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The Wheel Turning

by Scott 

Posted: 14 December 2003
Word Count: 1029


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Chapter One
Work in Progress

Mars was worried about home, the war on the front was startlingly unpredictable; the fighting would not stay at ground zero for too long, no, before long the war was going to spill into either England or France

Jossy Mars was a G.O.D (Geographical Order Developer) and he was working on the project titled Earth 2, Man has long discovered the secrets of creation and now understood everything is fundamentally the same once you got to the tiniest of its make up, meaning creating an entire planet was just as easy as making a piece of bread, Man now seemed to be able to do all it had once dreamed of, to have everything it ever wanted and they had now created an entire planet to house it increasingly growing population.

Mars (He was always called by his surname) was part a team of scientists that was testing to see if this new grown world was suitable and stable, he was responsible for the design of the landscape that he himself had modelled on the original Earth though Earth 2 was three times larger than its mother planet.

Mars was also responsible for the test humans that had been placed on the new world, guinea pigs to see how they were taking to the land around them. The humans were stock grown; they were set free and looked after like pets, Mars and the other scientists watched to see how they reacted physically to the planets atmosphere. The test subject’s intelligence had been lessened so that they didn’t rise up against their super-brained superiors

Each morning Mars would fly down to area code 51 to be greeted by his subjects; he would make sure they were well feed well since no greenery or live stock was due to be attached to Earth 2 for a few weeks yet. Though the men and women Mars looked after were not as smart as himself they were not at all stupid, they were intelligent and smart enough to know not to bite the hand that feed them. Each morning they greeted him they already showed signs of quick brain growth, they would grunt what they had started to express as language and signalled to learn who he was.

Mars came to love his little people and was happy to learn the new world was treating them well. Some mornings when his fondness for the small people really touched him deep inside, when their kindness gave him hope for Mankind he would sit and gather them, as a teacher would his class and tell them stories. He told them he was a G.O.D and the more he spoke and feed them the more loved he was and felt, each morning when he arrived they would come out quicker with each passing day and greet him though sometimes he had felt a bit concerned they were starting to worship him.

However, this particular cloudy evening Mars was not feeling too cheerful and sat down looking emotional, as usual he was greeted with affection and wonder by his subjects, one in particular stroked his face to cheer him up

Mars laughed, “I’m okay Daisy, just home again giving me stress”

Of course this young woman had not yet been taught his own complex language and so just looked on in perplexity as her apparent master frown turn so quickly into a humorous smile

“Well you see I come from far away” with this he looked to the sky, causing Daisy to follow his glance and point skyward

“Yes that’s right from up there, from what you can see at night high up in the the heavens, your big white light. Well me dear its not too good there at the moment, the wars of yester years have had its effect and there not going away” Mars sighed with the weight of his worries heavily weighed on his shoulders “perhaps this world will bring us new hope”

As he looked up and glared at mother Earth staring back at him with its cold frosty surface, a single tear ran his cheek. Now Daisy understood emotions and did all she knew how to help him feel some better. She hugged him. Mars received the hug and embraced his wonderful little subject back and sobbed.

Stressing Jossy Mars so much was the first war to plague Earth in over five hundred years and it was a direct result of the last Great War, War 69. The previous conflict had ended in all the worst and most powerful weapons man could muster, they had thrown everything that they could at each other and damn nearly destroyed every last thing on the planet. When the last drop of spilt blood had splashed down the sky was grey and the mist was growing thicker and larger slightly more every day. By the time Mars was born the world was covered in a black cloud doing as it was designed to do, destroying the land it glided over. The war had ended before it was put into full use but once it was in the sky it could not be entirely removed, it had become apart of the world, a weapon born from a lust of madness, a lust that did not think of the consequences and so the weapon did as intended slowly but deadly.

Earth became a very cold place and most of the land became covered in ice. The population was at peace with each other but not with the world, Earth was fighting back and it wanted rid of its nasty little disease. Western Europe was all that was inhabitable on Earth now and every last piece of land was invaluable. This is where the problems began.

The sea that divided England and France had receded back into the icing lands of the North, new land was now available and England and France both laid claim to it, they were not willingly to share. At the start of the conflict Earth 2 was just a dream and by the time it was a reality the war had become a matter of national pride.






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Comments by other Members



Richardwest at 13:02 on 15 December 2003  Report this post
Scott: great intro – ‘Mars was worried about home’ – and the GOD concept quite intriguing. I’m just wondering though if the imperative of the imagination was running so strongly here that it took you in the flood, as it were, because though I really wanted to get into this, I kept tripping over typos and the kind of odd punctuation that we’re probably all guilty of in first drafts.

I take the point that it’s very much a work in progress but I’m not sure you’re doing yourself justice with what (to me at any rate) looks like a promising piece too often sabotaged by first-draft glitches – ‘man’ instead of Man, tense changes (‘man now seemed to be able to do all it had once dreamed of, to have everything it ever wanted and they had created’), a free fall of misspellings (‘there intelligent had been lessened so that they didn’t raise against there super brained superiors,’ which I guess should’ve read: ‘their intelligence had been lessened so that they didn’t rise up against their super-brained superiors’) and a narrative voice that may be a little too chatty for the subject matter (‘…mind it was a bit harder finding where to put it. Anyhow…’) given that in this first outing at least, Mars himself seems possessed of an unexpectedly down-to-earth argot (‘well me dear its not too good there at the moment’).

Easy to criticise I know, much harder to come up with original concepts. I just think I’d have got more out of the premise here if you’d had the time to do a little more polishing of the work in progress so that my attention wasn’t so often distracted. Would very much like to see where you’re heading with this one though!

’Best: Richard


Dee at 16:01 on 15 December 2003  Report this post

As a Pagan, and with Yule approaching, the title of this piece attracted me but it turned out to be something else entirely.
I have to say I agree with the points Richard makes - as usual - so I won't repeat them. I had to read some sentences several times to understand their meaning. And who is Martin?
Yes, I accept that this is a work-in-progress but why not get the spelling and the punctuation correct from the start? It saves you a hell of a lot of time-consuming editing later on.
On the plus side, I did enjoy reading it, I'm intrigued by the concept and I'd like to see where it's going.

Good luck
Dee



Becca at 11:18 on 16 December 2003  Report this post
Scott, I do agree with Richard and Dee, as with your other pieces, getting it ready for presentation here needs to be the same as preparing it for publication, i.e. as good as you can get it, that way you'll get a lot more out of the crits because we'll be able to concentrate on what should really matter, don't you think?

Scott at 22:43 on 16 December 2003  Report this post
The main problem is that I’ll be at work or driving in me car and out of the blue something will give me an idea, this particular story all grew from the notion of the sea between France and England drying up and from that idea came the war and then somehow the whole Earth 2 project (don’t ask me what the links are, I just make up these ideas as I go along). Anyhow, I never have the time to spend the small hours working on a piece and I just type them quickly and get them logged down so I don’t forget about them, unfortunately I am always busy and never seem to get back to them. Perhaps if I’m lucky I’ll finally get rich and be able to retire early and finish all me ideas off.

Scott at 23:13 on 16 December 2003  Report this post
I've had a quick go over the peice to tweak it a little and polish them tatty edges away

Becca at 06:02 on 17 December 2003  Report this post
But the thing I don't get Scott is, if you never have time to polish, you'd have a whole lot of unfinished pieces of work around, and then what happens to them? They'd never get published. Don't you want to publish anything?
Becca.

Scott at 20:45 on 17 December 2003  Report this post
Lol, yeah I would love to have one published and hopefully I am determined if it takes me 50 years I will finish my original piece ‘Harmonies Journey, The Land’

But I really don’t have the time to dedicate hours, weeks, and months or even in depth thought time to any piece. When I first began writing I was a publican in the family business where I had many unfilled mornings (hectic nights) to sit around typing and jotting all my ideas down but over the last year I have gone through a change of jobs and I now find myself doing a hell of a lot of research, so like I said all I do now is get the ideas down when I can with the hope that one day I’ll go back and finish what I started.

Maybe I should get a writing partner, I like to think I can come up with good ideas and I can very quickly get an entire story mapped out, every last tiny detail but again its just the hours needed to get it typed down


Becca at 06:28 on 18 December 2003  Report this post
You could keep a story idea book so as not to lose anything, and you have a leaning towards Sci/fi. Maybe you could study the form, join a Sci/fi group. But actually the thing of grammar, sentence construction and punctuation is your weakness,- it can be learnt. Once you've got that sorted out, which you do need to do, a reader can start to take your writing in without being distracted, and that's what the reader needs.
Writers on this site do say sometimes excuse the grammar and punctuation and I wonder whether that means excuse it because I can't be bothered with it. But is that fair to the reader? Very few people are perfect in those technicalities, but there is a certain level you have to reach in order to get serious criting, and it isn't that hard to get there. Pay a retired English grammar teacher, for example, to help with your work, and you'd soon be sorted.
Becca.


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