[Adventure] [Dark] All you crazy war fic lovers will probably like this one!
Author: Soaring Travels
Description: Feeling vulnerable due to the loss of her greatest magic, and besieged by discontent among the masses, Princess Celestia declares a state of emergency in Equestria. Amidst the chaos caused by this decision, the Mane 6 and the Canterlot Quartet are, each in their own way, drawn into the first war Equestria has seen in a thousand years.A Young Mare's War
An Armistice Aborted (New!)
Additional Tags: War, Long, Rebellion, Racial Conflict
41 comments:
Yay war!
ReplyDeletea 1 and a 5 alraedy? <_< troll? or is it actually bad?
ReplyDeletePasschendaele? Nice touch.
ReplyDeletewar huh? hmmm.. nah
ReplyDeleteit's rather long... hmm... nah... *goes back to watching Drawn Together*
ReplyDelete@wackypony
ReplyDeleteI am disappointed. Doesn't anyone read long things? F:E is already over a thousand pages and I've read all of it...
@Olivier 'LuaPineapple' Hamel
ReplyDeleteI think they like it more when the length is spread out over chapters, like FoE
Must we?
ReplyDelete"War comes to Equestria" is becoming almost as common a trope as "Twilight meses up a Spell," "Rainbow Dash breaks her wings," and "I am a Brony and I've been transported to Equestria."
What makes this one SO DIFFERENT that we should read it instead of one of the roughly 90 other warfics running around the internet?
@Dusty the Royal Janitor I dunno, maybe because it's written better than others? You can't read one and say you've read them all...
ReplyDeleteCommon themes are simply the endless fact. There is likely never to be a fic theme that I have never read somewhere else before. It's eternal, some more unique than others but they've been writing stories since written word was made and therefore every topic and idea has been around for quite sometime.
ReplyDeleteSo if something is war, twilight blows a spell, or a an apple/dash romance I'll not dismiss it just because it's common. Rather, the merits of how it is written, the characters, the pacing, and other factors rather than the commonality of the theme.
Okay, I gave it a chance. I don't really like "War in Equestria" stories, but I've been surprised before. Besides, the cover image just spells "This will be great, trust me."
ReplyDeleteI am left disappointed.
First, the good. The writing itself is technically pretty good. Some of the ideas presented are interesting as well.
And then we get two things I despise more than anything else: Tyrant!Celestia and pony racism played painfully straight. Both elements can work if given enough of a spin or flavor, but here they're played so straight it hurts. And as good as the writing is, if the story is not strong enough to carry the reader's interest, then the entire fic doesn't work.
So...2/5 from me. Sorry, it's a good fic, and I gave it my best shot, but I don't care for the subject matter.
War makes everything better
ReplyDeleteLike I think, Violence is never the answer, but it is an option
Nicely written, aside from a few grammatical errors here and there. Thoroughly enjoyable. I was a little disappointed, however, that it seems Applejack never finds out what happens to Big Mac.
ReplyDeleteYou can't dismiss a story for being about war in Equestria. That's like dismissing a story just because it's shipping. Sure, you might not like the genre, but it's not like reading one warfic means you've read them all.
ReplyDeleteA warfic can focus on any number of a long list of things. It can be an action story, it can be a character piece, it can be sad, bleak, or even comedy. Who are the protaganists/antagonists? How do they develop throughout the story?
It's not like being about war immediately shoehorns a fic into this narrow place along with all the other warfics. A warfic still has the space to do almost anything that it would if it weren't so.
So yeah, dislike it for the writing, or dislike it for war part, but don't dislike it because "It's been done before." It hasn't.
@Nyxilis
ReplyDeletePretty much this. Commonality is bound to happen. In fact almost nothing is truly original, humans have been telling fictional stories for thousands of years. Add to the fact that these are fan fictions we're talking and fan fics are constricted to a strict setting (unless they're crossovers).
It just so happens that Equestria is a very ambiguous polity. This allows for a great deal of free reign with political situations for authors to play with. Thus war fics are bound to occur. Because all stories need conflict, and war is perhaps the most grand of conflicts.
The writing is good--smooth, nice flow, good word choices--but the characterization seems off. In particular, Celestia suddenly getting all paranoid and attacking the Elements. Especially Rainbow Dash--she's the Element of Loyalty, wouldn't it make more sense for Celestia to try to get Dash to be a bodyguard or something?
ReplyDeleteAlso, I don't get why she'd bar earth ponies and pegasi from Canterlot. Surely unicorns are the most dangerous breed.
But, on the bright side, I looove Bon Bon's cousin, Jujube, and props for OATAWWA! I am always happy to see more pony-place-puns. I think this story DOES have a lot of potential, the set up just seems rushed.
I think it would actually work better as an alternate universe story, then a lot of these issues would't matter. You could just be like, "Celestia is a tyrant and when she failed to defeat NMM, six ponies stole the E of H from her treasury and defeated NMM themselves" and go from there.
Hey all,
ReplyDeleteI'm the author of this particular piece. It started out as a bit of a challenge from my younger brother, but it's quite the hobby for me now.
Thanks for all the comments, and for those of you who are wondering at a few plot holes and the like, I just want to inform you that I am working on a sequel. In a perfect world, this may span a trilogy of similar-sized stories. Any ideas put forward here in terms of plot holes or blatant issues i can get to, I'll address as time goes on.
To ladymoondancer in particular, the setup and causes, as well as the results of such a momentous power shift in Equestria, are expounded upon in the coming second part.
And for those of you wondering, yes, I'm French Canadian, hence the tribute to my compagnons via Bon bon, whose French-ish name was too hard to resist.
Cheers!
@Soaring Travels
ReplyDeleteLol, Oatawa.. nice :D
Wow, that was a damn good story and don't let anypony tell you otherwise!
ReplyDeleteOkay, I can agree with that, Tyrant Celestia felt a bit forced and the Earth pony racism too but to me, it was necessary for the story to function. there truly is no logical way for that to ever makes sense but what makes this story a 5 star amongst other things is the fact that I was utterly and completely sucked in to the end. The writing was very well written, no one felt OOC in anyway, and the imagery was very beautifully crafted. Maybe it's just me and my love for the grimdark but I could picture just about every scene in detail, almost like a movie. Wrap it all up in a gripping and glorious revolutionary plot and mmmmmmm damn good!
If you can stand violence and look past the awkward Tyrlestia and racism, then you should read this amazing slice of 5 star yumminess.
How does a person get a story featured on EQD? Is there somewhere to submit to Seth and staff for consideration? Or do you just have to upload it to FiM Fiction and hope for the best? [email protected]
ReplyDeletereading peoples comments and the synopsis I really have to read this story now, I guess ill add it to my ever growing "read it when I have the time" pile...
ReplyDelete@Unknown
ReplyDeleteAt the top of the page, there's a button labeled Submit. Just follow the instructions on that page.
Wow... that was so powerful. I just finished the story...
ReplyDeleteSummary:
Cry count:
3.
Epic moments:
20% more than infinity.
Great writing:
Check. Characters are solid, description is intense and just the right amount.
Entrancing:
I tried. No, really, I did. But after page 10, I just couldn't get away. I had to finish... all 65 pages drew me in so well, I just couldn't stop.
All in all: Five Stars. Five Diamonds. Five Cutie Marks. Certified Fresh. It's perfect, and a must-read.
Ok, not too bad a story, but it could have been better. I felt that there were quite a few OOC's, but maybe it's just me. Certain themes were rather... rushed, and the fact that the entire rebellion happened in only like what? Two days? Was rather peculiar. Also, it seemed like the author forgot certain characters, and some of the descriptions got rather hard to follow. Now, for good points, I liked the Thousand Yard Stares. They made Deep Brass and Fluttershy seem more in character, or atleast for Fluttershy anyway. I also liked the ingenuity of the rebels, and Pinkie's... terrifying attitude towards it all.
ReplyDeleteNot happy you killed off Luna so quickly though. Luna is my favorite D:<
All in all: 2.5 out of five. Not bad for a challenge, and pretty well written. Just needed some more... More, actually. Not enough was described in each character switch. Best of luck in your sequels, hopefully they'll get better with more time and experience.
@Foxbadger
ReplyDeleteGAH! Warn a pony before you drop something like that! I know I'm risking spoilerage flicking through the comments, but still!
(This comment is low yield, neutron free and sent in good humour. ie not a flame)
Man this story was amazing!!! I have never read 65 pages in one night at 4:00 am. This is one of my favorite reads ever. Celestia reminds me of Hitler and the fall of Berlin. This story changed my entire perspective on MLP FIM. I cannot look at Celestia, Mayor, etc without thinking of this story. For anyone who is reading this comment. IT IS WORTH READING!!! I WAS SUCKED IN COMPLETELY!!!!
ReplyDeleteSorry but Celestia going evil in this story is way too contrived (almost as bad as Blazing Glory contrived), although the rest of the story is better written and intelligent.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately if I can not get past the premise the entire plot is hinged on, it really doesn't matter how good the rest is.
Not giving this a negative rating since you didn't do anything especially messed up to the characters, but I can't recommend it either.
@DPV111 and those mentioning the premise,
ReplyDeleteHaha, I understand completely. At first it was supposed to be a five-to-ten page max kind of affair, so the start is a bit up and down. That's why I'm writing a sequel, which does try to address that issue. I hope it doesn't put you off too much, but I will be posting further on the subject in Part 2.
Which will be broken into chapters, for you poor folks who don't have a solid block of time to read this kind of thing in.
Had to take some time to think about how I felt about this story. I have to agree with much of the criticism written above. But after finishing the story a half an hour ago, I still haven't caught my breath! 5 stars just for that!
ReplyDelete(Going to hold you to part two,though.)
Hmm, I actually LIKED the fact that it was a solid block of text. When I read a long chaptered story, I tend to stop at a chapter and tell myself I'll continue reading the next day. And then I don't.
ReplyDelete(that's what happened with F:E and me; I stopped after 20 chapters or so).
On another note, I found this story to be so enthralling. I'll admit, it was the first warfic I've ever read, but I still enjoyed it. Some the the plotholes did seem a little off, but hey-I've never been in a war, so I wouldn't know. I think I enjoyed it so much because it wasn't like reading a fanficiton; more like, a history book, or even watching a movie.
All in all, I found the story very enjoyable. Props to the author (Soaring Travels)
Nice story, but there are two main problems with it that I have.
ReplyDeleteFirst: the references to Les Miserables. It was cute in the beginning, but when you (Soaring Travels) began blatantly ripping lines off in the /dialogue/, it got annoying. I get that it's a nice book/musical, and that you were maybe basing this story off of it, but they were put in so awkwardly that it completely distracted from the reading. There were plenty of other things to have the characters say that would have been much more fitting and emotional than quoting songs. Also, as an author, you have to remember that some people have no idea what Les Miserables is, and that those lines must have seemed very confusing--especially Octavia's 'dying speech', where she'd said nothing about rain or flowers previously.
Another problem is that the characterization and events were far too rushed. Celestia freaking out over one assassination attempt had my eyebrows raised--but declaring war? She's a leader of a thousand years! Tyrant or not, she's going to be smart, and she wouldn't do something as stupid and nation-crumbling as that. The quick transitions from 'never seen a gun' to 'going to kill that guy with this gun' were also a bit forced; it was made clear that these ponies barely even have a grasp of violence, and yet they become killing machines in hours.
I believe that spreading this story out, from Celestia's paranoia to the actual war, across several chapters would have been much better. A two-day war based off of a one-day decision is, unfortunately, completely unrealistic.
On the bright side, your writing is amazing. The descriptions were easy to read and the characters that you added in were unique and fun to read about. You just needed to space things out more and give room for character development.
Hope my critique helped!
@violinsymphony
ReplyDeleteIndeed it does. You know, I am enormously happy that somebody did pick up on the Les Mis references, and disappointed that it came out as it did. I had had it pointed out that my plan for the Canterlot side of the story resembled the story of Marius Pontmercy and his comrades, and somebody said "Hey now, what if you tied it in?" It's not elegant, granted, but I hadn't expected it to be considered particularly difficult to work through. It was kind of an afterthought to the work designed to fish for others who may catch it. I apologize for anything it took from the story, for it was just, as you say, me being "cute."
The question of characterization has come up often enough for me to realize that, honestly, I did a boo-boo, comme on dit, by aiming for a short story. What I have as material from the planning stage would fit a novel, in fact, if the next parts do come out despite my recent issues, it will fit a novel, but I should have accepted that from the start. Thank you all for pointing it out, and I'll be sure not to limit myself in the future.
Thank you for the critique, and everybody else, for that matter. I am working on a novel and have been for a while as a side-project to my actual work, so everything I'm learning here can do nothing but help.
Cheers!
@violinsymphony: The first point?
ReplyDeleteTHIS. This times like a thousand. D: It was awkward, jarring, and just plain nonsense half the time to have the Les Mis song lyrics thrown in. A few references would have been fine, but the way song lyrics and quotes were just grafted in there was like some sort of horrible word-Frankenstein gone wrong, or like Zecora had mysteriously infected everyone with forced rhyming.
I also agree that the transition from "just adding higher security because of NMM / Discord" to "SUPER FREAKOUT HOLOCAUST TIEMS ALL PONIES ANNOY ME SO I KILL THEM" Celestia was too fast and too unexplained. I get that you're saying it was supposed to be more of a shorter story (the movie Clue comes to mind - to make a long story short [too late!]) but honestly, there are things you can and cannot leave on the cutting room floor, and at least a little bit of a reason for Celestia's switch to psychopath is definitely something that should have been left in.
Same for the regular ponies. They go from "OMG what's violence? Violence bad! D:" to "Oh well. Time to become a crack shot rifle wielding maniac!" in the same whiplash fashion, and back again as well. It feels like (again, short story intentions vs how long it got) you just got tired of writing it at the end and hurried it along to the conclusion.
1/5. I don't mind warfics, but it must be well-written and well-designed, especially because there IS such a glut of them out there already.
I agree with a lot of the criticism here, and would like to offer an additional piece of it, although it might be too subjective to really count.
ReplyDeleteI get what you were trying to do with the themes, and the little epitaph at the beginning, but a lot of the potentially interesting aspects of the story were overshadowed by the cliched, OTT stuff with Clavio and Octavia and various other two-dimensional background ponies. I think focusing on the Mane Six/Elements would have made this a more effective story in general; Fluttershy and Rarity get like one scene, and while it might be the climax, there was literally no build-up to their involvement. You might as well have sidelined them completely.
The same goes for the Guards all dropping their weapons. An alleged theme of this novella was the horror of it being a CIVIL war, of the Ponies destroying themselves, but so much of this was lost in the Les Mis digressions and...Clavio Sue, I guess. In the end, it felt like you got tired of writing the story and just wanted to end it without really addressing what you set out to address in the first place. (Which I've actually done before, and learned from. For the record.)
That said, your descriptions of battle are rather impressive, and some of the ideas here are brilliant, like Pinkie Pie's confetti bombs and Rainbow Dash's brief moments of awesome. There's a LOT of room for improvement, but there's also enough promise in your writing to convince me that you are capable of giving us something awesome in the future.
2/5.
Jesus. I read all of it. Almost wanted to kill Travels for killing off Octavia, but she came back. Thanks Travels, now I have to put the knife back!
ReplyDeleteAnyway, it's a touching story.
10/10.
-FlyFFSky
Note: Reading the last part with music can change the mood hugely. Try this song, it teared me up when I read along side it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9oPqxoGzorI
Haha, the point about music is actually brilliant, since I did the whole thing to a collection of ambiance tunes depending on what mood I intended to convey. Anyway, I just wanted to announce that the second part is halfway done, but has been postponed for a number of personal reasons. I still intend to get it out, for those of you who are interested, though. Thanks,
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteReading the criticisms, I must say that I agree with at least a few of them. The Les Mis references were lost on me (except for directly mentioning the name), so I can't say I minded them at all.
ReplyDeleteI read this in one shot, with only a small break for dinner. I must say, I was captivated the entire time, and I just kept on going. I didn't even realize how long it was until I was 30 or so pages in and I saw the little footnote.
My biggest complaint is that the ending seemed a bit rushed, from the point where the guards threw down their weapons onward. I knew there was going to be a Flutterrage moment just from the nature of tghe story, and I was all "\o/" when it came, but then I kinda went "huh" when that one thing caused all the guards to surrender. That includes wrapping up each of the characters, I feel it was rushed.
I had no problem with the transition from peace-loving ponies to killers, even in such a short time. When you're in a war, you can't take weeks to adjust, it needs to be done in the blink of an eye. I thought you showed the brutality of war quite well, including the psychological effects, even in the difference in how they adapted. For example, Cheerilee being bloodthirsty, Twilight being hesitant but willing, and Fluttershy doing the Thousand-Yard Stare, as someone else called it. Even Pinkie's deadly innocence.
I also wished that you told us what happened with Big Mac, but since it's heavily implied, more how Applejack would react to it. She didn't really seem worried at the end about him, compared to, say, Rarity and Fluttershy.
Final thing is the timeline. The whole thing taking place over... Three days at most? Seemed a bit off.
Overall, I must say I enjoyed it a lot, and with polish, could be even better than it is. 4/5 from me.
Oh, one other thing I left out. I loved some of your descriptions, specifically where you described Applejack as acting instead of reacting. Being a fighter (martial arts tournaments, not a soldier), I found that to be extremely accurate, that you can't stop and think, you have to feel and keep acting. You described it extremely well.
ReplyDeleteGood...very good...This is one of the best written war fics I've read in a while.
ReplyDelete-Bloodpool (Resistentia est inutilis)
Is this on FimFiction yet? I don't touch Google Docs unless forced to.
ReplyDelete