Crit Request: The Decades of Chaos: Second Welcoming (3.3k words)

Summary:

Human soldiers are transported to a modernized fantasy realm, a la GATE, and incite a revolution.

Crit Request: The Decade of Chaos: Second Welcoming (3.3k words)

JohnDoeMD 24 Feb 2026 03:24

Link: http://wanderers-sandbox-2.wikidot.com/sandboxdoemd (under the Second Welcoming tab)

Word count: ≈3,300 words, ≈21,000 characters (there's a lot to unpack)

Main concerns:

• Is the lore comprehensible enough?
• Is the wording at least okay?
• Are there any plotholes?
• Is everything believable relative to the story?

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"Best not to think about it" is a morally grey defense for your writing.

Last edited on 17 Mar 2026 22:48 by JohnDoeMD Show more

Re: Crit Request: The Decades of Chaos: Second Welcoming (3.3k words)

JohnDoeMD 05 Mar 2026 12:56

so is there a super contagious virus on the forum where the hell is everyone

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"Best not to think about it" is a morally grey defense for your writing.

Re: Crit Request: The Decades of Chaos: Second Welcoming (3.3k words)

Castaigne 07 Mar 2026 20:06

Good question

I discovered your work with this chapter, and I have to say, I really like it, the only problem I have is the term 'Transrealmology', as I first read it 'trans-real-mology' and I think it could be clearer, maybe using the word tunneling, as the realms seem to be stacked on one another, and it could be understood as tunneling through realms to reach a certain destination. Though, I don't know if 'Realmology' really suffers of the same problem.

Also, "The persistence of the Nationguards was proven at the Battle of the Docks, although there wasn't enough mechanized support to cover the infantry from the Earth-Humans. Although only a few vehicles stayed behind…" You're repeating 'although' here, which sounds weird, maybe try 'Though…' or 'Despite the fact the that…' in place of the second one.

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"Do not sneer at the mad, their madness lasts longer than ours, that is all the difference."

Re: Crit Request: The Decades of Chaos: Second Welcoming (3.3k words)

JohnDoeMD 12 Mar 2026 16:32

1. It's set in stone that it's Transrealmology. I can't do anything about it.

2. I do have a problem with redundancy. Thank you.

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"Best not to think about it" is a morally grey defense for your writing.

Re: Crit Request: The Decades of Chaos: Second Welcoming (3.3k words)

Plilt 15 Mar 2026 15:16

Hey, sorry for the late reply.

Reading through, there's a few minor errors.

SPaG issues

They were eventually given an option to deny service,19 Though this option had many disadvantages tacked on, such as higher taxes and limited job opportunities due to the lack of citizenship, forcing them to serve the New Duke.

This should be

They were eventually given an option to deny service, though this option had many disadvantages tacked on, such as higher taxes and limited job opportunities due to the lack of citizenship, forcing them to serve the New Duke.

Politicians began peddling anti-Earth-Human propaganda, passing laws that put more pressure on Earth-Human soldiers, and even attempted to bring the Earthen Demilitarization Bill to Histan's high court, where it was vetoed 14-4.

"Vetoed" is the wrong way to phrase this; it refers to a single person refusing something. I think voted down would be more accurate.

Many radical groups quoted Fillik-the-Observant's Studies of Beyond; "Violence is second nature to an Earth-Human. Their entertainment programs are mostly centered on such matters, usually driving the plot of their stories in their favor. Their sports have two athletes engage in combat, expecting the audience to root for one athlete or the other. The most violent athlete always wins."

Studies of Beyond should have a colon following it, not a semicolon.

The hatred eventually whittled down to those who served under the United States in their Vietnam War, causing a massive buildup of pressure on said servicemen, which would cause them to spark the Nam Revolution, when almost 18,000 Earth-Humans would return the hostility to Yoren natives through deserting their posts and hiding out in the eastern Histan jungles, threatening to fire on anyone who entered their "property," though they made exceptions for the swathes of Earth-Humans following suite, increasing their jumbers to around 20,000.

Numbers, not jumbers.

Histan's government responded by deploying 22,000 Nationguards to the border, making extensive negotiations that slowly turned to threatening a military response.

I think "starting extensive negotiations that slowly turned to threatening a military response" flows better.

However, Histan's Nationguards would plead for surrender for so long until they moved to psychological distress to drive out the Earth-Humans.

This is worded awkwardly. Are the Histans essentially just trying to stall for time here?

SPaG aside, this seems largely serviceable. Histan's decision to not tell anyone else about the fleet's activities is incredibly stupid, though not unbelievably so. What strains belief more is that that no information on the fleet reached the Confederacy; even if the fleet's path didn't leak, surely information about the fleet's departure would have eventually.

I do think you should scratch any mention of importing military hardware from Earth. If they're doing it covertly, that raises absolutely massive questions that you don't answer. If they're doing it openly, they can just recruit mercenaries rather than bothering with the isekai trope of recruiting people who got hit by a bus. And it seems easier to train soldiers to use their equipment rather than rework their supply chains to build Earth-style military hardware; just have them learn to use levitators rather than helicopters.

Last edited on 15 Mar 2026 15:16 by Plilt Show more

Re: Crit Request: The Decades of Chaos: Second Welcoming (3.3k words)

JohnDoeMD 15 Mar 2026 17:22

(Jesus, was I high writing this?)

First, with that in mind, I think the most Histan would say is "Hey, the Federation is going north. They're probably gonna die there but arm yourself just in case they take a hard right." That'd set up at least a fair battle for when the Federation makes landfall.

Second, my take on importing hardware. There's a lot of 80's technology that stacks up evenly with current Yoren hardware (World War 3 occurs in that timeframe. I'll get to that when I get there, but it'll be a footnote for the current chapter.) Given that whoever dies in their APC/tank/chopper gets their vehicle sent with them, they should know how to commandeer it. It's better to just leave them with their vehicle than spend more time and money on training them to fly levitators and whatnot.

Trust me, there's a lot more planned for both worlds.

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"Best not to think about it" is a morally grey defense for your writing.

Re: Crit Request: The Decades of Chaos: Second Welcoming (3.3k words)

ObsoleteCorpse 26 Mar 2026 00:53

1. The lore is comprehensible, but at points the reader is told things that don't mean anything until later on. Whether or not this is intentional, the exposition could use better execution.
2. I would say the wording is too accurate to what your trying to replicate, it feels as though the (fictional) author is largely indifferent to the events of the story, leading to a lack of emotional investment. That said, there are points where the terminology is a bit too "Isekai" for me, but I get that that's part of what you're going for.
3. I didn't catch any plot holes myself, but I've only had a single read through.
4. Events are largely believable, but lack enough context/grounding to elicit a significant reaction from me. I'm a big fan of speculative fiction, but there are multiple points in the story where it feels you're pausing to explain something to me, rather than the fictional author to an in-universe reader.

Additionally:

• I'm not sure why this has to be split into dropdowns.
• "unprecedented scale not seen since…" is contradictory, if it was seen in the Sprout War then that's precedent.
• My many criticism is that it feels incomplete. There's a whole world out there with all these things happening and I don't have a clear enough picture, or a focused enough perspective, to ground myself in the events unfolding in the story. Something more like a journal or historiography, with notes and digressions building out the world would help (like in the The Journal Of Aframos Longjourney).

+SPaG

Many yigs were poured into research on many trans-realm transport methods, though all were in vain; the closest they got to true trans-realm transport was the Point Collider Gate, which ended an explosion killing 140 and injuring 1,275.

ended in an explosion

It was the fact that Histan was the first to conceive it that convinced the New Duke to begin a revival of Transrealmology, despite being denied funding from the League, whom was considering removing and court-martialing him for possibly bringing Earth-Humanity back to Yoren; this was ultimately voted against based on the New Duke being one of their largest donors.

who

It was a heavily argued-against plan among the League, but after Histans's top lawyers pleaded on the New Duke's behalf and another, unrelated donation14 went through, they wrote up extensive parchmentwork to regulate the use of Earth-Human combatants within the New Duke's army.

Histan's

Once the first Earth-Human militants were imported, it became apparent that their species was incredibly skiddish.

skittish

Edit: (I'm adding this edit because I don't think it came through in the post itself) I am intrigued by what's happening here, and would be interested in seeing it continued, I just think more could be done to establish the setting and a sense of pathos than what's here at the moment.

Last edited on 26 Mar 2026 00:57 by ObsoleteCorpse Show more

Re: Crit Request: The Decades of Chaos: Second Welcoming (3.3k words)

JohnDoeMD 26 Mar 2026 01:47

Alright, I've cleared up some context to lay things out better. Hopefully this isn't too complex/dumbed-down.

Some comments:

• A lot of the terminology, countries, and whatnot is common sense in-universe. I don't know how to convey that and explain what I'm talking about. That said, I'm willing to vaguely explain some things and include a map in future chapters.
• The problem with the accurate wording is that A. I just kind of write like that, and B. I can't put a lot of emotion into this regarding any side of the war because, the way I see it, almost every party involved is "the antagonist." The humans are violent, Histan is corrupt, the Confederacy is spineless, yadda yadda.
• The whole point of this is a satire of most modern isekai.
• A lot of the worldbuilding will be laid out as the novel goes on, but I'm avoiding drawing the attention away from the war,
• The dropdown deal is because there will be a lot of long chapters and I want a way for critters to quickly find one in particular.

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"Best not to think about it" is a morally grey defense for your writing.