Post by Yuka on Oct 18, 2007 14:25:59 GMT -5
Yeah, I'm doing NaNo. It's probably not a good idea considering I just started a new course at college, but I want to, so there. 
It's set about 200 years from now. Earth is rapidly becoming uninhabitable, disease is rife (despite attempts to keep it under control) and humanity is dying a slow and terrible death. Ivaniel Moores is the leader of a small group of people determined to create human habitats on other planets. The Interplanetary Enforcers are there to stop this from happening. Many have tried to leave the planet without permission before and all have failed. Earth is ruled by one central organization, known to the general public only as White Dragon, which believes that humanity should be held responsible for its actions. The way they see it, moving to another planet would be postponing the inevitable and destroying something pure that was never theirs to use in the first place.
After the first incident, in which a group of space adventurers stole away with several thousand people on a huge spacecraft known as the ARQ (and almost got away with it), White Dragon felt it was necessary to implement a battalion of viciously powerful scout ships around the planet. When Ivaniel was an infant, it was still possible to grow food organically in the earth. By the time he reaches 30 years old, earth is pretty much a wasteland: virtually everything is dead, and the humans are only alive because of an artificial environment built about 50 years earlier, when the first serious warning signs began to appear.
Name: Ivaniel Moores
Age: 31
Description: Narrow-faced, with dark hair, goatee and thick eyebrows. Small, beady, suspicious eyes—blue, but under most lights they appear to be black.
At the age of 20, Ivaniel was one of the youngest officers to be appointed to the position. He was brought up as part of a high-ranking White Dragon family; his father was a strict disciplinarian, his mother spent all day working in a local laboratory and only spoke to him at weekends. He was brought up with a deep respect for the natural world, and a deep hatred for the ancestors who had done such damage to his home planet.
At the age of six, Ivaniel began to dream. He saw terrible visions of widespread, uncontrollable disease and famine. He dreamt of a blackened landscape in which nothing could grow, of people burning as they ran blindly in their attempts to escape. He began to draw and paint crude pictures of the twisted, desperate faces he saw in these dreams, as well as the bizarre symbols, the burning buildings, the lifeless forests and a thousand other visions just as terrible. One image was recurring in each and every nightmare: that of a symbolic black dragon with flared wings and snaggle teeth.
His parents were distraught. The image of the black dragon was especially troubling: to them, it represented the ways of the dark past--the avaricious destruction of previous centuries that they had worked so hard to put behind them.
In the end, his mother took him to a neuropsychological clinic and reconstructed his mind from the inside out, eliminating the influences, connections and images that had caused the dreams, removing any memories even vaguely connected to the dreams. After the “therapy” he had no recollection of anything that had happened in the previous six months. His parents told him that he had fallen into a coma, but that the cause of the illness had been rectified.
He thought no more about it, and grew into a hard-working trainee enforcer, fighting for the beliefs he had never doubted. Before long he was training to be an officer, and at about the same time, a group of renegade space adventurers launched the ARQ with over 100,000 people on board. The ship made it out of the atmosphere but was pursued by several White Dragon enforcer craft, which disabled the engines, arrested the staff and “rescued” everyone else on board. The leader of the operation was executed along with his family and several other co-conspirators.
In the aftermath of the destruction of the ARQ operation, a group of officers were selected to undergo specialist training for space-related work. Ivaniel, who had always been awed by the thought of space travel, applied in a heartbeat and was given a place on the program.
At the age of 21, he flies his first mission on board a three-man residential vessel entitled the Alakai. Ashton Maclean, who is ten years older than Ivaniel and was sent along to act as co-pilot and advisor to his younger counterpart.
Peronet is a young student doing work experience as a technician on board the ship. She is there to keep the engine running smoothly, but often finds herself doing other things around the ship—such as keeping the ship tidy.
Ashton has thick black hair, wide chocolate-brown eyes and a golden skin tone. Like Ivaniel, Ashton was raised believing in the ways of the White Dragon. Ashton is friendly and confident, and Ivaniel immediately warms to him.
The mission is to find and bring down a small rebel craft less than a third of the size and probably home made. Normally, a stronger force would have been sent to deal with the problem. However, because the ship is not thought to be armed, the expectation is that the encounter will be over very quickly. Ivaniel was ordered to destroy the ship and bring the crew back down alive, so that they could be dealt with by earthbound enforcers.
The craft they are flying is a tracker model which requires little manual flight work. The Alakai has been programmed to follow the particular ship and Ivaniel, being relatively inexperienced, has no authority to change the programmed course. He is free to fly the ship until it moves within a certain range of his target.
It takes three months for them to find their evasive target—a tiny, unassuming scouter just large enough for one man to sit in. It’s fast moving but with no built-in weapons.
In that time, a close friendship has formed between the three members of the crew. Ivaniel thinks of Ashton as no less than his own brother, and views Peronet as a younger sister for whom he is responsible. In a heartbeat, he would give up his own life to protect either of them, and feels confident that they would do the same for him. As per protocol, all three equip themselves with protective armoury before engaging the opponent.
The Alakai launches into combat. The opponent swerves neatly around each attack, seeming to predict where the next missile will come from before it’s even fired. All the time, the automatic tracker follows the ship into deeper space, and further away from the planet. Ashton tries to contact earth; nothing. They have drawn too far away. Frustrated, Ivaniel attempts to circle the rebel ship and force it back towards the earth.
All at once, the enemy appears to give up and doubles back on itself. Ivaniel turns the Alakai sharply and fires another missile—this one hits home. The missile burrows into the ship, constricting the engine and freezing it in place.
Apparently victorious, they move towards the scouter… but the closer they draw, the more the Alakai slows down and eventually stops responding to any commands. Peronet runs a check on the engine, everything is in working order, but the ship just won’t move. The overhead lights begin to flicker on and off erratically. Ivaniel closes his eyes. Dazed, confused and afraid, wishing he was back at home. Images begin to trickle through a barrier in his mind. Images of human suffering.
(more to come)
After the first incident, in which a group of space adventurers stole away with several thousand people on a huge spacecraft known as the ARQ (and almost got away with it), White Dragon felt it was necessary to implement a battalion of viciously powerful scout ships around the planet. When Ivaniel was an infant, it was still possible to grow food organically in the earth. By the time he reaches 30 years old, earth is pretty much a wasteland: virtually everything is dead, and the humans are only alive because of an artificial environment built about 50 years earlier, when the first serious warning signs began to appear.
Name: Ivaniel Moores
Age: 31
Description: Narrow-faced, with dark hair, goatee and thick eyebrows. Small, beady, suspicious eyes—blue, but under most lights they appear to be black.
At the age of 20, Ivaniel was one of the youngest officers to be appointed to the position. He was brought up as part of a high-ranking White Dragon family; his father was a strict disciplinarian, his mother spent all day working in a local laboratory and only spoke to him at weekends. He was brought up with a deep respect for the natural world, and a deep hatred for the ancestors who had done such damage to his home planet.
At the age of six, Ivaniel began to dream. He saw terrible visions of widespread, uncontrollable disease and famine. He dreamt of a blackened landscape in which nothing could grow, of people burning as they ran blindly in their attempts to escape. He began to draw and paint crude pictures of the twisted, desperate faces he saw in these dreams, as well as the bizarre symbols, the burning buildings, the lifeless forests and a thousand other visions just as terrible. One image was recurring in each and every nightmare: that of a symbolic black dragon with flared wings and snaggle teeth.
His parents were distraught. The image of the black dragon was especially troubling: to them, it represented the ways of the dark past--the avaricious destruction of previous centuries that they had worked so hard to put behind them.
In the end, his mother took him to a neuropsychological clinic and reconstructed his mind from the inside out, eliminating the influences, connections and images that had caused the dreams, removing any memories even vaguely connected to the dreams. After the “therapy” he had no recollection of anything that had happened in the previous six months. His parents told him that he had fallen into a coma, but that the cause of the illness had been rectified.
He thought no more about it, and grew into a hard-working trainee enforcer, fighting for the beliefs he had never doubted. Before long he was training to be an officer, and at about the same time, a group of renegade space adventurers launched the ARQ with over 100,000 people on board. The ship made it out of the atmosphere but was pursued by several White Dragon enforcer craft, which disabled the engines, arrested the staff and “rescued” everyone else on board. The leader of the operation was executed along with his family and several other co-conspirators.
In the aftermath of the destruction of the ARQ operation, a group of officers were selected to undergo specialist training for space-related work. Ivaniel, who had always been awed by the thought of space travel, applied in a heartbeat and was given a place on the program.
At the age of 21, he flies his first mission on board a three-man residential vessel entitled the Alakai. Ashton Maclean, who is ten years older than Ivaniel and was sent along to act as co-pilot and advisor to his younger counterpart.
Peronet is a young student doing work experience as a technician on board the ship. She is there to keep the engine running smoothly, but often finds herself doing other things around the ship—such as keeping the ship tidy.
Ashton has thick black hair, wide chocolate-brown eyes and a golden skin tone. Like Ivaniel, Ashton was raised believing in the ways of the White Dragon. Ashton is friendly and confident, and Ivaniel immediately warms to him.
The mission is to find and bring down a small rebel craft less than a third of the size and probably home made. Normally, a stronger force would have been sent to deal with the problem. However, because the ship is not thought to be armed, the expectation is that the encounter will be over very quickly. Ivaniel was ordered to destroy the ship and bring the crew back down alive, so that they could be dealt with by earthbound enforcers.
The craft they are flying is a tracker model which requires little manual flight work. The Alakai has been programmed to follow the particular ship and Ivaniel, being relatively inexperienced, has no authority to change the programmed course. He is free to fly the ship until it moves within a certain range of his target.
It takes three months for them to find their evasive target—a tiny, unassuming scouter just large enough for one man to sit in. It’s fast moving but with no built-in weapons.
In that time, a close friendship has formed between the three members of the crew. Ivaniel thinks of Ashton as no less than his own brother, and views Peronet as a younger sister for whom he is responsible. In a heartbeat, he would give up his own life to protect either of them, and feels confident that they would do the same for him. As per protocol, all three equip themselves with protective armoury before engaging the opponent.
The Alakai launches into combat. The opponent swerves neatly around each attack, seeming to predict where the next missile will come from before it’s even fired. All the time, the automatic tracker follows the ship into deeper space, and further away from the planet. Ashton tries to contact earth; nothing. They have drawn too far away. Frustrated, Ivaniel attempts to circle the rebel ship and force it back towards the earth.
All at once, the enemy appears to give up and doubles back on itself. Ivaniel turns the Alakai sharply and fires another missile—this one hits home. The missile burrows into the ship, constricting the engine and freezing it in place.
Apparently victorious, they move towards the scouter… but the closer they draw, the more the Alakai slows down and eventually stops responding to any commands. Peronet runs a check on the engine, everything is in working order, but the ship just won’t move. The overhead lights begin to flicker on and off erratically. Ivaniel closes his eyes. Dazed, confused and afraid, wishing he was back at home. Images begin to trickle through a barrier in his mind. Images of human suffering.
(more to come)
I'm feeling really good about this NaNo, and I'm proud to say I have no idea what's going to happen next...and I don't care!