Nightwatch

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Robert_Moriyama
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Re: Nightwatch

Post by Robert_Moriyama »

*Sniff* *Choke*<br><br>Dan, on behalf of Jeff and current and future Nightwatch project participants, thank you. Simon, Stephanie, and friends will try to keep you and other readers (I *hope* there are/will be other readers ...) entertained until we all get REAL jobs and lives and have no time to write ...<br><br>Robert M.
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Re: Nightwatch

Post by K._Vesi »

A good, solid, first story for a series, but I would have liked a little more mystery and suspense. My interest picked up when I learned about the egg's properties and I would have liked that part of the story developed more. But everything else in this story is great, the writing, the characters, and all the intricacies of the plot.<br><br>I think this will make an excellent series. The stage has been set for more adventures, hopefully with the same level of expertise.
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Re: Nightwatch

Post by Robert_Moriyama »

... I would have liked a little more mystery and suspense. My interest picked up when I learned about the egg's properties and I would have liked that part of the story developed more ...
<br><br>What -- being threatened by a helicopter gunship and shot at by would-be hijackers wasn't suspenseful?  I suppose if you assume that all the significant characters are guaranteed to survive, you could argue otherwise, but sheesh!  As for mystery -- I was aiming for a Clive Cussler / Robert Ludlum kind of adventure, not a Greg Bear scientific thriller.  The other Nightwatch authors might include more of a scientific puzzle element in their stories (or I might, if/when I'm asked to do another) ... <br><br>As an engineer, Simon is a pragmatist; knowing that the egg somehow affected time and made him seem to disappear, he seizes on that as a way to escape from the gunship in Afghanistan.  He recognizes the egg's incredible potential, but is mainly interested in getting the job done (in this case, surviving is part of the job).<br><br>The mystery of the egg -- where it came from, and what it can do -- will play a part in future stories, I think.  Or is that giving away too much, Jeff?<br><br>Robert M.<br>
Last edited by Robert_Moriyama on June 14, 2004, 03:13:12 PM, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Nightwatch

Post by K._Vesi »

Whoops! You're right about the suspense part. Sorry I downplayed that. I guess I just meant mystery. I probably should have had an action film soundtrack playing in the background when reading this story! <br><br>It will be interesting to see what happens next.
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Re: Nightwatch

Post by kailhofer »

Not bad. Not bad at all.<br><br>Clearly, Simon feels he will need to act to save his own company from itself at some point in the future, and thereby interest the reader in more where this came from. Good idea, and compelling.<br><br><br>I would like to see some more detail. Nightbird One, for example. It has a Rembrant painting for a logo on the tail. Which Rembrant painting? What did it look like? I don't follow art. What color was the fusellage?<br><br>Did all of it smell of aviation fuel? I only caught the one smell reference. What did the cargo plane look like? A C-130? Most of the descriptions are only visual. Very few were tactile, audio, or oral. Perhaps Major Ying wore flavored lipstick or enticing perfume? Do Russians have bad breath?<br><br>I think these kinds of input would make the characters more solid to the reader. Then again, maybe it's just me.<br><br>What did their faces look like? An eye with a tick, perpetual five o-clock shadow, unibrow, anything like that? If these characters are coming back in future stories, I would like to have a better image of them in my mind.<br><br>I was also hazy on the effects of having holes in the plane in the subzero temperatures of altitude. Seems like that would be quite difficult to overcome and a real burden on those exposed to it if for no other reason than the tremendous wind it would create.<br><br>Perhaps I missed some of these details as I was reading. Either way, this is a good yarn and I look forward to more.<br><br>Nate
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Re: Nightwatch

Post by kailhofer »

Ok, color me ignorant when it comes to paintings. <br><br>I looked online for it and took a gander. Nice painting. <br>Likewise, I don't know how the group of guardsmen would look on the tail of a plane, but I'd give the benefit of the doubt.<br><br>As far as my other questions go, my wife tells me I'm completely wrong. She never pays attention to any of those things when she reads.<br><br>Now, I'm not about to dispute the love of my life anywhere she might see or hear about it, so I must be in left field on this one.<br><br>Sorry.<br><br>Nate
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Re: Nightwatch

Post by Robert_Moriyama »

I dunno, Jeff -- I visualized it as being a two-color (or one color against whatever color the fuselage and tail might be -- white?) graphic, where the shadows from the painting or identifiable central portion thereof are emphasized and the lighter tones are left "transparent". Given a digital image of the painting, it would be relatively simple to generate the outline using Photoshop or similar tools ... maybe I should try it just to show you what I mean.<br><br>Robert M.
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Re: Nightwatch

Post by Robert_Moriyama »

(Sigh). I just tried to do a point-by-point reply to Greg's comments, mixing quoted passages from his post with my answers. It was TOO LONG, and I lost the whole thing! Let's see if I can squeeze in a summary:<br><br>Re: characters 'playing it straight for their 'team'': Simon and Callow and some of the people they will interact with seem to have 'spooky' (covert ops) backgrounds. Callow, in particular, probably never plays ANYTHING straight with ANYBODY.<br><br>Re: BLOODY FREEZING: They had cold-weather gear on the plane (they KNEW where they were going) and put it on between paragraphs. Also, it got warmer near the volcano ... and the toxic fumes just made these city-dwellers feel at home.<br><br>Re: 'far too slow dramatically': This is probably why Jeff called doing the first story a thankless task. Dragon's Egg did a lot of heavy lifting in terms of exposition re: the Institute, Simon's background and character (or at least its shadiness), etc.<br><br>Re: the disposal crew's mild response to the time-bending power of the egg: most of them were (a) from the military (not much imagination), (b) already aware that the egg was spectacularly strange (very old, with unprecedented physical properties), and (c) committed to disposing of it to avoid destabilizing a (probably) fragile peace between the major powers. McReady, of course, had already had his ass kicked for trying to break the deal when he learned of the egg's big Party Trick.<br><br>Re: Blackwater: we aim to please, although I'm sure the popularity of Vegemite sandwiches guarantees your domestic supply! ;)<br><br>Re: shrimp on the barbie: I wanted to throw another KEN on the Barbie, but a doll orgy just seemed out of place in this story.<br><br>Re: Massoud's long speech about the egg's location: Afghans love to talk! And my characters love to give Speeches! (Ask Mizu Ash.)<br><br>Re: bruises: Yes, I think they do stiffen up, as they involve swelling due to leakage of blood and cellular fluids into the tissue. I could have said "starting to throb" or "starting to ache", I suppose ...<br><br>Since there appears to be a limit to the length of postings, we may see the first two-parter when Wishbone puts in his two euros' worth ... I'm not cringing, really I'm not.<br><br>Robert M.<br><br><br><br>
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Re: Nightwatch

Post by Robert_Moriyama »

Hi Everyone,

Greg, would you prefer that we use Paul Hogan for our stereotypes, or would you prefer the Crocodile Hunter?  ;)

Thanks,
Jeff Williams
<br><br>Following the Steve (Crocodile Hunter) Irwin / Michael Jackson example, we'd have to throw somebody's baby on the barbie. Eeewwwww. (Saturday Night Live did an SNL News bit with someone playing Steve Irwin. He came on set carrying a raw chicken in baby clothes, and said he'd just come from feeding a chicken to some crocodiles while carrying his son, to show how safe it was ...) I guess if Irwin or Jackson Jr. was killed due to the idiocy of their respective parents, it would be a case of natural selection kicking in one generation too late!<br><br>Robert M.<br>
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Re: Nightwatch

Post by Robert_Moriyama »

Ah, yes, roast koala. The great thing about it is, thanks to the eucalyptus diet the furry little beasts prefer, one bite and your sinuses clear right up! :P<br><br>Robert M.
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The Wishbone Dissection Pt. 1  

Post by Robert_Moriyama »

The one advantage to writing a fairly long story is that it will probably be longer than Wishbone's critique ...<br><br>"Dragon's Egg" refers (a) to the roughly egg-like shape and appearance of the object, and (b) to the implication that it is rather like Pandora's Box -- you may not be sure what is inside, but the odds are good that it will be something sure to cause trouble.<br><br>Dunno what I could do about the meeting thing, short of saying "during one of the most tedious meeting he had ever attended" immediately after "Struggling to stay awake".<br><br>Simon is (I think) in his mid-to-late-forties or very early fifties at this point. He is old enough to have been involved in some of the nastiness that occurred in the previous decade, and in some of our current troubles, but young and fit enough to still be very active ... although he DOES feel it more now when he gets banged up.<br><br>"hence its name" -- the Institute DOES do Strategic and Economic Studies. The Nightwatch part of the name comes from some obscure point that I'm sure Jeff can explain ...<br><br>"Hey Doc" -- Simon has a Ph. D. in Civil Engineering.<br><br>"Washington / Georgetown ..." (Sigh) Yes, it's a leftover, but the Institute also has facilities scattered around the D.C. area (not everything would fit in its main complex). I'm tapdancing as fast as I can, Jeff. Is this correct?<br><br>The egg turned out to be about two meters long. The "baby backhoe" would have a cab about the size of the front seat of a car (say 1.5 meters) plus a business end (hydraulic shovel) about 2 - 3 meters long. The description wasn't all that accurate, I'm afraid.<br><br>... would you believe it's a very high resolution picture? Simon was looking at the texture, color, and reflectivity of the object and was able to see that the surface was white, with a hint of translucence around the edges, and so not metallic.<br><br>Simon's elusive past will indeed be revealed in bits and pieces in future stories (as quickly as the writers decide what those bits and pieces should be, anyway).<br><br>The Maltese Falcon was supposedly a solid-gold statue of a falcon, and the object of a deadly quest by a number of unsavory types in the movie of the same name. It turned out to be a fake (at least the one that was found was). Objects of this type (some mysterious thingy around which a plot was built) were called "macguffins" by (I think) Hitchcock, among others.<br><br>The Nightwatch logo is something Jeff and I disagree about -- I think that it would be a two-color design generated by posterizing (exaggerating contrast) one of the central figures in the painting, Jeff thinks it would be the whole thing. As for the year -- as a ballpark figure, I'd say 2010 or 2015, maybe later. Current (for us) regional jets are old enough to be available for private (or institutional) purchase; bio-engineered spider-silk armor is expensive, but available to non-military purchasers; Afghanistan is relatively stable, and the U.S. has had a consulate in a presumably self-governed Iraq for some time.<br><br>The white noise generator doesn't block radio signals per se; it prevents any listening device from picking up intelligible speech by blanketing the audio spectrum. Simon's phone works because the speaker and microphone are close enough to his mouth and ear to override this effect.<br><br>Again, our current Pope IS Polish, but the two that follow him will not be (I'd guess). Simon is old enough that J.P. II still comes to HIS mind, anyway.<br><br>Aphelion is a "family" zine -- none of my stories here use unBowdlerized prophanity (well, not much, anyway). Dan isn't all that strict on the subject, although he might include an "includes language" label. Anyway, my fault. I suspect Stephanie herself swears like a drunken sailor.<br><br>"I'll leave a message ..." Oops. I forgot, therefore Simon forgot (or didn't get the chance) to retrieve the info.<br><br>Simon considered pummeling (or trying to) McReady when the CIA man "woke up" just as Simon was about to head for the rear of the plane.<br><br>"On the tarmac ..." Yes, they are still on the plane, but the door is open and the stairs are in place.<br><br>Re: Massoud's James Dean and Fonzie references -- considering that I Love Lucy and other 50's and 60's shows are still circulating around the world in dozens of languages, it isn't surprising that Massoud would know these American icons.<br><br>... To be continued
Last edited by Robert_Moriyama on June 28, 2004, 01:16:26 PM, edited 1 time in total.
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The Wishbone Dissection, Part 2

Post by Robert_Moriyama »

Continuing with Part 2 of Wishbone's post:<br><br>"I told you we were going to ..." Simon is Just Following Orders (from Callow and the Institute). Besides, he is as curious about the egg as anyone else, and welcomes the chance to learn more before he has to put it out of reach. You'll notice that McReady is actually surprised at Simon's intentions -- it wasn't in HIS orders.<br><br>By 201x, a satellite phone wouldn't necessarily be the biggest gadget on McReady's person. Besides, Simon wasn't searching him by size of item!<br><br>McReady is an admirer of Dubya and Ronnie Reagan, both of whom I would suspect would be spitters (in the Hollywood tradition).<br><br>"artificial mechanism ..." Ultrasound seems like an unlikely trigger for a natural phenomenon that affects space-time, when various types of radiation and simple impact have no effect.<br><br>McReady chooses to insult Qadeer's museum precisely because he has figured out how important it is to the professor. Being in a hopeless situation (disarmed and surrounded by Massoud's armed men) frustrates the hell out of him, so he picks on someone whom he thinks is a safe target, the little old scientist. Bad idea ...<br><br>As noted, Simon is at least middle-aged (and silver-haired), so Qadeer looks to be about the right age to be Simon's father.<br><br>Alexei is about Simon's age, if not older. And Russians start drinking vodka pretty young ... so yes, he'd have been guzzling potato juice for decades. As for his appearance, large with bushy eyebrows should conjure an image of Leonid Brezhnev, the one-time Soviet premier (see www.marxists.org/ glossary/people/b/r.htm).<br><br>New Zealand has the closest airport to Mt. Erebus. Mt. Erebus is one of the largest active volcanos and is in nominally international territory (I think), which is why it was chosen (off-stage).<br><br>"We brought a crate ..." The egg turned out to be smaller in diameter and slightly longer than expected. The exposed curvature when it was first found suggested something similar to a hen's egg, but more symmetrical (no "big end"); the actual shape was more like a cold capsule except that the ends were more pointed. Guess I forgot to describe it accordingly, except to say that it was not truly egg-shaped.<br><br>... It ain't easy to hide from a helicopter gunship. You'd need a cave to get adequate cover, and even then, you could get FFARs thrown in after you (folding-fin air-to-ground rockets -- small unguided missiles). A tree would wind up toothpicks ... To say nothing of reaching cover before the gunship could target you.<br><br>Oddly enough, for air navigation purposes, distances are often stated in nautical miles. Don't ask ME why.<br><br>Again, Mt. Erebus was chosen before they left Afghanistan. And since it IS in Antarctica, that's where they have to go.<br><br>Since the bullets that hit the cargo plane weren't specifically aimed at the plane, let alone the crate, not that many rounds were involved. And any cover is better than none (although it could wind up toothpicks, as noted above).<br><br>The lava lake at Mt. Erebus is 10 - 40 meters across, according to the website<br>http://www.ees.nmt.edu/Geop/mevo/geolog ... gy.html<br>(a pretty small target from a plane, even flying low and slow, I now realize). A pass, in this context, would just be a flight leg lined up with the crater.<br><br>The crate sinks because it is being incinerated by the heat; the egg, being a nice smooth shape, tends to slip under the surface due to friction (it tends to get caught up with the magma it first contacts) and the convection currents in the molten rock. That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.<br><br>Any good magician or card cheat would tell you that misdirection is the key to making a trick work. Don't look at the box from which the magician will disappear, look at the pretty assistants dancing around. Don't look too closely at the crate or its contents -- look out for that automatic weapons fire!<br><br>***<br><br>Well, that's about the best I can do in answering Wishbone's comments. He did find some omissions and outright errors, but in most cases, I knew what was happening even if I didn't make it clear enough to the reader. If you need me, I'll be at the blood bank making a withdrawal ...<br><br>Robert M.
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Re: Nightwatch

Post by Robert_Moriyama »

I was surprised to hear Simon is supposed to be approaching middle-age. My impression of him as I read the story was of a man that was youthful but had been around long enough to have seen a bit of the 'world', say about mid-thirties.
GG
<br><br>So you thought the silver/grey hair on his hands and arms was REALLY premature ... As for Simon being fast on his feet at age fifty-plus (per Jeff, who should know), think Chuck Norris or Jackie Chan, both now in their fifties ...<br><br>
re: Mt. Erebus, yes I would say 10-40 m is a rather small target to be aiming at from an aircraft, but this IS a fictional world and maybe it's a different size? ... (the) convection current explanation couldn't cut through butter I think- as far as I know, convection currents in a volcano would run UP and OUT. The egg may have floated out then been dragged in, but this is not how it was described.
GG
<br><br>Mind you, the upper end of that scale would be pretty close to half a football field (not including endzones), so we're not talking TINY, either (bigger than a womp-rat in the canyons of Tattooine, anyway). Convection currents probably would, as you say, go up and out, assuming that the magma flows from a point approximately under the centre of the lava lake. They would, however, go DOWN as they got further from the center (which, in a 10 to 40 meter diameter circle, would not be that far) ... the egg surface wasn't frictionless, or mud wouldn't have clung to it when it was unearthed, so drag from the high-viscosity liquid (molten rock) would carry it along with those currents. On the third hand, the same currents would also carry the egg back toward the central upwelling and might even take it back to the surface, or close to it. Fishing it out even then would be a chore -- the website I noted in the earlier post says the temperature ranges from 700 to 1300 degrees Celcius!<br><br>Robert M.
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Re: Nightwatch .

Post by Robert_Moriyama »

... given the size of the crater, when the pilot has finished saying "We're beginning a pass", they have already finished the pass.

- Wishbone, Nitpicker Extraordinaire
<br><br>As noted earlier, a "pass" would probably be a kilometer or more in length, given the distance it would take to line up on the crater again after overflying it.<br><br>Assuming that the cargo plane was supplied by the Royal New Zealand Air Force, it would be a C-130H -- kinda big for the job, but it's what they fly. This plane has a stall speed of about 95 - 100 knots (depending on which source you believe), or 185 km/h. So ... at just above stall speed, (say 190 - 200 km/h), it would take ... 1/200 hours or 18 seconds to make "a (one kilometer) pass". Mind you, they'd only be over the lava lake itself for 40/1000 x 18 seconds = .72 seconds, so it's a good thing that Simon has excellent reflexes and timing!<br><br>Robert M.<br>
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Re: Nightwatch

Post by lokifan »

Guys? Can I make a suggestion? Stop obessing over little details. It was dramatic and suspenseful, and it did a good job of letting action in considering it was the first one. Also - I say we ban Wishbone after the fifth page, because I couldn't even skim all this. It was pick, pick, pick.
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Re: Nightwatch

Post by Robert_Moriyama »

Guys? Can I make a suggestion? Stop obessing over little details. It was dramatic and suspenseful, and it did a good job of letting action in considering it was the first one. Also - I say we ban Wishbone after the fifth page, because I couldn't even skim all this. It was pick, pick, pick.
<br><br>Ban him? As an author starved for feedback, I'd rather have nitpicking than silence. At least that way, I know somebody's actually reading and paying attention!<br><br>(By 'the fifth page', do you mean the fifth printed page's worth of comments? As I said, anything shorter than a novellette/novella runs the risk of having a lower word count than a full-on Wishbone critique ... ;))<br><br>Robert M.
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Re: Nightwatch

Post by Robert_Moriyama »

Wishbone is a rare gem. He makes people think furiously.
Dan
<br>At least those people who can take it (i.e., those who know all too well that they arn't prefekt) ... those who feel that their Art should not be so thoroughly deconstructed, he just makes furious :P!<br><br>Robert M.
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Re: Nightwatch

Post by lokifan »

OK, sorry. Sheesh.
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