The worlds of Equestria and Ronia have been created since the beginning, crafted by omnipotent makers. Thousands of years ago, an alliance was forged by the two princesses, to bring peace to both of their worlds. And they intended to keep that peace for a lifetime.

However... newer threats have emerged since then; plotting to break the alliance by whatever means necessary. Such as a cult of heretics, who use blasphemous practices to wreak havoc on pony-kind.

Twilight Sparkle and her friends, become aware of this issue and plan to put a stop to it. But sometimes, fate doesn't play kindly to heroes. Meanwhile, an unfortunate pony is imprisoned in a world she knows nothing about. A tale riddled with twists and turns around every corner, an inevitable sense of danger, and fear of a possible war. Will there be saviors to prevent an all out war? Or will the two worlds be hellbent to destroy the other? We shall see.

A dark adventure story that borrows its framework from Game of Thrones, Swordstorm tried to set up an epic tale of interdimensional war and political intrigue with its perspective switching between main characters for each chapter, each one coloring in the world a little more. While the story is now marked cancelled, I give the author credit for swinging for the fences the way they did. The Ronians are an interesting race. Taller than humans, winged, and customarily wearing armor head-to-toe all the time, they cut a rather intimidating presence. It's easy to see why Celestia and Luna brokered a peace with them when the two worlds made contact.

But the peace didn't sit too well with everyone. The story begins with one Ronian warrior tasked with kidnapping Sunset Shimmer from the EQG universe. Ignoring the unintentional comedy of the mental image of a figure eight or nine feet tall and clad in full armor trying to stealthily creep through someone's window, the prologue introduces some of the core concepts the following chapters fleshed out: that the Ronians are a divided people, that one faction sacrifices ponies to their leader, that they can traverse the dimensions with magic. It was a bit jarring to have all that dropped in about fifteen hundred words along with undefined terms like "sabrathanian," but I saw how it fit after reading a bit more of the story.

Something else the prologue hammers in is that the sabrathanian faction sticks to the shadows, that stealth is critical and the agent's life would be forfeit if he was spotted in his mission. Which makes sense. Secret transdimensional societies that kidnap and murder members of a population would be less effective at their job if the population knew about them.

But then in Chapter 1, with Twilight and her friends having fun at a fair in Ponyville, some weird machine Pinkie Pie won in a game opens a portal for the sabrathanians, and they come through to attack the ponies in broad daylight. With gorilla-like monsters no less.

This confused the hell out of me. Chapter 2 (from Sunset's POV) confirms that her kidnapper and the ones that attack Ponyville are part of the same group. What in the world happened to their focus on stealth? No pony but Celestia recognized a Ronian that Twilight captured for what he was, so it's not like the ponies were expecting trouble. The Ronians just announced their existence this brazenly for... plot convenience, I suppose. Sure they've been kidnapping ponies secretly for awhile, but now the main characters needed to know what was going on. And what happened to their magic? What did they need the weird device thing for? The prologue mentioned they were able to jump to Equestria just fine with dark magic. It was like the story hit the reset button on its own headcanon less than two chapters in.

I can't comment much further on the plot as I only read four more chapters after this point. Sunset Shimmer escapes her captors and frees a group of ponies in the Ronian homeworld. The Ronian government has a spy in the sabaranthian group. There are at least two pony OCs in Ponyville, both armed with swords and pretty lethal with them. Those are the threads the story has to weave together, but I can't say I was excited to read about any of them. The quality of the writing kept pushing me away.

For starters, the first three sentences of the story come in three different tenses:

"Find more flesh, Kapral." The Master said, "You know what to do." (Past)

"As commanded," he had replied, "Master." (Past perfect)

With those orders, he obeys his master. (Present)

That can't happen. At best, a story that starts like this is trying to be deliberately confusing. Other than that it's just wrong. Or careless. Mixed signals aside, the use of past perfect tense is meant to signal that one event occurred further in the past than another. For example, He walked to the store. It had rained that day could be used to describe water on the street or something. It doesn't mean it was raining on the guy the very moment he was walking to the store. By using "he had replied" in the excerpt above, Kapral is responding to the Master's command before the Master gave it.

Another issue was the misuse of commas, specifically when trying to use them to create a parenthetical phrase. For an example of this used correctly, look back up at the third sentence in my quote box. With those orders, he obeys his master. That's fine. Remove the phrase that starts the sentence and you are left with He obeys his master. Which is an acceptable sentence, complete with subject and verb. But the very next sentence of the story:

A sabrathanian such as himself, could not possibly disobey the will of his master.

Which half of that could be removed while still leaving a grammatically correct sentence behind? The comma doesn't belong here.

Her crystalline tree castle, was created from a mysterious chest, that sprouted at the base of the Tree of Harmony.

From Chapter 1. Again, I ask what section of this sentence could be removed while still leaving a complete thought behind? You could instead just remove the two commas and have a perfectly acceptable sentence.

The onlookers watched curiously as Applejack and her friends, hurried to the ivory castle, dragging Adoranz by the rope he had been tied with.

The last example I'll cite, this one from Chapter 3. The onlookers watched curiously as Applejack and her friends is an incomplete thought. What are Applejack and her friends doing? The first comma doesn't do anything but separate them from a verb that makes the sentence make sense.

I highlighted several of these examples because I wanted to show that they popped up constantly, but I also saw correct uses throughout the story as well. Take your time with your commas. Just because they're practically unavoidable in writing doesn't mean they belong everywhere. Even though this story this story is marked cancelled, I want the author to keep this rule in mind for any future writing: sentences need to keep their subject/verb agreement to be grammatically correct. Commas can divide that agreement. Don't get careless.

Commenting on the rest of an opening paragraph:

With those orders, he obeys his master. A sabrathanian such as himself, could not possibly disobey the will of his master. Kapral had to stay within shadow if he is to complete his mission.[1] The master had a dark swirling vortex behind him, that would lead him to another world. He approached carefully, one misstep could be disastrous.[2] He reached his hand out into the dark vortex. He had felt a short, strong tug as he stuck his hand in. His body was pulled into the vortex vehemently, pulling him in as a man would a fish.[3]

1. Odd timing with this sentence. It doesn't really enhance the blind obedience the previous sentences suggest, nor does it have much meaning for the rest of the paragraph. It's just there. It just drops in the rule about the necessity of stealth with one stressed word in italics rather than have the character reflect on the rules of the organization or maybe his training to give some more details of what's going on. I got the message: being seen is bad for this guy. But it's boring to just have it told to me like that.

2. Unlike the notes I made about commas earlier, this one is just a straight comma splice. It's two complete sentences.

3. A few things here. First, there was another skip in tense. He reached his hand in the past, and He had felt a short, strong tug further in the past, which is strangely the exact moment as he stuck his hand in. Frankly, using three sentences for this sequence wasn't necessary. Kapral could have stuck in his hand, which was immediately sucked further in until his whole body was dragged along like I'm sure he's done before. There was no need to break up the flow of the action.

I know I'm ripping on the Prologue a lot, but these issues I'm pointing out at the very start of the story were things I noticed throughout. There are different tenses in different sentences, an abuse of stressed words (italics, bold, and even multiple exclamation points--pure overkill), and the flow of events in the story is sometimes choppy and confusing.

To wrap this up, I want to make some quick notes on the story's characterization. How the characters react to death to be specific. The story is tagged Mature/Gore and features a race of giants armed and armored to the teeth with steel, so it's no surprise that combat and killing are included. And some of it makes sense, like Sunset Shimmer pulling a jailbreak in Chapter 2. Some of it makes less sense, like Twilight's execution of a prisoner in Chapter 1. She got angry and damn near blew his head off, even though he was already paralyzed and helpless and had information she needed. Mature/Gore or not, that seemed a little hot-headed for her.

My biggest concern on this point this are the Cutie Mark Crusaders. They are... surprisingly okay with all the death going around. They witness Twilight's kill and barely bat an eyelash. Babs Seed's parents get murdered, and they go Crusading to instantly brighten up their day. They get chased and have their lives threatened by two stallions only to see them both killed--one of them straight up decapitated--right before their eyes. And Scootaloo's thoughts are "Oh hey, that bat pony is using magic."

I don't consider the Mature/Gore tags to be sufficient excuse for this kind of lackadaisical attitude. Little kids just saw one of their heroes kill someone, had one of their friend's world get torn asunder, and had someone's head land at their hooves with blood gushing out of it. There has to be some kind of reaction to all this. Fear. Vomiting at the sight. Something. Not open-mouthed wonder.

That's everything I wanted to touch on. The story was certainly ambitious, and the imagination was there to make the Ronians a compelling race for the ponies to deal with, but the execution left me thinking the author aimed a bit farther than their reach. That said, I have wondered while writing this if I was twisting the knife a little too much. The story may have been cancelled before we were able to get to it here, but I hope there's something useful to be found in this review.

There certainly is. Great review, good sir!

Thank you for pointing out the major flaws that plagued the story horribly. It was my first story I worked on for a long time before I eventually decided to give up. I didn't know a whole lot about writing a story at the time and mostly emulated from stories I've already read (i.e. A Game of Thrones). Intentionally, I tried to ape the author's style of writing in whatever way I could. Obviously this seemed to have worked against it.

I know I don't have the best skills in sentence structure, though I did pour my heart out into writing it at the time. Now when I look at it I feel ashamed that I could have done better. Another reason why I gave up had to do with having a hard time coming up with new ideas to make the story more engaging; for more people to get into it. I should have held back and not aimed so high. I'm not Kkat or Somber, even though I wanted to be.

I liked that you mentioned Twilight's characterization being off, and how hotheaded she was. As I was reading I couldn't help but laugh at how ridiculous, and unintentionally funny the prologue was. Or the fact that the Crusaders didn't have as believable of a reaction to death!
Although I tried to write it so that their crusading was just a way of coping, but obviously I didn't do a stellar job.
Over time, I have become aware of where commas should or shouldn't go (even if I do slip up occasionally... or always).

Also I should point this out: the weird device was actually supposed to be a beacon, which was supposed to act as a signal to attack.

"Pardon me for asking, Kapral," Twilight spoke, "But do you know anything about a sphere like mechanism, with legs and shoots a beam of light?"
"Oh..." Kapral began, "That was a Beacon Orb, a device created by clandestine forces within the Nezend military."

Then again, I probably should have explained what it does rather than what it is... or something along those lines. I wish I wasn't so bad at the whole "show don't tell" rule.

Still, I liked your review, and will take your criticisms to heart when writing future stories (if that ever happens).

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Ah, I don't think I read far enough to see that bit with Twilight and Kapral. Good to know.

Glad I could be of service. Good luck to you, whatever you decide to do.