Please tell me what you think of this story. I will try to keep it updated. Thank you for your help.This is a story for a game, so it might have a little bad grammar and such, but i would just like the context of it discussed as i need a reference as to what you think would be interesting in this storyline. Story: Year of Story: 2108 you awake You slowly comes around in a cryogenic case. Looking over you is your commanding officer: Sergeant Major Kennedy of the Marines, Sergeant Valance and Sergeant David’s. Sergeant Major Kennedy of the marines first greats you with a sarcastic sentence; Followed by Technical Sergeant Valance reassuring you everything is fine and welcomes you back to earth. You are a little dazed and confused, and can’t move at first when the cryogen is opened. Sergeant Major David’s tells you where you are and what you are to be doing. A Scientist with a drill inserts a pack into your backpack which then enables you to move as well as give you the HUD. Here then Sergeant Major Kennedy tells the scientist to show you the ropes on your new body and get you outside to the training ground. The scientist (with his own personality) tells you how to use your body suit by looking around, strafing etc, how the life bar operates, special energy packs available for the suit and a demonstration on each etc. he then escorts you to the training grounds where an officer is waiting for you. This is a large building with a 3D holographic training ground. The gun you are given is a laser equipped gun that can send a signal to where it hits on the hologram showing a bullet mark or effect on for example an enemy soldier. You are constantly being monitored by cameras placed around the building, but at the same time the 3 officers are watching you through a mirrored window. Once you complete the multiple tasks in the training, the system is turned off and they tell you to go to the exit where they meet you. They then escort you outside and you then see the size of the barracks (HUGE) with soldiers training, and marching around. you are taken to a landing pad where a carrier ship is waiting for you. you and Kennedy take the ship out to the sky where your ship (and 13 others land on a cruiser which is flying high above from he ground. The ship takes off into space and the intro is set. As you are debriefed on the ship, you are also informed for the purpose of all this. You are told that aliens found the planet in a plea for help, in exchange for some of their technology. This gave us the cruisers and some of their weapons. Their home planet is under attack from an even more superior race - The Aboleth. This race from what is known excels in telekinetic abilities in the forms of creating a false sensor input, mind link and mass domination. Their bodies are of a tall structure but relatively slender. Their race differs from their age, where an Aboleth evolves into the next stage of being by cocooning itself for a period of time before extending it to the next level. Each level has a telekinetic ability but the more elder the Aboleth the more it prowess’s in its telekinetic abilities. The reason the Aboleths are attacking the Arcane's is little known, some say it is for the planet, others because they are war mongers, but some say the Aboleths want to adapt the Arcane's ability to open dimension doors and cloak. The Aboleth's ships are not very technologically advanced, attacking and defence it is second to non. But for speed it lacks heavily in all areas. At the end of the debriefing 1 of the Arcane councillors is introduced by Kennedy and thanks you joining them in battle. He then shows you a demonstration of their weapons. The first ship to reach the Arcane planet took 6 days to get there and when it does, the planet is lit up like a ball of fire. There is no time to wait for the other ships as the ships from the Aboleth's are docked on the other side of the planet and out of detection. This gives the fleet the opportunity to send out its troops while more ships from earth make their way to the planet. You are on the first ship to reach the planet. You descend upon the planet. Your first objective is to secure a stronghold on the surface of the planet as a base of operations. After taking some enemy fire from a nearby city that is under Terrant control, you crash-land in the outskirts of civilization. It’s a relatively safe landing, but the sensors pick up a large contingent of Terrant warriors who are quickly approaching your position. The next couple of minutes are spent rounding up a squad with which you can combat the coming warriors as the Alketh counselor radios for back-up. The number of enemies that arrive at first is underwhelming (this basically serves as an introduction to the basic enemies you’ll be facing throughout the game and their abilities). However, the fight quickly escalates as more Terrant arrive, some on/in vehicles. Just as it seems like too much to handle, the Alketh reinforcements arrive. With the first battle over, a number of options open up- which city should we attempt to reclaim first? There’s a meeting in witch an Alketh general (the one who arrived with the reinforcements) tells you the situation in each of the surrounding cities.

Its not a bad beginning. Definate shades of Halo, but I'll let that slide as it begins going in a slightly different direction towards the end.

One possibility for a plot twist that sprang to mind is that you could discover that the Arcanes were the true aggressors in the war with the Aboleth, but they were being defeated so they came to us in desperation to trick us into doing their dirty work (Or maybe theres also a human conspiracy at play in the government, the higher-ups know that the Arcanes are really the bad guy, but they are hiding that fact from the public to gain the Arcane's Technology.) Continue your story as you will, just a couple thoughts that would help shift away from the Halo-esqe themes.

Way ahead of you on the Alketh bing the aggressors. Any whay, here is the next section. And please only give helpful criticism

(ps)this is not my work, but someone working on the story is writing it. I am posting it here just for some more thoughts you might have about it. So dont read this and then ask if i can do some writing for a game, because i cannot write for squat. It is poste in his words I is refering to him not me.

Written by: Andrew Stebens

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This is the Mentality we are trying to portay on the character.

(Main character speaking)
When I stare into the ocean, I feel a certain sense of calm. The tide rolls in and out, taking its time, no whip of its master behind it. The sound it makes is almost hushing, like a mother telling her child that everything is going to be alright. Each drop is insignificant, but together it makes a whole- an entire ocean, filled with insignificant drops.
I am number 62288. I am insignificant. My gun fires to the trumpet of a politician who neither knows my name nor wishes to hear it. I don’t want to fight for them, but then what is it that I’m fighting for? Am I fighting for number 1 (a war hero, and the leader of the earth forces), the leader, the hero of them all? Am I fighting for myself? Am I fighting for strength, for justice, for peace? What about those I kill? They’re just like me. They’re just following orders. They have lives- families, friends; and I can end it all with the pull of a trigger
What are any of us fighting for? We’re supposed to have unwavering devotion to the one we serve. “All hail the President! The dictator! The Chancellor!” We’re supposed to die in his name. We’re all supposed to die without question, following orders, mere drops in the ocean of space.
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Now, on with the story idea. There are two major stories running throughout the game. One is the main plot, which centers on the conflict with the Terrant. The other focuses on the main character’s inner struggle and his rise to a Master-Chief-like status. As you can see from the selection above, he feels insignificant, and is looking for a reason to fight. In the beginning, the battles should be relentless- the Terrant have basically taken over the planet, and an invading force would not stand idly by when they see people trying to stop them. The beginning won’t have too much in the way of plot, but should offer more of a feel of relentless battle as you struggle to take back the planet. The player should begin to develop feelings of insignificance along with the main character.

The speaking part written above takes place at a break in the fighting. I thought the idea of having a place that the main character and the player can rest from the overwhelming battle and recollect his thoughts was a good idea, so I chose a beach. The main character (I will just call him 62288 like stated above) has an inner dialog with himself where he questions the reason he’s fighting. He begins to see the people he’s fighting as fellow pawns, each with their own story to tell and family to miss them. This is where the story kicks into high gear, as 62288 begins to climb in rank as a fighter. He sees worse and worse things happening, and questions even more his involvement in this war, all the while asking, “Why am I fighting?” He begins to piece together how the war between the Alketh and the Terrant began, but it’s still not clear. There’s a piece of the puzzle missing.

Although a hard concept to pull off, I believe it would help the atmosphere immensely if we began to give the player a sense of remorse whenever he killed a Terrant. It’s not about making the player hesitate about killing the enemy, but more about giving the enemy a sense of likeability and human traits that make them feel deeper than normal NPC’s. I think video game poet Seth “Fingers” Flynn Barkan (a video game poet) put the feeling best when he wrote: “while killing sentries atop/ the oil derrick,/ I wonder if these men possess/ the capacity to love; if they have dreams/ or anything other than this./ I shoot one in the face,/ appearing silently from behind a corner/ silently, just a whisper/ of the sea, buddy, just a whisper of the sea.” It’s the sense that when you kill an NPC, you loose a creature whose hopes and dreams become “a whisper of the sea”.

As you get further into the game, in addition to a sense of attachment to the Terrant, you begin to notice that the higher Terrant evolutions (remember that the Terrant evolve by cocooning themselves, much in the same way [forgive my childish refrence] a pokemon would evolve or similar to how Freeza changes into more powerful forms in Dragon Ball Z. I know this is going off on a tangent, but we think it would be cool to have places on the Terrant ships and possibly a main place in the mother ship that the Terrant have set aside to cocoon themselves in peace, but more on that later) look similar to what the Alketh normally look like. Before he can question the similarity further, however, he is sent into battle as part of number 1’s (a most celebrated war hero and the commander of the earth troops [name subject to change]) squad. What he sees while with number 1, however, rocks his world.

They sneak onto a Terrant cruiser and begin to destroy it from the inside out. While they team escapes the exploding cruiser, 62288 looks through a window into the central area of the ship and realizes that it’s a civilian transport vessel. After they leave the cruiser, 62288 confronts number 1, who reveals he knew that it was a civilian transport the whole time. 62288 never gets a chance to rebuke number 1, however, because as soon as they land, they are overtaken by angry Terrant soldiers. Number 1 sacrifices countless members of his own squad before he, himself, dies a coward. 62288 barely escapes with his life, the will to fight taken from him. He once again goes to the beach to think and rest. As he watches the waves roll in and out (of course, an Alketh beach looks different than an Earth beach), he considers his next move. Why fight anymore? Who was there to fight for? Number 1 was a coward, and self-gain seemed an insufficient reason, so why fight? 62288, worn from battle and death, climbs a nearby cliff and throws himself into the ocean, to be swallowed by the calming waves and the foaming tide.

Awe, no one likes the story? I really need this critiqued for our game. The whole point of our game is to get the GAMER's perspective on it. SO please offer a critistic hand and lend some words.

It's a little hard to get into. Try summarizing it at the beginning, organizing it with headings and stuff; this'll probably get more people to read it.

Well, i guess