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TFTD Fanfic Discussion


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DC: thanks for the Scotch. And it's Sheep Dip, my favourite brand, if only because of the arresting name :D

 

Uriaheep: well spotted about the water refraction issue. I've edited my post to include a reference to it during the setting up of the second test.

 

We ought to discuss the properties of the Gauss weapons before we need to write in a briefing for the aquanauts for the sake of consistency. I think that quiet would be a useful quality as it makes it harder for the aliens to home in on a soldier's position from the sound of his Gauss rifle firing. However they would be louder underwater if the water the super heated plasma beam passes through is heated up to boiling point.

 

I included a laser sight for the prototype model because the Commodore would not have been impressed if the sub pen had ended uyp full of holes due to poor targeting. We aren't obliged to put in a laser sight in any of the Gauss weapons. I doubt the Gauss pistol has any kind of sight considering how inaccurate it is against medium or long range targets.

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Nice sight for a small raid or harvester UFO mission perhaps but I'd suggest (without thorough reading of the article) that there doesn't appear to be any water nearby. Correct me if my laziness has caused me to err in my judgement but if there's no water then it won't do as a TFTD mission, they were always islands, ports or ships.
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What about a fishing village in the Scottish islands? Perhaps in the Outer Hebrides?

 

X-Com would be able to reach a location like that quite quickly, far more so than the national government would be able to assemble armed police and soldiers in effective numbers. Also, we should be able to find lots of information on the web without spending any money. We can easily find tourist information, as well as Ordinance Survey maps and aerial/satellite photographs to give everybody a good idea of the lay of the land.

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Sounds sensible enough, this'll be the boys first surface mission though won't it? ould be interesting as the soldiers will shine here. Our mechs n techs are used to compensating for being underwater so on surfacew it'll be tricky not to do the same by instinct...
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I think its more true that we need a mission to get them working as a team at this point rather than show them working as a team. A bit of terror mission madness would certainly do it but I don't think we're ready for that sort of casualty rate just yet. Maybe first we need a mission that shows how the two teams can't work together and how they each do their own thing regardless of each other. I can see the mechs n techs following every order issued for example but maybe the pros would take it upon themselves to do what they thought was better...

 

I reckon we want a resource gathering mission for now. A small ufo touched down in shallow water near a downed plane or those bizarre rock formations we get. A U-boat or something would be a good one at some point but that can be used later on to really pick up the story if its started to slow down. Maybe even at some point a USO could go to recover a UFO, that would be interesting...

 

For now I reckon we want to keep it fairly calm though nothing special like Titanic or ancient ruins, just an old fishing boat or a rotting old clipper. Something you'd expect to find an abundance of on the sea floor.

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Good character TT, nice and balanced with a good detailed background. I saw that you don't feel you're that great a writer but my advice would be to just have a go anyway! Read through the rest of the fic so far so you can get a bit of a feel for how its written and what's already happened then just have a go!

 

If you need any help or advice or just someone to read after you post just let someone in here know. Even if you want someone else to introduce your character for you! We need more people to make this fic happen though, you just might be its saviour :bleh:

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Nice that you like the character. Thanks! I'll give it a try when I got some time and creativity at hand. That should be around middle of March... :bleh: So far I haven't yet concluded in how far my char is susceptible (sp?) to M.C. He should make for a nice firework when going beserk, though. :what:
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Sounds like you have the ok to go for it UH :what: Plus, as an added bonus, I can post after you even if TT still isn't ready to. We need to keep this going though. I'd suggest anyone writing has a quick reread while the fic is still nice and short... Just so we know eh :bleh:
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Uhh, I just started to read the first page. And you won't belive what I saw. (Probably) The text on was ccorrupted or something.

 

Second post: (AT)

By the time a rescue effort could be organised, it was too late for the crew and the passengers of the Hyperion. It wasn't as if they hadn't tried; only the very rich could afford a luxury cruise on the Hyperion or its sister ships, and such people have a lot of political influence. In December, hypothermia can kill in a matter of minutes in the cold waters of the North Atlantic. It was therefore unsurprising that European Airforce seaplanes and rescue helicopters failed to find a single survivor.

 

When Triton-1 approached the wreck of the Hyperion over thirty hours after the disaster, its crew were under no illusions. The purpose of this mission was not to locate and rescue any survivors, but to try to find out why one of the largest passenger ships in the world had sunk so quickly in good weather conditions, taking over three thousand people to a watery grave.

 

It was impossible to believe that the recent spate of what the international media had dubbed the "Mary Celeste sinkings", even though the whole point of the Mary Celeste was that it hadn't sunk, could be down to anything other than hostile action. The question was who was responsible.

 

Every national government had denied responsibility and pointed to the list of ships and aircraft it had lost. Quite a few terrorist groups had claimed responsibility for each sinking, but this was a pathetically obvious attempt to get some publicity for their cause. Some of the more sensationalist news services were claiming that the aliens had recommenced their long aborted invasion, a theory that seemed to be supported by the testimony of the few traumatised survivors.

 

In an odd sort of way, Able Seaman Mark Reynolds hoped that it was the aliens. If the crew of Triton-1 learned that a human faction was responsible for the Mary Celeste sinkings, a global nuclear war would probably be the result. He particularly hoped that it wasn't the militant Welsh nationalists; being Welsh was hard these days because of all the nationalist terrorist attacks on public buildings throughout the European Syndicate.

 

"Okay, we'll be landing in five minutes," said the co-pilot over the intercom. "Get suited up."

 

Mark went through the last minute checks of his diving suit and breathing apparatus before putting on the stuffy helmet. He also made sure that his dart gun and the spare ammunition clips were securely attached to his utility belt. Despite the name, he was well aware that the dart gun was effectively a crossbow designed to work underwater. When all eight members of the squad indicated that they were ready, the passenger compartment was flooded, leaving the pilot and co-pilot snugly behind a water tight door.

 

Several divers left the Triton, each heading to a different part of the wreck. Mark turned on the integral light on his diving suit before he stepped onto the sea floor after them. Although it was the middle of the afternoon on the surface, very little sunlight got through to 300 fathoms. The seascape in front of him was dominated by what was left of the aft section of the ship.

 

"What the hell could have done that?" asked Able Seaman Brian Goldstein over the suit radio, as he stood next to Mark while taking photographs of the wreckage. "And shouldn't there be more bodies in the area?"

 

That got Mark worried. A lot of people would have been in the water around the ship, where they would have been sucked down when it sank. And it wasn't as if the rescue flotilla had found any floating bodies. Although scavengers such as hagfish would eventually eat the bodies, this process normally took months.

 

Mark and Brian walked up to the aft section of the ship, getting close to the area of the hull breach. As Brian took more photographs, Mark gently rested his hand on the hull in wonderment, only the section to crumble away, leaving a two metre wide hole. "That was inch thick steel," he said in astonishment. "But it was no stronger than paper that had gone brittle with age."

 

"You guys had better get some samples so we can look at them in the lab," said Scott Gasvin."

 

"Hey, where's all the barnacles?" came the voice of Peterson. "I can see the marks on the paintwork, but they must have just fallen off. That sort of thing just doesn't happen."

 

"Are you sure?" asked Goldstein.

 

"The amount of time I've spent scraping barnacles off the Triton, not to mention the base! Course I'm damm sure"

 

"Triton, did you just get that on your monitor?" came the voice of Jake Burton. "There's something moving around there. It's human shaped, but it's small, and it has a large head like a child. I can't make it out clearly at this distance though. I'm taking a closer look..."

 

"Well there aren't any other divers in the vicinity," said Gasvin. "It's probably just an octopus."

 

"I've seen enough octopuses to know that they don't walk around on two legs," said Burton. "I think there's a couple of others walking around there. One of them almost looks as if it's holding something. If only I could see more clearly, I... Holy! Are you picking up these creatures on my cam" He then screamed violently for several seconds.

 

"Burton? What happened?" asked Gasvin. Silence... "The rest of you, find him and bring him back to the Triton."

 

Another crewman screamed in agony as his bones were jellified by some mysterious weapon that must have been far more powerful than the dart guns carried by the crew.

 

"Kill your lights, we're under attack," shouted Mark as he fumbled for his dart gun.

 

"Who by?" asked Gasvin.

 

"I don't know..."

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