Dawn of a New Era: How not to write science fiction! · 2:00am Mar 14th, 2013
And yet another author has blocked me for offering valid criticism of his shoddily-constructed story! Well, as you know by now, I despise cowards who can't handle legitimate issues being raised with their little works of self-described genius, so now I shall brutally massacre this dull-witted tale.
In this tale, which is weakly copied from several other, much better-plotted Pony stories of exactly the same idea, we are supposed to believe that the Earth is once again 'teh doomed' and humans have to blast off where no man has gone before to find a new home. And they find Equestria.
Ok, there are ways to make this work. As I mentioned, there are already plenty of tales where ponies meet humans from space, some of which pull it off quite well. This story is not one of them.
Firstly: The Earth being 'teh doomed'. WHY the Earth is doomed isn't yet explained in the story, which is mistake #1. You do not tell the audience that someone's planet is doomed, and then give no reason for it right up front. That just makes it look like you don't actually have a good reason and you're hiding the giant plot hole as long as you possibly can. There's no other reason not to give such a critical plot point, unless you're setting up an adventure in which there is a mystery surrounding the cause. With my typical mental manipulation, I got the author to spill the beans. Alas, the cause of 'teh doom' is pointlessly ill-conceived. The reasons given are not conceptually sound, nor are they well thought out as a doomsday scenario. In fact, it sounds like the author took that stupid apocalypse movie from a couple years ago seriously. What the hell was that dumb movie's name? Oh yeah, "2012". Basically global warming and nuclear fall out doom mankind. Ok, no. That may have worked in the 1960's when hippies ruled the world and everyone feared MAD, but not today.
Man-made global warming will never conceivably destroy life on Earth. Earth has been MUCH warmer than it is now many times in the past and life didn't really give a crap. Will there be tough times as the climate shifts and oceans rise, changing coastlines and vanishing islands beneath the waves? Sure. But that's mainly because current human civilization has made itself very inflexible, and still keeps building cities by the sea, even though we know it's a bad idea. But humanity will not die out cuz New Orleans and The Netherlands flood. Potheads will no doubt be depressed, but they'll find room in California.
Nuclear fall-out. Ok, assuming all-out nuclear war, the majority of the human population would be wiped out. BUT, that pretty much wipes the slate clean for the survivors. In a few centuries, the most radioactive isotopes will have decayed to barely detectable levels. Don't forget, the Bikini Atol, the site of the highest-yield nuclear detonation by the USA... IS NOW HABITABLE. And that was less than a century ago. The decimated human population will not have had near enough time to repopulate to pre-kaboom levels before the radiation is mostly gone. So, no reason to migrate there either.
PLUS, one little GIGANTIC logic flaw: If the human population crashes, and all the cities got asploded, THEN ALL THE GREENHOUSE GAS PRODUCTION WOULD CEASE!!! Thus, NO GLOBAL WARMING!!! In fact, nuclear war would tend to create global cooling due to high-altitude dust reflecting sunlight. BUT, an iceage could be counteracted by... wait for it... PRODUCING MORE GREENHOUSE GASSES!! The two concepts directly contradict each other causally! Thus the entire justification for mankind having to move in the first place falls completely apart!
Also, the story notes that humanity somehow retains enough technology to build temporary habitation to house ALL REMAINING HUMANS on local planets (I'm assuming Mars, since that's not spelled out). Firstly, that either means there aren't too many, or the technology is VASTLY superior to what we have now! Well, duh, they have interstellar space travel. Oh wait... why don't they apply some of that incredible technology that they use to provide clean atmosphere for the habitats to, maybe kinda-sorta, START CLEANING THE EARTH'S ATMOSPHERE!!!?? Might make a wee bit of sense to try that before committing massive amounts of resources and energy to travel hundreds of light years away.
Instead of this ridiculous set-up, something unusual but not out of the realms of implausibility could have filled everything in without any need for deeper explanation. For example: "Our older physics totally miscalculated the age and hydrogen burning rate of our Sun. It was already expanding. In less than 10,000 years, our planet would be too hot to live on." That would've led to a bit of head-scratching, BUT it is not utterly outrageous to consider as a valid reason. Or, if you wanted to add some later intrigue and mystery the ponies could help solve, you could say that no one knows why the Sun began to expand so soon, that it should have had hundreds of millions of years left. Then you have a hook, a mystery the reader is drawn to out of curiosity, knowing that this strange and impossible event will have a greater significance later on and become a integral part of the plot.
But alas, there is nothing of the sort. It's a dull, witless rationale which manages to pull itself apart with conflicting causal conditions.
So, there is no logical, plausible reason given for the basic motivational force behind anything that happens. This is weak point #1 of... about a gazillion.
Next, the dumbest scientists of all time are on that ship. Being a scientist myself, I found their stupidity and lack of any knowledge of the scientific method and even the mildest of safety concerns particularly teeth-gratingly obnoxious and unpalatable.
They found out about a planet that looks habitable! Obviously, they either had a probe or another ship visit it briefly. When they get there, they are suprised to find life! They then analyze the atmosphere and discover it's much like Earth's! *INSERT LOUD RECORD SCREECH* Da fuq? You mean, they never bothered to analyze this mysterious alien planet before going there? They just said, "Oh lookie, a planet! Maybe we can live there!" and then just showed up? No probes to check the atmosphere BEFORE they sent a great big ship full of people? What if this thing was covered in acid clouds? What if the atmophere was methane and hydrogen sulfide? What if it had intense surface radiation due to naturally high radioisotope deposits? What if it was too hot for human life? Detailed analysis of a potential world BEFORE going there is such a basic concept, only an utter moron could manage to avoid thinking of it. And the shock at finding life. Uhm... the initial discovery somehow missed the IMMENSE, LUSH FORESTS covering large areas of the habitable land?
We also find out that they manage to map the entire planet and somehow completely miss Pony cities... *INSERT LOUD RECORD SCREECH #2* DA FUQ?! Ok, our little ol reconnaisance satellites can find a single pumpkin in a farmer's field, and I'm expected to believe they didn't see ONE SINGLE SIGN of civilization on this entire planet even after orbiting the damn thing? HELLOOOOOOO??? City lights on the night side? We know Manehatten has lights on at night! Not to mention, ponies have some rather sizeable cities. They'd be IMPOSSIBLE to miss unless you were actively trying!
And now, the landing. Yes, that's right. After finding an alien planet, clearly teeming with UNKNOWN ALIEN LIFE... they just plop down right in the midst of a forest. No probes to scout the area, no checking the microbiome for potential deadly parasites or anything. Just plop right on down and walk around. But don't worry, says the author, they have space suits! And their cleaning equipment is really good! Yeah... no. No one in their right mind would land on an alien world when they have no idea what lives there. They have guns... what if the larger life forms are bullet-proof? What if they're too fast to hit? What if there are swarms of little carnivorous things that attack by the thousands? What if a few hitch-hike back somewhere on the scout ship? Hell, what if one single, highly resistant microbe of pathogenic persuasion manages to get aboard? NO ONE WITH ANY SHRED OF SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE WOULD EVER DO THAT!!!! When entering an alien environment, you do so with EXTREME caution, simply because you have no idea what's a threat. So you assume that everything is and you make sure you know all you can via unmanned probes before so much as stepping a toe on the surface. Just look at everything that led up to the moon landing, and all the caution and biosafety measures taken when the first astronauts returned from there. And that was on a ball of rock we were already pretty sure was lifeless. But we weren't ABSOLUTELY sure... and the SCIENTISTS in charge took no chances.
Even assuming they didn't give a crap about the life on Equestria and just let our germs run amok, killing everything and everypony, the risk they took to themselves was absurdly stupid and shattered every single shred of believability.
Then, take these points of blatant stupidity... and try to rectify that with the fact that these are the same people who managed to build a sleek, super-advanced interstellar space vehicle capable of FTL travel... something we currently cannot even begin to attempt as we have no idea how (other than a hypothesis that warp fields may actually be plausible if we can create an exotic matter torus around the ship and turn half a ton of matter to energy each second the field is in operation)... As the filthy Mr. Plinkett of Redlettermedia's "Star Wars" prequel reviews is fond of saying in his slurred monotone, "IT DOESN'T MAKE ANY SENSE!!" Well, he also likes to say, 'WHAT'S WRONG WITH YOUR FACE?!", and "WHO'S F%$#ING WITH MY MEDICINE?!" but neither of those phrases really apply here.
The first pony introduced is at first seemingly just an animal from how its basal instincts and primitive actions are described, as though it is little more than a slightly anthropomorphized depiction of a simple alien animal. You know what I mean, something like this: The lion sniffed the air, detecting the odd scent of the unfamilar two-legged prey. It didn't recognize tham as those prey it hunted, and so it hid in the shadows out of sight until it could better tell if the things were to be hunted or feared. You see, that type of description is what is used for the pony, when it clearly indicated a non-sapient animal But then later the pony suddenly can think cognitively and tries to run to Canterlot. It presents an uneven and dissonant description of the pony's 'inner mind' to the reader, yet another contradiction within the story. It's one thing to have the human characters in the story see the pony as only an animal at first and perhaps misinterpret its actions and be unable to understand it in any reasonable fashion, but to confuse the readers on a point that should be unambiguous from the get-go ruins the immersion in the scene. We first think, "Oh, the ponies here are non-sapient." And then suddenly we're thrust back into the FiM canon pony world. The first impression slams headlong into the later reality, with no justification. When an author gives the reader a view into a character's head, it MUST be an accurate depiction of the character's state of mind, whether true or the product of a character's madness or emotional state. They cannot be an instinct-driven beast in one paragraph, and then a sapient entity a short time later. Even the author's title for the pony, designating the pony in its own self-identification as 'it' rather than he or she, dehumanizes the character right off the bat. It's a terribly handled introduction.
Meh... that's all I can stand. The story just breaks apart on so many levels, I can't bear to talk about it anymore. Even from a writing standpoint it feels stale and amateurish. It suffers from the typical over-descriptive expositions, basically giving little character bios for everyone as they come 'onscreen' for the first time, rather than letting the details of each person emerge more subtly over time, and through melding with important character actions as a more experienced writer knows to do.
It's depressing to see such obviously poor stories being featured when so many far-better works languish in obscurity.
Hey, it's science fiction, it could happen.
916770 You liked "Prometheus", didn't you... *sharpens axe*
916807
Never saw it, I just know it's a prologue for Aliens.
HISHE made me laugh my ass off when they did that movie.
A wizard did it?
Sounds like a lot of basic common sense and forethought was missing from this story. It's a nice premise, but having read almost no HiE stories, it's new to me. I have to wonder what a competently done story along those lines would be like? Hey, I just thought of this: what if he was being avant gard (I'm almost sure I misspelled that one...)?
Another story I'm glad I never took an interest in.
916862 There was one I was following that did the idea rather well. It had a few failings, but none that were so agonizingly obvious that they came screaming off the pages to rape my mind.
It hasn't updated in months, though. It's a shame. It was one of only a very small handful that handled the idea space-faring humans discovering Equestria reasonably well.
Now, a story that I've just read which is utterly magnificent is: http://www.fimfiction.net/story/65936/1/the-celestial-mechanics-in-midsummer/the-celestial-mechanics-in-midsummer
What a breathtaking slice-of-life tale it is! It's simply beautiful, so poignant, deftly touching the heart and mind with subtleties of tone and tambe. It's a song spun from golden melodies. A work of art painted with words.
916862 I'd be interested in hearing your opinions of "The Watcher" http://www.fimfiction.net/story/91273/the-watcher
It won't take long to read. It's currently less than 14,000 words.
I found it... quite absurd. And one of the most out-of-place, OP 'human' characters with one of the most outrageous backstories I've ever seen.
The bland, god-mode Stu character aside, I'd like to see if you can spot the serious plausibility flaws I found.
Sounds like a train wreck just from the front page. Also this line from the description: "Now, for the first time in eons, he steps from watching and takes action," bodes poorly. If someone can't be bothered to use proper grammar and spelling in the description, I usually pass it by entirely.
I'll give it a look-through, but right now, I'm in the middle of reading a good story, Dashie's Foaling. I'll keep you appraised when I get around to it, hopefully within the next couple of days. 
980701 There's another featured story from the same author, this time about a gnoll in Equestria.
And it's the same thing. We're just plopped right into the gnoll being in the Canterlot library and everypony seems to know what a gnoll is. Things happen with no introductory material at all.
The characters are, once again, mere cut-outs of the canon with nothing to give them life within the story's narrative.
Why do people keep liking such things? Has reading comprehension truly slipped this far? I lament the state of education.
980701 Oh Celestia... my poor poor brain..
Try to make it through the first chapter of this: http://www.fimfiction.net/story/40334/the-secret-life-of-rarity
My god, the things that are so utterly wrong in just the first chapter...
Rarity is just starting school, she instantly kills 3 bullies after day 1, somehow manages to hide everything, and then decides to take medical training and psychology classes... IN GRADE SCHOOL. Her first year of grade school, mind. To help her become a better serial killer... which she had decided she likes after being an innocent, happy filly just 24 hours previously.
WHAT THE #*^(@#^($&^(@#^*()$#&(^*()$&@(*^$*(^#(^#(*^_(*$&#)$&@)(@%$*&#^ WITH A GODDAMN PIG IS THIS CRAP?!
And it just goes downhill from there. And yes, despite being a stone-cold killer, she somehow manages to become the Bearer of the Element of Generosity. In spite of the ABSOLUTE selfishness of murder for her own benefit/amusement. I think ancient talismans of incredible magical powers can tell the difference between a pony's REAL character and the delusional self-justifications of a criminally insane psychopath.
Dear, Sweet Celestia, that sounds horrid. I simply must drop everything to read that train wreck. //dl.dropbox.com/u/31471793/FiMFiction/emoticons/misc_Octavia_O_O.png
Just finished the first chapter of The Secret Life of Rarity, and I have to say that I am impressed. It takes a pretty oblivious person to not actually think things through enough to realize that the premise alone will not work without the AU tag. How could the Elements of Harmony choose her after all that?
Obviously, the Rarity in this story is not a child, but an adult somehow passing herself off as a child. A very disturbed adult. They say that there is nothing more cruel than a child's innocence, but even a child would realize that what she did was wrong. They would feel some sort of fear of discovery if nothing else. A child wouldn't be that thorough at cleaning up the evidence either, especially a kindergartener, which is what is implied in that story.
And what is up with that creek? If it was far enough in the woods that no one would hear those ear-piercing shrieks of terror and pain, then why would a teacher send Rarity out there in the first place? Especially if it's close enough for Timberwolves to come out and eat dead bodies found there (not even going to get into whether or not magically animated bits of plant material eat animal flesh).
Finally, what is up with ripping off Gollum? If you want to include something like that, fine, I can deal with it, but it takes time for MPD to manifest. It doesn't happen in an afternoon. It doesn't just spontaneously appear like that. There will be warning signs all over the place before that happens. Unexplained blackouts, missing time, environment not as you left it, people remembering conversations with you that never happened, the list goes on. Of course, I'm no psychologist, but it would seem to me that there would be some warning signs. Ugh.
I'm going back to finish up Dashie's Foal. If I want dark stories, I'll stick with competantly executed dark stories; stories like Blade, thank you very much. Sorry, I was just watching Cinema Snob earlier.
992961 The saddest part about it and its TWO sequels is how many likes vs dislikes they've received.
I hate to say it (since I'm actually a furry, but rather disgusted by the sick parts of the fandom) but Pony has at last crossed the line into the dark depths of the furry fandom.
It was one thing when such stories were around, but always received mostly negative response. But now that they're getting 90%+ positive, it indicated the freaks are taking over.
I'm not so sure that it indicates a trend towards the darker. I think that as the fandom grows, and more and more people find it, stay, and write stories; the total number of people within it grows, and people who gravitate towards that... genre will find them, while those of us who don't, don't even bother looking for them, so that there is a cycle of self-perpetuation (wow, that was a long sentence!). There is a higher percentage of likes to dislikes because of that. When the site was smaller, it was easier to find just about any story because there was only so many to leaf through; but now that it's grown this far, you could just go through romance stories alone and find plenty to read without having to sift through other genres as well.
I'm not as disturbed by this as much as I am by the fact that people find such poor writing to be the heights of literature. One called it Dexter with ponies, another called it fucking genius, another simply asked:
Wut? ::rubs eyes and reads again:: Whut? Ugh.
Seriously? What the hell does he think a story is? A story is a series of events! I just... Augh! Clearly, the problem here is that it was written by a gorehound for gorehounds. I don't mind dark, and I don't mind gore, but the few requirements of any story I read is that it is 1) coherently written, 2)believable within the source material's context (or even its own), and 3)enjoyable to read. Failing one of the first two I can maybe live with, but failing both of them is gonna make me lose number 3 altogether. This one didn't even need to lose two of them. It broke number 2 so bad that I lost 3 right off the bat. Funny side note, your comment there got 6 downvotes. I gave it an upvote just to see if the author would read it and try to improve. Don't hold your breath.
I too, am a furry, but never really connected with the fandom. I was what you might call a "fringer", nibbling away silently on the edges, taking here and there, never getting much further than browsing through and collecting yiff. I always shook my head at fursuiters, wondering what they could see in it, especially since most of it appears to involve gay male sex (SO not my cup of tea). If it's not too personal, may I ask who turned you furry? For me, it was Gadget Hackwrench from Rescue Rangers.
998280 Well, I always thought animal characters and non-human intelligent creatures were interesting, in the same way anthropologists find other cultures fascinating.
And then I realized they could be sexy too.
It was win-win for a while!
Then it became about nothing but teh gey all the time, with very little intelligence or creativity. The majority of the furry drama stories now are about how one character or another feels 'persecuted'. The rest are poorly written sex and/or gore. I gave up on the stories entirely, as I hadn't found a good one in half a year, and trying to sift through the mountain of crap became too time-consuming.
I'm seeing the same issue arising here: more and more mediocre and ever poor stories are being featured, often for extended periods, while extremely good tales either don't ever make it (in spite of having higher ratings than the featured tripe many times!) or are only up for a day or less.
Also annoying are the features that pop up after only a single short chapter that has received less than 50 views appears. It smacks of ratings manipulation and favoritism, even if it's an unintentional consequence of the system's flaws (which I doubt). I have always said there should be a higher minimum of ratings before a story can be featured. It's too easy for someone these days to get enough of their Facebook friends to like their story without even actually reading it and thus trick the system.