Powering up

[Chroma the lost]

Thunder boomed and rain began to pour down on the small town of Underwood and it's surrounding forests. The residents were all undoubtedly taking shelter in their dwellings, the aura in the air could tell you that this was not a storm to go out in. Lightning crackled and forked overhead, sending more peals of thunder over head, striking one seemingly inconspicuous spire of rock. Had it been any other inconspicuous spire nothing would have happened. But, millions of years of erosion and weathering had reveled a small silver streak running down the side. Thunder continued to boom as sparks of pure energy shot downwards following the streak until it reached the ground, and then continued into the ground until it found it's destination, a plasma power generator. Those sparks brought the whole thing to life, reviving the long abandoned research lab created by Althanas' long departed founding race.

Lights flickered on revealing a long line of pods, all but one were open. The last one shuddered, a screen attached to it flicked on. Awakening the pod shuddered and the door burst open. Silver liquid splashed out and oozed forward towards a lab table, it reached the foot of the table and spiraled around the legs reforming on top, and it then began to form into the shape of a man.

[Chroma the lost]

Powering up project E10 CODENAME CHROMA....
CHROMA POWERED UP

BOOTING START UP MANAGER....
START UP MANAGER BOOTED

LOADING DATA FILES.....
.................................
................................
ERROR LOADING DATA FILES

LOADING BACKUP FROM SERVER.....
...........................
...........................
...........................
ERROR SERVER CANNOT BE FOUND

RUNNING E10 EMERGENCY START UP......
...........................
E10 EMERGENCY START COMPLETE


WELCOME BACK CHROMA

[Chroma the lost]

Chroma's eyes were the first thing to reactivate. The sudden reactivation stunned the logic system built into Chroma.


Run system diagnostics

He issued mentally. His processors whirred silently as it ran several tests to see if anything was wrong with the emoticons body. When the test brought up the all clear the AI sat up. Facing him was a mirror, it took his logic sensors several seconds to realize that what he was seeing was himself. His long blond hair hung over his currently Hazel eyes. Covering his lower half was a pair of trousers, his torso however was exposed, revealing his muscles that bulged slightly as he shifted his weight.


Run Memory scan
Running Memory scans.....
..........................................
Memory scan results as followed
[0 out of 29 order files found]
[0 out of ? form files found]
[0 out of ? location files found]
[1 file found in total]
Chroma frowned at the data file search results.

Open File
He inputted the command mentally and waited as the file loaded. Certain memories were still left, like what he was, who created him, simple things like that, those memories were not located in the file library, which seemed to have had a malfunction deleting several important files. Instead they were located in his central emotion center, the very first thing every emoticon, or member of the E series of AI, had installed.

FILE OPENED
File name: PROJECT E and E spires.
Author: Emrakul Eon (Creator of the Emoticons)
To the date of this article there are 10 emoticons, the vanguard of AI technology, the first AI's with emotions. I have decided to have them in an alternating order of gender. Alpha, E1 was male. Beta E2 was female and so on. My pride and joy is E10 Chroma. Chroma was built with all of the latest technologies in mind, but unfortunately he will not be leaving Althanas with the rest of us. Instead he shall stay behind, he has his orders, he will follow them once he is awake. On the other note, to make his job easy I have placed several spires throughout Althanas, they shall watch and observe the planet, and he can use them to scan several basic files on the peoples and species in the planets.
End File
Chroma frowned, E spires, perhaps they had a copy of his orders. It was worth a chance. Time to do some exploring.

[Chroma the lost]

Chroma yawned as he pushed his feet over the edge of the table and stood up. The lab was small, about ten feet long and five feet wide. To his left was a row of pods. To his right was a door and a coat rack, where a lonely white dust covered lab coat hung solemnly. He sighed and looked up, the room was lit by flickering fluorescent tubes. The air was stale and musty, and made him want to puke. He went and grabbed the coat and shook the dust from it.

The dust billowed up to his nose and forced himself to cough it back up. He yawned and put the coat on, then turned and went out the door, behind the door was a dull tunnel it went upwards at a slight slope. He followed the slope for a short time period, and smiled as he saw the entry to the lab, light peeked through, and he stepped forward and opened the door. What lied outside surprised him. The storm had just passed over the lab, and moved to the west. What he found was a mess of limbs torn from their trees scattered all over the clearing he found himself in. More importantly was a metallic looking spire, engraved on it was an E. He took one step towards it and set his right hand upon the top of it.

[Chroma the lost]

Pain shot up his arm as he gasped. His vision began to blur and he blacked out.


Area 1 E spire activated.
Loading local wildlife files.....
Load complete.

Loading local area files.....
load complete.

Loading local important people files.....
Load complete.

Five possible forms require further studies.
Squirrel
Wolf
Cat
Dog
Raven
Further details on where to find these creatures can be acquired by opening their files.

Chroma woke up with a massive headache and looked around. There was a nearby town, Underwood. That was a good place to start.

[Chroma the lost]

Chroma sighed softly as he walked through the storm ravaged forest. Such chaos and destruction seemed illogical to him. His walk was a long one, and for a first walk in the new Althanas, it was sensory heaven. Chroma's sound sensors (Located in his ears) picked up the crunch of the twigs beneath his feet and the sound wind made as it passed through trees. Several times Chroma just stopped and listened to the noise of the forest.

Chroma's nose picked up all the intricate smells of the forest. The smell of fresh rain, the smell of the flowers thrown about by the merciless wind. Complimenting his nose and his ears was his eyes, allowing him to see the beauty of the forest. He saw mother wolfs guiding their pups to a new den. He saw squirrels moving along the corpses of trees uprooted by the storm. It was enough to make a strange sensation creep along his spine.

Run scan: [sensation on back]....
.........
Error sensation not found in files.
Chroma frowned, perhaps it was an emotion? he thought to himself as he continued to walk. The sensation persisted for a bit, and then faded away.

[Chroma the lost]

The rest of the walk was the same as described before. He walked and walked, stopping to stare at things that caught his attention. Thankfully he reached the town right as night fell. I need a place to stay, lets see whats going on with this town.

Open File [Underwood]
Opening file [Underwood]..........
...........................................
File [Underwood] opened
Places of Interest:
The Peaceful Promenade:
The primary tavern in Underwood was once a sleepy little pub but is now a bustling resting place for travelers and one of the more prosperous and famous establishments in Underwood. All sorts can be found in the Peaceful Promenade, maybe looking for the help of an eager adventurer…and maybe looking for trouble.
Chroma stopped and thought slowly, there were four more Places of interest, but this sounded like a good place to go. Although Chroma had no idea what a tavern was, but the rest of the file made sense, so he turned and looked around. A thought struck him, he would need gold. Wait, whats gold? he asked himself.

Search files [GOLD]
Searching......
Searching......
Searching......
One file found. [Gold]
Chroma smirked, one spire and he already knew so much, he would need to keep an eye out for more E spires.

Open file [GOLD]
.......
.......
.......
File [GOLD] opened.
[GOLD]
a highly sought-after precious metal for coinage, jewelry, and other arts since the beginning of recorded history. The metal occurs as nuggets or grains in rocks, in veins and in alluvial deposits. Gold is dense, soft, shiny and the most malleable and ductile pure metal known. Pure gold has a bright yellow color and luster traditionally considered attractive, which it maintains without oxidizing in air or water. Gold is one of the coinage metals and has served as a symbol of wealth and a store of value throughout history
Chroma groaned, it sounded like this gold would be hard to find. It seemed he would need to wait to find a place to stay.

[Chroma the lost]

Chroma frowned and looked around, the townspeople had already retired for the night, only a few guards were left out, and they were all mostly asleep. it seemed that very few jobs could be found this late at night, so he decided to return to the forest, and looked around. Just outside of the town a drunken logger had left a crude hatchet buried deep inside the trunk of a tree. It looked useful, so he grabbed the hilt and pulled it out of the tree. Darkness quickly began to claim the vision of normal people, Chroma's light sensors simply adjusted to let him see longer. He used the hatchet to chop a few strong branches down and set them up to lean at a point in which he could sleep under. Then he went and dragged downed tree branches and lied them down to cover the shelter. Soon after 30 minutes, his shelter was complete and he was sitting up inside of it. It was small, and there was little room, so he would have to sleep sitting up. But it would do.

Powering down........
Powering down........
Powered down.
Goodnight Chroma.

[Chroma the lost]

Powering up project E10 CODENAME CHROMA....
CHROMA POWERED UP

BOOTING START UP MANAGER....
START UP MANAGER BOOTED

LOADING DATA FILES.....
.................................
................................
DATA FILES LOADED


RUNNING E10 START UP......
...........................
E10 START COMPLETE


GOOD MORNING CHROMA
Chroma awoke with a stiff back and a pounding headache. He emerged from his dwelling and yawned. It was time to go to town and find work.

[Chroma the lost]

When Chroma arrived in town he heard a small commotion, and headed in that direction. He saw three people at the guard station, and it appeared that two of them were arguing. Chroma caught part of their conversation from where he was standing. "I don't care if he's here to turn a new leaf! He's a criminal and I won't have you dropping him off here unattended!" said a man Chroma thought he knew. Jaliss Evenkeel, the head of the guard. the other was a man who appeared to be dressed as a priest. "Jaliss listen to me, I don't have time for this, I'm needed in Radsadath for a wedding." the third tapped both on the shoulders. "It appears your being watched." he muttered silently. The preist turned to Chroma and got a wide smile on his face. "You there! do you need some work?" he asked. Chroma considered saying no, but he needed gold, and this man looked like he had a lot of gold. "What do you have in mind?"

[Chroma the lost]

Spoils.
One crude hatchet: good for collecting firewood and little else.

[Revenant]

Full rubric, full commentary requested.

STORY

Continuity (2) – Since this was a first thread there was little in the way of continuity for your character to pull from. Still, your character has a history and exploring that history would have earned you a higher score in this category. While your character doesn’t remember much about himself (itself?) you explicitly point out in your third post that he does retain some basic memories. Exploring those is a great way to establish that Chroma has a past and wasn’t just created out of thin air.

Setting (3) – This story moves from underground laboratory to forest to the town of Underwood. Three distinct setting do be explored in detail and yet you only put down the barest of descriptions. I know that the lab has a row of pods and a table, but that’s all. What does it look like? What does it sound like? I’m sure you have a mental image of exactly where Chroma is, take some time to describe it. The same goes for Underwood. You at least gave some descriptions of the post-storm forest, which bumped your score up, but there is much more that you could have done with it to make it feel alive.

Pacing (2) – A high score in pacing requires a smooth steady flow that draws the reader along. Your thread was just too fast paced to accomplish that. Reading it felt like playing mental hopscotch, jumping rapidly from one thing to another, and I never felt like I was drawn in to the story. Writing should be about the journey, not the destination.

CHARACTER

Dialogue (2) – The lines of computer code felt like dialogue to me and I’m treating it as such. That said, most of your dialogue didn’t add anything to the story and seemed to actually break my attention away from your writing. Remember that characters have thoughts too and internal dialogue works just as well as speaking. What little NPC dialogue you had at the end was basic and clipped.

Action (3) – Chroma’s actions, much like dialogue, didn’t give me much to know the character, though at least you had him doing things. Like with most of this story, description would have been a boon in this area. Remember to add a “why” to what Chroma is doing, and a “how” he is doing it and don’t just leaving it as “he did this and then he did that.”

Persona (2) – As a robot with emotions I would have expected Chroma’s emotional responses to be a major theme in this story but again I am left with next to nothing. He gets a “shiver” of something in Post #6, can’t identify it, and then it’s gone. Being unable to understand the emotions that one has is a common theme in the “robot with emotions” genre, and that’s ok. But emotion is more than just a “shiver” one feels. I couldn’t even tell what emotion Chroma was supposed to be feeling. Think of what happens when you feel an emotional response and convey that to Choma, even if he doesn’t understand it. Sadness might make you feel like you’re in pain, happiness might make you feel jittery, anger might make you feel hot and tense. Again, describe what is going on rather than just saying that it is going on.

WRITING STYLE

Technique (3) – The major technique point I noted in this thread was your use of simulated computer prompt. I would venture to say that this actually detracted from your writing rather than enhance it by breaking your flow and throwing in a lot of blank space. Using the computer code once or twice for important things to illustrate Chroma’s thought process isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but you can convey the same information using standard description and internal dialogue.

Mechanics (3) – There were numerous spelling and grammatical errors throughout your story, most notably in your NPC dialogue in the last post It would probably be beneficial for you to review rules for using quatation marks (http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/577/01/) and incorporating that into future threads.

Clarity (4) – For the most part, your writing was clear and easy to read. There were some parts of the story that I found myself having to reread based on improper comma-usage and incorrect grammar. Improve on that and your clarity will come right up.

WILD CARD

Wild Card (3)

TOTAL: 27

Overall, this story felt like it was just churned out as fast as possible with little effort put in. My advice? Take your time both in thread and out of it. Threads don’t need to move along at breakneck speed, nor do they have to be churned out as such. Be more descriptive in your writing and think about how characters should feel, think, and act. Finally, don’t feel too discouraged by the score, this is just the beginning for Chroma and he has potential.

Chroma the lost receives 218 exp and 55 gp.

Chroma the lost receives one rickety, poor quality iron hatchet which is good for collecting firewood and little else.

[Taskmienster]

Exp and GP added.