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» Hatrack River Writers Workshop » Forums » Fragments and Feedback for Short Works » The Impossibility Gambit (Sci Fi, 7,500 words)

   
Author Topic: The Impossibility Gambit (Sci Fi, 7,500 words)
RobertM
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{Original message deleted.}

[This message has been edited by RobertM (edited August 29, 2005).]


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Robert Nowall
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I would've thought some kind of Civil War gameplaying. Gettysburg, maybe...but maybe that's just me.
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tchernabyelo
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The only clue that it's SF is the name "Missev", which is unusual, though it could be a Bulgarian surname. The use of "Federal", the presence of artillery and cavalry, and the blue and grey colours, all point to an American Civil War background.

Repeating "oval" in the first line comes over as clumsy; I'd suggest "clustered at the centre" (or center), but you've already used this word for the black dots, so in turn you might want to change that to "each marked with a single, black, dot".

You've also got some comma issues.

In general, I have to say I'm not hooked, and unless someone's into wargaming ACW re-enactment, I wouldn't expect them to be. If Missev is an alien, then flag this up immediately, because that would be a much more interesting hook - why is an alien replaying an ACW battle? Otherwise, I'm not sure what you can do to pull the reader in.


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RobertM
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Yep, that's the consensus about this opening. Too bad, too, because I really like it.

By the way...

It is Gettysburg. Missev is an historian from the thirtieth century who's trying to see if can't bring about a Confederate victory there. It's just a game. There's no time travel or anything like that.

His opponent, however, is the ship's computer who plays an important role in the rest of the story (very little of which has anything to do with Gettysburg or American history).

Thanks much for the comments. Now, I've got some re-writing to do.

Cheers,
Rob


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Robert Nowall
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A suggestion: Gettysburg is fairly well-used. (Ward Moore's "Bring the Jubilee" comes to mind.) Maybe some other battle---Shiloh or Antietam or Atlanta or Franklin---maybe not even a Civil War battle.
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RobertM
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That's a good thought, Robert. Thanks.
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Survivor
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You place this on the third day of Gettysburg, too. On the second day, the Confederates could have won but for some bad luck. By the third day, it was hopeless and Lee knew it himself once the remains of his army limped off the field.

I'd suggest that you use an interface a little more advanced than table-top style unit tokens. That would make it more accessible to non-gamers and it would nicely let you show off a few gizmos to let people know it was the future.


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Mechwarrior
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YOu might try throwing in a line or two at the beginning mentioning the pieces were 3D/computer generated. Something quick and subtle that says to the reader, "This is not the Battle of Gettysburg but a simulation/boardgame".
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RobertM
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Survivor -- I placed it on the third day on purpose. The idea is that Missev (a 30th century historian) is amusing himself by trying to see if there is any way that the Confederates might have won. The android he's playing against says its "impossible." "Nothing's impossible" is the theme of this story and I thought this was a clever way to set that up.

Mechwarrior -- Your suggestion is more or less what I think I'm going to have to do. It is a pretty fair consensus that something has to be done to make this particular boat float.

Thanks again, all, and please do harken back once I dig myself from this hole.

Rob


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Survivor
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The android is correct, though I see your point. The problem is that any "historian" who suggests that the Confederates could have won at Gettysburg on the third day loses so much credibility that it's an unrecoverable blow. The proper course of action would have been to disengage and try to march to a strong position between Gettysburg and D.C. That could have worked, given Meade's general lack of initiative. To baldly attack a position of great natural strength which the defenders had been preparing for days against an assault...it was pointless. Lee did it because he was constitutionally incabable of backing down from a fight, or because he deeply believed that his army wouldn't stand for anything that looked like retreat.

True, anything's possible. A meteor shower could have annihilated the Federal line minutes before the attack opened. Gen. Meade, having enjoyed a very rich breakfast, could have inadvertantly released a cloud of toxic gas that would have forced his army from their positions in confusion. Someone could have given Lee a Pazer division in exchange for his signature in blood.

Serious historians do not waste time on these sorts of "possibilities", except when they actually happened.


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Robert Nowall
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I've never thought Gettysburg was as decisive as some writers on the war do...I see it as the Confederate "high water mark," but not something that could have brought about definitive victory by a Confederate victory.

After all, as the Confederates were losing at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, they were also losing at Vicksburg, Mississippi. The Union had a lot more to throw at the Confederates than the Army of the Potomac alone.


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Survivor
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The Confederate strategy was never based on achieving a decisive military advantage. It was based on political considerations. Had Meade been defeated or even outmaneuvered at Gettysburg, there would be little chance of progress in Sherman's western campaign, as his army would have been stripped to protect the capital. Without that campaign, and with a humiliating defeat in the much more visible Eastern theater, Lincoln would have lost to McClellan in the upcoming election.

The peace overtures which formed the basis of his party's platform (and there is no serious reason to believe that McClellan wouldn't have made those overtures once in office) would have left Great Britan no real excuse for not recognizing the Confederacy as an independent nation. France would have followed on that almost eagerly.

Of course, the war wouldn't have ended. Ongoing cavalry raids would have been impossible for the Confederacy to stop, even had they tried. With the glorification of Southern horsemanship and the large numbers of slaves that had either run north or been captured by Union armies, there would be zero respect for the borders of the Union, especially if the United States continued to refuse to recognize the Confederacy. Almost the entire boundry between North and South would have been a matter of "lines on a map" rather than defensible terrain features.

The only question would be whether McClellan would respond to resurgent pro-war sentiment or whether resumptions of hostilities would wait on the next election. In either case, the respite would have allowed the Confederacy to retrench considerably both militarily and politically. In pursuing the matter, the US could have persuaded England to stay out of things but France would definitely have pursued their toehold in Mexico in exchange for some form of support to the Confederacy.

Unfortunately for the Confederacy, the industrial disparity between North and South would only have continued to worsen, and the North was just beginning to exploit its massive manpower advantages too. By Gettysburg, the conflict was already attracting attention from the upper "military caste" of Europe, and immigrants were contributing heavily to the war efforts both directly and indirectly.

Worse, the underlying moral conflict over slavery would only have increased, just as it had for the previous half century. With the apparent victory of the Confederacy in the "first" war, almost no abolitionist sentiment could have remained in the South. Indeed, despite the positions taken by a few prominent generals (and Lee might well have died by then anyway) historically there was almost no desire to abolish slavery in the South by Gettysburg (some of that was accomplished by war fervor, a good deal of it by persecution and forced emigration of persons expressing anti-slavery opinions).

On the other hand, living side by side with a nation based on slavery could only have rankled more on the Northerners as time passed. Particularly one that trumpeted its military prowess in the face of the North's overwhelming military and strategic advantages.

Once hostilities resumed, the North would probably have crushed the South militarily in just a few campaigns (though more than it too historically). But reconstructing the Union would have taken far longer. Not only would a few years of technological advance have worsened the scale of destruction--possibly by an order of magnitude, but the resentment over the destruction of their independent nation (both physical, political, and military) would have been that much greater as well.

In our own history, something like of quarter of the free men of military age (which was being defined pretty broadly by the end of the war) were killed or crippled by the end. In a much longer war, more destructive and bitter in all aspects of its course and prosecution, it is unlikely that even a quarter of the men in the South would have been left whole at the end.

If there had ever been an end. Confederate terrorist activity remained a serious problem in our own history well into the twentieth century. Had the war been worse, we might still be fighting it.

So overall, I'm of a bent to believe that the battle of Gettysburg was indeed quite a decisive matter. It could never have panned out well for the South, but it could have made a huge difference.


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RobertM
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Survivor, I'm not going to touch your lengthy discussion of the Civil War -- clearly you're far more knowledgeable on the subject that I am.

However, you wrote in another message that "any 'historian' who suggests that the Confederates could have won at Gettysburg on the third day loses so much credibility that it's an unrecoverable blow" and that "Serious historians do not waste time on these sorts of 'possibilities'."

The historian in my story never seriously suggests that the Confederates could have won at Gettysburg. Rather, he's simply amusing himself with a scenario which, as an historian, he knows to be exceedingly difficult. This isn't any more a waste of his time than is any other sort of entertainment (these forums come to mind). Indeed, I would suggest that my historian's choice of entertainment is quite appropriate and, in my opinion, sounds like a helluva lot of fun. Given the opportunity, wouldn't you give it a go?

[This message has been edited by RobertM (edited August 26, 2005).]


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Survivor
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Heck no. It's pointless, like playing tic-tac-toe, only you always lose instead of having a tie.

I'd play the second day of Gettysburg, or the first day with minor variations like Stuart doing what he was supposed to be doing rather than joyriding about the countryside. I might play out the maneuver that Lee should have made on the third day rather than his attack, to see how well it would really have worked given that Meade's subordinates were being quite alert.

But the attack on the third day, it isn't "exceedingly difficult". It is a simple impossibility barring some kind of miracle. It's like me giving a pro player a nine stone handicap at Go. Why would I do such a thing? Why would a pro even bother to play me under that circumstance?

Lee's decision to attempt it was so irrational that many historians have tried to claim that he didn't order such an attack. They get support from a lot of people that admired Lee too much to see what the enormous strain of fighting for the Confederacy did to the man. Other people think that, because Lee ordered the charge, it couldn't have been all that hopeless. But this is the same Lee who would later try and put himself in the front line of a charge whenever he was riding rather than being hauled about in a wagon. Sure, he was brilliant, but during the war he wasn't wholly sane.


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Robert Nowall
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Survivor's lengthy and thorough analysis of Confederate strategy is better than anything I could have adlibbed. It's the issue of military victory in the war quickly following military victory at Gettysburg that I take issue with.
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Survivor
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I think that one problem is that a lot of the "historians" musing about what "might have been" had Lee been victorious at Gettysburg are more apologists for the Confederacy than serious students of history or war. The Confederacy could have won a respite, one that might have dragged the war out for another decade or even longer. But they could never have won the war, unless in the narrowest sense of achieving the immediate political objective of having secession recognized by the world as an accomplished fact.

But I firmly stand by the general opinion that Gettysburg was a critical lynchpin in the Union victory. A defeat there would have made the victories of the next year (the the exception of Vicksburg, which was already decided by that time) impossible, and Lincoln would've stood almost no chance of being reelected. However little the Confederacy stood to gain, the Union had a lot at stake in that battle.

As for Lee...the man had an unshakable, irrational belief in the power of chivalry. In some ways it was his best quality, even when it was his worst. It led him to fight for a cause he regarded as unjust, because of his attachment to the soil where he was raised. It made him order an entire army to commit suicide en masse, because death was preferable to retreat. It endeared him to everyone that knew him. And it saved the Union, both at Gettysburg and at Appomattox.

His plan on the third day of Gettysburg, I can name the thing that made him do it. But I don't understand it at all.


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Spaceman
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Okay, I'm posting this before reading the rest of the thread after the 13 lines, so pardon if I repeat anything.

The beginning is full of info-dump that, if I were not familiar with military symbols used for wargaming and maps in military history books, I would have no idea what was going on. The first 13 doesn't pull me in because it's not interesting yet. All I get from this is that somebody is in a situation room. I get that because I read past the blue squares and the concentric oval stuff that I didn't understand at all until I had the context of the later sentences.

To me, this information will probably be necessary, but not as the first 13 lines. Maybe the general needs to frown while pacing along the table with the map showing the dire situation of.... or whatever. this is just too dry for me at the start of a story. Were I an editor, I probably wouldn't have read past the first sentence.

That said, I'll read whenever you are ready to send it out.


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Spaceman
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Now, after reading the thread, the only thing I have to add is that if Lee was victorious at Gettysburg, there may have been in increase of Confederate foreign allies involvement--probably the only way the south could have won decisively. But, this scenerio still sets up the lingering instability that Survivor outlined.
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RobertM
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Thanks, Spaceman! As you may have read, the consensus is definitely that this opening doesn't work, and I have to admit that that's true. Too bad, too, because the story itself really is good (if I say so myself).

Right now I'm working on getting a novella ready for submission. Once that's done, I'm going to turn back to this piece and see if I can't recover it from its first-13-line-itus.

Thanks again!

Rob


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Valtam
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I'm sorry, this doesn't have anything to do with the story, but I feel compelled to say it because it's a mistake that many people make.

Slavery was on it's way out all over America, including the South. It was only a matter of time until slavery was abolished there in favor of cheaper machinery that you don't have to feed, clothe, house, or worry about as far as escapes and uprisings. The American Civil War was not a war about slavery. The Generals Lee and either Forest or Jackson had already freed their slaves some time before the war. Forest/Jackson even built a schoolhouse for his. Interestingly, General Grant had not freed his slaves. The North didn't want to give jobs to the freed slaves. They didn't want to live with them, or have anything to do with them. The North had plenty of racism, but Abolitionists were the louder voice. Funny how that works.

The Civil War was about states rights. The argument was only started by the slavery issue. Lincoln made it a war about slavery with the Emancipation Proclaimation. The South felt that state government should be stronger. They also felt that states who no longer wished to be part of the Union had the right to secede. So they did, or tried to atleast. They were not fighting simply to keep slave labor. If they were, generals who freed their slaves and continued to help those free slaves would not have participated.

[This message has been edited by Valtam (edited August 29, 2005).]


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Mechwarrior
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I see someone has been reading some good history or had a good history teacher.
Unfortunately, myths tend to be stronger than truth. Every year kids still learn that George W (the first one - Washington) cut down a cherry tree and threw a silver dollar across the Potomoc. Chris Columbus landed in Virginia to meet friendly natives and pilgrims with pumpkin pie (ok, a bit of an exaggeration) - proving the world was round.

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J
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History aside (as fascinating as Civil War history is; especially latent existence of the conflict from before the ratification of the Constitution), I had some major issues with the writing.

These 13 lines consist almost entirely of dense metahphor. The POV character is seeing artillery and flags--not abstract shapes. It's fine that the formations and flags look like shapes from a distance. It might even help the reader to make an analogy. But to descbribe these things (which the reader could imagine) in metaphorical and highly abstract terms, with only passing reference to what the things described actually are, is confusing and off-putting. It seems a bad way to start--an anti-hook, of sorts.

[This message has been edited by J (edited August 29, 2005).]


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Survivor
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I grew up with the "it wasn't about slavery" myth, but it's patently false. Sure, it was about "States' Rights" but the only "States' Right" of any importance was the right to keep slavery legal.

Slavery wasn't on it's way out in the South, it was retrenching. When the Constitution was first written, it contained (actually, it still contains) an early version of the now infamous "Sunset Provision". The provision in question was that, in twenty years time, moves to abolish the slave trade into the United States could be enacted. By the outbreak of the Civil War, slavery had gone from being an embarrassing temporary economic expedient to a "moral cause".

It was the main reason that the South was so poorly industrialized compared to the North, so overwhelmingly agrarian, and so utterly immersed in the notion that the white Southerner was worth ten times as much as a Northerner on the battlefield.

Like I said, Lee (along with a number of others, though not so many as some Southerners will tell you) didn't believe in the cause of slavery. But that was "The Cause" for which he was fighting, and he knew it as well as anyone. The truth is that Lee was even less sympathetic to the idea of "States' Rights" taken in the abstract. He understood and respected his "countrymen's" desire to perpetuate slavery, he did not appreciate any talk of "States' Rights" in a practical sense of giving States within the Confederacy powers which the Confederacy needed for itself.

All the important causes of the Civil War fall into two catagories. Issues and conditions that arose as a result of the practice of slavery, and those that were necessary to perpetuate it. It's that simple. The idea that the war was over "slavery" is not a myth. It's the reason that the South seceeded, and the reason the North fought.


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J
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It's probably more fair to say that the Civil War was "about" the incompatibility between the pro-industrial culture and economy of the North and the agrarian plantation culture and economy of the South, to which slaver was essential. Slavery was the most obvious difference between the two (as well as being an embarrasment to the principles of the Revolution and anathema to the politically enfranchised Puritans of New England), and so became the flashpoint.

The Civil War was "about" slavery in that sense; in the same way that the Spanish-American War was "about" the Maine.


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Survivor
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No, because if the Maine hadn't blown up, something else would have triggered it. The Civil War was "about" Lincoln being elected president. But if Lincoln hadn't been elected, something else would have triggered the war, because slavery wasn't going to go any other way.

There is a huge difference between people that believe that slavery is really wrong and people that believe it is not, on the whole, incompatible with their morality. And that difference was getting worse. Considerable violence had already resulted from the slave issue, religion was being invoked on both sides, and the courts had bungled the chance to keep it a local issue (of course, as that case showed, the slave owners wanted slavery to be legal everywhere, so it wasn't really a "States' Rights" matter after all).


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Valtam
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After reading some very interesting, very long, and very off-topic threads from the past, I've decided that it's best to let this argument drop. Threads like this seem to last for a long time without ever actually helping anyone with their writing. The original post has been deleted, and this is turning into an argument more suitable for an American history forum, much like a certain past thread on the effective range of handguns turned into a tri-fold argument about old machine guns, artillery, and the H&K G11. The "Fragments & Feedback" section isn't the right place for an argument about the true and untrue causes of the Civil War, and I'm sorry for even bringing the subject up.
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Kathleen Dalton Woodbury
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Good point, Valtam.
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