Bailey

Unique and intriguing, and very sweetly human. Great story! : )

Great story! I love the concept and the characters.  The ending was perfect.  I think you could improve this story by integrating some of the exposition into some action.  For example pages 4-5 tell us all about the world.  Can you relay that information about the world through the characters interacting?  I think you can relay some of that info through interactions with the guy at the reconstitution facility too. 

Ahh the long game!  It doesn't work quite so well when it is played so blatently as your aliens did.  Still, a decent concept to work with.  Are you a Dr. Who fan by chance?  The entire situation reminds me of Pythia's Curse and the Looms used by the Time Lords.  (At least what I've read about that story line ...)

Wonderful story!

A very human story with some great interpersonal interaction. I did enjoy reading it, and I REALLY love the alien plan. That is a great setting. The dialogue felt very natural to me, and the world was real. There's a lot of possibility here.

Your post-apocalyptic world is one that doesn't offer much hope for the future. And that's good, because even with how short the story was, I found myself wanting to spend more time with your characters.

But ultimately, I have to conclude that this story falls a little into the "missed opportunity" side of things. I believe you have an awesome idea, but having two people talk about what they're going to do isn't as powerful as showing us what happens when they actually make their choice (often, the wrong one). In this case, showing them with their reconstituted cat could have made for a very strong illustration of the effects of this technology.

It seems that some of Kraylen's questions would have been answered long ago. I mean, Tovek had been reconstituted seven times. Had she seen the effects of that? Aren't the effects of this procedure well-documented? Surely she's seen other reconstituted people. You addressed several of the problems with reconstitution, but I think there's more analysis to be done before it's fully fleshed out.

Thanks for sharing this story with us, and I hope this feedback is useful to you.

While I like the Markarian plan, I’d lose the whole segment on finding it out - it’s too much exposition right in the middle, and it’s not really doing anything for the story.  I’d have preferred for them to have been a mystery.  The rest of it written in a really light, captivating way.  The characters are good if a little archetypal, and could do with a little more flesh on their bones.  Reconstituting is a good idea, and I like that you place limitations on it; that it isn’t just a way to cheat death.  The ending is pitch perfect too, and makes sense within the limitations you impose.

This is a tricky one to judge - for me at least! I've weighed in with a positive - the writing is mainly clear, ideas interesting, but here's my issues!

There's no problem with the basic story - someone comes to the realisation that an identical genetic copy (be it cloned or reconstituted) isn't the same as the original. But really there are kind of two stories here, and neither quite gets the treatment I'd like! The other, of course, is the battle with the Markarians. Again, this is a good story - aliens try to wipe out earth in a fairly benign way, but mankind invents a solution. The problem with this story is of course it's all tell, no show - even though you could mention SOME of it - you could drop things like "you'd have thought after 500 years they'd make these helmets easy to fit", or you could - and obviously should - mention that the pair can't have kids (until they decide presumably to bring up one of their deceased relatives - which again, is a nice touch!). And if they can't have kids, is the cat a substitute, or is it ALL about bringing back a much loved pet? (Especially as in the end, it would appear to be more the former?)

The problem with the cat story is then that it gets kind of bogged down in the other one, and so you don't quite give it the space to come out in "natural" time - the solution is rather quickly and conveniently arrived at, so there isn't a lot of tension. And the weaving of the two together makes the timeline a bit complicated to follow - twice

Couple of other things - would the atmosphere still be so bad after 500 years? Nukes don't generally involve suplhur, and a gas jar over your head doesn't help you breath - not unless you only wear it for a very short time - where's the air supply?

But credit for an couple of interesting ideas that I'd like to see developed (like - what's to stop you being reconstituted twice at the same time? It's not like you need all the material from a body to make another one...) Oh, and of course, there's the plot from Aeon Flux to compete with! (Especially with natural borns now being (occasionally) born! :)

I have to agree with some of the other replies. The exposition in the middle seems like a structural problem, showing rather than telling would benefit this story, the black sphere's would've been better off as ambiguous, and finally I thought it would've been far more interesting to explore the social/personal ramifications of reconstitution rather than whether or not they should reconstitute their cat.

This story definitely has potential, hope that you get a chance to refine it.

Ah, a non violent sci fi, the first i have seen in this challenge. Tis cool, nice work sir. :)

I did spot a rogue apostophe at the top o page 5, "Mother’s became daughters," 

I definitely like the Markarian stuff, good backstory.  Thumbs up!

B

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