[Report This]Date: August 07 2022 12:32 AM Title: Fire in the Sky
I love the way you portray cephalos! If you ever come back to this story after the end of this "volume" I would love to learn more about their hierarchy. Like do they have a king/queen and can they be conclusively stopped if the fully matured ones are as powerful as this one? I want to see what happens when the cephalos use their full strength or get more serious about their conflict and intentions with humanity/zetans.
Author's Response:
They're very loosely organized, with the elder ones commanding more respect and strength, one of the age and strength that our protags encountered obviously being fairly rare. This defeat may lead to them getting more serious in a sequel novel if I write one.
As for whether they can be conclusively stopped? Who knows, this one was an outlier, and he was still stopped when Kurt and Nea confronted him. What you might take from the encounter is that even after forty years of battles and skirmishes the Humans and Zetans still don't know all there is to know about the Cephalo, and they obviously have a long history with humans that they remember well even if mankind forgot it.
Date: August 06 2022 7:54 AM Title: Fire in the Sky
Typo "Send my my fleet to the aid of Alrec"
Author's Response:
fixed
[Report This]Date: August 06 2022 7:00 AM Title: Fire in the Sky
Definitely a hype chapter. I thoroughly enjoyed it. As we wind down to our finale, here’s to hoping we get more Kurt under Nea’s feet!
Author's Response:
Glad it was fun, I'll try to get Kurt back where he belongs before the end lol.
[Report This]Date: August 06 2022 6:21 AM Title: Fire in the Sky
Apparently, mankind was this super duper spacefaring race that knocked heads with the Cephalo many moons ago? Rather interesting, is that going to be extrapolated on, or is that another mystery?
Speaking of the Cephalo's, they're a fantastic antagonist. Every word of dialogue that drips from their orifices oozes pure diabolic intent. They're straight up, your most terrifying villain, and showing conflict with them justifies the alliance Mankind made with the Zetans.
Also, congratulations on getting the featured spots! Now we can all enjoy some good 'ol Greenanon stories without having to search author names or sift through our favorites.
Author's Response:
Yeah for this one I wanted a villain that wasn't fun, or sexy, I wanted something terrifying and repugnant, something that hopefully makes the reader's skin crawl as much as it does the main characters.
Date: August 06 2022 5:48 AM Title: Fire in the Sky
Now I have to wonder just how much leniency Nea has managed to buy herself at this point. Even with Kurt going to bat for her and making herself a war hero the war itself is something she kind of caused in the first place, so it's unlikely she can get away entirely unscathed even now. Still it's probably enough to get herself a way lighter sentence than the princess who kept vital information from the then acting empress in a time of war, holy shit is that a fuck up. Kavrala certainly isn't going to be the heir apparent after that kind of bullshit.
Author's Response: I don't want to spoil Nea's fate so I won't say anything more here. Kavrala definitely fucked up, and she's shown that while she was the reasonable and competent sister, she was ultimately cold and calculating in the same way the human leaders were. Tayla was the bubbly party girl, but when the chips were down she made the right call.
[Report This]Date: August 06 2022 5:35 AM Title: Fire in the Sky
And now cause it finally got room in my head, where the mystery of that that enchant Ceohalos said about an ancient conflict between humans and them will go. Cause if this says anything its that some form of mass gene therapy might need to be dine with the Zetan population to give them at least the same resistance as Nea had, whatever was causing it.
Author's Response:
Nea has a bit of human blood in her, via her grandfather. Gene therapy probably isn't happening on a mass scale, but mankind's resistance will probably propagate over time the old fashioned way. The Cultural Department airs those Zetan-Human romance films for a reason you know!
[Report This]Date: August 06 2022 5:05 AM Title: Alliance Day Preparations
Oh, and a possible and interesting side story is, due to the Cephalos incursion ruining all the hyper-lanes, some cruse ship got stranded after a bad or emergency jump, so the crew and passengers shrunk to save on food and air. And for the years of drifting, or actual travel time to get back to known space to be saves, the made a town or two within the ship, like all my easier talk of using a full ecosystem in a cargo hold and having a micro colony. Only maybe a little bigger, could totally depend.
Or some other civilization shrunk themselves to the mansion’s size or smaller so they could hid from the Cephalos in an ultra shielded container or facility, or even so re terraformed their planet with the shrunk life. Fun offshoot potential stories, and hopefully with enough erotica potential.
Author's Response:
The setting has infinite potential, there are probably ships full of shrunken people out there somewhere.
[Report This]Date: August 06 2022 4:58 AM Title: Fire in the Sky
Well this went well. And the Cephalo should mostly not a problem, unless there are more fleets out somewhere, or more central locations, or subgroups that decided to make some more sustainable food source for some reason and so you have strongholds. That latter could get real messed up obviously.
And Jolene got her bounty. Now to see the (at bare minimum month’s, if not years) long legal processing of Nea and Zeta forever.
And pretty good climatic battle. Big thumbs up.
Author's Response:
There are still lots of Cephalo out there, but they'll be cautious about intruding into human or Zetan space for some time. Glad you enjoyed the battle.
[Report This]Date: August 06 2022 4:42 AM Title: Fire in the Sky
Another excellent chapter as always!
And congratulations on your other stories making the featured list… any chance we’ll see spin-offs of those works in the upcoming one-shots you’ve got planned?
Author's Response:
I'd like to do some One Year Lease one-shots, explore some of the side characters from that one. Others are just random ones I've been wanting to do for awhile.
Date: August 05 2022 4:05 PM Title: Alliance Day Preparations
I'd think that the Zetan military would've seen the transmission from Nea and Kurt too, so it doesn't really fit that the human office of propaganda would be able to just stop it from being seen. Especially by the Royal family who'd probably be ecstatic to see Nea rallying humans and Zetans together like this and denouncing the coup attempt, still doesn't make up for the shit she caused but it might make them less eager to throw her and an entire planet to the squids. Also it's kind of shocking that the human propaganda office is even able to censor much in the first place even on the earth side, keeping shit quiet forever doesn't really work with the internet involved.
Author's Response:
The Zetans have similar censorship networks, and yeah it's impossible to keep it contained, but they only need to keep it hidden from the public at large, and even then only for a little while, the Director says as much. Consider that they ban the war atrocity footage too, Kurt and Joey said they saw it back in Chapter 1, but it's far from common public discourse.
[Report This]Date: August 05 2022 6:09 AM Title: On the Eve of Battle
Excellent chapter! You had Adam call Kira “Nea” once, but I’m really enjoying seeing Zetans at least learn to accept human aid. Though…I do enjoy the F/m parts the most ;D
Author's Response:
I swear I do proofread these things lol, I guess it slipped through, fixed it.
[Report This]Date: August 05 2022 4:36 AM Title: Alliance Day Preparations
With your answer to Kessler’s questions on the shrink rays, why not have a shrink ray shrink a box of shrink rays, one is removed from the box to shrink the box, then don agains all the way down. I can guess its the whole process that make its hard to use this method for more efficiency, since a step smaller should be the normal amount of energy. Unless there are setups like this somewhere for something.
Actually comes back to thinking that someone would shrink a shrink ray so they could have it, or multiple, in a gauntlet or gloves, for hiding and to make things even smaller.
Maybe some theorized or ultra experimental one have several ‘pulses’ of shrinking in it, ones that only activate after being use, meaning also having been shrunk, so make the step-down process in one firing of sone ray. At best probably in a lab somewhere.
And what about shrink pads/booths/chambers? Put the thing in the machine and its shrunk.
Anyway, your doing great, then its the finally and epilogue!
Author's Response:
Shrink rays come in a number of different shapes and sizes I'm sure, most of the military ones are shaped like military equipment, think Nea's rifle from way back in chapter 2, vs the civilian ones Kira and most Zetans carry day to day which are shaped like remotes. I'm sure if a person wants a gauntlet shaped one it can be done, as well as a chamber sized one but it would require more energy. I suppose a single person could in theory get a box of shrink rays and make themselves smaller in a sequence, but it would have fairly limited practical use. The cannon Jolene has is special because it reduces a very large area to a super tiny size, the biggest ones outside commonly in use are probably for shipping, think reducing cargo containers to brick size.
[Report This]Date: August 05 2022 4:33 AM Title: On the Eve of Battle
Preety good speech, and a fair strategy of softening up on a siege, and then a full military force some from behind to get them suck and finish them. But the battle will have to be seen.
And who knows how this speech will be received by the whole alliance.
And the after processing of at least arresting Zeta forever on the attempted assassination alone.
Author's Response:
Zeta Forever is going to be in legal trouble regardless of how heroic they are in the battle, I mean they almost overthrew the Empress lol.
Date: August 04 2022 9:02 PM Title: Alliance Day Preparations
Thank you for replying and answering my questions.
Also to clarify at the end, I meant Kurt in the full wild outfit after celebration with Nea sighing and giving him a look for a lot of it(and devising a punishment for him). Because Smith would listen. But Kurt, well it depends on if he feels like it. And I have a feeling that he would get a kick out of dressing like a biker/metalhead at a fancy Zetan event.
Author's Response: Kurt would do that, knowing full well a "punishment" of epic proportions was coming, that said many Zetans aren't super aware of Earth fashion and might not immediately realize they were being teased by his outfit, most of them like their bodyguards to wear Zetan clothes and humans kind of do in Rome as the Romans on the issue, with the royal family's black suited secret service agents being a notable exception.
Date: August 04 2022 5:42 PM Title: Alliance Day Preparations
It's been 40 years since the alliance and there are translation implants common enough that humans who want nothing to do with the Zetans have them. So why isn't anyone selling implants that just have the regrowth function from a shrink ray but installed into the body so they can just regrow themselves immediately if shrunk? That seems like an obvious money maker and an extremely helpful safety precaution for humans who either like or hate the Zetrans to avoid accidental or intentional crushing respectively.
Author's Response:
Translation implants are popular because they work on human languages too, Kurt and Joey probably got theirs thinking they'd be great for Spanish, not Zetan.
An anti-shrinking implant wouldn't work becuase shrink rays can only bring you back up to the "scale" that they're at, like if you shrink to two inches tall holding one and it shrinks with you that ray will only return people to two inches tall until it is itself resized.
[Report This]Date: August 04 2022 1:30 PM Title: Aces and Eights
Besides the obvious for Jolene to have her mansion, enjoying her days with her zetans and have a normal colony to runs some businesses in the side (the latter makes sense), but with everything I’ve said better, being self sufficient able to sell food even sounds also like a good business, and Jolene could have some enjoyment from developing that ‘small’ part of her colony (even miniature habitation modules to have volume, space, and food, and not the other things)
A whole side story could be made of the zetans, maybe some humans that eventually came along, trying to develop new things to entertain Jolene and make them practical for her uses (in both meanings). She already has a military shrink ray, give her engineers some more engineering equipment and time, and I be they could make it more practical for her (even if not to mass produce), then use it for her own purposes.
Author's Response: I'm sure she'd like to play goddess to some micro sized people, at the very least her four crewmates will probably end up staring down some time at ant size or smaller.
Date: August 04 2022 11:53 AM Title: Aces and Eights
@Greenanon Sounds good to me. Focusing on the giantesses is what makes the occasional role reversal with a male giant so enjoyable.
Speaking of future stories, any idea what you’ve got in store once this work is wrapped up?
Author's Response:
I'll probably go relax for a few days and maybe just do a one shot or two before starting any new long ones or continuing any others. I've got a bunch of ideas and short outlines for different stuff, if I do start another longer story soon it'll probably be another silly lighthearted affair like Landlady is a Real Witch.
Date: August 04 2022 8:49 AM Title: Aces and Eights
Finally. First M/f interaction. Congratulations. There is always a first time.
Author's Response:
Like I've said to other reviewers it's not my usual thing, but it just seemed to fit the circumstances perfectly.
[Report This]Date: August 04 2022 5:53 AM Title: Aces and Eights
Well you have once again proven that not only do you have writing chops, you have the damn tenderloins of writing.
Dear goodness man, did you marry the muse? You're unreal.
If I spent the time writing everything I liked about the story so far, I wouldn't be able to go to sleep tonight. So I'll try to be brief(relatively).
Love all the side characters, they are truly awesome. The small part with the ship that we never saw again with the Zetan male, was great.
Jolene, rawr, she's one hell of a lady. I'd be interested in getting punished by her.
Princess Nea has had a fantastic character arc. I was wondering how I would end up rooting for her. The best thing about her is that it's clear she was always misguided, never truly evil.
Question, and it's cool if the answer is as the story requires, but I'm a bit unclear on how durable someone is when shrunken. Is it something that requires powerful stomping(with armor or something) at a couple of inches. Is it also that Zetans are just more durable all around. Lots of people died from getting squished, but Kurt was in between Nea's toes(lucky guy) getting squeezed by them(again lucky guy).
Was Kurt at all inspired by Captain James Tiberius Kirk who also has escapades with green women.
That scene with Smith at the top of this chapter gave me a funny mental image. Kurt decides to not only be a complete Earthling, but a complete American. So instead of whatever royal consort attire he should wear, he shows up to the big celebration in a black leather jacket, tight black jeans, fingerless black gloves, a bandanna just for the hell of it(maybe even stripes painted on his face too) dressed straight out of the 80s just to have fun with the Zetan expectations.
Author's Response:
I spent a lot of time plotting this one out and coming up with the supporting cast, so it's good to see they work. I really wanted to use the side characters to give a more complete look at the world, let the reader see how the main characters actions impacted everyone.
As for durability when shrunken it goes up a little bit, it would be difficult to crush someone on a soft surface with a bare foot, on a hard surface or with shoes? Yeah it's very easy for full sized people to crush shrunken ones. Kurt is relatively safe in Nea's sandals (or other footwear) and most of the time when she's squeezing him with her toes she's not trying to seriously hurt him.
Between the green women and the Iowan main characters yeah there is definitely a star trek influence here, among other sci-fi franchises.
I imagine that the Empress's consort will probably help Smith pick out clothing that, while Zetan, has an "earth flair."
Date: August 04 2022 4:58 AM Title: Aces and Eights
So the starring couple are switches it seems. The idea of the dominating Zetan girl punished for her over eager shrink ray via her human lover fucking her into an moaning puddle seems very enticing. Especially if she responds to such revenge by just shrinking him more often to keep earning such enjoyable "punishments". I had assumed they would both be at full size when such a thing happened but this is fun too.
Author's Response:
Nea will probably get fucked into a puddle at some point in the traditional fashion, and yeah they're both switches I guess you could say lol.