Talk:To Nab a Nephew/@comment-28549248-20190718210236

Woo! Finished it! Very interesting read, with a fun (and likeable; his concern for Perry makes hims rather endearing) protagonist. Liked the atmosphere you set up of the helpful crew and it's an interesting development of Mortimer joining them, with a hypeful end it, too (guess Mortimer is confirmed for Super Smash Bros. Scattered Ashes; well maybe). Oh and the backstory hints we got for Mortimer were also interesting. Makes one curious about his past.

The description of the Aero ship was fun, really gets across the idea of the about-to-fall-apart kind of ship. And the whole interactions between Tuk-Mortimer and Tuk-Fiona were interesting, but I have to say the whole thing left me a little confused and perhaps unconvinced. Seeing as the two of them are already introduced as a couple from the beginning, I can't really understand what exactly is the problem. It might be because the concept of building a relationship without love in mind is rather foreign to me, but it really doesn't make any sense to me that he's so worried when the girl's already showing him her affection. Even if it's a "we started a relationship not sure where it would go, but now we're making a big deal out of saying 'i love you'" kind of thing, it still doesn't change the fact that Fiona's already shown she likes him, so why is he so afraid of rejection? They're already dating after all! The fact that I'm not familiar with the characters could also be a factor, though. If I knew Tuk to be an inscure and second-guessing type of guy, maybe it'd seem more natural, but since I've got little information on him, I can't find it so. And then the whole thing about their having a fight confused me even more, because I really don't understand what could have made her angry and it's weird and I don't know, doesn't exactly work for me. The Red Mythran thing was intriguing and spooky, but also kind of unexplained as to why and how the Red Mythrans noticed him. Hoping there's an actual explanation somewhere, but we'll see. Also, wonder how many Red Mythrans had to pitch in to reach enough levels of brainpower to be able to speak (unless it was actually someone human speaking through the Red Mythrans)! :P

For some nitpicking, I'd like to bring up a few things:

• "In space, there really wasn't a concept of day and night. Therefore, no morning to have coffee in": I'm afraid that (or what it's implying at least) is incorrect in more than one way. For one thing, while in outer space, yes, you most likely wouldn't experience night and day, the blockade is not found in outer space, but it's orbiting a planet. That means that the spaceships also get day and night, since the planet will hide the system's sun for them just as well as it does for its own surface (and you'd better pack some sunscreen for those days, because no ozone layer to protect you up there). For another, even if one's got no day and night, while technically yes there might not be a literal morning, as far as people who are used to a day cycle are concerned, morning is when they typically wake up/when the group tends to wake up. Especially, when it comes to such matters as coffee. You don't drink it because there's daylight. You drink it so it can wake you up (morning coffee that is). How important is this? Not at all, but you still said it, so I had to point it out! :P

• When Aero is in hyperdrive, they hail Quinton's ship and the two ships enjoy a conversation together. However, I am somewhat hesitant about this. No matter what the exact means of hyperdrive would be, the implication is that the ship is somehow travelling faster than light. Typical communications we know of can only travel as fast as light, so they would never be able to reach Quinton's ship before Aero itself. However, since we've got spaceships themselves travelling faster than light, it's only fair that information can, too. It's only a matter of how widespread such FTL communication is, but I guess it would be at least as widespread as FTL travel and if a ship is equipped with hyperdrive, it most likely has FTL communication systems as well. However, then how much faster than light is each? If FTL travel and communication were of the same speed, such hailings would still be impossible, because it'd the transmissions would reach the target at the same time as the spaceship itself. However, since we're being frivolous in our sci-fantasy setting already anyway, might as well have FTL communication be faster, on grounds that it's probably easier to send something without a mass than something with one and as such the technology of FTL communication is probably ahead of FTL travel in regards to speed. But even then, how much faster? The instantaneous communication we've come to know is because of how much higher a speed that of light is compared to whatever else we know and what we can perceive. If we wanted to instantaneous communication over such distances as what is implied we're talking about here would probably require a speed very many times faster than light, which honestly might be too much even for sci-fantasy. In fact, that would also set a problem with picking up signals of an approaching ship in hyperdrive. Perhaps the best compromise would be to show slow communication where, the messages get through from one side to another, but there's a noticeable lag in between sending the message and the other side getting it (and so a double lag between sending a message and getting a reply). Mostly saying this, though, so that we don't take things for granted and think things through to fit our situation as it is each time.

• "with most of the captains and commanders of the blockade present": now that does seem like a bit of an exaggeration, doesn't it? While the exact density of the blockade has never been confirmed (and most likely never will; who would want to give concrete numbers about such a thing?), it still is one that covers the entire planet regardless. While that means it's definitely a lot of ships (and therefore a lot of Captains, though I don't know how many Commanders it would wind up having), there's also the fact that the sheer distance of getting from one side of the planet to the other makes it seem unreasonable. Especially for such an unimportant thing as Mortimer's case, which let's admit it on the grand scheme of things isn't that significant as far as the blockade higher-ups is concerned (even though I don't know if we might be able to say that it's the only interesting thing that would have happened in a while, therefore drawing some attention to it, but still only to those who could afford to bother). As such, I highly doubt such an impressive majority of commanders and captains alike would be gathered at such incident. Seems more likely that it'd be just one commander and the captains of a few of the neighbouring ships, if even that.

Well, don't mind me picking at details that don't matter on the grand scheme of things, though. I just can't help from pointing them out. Doesn't mean the story is not good or that I didn't enjoy it. It's a nice installment to the To Do Stuff series and I would say the first one that doesn't achieve what it sets out to do on the title by the end of it. Hooray! Well, looking forward to seeing how the consequences of it in other stories play out.