What really stood out to me was the lack of resource-based thinking. For instance, Kira's dress. Not only is it something entirely impractical, with only one (frivolous) use, it's something that has a tangible cost when you're living on the margins: either it costs energy to transport it as weight aboard your ship, or it costs matter, time, and energy to fabricate on-site. One of the redshirts "printed" a pair dress shoes, just for the party. Again, that's using matter and energy for a non-practical purpose. Alan's flowers: grown only to be destroyed.
What's more is he's created a contradiction in his worldbuilding. They grow their own food "partly to reduce the amount of supplies they had to bring with them." In other words, resource-use should be a problem, but they don't act like it is, which totally removes any possible tension (and undermines the worldbuilding).
I think this lack of resource-based thinking and scarcity is one of the reasons the first chapter comes off so flat. These could be any middle-class Americans meeting at the end of any work project. If he'd built scarcity into his world, we'd get more tension and color. What if they're wearing work clothes because that's all they have? What if, instead of a dress, Kira's wearing a scarf with her work clothes--the only personal item light enough to bring with her, one she's carried from post to post? What if the redshirt does manufacture dress shoes, knowing she'll catch hell for it from their company, but she doesn't care because she's had it with them running her life, and this is her last hurrah? What if the reason Kira has to go after a drone is not that they don't have time to create another, but they don't have the materials?
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Date: 2020-05-29 02:37 am (UTC)What's more is he's created a contradiction in his worldbuilding. They grow their own food "partly to reduce the amount of supplies they had to bring with them." In other words, resource-use should be a problem, but they don't act like it is, which totally removes any possible tension (and undermines the worldbuilding).
I think this lack of resource-based thinking and scarcity is one of the reasons the first chapter comes off so flat. These could be any middle-class Americans meeting at the end of any work project. If he'd built scarcity into his world, we'd get more tension and color. What if they're wearing work clothes because that's all they have? What if, instead of a dress, Kira's wearing a scarf with her work clothes--the only personal item light enough to bring with her, one she's carried from post to post? What if the redshirt does manufacture dress shoes, knowing she'll catch hell for it from their company, but she doesn't care because she's had it with them running her life, and this is her last hurrah? What if the reason Kira has to go after a drone is not that they don't have time to create another, but they don't have the materials?