Question My New Novel

Hey WA, and good afternoon from Australia!!! I've been working on a novel for a while now, and I though I'd post the opening prologue here as a way of getting feedback on it. Its a space opera which is currently around 12,000 words long, though I've only got around 1500 words here to show you. I hope to get it published, so i'd appreciate everyone respecting my intellectual property and not copying my unpublished work. Or, you know, basically writing the same thing. It's called eclipse, and it follows the Starship SFS Envoy, a ship with a mixed crew consisting of two seperate branches of humanity. The prologue gives a bit of background on the universe, and sets the scene for the opening chapter. I really hope to get somel feedback from you guys. Anyway, enough talk. Here is the prologue of Eclipse:

If you were to look out into the night sky (while standing on a planet), you would get a view of a unchanging, static starscape. Space would seem so far away, and so small. If you were to look out from the window of a spacecraft though, you’d probably begin to feel very, very small. Space is very aptly called ‘the final frontier’, and this description fits it well. Stretching out into infinity, luring those residing on those planets to reach up and fly to those far-off worlds. So it would be no surprise that this story is not about those early pioneers. Centuries ago, the human race reached the point where Earth could no longer support the 60 billion people who lived on it’s surface. The moon was overcrowded, and Mars was beginning to resemble Earth in the mid-21st century: overpopulated, and running short on resources. Desperate for a answer, the disparate governments of earth- each beginning to fail as civil unrest swept though their territories- united to form the predecessor of the Sol Federation, the current galaxy-spanning government of today. They managed to preserve a dying earth for a few more decades, distributing resources with less bureaucratic entanglement, and pooled their military power to create the beginnings of what would become the Peacekeepers, our guardians and protectors in the modern age. But the most important creation in all of human history could not have been born without this first unification of humanity: the Slip Drive.

Slip drives (also know colloquially as ‘slingers’) were the first technologically viable Alcubierre drive technology. Utilising a space-time distortion effect to create a ‘bubble’ around the ship, the early drives allowed for a quick and painless journey to a planet around 1400 lightyears from Earth. Upon arrival, the very first explorers found a planet that had a oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere, orbited the planet in slightly more that a earth year, and (while possessing a mass five times that of earth), was discovered to have a gravity field less than two times that of earth. So, in the year 2057, the first six colony vessels (each carrying around 10,000 humans picked from a variety of professions including engineering, construction, medicine, biology, telecommunications and other essential walks of life) were sent to colonise the new world. two years later, another twenty were sent to a star system much closer to earth (which had been selected for the second colony mission due to concerns over the proximity of the only habitably planet to the star it orbited). Finally, in the year 2075, the last of the human race departed the solar system, forever abandoning the birthplace of human civilisation forever.

The two star systems which had been selected for colonisation turned out to be vastly different. The first to be colonised (now known as Hearthstone), was a natural paradise. While the habitable planet it was chosen for was a paradise which had already produced its own plant life and non-sentient mammalian lifeforms; the planet’s crust contained less that five percent of the metal ores and precious resources that Earth had been drained of. However, the planet’s twin moons (both smaller than the earth’s own moon) were rich in titanium, iron, copper, cobalt, and other metal ores vital for starship construction. The outer planets turned out to posses large quantities of the element Duranite (a highly magnetic element which was key for sustaining and controlling fusion reactions in starship reactor cores). This allowed the new colonists to quickly set up new cities on the surface of the planet that would later be dubbed Eberra, and to build a fleet of new ships to serve as a trading and exploration fleet. Within ten years of arrival, the colonists of Eberra had begun to reach out to colonise further systems, and was living in peace.

However, things were not going well on the second colony. The planet they were now living on was in the habitable zone, and was well-suited for colonisation. However, twenty eight days after arrival (which constituted one year on the quickly orbiting world), the planet passed through a period of increased solar flares. The colonists found that the planet’s magnetic field was insufficient to deflect the majority of the solar radiation, and soon afterwards, the survivors of the event found that the radiation had rendered them genetically sterile. They could still have children, but their offspring would die soon after birth. However, the planet they lived on was not entirely devoid of life. Life had evolved to survive such events, and the colony geneticists soon found that they could continue the survival of their race by genetic manipulation. Using genes taken from the hardened life on that planet, they managed to alter their DNA to withstand such events. In doing so, they created a new breed of humanity, later called Aberrants. Communication between the two systems was impossible. After around sixty Earth years, both groups assumed that the other colonists had not been successful. The Eberrans continued to explore, reaching out with great success. The Aberrants, now nearly completely reliant on genetic alteration to survive, began to send ships out to aggressively haul in other species, as a means of harvesting their DNA. They had chosen to forget about humanity, and considered themselves to be a new race, one which had always lived on the harsh world they named Omen.

However, in 2250, a Eberran ship on its way to Starbase 1178 discovered what appeared to be a alien ship. Crude, and crewed by over two hundred lifeforms, it approached the Eberran ship. When the Eberran crew attempted to contact the vessel, it opened fire with powerful projectile weaponry. The Eberran ship was unarmed, but managed to get away with heavy damage. Two days later, another mysterious ship simular to the first one raided a colony on Stargis II. Three hundred civilians were kidnapped, never to be seen again. The council of the Sol Federation (the Eberran Government which had been based on the original United Earth Coalition) decided to enter a state of emergency. Three hundred of the most advanced ships in the Peacekeeper fleet (the Peacekeepers being the aforementioned military of the Sol Federation) were dispatched with orders to patrol Federation space to prevent another attack. Three months later, the SFS Carl Sagan encountered and destroyed a Aberrant ship. Three bodies were recovered adrift, and send to the Triton V medical facility for analysis.

The results were startling. The ‘aliens’ that were responsible for both attacks were genetically engineered humans. Further analysis of the alien ship’s wreckage revealed a fragment of hull emblazoned with the insignia of the United Earth Coalition. It was deduced that the aliens were the colonists of the second world that had been assumed a failure. Before anything could be done, four other alien ships were reported destroyed by Peacekeeper vessels, and soon afterwards, a automated monitoring system in the Kepler XIV system reported a anomalous signal return. The station was destroyed soon after the report, but the data revealed a massive vessel on course for Hearthstone. The low resolution images of the ship revealed that it possessed a simular hull design to the previously encountered ships.

A week later, the ship entered the Hearthstone system, and engaged the fleet of 300 Peacekeeper ships that had been mustered to prevent it from reaching Eberra. Of those ships, only 90 survived. However, the alien ship was crippled. A boarding party secured the vessel, capturing all of the surviving Aberrants. After two months of questioning, the Aberrants were finally convinced of their true nature, and that of the Eberrans. When another of the massive ships entered the Hearthstone system in search of the missing first, they were contacted by the Aberrants, and convinced to stand down. In 2254, the first delegate of the Sol Federation stepped onto the soil of Omen, bringing with them the gifts of medicine and the open hand of peace. A new era was born.

Due to tense relations between the two worlds, a unified taskforce was set up to attempt to unify both worlds, consisting of equal portions of Eberrans and Aberrants. The taskforce brainstormed an idea. Both sides had been plagued by organised crime. In fact, the Aberrants had first noticed the Eberrans due to a large number of pirates originating in the latter’s space attacking Aberrant ships. As a means of continuing the peace, a united military was splintered off from the Eberran Peacekeepers. Built on the premise of crewing ships with crews from both sides, it became a way of preventing the piracy that had lead the Aberrants to the Eberran homeworld. In honour of the 210 ships lost in the first major engagement between the Aberrants and the Sol Federation, the organisation was named after one ship, the ship that sacrificed itself in the last push against the Aberrants. The name of the new organisation was Eclipse.


So, what do you think??

My first rule when I preview any piece of fiction I am considering buying is skip the prologue.

That said in skimming what you have written, this doesn't even look like a prologue rather its a set of authors notes on the setting. You may well need these and they could be a very important aid in writing your story.
But as a potential reader, I neither need nor really want to read all this. If you feel you must include all of this, then put it as an appendix at the end.

George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire makes a great example here. look at his prologue, Its something that happened that didn't involve the major characters, but there is no info dump. We don't get a history of Westeros, or information on Warging or magic or anything like that.

Characters in his books frequently discuss historical events that have never been explained to the reader and no one stops to explain them. Far from harming the series it just fuels the hype around it as the fans are constantly speculating on the Doom of Valaria and the Ghost of Summer Hill, and such like. Now does George know what happened? I should hope so, but he is not going to tell anyone until the point when it becomes vital to the story that the reader knows too.

EDIT: I might also point out that Eberran sounds rather similar to Eberron, which is D&D campaign setting and as such probably a registered Trademark owned by Wizards of the Coast.

My only comment is... twenty-eight days "year"? I mean, even Mercury takes 88 days to go around the Sun. I'm not bothering to do the research and the math, but offhand, that would require something like a white dwarf star and a planet orbiting reeeeallly close. That would have all sorts of other undesirable consequences, like extra-strong tides or even tidal locking of the planet.

And it's really unnecessary, I think. Just have a more Earth-like planet with a more normal-length year, and keep the solar flares. Perhaps they aren't that frequent, but they happen once every few years in an unpredictable pattern -- so people cannot seek shelter when they come.

The second system sounds like the planet is orbiting a red dwarf star. They're less luminous than Sol, so the "habitable zone" for a planet with a breathable atmosphere and liquid water on the surface is closer in to the primary. However, red dwarf stars have tended to display much more frequent and stronger solar flares than Sol. Tidal locking could happen, but that might favor settlement close to the day/night boundary: windy, but during a period of increased flare activity it's possible to move away from the roasted sunny side.

Yes. the second world orbits a red dwarf. the system is actually based off a real star system called Gliese 667, with the specific planet being Gliese 667Cc, presumed to be habitable. This was deliberate.

For some more information, the system is a trinary star system with multiple exoplanets. Gliese 667C c is in a 28.115 day orbital perion around the third star in the system. The planet has been featured in several other works, including the Alien Franchise, where it is the first planet to be terraformed by Wayland. Please don't start talking about alien. That's off topic. Anyway, the planet is presumed to have water, but the water would be higher in tempreture than that of earth. In addition, the planet's irregular orbit would give it greater risk of major solar flare encounters. Finally, the planet's star will last approximately 10-15 times longer than that of our own star.