Earth Bond

Discussions all around the Earth Bond/Kell the dragon story.

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Weresmilodon
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Earth Bond

Post by Weresmilodon »

Not much to say yet, as I'm still working my way through these, and i don't have all that much time in my days.

However, i noticed this error in the beginning of Chapter 1, so I'm posting it here for now.

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	That done, he went back and covered his tracks by wiping out every trace that he’d been there, backtracking through every computer he’d hacked in their network to erase all traces that he’d accessed them.  He then introduced a virus into their main server that would cause it to infect their logs and erase the record of his wireless computer accessing their network, covering the flaw he’d used to gain access to their system.  He may need to use it again someday.  After he finished that, he zeroed out the hard drive of the laptop using a datawipe utility so it eradicated any trace of what he had used it for, and turned it off.  It had served its purpose, and he’d just drop it in a trash can or something on the way back.  He had no more use for it.
	And that was that.  His addition to their patch would give them access to State’s top-level cables again, letting them monitor American communications to ensure that nothing about them was being discussed.  The hack patch included a new spider he designed would point out cables containing pertinent keywords which would be of interest to them.  He ran the wipe program on the laptop to zero out the hard drive and wipe out all traces of the programs that had been on it, and after it was done, he turned off the laptop, closed it, then closed the briefcase and picked it up.  His mission was accomplished, and now he had to get the hell out of Washington before something bad happened.
He 'takes care of' the computer twice.

Edut: The predator-like thermal vision is explained in the beginning of chapter 2 as well as in the later parts of chapter one, in a very similar way.
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Tarrin, Chapter 29, The Questing Game.
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Fel
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Re: Earth Bond

Post by Fel »

Yeah, like I said, I really tweaked these 3 chapters, moved stuff around, added and cut out often within paragraphs to try to maximize the flow, so there's bound to be errors like that.

And I originally introduced the vision in chapter 2, but realized it needed to be introduced in chapter 1. I never removed the chapter 2 blurb, feeling that it wouldn't be TOO weird to see it twice, thinking the chapter 2 reference wasn't all that explanatory.

Clearly, I was wrong. ;)
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Weresmilodon
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Re: Earth Bond

Post by Weresmilodon »

It's mostly the fact that they are very similar explanations. It would probably not have been as noticeable if there had been time between the chapters, but reading them back to back made it very hard to ignore.

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Each dragon has specific talents that they use within their society.  Earth dragons are builders and farmers, what you might consider the main labor force.  Earth dragons are also the only dragons in their society who are trained in modern human technology.  Water dragons are primarily farmers and fishers, providing food.  Sky dragons are hunters and watchers, keeping aerial reconnaissance over their home island.  Fire dragons are their primary military presence, the dragons that do the fighting.  And the chromatics are apart from the others, pursuing purely scholastic goals.  The earth and water dragons feed the entire population, the earth dragons provide infrastructure, the sky dragons keep watch over the ocean for human ships, and the fire dragons train for combat.  The chromatics contribute to their society only with their magic.
I think you meant to use just one of these, and missed the other. It reads weird to me, but I'm also running on too little sleep, no thanks to you. I got into bed six hours late yesterday.
"I'm a male. Males are supposed to act tough."
Tarrin, Chapter 29, The Questing Game.
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expedient
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Re: Earth Bond

Post by expedient »

Great start. Action sequences followed by a sophisticated set-up with a twisted story chaser. Another fun story.

Sometimes, Fel, you make writing seem so easy. [shakes fist] I wish it was.

I don't have any particular comments on the story itself other that to say I really got into it. An very entertaining read. It could go anywhere right now as far as the relationship between humans and dragons is concerned.

The characters have have the usual Fel traits of being capable and intelligent with a dark edge hinted at by their easy humor. We might need a few more humans in the story to show some conflicts of purpose on that side.


On the practical side I have a few simple notes for you to take or dismiss as you please:
  • There are many more errors than usual, particularly in repetition, changing tenses, pronoun use and incorrect given name attributions.
  • There is a some inconsistency with the technology discussed. The dragons are supposedly twenty years ahead in computers but are stealing technology which is less than ideal (efficiency-wise) to base their computer chips on. The kind of stuff we hear about in university labs today. If they really had such a lead wouldn't they be using technology that is too expensive for human commodity production. Why limit themselves to older [type], less capable technology? Humans do because of the cost benefits and the economies of scale of existing production, the dragons don't use money so could just build best of breed. Of course Kell could be lying to Jenny about the chips they use.
  • Talk of an iPad 3 in 2017 seems anachronistic, a more general term such as syncing with a "display" or "presentation tablet" would make more sense. In 2017 an iPad 3 will [probably] be five years old.
  • Also a more vague description of the dragon computer software would work better IMO, e.g.: "A home grown operating system." "Using some open source components such as the browser." Why use the browser from Android (a very specific version) when they could be using something less specialized such as WebKit (or even Chrome) which uses (mostly) the same technology but is less technology tied?
  • I could be wrong and it's difficult to be sure but I believe that BSD Unix variants are more usual in the US intelligence installations over Linux. Perhaps someone more up-to-date could let us know? In any case it's another instance where being too specific could lead to distracting inaccuracies further down the line.
  • Earth drake spikes grow at an unnatural rate, wouldn't they have noticed the magical aspect of that growth?
  • Kell is frequently described as curling his body around Jenny when seated yet the water dragons propel themselves through the water with a vertical tail motion. This seems inconsistent – a sideways motion would fit better with being able to curl one's body up in such a way. Most animals have a bias in one direction or the other.
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Re: Earth Bond

Post by gnume »

expedient wrote:
  • Kell is frequently described as curling his body around Jenny when seated yet the water dragons propel themselves through the water with a vertical tail motion. This seems inconsistent – a sideways motion would fit better with being able to curl one's body up in such a way. Most animals have a bias in one direction or the other.
am. just to point out. kell is an earth dragon not a water dragon
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Re: Earth Bond

Post by expedient »

gnume wrote:am. just to point out. kell is an earth dragon not a water dragon
And all ape bodies, for example, work in broadly the same way. Some may have gripping feet but their spines don't realign.
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Re: Earth Bond

Post by gnume »

expedient wrote:
gnume wrote:am. just to point out. kell is an earth dragon not a water dragon
And all ape bodies, for example, work in broadly the same way. Some may have gripping feet but their spines don't realign.
and fel wrote that each species of dragon has a different body in that world
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Re: Earth Bond

Post by expedient »

gnume wrote:
expedient wrote:
gnume wrote:am. just to point out. kell is an earth dragon not a water dragon
And all ape bodies, for example, work in broadly the same way. Some may have gripping feet but their spines don't realign.
and fel wrote that each species of dragon has a different body in that world
It's fine if he wants to explain it away like that, my point is that it is odd. It is not [and nor are my other points] a major critic of what has been written. I enjoyed the story. There are some minor areas which stuck out to me as oddities. I'm glad it didn't stand out for everyone else but it made me stop and think about it. I'm like that. :P
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Re: Earth Bond

Post by Zor »

Overall I liked it. The few things that seemed off is the beginning of chapter 2 and some of the techno babel.
As an IT person it kind of stands out a bit.
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Re: Earth Bond

Post by GBLW »

expedient wrote:It's fine if he wants to explain it away like that, my point is that it is odd. It is not [and nor are my other points] a major critic of what has been written. I enjoyed the story. There are some minor areas which stuck out to me as oddities. I'm glad it didn't stand out for everyone else but it made me stop and think about it. I'm like that. :P
Just a mention of cause and effect, when an author creates an anomaly there is usually a sound reason for the exercise. In this case a couple of reasons are already mentioned in the story ; #1 earth dragons' burrows are too small for the larger fire and sky dragons to enter and #2 water dragons spend almost their entire lives in the sea, so it would be natural for them to have adapted to a more streamlined shape.

Concerning the fact that the tech is somewhat outdated - the technology he is describing is what is used by the humans, he even said that the dragons had stolen parts of it, then had gone on to develop their own versions which surpassed that.

Personally I think as a very quick write, he did fantastically. It shows that he was writing for effect, not for show and I appreciate the fact that he posted it as is - minor glitches and all, but while it was still fresh in his own mind.

Thanks Fel, great job, just needs a touch of polish to satisfy the pickers of nits. :D

.B
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DigitalMaestro
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Re: Earth Bond

Post by DigitalMaestro »

expedient wrote:
gnume wrote:
expedient wrote: And all ape bodies, for example, work in broadly the same way. Some may have gripping feet but their spines don't realign.
and fel wrote that each species of dragon has a different body in that world
It's fine if he wants to explain it away like that, my point is that it is odd. It is not [and nor are my other points] a major critic of what has been written. I enjoyed the story. There are some minor areas which stuck out to me as oddities. I'm glad it didn't stand out for everyone else but it made me stop and think about it. I'm like that. :P
Think about your own spine. Can you lean forward and back? Can you also lean side to side? Vertebral joints are unlike many other joint types because of the wide range of motion they are capable of. Think about a dolphin, after which the water dragons are modeled. Have you ever seen a picture of a dolphin with his tail to the side? I have.

The point is that the dominant stroke for swimming is not the only possible motion for a spinal extension to make. The surrounding tissue on a water dragon makes a vertical motion most efficient for swimming, but not the only motion the bones and tissue can accomodate.

The dragons believe they are of magical origin. Given their own magical power, this is not terribly hard to believe. Also, different cultures have vastly different ideas of what a "dragon" should be. Fel has incorporated several of those concepts into different species. We should not apply evolutionary rules to a fictional genus with significant magical interaction within their realm unless the author specifically places those limits on his universe.

-DM
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Re: Earth Bond

Post by expedient »

DigitalMaestro wrote:Think about your own spine. Can you lean forward and back? Can you also lean side to side? Vertebral joints are unlike many other joint types because of the wide range of motion they are capable of. Think about a dolphin, after which the water dragons are modeled. Have you ever seen a picture of a dolphin with his tail to the side? I have.

The point is that the dominant stroke for swimming is not the only possible motion for a spinal extension to make. The surrounding tissue on a water dragon makes a vertical motion most efficient for swimming, but not the only motion the bones and tissue can accomodate.

The dragons believe they are of magical origin. Given their own magical power, this is not terribly hard to believe. Also, different cultures have vastly different ideas of what a "dragon" should be. Fel has incorporated several of those concepts into different species. We should not apply evolutionary rules to a fictional genus with significant magical interaction within their realm unless the author specifically places those limits on his universe.

-DM
As I said my point wasn't supposed to be a major criticism. It was just something which made me stop and think about. Having had another day to think about it I think it is the way Kell is described as having curled his body in a defensive action which it the root of my niggle. If he had just positioned himself in a defensive way ahead of Jenny I probably wouldn't have thought about it again. Yes we can flex our spines in more than one direction but most of the power comes only in one direction. A cat at ease will lie on its side and curl around itself but will rest on its haunches on a perch, such as an armrest, or when readying for action. It really doesn't matter, it didn't affect my enjoyment of the story.

In summary: I was mildly confused from the story descriptions as to the general anatomy of the dragons.
Last edited by expedient on Thu Jan 12, 2012 1:36 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Earth Bond

Post by expedient »

GBLW wrote:Concerning the fact that the tech is somewhat outdated - the technology he is describing is what is used by the humans, he even said that the dragons had stolen parts of it, then had gone on to develop their own versions which surpassed that.
Again a minor point but he says that the dragon computers are twenty years ahead of the human ones. Moore's Curves suggest that number of transistors in an integrated circuit doubles every two years. So in a simplified argument the dragon computer chips will have to be competing with human chips that have doubled in transistor count ten times (2^10). Some of the performance increases one might expect from the increase in complexity could be explained away be improvements in material processes, such as using graphene or optical technology over silicon based chips. The architecture though is likely to be radically different, unless they are just throwing lots of similar cores at the chip and instead of using eight they have 8192 cores in their tech. This wouldn't account for all of the twenty years of advancement though. IMO.

The alternative explanation, as I previously mentioned, is that Kell is misdirecting Jenny as to the dragon's capabilities. The domestic equipment might be using a current human bleeding edge chip but the dragon intelligence services are using "new stuff".
GBLW wrote:Personally I think as a very quick write, he did fantastically. It shows that he was writing for effect, not for show and I appreciate the fact that he posted it as is - minor glitches and all, but while it was still fresh in his own mind.
I agree.
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Re: Earth Bond

Post by expedient »

I don't want to speculate on where the story is going too much but two themes I hope to see a little of are (1) nations other than the USA mentioned (at least in some small part) in regards to trying to uncover information about the dragons, and (2) not every dragon conforming to their racial stereotype, for instance a sympathetic sky or non-megalomaniacal chromatic.
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Re: Earth Bond

Post by GBLW »

expedient wrote:I don't want to speculate on where the story is going too much but two themes I hope to see a little of are (1) nations other than the USA mentioned (at least in some small part) in regards to trying to uncover information about the dragons, and (2) not every dragon conforming to their racial stereotype, for instance a sympathetic sky or non-megalomaniacal chromatic.
Look, I don't need to defend Fel - after all I'm a 'tag-along' on his site, but I do have to say that an author writes what he wants to write, when he wants to write.
I appreciate Fel's skill with words and his sheer ability to create characters that are multi-dimensional. That being said, there is a different feeling to this story than to most of the others on the site and I truly appreciate the fact that he is stepping out in a another new direction.

Actually I owe Fel and this site a HUGE thank-you for giving me the mental kick in the butt to start posting my writings again.
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