Story talk:Operation Titanic Discoveries/@comment-771241-20120417052327/@comment-796766-20120421004909

If I may add my own thoughts:

I agree with Kray for the most part. Galiana is young, untested, and generally new to the concept of high-risk operations. Being chosen by a race long before her birth cetainly gives an excellent air of destiny and future greatness, but be careful how you play that out. If you don't do it quite right, it will seem like Galiana was born to be a Mary Sue, so to speak. However, if you do it right, and progress her story with a good pace, and build her up slowly, it'll be a damned great story when she reaches her true full potential. Try to imagine her first use of the Amulet as a taste of that potential; For just a little while, we see what Galiana is capable of. After that, we only see that kind of power sparcely, until much later on, when she is much older and more experienced. To make an analogy I think you'll understand very clearly, try to imagine having every maxed-out power at the level cap at the very start of a game, with lots of enemies to demonstrate your pure awesomeness on. Then, all of a sudden, something happens that takes you back to level one. So you have to build yourself back up after several hours of gameplay to get back to that sheer awesomeness. This is how you should view Galiana's progression: For just a moment, she has untold power. Then, she loses it and must grow to gain it more permenantly.

I'd also like to flesh out Kray's advice on undoing the Sue by elaborating more on Etah's flaws, for example. Like Kray said, he can have anger issues when you poke him in the right spot hard enough. He almost never rages, though, because he is so well disciplined and strong of will. When he does, however, the whole place risks coming down on top of him. His regret towards his past causes deep emotional scarring that gives him a stoic air. He's had a pretty damned bad life. His parents died in front of him, he had no longlasting friends as a child save his parents, his early military career was ladened with death and failure, he's seen entire civilizations rise and fall. He was there for the Battle of Karnas when the Star Fleet annihilated the Dragonslayer Alliance. He caused it, even. He led the campaign to wipe out the Hunre and Heglarean empires. He's seen the kind of crushing despair you only see in the eyes of a man who's country is falling down around him. Not just his country, even, but his entire life. And he's felt the crushing guilt of knowing he's the cause of that despair. Everything he knows and loves withers and dies around him. But he keeps pressing on, not only because he must but because he wants to. The universe isn't done with him yet, and he knows it. So, despite all his badassery, despite his immortality, despite his devilish looks and charms, despite all his wealth and influence, despite all the good in his life, there's always the dark side to his moon.

Galiana is a unique character in the way that she's so young, she has hardly any history to her yet. So you get the rare chance to build her up as the story goes on, rather than going back anf fleshing her out the way we have to. As we write, flesh Galiana out by adding a lot of sugar and spice, so to speak. Sweeten her character with all the badassery one expects from an auxillary GSSOC member. Then spice it up with some conflict; She has the emotional turmoil from Ashadra's fall. Now add more. Make her more than a badass; Make her more than a character. Make her a believable human being. When a reader can think about a character and how they're lives are so believable, and then sympathize with a fictional person, that's called good writing.

With the constructive criticism and examplifying out of the way, you're doing good work up there. Her reactions are well crafted and believable. Keep it up, and then kick it up a notch when you're ready.

It is so spoken.