[„Thanks to my superior piloting skills, of course,“ Virdon joked. Then he sobered. „And thanks to whoever insisted on her having wings for emergency maneuvers in atmosphere. I remember the fights they were having over this, the bureaucrats insisting that she’d never fly in an atmosphere anyway, because of the ring; and of course there were always budget cuts...“ He shook his head. „I’ll keep that unknown engineer in my prayers, that’s for sure.“]
It's weird that when the reason given Burke is that he's an awesome pilot, it's Virdon who ends up being the awesome pilot who saves them both when the chips are down. Particularly when it seems like that was probably the last chance anyone's going to have to use pilot skills in this. It seems like either the awesome pilot should somehow pull of the miracle flight without getting them killed, or it should've been intended that they'd fly into atmosphere all along and the crash that probably wrecked things beyond repair is because Virdon didn't have the skills to land any better.
I also realize that there's been a lot of complaints by them about decisions, but I actually have no idea what ANSA is and why those decision are actually getting made, most particularly no mention of funding I noticed. You get across right at the start that Earth's wrecked, which means that they should be pretty strapped for resources which means at least potentially there could be really good reasons not to waste money on stuff that's not absolutely necessary. 2/3 of them have military titles, is it a branch of the military or are they being shared by it? Is ANSA a government body that has to justify its funding against desalination plants to keep the farms running another year? Or it a corporate thing, and they absolutely could have done things like a larger crew or more stuff, but because they only cared about success and not protecting the actual people flying it in the event of a disaster, they cut things to the bone to make sure the number in their bank account was slightly larger? Is it semi-independent, but beholden to corporate donations and so they have a lot of sway and can do things like demand justification for why their money should go for wings? Why is the buck stopping at the people just trying to allocate the funds they're given?
[He glanced to his commander who looked pale and sweaty, and not too sure on his feet, either. „Look at us proud explorers, eh, Columbus?“]
I wish Burke had kept thinking about this a bit more. Their original goal was to find a livable planet, and here they have. But it's already inhabited. If they try to move as many people off Earth as they can, what happens to these people? Does he think they can coexist, or does he think it's a risk but a worthy one when if they don't take it people certainly die, does he think it's worth it because he'd rather his people survive than the people here?
[They looked like humans. The fact that they didn’t wear much except paint and loincloths made it easy to determine that they didn’t have extra limbs - or boobs - though of course their skin could still be green... it was hard to tell in this light. Burke felt at once slightly disappointed and intrigued, because what was the chance that some planet somewhere in the galaxy had developed life that looked exactly like them? One of them turned their head to look at them, firelight catching in their eyes. They glowed green like those of a cat.]
This is a really neat way of distinguishing them. It's the sort of thing that's at once incredibly weird but feels just minor and possible enough that you couldn't be sure what it means, and it also implies a lot about how their lives much have changed for this to have been such a successful adaptation.
[Virdon reached for a leaf package. „These people are nocturnal, Burke - that tapetum lucidum is a dead giveaway.]
Not really. Burke just compared them to cats, which are certainly about during the day too.
[And then there were the maggots. Jesus Christ, the maggots! They were as long as his index finger, fat like two of his fingers held together, with the typical lovely off-white color that maggot gourmets all over the world regarded as a sign of high quality... And I thought natto was bad. I swear, they just serve that stuff to screw with the tourists. ]
I can't quite make sense of this. The bit about natto makes it sounds like he's being sarcastic when he talks about maggot gourmets, but the bit about high quality color makes it sound like that's actual information he's learned - if it's supposed to be sarcastic I think that'd be better conveyed with something about how he imagined maggot gourmets saying something about high quality if they saw it, and if it's not supposed to be, then something like "Even natto was better than..." to make it clear he's been offered both back on Earth. And could you even tell for sure something was off-white from the light cast by a fire? Especially when they use a lot of small ones instead of a shared really big one that'd cast more light.
(Also...staring down the barrel of global famine in two years, I'd think people in his world would already be a lot more used to eating bugs, and much worse ones than huge grubs. Then Virdon compares them to shrimp, but shouldn't shrimp be near extinct?)
[Virdon scanned the sky. „These are constellations of the Northern hemisphere.“ He pointed. „Cassiopeia. There’s Polaris.“ He stretched out his arms and did some quick fist-over-fist calculation. „We’re roughly at 30 degrees latitude. That’d be... Georgia. Or Shanghai. Egypt.]
I really like that they're familiar enough with the moon and sky to recognize it and that it happens relatively fast, but it feels a little weird to come even this far after meeting "aliens" who look and act almost identical to humans, and especially after they eat the food expecting it to follow similar rules as food on Earth. I know it's all a common scifi trope, but I'd expect astronauts to be more aware of how unlikely it is, and they especially shouldn't be eating unknown plants and animals - nibbling and waiting to see if it's poison at the most. Plus they are astronauts - it makes perfect sense the first thing they'd do is look to the sky.
It also feels unbalanced that Virdon's doing the bulk of the realization. First he gets to fly them rather than Burke, then he recognizes Mare Imbrium to prove it's our moon, then he's the one to give the exact location.
[ Not in the tropical zone, in any case. Subtropical, yes. But there aren’t areas remote enough in that zone that such an unusual type of humans would stay undetected.“ He scratched his head. „It all doesn’t add up.“]
Actually...if the oceans are cooking enough that the only survivable bit left is the arctic ocean, then woudn't the tropics be a baked wasteland at this point? Even the subtropics should be deadly hot by now. (And if this world somehow halted global warming and you meant for the general disasters to just be the host of other stuff, you should probably be clear about that - maybe some reference to a project that blocked a lot of sunlight but had its own horrible side-effects, like the ocean going anoxic in part because it's so covered in reflective plastics that it's messing up oxygen flow.)
[By whatever consensus, the woman had been selected as their guide - or warden - and Burke had lost no time to hit on her. Virdon suppressed a sigh. This could go well, or horribly wrong, but at the moment, Burke hadn’t crossed any lines yet, so he decided to let it slide for now.]
...so again, tropes, but also again, what? It's possible flirting with Ehpah will help them. It is way, way more likely it will not, even before getting into that the last couple of chapters involved so many fuckups from Burke on the interpersonal front. Virdon being unable to stop Burke? Sure. Virdon thinking yeah sure, so far this is fine? I guess it's in line with his other terrible decisions, but it continues to be boggling why Virdon makes endless terrible decisions.
[Burke turned to him as soon as he felt the ground under his feet. He was livid. „Those bastards stole our uniforms!“]
The question of what's up with them is intriguing. But I'm getting confused about time. Virdon thinks the people were awake the whole night, and possible Ehpah is just staying up very late for her to try to be accommodating to them, but she also sees nothing wrong with encouraging them to move around during the day, or the kid hanging out to do the same, and now their stuff getting stolen sounds like a lot of the village is still awake and moving around now. If it's that Virdon's statements are just guesses, I think you could do more to signpost that, including just having Burke respond to something he says with something along the lines of "or maybe Other Possible Thing". And if they can move during the day without anything bad happening, how'd they end up with enough pressure to navigate by night to get an adaptation like that?
Also - once again, guessing you probably got this from canon, but it does seem like a weird choice to have the humans be able to talk. The original situation is humans are mute and that's a big part of why the apes think they're dumb, in the same way our apes can't make the sounds humans can and that makes humans less willing to believe they're intelligent. The people using sign language instead would've still allowed communication but made it plausible the apes didn't think that counted. If the future humans speak normally, then the apes are just being racist dicks for the sake of it, which is perfectly plausible but a really different situation.
Come to think of it, it'd also just've been nice to have sign language given this story so far is really...well, it's centered on one specific kind of person, and all deviation is bad. The crew is all male and at least for 2/3 and 100% of the good guys, a huge point is made that they totally bang chicks. The first bad guy is the weird and weird-looking nerd who goes for the balls in a life or death fight instead of manfully going for the head, and now the next bad guy is getting described as weaselly and again, not a proper man. The only female characters mentioned until now are a girlfriend and a wife. Having mute humans joining the cast would've been a departure from that overall feeling.
Marooned On The Planet Of The Apes Ch4
It's weird that when the reason given Burke is that he's an awesome pilot, it's Virdon who ends up being the awesome pilot who saves them both when the chips are down. Particularly when it seems like that was probably the last chance anyone's going to have to use pilot skills in this. It seems like either the awesome pilot should somehow pull of the miracle flight without getting them killed, or it should've been intended that they'd fly into atmosphere all along and the crash that probably wrecked things beyond repair is because Virdon didn't have the skills to land any better.
I also realize that there's been a lot of complaints by them about decisions, but I actually have no idea what ANSA is and why those decision are actually getting made, most particularly no mention of funding I noticed. You get across right at the start that Earth's wrecked, which means that they should be pretty strapped for resources which means at least potentially there could be really good reasons not to waste money on stuff that's not absolutely necessary. 2/3 of them have military titles, is it a branch of the military or are they being shared by it? Is ANSA a government body that has to justify its funding against desalination plants to keep the farms running another year? Or it a corporate thing, and they absolutely could have done things like a larger crew or more stuff, but because they only cared about success and not protecting the actual people flying it in the event of a disaster, they cut things to the bone to make sure the number in their bank account was slightly larger? Is it semi-independent, but beholden to corporate donations and so they have a lot of sway and can do things like demand justification for why their money should go for wings? Why is the buck stopping at the people just trying to allocate the funds they're given?
[He glanced to his commander who looked pale and sweaty, and not too sure on his feet, either. „Look at us proud explorers, eh, Columbus?“]
I wish Burke had kept thinking about this a bit more. Their original goal was to find a livable planet, and here they have. But it's already inhabited. If they try to move as many people off Earth as they can, what happens to these people? Does he think they can coexist, or does he think it's a risk but a worthy one when if they don't take it people certainly die, does he think it's worth it because he'd rather his people survive than the people here?
[They looked like humans. The fact that they didn’t wear much except paint and loincloths made it easy to determine that they didn’t have extra limbs - or boobs - though of course their skin could still be green... it was hard to tell in this light. Burke felt at once slightly disappointed and intrigued, because what was the chance that some planet somewhere in the galaxy had developed life that looked exactly like them?
One of them turned their head to look at them, firelight catching in their eyes.
They glowed green like those of a cat.]
This is a really neat way of distinguishing them. It's the sort of thing that's at once incredibly weird but feels just minor and possible enough that you couldn't be sure what it means, and it also implies a lot about how their lives much have changed for this to have been such a successful adaptation.
[Virdon reached for a leaf package. „These people are nocturnal, Burke - that tapetum lucidum is a dead giveaway.]
Not really. Burke just compared them to cats, which are certainly about during the day too.
[And then there were the maggots. Jesus Christ, the maggots! They were as long as his index finger, fat like two of his fingers held together, with the typical lovely off-white color that maggot gourmets all over the world regarded as a sign of high quality... And I thought natto was bad. I swear, they just serve that stuff to screw with the tourists. ]
I can't quite make sense of this. The bit about natto makes it sounds like he's being sarcastic when he talks about maggot gourmets, but the bit about high quality color makes it sound like that's actual information he's learned - if it's supposed to be sarcastic I think that'd be better conveyed with something about how he imagined maggot gourmets saying something about high quality if they saw it, and if it's not supposed to be, then something like "Even natto was better than..." to make it clear he's been offered both back on Earth. And could you even tell for sure something was off-white from the light cast by a fire? Especially when they use a lot of small ones instead of a shared really big one that'd cast more light.
(Also...staring down the barrel of global famine in two years, I'd think people in his world would already be a lot more used to eating bugs, and much worse ones than huge grubs. Then Virdon compares them to shrimp, but shouldn't shrimp be near extinct?)
[Virdon scanned the sky. „These are constellations of the Northern hemisphere.“ He pointed. „Cassiopeia. There’s Polaris.“ He stretched out his arms and did some quick fist-over-fist calculation. „We’re roughly at 30 degrees latitude. That’d be... Georgia. Or Shanghai. Egypt.]
I really like that they're familiar enough with the moon and sky to recognize it and that it happens relatively fast, but it feels a little weird to come even this far after meeting "aliens" who look and act almost identical to humans, and especially after they eat the food expecting it to follow similar rules as food on Earth. I know it's all a common scifi trope, but I'd expect astronauts to be more aware of how unlikely it is, and they especially shouldn't be eating unknown plants and animals - nibbling and waiting to see if it's poison at the most. Plus they are astronauts - it makes perfect sense the first thing they'd do is look to the sky.
It also feels unbalanced that Virdon's doing the bulk of the realization. First he gets to fly them rather than Burke, then he recognizes Mare Imbrium to prove it's our moon, then he's the one to give the exact location.
[ Not in the tropical zone, in any case. Subtropical, yes. But there aren’t areas remote enough in that zone that such an unusual type of humans would stay undetected.“ He scratched his head. „It all doesn’t add up.“]
Actually...if the oceans are cooking enough that the only survivable bit left is the arctic ocean, then woudn't the tropics be a baked wasteland at this point? Even the subtropics should be deadly hot by now. (And if this world somehow halted global warming and you meant for the general disasters to just be the host of other stuff, you should probably be clear about that - maybe some reference to a project that blocked a lot of sunlight but had its own horrible side-effects, like the ocean going anoxic in part because it's so covered in reflective plastics that it's messing up oxygen flow.)
[By whatever consensus, the woman had been selected as their guide - or warden - and Burke had lost no time to hit on her. Virdon suppressed a sigh. This could go well, or horribly wrong, but at the moment, Burke hadn’t crossed any lines yet, so he decided to let it slide for now.]
...so again, tropes, but also again, what? It's possible flirting with Ehpah will help them. It is way, way more likely it will not, even before getting into that the last couple of chapters involved so many fuckups from Burke on the interpersonal front. Virdon being unable to stop Burke? Sure. Virdon thinking yeah sure, so far this is fine? I guess it's in line with his other terrible decisions, but it continues to be boggling why Virdon makes endless terrible decisions.
[Burke turned to him as soon as he felt the ground under his feet. He was livid. „Those bastards stole our uniforms!“]
The question of what's up with them is intriguing. But I'm getting confused about time. Virdon thinks the people were awake the whole night, and possible Ehpah is just staying up very late for her to try to be accommodating to them, but she also sees nothing wrong with encouraging them to move around during the day, or the kid hanging out to do the same, and now their stuff getting stolen sounds like a lot of the village is still awake and moving around now. If it's that Virdon's statements are just guesses, I think you could do more to signpost that, including just having Burke respond to something he says with something along the lines of "or maybe Other Possible Thing". And if they can move during the day without anything bad happening, how'd they end up with enough pressure to navigate by night to get an adaptation like that?
Also - once again, guessing you probably got this from canon, but it does seem like a weird choice to have the humans be able to talk. The original situation is humans are mute and that's a big part of why the apes think they're dumb, in the same way our apes can't make the sounds humans can and that makes humans less willing to believe they're intelligent. The people using sign language instead would've still allowed communication but made it plausible the apes didn't think that counted. If the future humans speak normally, then the apes are just being racist dicks for the sake of it, which is perfectly plausible but a really different situation.
Come to think of it, it'd also just've been nice to have sign language given this story so far is really...well, it's centered on one specific kind of person, and all deviation is bad. The crew is all male and at least for 2/3 and 100% of the good guys, a huge point is made that they totally bang chicks. The first bad guy is the weird and weird-looking nerd who goes for the balls in a life or death fight instead of manfully going for the head, and now the next bad guy is getting described as weaselly and again, not a proper man. The only female characters mentioned until now are a girlfriend and a wife. Having mute humans joining the cast would've been a departure from that overall feeling.