Furry Writers' Guild Forum

the question here is?

I asked myself what i would call this, and the only reply that came to mind was “A good start”

So i decided to put it here for comments/ discussion/ critisque…Thank you!

We were a race caught up in wars and violence. In the middle of the twenty-first century a group of idiots calling themselves the true race of god, managed to set off a series of dirty bombs in the basin that had been Los Angeles. Three million people died. America’s response was so swift and so complete that the world would never recover. It was the first and the last time that the Earth would see an above ground detonation of a two hundred thousand megaton nuclear device. The crater was 600 miles wide and the fallout from the radioactive cloud would circle the globe for almost 200 years. In the end, Humanity did not survive. All that was left of our former selves was the memory of our foolishness. Mother nature however did survive and the Earth was able to come back to life. The creatures once called humans had mutated or died out; they no longer had the power of thought but many races of animal had taken their place. Over a span of a thousand years these new forms became a society and a culture.
The great radioactive cloud had fallen to the earth and spent its half-life. The Earth had healed and weather patterns had become stable. It is now the end of what Humanity had called the Dark future and the dawn of a brighter new world.
“Professor, are you sure?” The younger Grad student had a habit of holding and squeezing her tail when she was very nervous. Her long ears normally stood very erect but now were half way back on the sides of her head. She knew as did the professor that if this went wrong they would both be drummed out and shunned forever.
“Don’t worry Fwalla, if you want I can just list you as assistant. Then when the dust settles I will tell the world who my assistant was or if it goes badly I will keep it to myself until I die!” The older and much rounder figure smiled and placed his paw on her shoulder. He then patted her on the head with the other paw.
“That would not be fair professor. I am the one who came up with this whole thing and you have encouraged and supported me so I could never let you take the fall. I am just a grad student so if it does go badly they will just blame it on my youth.” She smiled at him and twisted her tail a little harder.
“I have reviewed all the data and there is no flaw in your thesis. I suspect that even if our world is not truly ready for the truth they will have to admit you are one brilliant kid!” The professor smiled with his lopsided smile as one of his fangs had been broken off in his youth.
The papers were all in order, the records were all verified and now it was time.
The Pair took a deep breath and walked out to the stage where the press and the world awaited their discovery!

I would cut out the first bit and start at “Professor, are you sure?”, then drip-feed the backstory as the tale progresses.

Your probably right, that first part serves only to remind me what i was writing about.

Have you thought about giving the grad student (or the prof, if appropriate) a flaw, “Are you sure?” That would be a great hook. Sort of like Harry Potter growing into a wizard, little steps at a time and developing with each episode.

I like the story line. Please keep us posted.