Entry #22: Switch. · 4:25am Feb 8th, 2013
To my readers, I've got bad news, more bad news, and three pieces of good news.
The bad news is that Starman Ghost has deleted Not Alone from FIMfiction, due to personal reasons. It will be missed.
The other bad news is that as of this moment Conquer the Stars is on Hiatus untill I've written at least two more chapters of Friends of a Solar Empire.
The good news is that I've got something special for you guys planned. The other good news is that Friends of a Solar Empire will be coming out of hiatus shortly starting with a round of me suffering from George Lucas Syndrome editing, and I'll be working on that along with the aforementioned proyect. Stay tuned!
The other good news is that I've uploaded a PDF of Not Alone to mediafire. Here's the link.
ALL HAIL DALEK SUPREME DALEK IX
I was lucky enough to be pointed to Not Alone shortly before it was deleted, and downloaded a static copy for myself before it went. It's a damn good story - usually I can barely stand even the anti-conversion bureau stories because of how horrifyingly out-of-character the various ponies I know and love are almost universally portrayed, but something about this one was different. I guess it just grabbed me where most other stories with the same conceit didn't. Still, I can understand why he deleted it. Lord knows I wouldn't want anything even remotely related to the conversion bureau in my writing resume.
Looking forward to more Friends of a Solar Empire. Gotta get my Hard Science Fiction With Ponies fix from somewhere.
Ohhh you wrote Friends of a Solar Empire, I thought you died or something.
It's a shame Starman Ghost deleted Not Alone. What made it good is what Author-Man pointed out in his comment about ponies out of character in other stories. In this one it looked like a lot of ponies were unable to feel empathy (the full meaning) towards humans so they didn't understand what they were doing was evil. What kind of spoiled the effect thought was the end where we find out the Princesses lied to/hid from the other races about what they were doing. The whole grossly out of character thing is why I can't read Fallout Equestria stories.
I look forward to more Fims chapters but don't forget that Conquer the Stars needs some loving before I think you died again.
Ok, on giving that thread a little more read-through I'm gonna give you a little critique, whatever it's worth. I'm just gonna talk about what's in your first post there, because I'm sleepy. Also, if I say stupid stuff, it's totally because I'm sleepy. Also, editing is for people who aren't in semi sleep deprivation
While you're enthused by the idea, what I've look at (and there's too damn much for me to read everything, just giving a brief here) indicates that you might be letting the the awesomness overwhelm the actual telling this character's story. Apparently you're going to have the start of the story basically be Darth!Rainbow leading the Empire after Vader's death. And by 'leading the Empire' it's gonna be some kinda super-complicated political thing. Meanwhile Spectra's complicated backstory and character development (adopted daughter of freaking Darth Vader!) is basically gonna be just a prologue. And I don't even get where you might be going with Twilight's memory spell or whatever. It's cool to have a hundred ideas of cool stuff and try and fit them together, but you seem to have neglected that that's not gonna make an actual story. Take a step back and look at it as a story that you're figuring out the overall plot of, not a zillion little fiddly details about how Spectra's gonna negotiate with blue dude guy. Is this a parody of My Little Dashie? Is this a story about Darth Vader raising Dash as his adopted daughter? Is it the story of Dash leading the Imperial Empire? Is it the story of an evil Dash being confronted by her friends from an alternate dimension? At the end of the day, only one of these things will be your story and the rest will either be side plots or cut out entirely. Look at Friends of a Solar Empire. Yes, you've got multiple points of view and stuff flying around, but it's the overall story of your alternate Trade Coalition. Your protagonists are the Mane 6, but, uh... yeah, you know what I mean.
So just like, or example: Darth Vader finds filly Dash, and eventually adopts her and teaches her the force. That by itself, with no parody of My Little Dashie and with this RD never meeting any other Equestrians forever could be an awesome story. Cuz you know that Vader raising Dash is all the excuse you need would let you shuffle around the plot from the movies around and do crazy stuff because Pony. You can also try and ramp up the parody and do silly stuff with Star Wars. Or something else really. But what I'm seeing so far is that you kinda need to set a damn direction because... ok this is where I'd throw out logical arguments and stuff why shit don't work so well, but I'm falling asleep and I havent' read the entire thread anddddddddddddddddddddddddd fuck it I can't write any more. Just... if this hasn't been completely worthess waste of 20 minutes than I can totally talk more with my brain actually working, if you want me to. Just preten I'm a zombie pony writing this and that makes sense because stupid unexpresive text doesn't say it right.
Nooooooooo
Well not alone is not gone completely, it's still on Spacebattles.
Link: The Conversion Bureau: Not Alone
Edit: Oh and I see you have it on mediafire too.
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I only just remembered you posted here. I'm sorry about that.
The inspiration for that story (besides an image macro of the "Evil guy finds Dashie" meme) was the various criticisms that have been levelled at MLD. The narrator is poorly characterised and a rather poor excuse for a father, Dash is exactly the same as in canon, even though she's been raised by a different person, the pacing is terrible -- one moment we're reading about filly!Dash and the next she's an adult-- and as a result we really don't see her relationship with her dad and, in the end, he just folds like a wet noodle. There's also a complete absence of other characters.
Here though, she's been raised by Darth Vader. He won't immediately start calling her "daughter", that'll be something that will take some time. Dash, or rather, Spectra, will be recognisable as Rainbow Dash, but she won't be exactly the same. They'll have much of the same characteristics, but the way they express them will be different. There'll be more people involved, like some Stormtroopers Spectra has accompany her on missions, her squadron of TIE's, or other Imperials, but the focus will be Spectra and Vader.
Previously, I just wanted to have the story consist of what happened during the battle of Endor and its immediate aftermath, but I've changed it so that, instead, the main focus is... Well, Vader raising a technicolor pony.
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There's a reason I chose the username Derpmind. In between the little islands of transcendent genius I've got continents of stupidity clogging up everything. (The other reason is that I've always known that muffins are the best breakfast food ever.) I really shouldn't have said anything in that post (and I'd be surprised if any of it helped you at all.) You're a proven writer who already knows how to decide what you want to write and what to write. Doing the battle of Endor with Evil/Dash could totally have worked, and the most I should have said is that I think it's not the best idea in my humble opinion.
Oh jeez that post is embarrassing.
Despite the horrible psychological trauma you've given me from confronting my sleepier side, (jk) I still want to thank you for replying to an almost 9 week old post. I really look forward to you continuing Rule of Two and Friends of a Solar Empire, because <Insert (profuse) Compliments>