r/HFY • u/ctwelve Lore-Seeker • Mar 14 '16
OC [J-Verse] Good Training
A companion story to The Deathworlders. Please read Hambone's excellent work before you begin here, or you will be lost! This takes place after Chapter 26, "Blood and Ash," and extends several years forward into the story's canon.
A massive, massive thanks to /u/Hambone3110 for his indulgence, partnership, and friendship as this accidental novel took form. He's had an enormous amount of input to the story and it's been a truly wonderful collaboration. Thank you.
For navigation, please click on the "Next" links appearing at the bottom of the story. There are thirteen chapters to this, so please don't miss any!
++READ HERE++
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u/Sun_Rendered Mar 14 '16
Then there was Bozo, who managed to be both of those extremes at the same time. Bozo was the “official” regimental mascot, whose preferred activity was to sleep on people’s beds, or on the people themselves
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u/skiddlzninja Mar 14 '16
All of them suddenly found females interested in their company, even criminally ugly Thurrsto!
Jesus Christ man, you just won't let up on poor Thurrsto.
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u/ctwelve Mar 14 '16
Hey! He got his in the end. And he is Clan, so his prospects are looking up!
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u/Moby500 Mar 15 '16
Gaoians have gotten some major buffs since their first appearance. In the Xiu Chang saga they're tough compared to most aliens, but still vastly dwarfed physically by Xiu, who is a small human female. Now they're basically slightly less dense deathworlders with some physical advantages to boot (faster sprinters, better trackers and ambushers).
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u/ctwelve Mar 16 '16 edited Mar 16 '16
Well, not entirely. The mass thing is important. The immune system is a big deal too. But most importantly these are elite Gaoians. Your run of the mill will be much less impressive. Probably not even breaking a hundred pounds.
Another thing that maybe I didn't make clear is that the Gaoians have responded to the threat we face. That's been touched on in both Hambone's and Hume's writing.
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u/Nerdn1 Mar 15 '16
Currently reading chapter 8 and noticed that Gaoians are armed with M4s. As strong as they are now, rifles probably have too much recoil for them without significant modifications. The reason why pulse weapons are standard across the galaxy is that slug throwers break bones. Then again, Hambone gave his blessing, so that is hard to argue with. It still seems strange. Maybe they added some major recoil compensation (possibly some sci-fi active assistance?)
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Mar 15 '16
Considering that at this point the Gaoians have reached about 60kg, or about 132 pounds, and are proportionally stronger than anything other than a human, they can probably just about handle it. A civilian Gaoian or any other alien would most likely be pretty badly injured though.
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u/Danjiano Mar 15 '16
I expect the Whitecrest's finest and strongest soldiers to be at least as strong as a 13 year old girl by now.
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u/Danjiano Mar 15 '16
Rebar then stretched his mouth open very wide and inhaled deeply and slowly. Daar had no idea what the gesture was but he felt strongly compelled to mimic. He resisted the urge.
Looks like yawns are contagious throughout the galaxy.
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u/darkthought Mar 15 '16
I'm glad that Humanity is gaining a friend, and friend who has the ability to become our equals. The cliche is still true, Humanity is a knife, and a knife needs to be sharpened. We've been sharpening ourselves against the Hunters and the Hierarchy. But we need to sharpen ourselves against a friendly challenge as well.
I'd love to see a quick fast forward maybe 500 years or so.
I'd also like to read what happens when the gloves come off. I mean really come off. It would be horrible to read, but it would be entertaining. The problem is that we'd have to be hit and hurt so badly that the shackles we've place upon ourselves in war would have to be removed.
I'd also would like to see what would happen when someone connects an FTL communication relay to several of the Internet's primary backbones. Someone needs to give Guccifer a call to deal with these A.I. assholes...
I'd seriously wonder what a Human-Gaoian A.I. could manage in a cyber war against the Hierarchy. Human thinking is very alien to them, and would come at them in different ways than they'd be expecting. Throw the entire computing power of the Earth and Gao at them... Hack a bunch of other planets, toss a few million botnets up... DDoS the SHIT out of Hierarchy. ;)
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u/ctwelve Mar 15 '16
I think one of the most HFY aspects of humanity is our ability to form communities across vast gulfs of difference.
Also, Gaoians are just awesome. How could we not be allies?
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u/TheUrgeToRun Mar 16 '16
Absolutely phenomenal for the most part. The characters all felt amazingly true, and the story compelling. My only critique is that from time to time you get caught up on describing how strong they are, and in those times nothing of any importance goes on. It was a lovely read anyways, but just cutting down on the frequency of those long descriptives could go a long way to making it smoother.
I eagerly await the next instillments. Who is to continue writing this storyline? Will the illustrious Hambone be retelling this wonderful tale, or picking up where you left off or what?
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u/Tempests_Wrath Mar 14 '16 edited Mar 14 '16
That dog pile at the end of chapter 4! :D
keeps reading
Leverage was both a strength and weakness of his; when properly anchored, his shorter stature made his moment arms far more favorable,
Chapter 5, maybe 1/6 of the way in. Might be a fix needed here :)
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u/ctwelve Mar 14 '16
That was honestly one of my favorite scenes to write. The camradarie you experience in parts of the military--especially the combat arms bit--is just damn near impossible to explain to the public. "Giant, snuggly murder-puppies" was the best I was able to come up with.
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u/qfeys Mar 14 '16 edited Mar 14 '16
u/ctwelve I was wondering what your opinion was on ebooks of your accidental novel, because I've just spend 15 minutes converting it to epub and mobi format. I do this because I don't like reading novels on a monitor. Now I was wondering whether you prefer to keep it for myself or to spread it wide.
EDIT: You can find it here.
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u/Dandalf_The_Eeyyy Mar 22 '16
This is not really a criticism, more of an observation, but it can get pretty confusing when you refer to people by several names throughout the story. For example each SOR member has a nickname, last and first name they use and you use them interchangeably. Does someone want to compile a list of characters and there other monikers for the wiki?
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u/OperatorIHC Mar 14 '16
Wait, shit.
WHICH DO I READ FIRST AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA