SciFi/Fantasy First Line Game

badducky

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Howdy, Randman,

This is not a chitchat thread. If one does feel the need to chitchat, we ask that they please include in their post a first line.

Like this one...

My entry:

Who will turn the lights off when we seal up the space station?
 

Invincibility

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Sure, he looks like a douchebag, but if anyone needs that much hair gel it's the guy who can out-fly jet planes.
 

ELMontague

Tell me, friend, what does one do with a faerie's eyeball floating in a jar of formaldehyde?
 

Teinz

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"What the Hell!?" shrieked John Lamely when finally, after having lived a particular sinful life, he was thrown in the fiery chasms of Tartarus.
 

AndreF

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A young boy realized that the very existance of his home could reopen the wounds of the great war.

FIXED AS REQUESTED.
 
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elfletcherauthor

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"Well that wasn't as fun as I expected," said Karl as he pulled his broken sword out of the muck, and wiped the blood from his face with the back of his hand.
 

badducky

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This one here is my favourite. I laughed :), props to you.

Right, lots of new folks turning up around here, and that's fantastic!

But, it's high time for a quick refresher in the rules.

1) First lines only, that are clearly speculative in nature, to propel the narrative forward.

2) Run-on sentences, and near-run-ons are frowned upon. Ergo, squeezing a few extra clauses in with a gratuitous semi-colon or em-dash is not quite right!

3) This is not a chitchat thread, so if you have a post to comment on someone else's post, for instance, do include your entry. Like this...

My entry:

Ergodic literature had to be banned after the singularity when a book club's reading of "House of Leaves" drove the mental micromachinery insane.
 

AndreF

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Neil Armstrong violated the intergalactic peace treaty when he walked on the moon.
 

pcw27

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Fourth dimension travel was pivotal to the completion of this book, because it allowed me to travel to a time when I'd already written it.
 

Sai

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Alfred Pembrook had never worked a day in his life, which was really saying something since a day on his home planet of Alpha Vega lasted 31 earth years.
 

pcw27

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Alfred Pembrook had never worked a day in his life, which was really saying something since a day on his home planet of Alpha Vega lasted 31 earth years.

Actually that's not saying much at all. Now if a day took 31 earth minutes...

In the spirit of my original post I'll retroactively correct the mistake.

The botched teleport delivered Myrin to the inside of a massive tetrahedron, which was unfortunately home to three giant eagles.
 
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unruley700

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Actually that's not saying much at all. Now if a day took 31 earth minutes...

Don't break the rules!!! Ducky will find you...he'll always find you.


I didn't stab him with my psyonic blade, he just walked into it.
 
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AlexPiper

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Actually that's not saying much at all. Now if a day took 31 earth minutes...

As unruly noted, even a reply to another post -- like this one I'm making now -- must include a first line. The rules of the game are listed not far above your post, where Ducky last reiterated them. If you do not wish to draw down anatine retribution (or at least, a polite chastisement), make sure to stick to them!

Other than that, welcome to the game! Do play as often as you like, just make sure every post contains a first line. And on that note...


Many people reacted to the discovery that reality was a computer simulation with fear or panic, but a few decided that the universe's resource use must be kept to a minimum in order to avoid the end of the world, which they referred to as the Great Rebooting.
 

badducky

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There's a method to the madness, you know. Minimizing the chitchattery makes it very easy for anyone to join into the thread, without having to spend days scouring over the past to figure out what people are referencing.

My entry:

America was famous for its soybeans and its soy-based dictatorships.
 

badducky

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I didn't stab him with my psyonic blade, he just walked into it.

This is a comma splice. See, two independent clauses joined only by a comma?

That's a run-on sentence, textbook. Let's fix this, shall we?

"I didn't stab him with my psyonic blade because he walked into it."

inelegant, true, and in fiction, I would suggest making these two independent clauses two sentences.

Does this make sense, people?

My entry:

Talk to the squid only if you think the translation computer can figure it out for you.
 

AlexPiper

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"I didn't stab him with my psyonic blade because he walked into it."

Inelegant, true, and in fiction, I would suggest making these two independent clauses two sentences.

Arguably, this is precisely the place a semicolon works /without/ cheating: "It wasn't as if I meant to stab him with my psionic blade; he walked into it on his own."

It's still clumsy, yes, but it's connecting the two clauses in a legitimate way. Still, the semicolon road is a treacherous path to tread, and you might slip and tumble into less-legitimate uses.

Oh... right. First line.


I'd always supported affirmative action for aliens, but sharing a cubicle with one that regarded my race as a snack food was starting to give me an ulcer.
 

Donkey

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Commander Evanston abandoned us on this desolate planet without arms or ammunition, that is true, but he did leave one piece of advice that would prove invaluable: Forget the past.
 
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AndreF

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Relics from Earth's Cold War will destroy the valuable alliance with our newly found celestial neighbors.