Fanfiction Reading Update #175 · 9:30am Dec 6th, 2017
Advisory: contains unmarked spoilers to Before the Storm: Rise of Firefly.
So much for doing a Halloween reading update. The gap has been caused by two things: my mom sleeping ten feet away from where I sit when I read and write (which has killed the ability to do both), and today's fanfic that's being reviewed, which is 300,000 words long and took two weeks to read and another two weeks to write the review, eating up the time I would have spent on spoopy oneshots.
The Lunar Rebellion updates with a surprisingly tame chapter given a metaphorical nuke was detonated in the last chapter. There's no descriptions of ponies slowly burning to death or anything. Just a couple passing mentions of burnt skeletons. Oh, and Celestia and Shadow finally have sex.
The New Life of a Winning Pony updates with a quite surprisingly rapid resolution to the Keystone Pipeline subplot. Either there's more going on, or the author realized Fluttershy was acting too stupidly to drag on for another three chapters. Probability of Storm dying horribly: 10%.
Masters of the Enemy, the story that inspired >Dat Hivemind, stuns the world by updating for the first time since Twilight canonically became an alicorn. I'll freely admit to having forgotten most of the story in the four year gap but was able to get back up to speed pretty quickly. Let's just hope it doesn't fade back into the ether.
As anyone who's been reading these things for any amount of time can tell, I'm a fan of The Lunar Rebellion. I've been reading it for years—to the point I've forgotten large chunks of the early story. I love the war, the politics, and the setting. And I can't wait to bitch about Shadow and her lack of character flaws when I write the review for it when it finally finishes at the end of the year.
So imagine my surprise when, in a search for a longfic, I stumbled across The Lunar Rebellion. Sure, it had a different title and synopsis but it had to be Rebellion. I mean, it's written as a memoir in first person, by a famous war hero who's legendary, it's a prequel to an enormously popular setting, it has that ye olde thing going on, there's wingblades, and it's several times longer than most novels.
Okay, calling Rise of Firefly The Lunar Rebellion is unfair. There are enormous differences that make the two quite unique. But I still couldn't help but see them running parallel to each other as I read through it—especially since the early chapters of Rebellion feature the pegasi dealing with griffon raiders. If that small two chapter long plot point were expanded out to 300,000 words, it would be Rise of Firefly. If you loved those griffon chapters of Rebellion, you're going to adore Firefly.
I'll admit a certain level of sadness over Rebellion. It's nearly done after so many years. There's just two more chapters before it's done and I can read the sequel—which is already finished (remember when I said the Winningverse was a convoluted mess? The fact a 600,000 word long warfic has a 100,000 word long sequel [and a sequel to the sequel] finished two years before it's finished just further confirms that point).
Looking back at its early chapters (how do you think I remembered the griffon plot?) you realize just how far things have gone—every single named character but two that appear in said griffon plot are now dead. Sacrificed to the gods of drama that demand such sacrifices to keep a 600,000 word long warfic going. You look back after all the lich armor and intestinal blockages and have a certain yearning for a story that just followed on that griffon plot—the life of soldiers dealing with border skirmishes.
And then Firefly comes along and runs right along side Rebellion, giving me almost exactly the story I wanted. The griffon war it's centered around is a time-honored tradition in warfics. Before edgy rape deer, canon yaks, and even changelings, there were the griffons. It's quite natural the griffons would serve as the go-to for warfics—they're similar sized to ponies, carnivorious, the only canon example we had for years was a bitch—all they needed was a fictional empire to go toe-to-toe with Equestria.
Canon has long since destroyed the classic griffon warfic. The warfic genre itself has suffered in recent years. Those rape deer really cast a bad light on things and, combined with a downturn in longfics in general, has made a three punch combo that's crippled it. As sad as it is to say, I'm doubtful there will be too many more warfics that truly capture the genre as well as Rebellion or Firefly. And yes, I'm already lifting Firefly to a similar height as my favorite warfic. Call it foreshadowing.
It should not be surprising warfics have suffered, though. They're an incredibly hard genre to master, requiring balancing characters with plots with tactics with technology. Oh, how many stories have collapsed because of poor use of guns, or stupid strategies like a transcontinental invasion with no beachhead or supply lines. Even Rebellion, as much as I love it, has issues. But I'll save that for its review. Let's focus on Firefly.
Things begin with the introduction to Firefly herself—she is, after all, the one writing the story—she's certainly Dash, but even more so. Cocky, arrogant, brash. And she's got that sad backstory every OC needs—abandoned as a foal, she was brought up in an orphanage and eventually befriended [Sister], soon becoming quite close to her.
Firefly's main ambition in life is joining Equestria's military. More specifically, the elite, entirely male Royal Guard. Equestria has several branches of the military—the Royal Guard act as the Marine stand-in, the Aerial Corp as the Air Force, the Army as, well, the Army, the Black Lances as the CIA/black ops, and the Navy as the Navy, only it's full of dirigibles instead of battleships and is woefully underfunded and nothing but a shuttle service. The navy's role is being hyped up quite a bit, so there better be a good payoff—it won't be here, though, but more on that later.
Like any good warfic, the military has to be front and center. It's the star that the whole thing orbits. And for the most part, the military is played quite well here. There's no stupid strategies, no poorly thought supply lines and beachheads (the griffons have had a beachhead in Equestria for centuries), and there's actual competency going on—probably the most important factor in crafting a realistic military.
The mulitiude of characters presented are well rounded. There's some arrogant characters, some corrupt generals, but that's balanced out. The veteran scarred by the ghosts of the past, the partially disabled soldier fighting against the military bureaucracy, the part bat pony trying to shake off bigotry and bias, and the honored veteran of scarring battles giving some of them the Full Metal Jacket treatment.
If there's one complaint with the military side of the story, it's the ranks. Ranks in warfics can be hard because authors can make up where in the totem pole they lie. In general, when an author uses real ranks (major, petty officer, etc.) there's an unwritten assumption that there's a one to one correlation between the real rank and the one in the fanfic. That's not technically the problem here, but it is related.
A First Lieutenant is the commanding officer of a border base. A border base with eighty soldiers in it. For reference, a First Lieutenant will usually command a platoon—a grouping that has roughly a third of that number in it. This bizarre system is repeated—a Captain is in command of Equestria's entire border forces (at least several thousand strong), other Lieutenants are in charge of bases, and eventually Firefly—an enlisted soldier—is placed in charge of a battalion's worth of ponies. And it's not a desperate field promotion or anything, she just takes over once the Lieutenant is reassigned.
At first I figured this was some feature of the story. There weren't any generals or colonels to lead and it fell to the lower ranks to fill the role—maybe having something to do with the breeding issues subtlety referenced several times. That was until a Major General popped in out of the blue to lead a short invasion of griffon territory. It's particularly baffling given all the author needs to do is bump up everyone a few ranks and the problem fixes itself—well, not the “Firefly taking over a battalion” one. That requires some wiggling to get out of.
It's not a serious issue—it's really only something I noticed once the general showed up—but it can still diminish from the sense of realism. That is, that this is a real war being fought and not just something somebody's thrown together to write a fanfic about. Little issues like that can stack up to create big problems for warfics, but thankfully that doesn't happen in Firefly's case. The rank issue's the only military-related one in the fic.
So she joins the Royal Guard training program and it's a harsh, brutal affair as one has been taught thanks to years of war films and documentaries. It's particularly brutal for Firefly because of the Guard's gender bias. As is established early on, Equestria has a breeding problem. More specifically, it has far more females than males, which leads to polygamous “herd” relationships that are so popular in some fics. But the Royal Guard is a penis-only club, made up of Equestria's literally most valuable members—those with a penis. And Firefly's striving to crack the club wide open.
One would expect her to succeed. To overcome those initial obstacles and become the central character of a warfic. But her arrogance and pride get the best of her and lead not only to her getting her ass kicked courtesy of Windshear—the Full Metal Jacket-espue drill sergeant—but falling prey to a little dark magic. But she is the central character of a warfic, so those obstacles are eventually overcome. It just takes some character development to get there.
It's these early chapters that really help to set Firefly apart from Rebellion and, in fact, fix the main issue Rebellion has—its protagonist. Unlike Shadow, Firefly's a very flawed character. She's prideful, arrogant, and cocky. And had it not been for her incredibly close friend and eventual sister, Wind Whistler's help, it wouldn't have been a warfic plot, but a “fell to dark magic” plot as he desire to avenge her humiliation nearly consumes her.
In hindsight, that fall and ensuing recovery could have probably been strung along and capitalized a little more, given how much material there is to wring out of it, but a warfic is much more than one single character—despite what some elements of Rebellion might lead you to believe—and Firefly needed to get the ball rolling on setting things up.
So she recovers from her fall, graduates as the first mare to make it in the Royal Guard, and is immediately assigned to a backwater outpost—Epsilon, presumably to cut her teeth in the ways of command, despite being neither an officer nor an NCO. The next few chapters round out the main cast with Blindside, a partially blind pegasus in the Aerial Corps, and Fell Flight, a half batpony who I imagined was a full bat pony through the entire story despite only having the slitted eyes and being a perfectly normal pegasus otherwise.
One oddity I couldn't help but notice is how a lot of characters act like jackasses initially—Firefly, Windshear, Fell Flight, the random intelligence officer who I can't remember the name of but who will probably pop up halfway through the sequel—before it's revealed they're actually an important character and thus, need to be liked by the audience and their jackassery is constrained to their initial introduction. First impressions really aren't everything in Firefly.
These middle chapters establish the main reoccurring story element—griffon raids. The raids attack Epsilon, they attack other outposts, they attack towns, they false flag attack towns before actually attacking outposts, they attack towns with outposts in them. This could get pretty boring given the raids really aren't setting anything up. There's no grand masterplan behind them that's the central plot. They're not even part of the big invasion that makes a warfic. It's just a proxy thing the griffons are doing to fuck with the border.
Firefly's able to handle it well. No griffon attack is alike. Some are ambushes, some general attacks, some large scale assaults on towns used to provide “war is hell” backstory to the veteran characters. While they do little to advance the main plot, they do still serve a valuable role in fleshing out the characters.
For it's during one of the early raids that Firefly decapitates a griffon (griffons apparently have very weak spines because I swear there's more decapitations in this story than during the French Revolution) and in the process kills for the first time. It takes her some time to fully process and deal with it. It's during these raids that the seeds of shipping are planted in Blindside's heart. It's during these raids that Fell Flight overcomes the bigotry against her.
It's also during this raid the story's main plot finally gets churning. A young, scared griffon is captured and interrogated and what secrets he has to reveal. While none of the other raids in the story carries nearly that same importance to the central plot, they do still advance many of the subplots and build up the characters that we want to get to know better. Character development and the fleshing out of backstories can be just as fulfilling as a complex war plot.
Speaking of, it was at this point—roughly halfway through—something dawned on me. I'm halfway through the story and there isn't a war. Sure there's been some skirmishes and beheadings, but not the multi-stage, multi-battle war that involves tens of thousands one expects from the genre. My worry only grew as I read on. Either things get rushed as hell, or this isn't quite the warfic it initially cast itself as.
As it turns out, this is the first in a trilogy. Its sequel, Into the Storm: The Flight of Firefly, is currently being written and given it's currently a sixth the length of Rise of Firefly and there's supposed to be a third story after it, it looks like the Firefly series will be replacing Rebellion as the designated warfic I read for the next four years.
Oh, and that enormously popular setting it's based in? That would be Turnabout Storm. And it has about as much to do with a comedic legal drama as Shadow's bloody and violent civil war has to do with Cloud Kicker screwing Derpy. I never saw any actual connection between the two and it makes me wonder if there actually is one. Mayhaps Firefly was shilled to hell and back in Turnabout Storm much as Shadow is in Life and Times and that's where the 300,000 word long connection lies but, if so, it's very weak and really begs the question: why bother linking it to Tunrabout Storm at all when they have so little in common, both in story and in theme?
Through all of this, we're given small interludes of the villains—the griffon generals leading the empire. Firefly sadly doesn't do much for the griffons. If you've seen one Griffon Empire from a warfic, you've seen Firefly's, complete with the “klingon honor” thing and warhawk nature. Their imperialism is naked and disappointingly shallow. For something as costly and devastating as a multi-front war, I'd like to see more rationale than “ponies are weak and need to be conquered.”
The whole “Celestia controlling the sun” angle, one that's ripe for warfic motivation (and general motivation for any country opposing Equestria) is almost an afterthought. “We're going to invade and conquer because ponies are prey animals and weak while griffons are the superior species and deserve to dominate. Oh, and there's the sun thing, too.” And natural resources, despite being a big factor in a lot of wars, aren't even mentioned—and I don't think I've ever encountered a warfic where they were mentioned as a motive.
While the griffons motives are quite shallow, their culture is still very much accomplished. Thanks to the interludes and Gavian, the captured griffon who not only spills the beans on the griffons grand plans—setting them back months and causing Celestia to flex her solar invictus muscles—but he also gives an insight rarely seen in warfics: the common citizens of the opposing side. It's one I hope is explored more intimately in the sequels.
Gavian proves to be the lynchpin that drives the second half of the story. The griffons eventually realize he's been captured and set to work correcting that, by launching a bold assassination attempt that not only fails quite badly, it solidifies that what he's been saying is indeed correct and a traditional warfic plot is imminent.
Celestia's big intervention firmly knocks the warfic plot back to the sequel—and writes the author into a corner as to how she's going to be taken out of play without screwing over the planet—and things settle into a somewhat comfy atmosphere as the story nears its end. The seeds of shipping are planted, then ruthlessly confirmed. Wind Whistler, who's been absent for most of the story, is revealed to have also succeeded in passing the Full Metal Jacket training. And some family dynamics are established between Gavian and Firefly.
As all this is happening, the griffons have been revising their plans. Their motives may be shallow, but damn are they determined to fulfill them. Somehow they enlist the help of both the Diamond Dogs and Saddle Arabia to conquer a continent and potentially threaten all live on the planet if they fuck up on dealing with Celestia. How? Iunno. It kind of glosses over the finer points of a critically important international alliance.
So things end with the griffons finally launching their grand invasion and the warfic plot can begin in earnest in the sequel. Then, in typical longfic fashion, it goes on for another 50,000 words diving into Windshear's “war is hell” backstory. And it's here, somewhat fittingly right at the end, that the largest flaw in Rise of Firefly is made apparent.
Rise of Firely and Lunar Rebellion do share one unique thing in common: they each fix a major flaw the other has. Lunar Rebellion has a protagonist problem. Shadow changes and develops very little throughout the story and there's even some twinges of Mary Sue as I cannot recall her making a single mistake in all 600,000 words. Firefly, in contrast, is very flawed right off the bat. She develops and matures as things go on and she makes blunders and errors, some bigger than others, that show she's far from perfect, both militarily and personally.
But Rebellion fixes Firefly's critical flaw—its narrative structure. In Rebellion, Shadow keeps a fairly tight lid on things. She doesn't reveal what happens a dozen chapters before it actually does, she stays as the story's narrator throughout—ensuring a singular focus, and, well, she goes about things as though she's telling a story, rather than as something the reader's already intimately familiar with, and thus, has no need for suspense or tension.
Both fics are “memoirs”—first person stories written by the protagonist, from in in-universe perspective: an autobiography. They both do carry the same flaw—how the hell someone can remember exact dialogue from other people years after the fact? I can't even remember what I had for dinner two days ago. But Firefly's problem run much deeper than that.
The tension and suspense is washed away. I can tell you exactly who lives and who dies: Firefly, Fell Flight, Ironsides, Layan Kaval, Gavian, Blindside, and Wind Whistler all survive to the end of the trilogy. Firefly's parents, Thunderbolt, and Windshear do not. How do I know even when I haven't read the sequel and it's no where close to finishing? The ones that live wrote chapters in the “autobiography,” and obviously the ones that don't wouldn't be able to.
In Rebellion, we only know Shadow, Celestia, and Midnight will. Shadow because she's writing it, Celestia because she's in the rest of the Winningverse, and Midnight because Twilight would otherwise have a very nasty grandfather paradox on her hooves. Every other character, from Gale to Lance, is in a tension filled fog. Shadow doesn't spoiler who lives and who dies 300,000 words before the event actually happens.
It's a bizarre thing to do, destroy suspense over possible character deaths, but there is a rationale for it. We get a lot of backstory in each's chapter. Blindside gets her rough childhood (good thing she wasn't in Rebellion or she'd probably have been the one to kick off the clipping controversy). Fell Flight deals with the bigotry she faces for being a hybrid freak. But this doesn't really excuse the heart of the issue: why is it a first person story to begin with?
First person stories are usually intimate affairs. They dive right into a character's head to give the reader a very keen and personal look at someone. We get to look at who the character is and look at the things that character is experiencing from their perspective. We can grow attached and that creates drama. We can see things they can't due to being unbias. We can watch in horror as they walk right into a trap or get into a relationship we know will end disastrously because, in true first person stories, the reader can end up knowing the character better than even they know themselves.
But how many first person fics are truly that intimate? How many dive that deeply into the character they're supposedly about? Firefly certainly doesn't (and, for that matter, neither does Rebellion). Because, in the end, they're not first person stories, they're 300,000+ word long warfics and their plots must match that. They must set up all the side characters, the villains, the heroes, the worldbuilding. That's all third person territory. That's the very thing third person was meant for—telling long, complicated stories with multiple POVs, characters, and subplots.
So why is a literary style that's supposed to be for intimate looks at a single character being used to tell a massive warfic? I honestly can't tell you. I don't know why the two best warfics are using the worse literary style for the genre. Maybe they're trying to connect the reader better with the main character—who's an OC in both. Maybe they're just more comfortable doing first person (I can't even recall one of Chenger's fics being in third person).
Firefly's author does suggest in an author note that the story rapidly spiraled away from his initial intention—a short story about Firefly's basic training—and if that is indeed the case than you can add Firefly to the list of reasons why serial writing is bad and harms stories. Instead of tightening the narrative with third person and preventing the loss of suspense and drama as he realized the scope the story was heading into, he became locked into the first person format after first clicking that publish button.
Regardless as to the reason, doing first person in Firefly really hurts the story. Drama and tension that would normally ramp up during a fight are washed away as the Star Trek Redshirt Rule gets invoked—these characters will, without a shadow of a doubt, survive and that only leaves the random ponies who've just been introduced or have, at best, been playing minor support roles for some chapters.
It doesn't just extend to who lives and who dies, though. Remember when I said that the shipping was ruthlessly confirmed? Seems an odd choice of words, doesn't it? I love a good ship, but the key is always pacing. Shipping's all about the build up. The characters awkward and cute interactions with each other as they struggle to accept their feelings. Really good shipping is a very, very slow burn. It starts subtle—to the point where you think it's your imagination—but slowly the author has the characters increasingly realize what's going on.
Usually the key moment is when one of them finally admits it—to themselves or a friend. There's still a long ways to go before things blossom and that's, again, because shipping is all about the build up. There's a reason few shipping fics delve into things beyond the kiss—romance is a different genre entirely and one rarely suitable for a shipping plot. And, for me anyway, full blown romance is usually quite dull and repetitive (if I had a dollar for every romance fic that has a huge fight happen that nearly causes the couple to break up, I could probably buy Fimfiction from knighty and stop the hideous beiges and grays).
The big key is the uncertainty. Will the characters get together? Is it mutual or unrequited? Will one of them fuck everything up and ruin the fragile house of cards that's been building? Things started heading down this road with Firefly and Blindside—then the whole thing crashes with the quick revelation, almost in passing like a footnote, that yes, they did get together, have sex, and everything worked out great. An entire subplot's worth of excitement is flushed down the toilet in fewer words than it took to describe one of the medals they give out for surviving an ambush.
This is, in the end, Firefly's major problem and the reason I still must give Rebellion the edge when it comes to which story is better. It is a large problem but don't misunderstand. Firefly is still a fantastic story and quite possible the peak of the “griffons invade Equestria” subgenre. It dangles and weaves its warfic premise as it takes you through the all important and usually neglected setup phase of the plot. It dives into the backstories, motivations, and personalities of its supporting characters far more deeply than most fics do.
That is perhaps why I rail on the first person issues so much. You grow attached to the characters because of the depth and personality they're given. You root for their romance, for their battles, and for their motivations, but when you already know who lives and who dies—who wins and who loses—the victories are much less exciting, the defeats much less agonizing, and the story as a whole, less satisfying.
Before the Storm: Rise of Firefly receives...
...moustaches out of five and, as a result, is both upvoted and favorited.
All I want for Possible Trackings is you.
The Problem of Evil is cut after three chapters due to two main issues. First, the entire story is based on the combination of poor communication killscauses abdication and Celestia acting horribly irrationally and stupidly for no logical reason and, second, both Twilight and Luna's approach to the ensuing clusterfuck just feeling off. Luna showing no real care for her sister and Twilight just kind of rushing into things without really thinking about the massive unfolding issue. It kind of feels like the author had the plot—Luna rules Equestria solo and Twilight acts as her Chancellor—but didn't really know how to get there from canon.
Walking in a Oneshots wonderland.
My continuing attempts to read a grimdark oneshot without reading the ending continue to fail as Knowledge of the Holy leaves me more confused and annoyed than horrified. Especially since it seems to have that “people doing incredibly stupid things to justify the dark tag” problem a lot of dark fics have. Rather than make me gasp in horror at the realization of the ending, I ended up rolling my eyes in annoyance at the lack of a simple piece of glass.
It just wouldn't have been Halloween without a “Twilight does something with a creepy book” story and Binding steps up to fill the void. Can't say it was incredibly creepy since it left me wondering what the hell was actually going on. It's kind of hard when the list of possible answers ranges from “someone's fucking with her as a joke” to “all of her friends are trapped in an eternal hell after death for some inexplicable reason.”
My ongoing vain efforts to get a dark oneshot that satisfies continue to be blocked as Self Control opts for a modified mind control premise that proves incredibly confusing given the number of ponies involved, the fact Twilight's been having terrible nightmares for weeks without Luna seeming to notice, and the fact the big reveal of the terrible secret doesn't actually reveal much other than an OC died. Withdrawal certainly handled this kind of plot element much better.
Never Meaning to Send uses the “lost love letter” Twilestia premise I've seen in a few comedy comics. The humor feels diluted, though, and didn't quite wring everything it could out of Twilight's attempts to find the letter—and the entanglement and potential harm that could befall Dash for stealing it in the first place. The actual romance at the end also felt odd, as though it were tacked on as an afterthought to ensure it was actually a shipping story. Overall, it felt somewhat rushed.
And that's all I read for the month.
# of story updates remaining: 611.
# of “Read Later” stories remaining: 1,201.
I get the reference, but the phrasing of "edgy rape deer" made me laugh rather a lot. :D It was all worth it.
Fallout Equestria mentions coal as being a factor in the Pony/Zebra conflict, but I can see why people don't immediately think of it in terms of a warfic. I'm perhaps nitpicking so I'll carry on...
This. Serial writing is absolute cancer. Think about what actual writers do and realize that at no point did they have to sell an unfinished product to an audience or pray that they'd be able to tie up all the loose ends before publishing. It's not a perfect system but we're stuck with it in the case of longfics. Firesight is good but he'll never be good enough to predict what his muse will do 300,000 words down the road. Aside from Kkat, no one has that level of ability.
It's not a memoir. RoF is an ensemble piece which follows the most relevant figures and events in the Equestrian/Gryphon Imperial War. Think of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Firefly would be something of a Captain Sisko. The significant difference here is the narrative lens follows both belligerents in the conflict instead of just one side.
To the last point on shipping: there's one significant point about Firesight you overlooked; he writes truly prodigious amounts of clopfiction. He started off as a furry writer, even publishing his own anthro fic before he even came to the MLP scene. This really does explain the pacing issues, doesn't it?
Clopfics pace around the culmination of the sex act as opposed to the formation of the relationship, so the question is not will they bang but when will they bang. It's an unfortunate weakness that when sex is the primary motivator the pacing does suffer and it's not helped by the narrative structure. Also, Firesight just really loves fan service. The people who follow him are weirdos like me after all.
All the problems you brought up come back to the narrative structure, fair enough. I'm glad that like me you've still found enjoyment in reading it. I've been proofreading and contributing to the story since day 1 and I believe in it. It's a goodfic even if it doesn't conform to the traditional standards of writing. It was a good review of the material.
Also, I'll never get the appeal to Fall of Equestria or the edgy rape deer therein.
I'll be very interested to see your review of Rebellion when that comes out. That was my favorite fic on the whole site for years and I love reading analysis on what worked for you and what didn't.
That said, this Firefly fic sounds pretty good. The only thing stopping me from jumping right into it is that gender discrimination in Equestria is a turn off. And the relationship pacing sounds aggravating.
Hi, I’m the author of the Firefly series. Thank you very much for the review!
Unexpected, but certainly a pleasure to read. Thank you for steering traffic my way, as getting readers for this story has been a very long and difficult struggle from day one but your review gained me two new likes. I will happily accept and plug your review on my own blog, but if it’s okay I’ll reply to a few things you said here:
The reason is that the story in fact sprung out of the Turnabout Storm novelization (which I was heavily involved in writing) and its M-rated sequel, The Lawyer and The Unicorn. Firefly actually appeared in part 65 of the Turnabout Storm novelization, channeled by Maya Fey, and several more times by (mostly) the same mechanism in TLaTU... in which Firefly does appear in a courtroom setting during the midstory arc.
At one point while she’s channeled in TLaTU, Firefly tells a brief tale about how she wasn’t a born badass, but rather had to earn her skills, and thus relates the story of her and her drill instructor to prove the point. The first four chapters of this work were that story. It was originally just intended to be only those four chapters, but then I realized I had something quite promising and didn’t want to stop, turning it into something much broader and grander. In fact, it may interest you to know that the opening section was originally a tie-in to The Lawyer and The Unicorn where Firefly was returning to the afterlife from a channeling by Maya Fey where she related that story. But I was told that was both confusing and turning people off, so I changed it to an intro by Celestia, which in hindsight far more fit it.
Actually, this is indeed intentional. And thank you for reminding me of something I still need to do--release a bonus chapter containing Equestrian and Gryphon rank structures. But before that, let me elaborate why it's a feature and not a bug:
One of the major prewar issues of the Equestrian military is the insularity among the service branches. You saw some of it in the Thunderbolt interlude chapters and hints of it in a few others, how the services don't cooperate and generally look down on each other. It's basically to the point that they don't have a unified rank structure. The Army ranks are much closer to the modern ones, while the Royal Guard is very enlisted-heavy and the highest rank is Captain, with second lieutenants commanding smaller garrisons/bases and first lieutenants commanding larger ones.
The Aerial Corps is between the extremes and has a dual-rank structure, with Captains commanding divisions but majors and colonels commanding the large bases (like Gamma) they operate from, while outposts that are battalion-sized or smaller can have either low-ranked officers or high-ranked enlisted commanding them. So at Gamma, Gamma base itself is commanded by a Colonel while the 5th Division that operates from it is commanded by Captain Sirocco. The Corps believes this division of responsibility enables combat commanders to concentrate on, well, combat, while the majors and colonels concentrate on things like supply and logistics. The highest rank of the Aerial Corps is General, of which unlike the Army there is only one--the Corps Commander--and you have to serve time as both a Captain and a Colonel (in other words, experienced with both command tracks) before you can be appointed General.
The upshot of all this is that the ranks between different services don't currently correspond and it's very hard to establish a joint chain of command between them. Even within the services this can be an issue, as you can sometimes get higher ranks subordinated to lower ones under certain circumstances. And yes, this will be an issue going forward into the new story. The gryphons, by contrast, do have a unified rank structure and their services work together quite readily. This will give them a sharp advantage at the outbreak of war.
There rationale did indeed start somewhat shallowly. They just want Equestrian territory and resources, including having the ponies grow food for them--they don't want the ponies dead to start, just serving their betters, as it were. I could have and probably should have elaborated on this more. In fact, I believe I will retcon the story to do so. However, I would point you at one of my favorite chapters of the whole story: https://www.fimfiction.net/story/281029/17/before-the-storm-the-rise-of-firefly/part-14---know-thy-enemy
That was an all-gryphon chapter and by the end of it, a simple desire for conquest has become an existential struggle for survival to them. Having seen what Celestia can do, they now fear her greatly, terrified she could turn on not just them but the whole world at any time, and decide to risk everything to defeat her. That makes them far more dangerous because they now believe their very existence is at stake.
I glossed over their plans deliberately so I'd have something to surprise readers with later--I was deliberately coy about what they were doing so I could have a grand reveal in book 2.
Trust me, I didn't write myself into a corner here because I already knew full well what the gryphons would do in response and whose help they would enlist, having worked it out with my prereaders--in fact the reveal has already happened in the sequel.
If I may, I would also recommend you reread the beginning and ending sections https://www.fimfiction.net/story/281029/25/before-the-storm-the-rise-of-firefly/part-18---summer-sun-winter-war, because you're wrong here: Saddle Arabia is not a gryphon ally and is not helping them, but this chapter drops hints of who is.
Fun fact: there were originally third-person parts to the story, but I decided that just didn't mesh with what was already there and thus changed them. Several new first-person viewpoints emerged from those sections of story, including Layan Kaval and Gavian, and doing so immeasurably enriched the story in my view. As for the story spiraling into something not originally intended, guilty as charged, but I really can't apologize for it either. I've greatly enjoyed writing this story and use it as a welcome change of pace from my usual adult fare. And I couldn't be more pleased with how it came out.
Your points about first person vs third person are taken and valid, but this was the format the story coalesced into: not so much an autobiography but a retrospective by those who fought in and survived the war with Firefly at its center. I think it works very well on that basis. I understand you believe I've taken out most of the suspense by writing in first person and indirectly revealing who lives and who dies, but I must respectfully disagree. There is a LOT I can still reveal and surprises I can spring, and just because you know who might meet their end doesn't mean you know where or how. You also don't know how the Gryphons are going to cage Celestia, their general war plan or how it might be disrupted (no plan survives first contact with the enemy and all); you don't know what other twists are planned or what other races/characters I'm yet going to introduce or the overall course of war.
And as to the shipping? I revealed one ship as a gift to a prereader. That doesn't mean there aren't others I haven't mentioned yet and won't until the time comes.
I don't often say this given my adult works, but the ships are an afterthought and aren't as important to the story as basic friendships you'll find here; whether parental ones, sisterly ones, mentor-student ones or the simple bonds forged between comrades in combat. That's what the story attempts to showcase, and in all honesty, that’s where I’d prefer the focus be kept.
Anyway, Thank you again for the review! It made my day. I have very big plans for this ongoing series, and I hope very much you'll come along for ride!
EDIT: I’ve posted a blog linking to and thanking you for your review: https://www.fimfiction.net/blog/784526/new-review-of-before-the-storm-the-rise-of-firefly
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Hi, I’m the author of Firefly. The story has not so much gender discrimination as gender roles (females do most of the fighting outside of the Royal Guard and stallions generally aren’t soldiers due to fewer numbers and need to protect breeding males), and the story isn’t about relationships so much as friendships, detailing how Firefly and her fellow founding members of the Bolt Knights (the original name of the Wonderbolts) met and rose to prominence, all set against a backdrop of border skirmishes and a buildup to war. Give it a try, you might enjoy!
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Cool, man. I'll be sure to check it out some time. Thanks for the reply and info.
To follow up on the rank issues you’ve pointed out, I’ve just posted a new bonus chapter to Rise of Firefly showing Equestrian and Gryphon Militaries, force and rank structure, both singly and in comparison to each other.
https://www.fimfiction.net/story/281029/35/before-the-storm-the-rise-of-firefly/bonus-5-rank-and-force-structure-of-the-equestrian-and-gryphon-militaries