Not all lost things should be found

[anyril]

this is a start of a battle story fic i started to write and was look ing for some advice.

Disclaimer: I do not own zoids and this is not being done to profit off of them.

P.S. for any Other former military people or military buffs out their i appologise for the poorly written op-order

Max sat quietly in her gun sniper watching through the scope for her opponent to show up. As a top rated sniper it was something she was use to and she had located the perfect spot. She was just inside the wood line of a hard wood forest atop a hill that over looked a grassy knoll. Just as she was wondering if she was even going to get any action a black zoid appeared in her scope it looked like a cross between a basic liger zero and a zero x. She noticed that it had not appeared on any of her sensors prior to its appearance but that really didn’t matter much to her since she had locked in on it and was about to squeeze the trigger when she yelled over her comms, “bang you are dead!” “Good job” was the reply that came over the speakers. Just then the republic army coordinator broke into the communication before anything could be said, “The training session has ended please return to the base the Colonel wants to see you both.” “Roger that base,” they both replied as the met up in the knoll, and started back toward the base.

After about an hour Max had finally parked her zoid and finished the post operations checks and when she climbed out of the cockpit. Lieutenant Maxine Harris was about 5’8” tall and weighed about 160 lbs. with an athletic build; she had long red hair and ice blue eyes. She was met at the foot of her zoid by her partner Captain Alex Wood who was about 5’10” and 190 with a fairly muscular build he was blond with steel gray eyes. The two of them were considered to be one of the best recon teams in the republic. After handing their maintenance reports the hanger chief they made their way to battalion headquarters where they were supposed to meet with the Colonel.

On the way to the Colonel’s office they had speculated about what the old man wanted both figuring that they were about to be sent out on another mission. After knocking and being permitted into the Colonel’s office they could see the colonel sitting at his desk with a sour look on his face and also noticed that there were two people in imperial uniforms in the room as well. As they entered the room and saluted the Colonel as was protocol “Cpt. Alex wood and Lt. Maxine Harris reporting as ordered” Alex addressed the colonel. “You can relax” the colonel said as he returned their salute. I would like to introduce you to Colonel Pool and Lt. Sara Petrova of the Guylos Imperial Army. Lt. Petrova and the two of you have been assigned to work together in a joint Imperial and Republic Task force that will be conducting recon on the central continent.

Here are is the written op-order (operations order) please read it over and ask any questions. Alex and Max both took a moment to look over the order which was broken up in standard format.

Situation: Enemy forces seem to be securing a dig site.
Size of the force is unknown.
Enemy mission is unknown.
Enemy equipment is unknown.

Mission: Ascertain enemy size
Strength of the enemy
Motivations of the enemy

Equipment: Liger Zero with Shadow CAS
Gun sniper with standard armaments
Hel-kat with improved stealth capabilities

Support: Supply drop at designated coordinates every 48 hours
Imperial Air Support on stand you for emergency evacuation.

Command: Chain of command as follows
Cpt Alex Wood
Lt Sara Petrova
Lt Maxine Harris.

The only question asked was the speculations on the enemy’s objectives at the dig site. According to Colonel Pool that is what has the intelligence sections of both military’s confused. To all knowledge there was nothing of any value in the area of the dig site.

Following the briefing the three new team Members went to the zoid hanger to begin pre mission checks on their zoids.

<sorry about the lack of indentations>

[Orange]

Boring. Sorry.

Use indentations to start new bits of diolouge. Also, feel free to add more personality to your characters. It's a decent start, but needs a lot of work.

Like, with Maxine the sniper. You seem to have been in the military, you should know what it's like to be behind a gun, waiting for a target to show it's self. Hell, even for rifle qualifying, you should have felt that same anticipation, the constant reminders where you forced yourself to check your breathing, squeeze the triger instead of pull, mind your winds, lead the target, allow for the kick, dont be afraid of it, dont be afraid of it... Feel free to add Maxine's mental train as she's trying to, y'know, shoot something. I know that's what goes through my head every time I look downrange through the peeps, or even moreso when I see myself aiming at an actual living, breathing thing. Give your characters character.

EDIT: Steel grey eyes, eh? I gots me a pair of those. This must make me awesome.

[Tilly]

Shadow CAS?

If you're setting it in the battle story, some sense of when and where would be good. I'm quite spotty on the NJR myself, but Guylos and Helic forces working together to recon the central continent seems out of place, except maybe in the bit after they got driven off by Neo Zenebas, which wouldn't exactly be a happy time.

[Deadborder]

This fic needs a lot more intriduction and a lot more chracter before it will make for a good read. While we get a decent enough physical description of the chracters, we have absolutely no idea of their personalites. We don't know who thye are, what they are like, what they want, what their aims are or anyhting to that effect.

In other words, thy need personalty. They need to have chracter. Instead we get dropped into them being given some arbitrary orders to go and so stuff.

On the topic of inructions, we have almost no idea of what the time and period is, where they are, what's going on or, most imprtaintly, why a Guylos soldier is working with the Helic army.

Likewise, ther'es no attrept to introduce this "Shadow" CAS beyond the fact that it is (presumably) the same Liger Zero as seen in the simultor battle. All we know is that its black and has a painfully generic name.

Finally remmber... NEW PARAGRAPH FOR EACH DIFFERNT SPEAKER! Doing otherwise makes Baby Gamera cry.

Rick R.

[rantinan]

HUrrm, where to start. Physical descriptions are ok, but agian, i have no feel for these people at all.
Unfortunately, that;s the most positive thing i hae to say

*engage battle story fanboy rant mode*

If it's gonna be a battle story basaed then there is no imperial/republican cooperation worth beans.The three major powers are more likely to fight like rabid animals tha ncooperate, and any apearecnce of cooperation usualy results in hideous betrayal. there also shouldnt be any fweee silly liger Zero parts, there's more than enough fwee silly in the battle story already, like slash liger for example.
Watch your punctuaiton. not only lack of indents, your dialogue is pritty week. In particular the improper use of inerted commas is worthy of Herr Starr's attention.
You should look into rounding off your characters somewhat. A good starting technique is to have a chapter (or at least a few paragraphs) about each character before you actualy get into the story.

[anyril]

Thanks for the advice. I will try to work out more of the character personalities. The time frame I am going for is after the everyone was driven off the continent, and before it was retaken. The Shadow CAS refers to a custom of mine i posted a while ago. Also no one ever said there was not a little alterior motive from one side or the other. Again I am greatful for the feed back and also that no one absolutly hated it.