Lost Entropy.

[anoni]

This was the book I was referring to in an R&A post. Either way, here's the first chapter, constructive criticism is very welcome!

Lost Entropy

Part I

Chapter 1

  If you are reading this, then the civilisation I’ve known and come to love has most likely been lost. If you are reading this, then you are our reclaimer, a scholar, a historian, someone seeking to know the past of our universe and what events transpired in order to change what it is today. You are reading the series of events of three men in three different generations that changed the very fabric of our entire galaxy, our entire civilisation and indeed our entire universe as we know it.
  But before we continue, we must first embark on a history lesson, for some readers may not be aware of what happened very long ago. The year is 2056, a species known as humanity presides on a small rock, called Earth, which orbits around a burning star. Humanity is our ancestors, the people we came from, the people we are. You see, in 2056 space travel was limited to only within our solar system, known as Sol. We hadn’t been able to venture out and see the true light of what the universe had to offer as our technology was too primitive and we had not discovered the Darkon.
  That was until a scientist, named James L. Rimey, tried to explain gravity because gravity back then had yet to be explained. He hypothesised a theoretical possibility for gravity to exist which was that a certain stationary particle existed. This particle bent space time all around it and moved space inwards from its location, a gravity particle. This particle had yet been observed though so he also went on to explain that this particle does not react with matter, it is a phantom that passes through us and everything we know. The only way to notice this particle, he claimed, is to have it accelerate. When this particle accelerates it would make a space-time wave that would bend space and time in certain areas creating a noticeable distortion. He then went on to assume that this particle could react to an enormous amount of energy, found in interstellar objects such as a black hole. He called this particle, due to its inability to be observed, the Darkon.

  Such an underwhelming name for such an important discovery, a discovery that would turn humanity into an intergalactic civilisation, a discovery that was ultimately discredited in the scientific community as being too, radical, with not enough proof. That was until forty years later, when a scientist named Lee Chen was experimenting with creating artificial black holes. He successfully created some black holes but noticed some anomalies, distortions that were not compatible with our current understanding of physics. However these distortions would be explained by James L. Rimey’s work. Lee Chen not only explained these anomalies with Darkons but also explained Dark Energy. Dark Energy, to Lee Chen, was the energy that was used to bend space-time in the first place; the energy that the Darkons emit. He also claimed that every Darkon was influenced by every other Darkon. I will not bore my readers with a complex scientific analysis of the theories of Darkons so early in this biography but what I will say is that this discovery and explanation was extremely important, because it was when Darkons were seen as actual scientific fact.
  The exploitation of Darkons was incredibly useful. By exploiting the space-time ripples to move rotors Dark Energy Reactors were created, capable of releasing excessive amounts of clean energy that would fuel new technologies and create an almost self-sustaining energy source. The most important discovery, however, was the use of Space-Time Vortex Navigation. By firing a large cluster of Darkons into space a wormhole could be created. This worm hole would shorten space for whoever was travelling into the temporary wormhole. This worm hole would make a light year only a few hundred kilometres and would make a second within the worm hole, almost nothing from the outside. Even if a ship took two weeks to travel 100 light years in this wormhole, from outside of the wormhole, it would appear as if the ship only took a second to get to its location.
  It was Space-time Vortex Navigation, or STVN for short, that sling shotted humanity into the intergalactic market and that finally showed the true potential of humans for space exploration. Space exploration was expensive, so a special organisation was made known as the Researchers and Explorers of Very Important Celestial Events, or the Revice for short. That is who we are now, the Revice and only the Revice.

  You may ask yourself, “What happened to humanity?” Well to answer that, I must explain a bit more about our universe. You see, humanity was not the only species to explore and move around the universe using STVN, but many species did the same. The first species we met was the Atos, at least that is what they called themselves. We however called them the Union, in response to the fact that they were not a single alien species but an empire of many species formed into one civilisation. The Union was our first neighbour and our first enemy, because almost instantly hostility erupted.
  You see the Atos was a militaristic union, a union that would devour smaller, weaker civilisations and force them to join in their alien politics. Humanity and the Revice did not want that to happen, so we fought against these already established conquers. Quickly the Revice became less about discovery and more about military defence, all our policies turned into strategies, exploration turned to conquest and curiosity turned to confrontation. The Revice became our space military, it became our planets defence force and it ultimately, failed.
  We were new, new to the universe, new to galactic conquest. The Atos, however, were already veterans of war and they quickly eliminated us from the market, or at least that’s what they thought. They found our home planet, Earth, and began to invade on mass with an army so overwhelming that not even all our best fleets would stand a chance. The sky was blackened as star ships blocked out the sun, our only source of light coming from the blinding white beams of their ships main cannons. Cities became glassed in blue fire; metal was twisted, deformed and evaporated from the intense heat of the ejected plasma from the Atos’s cannons. No man, women, child or even bacteria could survive the intense heat and soon our planet was blanketed in hell-fire, our oceans turned to deserts and our cities turned to dust. The only people to survive were the people who were not on the planet, the people who were the Revice. So it was said that day that humanity became extinct and all that remained was the Revice.
  But we rebuilt, we built on other planets and learned the hardships of space. We discovered new species, we discovered new planets and new technology and soon we went back to the Atos and fought again for what we had lost. Although our planet was destroyed, our spirit was kept intact and we purged with a final hope to destroy the Atos chain in command and with this final hope we were successful. Although the Atos would quickly rebuild and still maintain its right as a galactic predator, our reputation was known to other species and we were officially seen as a threat in the interstellar world. However, the Atos was one of many threats this universe had to offer, humanity had stepped into an era of destruction, chaos and war; an era where all people must serve the military and the Revice or die in the name of heresy. That was in the year 2205, seven hundred years later and I was born.

[MrRazot]

I thought I would only read a small bit then move one...
Never have I been so wrong. (lol hobbit reference)

It's gripping and plays with the imagination and I am certainly looking forward to reading the next chapter.

[anoni]

This is not all of Chapter 2, but only what I worked on tonight, I'll edit this post when more of chapter 2 comes out

Chapter 2:
  I was born on a farming planet known as Virtex, my father died at the age of 27 two weeks after I was born, the cause of death was an illness known as the Virtexion plague, a violent and fatal disease that was native only to that planet. My family was poor and we only lived on the goods we made, after my father died my mother could not cope with the stresses of the farm life. She looked to me in hoping that I would be her salvation, so she called me Alexander, Alexander Merdious, after the ancient Alexander the great.
  Unfortunately, my destiny of salvation was not for my mother. With debts stacking higher and higher, she eventually got into debt with a local gang known as the blades, she was unable to pay back her debt and the gang took her life as payment, I was three years old. I never knew my parents, I was an orphan and immediately I was put into government controlled care for the rest of my life. Being in government controlled care in this society meant you were destined to be an active service for the military, you see anything anyone did was ultimately to aid the Revice as a whole, to aid the military in our conquest for dominance.

  When I was thirteen I was officially handed out to military officials to start my training; every child of every family was taken away at thirteen in order to train for a year. They were then evaluated on their effectiveness and their roles would be considered, if they were physically weak, but mentally strong, they were put in Intelligence Class, if they were physically strong but mentally weak they were Labour class. The two different classes opened to different possibilities. The Intelligence Class lead to trade, computing, engineering and design, while the Labour Class lead to servicing, farming, construction and Infantry. I was put in the Labour Class and my schooling began.
  At the age of fourteen I met another student, he was an orphan too, he had not told me about his family or what had happened to them, and his name was Neil Roger. I asked him what he hoped to achieve, what he aimed for in the Labour class, what profession he wanted to be. Well he said the following.
  “I am born in a society that cares for me, in which my family cannot. I have seen what war has done and what violence can achieve. I have seen what disorder and what instability causes. I do not like these, and so I will protect my society from these. I want to be an army man.”
  He wanted to be in the infantry, and upon hearing those words I agreed with him. So we both wanted to join the army, venture in space, fight the bad guys and protect the good guys, it didn’t seem complicated to us. It was that day I had found what my profession would be and it was that day I had found a life-long friend.

  Neil and I joined the DOSC (Defence-Offence Space Corps) at the age of sixteen. We were quickly pulled into an environment of struggle and hostility at a Military training camp known as the Den. They made us run for days, they pointed guns at our heads when  barking orders, they wanted us to achieve and know their dominance. I was lagging behind and I was not doing well, I was unable to run as fast as my comrades or to take orders so obediently, I could not endure as much. Neil on the other hand, excelled at these things. One day we were both running around The Den with the other Cadets, and I was, as always, struggling to keep up.
  “Come on you idiot! Run faster!” Neil exclaimed to me looking back.
  “I can’t! I can’t do this anymore! I’m not cut out for this shit!” I pleaded back, slowing down to a stop, as I was completely out of breath.
  Neil stopped running, he turned around and walked towards me, he stood in front of my bent over body and told me too look at him. I complied, only to feel him hit the side of my head with a scrunched up fist, the pressure forced my head back and I collapsed on the floor.
  “Look at yourself! You’ve become a victim to your own pain and that’s how you’ll stay, a victim!” He exclaimed, standing over my exhausted and broken body, “Pain is an inevitable part of life, Alexander, you cannot let it take you like this! You must learn to accept it, to work with it, let it be your motivator, your strength, NOT YOUR DOWNFALL!”
  He spat on me, then ran ahead again. I was angry at him and I felt hurt, the pain of feeling inadequate and feeling defeated, it was that pain that would be my motivation. I stood up, staggered and hurt, I gazed wearily in front of me to see Neil’s back and legs running ahead, and I ran after him. I kept running and running and I did not stop, my legs ached at every step, my chest burned with sharp pain every breath, but I ran and ran. I didn’t just overtake Neil around The Den that day, but I overtook every other cadet in the entire base. My body was broken and I couldn’t sleep the night after due to the amount of pain I felt, but I felt happy and motivated and I knew how to go on.

[anoni]

The rest of chapter 2

  After that I day I began to excelled at almost every discipline in the corps, I became known as a prominent leader, I became known to be of considerable endurance but most of all, I became known as an exempt leader. The other cadets seemed to see me as a guide, a tactician, I was known throughout the entire corps as being strong, powerful and above all calculating and cold. There were internal disputes and rivalries between the cadets in the corps, each came to me for resolution and when people stood in my way I beat them down. The strength I got since that night was incalculable and I was known as a leader, a conqueror of the mind.

  Neil was like me, he excelled at almost every discipline as well, but he was not seen as a leader. His true talents laid in his marksmanship, his ability to use his weapon was unmatched, and he quickly beat almost every previously held record on the shooting range. He even challenged his instructor to a competition, which he eventually agreed to, it was best out of three and after two games they were even. The last challenge was to hit a rotating target that scrolled across the range, not only did it move from side to side but it turned around as well in order to distract the shooter. Both Neil and his instructor shot at the same time for their last shot, the target was gathered and the bullet holes measured, Neil’s bullet was approximately 7mm closer to the bullseye then his instructors bullet, meaning Neil was the victor. He was then and forever known as an incredible marksman, and soon he may have become the best in the entire universe.

  At the age of eighteen we finally graduated from the training camp and were able to join the military and begin our active service. At the age of eighteen we were given our new names. You see, for military servicemen people have two names, there birth name and there given name. The birth name was the name you were given when you were born; it is there to keep only between those outside of the military. Your given name is the name the military assigns you, it is a nick-name but it is seen as an official branding of one and ones skills. Neil’s new name, in recognition of his marksmen ship, was simply called “sniper”, my new name was something I was surprised at, in honour of my leadership and my conquest, and I was named Alexander. It is not often that someone’s birth name and given name are the same, but to me it seems my name holds a destiny, a destiny of greatness, of strength and conquest, it’s a destiny that has led me to be the saviour and destroyer of worlds, the judge of life and death and the mediator to chaos.

  We were eighteen and shipping off to go see the universe and start active duty. We were being shipped off to a star-ship known as the Messor; it was almost 250 light years away. I went onto my shuttle with Neil and we headed off to a military space station off the orbit of Virtex known as Cosmos, it was here that I would finally leave my planet and venture forth into the unknown void that is the universe.

[anoni]

Chapter 3 is complete, it's a long one. I think I need to improve how I portray different characters personalities, anyone have any suggestions on what I should improve on?

  I was quickly shipped off to the Messor; this would be the ship I would embark on for a lot of my early military experience. I remember so clearly waiting at Cosmos’s port and seeing the first view of what Darkons were capable of. As I waited at the steel port, I saw people hustling and rushing around the silver corridors, running around the huge, single, empty hanger only to crowd around a massive glass observatory window in the observatory room. There must have been two hundred people crowded around in this relatively small square room; everyone was standing, staring at the window and the blank, empty part of space that the window showed. People were yelling and shouting, pointing at a particular section of space saying, “that’s where it’s gonna jump to!”

  It was very difficult to get a view from all the people hustling to get a closer look, but I eventually found myself a position near the back where I was able to see the part of space people seemed to be pointing too. It seemed empty at first, but I started to notice a sort of diffraction of the observatory room, it seemed like the observatory window was getting further away from me and the people in front of me seemed to be bending towards it. I felt the hair on my arms stick up and I felt a force slightly pull me towards the window, towards that part of space that people were staring at. The effect only lasted a second and the force was very small, but I knew then something big was going to happen and it gave me an unsettling feeling. I stared at the spot of space, focused on where the force was pulling me to and suddenly it happened.

  A large metal star cruiser, around two kilometres in length, appeared out of seemingly nowhere. The star cruiser was extremely long, but had little height or depth, it was more shaped like a massive cannon than a star cruiser. It had many weapons attached to it, but all were dwarfed in comparison to the large cannon that seemed to form most of the ships structure. At the back of that colossal cannon was an enormous, steel tower that rose far above the ships cannon, that was the command centre. When the ship appeared, a large uneven and bumpy bubble appeared, this bubble was made of random vibrant colours of all the spectral range. The bubble expanded like an explosion, streaks of red, green, blue and purple shot across like lightning bolts around the bubble. Quickly the bubble moved over the space station Cosmos and the station shook violently, the silver metal space stations shone a burning white for a few seconds, and then went back to its metal colour. What I had experienced was my first look at STVN, Space-Time Vortex Navigation, and that bubble was my first look at its resulting warp storm.

  Everyone cheered as the Messor entered our port; this was the ship we would be leaving on. A robotic message on the intercom in the observatory room told the new recruits that would be on the Messor to line up near the hanger and get ready for a briefing. All two hundred of us walked across the steel corridors, which echoed of excited chants, laughs and cheers, people were eager to leave Virtex and explore the universe. Neil and I walked together across the hallways, we walked into the large hanger that the ship was boarding into and we lined up in four rows of fifty. It took roughly thirty minutes for the ship to completely board and for all its attendance to rush out, the whole time our platoon stood, staring at the ship, standing straight and not moving, like statues.

  While we waited in the hanger as the Messor towered over us, four soldiers finally came out of the Messor. Two of them were heavily armoured, they had large black assault rifles which they carried with them. The third person was also armoured, but her armour was decorated with medals and was white, as appose to the black armour of the two aforementioned soldiers. The last person to come out was not armoured, he wore a white suit, also decorated in metals, which had a thick black outline around the seams of the suit. All four of them stood in front of our platoon, the two armoured soldiers acted as body guards as the man in the suit stepped forward and addressed our platoon.

  “Welcome recruits, my name is Captain Adrian Mathews and the gentlewoman to my right is second in command Ashley Richards, I am the current and presiding captain, controller and commander of the ship Messor”, the man in the suit addressed, with a loud, stern and commanding voice. “For the next twelve years, you will be serving on my ship, you are my recruits and you will stay my recruits until otherwise stated”. When he finished the whole platoon shouted in unison, “Sir Yes sir!! “
  “Good to hear you understand. The ship Messor is a tactical reconnaissance ship, its main purpose is to assist small party assaults on various planets and move deep into space in order to gain surveillance information. It is not a war ship, it does not go in a fleet, it is not aided by other sister ships, it is alone and we are the only support we’ve got. We will be light years away from our territory, we will be deep in enemy lines and we will fend for ourselves in any way we’ve got, do you understand?”, Captain Mathews explained and again the entire platoon replied with “Sir Yes Sir!”
   “Excellent. This ship is your new home, now get aboard the Messor, double time, you will be acquainted with your quarters and you we will launch at 0600 Galactic Standard Time, you hear me?” One last time the platoon shouted “Sir Yes Sir!” and we ran into the ship, our new weapon, our new base, our new home.

  Before we left, I asked the Captain Mathews what exactly STVN was, he seemed almost eager to explain. “Well you see it’s quite a complicated system of events. First thing to know is that Darkons bend space-time, when they accelerate or move in unusual patterns they can expand and contract local bits of space. Our ship is fuelled by a Dark Energy Reactor that exploits this effect to constantly turn a rotor blade to power a generator at exceedingly high energy outputs.” The captain explained to me, “Dark Energy Reactors move Darkons around in a circular pattern; this creates a controllable Dark Energy Field that we can use to accelerate local Darkons within the reactor itself. Generally, through the Dark Energy Reactor, we can move Darkons. What we do is we launch a large cluster of Darkons in front of our ship through the STVN Cannon, which is the large cannon that makes up most of the ship”.
  “I thought the cannon was for war not for navigation” I explained, “why do you need such a large cannon in the first place?”
  “Well,” Mathews went on, “As the large cluster of Darkons are fired inside the cannon, small little bolts of Darkons are fired outside of the cannon, the bolts of Darkons outside of the cannon create a dark energy wave that further speeds up the cluster of Darkons, speeding it up to around 99.999% the speed of light. When the large cluster of Darkons exits the cannon, it bends space-time to such a degree that a worm hole is made, this worm hole drastically condenses space so that one light year may only be a few hundred kilometres. The worm hole is only existent for around twenty seconds, so the ship need to be already moving at quite a speed before we can fire the Darkon Cluster.”
  I quickly interjected with another query, “If Darkons bend space-time, why doesn’t it bend space while inside the ship when it’s being fired?”
  “Ah,” the captain explained, “Because the inner rims of the cannon and the Dark Energy Reactor are made of a material known as Echelon, I don’t have the current time to explain the complexities of the Echelon material, but when a Darkon wave interacts with Echelon, the material is able to absorb the impact and cause no space diffractions to occur past the Echelon surface. Either way, outside the ship when the worm hole is created, the ship moves into the worm hole. The worm hole doesn’t only condense space, but it also condenses time, time within the wormhole is normal to us, but to the outside world almost no time has passed at all. To give you an example, the jump we made was over 20,000 light years long, which took us one weeks within the wormhole to complete, however to you, being outside the wormhole at the time, it would only appear to of taken a few seconds.”
  “Amazing!” I exclaimed, “So this is STVN, how we are able to move such large distances in such short time”
  “Well yes”, Mathew continued, “But there are considerable disadvantages and problems to this form of travel. First of all, as Darkons influence other Darkons when they move, the cluster of Darkons pushes other Darkons towards it. The Cluster picks up Darkons that are floating in space and causes them to continue along our path. Darkons behind the cluster pull the cluster back and Darkons in front of the cluster push the cluster forward, effectively slowing the cluster down. When the cluster stops accelerating and goes to rest, the wormhole ends and we exit the other side. This means that extensive calculation must be used in order to manage where we want to jump to, the longer we want to move the faster the Darkon cluster has to be. Not only that, but as we exit the wormhole, all the Darkons that were picked up get shot in all different directions due to a build-up of intense Dark Energy. This effectively causes randomly shifting time and space fields that can be very hazardous to anything around the ship, effectively a warp storm.”
  “I saw a strange rainbow like explosion as the ship entered, was that the warp storm?” I asked.
  “Indeed it was”, Captain Mathews answered, “The rainbow effect is caused by the different and random time dilation fields that occur. As time slows, the frequency of light gets slower as well, ultraviolet light, x-rays and gamma rays may slow down to an frequency visible by humans, causing visible light to be observed in the warp storm. It may look pretty, but I assure you it is considerably deadly, the changing time and space fields are powerful enough to tear a human to pieces. This space-station is covered by a thin layer of Echelon, so it’s relatively unaffected by the considerable blast.”

  I thanked the captain for his time, he told me he was a man of science and understanding and he thought it was important for his soldiers to be strong in the mind as well as the muscle. I boarded the ship and I rested in my quarters and lay there and wondered about what the universe has to offer. I spent the next eight years on that ship, through those eight years I went on various missions, Neil was promoted to Corporal, he would have been promoted further but he was stubborn and did not follow orders in a robotic approach that the superiors wanted him to. I was promoted to Sargent and Neil and I became known as some of the most competent soldiers in the entire DOSC navy. But it was only in 2931 that my true life began; at the age of thirty I would meet an extraordinary circumstance that would begin a chain of events that would change the universe forever.