MobileRead Short Story Anthology - [DISCUSSION & REVIEW]

[Graham]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

Comments on Planting the Flag, 1.0

The story in itself is fine, but I think it could be expanded, as I am left with some questions after reading it

Spoiler:

Designations
The androids aboard the ship all have designations, but not all of them seem to fit the role they are fulfilling, and not all of them are explained.

CAP = Captian. Obvious
DEP = Mate. Is DEP different in type to CAP? They're both "human." What does DEP stand for?
AND-E = Geologist. Called: The Geologist. Why does he have a (nick)name and the others don't?
KEN-E = Egineer. Assuming AND stands for Android, then What does KEN stand for?


IMHO, a designation is a title, name... something unique. I get the feeling that CAP, DEP, and so on are not meant as designations, but as Android/Robot types. Are there more like them, on other missions, or are these the only ones created?

Continuity
AND-E's right arm never got repaired properly despite it being mentioned.

Humans
You wrote:

In some ways these flaws are our most important features.
The likes of AND-E can be hardened, but generally kept out of sight. The needs of the
mission take precedence.”
“I did not think that our purpose was to delude,” the Mate said.
“We are not seeking to fool them.” The Captain pushed himself towards the aft door.

I get the imprssion that the androids look like humans to blend in with other life forms on another planet. How would you know that other life forms would look like humans?

Then you wrote:
“But it is important that they believe that they, themselves, could be here.”

I assume you are referring to the humans on earth. If you are now telling us that the androids are not intended to fool them, then everybody knows these travelers are androids, not humans. It is left unsaid if this was made clear in the TV interview, although everybody got to know them (or at least the captain).

Thus, it is unclear who is not to be fooled: the humans on earth, or possible humans/other lifeforms on other planets?

AND-E's face
AND-E couldn't hold the camera. Is this the reason why he got the face, and can he hold the camera now? Later in the story, it is said he is holding the Captain's head. Why isn't DEP holding the Captain, and AND-E the camera?

You have never answered the question if AND-E got KEN-E's face.

Timeframe
The story is set about 85 years after the creation/launch of these Androids. You are describing something akin to the current economical crisis. Is this story set around 2100, or are you leaving this in doubt on purpose?

Dreaming
Does the lander pod crash because the captian is not paying attention to the warning signals?

New world
The Androids claim the world for humanity. What if the world is inhabited; will the humans come and try to conquer it, or will the androids move on? As the ship in orbit is damaged as well as the lander and the androids themselves, are they just going to lie there on that new world, waiting another 85 + 8 years for someone else to find them?

I hope it's helpful

I'll try to answer the rest of Katsunami's questions inline. I've copied them out of his post and put them in this spoiler in italics.

Spoiler:

Continuity

AND-E's right arm never got repaired properly despite it being mentioned.

Yes. I've got a plot issue here that I need to fix. There is one line of dialogue in the existing version that tries to handwave this away. The Mate says to the Captain: "A slight twitch in one arm. I’ll power it down before we leave and make the repair."

This was intended to suggest that she did this after they left the bridge and before they all got into the landing vehicle, but AND-E's comments about playing with the camera undermine this as they give the impression that it had time on its hands while the Captain and the Mate were busy sorting out the descent.

Arjaybe raised this as well so I clearly need to come up with something new.

Note that there needs to be time for the Mate not just to repair the arm, but also to apply the new face to AND-E.

Or, I can remove both those two plot elements. I need to mull this for a bit.

Humans

You wrote:

In some ways these flaws are our most important features.
The likes of AND-E can be hardened, but generally kept out of sight. The needs of the
mission take precedence.”
“I did not think that our purpose was to delude,” the Mate said.
“We are not seeking to fool them.” The Captain pushed himself towards the aft door.

I get the imprssion that the androids look like humans to blend in with other life forms on another planet. How would you know that other life forms would look like humans?

Then you wrote:
“But it is important that they believe that they, themselves, could be here.”

I assume you are referring to the humans on earth. If you are now telling us that the androids are not intended to fool them, then everybody knows these travelers are androids, not humans. It is left unsaid if this was made clear in the TV interview, although everybody got to know them (or at least the captain).

Thus, it is unclear who is not to be fooled: the humans on earth, or possible humans/other lifeforms on other planets?

It's the humans on Earth who are not to be fooled. The mission is to plant the flag on this and other planets in a way that doesn't rub Humanity's face in the fact that it's their robots setting out across the Galaxy while they themselves are forever trapped at home. I'll see if I can make it clearer that the Captain's talking about the Humans back home.

AND-E's face

AND-E couldn't hold the camera. Is this the reason why he got the face, and can he hold the camera now? Later in the story, it is said he is holding the Captain's head. Why isn't DEP holding the Captain, and AND-E the camera?

Because the plan has gone to ruin with the accident. DEP's lower body is wrecked and she can only crawl. Only AND-E - who was never supposed to be in shot - has the capability to hold up the head. But the Captain rises above the disaster and goes to plant the flag anyway - hopefully demonstrating human qualities of courage and dedication.

If you're asking me why I wrote it this way, instead of following the original plan, I'm trying to show a situation where everything's gone wrong so that the Captain can rise above it.

However, again, the new face on AND-E is a source of confusion. It's intended as being another element of the absurd tableau at the end - a very non-human robot with a spike for one arm holding up a talking head while wearing someone else's face. But I can see how you could be placing more importance on the face than that. I need to make this clearer or remove it.

You have never answered the question if AND-E got KEN-E's face.

I was trying to indicate that the Mate was a bit embarrassed to say so, but you're right, I gloss over it too much, and by not admitting it the face is left as a loose end that the reader wants to have resolved.

Timeframe

The story is set about 85 years after the creation/launch of these Androids. You are describing something akin to the current economical crisis. Is this story set around 2100, or are you leaving this in doubt on purpose?

Yes. I don't want to be too specific. Similarly in the early versions I hinted at the star (Gliese 411) by calling it the Gliese project, but I felt that neither the real world location of the star or the exact political situation were important to this plot. Hopefully I've put in enough details that people feel satisfied.

The 85 years comes from a background assumption that the technology's moved on to the point where android bodies can survive being accelerated hard up to a tenth the speed of light (one of the reasons why humans couldn't go), probably using some sort of nuclear pulse drive, and that the star is 8 light years away.

There's an opportunity here for me to go into more details about why the crew is made up of androids rather than humans (G-forces, radiation, isolation, claustrophobia, time spent in transit). I'll see if I can work that in without laying it on too thick.

Dreaming

Does the lander pod crash because the captian is not paying attention to the warning signals?

No, and I don't want to suggest that so I'll try to make this clearer. It's because the lander also sustained some damage during the KEN-E accident.

New world

The Androids claim the world for humanity. What if the world is inhabited; will the humans come and try to conquer it, or will the androids move on? As the ship in orbit is damaged as well as the lander and the androids themselves, are they just going to lie there on that new world, waiting another 85 + 8 years for someone else to find them?

What if, indeed? I think I can leave those questions as speculations for the reader.

However, I have indicated that a new Engineer has been activated and will be staying on the ship to make repairs, so I think I've left open the option that this team can get established and then build up the resources they need to move on.

Many thanks for the comments! They were good food for thought for the next version.

Graham

[gmw]

I posted the second draft (v1.1) a little earlier. There are a couple of new paragraphs that accentuate a few of things, and a couple of new sentences that I hope may clear the concerns expressed by arjaybe without disturbing what was there too much. The rest is mostly just tidy of some messy sentences (and tense issues).

Assuming I haven't broken anything too much, I'm happy to get line edit type feedback now.

[gmw]

I'm writing this review without having read the earlier comments, I'd rather give you my initial reaction - and I'll post responses to other comments as a separate post.


First my reaction to this simply as a short fiction tale:

I enjoyed it. The first two page pages (to the first break) did have me wondering, because that felt stilted (and yet that effect is not entirely out of place considering the nature of the protagonists). But by the end of that section I was sort of intrigued about where it was going.

Spoiler:

Although the title gives some of that away, I guess.

I do feel as if the middle part of the story may need some smoothing over - I find it hard to give specific issues here, so I wonder if it just needs an editing pass (maybe reading it out to yourself). I'm not keen on the twin designations for the Mate/DEP and the Captain/DEP, I don't think it's really necessary.

Spoiler:

I'm inclined to think that Mate and Captain are suitable for the very humanoid ones, while AND-E is good for the geologist, I wasn't clear on what the Engineer had been.

I liked the ending (the last two sections). It seemed to fit very well with the lead up.


My reaction as a science-fiction fan (I'm not really much of one any more, but I used to be) is less flattering.

Spoiler:

Parts of it felt dated and/or mundane. There wasn't much there to feed my interest in any of the science aspect of this story. Of course the science of it all isn't really what the story is about, but the way it is presented early - with the protagonists being androids and all the formal designation stuff - makes it feel like it's going to be a specifically science-fiction tale.

This leaves me thinking if you might get a better effect if you made the first few pages a little less formal and technical sounding. Make it more obvious to the reader that this isn't hard-core science fiction.

I think the story is a good length for what it contains. Not sure if that sounds odd, but too many science-fiction stories drag things out further than the central idea warrants, whereas I felt satisfied at the end of this one, that the end had justified journey.

[gmw]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

Comments on Planting the Flag, 1.0
The story in itself is fine, but I think it could be expanded, as I am left with some questions after reading it

Originally Posted by Graham

I'll start with thoughts on the character names. Did anyone else find them confusing?

[...etc...]

You're all too fast for me. I still haven't read Katsunami's story yet. It's awkward to try and track each point after getting so far behind, so I'll just try to cover it without point-by-point quoting.

Spoiler:

As long as the fact that each of the protagonists is an android remains clear from the start (and I think it is), then I think the best approach for names/designations is to use names or job-titles for the more-human ones, and designations for the less-human ones. While I didn't mind AND-E, it does make the reader wonder why it's KEN-E. If you don't mind mixing roles and genders a bit you could consider something like AND-G (Angie/Android Geologist), and AND-E (Andie/Android Engineer).

I was having trouble with the Mate being so formal at the start, but once the Captain appears it became more obvious that she was intentionally (and fairly consistently) formal. It wasn't really obvious to me why she should be (if the captain was not), whereas it was obvious AND-E should be. (I can understand why you chose to make this distinction, but it's not necessarily logical - which is a worry when we're talking about androids .)

I didn't have a problem with not seeing AND-E's arm repaired. We were told it had to happen, I just assumed it had happened in the break before we see AND-E playing with the camera (maybe you need to get rid of "before you arrived") - after all he was powered down long enough to get a face he didn't know about.

I had no issue with the more-human vs less-human appearance. To me it seemed apparent that this was about how they appeared to humans back home, not about appearance to any lifeforms on the planet. It was, perhaps, a little unclear just how many humans back on Earth knew that the Captain and Mate were actually androids despite their appearance - though I'm not sure just how important that is. What people see can often be more important that what they know (have read or been told) - or any I too cynical?.

Timeframe wasn't an issue - except for my earlier post about the science feeling dated.

I assumed the crash probably came from prior damage, not as a result of the captain dreaming. It's a short story, I expect to have to assume quite a lot.

I had no issues with the ending and what might happen to the androids - assuming they continue to function long enough to see humans actually arrive (which was far from certain, it seemed to me). It's an interesting thing for the reader to be left to speculate about.

In contrast to Katsunami, and as I've already noted, I think the length is quite good. A short story can't hope to give all the answers, very often their purpose is to stimulate thought rather than provide complete solutions. If you start to expand the story too much I think you will need to broaden it, and then you may start to run into problems staying within 8000 words.

Spoiler:

I am curious. Did you ever consider keeping the Captain and Mate's android nature a secret - and only reveal it in that final absurd tableau? Of course it would totally change much of the lead-up, but it struck me as a tempting idea.

[Graham]

Thanks for all that, gmw. All very interesting.

I'll have another look at the first couple of pages as suggested.

Spoiler:

Good comment about being led to believe it was more hard SF by the opening. I hadn't thought of that, thinking more that it would be accepted as 'retro'. That also gives me another route into figuring out whether the naming convention is confusing. I'll see if I can take a different approach.

ANG-E and AND-E is a clever idea, but I think they're probably too similar. The only reason for the names really is to make it clear about the owner of the face, which I'm working on. Maybe I just have to let go of 'Kenny' and call him The Engineer. That actually makes a lot of sense as it would put him in the same class as the Mate and the Captain, and thus a clear possessor of a face.

I haven't really considered keeping the Captain and the Mate's true nature a secret. It did occur to me as a possibility when I was editing, but it wasn't an idea that I followed up. You're right that I should explore this. It might be a bit hard to pull off well though, and would change the feel at the end significantly.

Graham

[Katsunami]

Planting the Flag, names and designations ideas

Spoiler:

ANG-E and AND-E is a clever idea, but I think they're probably too similar. The only reason for the names really is to make it clear about the owner of the face, which I'm working on. Maybe I just have to let go of 'Kenny' and call him The Engineer. That actually makes a lot of sense as it would put him in the same class as the Mate and the Captain, and thus a clear possessor of a face.

===

In that case, why is The Engineer a human-like android with a face, while The Geologist is not? If it was my choice, I'd do it like this:

Robert, Captian = Human-like face, name, confident, strong. Think Riker: CAP-H
Debby, Officer = Human-like face, name, reserved, few emotions. Think Spock: OFF-H
The Engineer and The Geologist: Android-like looks, no name, formal, no emotions. Think Data: ENG-A and GEO-A.

Consistent, logical, clear

[Graham]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

Planting the Flag, names and designations ideas

Spoiler:

ANG-E and AND-E is a clever idea, but I think they're probably too similar. The only reason for the names really is to make it clear about the owner of the face, which I'm working on. Maybe I just have to let go of 'Kenny' and call him The Engineer. That actually makes a lot of sense as it would put him in the same class as the Mate and the Captain, and thus a clear possessor of a face.

===

In that case, why is The Engineer a human-like android with a face, while The Geologist is not? If it was my choice, I'd do it like this:

Robert, Captian, Human-like, confident, strong. Think Riker: CAP-H
Debby, Mate, Human-like, reserved, few emotions. Think Spock: MAT-H
The Engineer, Android-like, formal, no emotions, think Data: ENG-A
The Geologist, Robot, exceptionally formal: GEO-R

Consistent, logical, clear

Spoiler:

In that case, why is The Engineer a human-like android with a face, while The Geologist is not?

Because it would mean that the original mission specialists were all human-like androids. They'd be the 'away team' if you like, and the ones that had been introduced to the public back on Earth (though the Captain took the limelight).

As written, the story already makes the point that they need the backup Engineer to stay in orbit to fix the ship, and the Captain doesn't want any delays, so they activate a less than optimal choice to join the away team, AND-E.

I do need to work out whether I allow myself that backup Engineer with this new idea though. If he's like the Captain and the Mate, then why would only he have a backup? If there were backups of the Captain and the Mate, why not activate one of them to join the away team, as they'd clearly be more suitable?

I think I need to hint that there are other non-humanoid robots at work repairing the ship, but it's going to take a long time.

This story-writing lark's complicated, innit?!

Graham

[Katsunami]

I actually ninja-edited that spoiler-tag while you were writing that post

Because of this:

Spoiler:

Because it would mean that the original mission specialists were all human-like androids...

the version of my comment that is in your quote would actually be better than the one in my edit. It would be forgivable/logical that Engineer is somewhat less human-looking; more like an Android; a technical guy for a technical job.

BTW, I'm just writing my comments for Vera's Itch. That's one weird story, but I liked it

After that, I'll re-read and write comments for the latest version fo "When my father died.".

[arjaybe]

Originally Posted by Graham

I'll start with thoughts on the character names. Did anyone else find them confusing?

The designations may well need a bit of tweaking. They were set in an early draft, and may not be fully appropriate now. It might be fun to look back through the process that led to these names.

Spoiler:

In the early versions, I had two 'male' androids that could pass for fully human: the Captain ("CAP") and his Deputy ("DEP"). As it's a ship, the deputy is called the Mate. I'm now wondering why I didn't originally use "MAT" here, as that would have been a real male name!

However, I realised that CAP and DEP were too similar. I also noticed that the Mate was essentially cast in the role of carer, so I changed DEP's 'gender' to 'female'. This immediately felt better to me. I toyed with changing the name, but I was wary of making her too obviously female as there's a big pitfall in that as the 'mate' of the Captain, and also 'subordinate' to the Captain, I could stray into territory that would annoy someone sensitive to feminist issues. (I'm already playing up the lantern-jawed male stereotype as part of the crux of the story.) This is also the reason why I've given the Mate a more formal mode of speech than the Captain. He's the most fully 'human'; she's more machine-like.

I'd originally had just one other character, intended to be a subject for humour, so I wanted to give him a name that would work in that context, and chose 'Kenny'. (I'm not saying all Kennys are comedic, but the name felt right for this.) To make it more obvious that this was a robot, I wanted to turn the name into an identification code of some sort, which gave me KEN-E or KEN-Y as options. I reasoned that I could explain the E better than the Y, as "Expert System", which is why that phrase is in the android model description.

Then I realised that I needed to have a plot element that allowed me to explain what was going on, and the accident to KEN-E meant that I could show the Mate reviving an inappropriate new android, The Geologist, and the plot could emerge from their conversation. (Being inappropriate gave me some conflict to play with.) I could have just made this character KEN-E, but since I'd written Mark IV Android Expert System, AND-E dropped out as obvious.

Now, AND-E was emerging as a much more interesting character than my original buffoon, KEN-E. That 'Expert System' was fun. AND-E is an expert. At Geology. Not at camerawork or landing in descent vehicles, and definitely not at thinking outside the box. He's even more machine-like and literal than the Mate. Hoorah, I thought. I've got three distinct characters.

But I had a soft spot for poor KEN-E, and my story is aiming at setting up the absurd tableau at the end, so the idea of their giving the Geologist KEN-E's face turned up. I'm unsure about this now (I'll come back to this in a later post), and it may be that I have to let it go.

I have half-justified (to myself) the KEN designation as 'ken' as in 'knowledge', but this is confusing. Really the Engineer's designation should be something more obvious like ENG-E, but that doesn't feel right.

I'm happy to change the names if a few of you think I should, but at the moment I can't think of good alternatives.

Graham

Things often end up with names that make less sense than they should because of contingencies. The name made sense when it was created, but later doesn't, for whatever reason. Such imperfection can make the story better.

[Graham]

Originally Posted by arjaybe

Such imperfection can make the story better.

Noooo. Don't say that. I'm halfway through rewriting it.

We can compare the two versions, see which one we prefer.

Graham

[arjaybe]

v1.0

Maybe it's because I've read a lot of SF, but

Spoiler:

It was clear to me that it was the people of Earth 'not to be fooled.'

It was clear to me that the ad hoc absurdities were piling up as these pinocchios dutifully carried out their mission.

It was clear to me why only machines could go and how their mission was to encourage the humans back home.
- a bit of a stretch, though, that the crisis back home would be the same in 85 years.

I understood that the planet was a prop and any speculation about it could be left to the reader.

I loved the naive optimism in the face of futility and (almost) certain failure.

Jim

[Graham]

Originally Posted by arjaybe

v1.0

Maybe it's because I've read a lot of SF, but

Spoiler:

It was clear to me that it was the people of Earth 'not to be fooled.'

It was clear to me that the ad hoc absurdities were piling up as these pinocchios dutifully carried out their mission.

It was clear to me why only machines could go and how their mission was to encourage the humans back home.
- a bit of a stretch, though, that the crisis back home would be the same in 85 years.

I understood that the planet was a prop and any speculation about it could be left to the reader.

I loved the naive optimism in the face of futility and (almost) certain failure.

Jim

Thanks Jim.

I'm making some changes to make things clearer for non-SF readers, and hopefully I can balance it both for SF and non-SF readers while keeping the same feeling to the story.

Graham

[arjaybe]

v1.1

"His eyes were already looking down." You need this to set up the rising scan. You could set it up by having him looking down at his beer during the previous paragraph's ruminations.

I'm seeing quite a few sentences that should be two sentences, or need to be altered to make them work as one. It bothers me, but if it's an accepted style then I'll drop it.

Is the doorman's alcove inside?

Spoiler:

Having the cab right outside the door is good. We'll remember it at the end.

You cleared up the itch and physical presence well.

Has Vera taken Gavin's glass to the kitchen, then returned to pour drinks?

Where was Coop "Only gone for one night?"

Jim

[Graham]

I've uploaded a new version, which attempts to addresses the various points made in the comments.

I've got some questions about this, though, but please don't open this spoiler until after reading it as I don't want to plant a preconception.

Spoiler:

I've made the Mate more human, and I think I've made the opening two pages flow better. However, I don't think her new character works as well. I think I've lost some of the charm that the stilted speech patterns gave them (even though that made for more clumsy reading), and weakened the Captain as his own slightly more human nature isn't thrown into such sharp relief. This weakens the impact of the ending.

Please could you let me know?

I think I need to find some middle ground for the Mate, where she's still a little more robotic.

I've not tackled gmw's comment about the rhythm of the middle section yet, as I want to nail the Mate's speech patterns first.

Graham

[arjaybe]

Originally Posted by Graham

I've uploaded a new version, which attempts to addresses the various points made in the comments.

I've got some questions about this, though, but please don't open this spoiler until after reading it as I don't want to plant a preconception.

Spoiler:

I've made the Mate more human, and I think I've made the opening two pages flow better. However, I don't think her new character works as well. I think I've lost some of the charm that the stilted speech patterns gave them (even though that made for more clumsy reading), and weakened the Captain as his own slightly more human nature isn't thrown into such sharp relief. This weakens the impact of the ending.

Please could you let me know?

I think I need to find some middle ground for the Mate, where she's still a little more robotic.

I've not tackled gmw's comment about the rhythm of the middle section yet, as I want to nail the Mate's speech patterns first.

Graham

Spoiler:

It's a surprise that the Captain can wave a hand, even weakly, with a shattered body.

"Braced against the rock" A rock, maybe? I found myself looking for a previous mention of the rock.

I assumed that the Mate was designed to look as human as the Captain. Why else let her into the broadcast?

How is the impact of the ending weakened?

Jim