Thread:Therider/@comment-1404018-20140510180618

Listen, "grammar and diction" are pretty important when it comes to composing an understandable sentence. For example, the sentence: "While disproved by experts on the element, the world was greedy, and built it anyways." is worded poorly, outright incorrectly ("disproved" vs "disproven") and simply doesn't make sense. I've literally meditated on understanding that sentence for a full five minutes, taking context clues into account and everything, and I still only have a very vague idea of what you are trying to get across. Not to mention that at one point you (incorrectly) capitalize the word "elerium" and then lower-case it throughout the rest of the message. Furthermore, its improper to not write-out numbers in literature (its permissible on wiki articles because its efficient in getting a point across, but not acceptable if you want to make it sound like an official email document).

You responded that these mistakes were made intentionally (really?) to make the Commander come across as more human and relatable, but this isn't a text message, it's an briefing document written by a military official, and it needs to come across that way. The Commander can be a veteran (in fact, thats a very good idea - it's a little odd that isn't being elaborated on at all, but I get that its being kept under wraps; and seeing all of the fundamental grammar mistakes that need tweaking, it's relatively unimportant).

I want you to know that this has never been a personal affront against your writing skill, nor am I babying you or not giving you the respect you deserve as the creator of this roleplay (you ARE a very professional and capable author). Therefore, don't react so brazenly when I give you constructive criticism, and don't reject my offers to lend a hand when you evidently need some. I'm really glad to be working on expanded universe with you again, Matt, so please don't be so eager to shut me down.

I am not going to rewrite your introduction, however, I am going to objectively correct some of the more obvious mistakes in my namespace. Then, I'll run the revised copy through you before I make the necessary changes.

Also, I think it might be cool if you didn't retcon the earlier history of XCOM, because the newer stuff seems really cool and pretty intricately interconnected with Enemy Unknown (not to mention its set in the same continuity as canon [and it involved an elerium-related plot]). I've looked into it and it doesn't really look like there'd be any inconveniencing lore we'd have to work around. In fact, we'll have a field day using all of this extra lore as a canvas for our expanded universe background to the RP. You should read the Bureau article on Wikipedia. As for how we'd weave an intricate and beautiful expanded backstory together, here's the general concept:

Lore has it that the "Council of Nations" created the XCOM project sometime before Enemy Unknown, around the time of Bureau. I'm thinking that this could be the United Nations, and that this would be occurring sometime around the Cold War. According to Bureau, it begins as the Bureau of Operations and Command, a US government task force that becomes operational in the event of a Soviet invasion. Sometime after Bureau, it would then stand to reason that the XCOM division becomes a secret division of NATO (which would make perfect sense, seeing as it was authorized by the UN and made international; ranks in Enemy Unknown also correspond with ranks in NATO armies, interestingly enough). Alien encounters could have begun occurring as early as this point in history (which just so happens to be around Roswell). It is the full-scale invasion of Enemy Unknown, however, that will be the central event in the expanded XCOM universe and the background for our story. This is when elerium is discovered and the events that cause collapse begin to unfold. It also gives us enormous free reign regarding history after the event (such that Anand can have a character hailing from the mysterious [and uncannily Skyrim-esque] location of "Winterhelm" and it isn't too weird). This is as cohesive a background story as we are going to get, what do you think? ;)

Oh, and you'll get a kick out of this: http://murderer-poet.tumblr.com/post/85272512674

See you later,     