can someone open up this .fla and tell my why they think it isnt working…
theres the wierd little chain thing doesnt start from the right spot and i dunno how to fix that
ehmm … yeah … where’s the fla? 
wow… that would probably help
why don’t you use for loops ??
for (init; condition; next) {
statement(s);
}
ie.
for (i=0; i<10; i++) {
duplicateMovieClip(particle_mc, "particle"+i+"_mc", i);
}
and everything seems fine to me … ?? :-\
if you mean that the original particle_mc doesn’t move at all … it’s because it’s not included in your code.
i’d say place it out of the stage or set its _visible property to false 
particle_mc._visible = false;
hope it helps =)
