Player Comments on Natures Great Void

I suppose the story game was rather creative,but I have to agree with the points others have already brought up.
First off, the fact that a scientist would be able to see a planet with his bare eyes...that for me, just doesn't seem realistic. As for the constant use of profanity, I suppose normal scientists and astronauts would be professional to some extent and not consistently be cussing for no apparent reason.
With the discussion of the planet, instead of using terms related to the scientist's profession, they talked about it like it was a picture some child had drawn up out of the blue. Using more academic words such as "inertia", "gravity", and "orbit" might get your point across better than saying "There must be something to hold it in space."
Finally, there's numerous things that don't make sense- Why does Gibby have a natural attraction to Johnson, but not Jared? or What was the cause of the dangerous movement of the "new" planet?
Though an imaginative piece with decent length, I do not exactly appreciate how the story captured aspects of NASA or what they do. As it is unrealistic in many scenes, I rate this story a 2/8.

I was going to hold off reviewing these till after the contest. But in this case there's not much to do but agree with the points everyone else has already brought up.

It's....imaginative? But there's so much randomness and inconsistency here, in addition to the punctuation errors. (Um...the title?)

Really though I think your biggest mistake began on page one, when you tried to make us buy the idea these were NASA scientists, since that kind of grounds it in a real world, modern setting that uh, it's not a very good fit for.

I...I really don't even have time to list the number of gaping logic holes and immersion failure cascades this immediately leads to. NASA scientist just sitting around, contemplating the 'infinite' galaxy that he knows very well is not infinite at all, notices a 'large red planetish structure' with his naked eyes and goes 'HUH. Better investigate!' and reaches for his telescope? And that's the first page. That's the part before he rounds up his NASA scientist buddies to fly a space ship over and check it out with him.

It's cute and funny either way, just, I'm not sure I was laughing for reasons you intended. I have to second all the suggestions for taking story logic and character motivation etc. more seriously, even a story meant to be humorous doesn't really hold together very well without them.

It's clear that you put a lot of effort into this and I appreciate the amount that you wrote. However, this story had, a lot of issues. First and foremost, the plot was insanely illogical and very little made sense. Aside from the fact that it opens with a bunch of NASA scientists talking about science at a kindergarten level, very little motivation is given for practically anything that comes after.

How could Johnson see so much of this planet with his bare eyes before he uses the telescope? How did Johnson notice it at all? How did the scientists notice that there was life on the planet so quickly? How did they know it was sentient? Why weren't the people entrusted with saving Earth briefed at all about what we knew about the aliens? How did we not notice the black hole? How did the black hole not suck up the planet? How did Johnson and Jared survive the black hole? Why was the atmosphere of the planet survivable? Practically every encounter with the aliens was contradictory and the only meaningful choice of the story was unpredictable and doesn't seem meaningful at the time.

Additionally, there are a number of typos and grammatical errors, but this story isn't actually too bad on this front.

All in all, I think the author should reconsider character motivations and plotting, and perhaps research a little about how characters should speak, given their stature and age. The author is wildly creative but a storygame should have some internally consistent rules for the world to follow. Finally, the author should attempt to create meaningful branches in the story.

I agree with most everything that's been said here- even if you're going to make a humorous story, it needs to have some form of realism to it. A bit of research- as well as some well-placed pruning- would really go a long way with this story, I think. For example: What was the point of the wormhole when a simpler scenario- such as a crash-landing- could've led to the same outcome? I kept waiting for it to become relevant again in the story, but it never did.

I usually don't mind a little bit of scientific inaccuracy if it makes sense in-universe, but the errors here were a bit too much for my suspension of disbelief. If this were cleaned up a little- ok, maybe a lot- I think it could be a decent 5/8, but for now, it has a ways to go.

Let me begin by saying the imagination of this author shows some potential.

That potential is then immediately squandered by a complete lack of understanding on how the world works. Every story requires a certain suspension of disbelief to work. This story taxes that suspension of disbelief to the point it breaks multiple times.

First off as many other reviewers have indicated, the NASA explorers behaved in a manner that was completely unbecoming of them. Google has billion dollar satellites that can take a picture of a man mooning them. Man has had telescopes that allow them to see small comets since the turn of the century, but we are expected to believe that these NASA scientists didn't notice a PLANET on a collision course with earth until it was imminently visible to the naked eye?

JJJ-TheBanisher addressed my concerns about the black hole. If a planet was visible to the naked eye and the black hole was in front of that planet, we would likely have been in the event horizon and both planets would have been destroyed. Black holes eat stars but we're somehow expected to believe a spaceship that can barely escape the gravity of earth somehow managed to escape the gravity of a black hole but then didn't manage to escape the gravity well of the planet next to it?

Not to mention the people at NASA then proceed to behave more like Scooby-Doo and his teenage cohorts than actual scientists. The military is never called. How is the greatest threat the planet and not the black hole that is going to crash into us at least as imminently if not more than the planet? Why is the "intelligent life" on the other planet not concerned? Do they not realize that crashing into earth would cause a mass extinction level event on their planet too? Why are they more concerned with studying/killing humans than they are with saving their own planet? If these intelligent creatures had the ability to simply move their planet out of the way, why would they wait until humans contacted them? If those scientists hadn't flown a spaceship to them, would they have willfully allowed both planets to die? What are the odds the atmosphere of the new planet is breathable to humans?

As other readers have mentioned, the story is fairly random in its choices. You just have to get a little lucky. I think the biggest offender though is that there are serious and glaring plot contradictions. In the pathway that has you defending Jared's *body*, a later choice has you returning back to camp because Jared would be worried sick about where you were. I felt powerfully guilty that I was going to worry him to his second death. This happens more than once where the narrator confuses Johnson and Jared or refers to Jared after he's dead/gone.

One more thing. Why is the main character referred to by his last name so casually whereas the only other character in the game is referred to by his first name?

I really think you have potential, but I think maybe you need to partner up with one of the more established writers and have them mentor you a little on how to write stories.

What even was the randomness in this. There was no real plot and everything else seemed to be thrown in.

This most certainly deserves the low rating it has.

Much like your other stories

For NASA-level dudes, this story didn't really make any sense at all. But hey, it was amusing in the same way you would find your little cousin's English homework amusing. Meaning it was kinda bad, and didn't make a whole lot of sense, but still funny nonetheless. The grammar and spelling were good, and it seemed like you put a bit of effort into actually writing the thing. Next time, work on the plot and how realistic it appears!

got jumped by four green dudes and beaten to death lmao

3J hit a lot of the main issues with this story, so I won't bother delving too much more into them anymore than he already has. That said, I highly encourage you to spend more time planning the characters' motivations and considering the logic of the story.

Additionally, I don't think center alignment is a good choice for telling a story. Perhaps a poem, but definitely not a story.

Your story output has been very high, and actually writing is a great way to improve. But I recommend you spend some time reading up on prose techniques and story telling elements. A quick Google search should provide a healthy number of good articles that discuss things such as character motivations and prose.

I enjoyed it! I wonder how the story would have gone if it weren't for that twist... I liked it a lot and didn't see to many errors!