Signal boost: Curious Incident (or, "Fimfic Needs A Sci-Fi Tag") · 11:27pm Feb 17th, 2014
Fellow RCL curator Bradel just dropped a new story on the site putting together two things that are joined not nearly enough: ponies, and the high-tech spacefaring civilizations secretly spying on them.
The Curious Incident of the (Robot) Dog in the Night-time has a lot to recommend it, even if you're not a fan of Iain M. Banks' "The Culture" series. (If you are, you'll catch the in-jokes I missed.) It's worth reading just for the brilliant recontextualization of the fanon habits of two of everyone's favorite background ponies, but it's also witty; surprisingly accessible in its technical descriptions and future jargon; and laugh-out-loud funny in several spots.
It's disappointingly rare to see science-fiction stories on FIMFic — aside from the wretched featurebox-bait "Luna meets Earth astronauts on our moon" trope — but despite that, the signal/noise ratio of SF stories is remarkably high. My favorites list is studded with SF crossovers and space operas all out of proportion to their prominence on the site. And since there's not a sci-fi tag I can point you at, instead I'll have to gush about the stories I've loved:
When you're done with Bradel's new story (seriously, stop and read it), there's a wealth of awesome crossovers out there. My favorites, alas, are all incomplete and possibly abandoned, but they'll all catch your brain afire with ideas. Proceed to Eclipse Phase: Dreamcatcher if you want high transequine drama (and/or know the Eclipse Phase setting). For something a little more mainstream, Fyre-Flye is a marvelous Firefly crossover which merges the best parts of both sources. The Sixth Age: Ponies plus Shadowrun. I haven't (yet) read midnightshadow's Out and About in the Equestrian Kingdom (ponies plus Cory Doctorow's post-scarcity novel), but it looks awfully promising. And if you want to wade straight into WTF levels of crossover, there's even Friendship Is Giant Robots, which is ponies plus Bliss Stage (!).
Two longer, complete works: Karazor's Outside The Reaching Sky isn't a crossover with anything in particular (I think there's some Battletech nods in there?), but it's grand space opera with military conflict and personal drama. I also personally love terrycloth's Space Captain Pinkie Pie, a comic adventure about an Equestrian moon exploration mission, though its whimsical tone (and gratuitous furry OCs) may turn some readers off.
Some not-as-futuristic cases, all magnificent: The Pony Fiction Vault-honored Friendship is Optimal (and the 'verse it spawned) is more "day-after-tomorrow Earth" than "space ponies", but it's got a lot to say about computers, virtual worlds, and AI, and really opens up at the end into speculative territory. My nemesis' magnum opus Mortal, while primarily a story about the ethical struggles of immortality, takes a similar turn to the transequine at the end. Skywriter's Contraptionology! has a glorious Van de Graff/steampunk aesthetic, with mad science the order of the day. And Horse Voice's The Writing On The Wall is stealth sci-fi (I can't say more without spoiling it).
(Oh, and the recently updated My Harshwhinnial is clearly sci-fi, because it has a helicopter that's also a moon. It is so awesome as to make your brain bleed. That's why it has so many red votes. Blood on the up-arrows.)
What other good sci-fi is out there? Share more recommendations in comments.
You had my attention at
I'll have to check that out. If I could write anything and have it published, hard sci-fi is what I would write. Hard sci-fi ghost stories.
Ooh, I just got a new follower earlier today from the story, who was talking about how cool he thought it was that we were doing sci-fi crossovers. I need to point him at this blog post!
Also thanks, for the very helpful pre-reading and the signal boost!
I'll throw my own First Contact is Magic into the mix. That offer of a commissioned one-shot for helping me find the story I based it on and then forgot is still up for grabs, by the way.
How does this List not include Admiral tiger claws' arrow 18 mission logs?
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Worthwhile reading. I was just afraid that if I mentioned your story up front it would be too big an ego boost, and you'd start getting a swollen head.
…
Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go back to work on my novel-length love letter to your fanfic.
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You mean Arrow 18: Lone Ranger? Simple: because I hadn't yet run across it. I shall remedy that!
I just did a not so quick search through my favorites list for some more good Sci-Fi stories to recommend.
Awakening: A pony marooned on an ice planet finds something lost 10,000 years ago when Equestria sank into the sea. Transistance: Luna fights a court battle against Empress Celestia for the right of sentient machines. Directive: Grow is FiM, but in a freaking awesome digital universe. Unfortunately Directive: Grow hasn't been updated since October 2012, but what is there is excellent. Pony Legacy: It's the Tron crossover. Darring Do and the Shiny Crystal: Pure awesomeness. Our First Steps: Ponies crossover with our real life Space Program. Project Sunflower: Earth is being eaten slowly by nanomachines, so when humans find Equestria they investigate with a human-turned-pony.
And last but best: P-Theory
fimfiction-static.net/images/story_images/76626.jpg?1382268359
fc00.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2013/013/c/c/equestria_by_balthasar999-d5rcf9a.jpg
It's trippy awesome and the author illustrates it with many epic pictures like the above.
You forgot Project - Sunflower, a touching story of first contact, nanobots, and the probability that Earth will have to be evacuated to Equestria.
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1847051 GAH! I've been meaning to read project Sunflower for SOOOO long! (And Hard Reset, and End of Ponies, and Harmony Theory, and Flight of the Alicorn, and about 800 other stories.
Days of Wasp and Spider opens with the creation of the universe, then goes to the mare who will become Celestia being ordered to act as half of a particle accelerator. Every pony is an alicorn, Diamond Dogs rule the world, and Clarke's Third Law is in full effect. It's kind of awesome.
I'll second the recommendations for Project Sunflower and Arrow 18. They're both fanfics of the highest quality.
Yes, Outside The Reaching Sky is influenced by Battletech, along with one or two other sources I can't find any info on. The influence is a lot more apparent in The Dread Chitin, which it's a sequel to (and which I also highly recommend reading, if you haven't already).
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Drop everything and read these ASAP. You won't regret it. Also, be sure to read Lone Ranger's companion piece Arrow 18 Mission Logs: Sparkle's Notes, which is excellent as well.
A few more stories I strongly suggest reading, which aren't exactly sci-fi but have the same sort of feel, are Twilight Makes First Contact and Celestia Sleeps In, along with the latter's sequel Onto The Pony Planet and companion piece Pony Planet: Side Stories. And be sure to read the linked blog posts for the Celestia Sleeps In series too, since they detail a lot of the research and information that went into writing the stories.
Love me some good sci-fi ponies. Saw this post, and was instantly thinking. "Oh, I've got his great Culture crossover to mention." Then I read the post, and saw it was about another Culture/Pony crossover. Awesome!
Anyway, check out Outside Context Problems as well. Incomplete, but ongoing. Well written so far, and does a pretty good job of capturing the tone and style of The Culture.
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Thank you for the recommendations! I'm queuing these up to read in my not-writing-Hard-Reset-2 time.
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Super late to the party, but I'm putting down The Koprulu Sector. It's an amazing crossover with Starcraft in the same way Fo:E is a crossover with Fallout. Unfortunately, the story will never be completed since the author isn't around anymore.
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Thanks! It's good to feel like this list both has some permanence and some continuing relevance. I'll add it to the queue.
And the size of my read-later collection grew 26.436781609195402298850574712644% this day!
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Huzzah!
Of course, this post is almost four years old, and your sci-fi choices have gotten even more glorious since then! Heck, I myself wrote a Stainless Steel Rat crossover in the meantime, and I remember signal-boosting Chuckfinley's Vance/Howard/Bradbury love letter Luna, Princess of Space when it came out.
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Oh, THAT!!
The Iridecent Iron Rat was one of the first fics I read when I came to this site!
It's Awesome!
On the other two, the second looks a little nonsensical for my tastes, but it seems to be good training for trying to comprehend some of skirt's stuff. The first looks too short.
EDIT: I found a link to this blog post whilst reading The Curious Incident by Bradel, posted by Bradel himself. Which I found from a SA blog post.
Fractals man.
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Glad you enjoyed!
Feel free to speak up if there are other greats worth adding retroactively to this post's list! I'm always a fan of good SFF myself.
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Okay, here we go.
So I made the whole list, and now I realize you probably want something a bit more refined than any story that seems remotely sci-fi that happens to be in my favorites. SO here is a culled list.
Luna, Princess of Space by Chuckfinley link
)
Outside Context Problems by Ponisattva link (another Culture fic)
Of Enterprising Men and Ponies by tom117z link (and the first book...)
Harmony Among the Stars by tom117z link (Time+Star Trek)
Legacy by NFire link (Xover with Bolo!)
Message in a Bottle by Starscribe link (Xover?)
Andromeda by Copernicus link
H'ven Sent by otherunicorn link (
Starbound by Rytex link
Cyberfire by Android link
Cobalt Blue by sunnypack link
Awakening by solocitizen link
The Moon's Apprentice by Forthwith link
QC may be required.
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Much obliged! That's given me some stories to queue up.
Headed to a con tomorrow but I'll try to remember to link this from a blog in the near future.