Journal of a Republic Grunt

[The Saint]

((Having played Knights of the Old Republic I and II I figured this period of time would be a more than interesting background for a series of log enteries. I for one enjoy picking up datapads and the like in RPGs and just reading their their histories. Picking up the laser discs in Fallout 1 and 2 became a near obsession so I figured to toss my hat into the ring with this. This will be done as holocrons, datapad entrees and messages to home.I've never really done fanfiction work so bear with me))

 

The science vessel R.S.S Alderaan moved through the debries field around Malachor V. The last battle of the Madalorian wars the ship had been sent on a dual mission to observe the effects of the mass gravity projector and to scavange any artifacts encountered. Passing the burned out hulks of Maladorian warships and Republic cruisers alike, the scientists and archeologists were excited by the prospects they were facing. It had been nearly 2,000 years since the battle of Malachor V and the area had been declared off limits by the the Republic military as a graveyard. Of course the scavengers would show up on occassion, sometimes they would run into a Republic cruiser on patrol, othertimes they would run into a not so dead warship which would come to life with its ancient automated batteries.

 

As the second millenium anniversary of one of the more destruction wars in Republic history began to approach the Senate finally began to loosen the purse strings to fund an expedition to the remote outer rim region. It was partly for scientific curiosity and partly because the Jedi wondered if artifacts were amongst the wreckage. It was long since fabled than Revan and Malak had not by choice left behind some weapons and some writings which the Jedi Order wished to recover...

 

"2,000 years..2,000 years and now they decide to ask us to check out this..graveyard?" Nichos Yssard looked out of the transparasteel viewport on the observation deck of the modified Republic courier ship and scoffed. He was a life long spacer, a devoted officer of the Republic Navy and had jumped at the chance to volunteer for a high priority mission. Little did he know though that this was the mission.

 

"Its taken this long for the Republic to authorize this mission simply because its been one disaster after another. Lets not forget that Revan and Malak did start the Sith War after the Madalorian Wars." Dr. Motta Parfum, an Ithorian spoke in his native tongue to the ships captain who could only shake his head once more. Amongst the debries field shuttles picked up floating footlockers and cargopods. They made sure to give wide berths to several Madalorian Warships which had been marked down as still potential threats. Even after 2,000 years there guns could destroy a reckless shuttle pilot or hapless scavenger.

 

Lengthy decontamination and cleaning of each footlocker, and cargopod would be undertaken. Solar radiation, and contamination from the reactors of nearby hulks would mean a lot of the salvaged material was deadly unless the strictest procedures were followed. After five days the materials would be examined in one of six of the ships minature labratories to be catalogued, and then shipped off to the cargohold for later study at the Coruscant Center for Historical Research. Whiling moving a box of datapads and holocrons down to the cargo deck Second Lieutenant Alex Norsa accidently turned one of the historical files after jostling the box around slightly. Startled he put the box quickly down and stood back as the blue image of a Republic army officer stood before him from outside of the box. A computerized voice began to talk..

 

 

"Entry 1-Galactic Standard Year 21,037((3,963 before the battle of yavin))..datafile corrupted..errors numerous..." After the computer gave off its little warning the voice of the young man began to start and go..before finally working correctly.

 

"...Onasi owes me 60 credits from last weeks pazaak game. Damn fighter jocks dont know how to play pazaak and dont know how to pay back what they owe. Oh well..the rurmor mill is turning I dont remember who I heard this from but apparently one of the gunners on C deck is from Onderron, he cant get in touch with anyone from his family and his friends back home say they've been attacked by the Mandalorians...I've always thought the Mandalorians attacked single worlds outside of the Republic's reach...I guess they have some sort of..."

 

"Data file corrupted...Beginning Entry 2 from uncorrupted source approximately 48 galactic standard hours from previous entry"

 

"...its been confirmed, the Madalorians have launched a broad assault on Republic space...the Senate has asked for support from the Jedi council...Its been forty years since the Republic fought a war and a lot of the Senators are blustering and blowing hot air on how we'll win in under a month......I've gotten my orders today, our unit is being rotated to the transport Concord. They want us to begin setting up a defense at some backwater planet..."

 

"Data file corrupted.."

 

Norsa grumbled and picked up the holocron from the box...looking left to right he turned it off and quickly stuffed the accursed machine in his utility pouch. He was going to have some serious work to do if he was to find out just what was missing on this holocron and if there was any real way to retrieve the info..he considered asking one of the engineers to help him...he'd need to be careful who he asked though if the scientists found out there would no doubt be some angry white coat comapling to the Captain who would then come down on him..

[Gen.Vader]

uum i know this is ancient but is late and these seememd intresting

that seemed pretty good, but it seemed like too many corrupted file phrases

also to make it sound like a journal how about including more of the location and background information that you had outside the journal?

just my thoughts.

[Darkmark]

Looking good. The beginning works much better than the later paragraphs, however in general it seems pretty decent. Your explaining of back-story and creating setting I found to be the most promising, however the data entry itself is too broken up. Perhaps by merging the paragraphs a little you could perhaps alleviate the staggered feeling it gives. While this may have been what you were going for, so early in any piece it does consistently break the readers attention from the events, when maintaining attention should be a priority.

 

Like I tend to say, this is all constructive criticism, I don't mean to offend by pointing out the negatives. Bear in mind there are just as many features of it that I like. Not least the initial two paragraphs, which as I mentioned are very good for creating setting and tone.

[The Saint]

-brushes dust off-

 

No offense taken to either stance. I'm still new to the whole fan-fiction writing. I'm an RPer by nature, but its easier when its five people RPing instead of just one person. I will get back to this now that school and work are dying down once more.