Hello, Gamedev! I am currently working with a friend on a Turn Based Strategy game set in the future, tentatively titled Axis Shift. You can look at our progress at Sir Sapo's Journal, which contains, among other things,my ship artwork (I'm referred to as Mark the Artist in the entries). As you may guess writing is not my main contribution to the game, but I thought it'd be a good exercise to come up with a interesting story to backdrop huge space fleets blowing the holy crap out of each other. The setting is the far future when the first galactic empire has fallen, and several smaller empires have risen from the ashes centuries later. One of these is the player's, The Albionic Empire, with the Archangelesk Dominion as the main enemy. They are the two largest empires, and they both really would rather have the other not around, and begin to raise tension by antagonizing each other through economic warfare, etc, resulting in a standoff.The standoff is broken by an attack by the Dominion on the Empire(Them--->You), and that is what the speech you're about to read/skim through is about. It's purposely written through your empire's perspective with all the nationalistic tint you'd expect. Here it is: Emperor's Speech to the Assembly Now, the questions I'd like to ask: How is it? Does it make sense? Would people get the satire/ propaganda part? Do You get the satire/ propaganda part? Would anyone actually read it during the game? Through course of the game, I'd kind of like to reveal to the player the 'real' story of the attack, that the 'Natural Resource Satellite' was really a secret military fortification/research station, close to the border of the other empire performing high level military research and building up to be a launch point for your own offensive military forces. Final thought: I want to have the story be a sort of cynical space opera in the end, combining a realistic(to me) perspective of conflict with the just plain coolness of space warfare. Second Final thought:quickie art example -Mark the Artist Out

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several unknown objects were seen by the planet’s detector satellites

This just sounds... odd. Perhaps "several unknown objects were detected by the planet's satellites."

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The people of Eos were unconcerned, for merchants from Ceylon often came unannounced to offer wares to the agrarian world.

"for Ceylonian merchants often arrive unannouced" - "came" just seemed off.

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The simple farmers toiled through the day, as they always did, the children waiting for night to fall to watch the ships dock in orbit with their fathers’ binoculars.

Grammaticaly, something is wrong here - it looks like a runon. Just replace the comma with a period for the sake of the written copy. But in a speech, you wouldn't know the difference. Also, the tenses are going crazy again. You have farmers who 'toiled' and children 'waiting.'

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It is doubtful they knew what has happening above them, but by then their sad fate had been chosen.

Again with the tenses. "Has" should probably be "was" here. Also, you need a comma after "but by then."

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A few minutes after midnight the stalwart garrison of the Natural Resource Satellite Eben-Emael gave out, outnumbered and far from help, and though they were very brave, could not prevent what followed.

Comma after the introductory clause. More importantly, the sentence just needs a rewrite: "Just after midnight, the stalwart garrison of Eben-Emael gave out, outnumbered and far from help. Though they were brave, they could not prevent the terrible acts that followed."

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. The next dawn, in the twilight hours on the day of Aprile 3, 3242

Dawn/twilight hours just seems rendundant.

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The fusion reactor of the orbiting asteroid had detonated killing 10,000 brave souls in the new sun, filling the small world with a fierce and malignant light.

The fusion reactor of the orbiting asteroid had detonated. Ten thousand brave souls expired in the fierce sun and filled the small world with a malignant light.

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The citizens of Eos then knew they must escape, and many tried, but all save one ship were destroyed ruthlessly as they fled their doomed home.

"...knew they had to escape." I'd break the sentence there, and rewrite the second bit.

Seriously - check the tenses throughout the story, and make sure you have complete thoughts. I'm going to stop there, but you get the idea.

It does make sense, but it lacks some strength. The emporer says "[the attack] is of an indescribable and horrific nature" instead of pointing out that the attack itself was an indescribable horror, not just the nature of it. Yes, the meaning is the same, but one is just stronger rhetoric.

I'm not sure what you mean by satire/propoganda. I mean, the speech doesn't sound like propoganda (and it shouldn't, or else the Emporer's speechwriters didn't do their jobs), but I understand from your post that it is.

Oh - the all-out war comment is the one bit that sounds unjustified. Even "unceasing" war might fit better.

But I like it! Especially the sentinels of Justice and Peace bit - very nice [grin]. The last few paragraphs are great.

You really should get a voice actor for it. Even if it isn't perfect, it would add a lot.

(the artwork of the ships - very nice!
the commentary in the FRAPS capture - amazing :P But the smoke from the missiles should really fade out before it hits the top of the screen, unless there's just an overabundance of wind out there [wink])

Fix0red!
Thanks for the comments, I corrected all the stuff you pointed out.

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But I like it! Especially the sentinels of Justice and Peace bit - very nice .

I was trying to think of positive ideals that weren't Freedom and Democracy to put in their when I remembered those.

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You really should get a voice actor for it. Even if it isn't perfect, it would add a lot.

Yes it would, but we have limited means here in God-knows-where, New Mexico, although we do plan to voice the 'Ace' units ourselves in our school audio booth thingy

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the smoke from the missiles should really fade out before it hits the top of the screen, unless there's just an overabundance of wind out there...

The solar wind is crazy out there! Or Sir Sapo needs to fix that. Probably the latter.

Great! and even if I can't write, I can draw spacecraft reasonably well.

Thanks again
-Mark the Awesome Artist

Well, I think it would be fine even if you did the voice - it would add a lot. Just do it in the middle of the night when your voice is a wreck for a different effect...

And seriously. I like those ships. The game needs a zoom-in feature just to see them in super-detail [grin].

I'll give the voice acting a try, it'll be interesting.

As for the ships, we plan to use the big images for battle animation, with moving turrets and big explosions, making the game basically the coolest thing evar, which will require lots of work on our part