"See, we don't need your imaginary Klingons" said Kathryn as the porch failed to shake, the blast doors remained down, and the imploding reactor cores of the incoming battleships failed to light up the night sky. Knitting needles continued to click.
"The Laadan Ladies Knitting and Terrorist Society is not a soft target."
More knitting.
"Kathryn, no one ever said that our brand identity, 'The power of women talking' .. "
... "and knitting" a voice interrupted
"And knitting," almost an eye roll "meant that we were a soft target."
"But those battleships show"
... "that a strong force can't even penetrate our Oort cloud"
Knitting needles clacked.
"That people still think we are a soft target."
"You know, we all know, it is words and perception, it is the talking that has the most power. After all, we did not get to be the most successful linguistic metaphor wielding terrorists in humanities' history without words."
... "But ..."
"No buts. Fictional or not, over 20% of the confederation population believes that Klingons are a part of the real history, over 90% are willing to accept them."
... "No, please ..."
"It has to be done. I know that you prefer to be anonymous, we all do. However, with this announcement, no one will doubt that we are an impossibly hard target and these attacks by fools will cease."
The knitting needles stopped for a moment.
"It is agreed, as the press announcement will read, we will give thanks for the repulsion of this latest attack to K'thrnn, Battlemistress of the Fifth Klingon Mercenary Protective Force."
Slight smile, more knitting. The quiet night continued.
Or what I got from Writing Excuses yesterday. ;)
Which of course was:
ReplyDelete* don't mention Klingons, especially on the first page.
* don't use distopias (after all, what else is it if a terrorist society <"with knitting"> is the protagonist).
* don't info dump.
* don't have a meeting (which is just another way to info dump -- don't think you've fooled anyone).
* don't use consonants and glottal stops for alien names (if you run into a " ' " in a word it is a click/stop).