Shadow of victory snippet #2

jchilds wrote:Does Lądowisko translate to some variation of "Landing"?

Per a quick google search: yup.

Don't want to complain much (albeit RFC started Shadows of Freedom by killing a couple of kids), but we're still in early PD 1921? Could we, you know, advance the timeline just a wee bit?

And yes, I am quite sure with 300,000 words turned in that we will do so, guess I'm just too impatient to see what comes next...

Yeah from a storytelling perspective, i dont really get why we have to yet again go back to 1921.

March 1921 seems really extreme. Thats even before the Battle of Lovat, just about when they founded the Star Empire.


I mean sure, events are happening incredible fast at this point in time anyway, but the story already had a decent structure.
I dont really understand why we have to go back just to see civil unrest of some sort in yet another godforsaken fringe world of the League.
We had lots and lots of it in Shadow of Freedom already, i dont think we need to see more and more of it to get it.

I miss the old days, most stuff like that was dealt with of screen and mentioned in passing only.


But yeah, with 300.000 words there should be more than enough pages to finally advance the plot again.
I just checked, At All Cost has somewhat less than that and War of Honor came in at 325.000.
The last two barely had half...

Lets just hope RFC didnt copypaste too many chapters.

cthia wrote:Edyta wasn't just smart and accomplished at chess. She's obviously a child prodigy, having been accelerated a full grade and still excelling.

Depends, if their education system is like ours or not.
<<RANT ON>>
If like ours, this child would be average other than she was held back by the stupid education system... Why home school kids on average are much further along in their education than public school students. Not that they are smarter,rather that they are allowed to move quicker instead of waiting for undisciplined selfish jack ass Johnny to sit down and shut up for 3 hours out of every "school day". Or to put it another way, a whole grade or two ahead of their public school peers. All the home school groups I have known stop at age 15/16 and send them to community college or technical colleges. At age 18 they already have an AA degree, technician degree(trade job), or half of a BS degree.

These aren't "brilliant" kids either. Just average kids. Difference they hadn't been held back by a school system that only gives help to kids on subjects they are doing poorly in. Seems our school system has forgotten to push kids in subjects they are doing well in as well as subjects they are doing poorly in. It is rather all systems STOP. Wouldn't want Jack ass Johnny to feel bad that his peers are a grade or two ahead of him in math, vocabulary, reading, art, etc.

Why do so many kids act up? Because they are bored and not being challenged in school.

Bring back mixed "age group" class rooms please and this "discrepency" will vanish. Homeschool kids are not smarter than public school kids. Rather they are just taught in a better way by necessity.

Maybe miss smarty pants is such a girl. Who knows...

<<Rant Off>>

PS. Grrr... Can you tell I just came back from working with disenfranchised youth... Yup... Grrr.

I think everyone has missed a major point in this scene: they died because the driver followed proper procedure, down to a hair, which was witnessed by a military officer, and likely recorded by numerous people. To put it bluntly, the SEOM's intentional activities constitute unlawful harressment, terroristic intimidation, recklessness (for the 'air car' to register that way it had to be going too fast), and discharging military artillery in a spaceport, during a state of emergency, even if the shot had missed, it is still terrorism.

Relax wrote:

cthia wrote:Edyta wasn't just smart and accomplished at chess. She's obviously a child prodigy, having been accelerated a full grade and still excelling.

Depends, if their education system is like ours or not.
<<RANT ON>>
If like ours, this child would be average other than she was held back by the stupid education system... Why home school kids on average are much further along in their education than public school students. Not that they are smarter,rather that they are allowed to move quicker instead of waiting for undisciplined selfish jack ass Johnny to sit down and shut up for 3 hours out of every "school day". Or to put it another way, a whole grade or two ahead of their public school peers. All the home school groups I have known stop at age 15/16 and send them to community college or technical colleges. At age 18 they already have an AA degree, technician degree(trade job), or half of a BS degree.

These aren't "brilliant" kids either. Just average kids. Difference they hadn't been held back by a school system that only gives help to kids on subjects they are doing poorly in. Seems our school system has forgotten to push kids in subjects they are doing well in as well as subjects they are doing poorly in. It is rather all systems STOP. Wouldn't want Jack ass Johnny to feel bad that his peers are a grade or two ahead of him in math, vocabulary, reading, art, etc.

Why do so many kids act up? Because they are bored and not being challenged in school.

Bring back mixed "age group" class rooms please and this "discrepency" will vanish. Homeschool kids are not smarter than public school kids. Rather they are just taught in a better way by necessity.

Maybe miss smarty pants is such a girl. Who knows...

<<Rant Off>>

PS. Grrr... Can you tell I just came back from working with disenfranchised youth... Yup... Grrr.

I can't agree with that statement made so generally. It depends on the particular school and school system. Some cities have excellent public schools. My school was an excellent public school. Each of our classes had "sections" to deal with slow to fast learners.

Text states that they were in the top two or three percent of their respective classes. These are not the type of students who fail to excel, regardless of the shortcomings of the particular education platform. Exceptionally smart students who become bored will usually compensate with other means other than goofing off. Take myself, when I was bored because the class was moving slow, I whipped out my three-ring notebook, that I didn't leave home without, and began coding in class or working on other assignments in advance.

My parents instilled in us the need to be educated. I agree that the school system as we Americans know it, needs to be rethought. However, I am not on board of shifting ALL of the blame on the teachers/school system. The parents must assume responsibility for their fair share of neglect. In my schools, there were always "sections." 1-3 in a given subject. Algebra Section 1 was the advanced class. Algebra Section 2 was the normal class. Section 3 was the slowest. Of course, I attended very good public schools.

Edyta is clearly exceptional. To be accelerated and placed with other top two to three percentile students and still excell speaks volumes. Besides, you don't accelerate a child then place her amongst dummies. That just doesn't happen.

Besides again, anyone who can catch a knight trap after being distracted is not a genius - but a prodigy. I know, I have experience with one of my own - well not mine, but my sister's. She's a chess genius too. She was 13-yrs-old here and accelerated three grades...

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=5069&start=1507

HungryKing wrote:I think everyone has missed a major point in this scene: they died because the driver followed proper procedure, down to a hair, which was witnessed by a military officer, and likely recorded by numerous people. To put it bluntly, the SEOM's intentional activities constitute unlawful harressment, terroristic intimidation, recklessness (for the 'air car' to register that way it had to be going too fast), and discharging military artillery in a spaceport, during a state of emergency, even if the shot had missed, it is still terrorism.

No, not at all. The fist question is does the guy running the air to air combat platform convince jackass to land and surrender to the cops or does he kill him. There are multiple paths by which you arrive at these states, but the end state is what matters.

Either way, then things get 'interesting'.

Actually the question you just raised is not the most important. The question is does he sic the rest of the military on SEOM, or does a spaceport SWAt team deploy, did I mention SEOM is now a terrorist organization (and it is appearent thay are not a transtellar themselves, or 'their airspace' would not still have a right-of-way through it).

kzt wrote:

HungryKing wrote:I think everyone has missed a major point in this scene: they died because the driver followed proper procedure, down to a hair, which was witnessed by a military officer, and likely recorded by numerous people. To put it bluntly, the SEOM's intentional activities constitute unlawful harressment, terroristic intimidation, recklessness (for the 'air car' to register that way it had to be going too fast), and discharging military artillery in a spaceport, during a state of emergency, even if the shot had missed, it is still terrorism.

No, not at all. The fist question is does the guy running the air to air combat platform convince jackass to land and surrender to the cops or does he kill him. There are multiple paths by which you arrive at these states, but the end state is what matters.

Either way, then things get 'interesting'.

If jackass is dead he'll be the sole terrorist. Somehow I doubt that anyone will be volunteering that they ordered him to do that....

A couple of points. Some time ago RFC said that this book would have two worlds we hadn't seen yet where Firebrand was operating. This is clearly one of them.

Exactly what happens to the idiot in the fighter depends on how much clout the transstellar in question has. There may be absolutely no consequence. The basic background, of course to the whole scenario is that the transstellars are basically raping the worlds they've got contracts for, and they're really the ones running things, not the "official" government.