Late! Late! But I made it. [@DarkWolf687], your review is finally here! [hider=unforseen consequence]So I skimmed this like two or three times before finally ACTUALLY reading the whole way through, and I have to admit, I missed a LOT on those skimming passes. What you've got here is a solid first draft. No first draft is ever polished or perfect, so forget all those PACING or GRAMMAR or SENTENCE STRUCTURE type complaints I might normally bring up -- the whole point is to get the story down so you can come back later and fix it with a few well-placed nuclear bombs. I dunno if you plan on revisiting this or not -- but for the sake of practice, I'm gonna identify what [i]I think[/i] are some nuke-able and/or build-able elements. NUKE: The trial scene. In the grander narrative, this doesn't advance anything. If it's gone, nothing really suffers -- though, alternatively, you could build a whole justice-system subplot on the side, to which the trial of the planetary commander would be essential. Currently, it's just sorta sitting there, and it's out-of-sync with the rest of the story -- the dude literally gets hit in the head with a book while monologueing. Not exactly headcrabs and dark-energy rifles there. I'd nuke it. BUILD: Rebecca as a character. She's interesting from the get-go, and she stays interesting in every scene, and her death has a really big-deal feeling. You nailed it with Rebecca -- great job! Now I have to figure there's room for a [i]lot[/i] more of her. If I was a sleazy Hollywood producer I'd probably want a romantic angle squeezed uncomfortably into the plot -- it doesn't have to be that. But surely there's something for her to be doing -- something that would get us out of the Sectoral's mechanical head. Also Joey -- more Joey too. NUKE: Andrei Izotoz. I never played the games, but I have to assume the Brigade is a big deal there. Here, he's nothing. He shows up out of the blue and says Fuck, and that's essentially his only function. It's not doing anything for me. He gets the axe, I think. BUILD: Culture. Again -- I never played the game, so all this was new to me. You did a [i]fantastic[/i] job with all these Combine types -- there's this weirdness to them, there's people (mostly super-interesting Rebecca) experiencing revulsion when they're seen unmasked, and martial atmosphere whenever they disagree. It's strong writing, so..... why not more of it? Bear in mind -- part of what I like about the cultural/how-they-tick aspect of this is, it's really well blended into the narrative. You hardly even realize it's happening, but when it's all said and done, I feel like I sorta [i]get[/i] the trans-humans. That's something you can build on, if you were to ever do another draft. two of each, that's good, right? I think you're too hard on yourself in your own review -- which is actually fantastic. If you'd shown up thinking "THAT is the best thing I'll ever write!" that would, uh... first drafts, for most people, are more like this. That's what they're for. You're not supposed to love every word, because before you know it, it's all gonna be obliterated in the re-write. The overall structure probably survives, and that's solid here. The big finale probably lives -- clean it up a little bit and it's awesome. Characters? I just want more of them, because they're all great. Except Andrei. Everybody else though, more. What I'm driving at I guess is, you're in a really good place if you can pump out a draft like that. I'd recommend doing it again, as often as possible, because writing THAT MUCH is a muscle, and muscles need the exercise. And don't be embarrassed! My first drafts look much, much, MUCH worse.[/hider] And finally, voting..... I wavered between several amazing lies. I think though, end of the day, [@PlatinumSkink] went a step further on complexity AND execution. I'd love to kick a vote out to Crude City because [i]my word that was special[/i], but if I'm honest, I have to [@vote] for Dramatic Reveal. It was a hell of a job worldbuilding, too. Really nice work. [b]Reminder[/b] -- voting deadline is tonight, so make yourselves heard! And seriously don't vote for Sonnet O. It's a bad joke told poorly.