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Atlantis 2050
When tension between the major powers had escalated past the point of no return, and global nuclear holocaust seemed inevitable, a secret group of Earth’s brightest scientists, backed and funded by several neutral countries, which had begged to remain unnamed, settled in one of Africa’s remotest places. There, under the dense green canopy, they dug a large subterranean complex, away from the eyes of spying satellites, where they worked day and night at their ultimate project.
When it was completed, time was running short, so they set out at once for one last earthy stroll. Each of them endeavoured to pick up as many species of plants or animals they could garner, knowing well that they had neither the time nor the space to save all forms of life, and that most of them would likely perish or be radically altered by the radioactive fallout.
When they were done, and everything had been secured inside the polished hull of the majestic spacecraft they had built, they randomly chose who would be part of the journey and who would stay. Then, they celebrated their last luncheon and parted. Some marched towards an unknown future, the others towards inevitable doom.
The same night, for the first, and last, time, the titanic roof of the complex slid open. In an outpouring of flame, the ship rose, until it was no more than a tiny star lost in the Milky Way radiance, then vanished altogether.
A couple of months later, the ship landed on to the desolate vastness of Mars.
There, plagued by the clumsiness of their suits, but aided by the low gravity, they began building a new home, a futuristic dome of glass and metal that would shelter a breathable atmosphere and harvest the puny fire of the now remote sun.
They moved in, and began their new life, sowing the seeds they had brought with them, feeding the animals with leftovers of their earthy cargo, and exploring their surroundings with vehicles in search of water, the only vital element they would eventually run out of.
That’s when they made the discovery.
At first, it was no more than a big boulder of sandstone dug out by a robot searching for underground water tables. But when the images relayed by the machine showed the stone was engraved, it was a game-changer. They sent out more robots, dug on a greater scale, until they had unearthed the remains of a vast building. It was ruined and weathered by uncountable aeons, but its foundations had withstood the passing of time.
Most fascinating was the rubble they came across in the middle of the crumbled edifice: shattered blocks which, when 3D digitised and manipulated on a computer, all fitted back into an almost perfect statue.
And that statue was human.
They set up an expedition to look for smaller pieces and other relics. The scenery was breathtaking. To the explorers, it felt like entering a vast tomb, where secrets immemorial had been sealed forever. And in that tomb a fallen colossus lay, his feet and legs still on its plinth. And when the most curious scientist touched this hoary figure, the stones spoke in everyone’s mind.
“Hearken,” they said, “for we are the memory of the past. Hearken to the tragic story of the planet we named Sydaeris. Whence we came, the memory is lost. Legend has it that our ancestors fled a world at war in a cosmic barge that stranded after centuries of errand on this remote planet. From there we toiled and clambered back to glory. We learnt how to harness science and technology again, and they gave us tools of unlimited power.
“But as you know, with power comes hubris. With time we forgot the lessons of our ancestors, and relapsed into the same errors. We divided ourselves into nations which turned their backs one to another, and became estranged. Distrust overcame friendship, hatred overcame distrust, until an all-out war erupted. Thus we, the last scientists, set out again to build a new spaceship to carry a few of us to that sister planet teeming with life which revolves closer to the sun, in the hope they may start a better and wiser civilisation. Finally, we let that artefact here as a portent to those who will come after us.”
At that very moment, they heard over the radio link that all transmissions from Earth had shut down.
Once again, they knew they were alone in the universe.
When it was completed, time was running short, so they set out at once for one last earthy stroll. Each of them endeavoured to pick up as many species of plants or animals they could garner, knowing well that they had neither the time nor the space to save all forms of life, and that most of them would likely perish or be radically altered by the radioactive fallout.
When they were done, and everything had been secured inside the polished hull of the majestic spacecraft they had built, they randomly chose who would be part of the journey and who would stay. Then, they celebrated their last luncheon and parted. Some marched towards an unknown future, the others towards inevitable doom.
The same night, for the first, and last, time, the titanic roof of the complex slid open. In an outpouring of flame, the ship rose, until it was no more than a tiny star lost in the Milky Way radiance, then vanished altogether.
A couple of months later, the ship landed on to the desolate vastness of Mars.
There, plagued by the clumsiness of their suits, but aided by the low gravity, they began building a new home, a futuristic dome of glass and metal that would shelter a breathable atmosphere and harvest the puny fire of the now remote sun.
They moved in, and began their new life, sowing the seeds they had brought with them, feeding the animals with leftovers of their earthy cargo, and exploring their surroundings with vehicles in search of water, the only vital element they would eventually run out of.
That’s when they made the discovery.
At first, it was no more than a big boulder of sandstone dug out by a robot searching for underground water tables. But when the images relayed by the machine showed the stone was engraved, it was a game-changer. They sent out more robots, dug on a greater scale, until they had unearthed the remains of a vast building. It was ruined and weathered by uncountable aeons, but its foundations had withstood the passing of time.
Most fascinating was the rubble they came across in the middle of the crumbled edifice: shattered blocks which, when 3D digitised and manipulated on a computer, all fitted back into an almost perfect statue.
And that statue was human.
They set up an expedition to look for smaller pieces and other relics. The scenery was breathtaking. To the explorers, it felt like entering a vast tomb, where secrets immemorial had been sealed forever. And in that tomb a fallen colossus lay, his feet and legs still on its plinth. And when the most curious scientist touched this hoary figure, the stones spoke in everyone’s mind.
“Hearken,” they said, “for we are the memory of the past. Hearken to the tragic story of the planet we named Sydaeris. Whence we came, the memory is lost. Legend has it that our ancestors fled a world at war in a cosmic barge that stranded after centuries of errand on this remote planet. From there we toiled and clambered back to glory. We learnt how to harness science and technology again, and they gave us tools of unlimited power.
“But as you know, with power comes hubris. With time we forgot the lessons of our ancestors, and relapsed into the same errors. We divided ourselves into nations which turned their backs one to another, and became estranged. Distrust overcame friendship, hatred overcame distrust, until an all-out war erupted. Thus we, the last scientists, set out again to build a new spaceship to carry a few of us to that sister planet teeming with life which revolves closer to the sun, in the hope they may start a better and wiser civilisation. Finally, we let that artefact here as a portent to those who will come after us.”
At that very moment, they heard over the radio link that all transmissions from Earth had shut down.
Once again, they knew they were alone in the universe.
When tension between the major powers had escalated past the point of no return, and global nuclear holocaust seemed inevitable, a secret group of Earth’s brightest scientists, backed and funded by several neutral countries, which had begged to remain unnamed, settled in one of Africa’s remotest places.
Holy god is this a long opening sentence. A man named William Shakespeare famously penned, "Brevity is the soul of wit." It also doesn't help that this does not work as a hook. This is pretty much all straight exposition. Something like that might work in the opening monologue of a television show like Star Trek or something, but it is very tedious to physically read.
Speaking of exposition, the majority of this story is that, exposition. It very much reads like a synopsis of a story rather than a story in that of itself. There's a whole lot of things that happen and the story is mainly detailed to stating that these things happen as opposed to illustrating their significance, emotional impact, or providing colorful description of the event as it occurs. The phrase "Show, don't tell" comes to mind.
The problem I think is that the story is not exactly that it's too grand a scope to fit into the minific format, just that it is taking the wrong thing to focus on. Setting up the exposition to get to Mars and the reasons behind it comes at the expense of establishing a human element, a character whose perspective we can relate to and experience events with. The events that happened on Earth don't really need more than a line or two to convey what the write gave several paragraphs for, which is: the Earth is doomed due to war, and we're going somewhere else. The details of how, why , and under what circumstances this occurred are ultimately irrelevant to the overall proceedings of the story itself.
What we want to experience is the uncertainty of the new world and then the Planet of the Apes-esque reveal that we've been here before, in real time so we can get a sense of the weight and significance. Otherwise, it comes across as just clinical note-taking of things that happen.
The ending note is preachy in a way similar to a lesson at the end of a child's television show. It's not like, obnoxious or tone-deaf, but it does come across as a bit naive. AND EVEN THE MESSAGE THEY LEFT IS EXPOSITION ON THE BACKSTORY OF THE PREVIOUS CIVILIZATION BUT I DIGRESS . Very inoffensive, but really not substantive either.
This is extremely telly, and while the core of the idea (the irony of fleeing back and forth between planets due to warfare) is vaguely interesting, it isn't really new, and the delivery here isn't amazing.
You're competing with a lot better deliveries of this same moral. This just comes off as flat and expository.
A more engaging version of the same story would be, say, some astronauts talking to each other on Mars, having found this inscription and working to decipher it back in their lab, and the story ending with their radio back to Earth failing.
You're competing with a lot better deliveries of this same moral. This just comes off as flat and expository.
A more engaging version of the same story would be, say, some astronauts talking to each other on Mars, having found this inscription and working to decipher it back in their lab, and the story ending with their radio back to Earth failing.
It's been a while since I saw a straight Aesop in a writeoff round. I wanna say Word of Warning was the last one?
Anyhow, the punchline is cute, but the lead-up is way too long. If you want to do an Aesop, it should stick pretty tightly to the necessary information, which I think would have put you at a much rounder 450 words or so. And, I think for this story, that's the best advice I have offer. Cut directly to the meat on this one. It is an aesop. Move quickly into the moral and make sure all your words support it!
Anyhow, the punchline is cute, but the lead-up is way too long. If you want to do an Aesop, it should stick pretty tightly to the necessary information, which I think would have put you at a much rounder 450 words or so. And, I think for this story, that's the best advice I have offer. Cut directly to the meat on this one. It is an aesop. Move quickly into the moral and make sure all your words support it!
>>Cassius
Seconding all of this.
The prose here is clunky, and so is the story. I can see what the author wanted to do, but I'm not sure it really works - or that it was a great direction to try to go in the first place. There's just not much to it beyond the exposition, and focusing on the exposition leads to awkward questions like "how exactly are a handful of neutral nations able to research, fund and build a massive, successful Mars capable ship while also keeping it secret from warring superpowers?"
I guess "war sucks" is in fact a pretty universal message, though, so that's a point up on the other aesops of the round. Thanks for writing!
Seconding all of this.
The prose here is clunky, and so is the story. I can see what the author wanted to do, but I'm not sure it really works - or that it was a great direction to try to go in the first place. There's just not much to it beyond the exposition, and focusing on the exposition leads to awkward questions like "how exactly are a handful of neutral nations able to research, fund and build a massive, successful Mars capable ship while also keeping it secret from warring superpowers?"
I guess "war sucks" is in fact a pretty universal message, though, so that's a point up on the other aesops of the round. Thanks for writing!
>>Cassius
>>AndrewRogue
>>TitaniumDragon
>>Ranmilia
So yeah Cassius, I'm the one who authored this egregiously bad piece. I wanted to write two stories for this round, and had no real idea for the second one, so I started cobbling some ideas about a SciFi setup and brought up that thing out.
That wasn't very clever of me. It was also part of an experiment, see my first story retro for explanation.
I'd like to thank 'Drew for being unduly lenient and, as usual, apologies for the meh experience. Fortunately, it's only 750 words and won't have distracted you too much, and you'll have forgotten about it as soon as you've finished reading it. :) I am also happy only four commented; at least the others did not lose their time over this turd.
(And yeah Cass, Postman was a fluke.)
>>AndrewRogue
>>TitaniumDragon
>>Ranmilia
So yeah Cassius, I'm the one who authored this egregiously bad piece. I wanted to write two stories for this round, and had no real idea for the second one, so I started cobbling some ideas about a SciFi setup and brought up that thing out.
That wasn't very clever of me. It was also part of an experiment, see my first story retro for explanation.
I'd like to thank 'Drew for being unduly lenient and, as usual, apologies for the meh experience. Fortunately, it's only 750 words and won't have distracted you too much, and you'll have forgotten about it as soon as you've finished reading it. :) I am also happy only four commented; at least the others did not lose their time over this turd.
(And yeah Cass, Postman was a fluke.)