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[Rasgueados]

First off let me say that I am not that well versed in the BattleTech Universe (BTU) and I am currently doing more and more reading (loving it! It has been a very long time since I have been in contact with anything BT related, then again, for some weird reason, I never read that much into it) So please excuse my lack of details when I start mentioning clans/houses/merc corps etc or even the date/year, as I do not have enough information gathered yet to be accurate.

The BTU, just like many, if not all other fictional works, has 2 parts to its stories and storytelling; the universe, lore etc and the battles themselves. I am really waiting to see what MWO brings later on in-terms of storytelling and so on. Yesterday I had 3 or 4 matches back-to-back that were amazing. Most times you do fine, lose etc (playing with random people, I have no groups), but some times you just happen to be with players that understand what "stick together team" means (I type that before every single battle) play tactically, communicate and know what the game overall is about. I am not going to go over what happened during these matches even though I am tempted to, but they inspired me to write the following:

FanFic begins here. Battle for the Skies (other possible names include Sky Terrors, War for the Skies and Demons in the Sky is the follow-up work-in progress.

More and more lone wolves/mercs are joining merc corps. These are not new blood, but battle hardened pilots, all out for their own reasons, all have their own agendas, all like getting paid. After having joined up with (I am going to call this MercCorp1, due lack of knowledge) MercCorp1, these new recruits usually get to know each other, some times inner conflicts arise, some times they divide into small groups among themselves, some times there's no time to even get to know each other and they are thrown out into battle straight away. This case however was not so dramatic, these pilots got along just fine and had each others backs. Over time they became closer and closer. 4 of them were like a pack and all had leadership skills. 1 was in his 40s, tall, a bit skinny with medium-length long black oily hair (a bit balding), had a British accent and wore black torn clothes (leather boots, shirt, jeans and had tattoos. The 2nd was a female who seems to have used to be some sort of a rank and was not any more, she had red hair and always carried a fire arm of some sort around, preferably her custom made assault rifle and wore an armor suit that was white and had blue stripes on the sides and full of scratches, but no logo, there seemed to have been one, but has been taken out. The 3rd was an engineer who seemed extremely skilled to the point of suspicion. The 4th was a battlefield/tactical mastermind, he would make the craziest strategies that no one would think of because they are either too complex or too in your face/simple for anyone to think about, this guy seemed to always be a step ahead of any and everyone. All of them had dark pasts and none ever fully shared their reasons for being here, but they trusted each other enough not to ask for more than what they already knew about each other, from either what little each one said or living together and getting to know each other through daily contact. One thing for sure, they were all MechWarriors.

They got to know these traits about each other from their experiences together on the battlefield. Each had one or 2 favourite mechs; Tally (the tall one. sorry I did not give them names either) loved his Catapult missile boat (again sorry no specifics as might result in a time/era error etc, perhaps I will add them later, if you like this) that thing rained terror on anything that was in his path and anything that was not. He made a name for himself with that very mech and had merc friends outside of the MercCorp1 everywhere all over, he was quite popular. Red (female) had an Awesome laser boat, she is the best dps dealer, on the field, her mech is always firing a laser, a couple or more, she has to be very careful with heat, as it is her main weakness. Engi had a custom-build Jenner, he built the thing himself from various parts and works on it ALL the time (he also works on his friends' when need be) it is extremely fast and agile and that is where Engi shines on the battlefield(when he goes out), that and scouting. Wolf(names are not set in stone, I just made them up) Had an Atlas that was very versatile, build by wolf to handle every situation, however he always seemed to save more money than he spends on his mech, spending only what he needs, never more. They called him wolf as the name was marked on one of his equipment he kept around, the name wolf was the only thing visible on it and he never gave anyone his name, so it caught on. After a having been through a lot of battles together, getting many contracts and making a name for themselves. Wolf wanted to leave as he did not agree with a lot of the MercCorps1 decisions lately (no one did) and so he told everyone he's leaving and did so. His rep followed him everywhere, everyone knew that this was a guy that could get things done. He began doing contracts on his own and some contracts that had him teaming up with different Factions/pilots/corps etc every time, but he always knew who he was with, always making sure that if anyone thinks to double cross him, that he would always have the upper hand, always 2 steps ahead of everyone else.

One job was offered to him by clan1(again no names) to go with their team and capture an opposing clan's territory. He accepted the job as they offered more money than any client has before. Clan1 seemed to respect him, they knew of his rep well. He laid out a huge plan on how they will accomplish this, they all marveled at his genius and where even more sure that this was the person for the job. Everything was ready, they started moving out. (I am not going to write all the specifics of this particular encounter, maybe later) It was a huge battle and after Clan1 and wolf seem to have won, though they were severely damaged, suddenly the sky rained more mechs on the battlefield. Wolf's atlus was incapacitated and so he was only giving commands through his cockpit, completely vulnerable to any attack, but he was still able to pull a victory, surprisingly quickly on the newly dropped mechs, telling Clan1 exactly what to do. These mechs seemed have dropped down for nothing. Wolf delivered oppclan's territory to Clan1 as promised and was left standing dormant next to the other fallen mechs, clan1 celebrated on the battlefield, but they just left him there. Clan1 leader spoke to Wolf (both through their mechs)

Clan1Leader: Did you really think we were going to give you all these c-bills, you delivered us more resources, more power and you are in no position to make any deals, so much for a mastermind, Wolf

Wolf replied: Do you know why "Wolf"?

Clan1Leader: Excuse me? Ahh ok, I will play along. (arrogantly)It is something to do with your equipment I hear

Wolf: The rest of what it says is Timber Wolf.

And suddenly a TimberWolf gets dropped down in the middle of the battlefield with Wolf in it. He was never ON the battlefield in that atlas at all, it was remotely controlled by a certain engineer friend , he was giving them orders from the sky and before they they could even move, all the fallen down (SkyMechs) powered up. They were never defeated, they all powered down, they played possum. SkyMechs were his MechCorp1 buddies and they brought their friends. Wolf was telling Clan1 to hit them exactly where nothing was equipped. Wolf planned all of this (equipment and all) and told his old friends about it as he knew something was up with this contract, so he did so just in case. Always 2 steps ahead of the rest. They had them surrounded, surprised and obliterated them in matter of seconds They all celebrated as they have just taken down both clans and have their territories, resources and all to them selves, they were going to start their own Corps: REIGN (play on words, because they rained from the sky. Either that or SkyMechs/SkyMercs, not sure). Wolf Fired his lasers in to the sky and everyone else followed, lighting up the night sky.

Please let me know what you think. I apologies for the lack of detail, but again it is so errors etc are avoided (though it would have been much better with details)

Even though I write a lot, this is my first fan fic and I wrote this very hastily, so please bear that in mind.

Regards

P.S I was not sure where to post this as I spoke of the BETA or at least was planning to at some point, so if this is in the wrong place, then move it but do not delete it. Thank you.

Edit: OK I was too concentrated on writing. This probably belongs in off-topic or so, not sure. I apologies in advance.

Edit: I originally posted this in the BETA forums, but so far no replies. I would really like to hear what everyone thinks.

[Rasgueados]

Anyone?

[Xaj]

Hello there! I gave your story a quick skim, and what you have here is a very rough first draft, so you're not going to get a lot of praise for anything just yet.

It also doesn't read like a story, every time you throw in a note you are distancing yourself from the story and making it harder to credit. Remember that storytelling is all about suspending your reader's disbelief that the story is fictional. You want them to get immersed in the story, and every time you put in a editor's note you are making that harder on yourself.

Here are the following steps you should take to refine this story:
1-Do your homework. Instead of putting in notes regarding the lack of information, go find it and get it in your story!
2-Evaluate what your story is about. Who is the protagonist (main character)? What is he doing? Why is he doing it? So far these elements are unclear.
3-Write your second draft. After you have your research, and a clear idea of where this story is going, remove all the notes and details that don't pertain to the main story and see what you have left. Try to limit yourself to 500-750 words (more than that will just be a wall of text for most people's attention span).
4-Format your draft. Right now you don't have much in the way of paragraphs, indentation, or proper punctuation. I know you arn't a professional writer, but this is very critical to your end production. I would also advise posting the story in a PDF format instead of on the forum itself, because it's a lot easier to read.

In the end, you should be able to answer these questions very clearly: Why should someone read this story? What is it about? Why am I writing this story?

If you can answer those questions, you'll be way ahead of the curve my friend. Best of luck to you.

[Rasgueados]

Thanks for such a reply. I was going to write first draft at one point, but for some reason decided not to. As for the formatting, yes I am aware of the issues you mentioned, but decided to go and post it anyway (I came up with the story quickly and that somehow made me want to post it quickly) Strangely enough I actually do write a lot (not like this of coarse)

Again thank you for your reply, I will work on this properly and write the continuation of the story as well, the latter later on.