Hey! did you know that there was originally a prologue to this novel? Originally, there was a dream sequence and also a scene where yamato wakes up from the dream and then gets called to the bridge. What you guys saw was what happened after he arrived on the bridge, but not before.
Anyway, I wrote two versions of the prologue but I ended up deleting both versions because i tested both prologues on a "testing site" (which i won't name, because if i name it, you'll see all my novels there and they're crap because they're not edited). the testing site is sorta like wattpad but it's worse.
Anyway, here's version one of the original dream sequence in the prologue (but not the full prologue):
Harvey Yamato heard himself panting in the cockpit of his Mark Eight ‘Vulcan’ Starfighter. It was pitch dark in his cockpit, except for all the green data displays in front of him.
They are out there, Harvey reminded himself.
They’re after me. They want to kill me.
I must survive. I must take out as many of them before they do kill me.
He tried to breathe deep breaths to calm himself, but his adrenalin rushed brain made him very aware that he might not last another minute in this battle of hell.
Below, he saw the planetary rim of Tau Ceti Four ‒ a gigantic world filled with lush vegetation, and a perfect world to colonize, if it were not for the fact that it was under attack by the alien enemy.
Suddenly, plasma darts, too fast to see except for a blur, flew past him and he knew he was under attack, again.
He pulled his starfighter in a tight twist, and aimed his Shogun-12 plasma gun and fired into the oblivion in the direction from where the enemy’s fire came from.
Fire! Fire! Fire! Die, you Argonan bastards!
Somewhere out there, there was a blinding white explosion, and he knew he got one.
Scratch one bogey!
Suddenly, a huge crash sounded throughout his cockpit. Sudden G-forces pushed Harvey Yamato into his seat, and for a moment he thought he blanked out. When he came to, the damage control panels read that his fighter had been hit.
CRITICAL DAMAGE, the display said. SHIELDS FAILING. ANTIMATTER POWER GENERATOR DAMAGED. EJECT. EJECT. EJECT.
Harvey ignored the computer’s pleas.
He turned his fighter in the direction from where those projectiles had come and he did the same thing, again. He fired into the black oblivion, letting his battle trained mind do the split-second calculations that would connect his plasma darts with the vector of the enemy bogey.
For a while nothing happened, then a gigantic flash of light appeared off his starboard and it blinded him.
He hit! Score two for the good guys!
When he glanced at his damage control panels again, he saw the words ‒ EJECT. EJECT. EJECT. IMMEDIATELY. ANTIMATTER POWER CONTAINMENT FAILING. SELF-DETONATION IMMINENT.
Screw you, computer. He aimed his fighter for another bogey in the vast darkness of space, and punched his engines so he could gain range on it, and then…
Everything exploded in a white flash.
And here's version two of that same dream sequence in the prologue (but also not the full prologue):
Yamato knew he was dreaming, again.
He was alone, in the deadly vacuum of space, surrounded in all directions by stars, without a space suit. Somehow, he was able to survive. This is a dream, after all.
He glanced below him and saw something familiar to him after all these years in space.
A planet. A terraformed world, with vast blue oceans, brown-green landmasses, and white clouds. A world filled with life. Human life.
That’s Tau Ceti Four. I earned my commission from the Fleet Officer Academy down there…
Suddenly, massive beams of light flashed from behind him. Each beam was so powerful that Yamato instantly knew that each one had the destructive power of megatons of TNT. Worse, there were thousands of them, coming from thousands of warships.
Enemy grazer beams!
The alien beams slammed into the planet below him -- a beam for every major city. From his distance, he could see the white-hot blooms of nuclear-level mushroom clouds expanding on the surface of the planet.
Millions of human souls are dying. The planet is being bombed. And I can’t do anything!
And then he saw something that shocked him even more.
No, no. That isn’t Tau Ceti Four! It’s Earth. That landmass looks like Africa!
Enraged, he urged himself to move towards the enemy fleet while sitting inside the cockpit of his fighter. I’m in my old fighter now. The old mark eight.
He could see the enemy. Thousands of warships. Some as small as mere destroyers. Others as large as entire cities. All of them looked insectlike, menacing -- with laser turrets and tachyon pulse projectors ready to decimate every last human on the planet, or for that matter, the universe.
Why? Why? Why won’t you aliens leave us alone? Why do you all insist on killing every last one of us? What is your fucking problem, you galactic bullies?
Far ahead of him, he saw one of the alien warships turn towards him. It was futile, he thought. He controlled a small one-manned fighter against an fleet of multi-kilometer alien warships. Try as he might, he wished for a fleet of human ships, but they didn’t come.
It was too late. Ahead of him, that one alien warship aimed at him with a laser meant for destroying entire cities. Instantly, in his cockpit, he could hear targetting scanners locking onto his fighter. The alien ship fired.
A flash of light was all he saw.
“WHY?” yelled Yamato in the vacumm of space, even as the laser beam engulfed him.
And here's the scene where Yamato wakes up and then gets called to the bridge. It's identical in both prologues so that's why i only added it here (only the dream sequence changed between prologue version one and prologue version two):
Sector General Harvey Yamato woke up from a dream that was all too familiar. He had another one of those starfighter dreams, where he was a starfighter ace.
That was a long time ago. He hadn’t been in a cockpit in eight years, he reminded himself. Why do I still dream that I’m in a cockpit?
He stopped panting, wiped the sweat off his forehead, and got out of bed. His quarters were vast for a sleeping compartment within a federation warship. He had rows of medals lining one wall. Pictures of his family, friends, and associates lined another. He had plants around his desk, and even a set of chairs for when he intended to have company. His most treasured items were on display in a far corner. A baseball bat from his father. The shoes of a celebrity athlete. His lucky ring.
He went to the sink and buried his face in his water-filled hands. Then, he stared at himself in the mirror. Anyone who saw Harvey Yamato would see the same thing. He had a sharp austere-looking face, with short hair that had already turned white. Even though he was only forty, the years of stress as a commander of millions had worn him. But when they looked into his eyes, they saw youthful eyes ‒ eyes filled with passion and warmth. Those were the eyes that looked out at the life he had lived to now. And had led him to make the choices he had made until now.
Harvey Yamato, born from a Caucasian mother and an Asian father. That’s me. That will always be me, even when I make good decisions and mistakes. And he had made so many mistakes in his life.
But he had made good decisions, too. The decision to take charge when the commander of his first ship had been immobilized… The decision to fight warmongering aliens instead of surrendering to them, even when the odds looked bleaker and bleaker…
But there were the questionable decisions. He remembered… the time he had to give the order to abandon whole worlds to that same enemy. The thought of giving up all those lives to save more lives. It haunted him. And… he knew that in the future, he would have to make more of those decisions on an even grander scale. That was the responsibility of being a war commander --
The comm bell rang.
“Yes?” said Yamato.
“Sir,” said a familiar lieutenant’s voice, “you told me to remind you at 0140 hours when we arrived on position.”
“Well done, lieutenant. I’ll be on the bridge in a minute.”
“Can’t wait, sir.” The line cut off.
Anyway, that's it. history will always remember that i freaked out when i saw the chapter-to-chapter stats between prologue 1 and two and chapter 1 (which was the scene where yamato arrives on the bridge that's in the amazon version of the novel) and that's why i deleted both prologues and went with chapter 1 by itself (among other reasons). There were other reasons i deleted the prologues but...
oh what the hell, i'll name why here. you clicked to this page, so that means you're pretty curious about the book so i'll go ahead:
Pro (for prologue 1)
Pro (for prologue 2)
Con for prologue 1 and 2):
here's what i wrote in my notes:
"
YOU KNOw what? I think I’m gonna take out both prologues. The wake up sequence is all pussy and self gratifying and exposition and doesn’t work. It looks like he’s making himself look big without a problem
The dream sequence identifies the main problem (of genocidal aliens with warships) but so does chapter 1, where he walks onto the bridge. Besides, the first two has too much physical setting introduction that lead to nowhere and just uses up brain power before the real physical introduction of chapter 1 takes place
Your character wake up scene, characterization was all tell and not show. It was not good. Worse, it was himself telling about himself, making himself look big. At least use another person
"
and here's another segment where i wrote in my notes as to why i shouldn't have the prologue (it's mostly about dream sequence one -- the first dream you saw):
"
Reasons to get rid of prologue dream: it’s not good educational runtime, it offers a diffeent problem , and the reader has to accept this problem (to read further) before he’s bombarded with an additional problem, the main problem
It’s hard to get, and once you get it , it ends, and you have to get something else. There’s nothing this dream sequence teaches, it doesn’t taste good for the reader
It makes me look like a noob, and people start skipping
It doesn’t connect with the rest of the novel in any way
It does say we’re fighting aliens, but the blurb says that as well
Makes readers want to expect a different type of fighter duel combat
It makes the reader use up all this energy to understand it, and onc they do, the book moves to something else that needs understanding
Chapter 2 and 3’s problem is sufficient and pulling on its own. It’s not like chapter 3 moves slow (the talking about fleets status segment) meaning there’s no problem (to which why we need chapter 1 the dream). It dos have a lot of infodumps.
If u want a grabber section, this doesn’t show anything about what the book is about
You’ll never forgie yourself if you lose readers because of keeping it
Basically, it states, this is my novel and it’s crap
It’s also hard to get. Too many difficult sensory stimuli
Did you ever wonder what was yamato’s dream mentioned in the opening scene in the novel? I debated about putting it in . on the other hand, it shows a glimpse of action and who we’re fighting. Bla bla bla (look at what you wrote before). in the end, I decided against putting it in. Anyway, here it is: it’s really short
Imagine had I put this in there at the very beginning? Would you have bought the book
"
eventually the cons won in my head and that's why there were no prologues.
Anyway, I wrote two versions of the prologue but I ended up deleting both versions because i tested both prologues on a "testing site" (which i won't name, because if i name it, you'll see all my novels there and they're crap because they're not edited). the testing site is sorta like wattpad but it's worse.
Anyway, here's version one of the original dream sequence in the prologue (but not the full prologue):
Harvey Yamato heard himself panting in the cockpit of his Mark Eight ‘Vulcan’ Starfighter. It was pitch dark in his cockpit, except for all the green data displays in front of him.
They are out there, Harvey reminded himself.
They’re after me. They want to kill me.
I must survive. I must take out as many of them before they do kill me.
He tried to breathe deep breaths to calm himself, but his adrenalin rushed brain made him very aware that he might not last another minute in this battle of hell.
Below, he saw the planetary rim of Tau Ceti Four ‒ a gigantic world filled with lush vegetation, and a perfect world to colonize, if it were not for the fact that it was under attack by the alien enemy.
Suddenly, plasma darts, too fast to see except for a blur, flew past him and he knew he was under attack, again.
He pulled his starfighter in a tight twist, and aimed his Shogun-12 plasma gun and fired into the oblivion in the direction from where the enemy’s fire came from.
Fire! Fire! Fire! Die, you Argonan bastards!
Somewhere out there, there was a blinding white explosion, and he knew he got one.
Scratch one bogey!
Suddenly, a huge crash sounded throughout his cockpit. Sudden G-forces pushed Harvey Yamato into his seat, and for a moment he thought he blanked out. When he came to, the damage control panels read that his fighter had been hit.
CRITICAL DAMAGE, the display said. SHIELDS FAILING. ANTIMATTER POWER GENERATOR DAMAGED. EJECT. EJECT. EJECT.
Harvey ignored the computer’s pleas.
He turned his fighter in the direction from where those projectiles had come and he did the same thing, again. He fired into the black oblivion, letting his battle trained mind do the split-second calculations that would connect his plasma darts with the vector of the enemy bogey.
For a while nothing happened, then a gigantic flash of light appeared off his starboard and it blinded him.
He hit! Score two for the good guys!
When he glanced at his damage control panels again, he saw the words ‒ EJECT. EJECT. EJECT. IMMEDIATELY. ANTIMATTER POWER CONTAINMENT FAILING. SELF-DETONATION IMMINENT.
Screw you, computer. He aimed his fighter for another bogey in the vast darkness of space, and punched his engines so he could gain range on it, and then…
Everything exploded in a white flash.
And here's version two of that same dream sequence in the prologue (but also not the full prologue):
Yamato knew he was dreaming, again.
He was alone, in the deadly vacuum of space, surrounded in all directions by stars, without a space suit. Somehow, he was able to survive. This is a dream, after all.
He glanced below him and saw something familiar to him after all these years in space.
A planet. A terraformed world, with vast blue oceans, brown-green landmasses, and white clouds. A world filled with life. Human life.
That’s Tau Ceti Four. I earned my commission from the Fleet Officer Academy down there…
Suddenly, massive beams of light flashed from behind him. Each beam was so powerful that Yamato instantly knew that each one had the destructive power of megatons of TNT. Worse, there were thousands of them, coming from thousands of warships.
Enemy grazer beams!
The alien beams slammed into the planet below him -- a beam for every major city. From his distance, he could see the white-hot blooms of nuclear-level mushroom clouds expanding on the surface of the planet.
Millions of human souls are dying. The planet is being bombed. And I can’t do anything!
And then he saw something that shocked him even more.
No, no. That isn’t Tau Ceti Four! It’s Earth. That landmass looks like Africa!
Enraged, he urged himself to move towards the enemy fleet while sitting inside the cockpit of his fighter. I’m in my old fighter now. The old mark eight.
He could see the enemy. Thousands of warships. Some as small as mere destroyers. Others as large as entire cities. All of them looked insectlike, menacing -- with laser turrets and tachyon pulse projectors ready to decimate every last human on the planet, or for that matter, the universe.
Why? Why? Why won’t you aliens leave us alone? Why do you all insist on killing every last one of us? What is your fucking problem, you galactic bullies?
Far ahead of him, he saw one of the alien warships turn towards him. It was futile, he thought. He controlled a small one-manned fighter against an fleet of multi-kilometer alien warships. Try as he might, he wished for a fleet of human ships, but they didn’t come.
It was too late. Ahead of him, that one alien warship aimed at him with a laser meant for destroying entire cities. Instantly, in his cockpit, he could hear targetting scanners locking onto his fighter. The alien ship fired.
A flash of light was all he saw.
“WHY?” yelled Yamato in the vacumm of space, even as the laser beam engulfed him.
And here's the scene where Yamato wakes up and then gets called to the bridge. It's identical in both prologues so that's why i only added it here (only the dream sequence changed between prologue version one and prologue version two):
Sector General Harvey Yamato woke up from a dream that was all too familiar. He had another one of those starfighter dreams, where he was a starfighter ace.
That was a long time ago. He hadn’t been in a cockpit in eight years, he reminded himself. Why do I still dream that I’m in a cockpit?
He stopped panting, wiped the sweat off his forehead, and got out of bed. His quarters were vast for a sleeping compartment within a federation warship. He had rows of medals lining one wall. Pictures of his family, friends, and associates lined another. He had plants around his desk, and even a set of chairs for when he intended to have company. His most treasured items were on display in a far corner. A baseball bat from his father. The shoes of a celebrity athlete. His lucky ring.
He went to the sink and buried his face in his water-filled hands. Then, he stared at himself in the mirror. Anyone who saw Harvey Yamato would see the same thing. He had a sharp austere-looking face, with short hair that had already turned white. Even though he was only forty, the years of stress as a commander of millions had worn him. But when they looked into his eyes, they saw youthful eyes ‒ eyes filled with passion and warmth. Those were the eyes that looked out at the life he had lived to now. And had led him to make the choices he had made until now.
Harvey Yamato, born from a Caucasian mother and an Asian father. That’s me. That will always be me, even when I make good decisions and mistakes. And he had made so many mistakes in his life.
But he had made good decisions, too. The decision to take charge when the commander of his first ship had been immobilized… The decision to fight warmongering aliens instead of surrendering to them, even when the odds looked bleaker and bleaker…
But there were the questionable decisions. He remembered… the time he had to give the order to abandon whole worlds to that same enemy. The thought of giving up all those lives to save more lives. It haunted him. And… he knew that in the future, he would have to make more of those decisions on an even grander scale. That was the responsibility of being a war commander --
The comm bell rang.
“Yes?” said Yamato.
“Sir,” said a familiar lieutenant’s voice, “you told me to remind you at 0140 hours when we arrived on position.”
“Well done, lieutenant. I’ll be on the bridge in a minute.”
“Can’t wait, sir.” The line cut off.
Anyway, that's it. history will always remember that i freaked out when i saw the chapter-to-chapter stats between prologue 1 and two and chapter 1 (which was the scene where yamato arrives on the bridge that's in the amazon version of the novel) and that's why i deleted both prologues and went with chapter 1 by itself (among other reasons). There were other reasons i deleted the prologues but...
oh what the hell, i'll name why here. you clicked to this page, so that means you're pretty curious about the book so i'll go ahead:
Pro (for prologue 1)
Pro (for prologue 2)
Con for prologue 1 and 2):
here's what i wrote in my notes:
"
YOU KNOw what? I think I’m gonna take out both prologues. The wake up sequence is all pussy and self gratifying and exposition and doesn’t work. It looks like he’s making himself look big without a problem
The dream sequence identifies the main problem (of genocidal aliens with warships) but so does chapter 1, where he walks onto the bridge. Besides, the first two has too much physical setting introduction that lead to nowhere and just uses up brain power before the real physical introduction of chapter 1 takes place
Your character wake up scene, characterization was all tell and not show. It was not good. Worse, it was himself telling about himself, making himself look big. At least use another person
"
and here's another segment where i wrote in my notes as to why i shouldn't have the prologue (it's mostly about dream sequence one -- the first dream you saw):
"
Reasons to get rid of prologue dream: it’s not good educational runtime, it offers a diffeent problem , and the reader has to accept this problem (to read further) before he’s bombarded with an additional problem, the main problem
It’s hard to get, and once you get it , it ends, and you have to get something else. There’s nothing this dream sequence teaches, it doesn’t taste good for the reader
It makes me look like a noob, and people start skipping
It doesn’t connect with the rest of the novel in any way
It does say we’re fighting aliens, but the blurb says that as well
Makes readers want to expect a different type of fighter duel combat
It makes the reader use up all this energy to understand it, and onc they do, the book moves to something else that needs understanding
Chapter 2 and 3’s problem is sufficient and pulling on its own. It’s not like chapter 3 moves slow (the talking about fleets status segment) meaning there’s no problem (to which why we need chapter 1 the dream). It dos have a lot of infodumps.
If u want a grabber section, this doesn’t show anything about what the book is about
You’ll never forgie yourself if you lose readers because of keeping it
Basically, it states, this is my novel and it’s crap
It’s also hard to get. Too many difficult sensory stimuli
Did you ever wonder what was yamato’s dream mentioned in the opening scene in the novel? I debated about putting it in . on the other hand, it shows a glimpse of action and who we’re fighting. Bla bla bla (look at what you wrote before). in the end, I decided against putting it in. Anyway, here it is: it’s really short
Imagine had I put this in there at the very beginning? Would you have bought the book
"
eventually the cons won in my head and that's why there were no prologues.