Bay 12 Games Forum

Next, I'm having a very hard time picturing the scale of this thing. At first I was thinking that the panel was just a ordinary breadbox-ish sized removable wall panel which would have a bunch of wires and displays and stuff behind it, but what you're describing seems like the panel is more door-sized and leads to a more open area with bundles of cables and panels strewn about, and presumably some sort of access for the maintenance bots. But if it were that large and distant Lillian probably wouldn't feel the need to jerk her hands away from the live wires, so maybe it's just that the maintenance bots are really small?

First, just want to point out that this is one of the very few situations in which a character 'just having a feeling' is not bad form. She can tell something's wrong, isn't sure what, and then her conscious mind puts together what her subconscious already realized.

Also, what is 'augs'? Some kind of computer she's been carrying around without mentioning it to us? Or is it some kind of body modification (augs = augmentations)?

It is now clear what augs are, but I think it would be a good idea to mention them some time in chapter 2 so they don't come out of nowhere for this.

Also, a subtle hint that Jacobs doesn't have access to the panels? Is this foreshadowing? Or is this herring red in colour? Hmm... the game is afoot! Or whatever it is you're supposed to say!

Minor point of confusion here. Are you saying that all the blast doors are section dividers, or that this blast door happens to be a section divider? Previous statements support both interpretations.

Another minor thing. Why would he use radio when he has augs?

Wait, I thought Madeline didn't like Jacobs? I guess I might have been reading the atmosphere wrong in his introduction...

Phrasing here is a bit awkward, 'the ship they're after' and 'why else' and 'one of the crew' don't mesh very well. 'What else' would be better.
Not entirely sure what Lillian is trying to say here. Is she implying that the group is volatile, or just that it's stupid? Seems a bit of an overreaction in either case. No clue what the Sympathizers are, but presumably I'll find out soon enough.

Woah! Huge revelation! So the ship's main base is on Mars, or is it that humanity's main base is now Mars? The latter seems very likely based on what's happened so far.

I can't tell if you're describing Jacob's voice as having an edge to it, the fact being curious as in strange, or if you are saying that his voice had an edge to it that itself was curious. The former would be suspicious, and the latter seems to fit the rest of the dialogue more appropriately.

Lillian suddenly wanting to escape is a bit out-of-nowhere. Maybe add a line like 'It seemed like no one would be letting them out for a while, so they might as well at least try escaping on their own' or something like that.

You're teetering on the edge of sounding silly here. If the commander had been locked out of the ship, why would he still need to follow the rules? And I'm pretty sure that hacking in this case would amount to gaining access to administrative power over whatever kind of network the ship is using, whether by gaining access to an administrative account or somehow accessing administrative functions using your own or a guest account, so for the commander it would basically amount to breaking into your own house after someone stole your key.

Just an idea, but it would fix most of the problems with the above passages as well as be pretty amusing if you made it so he'd actually been working on gaining access the whole time they were trying to convince him to. You might have actually meant to imply that, in which case you should make it more obvious.

There seem to be a bunch of inconsistencies in how Madeline and Jacobs' relationship is portrayed. At first it looked like she mildly disliked him (though the case could be made that she was just teasing) and he had a crush on her, and Lillian knew about all of this as an impartial observer back in the second chapter, up until now it looked like they were casually flirting and now it seems like we're back at chapter two except Lillian's only just now noticing. The problem's not as extreme as I'm making it out to be, but I want to make sure I get the idea across.

Interesting, Lillian's code opens what Madeline's couldn't. You've shown that they are supposed to have equal clearance before, so either Madeline's locked out or Lillian's being let in. Let's see where this goes...

One last minor thing, with the 'don't ask don't tell' bit. It seems like Jacobs would either want no one to know what he did or else want everyone to know he can save the ship. The 'don't ask don't tell' bit seems out of place without justification (maybe something like 'I know you don't like lying to the commander, but...'. Though I can understand the appeal in leaving it how it is. This might be just me.