology, which would make them, supposedly, enjoy blowing up and killing.

I don't understand what the point of this would be. Why would smiling shark faces be better weapons? It seems like you wanted to incorporate that the missiles were the stepping stones for evil AI, but you didn't expand on it. The aliens came out of nowhere, when you set up the AI as the antagonistic force. Just something to think about.

I thought it was a pretty good prologue. It seems to run a little fast and have some extra detail here, and not enough detail there.

I liked the ending too. The hooker was definetly the ending and not the begining. I would suggest finding some way to put the ending in the begining.

I also liked how you touched on alot of the world issues such as pollution and global warming.

Overall- I thought it was pretty good, could use a little work, and some more detail. But altogether a very interesting plot, your very creative, so use that to your advantage.

As Deifyance wrote, the ending was definitely more exciting than the beginning. Perhaps you could start with the ending you wrote, then kind of backtrack for the rest of the story? It's only a suggestion, and you'd have to see how that would work out.

Other than that, I think this piece was well written. The issues you discussed seemed realistic for the setting, from the global warming to the pollution to the technologies. That section was a huge plus for this piece, but as mentioned above, the beginning could be changed up a bit. Hope this helps.

Good luck
Missa

A good, interesting story. The writing's very smart sounding. I feel dazzled by the sci-fi speak! Almost every nitpicking thing has already been pointed out. Here...

New York Times read the title, March 5, 2109. Top story: President Gives $10 Billion to AI Research.

I feel like most of this should be in quotes. Either that, or italics. He's reading it and so it should stand out somehow from the rest of the paragraph.

He let out [s]his[/s] a breath, one he hadn’t realized he was holding

Of course it's HIS breath! A nice sentence, except for that one thing. I think "a" flows better.

Excellent piece. As a sci-fi fan, this really hooked my interest. I think all the right elements are there. I didn't really catch any errors, which means you did a great job with editing. I already feel somewhat attached to the character, Johnathan, and would like to see more of his views on the things going on around him. Overall, it's a fun read so far. I think adding more characters will definitely enhance this work. Keep writing!