[bureaucrats had decided to put him on mankind’s first deep space mission with an all male crew, because apparently they didn’t trust the crew to stay professional. Professional, my ass! Just ask a nurse what’s going on in any county hospital, and they aren’t holed up in a tiny spaceship for years! Besides, didn’t they get the memo that men can screw each other, too? Not that that’d help me...]
This reflexive "but not me" thing sounds weird on a three-person ship. If it's that people can be gay, it'd require the other 2/3 to be gay to matter, and if we're talking situational homosexuality then him acknowledging that's a thing but saying definitely not him when it's a years-long trip is odd, especially when it should also be a factor that if either of his crewmates would, he's likely going to get propositioned. This really seems like it'd make more sense if it was he wouldn't resort to screwing either of his crewmate options but that's a coincidence so he doesn't think the bureaucrats deserve credit. As it is, it's almost a non sequitur chain of reasoning: they didn't want people screwing, so they made sure it was all men, even though men can fuck each other except for how he would never so it worked. Or maybe if his point just focused on complaining about the professionalism, maybe tried elaborating on the point that he thinks if it's good enough for medical professionals letting off steam, the professional option should be to be sure to have a mixed sex group so they can do the same.
[Burke grabbed the rail that was running along the wall to keep himself from hitting his skull on the deckhead. His trail of thoughts had made him put too much force into his step.]
This makes for a nice character detail - he says he's not wearing the boots because they're annoying and it's not like he really needs them, only to nearly get himself hurt in a way that presumably wouldn't have been a risk in magnetic boots.
[Tonight, he’d try the gym. Tire himself out on the press bank, battle muscle atrophy in one go. Maybe even get an hour of sleep before his shift began. He just hoped that Jones had already done all that and was busy two decks below him in the engine room. The two of them hadn’t exactly started off on the right foot, and the cramped space of the Icarus provided no opportunity to cool off and get some perspective. If Jones was in there, he’d immediately notify the ship’s commander that their pilot wasn’t taking his prescribed amount of rest. Shit. For a moment, Burke debated finding something else to get him tired; Virdon wouldn’t be happy if he learned that he’d been fighting a losing battle against his insomnia for a week now without telling him. The colonel was a pretty easygoing guy, but that’d stop if he thought the mission was in danger. Which was as it should be, only he wasn’t endangering the mission. He just couldn’t sleep.]
I found this confusing/jarring. In the first paragraph, it sounds like he's aware Jones might be there and report him when he's making the decision, then suddenly Shit, like something new's happened like noticing Jones is in there. But it seems like the issue is the final line of the paragraph is something he just realized - the paragraph is him working out that Jones might be there, and if he's there it'll be an issue, and that oh, it could be that much of an issue. But in that case, it doesn't convey a progression of just now working this out, and the exclamation would make more sense directly in front of the realization.
["Your pranks weren’t funny from the beginning, Major," Jones snapped, "and they aren’t getting any funnier!"]
The first bit about Jones needling him a lot is obviously a pretty bad personality flaw for a long-term mission but something that feels like it could plausibly develop over time and not be obvious when they were picked, and similarly Burke not being able to ignore needling and also insulting Jones. But prank-pulling? And multiple pranks in a dangerous environment on someone who's said they hate it? Animosity after spending so much time together works, but an obvious, enormous personality problem that's been there from the beginning just makes everyone involved in keeping Burke on look incompetent.
I don't know the canon of this one - I'm assuming Burke is probably starting off with more everyman/jock-ish traits, because TV shows like that sort of conflict. But it's hard for me to believe they'd even have someone like this on the astronaut track, let alone getting picked for anything.
[Burke slowly turned on his axis as he followed him with his eyes. "It’s Bridge of Stars, and stop evading the question. You’ve been skipping your training almost since we broke orbit. If Virdon learns about your little unannounced field trips, you’ll have an interesting interview session." Jones froze for a moment; then his lips thinned. "And I’m sure you’ll explain to him why you were wandering all over the ship during your sleep cycle, Major? Or did you fail to mention your little unannounced field trips, too?"]
So when I saw this, it seemed like this is a mutually-assured-destruction situation. He doesn't want Virdon to find out what he's doing, so he threatens Burke with the same.
Only...
["I regret this, Colonel, but I have to report that the medical condition of a crew member is potentially endangering the success of the mission... and/or the safety of the ship... yes, of course I’m talking about Major Burke... yes... thank you, Colonel." He closed the comm and turned towards Burke with a triumphant smile. "Col. Virdon will meet you in sickbay after his shift has ended, to make sure you get a thorough physical examination." He sniffed. "I guess it’s you who’ll have that interesting interview session, Major. Have fun." He pushed past him. "Don’t forget to switch off the lights in here." With a last grin over his shoulder, he vanished into the corridor. Well, fuck you. Burke didn’t know if he wanted to laugh or smash something. He eyed the darkened workstation. That was beautifully deflected, I’ll grant you that, Jonesy. ]
How does this stop Burke from ratting him out?
Burke found logs saying where Jones hadn't been, and then found more logs stating exactly where he had been instead. And then Jones acted even weirder. Yeah, Jones accused him first, but he can at least get them both under scrutiny by reporting Jones back, he has better and longer-running evidence, and he can give his side of the story which involves Jones trying to bargain with him rather than going to report him, which is only weirder when Jones hates him and should've loved to get him in as much trouble as possible.
This seems like it'd make a lot more sense without Burke finding that evidence, so the only real piece in his favor is Jones' behavior here which isn't that weird and Burke could be lying about anyway. Like, if instead of exercise being just the last of a the series of things he's been doing to deal with insomnia, he's been going extra times to the gym for a while and noticed it's weird Jones was never in there at the same time when he should've been scheduled for it. Or if he was just a more chummy guy and had also been trying to go over to Jones' room and noticed he also never seemed to be in there at times you'd expect. Something like that is quite understandably dismissed as paranoia, especially if Jones as the computer person actually was falsifying the logs so it's Burke's word he hasn't seen him at the time.
Instead, as far as I can tell, Burke has proof but just doesn't mention any of it.
["I’m taking care of it, Pete, leave that to me." The last thing he needed was open warfare between his pilot and his engineer. They had been locking horns even during training, and Virdon wondered yet again why ANSA had insisted on keeping Jones in the team. Well, actually it had been Hasslein who had insisted on Jones, and him who had insisted on Burke. And here they were. Virdon suppressed a sigh. He couldn’t let the men’s personal animosity get out of hand. They had a long journey ahead of them.]
This really, really doesn't explain it, it just moves it from "Why did the people back home pick Burke?" to "Why did Virdon not only pick but insist on Burke?" We've seen one thing from Jones, that he's doing some sort of complicated computer/math/something that Burke can't even recognize, let alone do, and we get that immediately upon seeing him. On Burke's end, claims of pilot reflexes that's already a stretch to think matters in space, and really does seem like there's got to be at least one other guy with fewer personality flaws you could get, and if it actually is so important than the insomnia is a really huge deal and yet another way he's a bad pick for this. And instead of Virdon giving any sign of why he insisted it had to be Burke, it doesn't even seem like he likes or trusts Burke from how he's acting here.
And then on top of that, Burke has logs proving he was right and yet doesn't mention that, which is just baffling.
["I’m taking over, Major." ... "Told ya, it’s Burke." He wasn’t going to address Jones with ‘mission specialist’ every time he was forced to acknowledge his presence, either. Especially since Jones insisted on it - predictably, the man had refused to adapt to their more relaxed interaction. ... "Not your business, Jones." ... "That’s mister Jones]
It's a lot ruder to move things from formal to informal than the other way around.
It's possible that maybe Jones did something first, but right now, there's more bad behavior from Burke, it's all worse behavior than Jones', and it's Burke instigating it.
Like, yeah, obviously Jones is up to something bad. But that's fun. Burke is unpleasant and annoying, and in a job where that should disqualify you right out the gate. I'd say this would work a lot better if there weren't statements that Burke has been being a dick to him this whole time but that their current level of mutual loathing is recent, and also if Jones did more on his end to be a dick than being snippy at someone he hates and referring to the guy by title. Similarly, something to reconcile the discovery getting kicked off by seeing logs yet those logs not being evidence.
[and mom had to come to see the principal]
So any time you're replacing a person's name with a title of some kind, like mom or dad, it gets capitalized like their name would be.
[ Sally sighed a laugh. "It’s not that show. I saw Hasslein on livestream yesterday, giving yet another interview. The man’s a narcissist." He agreed with her about Hasslein, but there was no point in fanning her fears. "He’s a brilliant scientist. He made this mission possible, so he has bragging rights. And whatever his personal flaws, his machines don’t have them. He’s the one who’s most invested in the Icarus’ success. Heck, they even named the field generators after him." "And when mankind sends its first colony ship, I bet he’ll insist that it’d be named ‘Hasslein’s Ark’," Sally scoffed. Virdon snorted. She had a point there. ]
So, a part of what makes Burke unpleasant is that he seems to have taken it upon himself to hassle the crew's nerd, and now we have a scientist working on what you go on to say is a mission of life or death to find habitable worlds before Earth craps out on humans getting called a narcissist for giving interviews about what sounds like a pretty damn important thing between inventing new machines left and right. That's not a narcissist. A narcissist would not have looked at the world and gone, Wow, the best way to ensure everyone pays attention to me is putting in massive amounts of work other people will largely take for granted.
Also, while it's not impossible one guy invented everything, a more congruent reason would be that Hasslein is more of an Elon Musk type. Collecting the work of a lot of talented people and trying to get the credit for yourself lends itself to a narcissist explanation more than someone who just did invent piles of stuff, and it's also more plausible than any one person just being so talented they can do everything.
["The suboxic zone off of California has again expanded," Sally whispered. "It’s happening much faster than we thought - the entire West Coast will be dead in less than two years. I spoke with Dr. Adesina - she thinks in another five years, we’ll see the same thing happening with the entire subarctic Pacific. The only remnants of marine life will be found in the cooler arctic seas, and perhaps in some areas in the middle of the Pacific, if we’re lucky."]
This seems clunky to me.
When talking about expanding dead zones, it's usually anoxic, since suboxic is defined as being between anoxic and oxic zones - presumably the suboxic is expending as the anoxic zone is, but it's the anoxic zone that's the underlying issue. It's also wonky to say the problem is in the West Cast rather than Pacific when the coastline itself is going to still be getting oxygen.
[in two years' time we might be faced with the biggest global famine in the history of mankind." Sally’s voice was brittle. "And we won’t have a colony by then. We won’t even have a colony ship. You’ll be just returning..." "It won’t be too late," Virdon said, as much for her sake as for his own. "We’ll find a new home, and give the old lady time to recover." If Burke didn’t fly the ship into an asteroid, drunk from sleep deprivation... if Jones didn’t fiddle with the machines until his obsession with efficiency took them a step too far... if he didn’t let himself get infected with Burke’s paranoia. Virdon tried to shake off the bout of sudden panic. He couldn’t let their precious time end on such an apocalyptic note. "How’s my little girl doing?" he asked. "Keeping me awake half the night," Sally took up his light tone. "I guess by now we’re both eager to get this whole birthing thing underway." "I wish I could be there," Virdon murmured. "You shouldn’t be alone, when..." "My mom will be there, and your mom, and your dad... don’t worry, Alan, we’ll be fine."]
This is a really weird pivot. "I know it's depressing how we've run out of time and in a few years you'll have starved to death or been murdered by cannibals. But hey, you're about to bring a new person into this nightmare! How's that going?"
It seems like it'd make more sense for Virdon to be the scared pessimist here, having taken this job because he sees it as his family's only chance of survival even as he's eaten up over not being there with them as a result, while his wife is more hopeful. That'd also match their split on Hasslein, where he thinks the mission they're on is worth putting up with the guy. Or if you want Virdon as the main character to start off more hopeful for contrast in dealing with the future, I'd expect to see a lot more tension here, like maybe Virdon talked her into it at the time and now she's regretting it.
Marooned On The Planet Of The Apes Ch1
[bureaucrats had decided to put him on mankind’s first deep space mission with an all male crew, because apparently they didn’t trust the crew to stay professional.
Professional, my ass! Just ask a nurse what’s going on in any county hospital, and they aren’t holed up in a tiny spaceship for years! Besides, didn’t they get the memo that men can screw each other, too? Not that that’d help me...]
This reflexive "but not me" thing sounds weird on a three-person ship. If it's that people can be gay, it'd require the other 2/3 to be gay to matter, and if we're talking situational homosexuality then him acknowledging that's a thing but saying definitely not him when it's a years-long trip is odd, especially when it should also be a factor that if either of his crewmates would, he's likely going to get propositioned. This really seems like it'd make more sense if it was he wouldn't resort to screwing either of his crewmate options but that's a coincidence so he doesn't think the bureaucrats deserve credit. As it is, it's almost a non sequitur chain of reasoning: they didn't want people screwing, so they made sure it was all men, even though men can fuck each other except for how he would never so it worked. Or maybe if his point just focused on complaining about the professionalism, maybe tried elaborating on the point that he thinks if it's good enough for medical professionals letting off steam, the professional option should be to be sure to have a mixed sex group so they can do the same.
[Burke grabbed the rail that was running along the wall to keep himself from hitting his skull on the deckhead. His trail of thoughts had made him put too much force into his step.]
This makes for a nice character detail - he says he's not wearing the boots because they're annoying and it's not like he really needs them, only to nearly get himself hurt in a way that presumably wouldn't have been a risk in magnetic boots.
[Tonight, he’d try the gym. Tire himself out on the press bank, battle muscle atrophy in one go. Maybe even get an hour of sleep before his shift began. He just hoped that Jones had already done all that and was busy two decks below him in the engine room. The two of them hadn’t exactly started off on the right foot, and the cramped space of the Icarus provided no opportunity to cool off and get some perspective. If Jones was in there, he’d immediately notify the ship’s commander that their pilot wasn’t taking his prescribed amount of rest.
Shit.
For a moment, Burke debated finding something else to get him tired; Virdon wouldn’t be happy if he learned that he’d been fighting a losing battle against his insomnia for a week now without telling him. The colonel was a pretty easygoing guy, but that’d stop if he thought the mission was in danger. Which was as it should be, only he wasn’t endangering the mission. He just couldn’t sleep.]
I found this confusing/jarring. In the first paragraph, it sounds like he's aware Jones might be there and report him when he's making the decision, then suddenly Shit, like something new's happened like noticing Jones is in there. But it seems like the issue is the final line of the paragraph is something he just realized - the paragraph is him working out that Jones might be there, and if he's there it'll be an issue, and that oh, it could be that much of an issue. But in that case, it doesn't convey a progression of just now working this out, and the exclamation would make more sense directly in front of the realization.
["Your pranks weren’t funny from the beginning, Major," Jones snapped, "and they aren’t getting any funnier!"]
The first bit about Jones needling him a lot is obviously a pretty bad personality flaw for a long-term mission but something that feels like it could plausibly develop over time and not be obvious when they were picked, and similarly Burke not being able to ignore needling and also insulting Jones. But prank-pulling? And multiple pranks in a dangerous environment on someone who's said they hate it? Animosity after spending so much time together works, but an obvious, enormous personality problem that's been there from the beginning just makes everyone involved in keeping Burke on look incompetent.
I don't know the canon of this one - I'm assuming Burke is probably starting off with more everyman/jock-ish traits, because TV shows like that sort of conflict. But it's hard for me to believe they'd even have someone like this on the astronaut track, let alone getting picked for anything.
[Burke slowly turned on his axis as he followed him with his eyes. "It’s Bridge of Stars, and stop evading the question. You’ve been skipping your training almost since we broke orbit. If Virdon learns about your little unannounced field trips, you’ll have an interesting interview session."
Jones froze for a moment; then his lips thinned. "And I’m sure you’ll explain to him why you were wandering all over the ship during your sleep cycle, Major? Or did you fail to mention your little unannounced field trips, too?"]
So when I saw this, it seemed like this is a mutually-assured-destruction situation. He doesn't want Virdon to find out what he's doing, so he threatens Burke with the same.
Only...
["I regret this, Colonel, but I have to report that the medical condition of a crew member is potentially endangering the success of the mission... and/or the safety of the ship... yes, of course I’m talking about Major Burke... yes... thank you, Colonel." He closed the comm and turned towards Burke with a triumphant smile.
"Col. Virdon will meet you in sickbay after his shift has ended, to make sure you get a thorough physical examination." He sniffed. "I guess it’s you who’ll have that interesting interview session, Major. Have fun." He pushed past him. "Don’t forget to switch off the lights in here." With a last grin over his shoulder, he vanished into the corridor.
Well, fuck you. Burke didn’t know if he wanted to laugh or smash something. He eyed the darkened workstation. That was beautifully deflected, I’ll grant you that, Jonesy. ]
How does this stop Burke from ratting him out?
Burke found logs saying where Jones hadn't been, and then found more logs stating exactly where he had been instead. And then Jones acted even weirder. Yeah, Jones accused him first, but he can at least get them both under scrutiny by reporting Jones back, he has better and longer-running evidence, and he can give his side of the story which involves Jones trying to bargain with him rather than going to report him, which is only weirder when Jones hates him and should've loved to get him in as much trouble as possible.
This seems like it'd make a lot more sense without Burke finding that evidence, so the only real piece in his favor is Jones' behavior here which isn't that weird and Burke could be lying about anyway. Like, if instead of exercise being just the last of a the series of things he's been doing to deal with insomnia, he's been going extra times to the gym for a while and noticed it's weird Jones was never in there at the same time when he should've been scheduled for it. Or if he was just a more chummy guy and had also been trying to go over to Jones' room and noticed he also never seemed to be in there at times you'd expect. Something like that is quite understandably dismissed as paranoia, especially if Jones as the computer person actually was falsifying the logs so it's Burke's word he hasn't seen him at the time.
Instead, as far as I can tell, Burke has proof but just doesn't mention any of it.
["I’m taking care of it, Pete, leave that to me." The last thing he needed was open warfare between his pilot and his engineer. They had been locking horns even during training, and Virdon wondered yet again why ANSA had insisted on keeping Jones in the team.
Well, actually it had been Hasslein who had insisted on Jones, and him who had insisted on Burke. And here they were. Virdon suppressed a sigh. He couldn’t let the men’s personal animosity get out of hand. They had a long journey ahead of them.]
This really, really doesn't explain it, it just moves it from "Why did the people back home pick Burke?" to "Why did Virdon not only pick but insist on Burke?" We've seen one thing from Jones, that he's doing some sort of complicated computer/math/something that Burke can't even recognize, let alone do, and we get that immediately upon seeing him. On Burke's end, claims of pilot reflexes that's already a stretch to think matters in space, and really does seem like there's got to be at least one other guy with fewer personality flaws you could get, and if it actually is so important than the insomnia is a really huge deal and yet another way he's a bad pick for this. And instead of Virdon giving any sign of why he insisted it had to be Burke, it doesn't even seem like he likes or trusts Burke from how he's acting here.
And then on top of that, Burke has logs proving he was right and yet doesn't mention that, which is just baffling.
["I’m taking over, Major."
...
"Told ya, it’s Burke." He wasn’t going to address Jones with ‘mission specialist’ every time he was forced to acknowledge his presence, either. Especially since Jones insisted on it - predictably, the man had refused to adapt to their more relaxed interaction.
...
"Not your business, Jones."
...
"That’s mister Jones]
It's a lot ruder to move things from formal to informal than the other way around.
It's possible that maybe Jones did something first, but right now, there's more bad behavior from Burke, it's all worse behavior than Jones', and it's Burke instigating it.
Like, yeah, obviously Jones is up to something bad. But that's fun. Burke is unpleasant and annoying, and in a job where that should disqualify you right out the gate. I'd say this would work a lot better if there weren't statements that Burke has been being a dick to him this whole time but that their current level of mutual loathing is recent, and also if Jones did more on his end to be a dick than being snippy at someone he hates and referring to the guy by title. Similarly, something to reconcile the discovery getting kicked off by seeing logs yet those logs not being evidence.
[and mom had to come to see the principal]
So any time you're replacing a person's name with a title of some kind, like mom or dad, it gets capitalized like their name would be.
[ Sally sighed a laugh. "It’s not that show. I saw Hasslein on livestream yesterday, giving yet another interview. The man’s a narcissist."
He agreed with her about Hasslein, but there was no point in fanning her fears. "He’s a brilliant scientist. He made this mission possible, so he has bragging rights. And whatever his personal flaws, his machines don’t have them. He’s the one who’s most invested in the Icarus’ success. Heck, they even named the field generators after him."
"And when mankind sends its first colony ship, I bet he’ll insist that it’d be named ‘Hasslein’s Ark’," Sally scoffed. Virdon snorted. She had a point there. ]
So, a part of what makes Burke unpleasant is that he seems to have taken it upon himself to hassle the crew's nerd, and now we have a scientist working on what you go on to say is a mission of life or death to find habitable worlds before Earth craps out on humans getting called a narcissist for giving interviews about what sounds like a pretty damn important thing between inventing new machines left and right. That's not a narcissist. A narcissist would not have looked at the world and gone, Wow, the best way to ensure everyone pays attention to me is putting in massive amounts of work other people will largely take for granted.
Also, while it's not impossible one guy invented everything, a more congruent reason would be that Hasslein is more of an Elon Musk type. Collecting the work of a lot of talented people and trying to get the credit for yourself lends itself to a narcissist explanation more than someone who just did invent piles of stuff, and it's also more plausible than any one person just being so talented they can do everything.
["The suboxic zone off of California has again expanded," Sally whispered. "It’s happening much faster than we thought - the entire West Coast will be dead in less than two years. I spoke with Dr. Adesina - she thinks in another five years, we’ll see the same thing happening with the entire subarctic Pacific. The only remnants of marine life will be found in the cooler arctic seas, and perhaps in some areas in the middle of the Pacific, if we’re lucky."]
This seems clunky to me.
When talking about expanding dead zones, it's usually anoxic, since suboxic is defined as being between anoxic and oxic zones - presumably the suboxic is expending as the anoxic zone is, but it's the anoxic zone that's the underlying issue. It's also wonky to say the problem is in the West Cast rather than Pacific when the coastline itself is going to still be getting oxygen.
[in two years' time we might be faced with the biggest global famine in the history of mankind." Sally’s voice was brittle. "And we won’t have a colony by then. We won’t even have a colony ship. You’ll be just returning..."
"It won’t be too late," Virdon said, as much for her sake as for his own. "We’ll find a new home, and give the old lady time to recover." If Burke didn’t fly the ship into an asteroid, drunk from sleep deprivation... if Jones didn’t fiddle with the machines until his obsession with efficiency took them a step too far... if he didn’t let himself get infected with Burke’s paranoia. Virdon tried to shake off the bout of sudden panic. He couldn’t let their precious time end on such an apocalyptic note.
"How’s my little girl doing?" he asked.
"Keeping me awake half the night," Sally took up his light tone. "I guess by now we’re both eager to get this whole birthing thing underway."
"I wish I could be there," Virdon murmured. "You shouldn’t be alone, when..."
"My mom will be there, and your mom, and your dad... don’t worry, Alan, we’ll be fine."]
This is a really weird pivot. "I know it's depressing how we've run out of time and in a few years you'll have starved to death or been murdered by cannibals. But hey, you're about to bring a new person into this nightmare! How's that going?"
It seems like it'd make more sense for Virdon to be the scared pessimist here, having taken this job because he sees it as his family's only chance of survival even as he's eaten up over not being there with them as a result, while his wife is more hopeful. That'd also match their split on Hasslein, where he thinks the mission they're on is worth putting up with the guy. Or if you want Virdon as the main character to start off more hopeful for contrast in dealing with the future, I'd expect to see a lot more tension here, like maybe Virdon talked her into it at the time and now she's regretting it.