Guardian of Equs by Tempestus is the next story that I will be reviewing today, that seems to be a fairly short piece which is a crossover story relating to the game Destiny.

TGuardian of Equs

• MLP: FiM
• Dark
• Sci-Fi

Scootaloo unknowingly sets forth a horde of monstrosities upon herself when she finds a strange looking structure and accidentally activates a Cabal distress beacon. Fortunately, the Cabal are not the only ones to receive the call.

• Crossover
• Human
• Alt. Universe
• Scootaloo
• OC
• Shining Armor

Tempestus · 2.3k words  ·  7  3 · 956 views

Anyways, there will be spoilers in this review, and I would advise you to check the story out before reading further, though you will probably ignore this spoiler warning.

Summary

Scootaloo unknowingly sets forth a horde of monstrosities upon herself when she finds a strange looking structure and accidentally activates a Cabal distress beacon. Fortunately, the Cabal are not the only ones to receive the call.

Review

I think it is best to tackle this review by looking at the main aspects of the piece, rather than the typical structure I use to format my review.

The Introduction

The story begins with the CMCs entering the Everfree Forest based on what Scootaloo said was “something awesome…[and that] she couldn’t say because she didn’t know what it was.” I was not necessarily convinced that the rest of the CMCs would be willing to join Scootaloo based on this, though I must note that these young fillies were still fairly immature. It would hence be unsurprising if they were to just follow Scootaloo’s words and venture into the unknown.

However, the excuse to how the three fillies were able to sneak out to the Everfree Forest by the excuse of “going on a camping trip” was not exactly convincing. I would have thought that Rainbow Dash, Rarity or Applejack wouldn’t have allowed them to be able to go camping on their own, especially in the deep depths of the Everfree Forest. In canon, the show has shown the many times things would ultimately go incredibly wrong when the CMCs simply sneak out of their sibling’s grasps. It is henceforth strange that they would be allowed to be able to leave on their own unilaterally and independently.

The three then entered the clearing which Scootaloo was so excited about to glean upon a huge structure in the forest. There was a glowing button on the structure, which was dutifully pressed.

I was stunned by this chain of events. I was questioning whether the level of immaturity of the CMCs would justify their audacity and willingness to actually press a glowing, red button on an alien structure in the middle of the Everfree Forest. To be fair, it was Scootaloo who ultimately pressed the red button on this device, which justifies the recklessness of the act, at least to an extent. I was hoping that the other two would be able to articulate their belief that doing that was not the best idea at all more than was depicted in the story, and generate some level of characterization or even spark an argument to fight against Scootaloo’s temptation to press the button. The speed at which the CMCs agreed to Scootaloo’s proposition was rather jarring, even if they had the level of immaturity proffered in the story. Honestly, I was thinking about how much more mature the CMCs would have been after they have gotten their cutie marks, but I believe that this discussion is beyond the scope of this review.

And of course, pressing a big, red button on an alien device is never a good idea, as the CMCs quickly deduced as “things began exploding.”

Shining Armor’s Arc

The story then jumps to Shining Armor trotting to visit Twilight in Ponyville, which was particularly jarring to me, as the tension of the atmosphere felt by the CMCs had seemed to dissipate when the scene had changed. I believe that the author could have introduced a smoother transition between the jump of the two scenes in question, perhaps by the utilization of a simple linking phrase that takes into account the respect of time, or even by the ominous shadow of the aliens flying into the Everfree Forest in the background as a foreshadow of what was to come in the story.

It was here where the story began to describe the Cabals, which were large, bipedal humanoids, also known as “space turtles” in the universe of the game Destiny and in this crossover story. I wished that the author could have gone into furthering the description and the actions the Cabals were doing about when he teleported over, to get a glimpse of their capabilities and their rationale for their actions.

I believe that it would be best for me to bring out the style in which the author described the Cabals and their ship. In the story, and I quote,

Inside he saw a much more massive turtle thing than what had been outside, and this one was speaking in a strange tongue to a screen that was haphazardly turned online. It turned and gave notice to him before drawing up a massive box that hung from it's twin appendages. The box then began launching fiery ballistics much like his own Royal Guards ballistics turrets, only at a much faster rate of fire.

Granted, Shining Armor would be unaccustomed to describe these alien objects and will have to use descriptive words that would best fit the object he couldn’t believe he was looking at. I believe that the author could have gone into the development of how the words or fragments of language was incoherent, or the fact that Shining Armor tried to piece them together or decipher them, but to no avail as he tried to grapple with the gravity of the situation. Similarly, I would be more inclined to say that the screen lit up with what specifically, as witnessed through Shining Armor’s eyes, rather than it came “online” per say.

This “box”, as Shining Armor described it, started to rain down a level of destruction that I felt could have been sought to inspire a level of power untapped in the story. I believe that this is attributed to the tone in which the story approaches this. Consider –

Armor rolled to his right and put his flank against a metal wall that absorbed much of the fire, a few rounds going clear through it and into the next wall.

I wished that the story went into how much of the rounds affected the metal wall that would show how horrible or lethal the fire would be should Shining fail to evade and hide behind the protective metal wall. It would convey the strength and the motivation for Shining to escape and save the CMCs from these horrid beasts of destruction. Simply put, I think that a more aggressive and active tone in portraying the ideas of an action scene such as this would be especially crucial to build the atmosphere inspired in the reader when reading through. Word choice and the perspective in which the brunt of the impacts was felt or even in the fight scenes would be fundamental steps to build that enchanting effect that would grip the reader into the story.

The Guardian

The next scene that the story jumps to after this looks into a Guardian named Emily with her ghost, Specter that rushed into the action to fend off the Cabals and help protect the CMCs and Shining Armor.

Regrettably, the depiction of scenes was murky due to the explicitly explored action sequences which made following this scene rather a challenge. The so-called tell-y fight sequences between the Cabals and the Guardian was very explicit in the sense in which the author described how the Destiny weapons were utilized in exceptional detail.

She looked up from her now crouched position to see a Cabal Centurion with his back to her, she then heard the screams, they sounded young as the tell tale sound of steel clashed with Cabal armor. She got up and drew her Shadow Prince Auto Rifle before punching the Centurion's shield out with her solar melee, and quickly taking out his head with the Vanguard Rifle. She looked to her right where the commotion was coming from before running down the hall. She dropped to the ground in a slide as she dodged a Phalanx's shield bash, she tossed a Fusion Grenade onto the back of his head before resuming her run down the hall as he detonated into embers.

The way in which the fight was conducted and described in the story was not conducive for the reader to dissect it. The flurry at which the successive sentences describing each individual action meant that the pacing of the fight scene was particularly hurried. Of course, I must admit that the tempo of such scenes should be fast to build the level of impact necessary for the fight. Unfortunately, this came across as too tunnel-visioned as the story focuses on one specific aspect of the fight without taking the overall atmosphere into play. I would recommend breaking up some of these with some of the atmospheric detail about the fight scenes, or even slowing the pacing down in places you would wish to emphasize more on. Paragraphing would help tremendously in this department, I opine.

Another thing I would like to discuss about the piece would be the development of the usage of the medieval-style armor that Emily preferred. It was an interesting piece of information to develop into the story, though I think that this would convey the righteousness of Emily the guardian in the story. I was wondering if there was an added hidden meaning to this overall arc of development, but it will be more of a thinker for me personally.

The Ending

Fortunately, the CMCs and Shining Armor survived after that ordeal, though Scootaloo was being patched up in the hospital. However, a more interesting point of discussion would be the horn that was in Shining Armor’s saddlebag. I was unable to deduce whether that horn was from Emily or his that was broken off after the huge confrontation, but if I were to guess, I believe that it was Emily’s. I was wondering about the significance of this, as I failed to decipher the specific implied meaning from the prose.

Language

Language errors were fairly common throughout the piece. Let’s take a good look at a few of these.

Without giving it much thought, he tel ported to the general area to find massive bipedal turtle things that thankfully didn't notice him.

Without giving it much thought, he teleported to the general area to find massive bipedal turtle things that thankfully didn't notice him.

She walked over to activate the beacon, but when she touched it the world around her seemed to twist of of shape and she lost her balance.

She walked over to activate the beacon, but when she touched it the world around her seemed to twist out of shape and she lost her balance.

The burst of fire from the turtle directed at the explosive showed that these things were indeed kill able, when the detonation did occur and Shining poked his head out to see the massive figure laying dead in a pool of blue it confirmed it for him.

The burst of fire from the turtle directed at the explosive showed that these things were indeed kill-able, when the detonation did occur and Shining poked his head out to see the massive figure lying dead in a pool of blue it confirmed it for him.

A deep voice spoke in a language nobody could understand and then as soon a sit had begun, it ended.

A deep voice spoke in a language nobody could understand and then as soon as it had begun, it ended.

It turned and gave notice to him before drawing up a massive box that hung from it's twin appendages.

It turned and gave notice to him before drawing up a massive box that hung from its twin appendages.

He didn't pay it much though as when he touched it he heard the fillies scream for help not far away.

He didn't pay it much though as when he touched it, he heard the fillies scream for help not far away.

Stance

I believe that this piece could definitely be polished to help bring about the development of the situation the author wished to portray in this piece. I would recommend looking into developing the scenes of the story in a more cogent and logical manner to communicate the plot to the reader more effectively.

Content/Plot: 2.5/10
Flow/Communication: 1.5/10
Language/Readability: 3.8/10
Overall: 2.6/10

<For archive purposes: 2.6/10>

I suppose I should polish it indeed. (And stop writing stuff on my phone as well.)

Thanks for the feedback and being honest.