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I'm not the best at drawing in the world and these are only quick sketches but the main part of the image is the Nebula class battleship. It has 32 heavy turreted laser canons 16 of which are visible on the top and 100 medium cannons. 4 gun decks for powerful broadside as turreted cannons have a drastically lower power than broadside weapons. Also included are 100 missile defence systems that work by super heating the detonator in the warhead prematurely setting it of. Finally it has 500 fighter defence flack cannons, 20 anti capitol ship missiles and a store of 20 FB-17-jaguars for bombing raids and 64 f-4 -spitfires named in honour of the most popular fighter ever (or the pilots said that at least).


You can see 2 spitfires on a patrol and the city being bombarded.

Black was the name given to bomber pilots and white to fighter pilots.

Nebula's can only carry a few land vehicles and troops if nessesary so dedicated assault ships are required. Also off pic there is a small fleet of escort ships to defend against hit and run and fighters as Battleships are primarily anti captiol ships and can't hold of a prolonged fighter/bomber attack but can defend against small ones.

No windows on the large ships as these are vunerable only camera's and hollo screens.

Fighters have windows as for dogfights visibility is key but only at the front and the rest is a 360 holo display. Dogfights used as missile defence is too strong (except if missile reaches target in under 1 second) unless you use missiles that cost more than the fighter you are shooting down.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Stormatious wrote:

deotrims 16th wrote:

 Stormatious wrote:

deotrims 16th wrote:
I looked out into space through one of the holowindows. Not really windows, just a screen with a camera on the outside of the ship. Nobody was particularly happy as the job we had to do was a horrible one. I was known as Black 16 to my superiors but as Jake to my friends. I was a FB- 17-Chimera pilot aboard the HMS Executor, a Nebula class battleship. We have been assigned to the Zark system and to reclaim the rebellious planet of Zark III. The start of the assault was all good and with better than expected results. Then we reached the capitol city, that's where the progress stalled. In the end it was decided that it was too costly to retake it and so the Executor was tasked with destroying the city through orbital bombardment. It is a slow and terrible process where laser batteries shoot hundreds of lasers down the surface to destroy anything standing. In doing this we have killed an estimated 29 million civilians. Up here all we can do is imagine the horror that the people on the surface are going through. We can see little flashes flicker on the planet not all to disimilar from fairy lights. While they are in agony watching their world fall apart we just gaze down at the like a god controlling what will happen to them.

Lookin good, mabey you should detail what things are and mean and why in between explaining what you are doing.?

Yes in-between each part I'm drawing a picture, maybe not the best but I'll explain things and Hopefully between the three things people will understand.

Yeah well its detailed so that's good id say, but maybe im wrong but it seems for e.g " We have been assigned to the Zark system and to reclaim the rebellious planet of Zark III. The start of the assault was all good and with better than expected results. " its like out of no where you randomly mention a battle that i was not even a little-bit aware of?

Edit - never mind, im just reading it wrong i think.

It just sets the sceen and shows the kind of jobs and the power of the ships. A bit like the first fight in fury it doesn't really impact the story later on it just sets the sceen and lets you know what's going on.

Yeah, just going to echo what I said about desperate bargaining. You make a post accepting the idea of a story-first approach, and an hour later you have your first story bit posted? That says to me that you aren't really thinking about what you're doing and trying to come up with your best work possible, you're just scrambling to get something posted as fast as possible before anyone can take your universe away. Stop worrying so much about getting approval from everyone else and do the best work you can.

Also, now you're introducing mass murder of civilians. That's not a bad thing if it fits the story idea, but it really forces some constraints. Why are your space-British soldiers happy to indiscriminately slaughter millions of their fellow citizens with nothing more than a "meh, that kind of sucks"? Why do the citizens of space-Britain accept a government that does this and not use their power to vote out the abusive monarch? How does this not immediately send all of the other planets into open rebellion, begging the US to come protect them from the murderous tyrant? These questions can be answered in 40k, where it's a totalitarian theocracy and the entire population is brainwashed into absolute loyalty to every word that space-Jesus commands, but can space-Britain answer them in any plausible way while still being something that is recognizable as British?

deotrims 16th wrote:
I'm not the best at drawing in the world and these are only quick sketches but the main part of the image is the Nebula class battleship. It has 32 heavy turreted laser canons 16 of which are visible on the top and 100 medium cannons. 4 gun decks for powerful broadside as turreted cannons have a drastically lower power than broadside weapons. Also included are 100 missile defence systems that work by super heating the detonator in the warhead prematurely setting it of. Finally it has 500 fighter defence flack cannons, 20 anti capitol ship missiles and a store of 20 FB-17-jaguars for bombing raids and 64 f-4 -spitfires named in honour of the most popular fighter ever (or the pilots said that at least).


You can see 2 spitfires on a patrol and the city being bombarded.

Black was the name given to bomber pilots and white to fighter pilots.

Nebula's can only carry a few land vehicles and troops if nessesary so dedicated assault ships are required. Also off pic there is a small fleet of escort ships to defend against hit and run and fighters as Battleships are primarily anti captiol ships and can't hold of a prolonged fighter/bomber attack but can defend against small ones.

No windows on the large ships as these are vunerable only camera's and hollo screens.

Fighters have windows as for dogfights visibility is key but only at the front and the rest is a 360 holo display. Dogfights used as missile defence is too strong (except if missile reaches target in under 1 second) unless you use missiles that cost more than the fighter you are shooting down.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Stormatious wrote:

deotrims 16th wrote:

 Stormatious wrote:

deotrims 16th wrote:
I looked out into space through one of the holowindows. Not really windows, just a screen with a camera on the outside of the ship. Nobody was particularly happy as the job we had to do was a horrible one. I was known as Black 16 to my superiors but as Jake to my friends. I was a FB- 17-Chimera pilot aboard the HMS Executor, a Nebula class battleship. We have been assigned to the Zark system and to reclaim the rebellious planet of Zark III. The start of the assault was all good and with better than expected results. Then we reached the capitol city, that's where the progress stalled. In the end it was decided that it was too costly to retake it and so the Executor was tasked with destroying the city through orbital bombardment. It is a slow and terrible process where laser batteries shoot hundreds of lasers down the surface to destroy anything standing. In doing this we have killed an estimated 29 million civilians. Up here all we can do is imagine the horror that the people on the surface are going through. We can see little flashes flicker on the planet not all to disimilar from fairy lights. While they are in agony watching their world fall apart we just gaze down at the like a god controlling what will happen to them.

Lookin good, mabey you should detail what things are and mean and why in between explaining what you are doing.?

Yes in-between each part I'm drawing a picture, maybe not the best but I'll explain things and Hopefully between the three things people will understand.

Yeah well its detailed so that's good id say, but maybe im wrong but it seems for e.g " We have been assigned to the Zark system and to reclaim the rebellious planet of Zark III. The start of the assault was all good and with better than expected results. " its like out of no where you randomly mention a battle that i was not even a little-bit aware of?

Edit - never mind, im just reading it wrong i think.

It just sets the sceen and shows the kind of jobs and the power of the ships. A bit like the first fight in fury it doesn't really impact the story later on it just sets the sceen and lets you know what's going on.

Yeah i get you, i like the sound of the scenario you have setup for the introduction with the picture explanation and story.

 Peregrine wrote:
Yeah, just going to echo what I said about desperate bargaining. You make a post accepting the idea of a story-first approach, and an hour later you have your first story bit posted? That says to me that you aren't really thinking about what you're doing and trying to come up with your best work possible, you're just scrambling to get something posted as fast as possible before anyone can take your universe away. Stop worrying so much about getting approval from everyone else and do the best work you can.

Also, now you're introducing mass murder of civilians. That's not a bad thing if it fits the story idea, but it really forces some constraints. Why are your space-British soldiers happy to indiscriminately slaughter millions of their fellow citizens with nothing more than a "meh, that kind of sucks"? Why do the citizens of space-Britain accept a government that does this and not use their power to vote out the abusive monarch? How does this not immediately send all of the other planets into open rebellion, begging the US to come protect them from the murderous tyrant? These questions can be answered in 40k, where it's a totalitarian theocracy and the entire population is brainwashed into absolute loyalty to every word that space-Jesus commands, but can space-Britain answer them in any plausible way while still being something that is recognizable as British?

I was starting to write parts of the entry earlier than that and this is the draft piece not the finished product. Have you ever seen a writers draft. NO! they are always not that good which is why they are a draft and not ever published until they have sometimes been re-written. I have been thinking of this universe for months just with my dyslexia I find it hard to put the idea down covering everything or it making sense. My history teacher always said that if I could just speak then I world have got 100% for my GCSE's but I had to write which is the problem. that's why I didn't just write it all out in one large chunk. I'm very bad at formatting things from my head into words on paper but I know exactly what I want to say just not how to say it. Lastly 1 paragraph in an hour. most writers can do 3-4 times that much in 1 hour.

Then with that mass murder I'm writing the next part which explains that.

Just in case you haven't realised I'm writing this on paper then uploading it to Dakka and answering and reading any comments.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
With the planet finally under British control after 10 months we just had to wait to assign military presence and defence for Zark III. This was a boring task and a lot of off world builders came for the rebuilding projects. The old ruins of the capitol city were taken apart and the area given up to nature and a new capitol city was chosen. Under normal conditions this would never had been needed as a longer time would have been acceptable and higher casualties of soldiers but in this time of war against America if the civilian deaths of an Orbital bombardment are almost twice as high as the soldiers casualty rate its acceptable as soldiers are more crucial to the war effort a grizzly thought but the troops that might have died if the assault happened were protecting a system that if lost would have caused even higher casualty rates. Its all worked out by some poor guy who has to add up the probability of deaths. After 6 months of the rebuilding we were told that we were needed else where and that the planet only needed a very minor military presence.

Our new destination was Velzia a Earth like planet in the Goloka system. It was Right on the Front between British and American space, in other words a bomb waiting to go off. To reach Velzia we would have to go through Warp space, and the journey would take 2 months of warp travel plus another week and a day of real space travel. During this time we would be drilled within an inch of our life and have to stop any pirate threats to merchants we encountered. These checks would be conducted every week when the Executor dropped out of warp for the warp drive to cool down to stop the whole ship exploding. It is about a day until we can travel again so my space wing protected by a wing of spitfires would go on long range patrols to try to find anything but we were traveling along a fairly busy route where police presence is strong and so most pirate go somewhere else along another trade route.

Who do you want this universe for, and what do you want to do with it?

If it's for your own pleasure, do it however you like. Write a story/ draw images / design weapons / make 3D cake models of heroes / whatever. Don't worry about anyone else's opinion.

If it's for others, first - what is it? A story? Background for a game? Novel? Short Story? Movie? Animation? Podcast? Do you want to sell it, or just get it out there?

So far, the impression I have is that you have some initial ideas, but don't know where to go with it. You've asked - and now seem to be chasing every suggestion: sadly, you won't be able to please all of the people all of the time.

If you intend to sell, or build a readership, please focus on sentence construction, grammar, spelling and punctuation. This may not matter to others. However, I'm old fashioned: I like a well written story. Sadly, this isn't it. Keep it for your own pleasure, develop your ideas as YOU like and enjoy your creation. Good luck!

Writers write. Everybody needs to practice their craft. This isn't well written yet, but keep going and you'll get there. I'm subbed to see where you take this!

OK, so we have a story set in this fictional universe. That's a start, at least. Unfortunately at the moment it's very dry with no real flavour or excitement. Have you heard the phrase "show, don't tell"? At the moment you're basically all tell, no show. Take your first excerpt, for example. You mention holowindows, then go on to explain them, you mention the type of spacecraft your character flies, the type and name of the capital ship they are on, the name of the system and planet they're going to, the process of orbital bombardment and the estimated casualties. All that in five lines! It reads too much like a history textbook and not a story set in an exciting universe.

You don't need to explain everything in minute detail. We don't need to know how the windows work or what the make and model of Jake's ship is. You need to give your audience some credit and allow them to absorb this information themselves, probably over the course of multiple chapters or stories. Go read any piece of speculative fiction and you'll notice that very few things are explained in the way you're doing here. The audience picks up on it naturally through context or by piecing together bits of information one at a time.

There's a perfect example of this problem in your second excerpt when you discuss warp travel. You've basically written a scientific treatise on how warp travel works and some of its limitations. Don't tell us that. You need to show it and work those details into your story organically. You also need to realise not every last detail is important. Take your last sentence and think about it critically. What does it actually say? "We need to wait a day before we warp again. We went on patrol and nothing happened." That's neither exciting nor pertinent.

Whatever the feedback you get, you're writing it. That's good. The best way to improve is just to write, write and write some more. It will suck at first, but the more you write the better it will get. Write more, get better. Look back at the earlier things you wrote. Realise what you did wrong. Think about how to improve them.

I agree with Slipspace's analysis of what you've written so far. It's a stream of "we did this, we did that", peppered with worldbuilding details that the reader doesn't need to be told. When you've spent time and effort building your setting it's natural to want to show it off and get those details down in the story, but often a lot of the details don't even need to be told. It's enough that you've figured them out, and it helps your writing feel real if you know how all of these things work - because it can help to keep the setting logically consistent. Details that it's important for the reader to know should come out naturally and gradually. Imagine starting to read any novel set in a fantasy or sci-fi setting that's new to you. They thrust you into the characters and into the challenges that those characters are facing immediately, without giving you much knowledge at all of the setting. You pick it up as you go along as the author gradually drip-feeds their worldbuilding in a way that feels natural. Before you know it, you're immersed in the setting and it never felt like the author was cramming it down your throat.

So, what's the purpose of the story as you've written it? At the moment it's a few paragraphs that read as though Jake is trying to recount what happened to him over the last year in five minutes or less. It doesn't really work to draw the reader in, because there's no tension, there's no real sense of how your main character feels about any of this. You've recounted a brutal orbital bombardment in a couple of sentences. You've told us that the characters struggle to imagine the horror, but we don't feel their pain. We're detached from it.

deotrims 16th wrote:
Have you ever seen a writers draft. NO! they are always not that good which is why they are a draft and not ever published until they have sometimes been re-written.

Exactly, you never see the early drafts because they're always trash. And yet here you are posting your very early draft in what comes across as a desperate attempt to throw something, anything, at us to get us to accept your universe. Write, revise, repeat a few times, and maybe then it might be worth posting. Yeah, it might be slower for you than it would be for some people, but you can still do it in the end.

Then with that mass murder I'm writing the next part which explains that.

You haven't answered anything because you're still operating under the assumption that crushing the rebellion is the only possible answer, no matter how much it costs. If the military casualties are too high then maybe you concede defeat and let the planet leave the empire, you don't exterminate the entire civilian population. Soldiers from anything close enough to the real-world UK that it can plausibly be called "Britain" would be horrified by that idea and probably mutiny to stop the slaughter. And all of the other planets in space-Britain would look at that massacre, realize that their government is run by lunatic butchers, and run as fast as possible to join any other power that can protect them. At absolute minimum everyone involved would be having some serious thoughts about why they just committed such an atrocity, not just handwaving it away with "oh, it would cost too many troops to win any other way".

As I said before, this kind of thing works fine in 40k where the protagonists of the story are a totalitarian theocracy that brainwashes its citizens into absolute loyalty and obedience. Of course in 40k if a heretical planet can't be taken intact then it must be purged with fire to eliminate the heresy, and none of the brainwashed executioners would question for a moment that it is the right thing to do. But the kind of dystopian nightmare where murdering 29 million civilians because it's more convenient is acceptable is going to be so far from anything related to "Britain" that calling your butchers that makes no sense at all.

Just in case you haven't realised I'm writing this on paper then uploading it to Dakka and answering and reading any comments.

Oh dear god no. Do yourself a favor and write in digital form. If you want to get to even a decent level of quality you're going to be editing over and over and over again, writing it out on paper at such an early draft stage is an exercise in masochism.

 Peregrine wrote:

deotrims 16th wrote:
Have you ever seen a writers draft. NO! they are always not that good which is why they are a draft and not ever published until they have sometimes been re-written.

Exactly, you never see the early drafts because they're always trash. And yet here you are posting your very early draft in what comes across as a desperate attempt to throw something, anything, at us to get us to accept your universe. Write, revise, repeat a few times, and maybe then it might be worth posting. Yeah, it might be slower for you than it would be for some people, but you can still do it in the end.

Then with that mass murder I'm writing the next part which explains that.

You haven't answered anything because you're still operating under the assumption that crushing the rebellion is the only possible answer, no matter how much it costs. If the military casualties are too high then maybe you concede defeat and let the planet leave the empire, you don't exterminate the entire civilian population. Soldiers from anything close enough to the real-world UK that it can plausibly be called "Britain" would be horrified by that idea and probably mutiny to stop the slaughter. And all of the other planets in space-Britain would look at that massacre, realize that their government is run by lunatic butchers, and run as fast as possible to join any other power that can protect them. At absolute minimum everyone involved would be having some serious thoughts about why they just committed such an atrocity, not just handwaving it away with "oh, it would cost too many troops to win any other way".

As I said before, this kind of thing works fine in 40k where the protagonists of the story are a totalitarian theocracy that brainwashes its citizens into absolute loyalty and obedience. Of course in 40k if a heretical planet can't be taken intact then it must be purged with fire to eliminate the heresy, and none of the brainwashed executioners would question for a moment that it is the right thing to do. But the kind of dystopian nightmare where murdering 29 million civilians because it's more convenient is acceptable is going to be so far from anything related to "Britain" that calling your butchers that makes no sense at all.

Just in case you haven't realised I'm writing this on paper then uploading it to Dakka and answering and reading any comments.

Oh dear god no. Do yourself a favor and write in digital form. If you want to get to even a decent level of quality you're going to be editing over and over and over again, writing it out on paper at such an early draft stage is an exercise in masochism.

If its digital it could get hacked and leaked, so just stick with paper i think.

Reading comments I will describe all the stuff on the explanation page (not the story) with the picture and gloss over any tech unless its very important to story.

I was out on patrol one day when a light started flashing quickly followed by a message to us on the comms. The message was one we hadn't had before ever. We were about to save a ship from a pirate attack. Looking down at my sensory we saw a small fleets worth of little red dots on the screen. We headed off. Looking out into the black expanse it all seemed so peaceful, like nothing could ever be wrong or dangerous or- I have to pay attention to the mission. Soon we could see tiny flashing lights slowly getting bigger and bigger until they stopped. Then fireballs were erupting all around us.

"loose formation. Swerve around so its harder to be trac---"


The squadron leaders comms cut out and behind me a tiny field of debris in the vast emptyness was all that was left of him. I was now in charge.

"All fighters, destroy the flak cannons. My wing, go and hit the critical systems." I shouted into the reciever.

deotrims 16th wrote:
Reading comments I will describe all the stuff on the explanation page (not the story) with the picture and gloss over any tech unless its very important to story.

I was out on patrol one day when a light started flashing quickly followed by a message to us on the comms. The message was one we hadn't had before ever. We were about to save a ship from a pirate attack. Looking down at my sensory we saw a small fleets worth of little red dots on the screen. We headed off. Looking out into the black expanse it all seemed so peaceful, like nothing could ever be wrong or dangerous or- I have to pay attention to the mission. Soon we could see tiny flashing lights slowly getting bigger and bigger until they stopped. Then fireballs were erupting all around us.

"loose formation. Swerve around so its harder to be trac---"


The squadron leaders comms cut out and behind me a tiny field of debris in the vast emptyness was all that was left of him. I was now in charge.

"All fighters, destroy the flak cannons. My wing, go and hit the critical systems." I shouted into the reciever.

Come on what was the message please.

 Stormatious wrote:
If its digital it could get hacked and leaked, so just stick with paper i think.

Lol?

 Peregrine wrote:

 Stormatious wrote:
If its digital it could get hacked and leaked, so just stick with paper i think.

Lol?

Sorry dont quite understand.

 Stormatious wrote:
Sorry dont quite understand.

Just wanted to confirm that your comment about being hacked was a joke, because it's too absurd to be serious.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Stormatious wrote:
Sorry dont quite understand.

Just wanted to confirm that your comment about being hacked was a joke, because it's too absurd to be serious.

If i was creating a sci fi universe, and collaborating with some of the most knowledgeable minds most likely there is on the matter, i would imagine after some time this would be quite amazing and would be hacked in that way, maybe not hacked directly off his computer.

Edit - I guess hacking was wrong word, maybe just "taken" unless he copy writes it or some thing before some one else does.

Ok, so confirmed a joke. Absolutely nobody is going to be stealing this.

Also, copyright is granted immediately on writing it. You don't apply for it or anything, it's inherent to the act of creating something.

 Peregrine wrote:
Ok, so confirmed a joke. Absolutely nobody is going to be stealing this.

edit - , then cant some one just claim that its not all his story so he cant claim it since it was manufactured here with the sci fi expertise of dakka.

 Stormatious wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:
Ok, so confirmed a joke. Absolutely nobody is going to be stealing this.

edit - , then cant some one just claim that its not all his story so he cant claim it since it was manufactured here with the sci fi expertise of dakka.

The very act of putting it up here would be enough to put a claim to his words, unless they are to copy down and use anything written here first and use it unedited in there own work.

There is a lot of steps that could be done to prevent it that are trivial to what can be done in a digital space. I use an iPad now for a lot of my writing, with an app designed specifically for writing like this.
And on PC you can achieve most of it without any special software at all. In this case it’s worth the risk, and if it’s ever something worth stealing then there is more than enough to be done to minimise that.


My thoughts for you deotrims 16th, first you should focus on watching and reading as much as you can. Both within sci fi and outside it, I would also read as much recent history as you can.
From reading your current works it’s very basic setting and lacks any sort of real hooks over other settings. May be ok for a short In magazine but is very lacking for any sort of story or setting to be built upon.

Write a bunch of short story’s, not in your setting but just with what ever comes to mind.
Watch shows and write down about there settings, try and understand what makes them interesting.
Write down ideas, even if not workable within your current setting.

If you have someone who you can chat about sci fi with, I would . Even if you never talk about your own stuff.

Take your time, just let it start out as a fun thing you do and work it into a setting. No rush to get it all done by next week.

 Stormatious wrote:
edit - , then cant some one just claim that its not all his story so he cant claim it since it was manufactured here with the sci fi expertise of dakka.

No, that's not how copyright works. Ideas can not be copyrighted, only expressions of those ideas (in this case the written text). Getting advice on a story does not in any way mean giving up IP rights to the finished product. A copyright claim against the OP would require someone to make a convincing argument that the OP is going beyond ideas like "you need to justify how this 40k-style slaughter of civilians works" and directly copy/pasting their text* into the story. And the person making the claim would have to provide evidence that they wrote the material first before it was stolen. Nobody is going to bother with any of this over a poorly written forum story.

*Or at least a very close paraphrase. It's a gray area around just how much counts, but in most cases its obvious if you're using a similar idea in your own words or trying to change a few words and weasel out of copyright restrictions.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Stormatious wrote:
edit - , then cant some one just claim that its not all his story so he cant claim it since it was manufactured here with the sci fi expertise of dakka.

No, that's not how copyright works. Ideas can not be copyrighted, only expressions of those ideas (in this case the written text). Getting advice on a story does not in any way mean giving up IP rights to the finished product. A copyright claim against the OP would require someone to make a convincing argument that the OP is going beyond ideas like "you need to justify how this 40k-style slaughter of civilians works" and directly copy/pasting their text* into the story. And the person making the claim would have to provide evidence that they wrote the material first before it was stolen. Nobody is going to bother with any of this over a poorly written forum story.

*Or at least a very close paraphrase. It's a gray area around just how much counts, but in most cases its obvious if you're using a similar idea in your own words or trying to change a few words and weasel out of copyright restrictions.

Yes, well, as you say "grey areas" and "most cases" are the words surrounding my point, creating the universe here with every one helping creates the conditions for, lets say a lawyer to easily create multiple interpretations so there fore not a good idea to really do this if you want it to be yours.

 Stormatious wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

 Stormatious wrote:
Sorry dont quite understand.

Just wanted to confirm that your comment about being hacked was a joke, because it's too absurd to be serious.

If i was creating a sci fi universe, and collaborating with some of the most knowledgeable minds most likely there is on the matter, i would imagine after some time this would be quite amazing and would be hacked in that way, maybe not hacked directly off his computer.

Edit - I guess hacking was wrong word, maybe just "taken" unless he copy writes it or some thing before some one else does.

Who are these knowledgeable minds? I hope you don't mean the advice given here on Dakka. There's not exactly been any Earth-shattering revelations given out so far. Also, nobody's going to hack into anything to steal anything about this. It's not worth the effort, quite apart from the fact that's not how copyright works.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Stormatious wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

 Stormatious wrote:
edit - , then cant some one just claim that its not all his story so he cant claim it since it was manufactured here with the sci fi expertise of dakka.

No, that's not how copyright works. Ideas can not be copyrighted, only expressions of those ideas (in this case the written text). Getting advice on a story does not in any way mean giving up IP rights to the finished product. A copyright claim against the OP would require someone to make a convincing argument that the OP is going beyond ideas like "you need to justify how this 40k-style slaughter of civilians works" and directly copy/pasting their text* into the story. And the person making the claim would have to provide evidence that they wrote the material first before it was stolen. Nobody is going to bother with any of this over a poorly written forum story.

*Or at least a very close paraphrase. It's a gray area around just how much counts, but in most cases its obvious if you're using a similar idea in your own words or trying to change a few words and weasel out of copyright restrictions.

Yes, well, as you say "grey areas" and "most cases" are the words surrounding my point, creating the universe here with every one helping creates the conditions for, lets say a lawyer to easily create multiple interpretations so there fore not a good idea to really do this if you want it to be yours.

Please stop. You clearly don't understand how copyright works, even a little bit. Yes, there are grey areas surrounding the law and different approaches in different countries, but the basic principles are more or less the same everywhere and there is a substantial amount of case law built up around copyright. So while grey areas and uncertainties exist, that's not really something to worry about here and that's even assuming anything ever actually comes from this. The chances of that happening at the moment are doubtful.

I'm just telling OP what would happen if hes trying to make it a big thing and possibly a big thing like War Hammer. And just a question, i don't understand how you say i don't get it but then say what i said exists does exist?


Thanks,

Storm.

gonna write whole story first before any other posts

Cool idea! Worldbuilding is fun. I do a lot of worldbuilding, it is a big hobby of mine. I am currently working on a fantasy world that I am creating as a mod for the game Crusader Kings 2.
I also write a lot about a sci-fi world that evolved out of my 40k army fluff.

Anyways, one of the best things to do for worldbuilding is to write short stories. Those really set the mood of the setting. The other important thing is to establish the setting's background. In order to feel believable, a setting needs history, culture language, ideologies, religion etc. driving the stories, events and people of your setting.
Basically, for everything (within reason of course) in your setting you should ask the question "why is this the way it is?" and offer an in-universe explanation for that.
Of course, the degree of detail to which you have to work everything out depends on what you are wanting to do. If you are looking to just write short stories about a fictional war between Britain and the US in the far future you need a lot less details than when you are looking to create an entire setting that could be used for say an RPG. Of course, there is no reason you couldn't invent an entire setting just to write a story set in it. That is how Tolkien worked for example and he is widely regarded as one of the world's greatest writers of fiction.

Also, another thing that really helps with establishing your universe is maps. Plus, maps look really nice. If you, like me, aren't an amazing artist who can draw beautiful maps by hand, there is software available that will help you in this. I use a program that is called Campaign Cartographer 3 Plus. It is meant to help people in drawing maps for RPG campaigns, but you can use it to create all sorts of maps including galaxy maps and starship maps. It is pretty cool, but it takes some time to learn to use it.

As to where to put it? Depends on what you want to do with it. I make my universes either because I want to write stories set in it, because I want to draw from it for my 40k army fluff or because I want to make a game mod set in it etc. I write down my ideas and put my finished concepts in a DropBox folder until the entire project is done at which time I would post it on a relevant forum for people to read/play it. But if you are ever looking to sell or publish your ideas, don't post them on the internet.

Regarding the new story in the other post, you've really got to concentrate on your spelling and punctuation. Slow down, re-read it a few times (or better yet, get someone else to read it), and make sure everything's right before you post it.

Hi I've written a short story in this universe in the dakka fictions section. Just letting you know. Threads called Sci-fi universe short story.

The post describing the ships is a lot better, spelling and punctuation-wise, than the previous one, so good job getting better at that. Keep it up!

Now, a bit of analysis and some questions. For these, they seem to be excerpts in a technical manual or rulebook, so I'm judging them based on that assumption. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

1) You say the Retribution has 2 gun decks, but fail to tell us anything about those guns other than that they're more powerful that turbolasers. Why are the so much more powerful, and why would any ship have tubrolasers at all?

2) Immediately after saying how the guns are more powerful than turbolasers, you state there are 450 of them on the ship. This is very contradictory and jarring for the reader. If the plan is to have details about how the various guns differ, there's no need for the parenthetical statement about how the gun decks are more powerful than turbolasers.

3) What does mph mean in space? It's a weird measurement, especially when there is faster-than-light travel. Is the top speed taking warp travel into account? Is the top speed their cruising speed outside of warp travel?

4) What does a class 7 warp drive mean compared to class 8? Do the different countries use different drives, or are they all uniform technology from a 3rd party?

5) This is my ignorance showing, but does a turning cycle mean it takes that long to turn the ship 180 degrees?

6) Talking about weapon inaccuracy in science fiction seems strange to me. Fighting with space-based battle cruisers and turbolasers isn't like shooting cannons in the roaring waves of the ocean. You would think lasers are pretty accurate since they travel at the speed of light and all. Are there systems aboard ships to fool targeting computers? Also this would seem to preclude the use of fighters and bombers if the space between the two ships is filled with gunfire from lasers and missiles and stuff. I sure wouldn't want to fly one there.

Keep writing. The best way to get better is to do it more and more.

 The Power Cosmic wrote:
The post describing the ships is a lot better, spelling and punctuation-wise, than the previous one, so good job getting better at that. Keep it up!

Now, a bit of analysis and some questions. For these, they seem to be excerpts in a technical manual or rulebook, so I'm judging them based on that assumption. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

1) You say the Retribution has 2 gun decks, but fail to tell us anything about those guns other than that they're more powerful that turbolasers. Why are the so much more powerful, and why would any ship have tubrolasers at all?

2) Immediately after saying how the guns are more powerful than turbolasers, you state there are 450 of them on the ship. This is very contradictory and jarring for the reader. If the plan is to have details about how the various guns differ, there's no need for the parenthetical statement about how the gun decks are more powerful than turbolasers.

3) What does mph mean in space? It's a weird measurement, especially when there is faster-than-light travel. Is the top speed taking warp travel into account? Is the top speed their cruising speed outside of warp travel?

4) What does a class 7 warp drive mean compared to class 8? Do the different countries use different drives, or are they all uniform technology from a 3rd party?

5) This is my ignorance showing, but does a turning cycle mean it takes that long to turn the ship 180 degrees?

6) Talking about weapon inaccuracy in science fiction seems strange to me. Fighting with space-based battle cruisers and turbolasers isn't like shooting cannons in the roaring waves of the ocean. You would think lasers are pretty accurate since they travel at the speed of light and all. Are there systems aboard ships to fool targeting computers? Also this would seem to preclude the use of fighters and bombers if the space between the two ships is filled with gunfire from lasers and missiles and stuff. I sure wouldn't want to fly one there.

Keep writing. The best way to get better is to do it more and more.

I will update all these answers on the other thread. Turning circle is a full 360 degrees though as this isn't only limited to that sci fi.

There's also a bit of an issue with the concept of ramming in space, even more so given the figures you've posted here. If a ship has a turning circle measured in minutes and top speeds in the tens of thousands of MPH range the chances of successfully ramming anything are miniscule because the ramming ship isn't nimble enough to ever hit anything.

Speaking of numbers, I'd avoid hard numbers in some cases. Top speeds are one of those, as are things like energy outputs. Once you put a definite number on something you'll find it's almost always wrong or inappropriate. The approach you've taken with the warp drives is better. It gives the reader a sense of a real piece of technology but doesn't define exactly what something is, which is the right approach to take.

I also think you probably need to explain why short-ranged combat is a thing in space. It's not necessarily wrong, but given that the trend in modern combat is for engagement ranges to increase over time it's a little hard to accept that ranges would be so short, especially given that space has very little in the way of terrain or obstacles to get in the way of long-range engagements. Also, a minor point, but what's the difference between a flak cannon and a missile defence weapon? Flak cannons are usually used to take out missiles as well as aircraft.